DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off of this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Snape, etc. J.K.R. does.
I'm trying a new writing style. Bear with me on this! I wrote this as a request from Thyrin; she wanted me to do a Harry X Luna fic. I do not know whether this qualifies, but it's the best I can come up with today.
Rejected!
There is a time in every man or woman's life where, for strange reasons sometimes unknown to even themselves, that they succumb to the noxious, anomalous, sacrosanct emotion we call love. It can happen in an instant: the unintentional touch, a sumptuous breath of perfume or cologne, or with an abrupt surge of inculcated desire. A passionate kiss, maybe a bit more to follow, and then the lovers either consciously or unconsciously make a decision. One, probably the easiest, is to separate the two, that they might never experience that intimacy ever again. Perhaps they will remember each other, perhaps they will not. The more complex alternative, sometimes, is to pursue a long-lasting relationship that can stand on its own legs beyond the bedroom. This can be disastrous and cacophonous to some, while to others it might be just what they need.
But now I'm going to shut the hell up. I should not even be discussing what I only know vicariously. Instead, I'm going to tell you a story. A very good story, at that. It takes place in England, in about 2002 or so I believe, and it involves three characters: a young man, a young woman, and an old man. Let me begin.
…………..
Scene: One of Muggle London's quieter streets. Soho.
The aforementioned young man approached the scene. His hair was messy, black, and almost like that of a very young abecedarian, but longer. His mood was comatose, or so it seemed, until one saw that, very briefly, he smiled over his thoughts. He had rid himself of the outlandish glasses he used to wear, instead using a combination of contacts and laser eye correction surgery. At this time, he had just celebrated his twenty-second birthday. His favorite occupations were visiting his now-married best friends, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Weasley nee Granger, plus coaching Tiny-tot quidditch for community service. He was rich, a celebrity, and always under the spotlight of the press because he destroyed You-Know-Who in '99. Once in a while, he attempted to dictate a memoir to one of his secretaries for the sake of writing a best-seller autobiography and becoming even richer. He also did this for the secretaries' sakes, for he needed to give the poor dears something to do besides triple-date him . . .
Needless to say, this man was Harry Potter, but he has been considering changing his name officially to Harrius—it sounded more wizardlike, to him, and he felt that he was outgrowing his childhood title.
The dark had long inculpated the sun for being far too hot that fine summer's day, and the moon had moved to its nemesis' stead in the sky. Light-bulbs in their lamps on the street and in buildings demanded to be heard, but the Queen of the Night did not lift her veil to admit that she heard their cries.
The show traffic had subsided for just the briefest amount of time, every free soul in London either at their destination or home. This was when Harry found it easiest to get out of the house, out of the dark, lonely house where he and his three secretaries, two private chefs, and one valet lived together in relative harmony. (Well, the servants would never put up a fight as long as they got their paychecks every quarter.) He felt like he consistently was missing something, and in frenetic energy he tore about London every night trying to figure out what the deuce it was.
He jaywalked easily to his favorite Chinese restaurant's back alley so that he might slip in unseen by the other diners. It was enough to be pummeled by ga-ga fan-girls all day without having to face a bunch of ignorant pundits who would begin to chew with their mouths open just because he walked into the room.
But, then, Harry gave himself a obstreperous slap on the cheek, literally. He was thinking like that malodorous pedantic bastard, Severus Snape. How he loathed the punctilious man! So what if perchance he had been an--ahem--good friend of his mother, Lily. So what if he had saved Harry's life more than once. So what if he had nearly died to save the world. He despised Harry; whenever the two met, he always gave the youth a condescending, didactic talk on whatever happened to be in his bourgeois mind. And Harry always made sure that he had a cant reply that even the astute old man would get languorous thinking over.
Actually, Harrry had not seen the wizard in some time. Not like he felt any predilection to want that!
So Harry, like the bargain aficionado he was, made his way inside the cheap Chinese restaurant. He was greeted by the sly wink and nod of Chu, his preferred server.
"Mr. Potterrrrrrr!" Chu approached Harry's favorite table, which was veiled by a screen from most of the rest of the dining area, with a forthright smile. "Good of you for you to be back." He paused to exacerbate a menu from under his arm. "You want usual or something different?"
