Pairing: Luna/Severus.
Notes: Completely AU. Luna is sixteen.
He finds her in the corner of his classroom once again, her bare feet turning blue with the chill. She's rocking back and forth, humming something under her breath, and the vacant look in her eyes frightens him.
"Luna?" he asks gently, squatting down on his heels. He is not a gentle man, but for her, he can pretend. She looks up, dreamy grey eyes focusing on him, and tears sparkle in the corners. "Luna, you're not supposed to be down here, remember?"
"I'm sorry," she whispers, rocking back and forth faster. "I-they-I can't..." She trails off, her voice lost in the space between them. Severus extends his hands, and after a moment, she places her own in his.
He lifts her up easily, perhaps a bit too easily, and is shocked by how thin she has become. She is like an ethereal wisp, clad in her nightgown. Her robes are missing, but her wand is there, tied to her arm with a hair-band.
"What happened?" Severus asks as he guides her into his office, warding and locking the door behind them. It is warmer in here, the flames in the fireplace flickering orange and yellow, but she doesn't seem to notice.
"The usual," she sighs. "I don't know where my shoes went...perhaps a nargle took them?" she suggests with childish simplicity, and Severus is hard-pressed not to give her a calming draught and find the culprits himself. He is tired of this. She is different, and others do not like different.
It was the beginning of the year, the first time Severus found Luna Lovegood curled up in his classroom. He'd burst in there, wand held high, certain he would find some miscreant or another. Instead, he found one dreamy-eyed, straggly-haired sixth year tiptoeing down the line of the wall, telling him earnestly that if he was too loud, the wrackspurts would leave. Some awkward coaxing later, and he'd discovered her roommates had managed to trick the sphinx into not asking anything and thus locking her out of the tower.
This is the first time she's only in her nightgown however, and Severus can't help but be uncomfortably aware of how much Luna Lovegood has matured. No longer is she the childish waif who wandered in here first year, airily discussing the wonders of open spaces to help the blibbering humdingers feel at home. She has grown up, the war putting shadows in her eyes that have no right to be there. He wonders yet again why she chooses his classroom. Professor Flitwick is far more understanding than he is, far more comforting. Far more human, but then again, isn't Luna drawn to the chaos in reality?
"They tricked me," she finally says, her voice so low it is difficult to hear her. She's curled up against the arm of the sofa, almost painfully so, and the rocking has returned. "They told me they understood-they'd found something-something they couldn't recognise-but then they took off my robes and cursed me and I couldn't fight back, they're my roommates, they're my...friends...aren't they?"
"No," Severus says, more harshly than he intended. "Friends don't do that, Miss Lovegood."
"Call me Luna," she retorts, her eyes sharper than he has seen them. "My name's Luna."
"Luna then," Severus nods, attempting to smile at her. She slumps against the sofa, plucks at a loose thread in her nightgown.
"I just don't want to be alone anymore," she whispers and he doesn't know the words to comfort her.