AUTHOR NOTES:
Wow! There were lots of reviews, but no actual questions. So, thanks to everyone who reviewed, but most of all to A Dawn Rae, who gave me -SQUEE!- my 100th review! She gets a write-in in a few chapters, lucky girl . . . but there are still chances for others, because I am removing my anon reviews and going all brand-name, if you will (anon's tend to attract flamers), so the number 100 spot will most likely soon be open again . . . and if not, there's always 200!
RATING: This chapter is rated T/PG-13 for language, moderate het relationship (kissing, hugging, etc.), and moderate homosexuality. Don't like, skip it (but I'm warning you, the next chapter has a mild sex scene in it . . . )
"What's that in your hair, Loony?"
Harry froze as he heard the familiar voices in the next corridor. One was Marietta Edgecombe. One was . . . it couldn't be . . . she wouldn't . . . would she?
"She looks like Draco and the Longbottom boy's toad had an affair, doesn't she?"
Harry peeked around the corner. Luna was standing, trying not to cry, on the open-air terrace by the trophy room, being terrorized by Marietta and - he knew he'd heard that voice before - Cho Chang. She had an enormous ornamental butterfly fluttering in her hair just above her ear. Contrary to looking like a cross between Malfoy and a toad, Harry thought she looked rather nice. Certainly the butterfly was much better than the orange radish earrings, although he wouldn't ever have told her that.
"Look at that, Cho. She's crying. What's the matter, Loony?"
"Her name is Luna," Harry said loudly, turning the corner full-on and causing the two older Ravenclaws to jump guiltily, "and if you're going to stoop so low as to pick on someone two years younger than you, you shouldn't be wearing that badge, Marietta." He pointed to the Head Girl badge on her robes.
"Ooh, has Potty got a gurrrrrlfriend?" Marietta taunted.
Harry froze. How was he supposed to answer that? Especially in front of Cho? Should he answer at all? Walk away? Threaten to tell a teacher?
Why do you care what Cho thinks?
"Yeah, I have got," Harry answered, grabbing Luna's hand, "and her name is Luna."
"Why on earth would you want to go out with Luna Lovegood, Harry?" Cho looked genuinely confused.
"Because she's smart, and she's funny, and she doesn't run 'round crying all the time!" Harry announced, growing angrier by the minute. Couldn't they just leave her alone, couldn't they -
"But she's crazy," Cho continued, sounding more and more like a petulant five-year-old. "And she -"
"Come on, Cho," Marietta urged, "we need to get up to Divination for the N.E.W.T. exam . . . "
Harry grabbed at Cho's arm as she turned away. She gave a sharp gasp and pulled away.
It was her left arm.
Harry yanked her forward and shoved her sleeve up her arm. The skull and snake glinted a dull red. He raised his head to meet her eyes. Predictably, they were swimming with tears.
"When did you get this?"
Cho sobbed. "H-h-he t-told me he c-c-c-could -"
"Bring back Diggory, right?"
Cho nodded.
"He said the same thing about my parents, Cho."
"You - you're going to turn me in, aren't you?"
Harry considered. "No, not now." Both girls visibly relaxed.
"But I think you need to get your priorities straight, Cho. Diggory wouldn't be dead if Voldemort hadn't killed him in the first place because he was 'the spare.' Voldemort didn't give a damn about him. He just wanted another puppet." He paused. The girls stared at him.
"Get out of here."
They were only too happy to comply.
Luna grabbed his other wrist as soon as Cho and Marietta had disappeared. "Harry - did you - mean that? About me being - your girlfriend?"
Oh. That. Right.
"Er - well - I mean - " Harry grew redder with every word. "I mean - I know I never asked you, but - well - that's - if you don't want to be -"
"I'd love to be!" Luna hugged him tightly and kissed him on the cheek. That made the third or fourth time since October, didn't it? Harry thought to himself.
Luna suddenly caught sight of his watch and gasped. "I have to go, Harry - I'm supposed to be downstairs for the Potions practical this morning."
That wasn't possible, Harry thought, Snape couldn't oversee two years at one time -
Oh, right.
Luna had her O.W.L.s.
"Good luck," he offered, and Luna beamed before hugging him again and speeding away toward the dungeons.
"This has to have been one of the longest days of my life," Remus sighed, sinking deeply into Severus' couch. Severus raised his eyebrow.
"I do hate to break the news to you, Remus, but today is June fourth, not June twenty-first."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Remus slipped out of his shoes and dug his toes into the black and white carpet.
"June 21 is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year and consequently 'one of the longest days of your life.' June fourth is not."
