For the Rest of Our Lives (by Catatonic Catalyst)
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Author's Note: Hope you like – review please!
It was Harry's fault, really. Unquestionably. If he hadn't made Luna aware of where the Room of Requirement was, none of this would have happened. She'd never have felt the need to return with anybody else. She'd be in bed, dreaming peacefully.
As it were, they were crouched outside the door, watching.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" said Terry, not quite sure why he was there. It wasn't as if he'd expected Luna to come up and ask for his help… then start blackmailing him when he decided he didn't want go. So here he was, next to a girl who was staring at the ceiling with omnioculars as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.
It was midnight.
"The fumbling storgats will be out tonight," Luna offered in reply. "They're eating the school. Like Hansel and Gretel. The roof will fall in."
Maybe, Terry thought, this was why Luna had wanted him around. If the roof did happen to fall in, he could stop it. Saving lives and all that. It sounded good, and he knew magic. Really, using Wingardium Leviosa wouldn't be that hard. He'd be a hero!
He almost wanted the roof to tumble down, after that.
Maybe Luna was starting up a secret pest control group. The spell she'd told him, it could be like insecticide. He hadn't tried it yet. He told her he had.
"Bingo," Luna said, and he took it like a fire command.
It was perhaps important to note that while Luna had told him everything conceivable about what these things did in an informal briefing, she hadn't told him what they looked like. Or what they were.
Or that they were only about a millimeter big, and moving.
Terry didn't believe in anything Luna said. She'd probably mistaken it with the common house fly or something. (He'd read about them.) It was absurd to believe that these things were dangerous, and that you could hit a target so small.
He pointed his wand at it. "Bugkillamarous!" He didn't know quite how he could see it so well, but he hit one dead center. It split in half and fell to the floor. He got another. And another.
Wow, Terry thought, I'm awesome. I wish we had a class on target practice.
Luna was still watching through the omnioculars as she fired, eyes glued to the ceiling.
Which is how it happened.
"Bugkillamarous!" said Luna cheerily, but the spell didn't get to its target. Snape had been walking up the corridor quietly as a ninja. He did not appear to be particularly on the look out for anybody out of bed, in Terry's mind, as he didn't notice the boy clutched next to Luna as he passed. He didn't even notice Luna's spell until he got into the way of it.
It sliced his ear, and then Snape countered the spell with a swish of his wand as blood dripped to the floor. He didn't seal the wound, just turned slowly and looked at them for a long time. Luna removed the omnioculars.
Snape was seething. For a moment, Terry couldn't breathe. He could sort this out – his charm could sort this out. No worries. It was only a teacher… even if that teacher was Snape.
Luna looked at him and said deadly seriously, "They got your ear."
Terry closed his eyes in defeat.
Surprisingly, this was not the only hullabaloo going on in Hogwarts at midnight. (Also surprisingly, none of said hullabaloo involved Harry, meaning that perhaps even he was entitled to take sick days.)
Filch had not had a good day, and his evening was beginning to look like a pain in the neck too. The day had not been so unusual: children getting under his feet (idiots), Peeves causing havoc that inevitably ended up requiring his presence (nuisance), children whose spells or potions backfired and needed clearing up (inept idiots)… Normally he would have retired for bed fairly soon, after finishing off some cleaning and trying his best to find any of the little brats trying to stay up and around the school at all hours.
This evening, he had found nobody. This wasn't unusual, but always ended up putting him on edge.
No, his real issue was that Mrs Norris had disappeared. Normally, she stayed around him and when she left, didn't stay away for long, and hearing her kept him knowing where she was. This evening, there was nothing, just an ominous silence which left Filch tense and ready to snap at the first person he saw.
Not for the first time, he wished he could use magic. He needed to locate his beloved companion. He felt lost without her.
Suddenly, he heard a pitiful mewl and he ran towards the sound. There, lying on the floor, was Mrs Norris, looking quite ill. Beside her was a plate of something a strange multitude of colours and the consistency of jelly. A bite had been taken out of it. Filch suspected he knew who had bitten it, and who had left it there. It wasn't the first time he'd caught her on her ridiculous endeavors, and apparently she'd been aiming to poison Mrs Norris all along!
"Lovegood!" Filch snarled, and stomped off. Several floors above, said student was still staring at Snape, and Terry looked up from the floor. "Why do I get the feeling that something bad's going to happen?"
The only answer was the increasing of Snape's glare.
Terry decided this really might be the time to hope that Snape's only objection was his odd attire. (He conceded that trying to make sure the majority of his clothes were made out of leather was perhaps not the most inconspicuous move, but sometimes you had to sacrifice secrecy for comfort. Or looking good. Or a combination.)
