Disclaimer: World of Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling, I'm just playing with her characters. For the second season of the Quidditch Cup Competition, Round 9.
Team: Falmouth Falcons
Position: Chaser 2
Prompts: (word) neighbour; (emotion) annoyed; (restriction) no using the word Hogwarts.
~x~X~x~
How Snape Says 'I Love...'
~x~X~x~
Really, Severus should have been annoyed, being tugged along as he was by one hand, while the other was wrapped tightly around the handle of a basket. He tried, very hard, not to picture that very same hand, wrapped around the slender neck of the little chit that was tugging him along behind her, chattering aloud to herself.
Well, perhaps not to herself. Severus admitted that it was just as likely that she was speaking to him, but he was ignoring her. He was, after all, not in a good mood.
Severus didn't do dates. Though he should have been happy, and grateful even, that Luna was not the romantic sort, and expected no such frivolities from their relationship, but he would still rather do anything else, than going on a picnic.
That is, of course, not to say that he and Luna never went out. There were many occasions on which they did their shopping together and chose to eat out. And Luna frequently accompanied him during his searches for potions ingredients to harvest, though Severus reasoned that such outings were as beneficial to the blonde as they were to him, seeing as she was a naturalist.
But in the very long list of things that Luna Lovegood did that were bizarre, and nonsensical, Severus thought that having a picnic at a cemetery was a bit much.
He simply couldn't decide if it was far too morbid, or disrespectful for his taste.
Not that Severus had a very high regard for the dead... well, for most of the dead. He supposed his regard for the dead was directly proportional to his regard towards the living. For the most part, he couldn't be bothered to care for most people.
And his humor, was rather black.
However, he really shouldn't have found the picnic outing so bizarre. After all, there was the girl's father to consider. And the fact that her closest neighbour happened to be the cemetery they were not traversing through, looking for the perfect place for their picnic.
If he was going to be annoyed at anyone, it really should have been with himself. After all, he was a cantankerous, old man. He had no business, getting himself romantically attached to a girl barely twenty. And he had no place to complain, having known as he did from the start, that he was attaching himself to a very strange woman.
But Luna was unlike any other woman he'd ever known. She was brilliant, though you'd never know to look at her. Nor through cursory introductions... really, it took someone of intelligence and great intuition to be able to see beyond Luna's dottiness to the otherworldly wisdom she knew intrinsically.
For all her strangeness, Luna had a very good and kind heart; things that Severus usually sneered at and thought as weakness, but in Luna he couldn't help admiring.
"Here we are," Luna's light and airy voice, so melodious (and really, why didn't he dislike that musical voice?) cut trough his thoughts as they came to a stop.
Severus didn't say anything, merely cast his gaze about the verdant and sunny day with a scowl, able to ignore the granite stones that were popped around him like the rows of grim tree stumps of a massacred forest.
"I don't know why you insisted on this picnic," Severus stated in cruel tones, glaring at a passing butterfly, even as Luna plucked the basket from his hand.
"Because it's such a lovely day," Luna replied simply while pulling a blanket form the basket and unfurling it before placing it on the grass.
"I hate sunny days," Severus complained. He also hated the heat, and today just happened to be an extremely warm, summer day. Severus felt as if he was boiling alive, and he wasn't even wearing his customary robes.
Luna smiled, her blue-grey eyes warm with a vague sort of amusement as she smiled at him crookedly.
"There are a lot of things you dislike, Severus," Luna pointed out almost cheekily, "Besides," she went on, setting the basket on the blanket and plopping down next to it. "I thought it would be a great opportunity to introduce you to my mother."
Severus felt his back go rigid then and he stared at Luna with a frown. Pandora Lovegood was dead... Luna made no secret of the fact that she was motherless child.
Her matter-of-fact acceptance of the reality, had never sat well with her peers. Even those other students who knew what it was like for one of their parents to be dead, had found Luna's peace with her mother's death completely disconcerting.
Turning towards the headstone they happened to be settling at the feet of, he saw a rather simple headstone with the name Pandora Lovegood and a set of numbers. Severus didn't contemplate the regrettably short span of time recorded in granite... but instead stared at the engraved words beneath.
"The world is more than what you see, but there is love, if you look hard enough. Love all that you can, and the world will be that much better."
Severus frowned, unconsciously allowing himself to be tugged down to the blanket. He didn't recognize the words, and he was uncertain about what they meant. But he thought of Luna... of her paying frequent visit to this place, of sitting here and reading those words until they were engraved in her heart and he wondered...
There was that strange sensation of tightening in his chest, every time he wondered at Luna's ability to find something to like in him, let alone love.
"My mother believed that it was possible to find love, anywhere you looked," Luna's voice called his attention, forcing his dark eyes to drift to her. "If you only looked hard enough."
The question whether that was the reason she-
They had yet to say the words... yet to acknowledge what was between them; whether out of reserve or fear, Severus was unsure, though he could not allow himself to think it. Because it was so absurd, so impossible, soooo... wonderful that she could possibly... and he was afraid to lose that, or be wrong...
It was so much easier to simply believe Luna was someone he merely... did not dislike. To think of her as someone that he simply tolerated.
It was easier- though his chest still tightened painfully- to believe it was her battiness that allowed her to enjoy his acerbic company.
A hand squeezed his own, causing his panicked thoughts to scatter and he turned to stare at those affectionate, but knowing eyes.
"You are worth loving," Luna told him with a slight smile in soft, dreamy tones.
And Severus felt as if he could breathe again, knowing she did not pity him.
Feeling her statement needed some sort of reciprocation, he told her somewhat stiffly, "In the exceedingly long list of all the things I detest and dislike- you are not enumerated."
In response, Luna smiled serenely, even as he told himself that the bloody summer weather was what made his collar so heated.
Turning to the sandwiches she'd pulled form their basket, Luna started chatting happily and Severus felt himself become at ease, in spite of the fact that he was having a date in a cemetery in front of Mrs. Lovegoods grave.
Luna had a strange ability, to set him at ease in the strangest of circumstances... and teaching him to have tolerance or even fondness, for things he might have otherwise detested.
~FIN~