Severus sat down next to his partner. Remus promptly leaned against him. "I do not like grading exams."
"Neither do I, but we have to set them."
"I know."
A pause. "I had Harry this morning."
"Oh? How did he do?"
"I have no idea where his head was this morning, but it most certainly wasn't in the Potions lab. He'll be lucky if he gets an 'A conditioned' between the practical and the written exam. I haven't read the paper yet, but I have the feeling it's just as bad as his potion."
"I heard he was standing up for Luna today."
"Mmm."
"They look so sweet together, don't you think?"
Severus turned to look at the tiny man on the sofa. "Remus, the word 'sweet' is not in my vocabulary unless it happens to be in reference to sugar, buttercream icing, or those little round chocolate things you get from the Muggle sweets shelf in Honeydukes."
"They're called M&M's, Severus."
"Yes, those."
"Well, don't you think they look good together?"
"The only thing that looks good to me right now is the prospect of dinner."
"But that would mean getting up, Severus," Remus pouted.
Severus leaned over again and pressed his lips to Remus' cheek. "You silly Gryffindor fool, you can't keep missing meals or people are going to think we never feed you. Come on. Up, up, up -"
"And away we go," Remus finished, trying not to laugh as Severus grimaced.
"Do you have to do that, Remus?"
Remus gave him a boyish grin and pushed himself off the hideous plaid sofa. "Well, it sure beats hell out of 'may the Force be with you,' doesn't it?"
Severus groaned freely. Remus could say all he wished about them; Severus did not like science fiction movies.
"So she actually -"
"But what's-her-name didn't -"
"And you really -"
"And she said -"
"Yes, no, yes, and yes," Harry snapped out. He was really getting tired of this. Ron and Hermione had asked him the same questions in every possible form ever since he'd rushed into class this morning and explained, rather badly if the truth be told, that he'd had a run-in with Cho Chang and her friend. That had been almost nine hours ago and they still hadn't tired of hearing the answers.
"Mate, you've really lost it this time," Ron opined through a mouthful of vegetable soup. "I mean, Cho Chang was bad enough, but why'd you want to go declaring your undying love for someone who's just - well - she's Loony, Harry, and you -"
A small, sudden sob from behind him caused Harry to turn around just in time to see waist-length blonde hair disappearing out the doors of the Great Hall. (1) He turned furiously back to the oblivious redhead, who was still spouting about Luna seeing things and believing everything she heard.
"Thanks a lot, Ron, she heard you."
"She - huh? Why's it matter? She's always got her head in the clouds anyway."
Ron's older brothers could have told him that it didn't matter how close you were to someone; badmouthing their girlfriend was a good way to get hit. He didn't even see the hand coming until it knocked him right out of his chair. He scrambled to his feet, confused. A foot shorter or no, Harry seemed to tower over him. The indignant boy sputtered a few furious words at Ron before turning on his heel and striding out of the Hall. Ron stared at Hermione, hoping for a hint about what he'd done wrong. Hermione just sighed and shook her head before pushing back her chair, looking regretfully at her half-eaten soup and chicken, and led Ron out of the Hall to take care of his rapidly swelling eye.
"Luna?" Remus stuck his head cautiously around the door of the girls' bathroom. His status was no secret anymore (not that it ever was, really, at least to anyone shrewd enough to read the signs), but that didn't mean that some of the more immature girls didn't still shriek at him if he tried to go into a girls' bathroom with a shower in it (Lavender Brown among that elite group of females; she seemed to think it positively romantic to be followed into the bathroom by a male teacher, something Remus still thought he wouldn't ever understand). Nobody was in this one, however, except for the Ravenclaw prefect sitting on the wooden bench at the end of the room, sobbing.
And therein lay the rub, Remus thought - Luna took all kinds of criticism and bullying with nary a word of complaint; it was as though the words didn't affect her at all. But what else could have sent her fleeing from the Great Hall? Especially as Harry and Ron had been sitting right across from her (albeit at different tables), and as soon as she'd left a fistfight had broken out between them? Severus had accosted Ron on his way out of the Hall with Hermione; now he was looking for Harry.
Remus had been spurred on to hunt for Luna; he knew her better, maybe, than any other teacher in the school, smiling at her strange fancies and whims instead of allowing them to annoy him, and perhaps for that reason he'd become her confidante. She didn't seem to have any friends, but that didn't really seem to bother her beyond the occasional bout of loneliness. More sensible students than Luna Lovegood had been known to be "rash" in a fit of despair, though, and Remus had pointed this out to the Headmaster before hurrying out of the Hall himself. The memory of Hermione and the troll on Hallowe'en still lived vividly in the minds of the staff; none of them wanted to find out that the mani a lei (2) approach, as Severus called it, had caused harm to a student.