Harry waved his hand, a common move of his now that he had a good million galleons in the bank. "Same as I always do, but make it snappy and a lot. I'm hungrier than the devil, tonight."
Chu nodded appreciatingly. "If you have any trouble . . . see to me." He puffed out his chest in a pompous, cock-like fashion, and made his special vagary to the kitchen.
Harry Potter closed his eyes, leant back in his chair, and clamped on a cold cigar from his jacket pocket.
…………….
Some time after Chu returned, followed by an army of turgidly-shined plates, Harry began to weave his way through what arrogated itself to be a very full meal. Although he did try to pay most of his attention to his food, he did notice, rather suddenly, a familiar face.
Well, rather, familiar hair. Long and blond, curling at the tips. He did not get the chance to see her face as she waltzed by him to the back door, completely unaware of the fact that the large bag of take-out she carried had a rip as large as the Bering Strait.
"Hey," Harry called, snatching up a napkin like it was the most precious gem on earth. "Stop!" The napkin met his lips, collecting whatever bits of food stuck to his stubble.
The woman turned about, almost amusedly. Then she saw who it was who stooped to grab her plastic bag and save the food from toppling out of the flimsy Styrofoam packaging.
"Hello, Harry Potter," Luna Lovegood nodded, and her eyes added 'Enjoying the high life?' But she said nothing of the sort aloud, mind you.
"Hello, Luna." Harry grinned duplicitously. "Your bag has a fearful tear in it."
"Oh! No doubt the dealings of Gnargles, wouldn't you say?"
Harry laughed, then pulled out a chair. "Care to sit down while you wait for a new one? You couldn't get that load home in a jalopy without losing your broccoli."
"Merlin," Luna declared, seeing the barrage of plates on his table, "You could feed an entire flock of Smorgulbungles with this mess!" She seated herself anyways.
"Share?" Harry demonstrated to the pair of chopsticks he never used, sitting idly by his plate even when he had told Chu numerous times that he always used a bloody fork!
"I suppose," Luna shrugged, then picked them up. She twirled them in an almost naïve manner, then brought them down almost cruelly into the nearest platter. Harry thought she looked like a child trying to see if a worm was transparent, then who proceeded to smash it on the ground. He had the hardest time preventing a laugh.
"So," he began when he swallowed a bit of chop suey he had nearly choked upon, "What have you been doing with yourself? I haven't seen you in . . . say . . . nearly three years."
My, how she had changed in those three years!
"That's right," Luna mused, examining a carrot with near contempt. Harry admired her supple lips, her tender nose, her mellifluous eyes: all centered on glaring at the orange vegetable she held between two sticks.
"Something the matter?"
"No, just checking for the grumptiddlites. They like to lay their eggs in the centers of carrots, you know."
" . . . No, I did not know." Harry wondered why he had never realized how utterly fascinating Luna was. Her vast knowledge of the vile creatures in the world struck him down, a blow between the nose. Besides, she was a Ravenclaw alumni . . . and Harry always had felt a 'thing' for Ravenclaws . . .
He noticed all too soon that she was returning his stare. Their eyes met, and it was as if two grappling hooks had disengaged from the depths of their pupils. These hooks seemed to fling themselves at the opposite person's hooks, and they had caught together in between the couple in one helpless knot.
Somehow, Harry did not know why, his hand extended across the table to hers, and their fingertips just touched.
"You need to clean your nails, Harry," Luna observed, not moving a muscle in her face.
"And you so do not need to clean yours," Harry replied, not even checking the state of Luna's hand before saying this. The grappling hooks would not come undone from each other.
Then she grabbed his hands fiercely, passionately. Harry clenched back, and, for a moment, it felt like someone had turned up the thermostat as high as it could go.
"Let's leave," Harry said suddenly, rising. Luna did the same, not displaying her emotion except through her eyes. Oh, her eyes! They burnt with a fervor Harry had never observed in them, and held a patina more lustrous than any star!
"Yes. Let us," she replied. The grappling hooks did not detach, and the pair could not physically take their eyes away from each other. Harry threw a few coins on the table to pay for the meal they would never finish, and the pair walked out the door, forgetting Luna's bag on the table.
