I was listening to Teenagers by My Chemical Romance repeatedly when I wrote this.
Luna Lovegood bounced through the corridor.
"So darken your clothes or strike a violent pose, maybe they'll leave you alone but not me!" She sung happily, skipping her way to class.
Severus Snape walked angrily, muttering about old, brainless fools and Potter. Potter, oh how he -hated- Potter. He despised Potter with every single fiber of his being. If it weren't for Lily, he would've already slaughtered Potter, and every single professor knew that.
Turning a corner, he ran directly into a tiny figure. It was Luna Lovegood. He almost groaned outloud. While Severus Snape was able to get underneath the skin of Potter, the Weasleys, and practically anyone in Hogwarts, he was never able to get underneath the skin of Luna Lovegood. She was always perfectly happy and it annoyed the hell out of him.
Insulting her potions, her charmwork, her defensive stances, her commentating on that one, horrible, horrible day of Quidditch, but nothing -ever- worked. She just smiled like the bubbly little brainless girl she was up at him and flounced away like the maniac she was.
He'd never admit it, but he was -impressed-. He was always impressed by her. It was only a simple thought, a thought that nobody would ever know...
Dumbledore had once grinned at him and asked if he liked the Lovegood girl. Of course, he had responded, "No. Not at all. The bubbly little brainless idiot is horrid and I cannot wait until she is gone from Hogwarts."
Dumbledore kept smiling, as if he knew Severus's thoughts, as if he knew Severus was lying.
Oh, how he hated that old man.
He snapped back into the world when Luna began speaking in her usual airy manner.
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, Professor Snape... I was not looking where I was going."
"Yes, perhaps you -should- look where you're going, Lovegood." He snapped angrily, shoving her away from him and brushing off his robes as if he had been touched by filth. He ignored the little voice saying in the recesses of his mind.. "She smells like peppermint."
"Oh, yes, perhaps, Professor." She agreed readily.
"And what -was- that horrible singing, Lovegood?" The curiosity got the better of him.
Again, he ignored the little voice saying, "Her voice is nice." Stupid little voice..he hated that voice, too. It sounded like a mix of the ever-annoying Dumbledore and the ever-annoying Potter. Shudder. Just thinking of the two put together made him want to crawl underneath the ground and never come out.
"Oh, it's called Teenagers. Daddy got me a Muggle thing. I didn't know how it worked, but I finally figured it out and I like the song. It goes like this.. 'They're gonna clean up your looks with all the lies in the books, to make a citizen out of you, because they sleep with a gun and keep an eye on you, son, so they can watch all of the things you do, because the drugs never work, they're gonna give you a smirk, because they've got methods of keeping you clean, they're gonna rip up your heads, your aspirations to shreds, another cog in the murder machine!'
He stared at her, his brain partially broken.
All he could get out in the end was, "...What?"
She giggled. "Yes, it is sort of a confusing song, but it's been stuck in my head all day! I don't mind, though, Professor. I sort of like it." She nods and he just stares at her.
"..Alright then, Lovegood. Goodbye, and a point from Ravenclaw for not watching where you're going should do well, I think."
Luna Lovegood smiled dreamily and bounced off, calling over her shoulder, "See you later, Professor!" He stayed there, hearing her voice.
"Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me!" Her happy, airy voice didn't fit the angry lyrics of the song, he noted to himself.
He stayed there, breathing in the refreshing scent of clear peppermint that she left behind, and then he thought..
"What am I doing? I do believe I am attracting Lovegood syndrome from her. It's contagious, I know it."
He walked off, billowing robes sweeping the ground majestically as he left, shooting glares at a snogging Slytherin couple on the way out. He definitely knew he attracted Lovegood syndrome when the song lyrics rung in his head over and over again, not just for hours, or one day, but for three days straight. Pomona Sprout purposely attempted to ignore him when he began singing underneath his breath,
"So darken your clothes, or strike a violent pose.."
Dumbledore smiled. He was right, as usual! Severus liked Luna Lovegood. Casually, he held a hand out underneath the staff table to Minerva McGonagall. She shot a glare at him and slipped two galleons into his hand. Dumbledore winked and reclined in his seat.
Right again. By the end of the year, I'll be rich.