Hearing the footsteps thudding towards them, Terry knew this was, unfortunately, not to be.
This was, perhaps, the oddest sight in Hogwarts. In a corner of the dungeon, poring over a book, sat Filch and Snape, flicking idly through the pages. The book looked ancient, and opening it had caused a billowing of dust making both teachers cough and Filch mutter something about cleaning bookshelves. The faded title said, 'Archaic Laws And How To Manipulate Them.' Beneath it, somebody had scrawled, 'now 100 more archaic', which was presumably to do with the age of the book, but who knew?
"I admit to being rather attached to this one," prompted Snape, prodding at a page and staring at it almost wistfully. "Alas, I think the headmaster would object."
Filch peered at the page. "I didn't know wizards did that," he said, "I thought it was an old Muggle thing. Hanging people?"
"By the thumbs," Snape said with a curt nod.
"There was a time when such a thing was acceptable punishment for school-bound disrections?" asked Filch, looking as if he wanted to somehow fall into the book to try out these punishments gleefully.
"Evidently," said Snape, wearing a similar expression. With great reluctance, they carried on flicking through the book.
"Cutting hands off for thieving?" Snape muttered incredulously. "This could keep people out of my potion stores. If only it was legal!"
And therein lay the problem, he grumbled to himself. Nothing would work because there was always some sort of loophole, like that pesky anti-murder attitude that the Ministry had (except towards Voldemort and non-bribing Death Eaters) or school rules stating inflicting bodily and permanent injuries on students was prohibited. (It wasn't irreversible, however, when you had a medi-witch… but no, he must stop thinking of that.) Dumbledore's disapproval was also an annoying factor.
Suddenly, Filch said, "I don't think there's a way out of this one! Plus I can get both the Lovegood girl and that handsome friend of hers at once."
"Oh?" asked Snape. The words 'marriage laws' stared him in the face. Filch was pointing at a particular point, which stated, 'whereupon adults with significant jurisdiction over the subject agree to a matrimony, it must be so', only with significantly more 'ye', 'thou' and 'thee's. "I do not think," he said at last, "that we count as adults with 'significant jurisdiction'."
"You could always ask their head of house?" suggested the caretaker.
"Filius? He would consider it suspicious," Snape said, tossing away the idea. "However, writing to their parents may not be a bad idea… perhaps we could ask them to sign a detention slip, and then it is consent, as it is their detention (a forever lasting consequences detention, which was sorely needed). And ministry laws outweigh ethics!"
"I like the idea," admitted Filch. "However, nobody told me about any detention slips!"
"There weren't any until now," said Snape, and then smiled an evil-looking smile, intending to find Dumbledore and rectify this situation immediately. Elsewhere in the castle, Terry shivered, and went back to eating his porridge, while Luna stared at the wall with more intensity than usual.
Clearly, something was afoot.
Terry and Luna were sitting in Dumbledore's office. It was not something either of them were used to, but the headmaster had called them up, and was beaming at them, his eyes twinkling from behind his moon-shaped spectacles.
Terry found this quite odd considering he'd been sure they were there to get punished. "Professor Dumbledore?" he asked, wondering if the man had finally lost his mind.
"Good evening, Mr. Boot," said Dumbledore jovially.
"Hello," said Luna, looking up from the floor, before nudging Terry in the ribs to get him to respond: "Yeah, hi."
Terry decided that now was the time to get the record straight. "It wasn't our fault. We were only cleaning the school and Snape got in the way."
"He had an eerie resemblance to the fumbling storgats," Luna explained to Dumbledore patiently.
Terry, horrified, replied, "No! Luna just got a bit carried away."
"Terry killed more of them than me," Luna chimed in. "I've never seen somebody so fast or accurate. I'll have to get him to help me again." She smiled.
Terry was still expecting Dumbledore to begin yelling at some point. Instead, the man laughed and said, "Yes, I'm sure you'll have a very good life together killing…" He faltered for a moment, and then continued, "pests."
"What if I don't want to go near her again?" asked Terry, then, seeing the expression on Dumbledore's face, added, "Sir."
"That, Mr. Boot, would be most unfortunate."
"Why?"
"Because you are going to get married."
There was a long silence. "Sorry," said Terry, "I think I must be going deaf – I thought I heard you say…"
"We're getting married," Luna told him. "I was told the stars have seen it for days." Her smile was meant to be comforting, but made Terry squirm and surreptitiously move his chair in the opposite direction a few inches.
"You can't… you can't just order us to get married!" Terry burst out.