………………
They found themselves, hours later, completely exhausted yet completely satisfied, in Harry's spacious mansion bedroom. Luna attempted to straighten her distraught hair and overall appearance in the mirror, while Harry sat watching the tube.
"Luna, where are you going?"
For the girl was suddenly standing upon the stairwell, with the intent of disappearing downwards.
"I have to go home, Harry."
Harry turned off the television and stared at her in disbelief. "You're crazy! Why? Just floo your dad and tell him you'll be back tomorrow!"
"I can not floo him, Harry." Luna's voice held a tinge of regret.
"Why the devil not?"
"He died two years ago." She dropped to the floor, as though in pain.
Harry rose, then walked to the girl to give her a firm, bracing massage. "I'm sorry, Luna," he said softly. "I did not know."
"You wouldn't." A feministic tear slipped down her pale cheek, glistening and gleaming under the dim candlelight.
Harry paused. "I want you to stay tonight, Luna, and if there's no one at home for you, I don't see why the hell—"
"—Oh!" She cried. "That is it! There is someone at home for me!"
Harry was taken aback. Here he was, having engaged in absolutely the most first-rate snogging-and-feeling session he had ever experienced, expecting that, perhaps, tonight they might go a little further than that . . . and here she was all set with another dope!
But, then, could he really see Luna Lovegood—Looney Lovegood, if you would—playing a double-sided card on the green? Something was wrong, because obviously if she really loved this other guy, she would be crying on his shoulder right now . . . not Harry's.
"Baby," Harry crooned, wrapping his arms stringently around her, "You mustn't cry. Tell me. What happened to you?"
So Luna began her story.
"Well," she started, "As I said, my father died two years ago. Although I had written a good many articles for our magazine . . . you know The Quibbler? . . . I did not know how to manage things well on my own. The publication began to spiral down the drain. I needed someone to help me, to save it, even if it meant selling the magazine. I only had one bidder: someone you know very well."
"Who?" Harry posed the obvious question.
"Our dear old potions master, Severus Snape."
Harry nearly swooned. "Merlin!" he cried, "He bought The Quibbler? Are you certain that this is the Snape from Hogwarts? Our batty git? Our nocturnal murderer? Our greasy, slime-ball rat-bitten flea-infested—"
"Hark!" It was a strange exclamation, rarely used anymore, but that was just like Luna for you. "Say no more!" she whispered, "And you will no longer spite my husband."
Harry's jaw dropped a good five meters. "You're . . . joking."
Luna gave a slight giggle. "It's true. When he bought the company, he proposed to me. Said if ever he got the slightest whiff of an intelligent scent from anyone else he knew, he'd Avada-Kedavra himself. Which is saying a great deal, for him." She retained her reclining position on Harry's shoulder, though the young man felt very off-balance with the latest revelations.
"Have you . . . done it with him?" Harry asked, teeth grinding.
"What?" Luna's inability to pick up a hint would have been infuriating any other moment, but Harry made himself have a great deal of patience.
"Have you ever had sex with the bas—erm, with the guy?"
Luna nodded sagely. "Oh, yes, loads of times."
Harry gasped. "Eeeek . . ."
"He's really good at it, too," Luna went on. She then looked at Harry's face, which was slowly turning purple with every word of her drivel. "He is my husband, after all. Why should we not?"
"No reason," Harry whispered. He let go of Luna and leaned his head against the banister.
"But he always lacks a certain passion," Luna rambled, a sad note coming into her voice. "I think his spirit is almost dead, sometimes. I think it was when Minerva told him he could not teach anymore that half of his soul just collapsed."
"Why did she tell him not to teach any more?"
Luna shrugged. "She told me about it, because Severus would not tell me why. She said he'd been acting very strangely since the end of the war. One day she saw him walking around in no more than a towel! Not dangerous to anyone except himself and his own dignity, but it was little things like that which drove her to conclude the poor man was going off his head. His bereavement began the year after I graduated, so I was not aware of it until after I had consented to his proposal."
Luna lay down next to Harry, to snuggle him on the floor as though he were a great manly teddy bear with great biceps.
"Oh Harry! He is such a gentle man at home! You would not believe it! He has his toast the same way every morning, buttered with a touch of apricot jam. To watch him eat it, to dine with him, to talk to him at night . . . do you know, every night we talk to each other? We don't clamber over each other all the time, like so many people do. We just lie there, hands occasionally touching, sometimes his strong arm over my shoulders—and we talk about things. Many things. About how to reformat the cover of the next magazine. About how lonely his childhood was. About animals." Luna stifled a sob.
"And, do you know Harry, I know what he feels like."
Harry's eyes rose from their closed position in shock.
"I know what he feels like," Luna repeated, "Because he doesn't have the heart to hide it anymore. He's lost everything and yet nothing, and now it all just doesn't matter to him. I am the only thing that matters to him. He does try to make me happy, he really does try!"
Luna began to sob on Harry's shoulder, wholeheartedly.
"We're so alike, Harry. The two of us, he and I . . . we really have so much in common! I do think I love him so, Harry. I love him!"
"Then," Harry asked coldly, "Why are you here?"
Luna sat up. "Harry, when I saw how aroused you were by me tonight . . . and how beautiful, hungry, and passionate you were . . . like a basilisk or a Gnoddlefuggin . . . I thought how good it would be to feel so desired, so savored. I . . . I let myself be swept away. But I forgot something my dead mother used to tell me: Young men are a lot like Iffpelstrubs. They always want more."
With a sigh, she stood. "I should not have come with you here, tonight. I'm sorry, Harry, I did not think how doing this would make me feel inside. I feel wretched. I love Severus, he's so . . . so safe. It was a fine adventure tonight, Harry, but I don't really want to do it again."
Harry stood also. "I see, Luna," he spoke softly, placing both his hands on her shoulder.
They were both startled by the soft opening of a door behind them, and Severus Snape gazed up at them, wordlessly.
Harry was shocked to see the state to which the potions master, in only three short years, had come. Even from above, his skin was more wan, more furrowed, and more distressed than Harry ever had seen in Snape. His hair had prominent streaks of gray, and he looked lean as a crane.
"Severus!"
Luna pushed Harry away firmly with her hand, and ran down the stairs to embrace Snape. They looked rather odd, Harry decided. They made a really very odd couple. The short, sweet, fresh blonde, and the tall, haggard, and black-haired man.
The tender moment did not last long. Severus did not put his arm around Luna. He simply stood there, silent, speechless.
Luna sensed his discomfort and took a step back—the fatal error of all traitorous wives in the movies. "Severus, are you . . . "
Her words trailed off as Snape took a wand from his sleeve. The potions master, just a young forty, acted like he were at least eighty. Thoughtfully, he pondered the wand. With a brash movement, he pointed it at Harry, up on the stairs.
"You!" Severus' voice was terrible. "You have everything. Everything that a man could dream. But you can not keep your filthy mudblood hands off those that are not yours!"
"Severus!" said Luna, lowering his arm gently. Her gaze was stern, but her face was relaxed. She acted as though calming a wild animal. "It's all right, Severus. We were just two old friends, catching up."
"Catching up, Merlin's arse!"
Snape pushed Luna away coldly. "She's all yours, Potter," he declared vehemently. "All your very own."
With a swift movement, he pointed the wand at his own head. His lips moved with one last spell . . . and a green electric light shocked his body. Snape dropped the wand and fell to the ground, dead.
Harry and Luna looked at each other. Then, slowly, Luna sat down on the ground, taking Snape's wand. She had never spoken a dark curse before, but it was not too late now. Clasping her dead husband's hand warmly, tears in her eyes, she said:
"Goodbye, Harry."
"No, wait!" cried Harry, only too late.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!" shrieked Luna, and, tragically, her head hit the floor right next to Snape's.
Harry Potter was acquitted of the murders of Luna Snape nee Lovegood, and Severus Snape. This was mainly because, technically, he had not killed them. And, of course, because he was Harry Potter. But we do know who is at fault in this case, though we can do nothing about it.
The moral of this story is . . . oh, who the hell cares. Snape's going to die at midnight. There's no way he can't. This is in his blessed memory. Review, please.