"Force is such a strong word," Dumbledore sighed. "It is a punishment, to remind you of the consequences of your actions when you grievously injured Professor Snape-"
"It was a scratch!" protested Terry. "Like I'd get from some of the stuff we look at in Herbology; you wouldn't make Devils Snare marry another plant for scratching a students' legs, would you?"
Everybody paused, and Luna said, "That wasn't the best analogy, dear."
"Don't call me dear!" said Terry, glaring at her. "But the fact remains, it was a scratch! This will affect us for all of our lives, please, sir, understand-"
"The trauma of this incident," Dumbledore said, "will also last Professor Snape for the rest of his life."
"My parents will object to this!" said Terry, in a last ditch effort to get out of the crisis. It wasn't that he didn't like Luna… but she was crazy, and they were friends. He didn't know if he'd be able to stand her, constantly, though.
"My father knows the tabginds create marriages," Luna said, apparently agreeing with him, "and they bring nothing but despair." She cocked her head to one side. "I'm not fond of desperation. It's so depressing."
"Don't worry," said Dumbledore, smiling again. "I have consent forms from your parents."
"I don't believe it," muttered Terry. "Can I see?" he asked Dumbledore, deliberately speaking up, and the man handed him the document. He stared at the paper, speechless, and then finally managed to say, "This is a consent form for a detention. Not a marriage!"
"You are quite correct," agreed Dumbledore. "However, marriage is a perfectly legitimate detention considering the people it is being arranged by have the authority to do so. By coming to Hogwarts, you agree for us to be responsible for your welfare while you're here."
"Oh," said Terry, this time unable to suppress the sarcasm. "So does that mean we can look forward to being single during the Summer?"
"Don't be silly, dear boy." Dumbledore laughed. "This isn't a school rule. It's one of the old Ministry rules! There was a time when this was one of the most popular non-violent ways of teaching people there are consequences to every action!" Seeing Terry's disbelieving face, he added, "Not to mention, it's one of the few older laws that the Wizenmagot has not quite got around to repealing yet."
"How could they not have?" Terry exclaimed. "It's… barbaric!"
Luna, looking unperturbed, added, "It certainly requires you to make use of forward planning. My father would be happy!"
"Well," said Dumbledore, "they decided to get rid of the ones condoning dismemberment first and moved down from there. Don't worry though," he said, seeing the shocked faces in front of him. "I've never seen any of those used in my tenure as headmaster, even before some of them were banned."
"Perhaps barbaric isn't the right word," conceded Terry. "But still… it's not right!"
"But what is right, Mr. Boot?" asked Dumbledore, and then looked up to the ceiling. "What is right…?" he muttered.
Terry and Luna exchanged a look, and perhaps they were both on the same wavelength for a moment. Terry got up to go, and after a moment Luna did the same.
"I can see you're worried," said Dumbledore. "Don't worry. There are special quarters the two of you can use; we wouldn't like you to have to suffer."
The door to the office opened, allowing Terry to spy sweet freedom. It was a good thing really, as he didn't know what to say to that final blow, and the feel his future was disappearing in front of him, as Luna appeared in front of him, smiling. "I think we escaped the scaprot," she laughed, then walked ahead of him, leaving him staring in bewilderment, hoping the past few days had just been a bad dream.
6 months later…
They were both late for class. As they were Ravenclaws, this was normally undesirable, but there was something special about today.
So, Luna and Terry sat eating breakfast in bed. "Nice of you," Luna had commented, and immediately taken the majority of the toast and used incendio to give it 'that chargrill taste'. The result had nearly set the bedclothes on fire, but Terry didn't even mind.
They'd been married for more than five months. The do itself hadn't been anything special (and how could it with the bride and groom trying to mess up their own wedding so that they wouldn't be forced into it?) and had in fact been quite a mess for the aforementioned reason. Terry didn't know about Luna, but he'd already repressed the memory; it had just been that bad.
"Luna," Terry began. "I don't know how to say this… I mean, we both thought this wasn't going to work.. but I l-" Suddenly he stopped. He was a bit… embarrassed, really. He couldn't see why: she was his wife… How did you say 'I love you' without actually saying it, he wondered.
Luna looked up from studying the burn markings on her toast and stared at Terry before commenting, "You know, you suddenly don't seem like a warbling snotmonger… are you actually a person?"
And, to his great surprise, Terry didn't even feel any annoyance. His wife had expressed everything he liked about her in one (albeit bizarre) sentence. He smiled; clearly it was love. They leaned forward and kissed, before Terry headed off to History of Magic with a spring in his step (which was surely a Hogwarts record under Binns' reign).