Now Remus focused himself on trying to calm the distraught blonde, who was hastily wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her school robes.
"Everything all right? You left pretty quickly tonight." He sat down beside her on the bench. Luna shrugged (Remus frowned; the idea of Luna Lovegood doing something so mundane as shrugging her shoulders was something akin to the thought of Petunia Dursley disemboweling a flobberworm) and stared down at the worn square of white cotton he offered her. Finally she took it and wiped her still-wet eyes on it, and then laughed a short, watery note.
"You must think I'm being so silly," she murmured. Remus shook his head at her.
"I don't even know why you ran out, Luna," Remus reminded her, gently.
Luna sobbed into the handkerchief and spilled out the entire story, ending with a distraught "and what if he believes it, Professor, he'll never speak to me again and he's the only friend I've got . . . " She sniffled again.
"I don't think he'd do that, Luna."
The blonde looked up at him in a display of hopefulness that was almost pathetic in its desperation. "You mean that?"
Remus paused, as though considering. "Well . . . he did slap Ron across the face, so I'd have to say that no, he's not planning on abandoning you any time soon."
Luna gave the watery laugh again. "He did that?"
Remus nodded, trying not to smile. He was torn between wanting to reprimand Harry for hitting his friends, and wanting to praise him for standing up for a girl (which, according to the way Remus had been raised, was a very honorable thing to do). As a teacher, however, he was required to disapprove.
The door banged open. Severus dragged Harry in with little fanfare and forced him to stand directly in front of Remus. Harry wouldn't look up from his left shoe, which he seemed to find strangely fascinating.
"He's staying in your quarters tonight, Remus," Severus announced without preamble. Remus stared for several undignified seconds before getting his voice back.
"Harry, what did you do?"
"When we got the two of them together, Weasley started letting his mouth run ahead of his brain again," Severus informed him.
"That bad, eh?" Remus eyed Harry, who seemed to be surreptiously nursing his shoulder.
"It took Minerva and I just to keep Weasley alive," Severus drawled. "Albus and Poppy both joined us before we could get them apart."
Remus raised his eyebrows. Harry burst out in a furious and incoherent tirade about people with no brains. Severus slid a hand over his mouth.
"Enough."
Harry looked furious. Remus stood up and took his arm. "Severus, would you mind taking Luna up to Ravenclaw Tower if she doesn't want to go back to the Great Hall?"
Severus nodded.
Remus led Harry away to his own quarters, where he asked Harry to sit on the couch and wait for him. He left and returned with two cups of some kind of frothy, chocolatey coffee drink (3), handing one to Harry and drinking out of the other. Finally he set his mug down on the coffee table and gave Harry a look. Harry responded with an oh-boy-here-it-comes expression.
"Harry, I'm very disappointed in you."
The look on Harry's face was akin to someone who'd been slapped - hard. Remus pretended not to notice and continued.
"I know you were trying to defend someone you care about, but Harry, what you did is far from appropriate."
Harry bowed his head. Remus was amazed. In six years Severus had never been able to shame him, and the Slytherin Head of House was far better at disciplining students than Remus was.
"You could have really hurt him, and that would have caused far more problems than just going to the Hospital Wing, Harry. You're sixteen years old. If you'd done any kind of severe damages, you'd have been in trouble with the Ministry. Is making Ron respect Luna really worth ending up with a criminal record, Harry?"
Harry shook his head, still not looking up. Remus stood up from the couch.
"Apparently Severus already spoke with the Headmaster," he added. "You're not going to be allowed to go to Hogsmeade next weekend, and you earned yourself a three-day suspension. Madam Pomfrey is working on Ron right now - you broke his nose, and his cheekbone, as I understand."
"Good."
"Harry!"
"Well, he deserved it, Remus!"
Remus sighed and shook his head. "I can see I'm not going to get anywhere with this. Well - good night, Harry." He turned, regrettring what he had to say next, but he didn't have much of a choice.
"I shall have to speak with the Headmaster tomorrow regarding your actions, Harry," he concluded. "I don't understand why you consider this something you should be proud of, because I certainly don't see it that way."
Harry bowed his head again.
Remus went to his bedroom to retrieve a pair of pajamas for Harry. He stopped short in the living room door as he reentered it. Harry was still sitting, now with his face in his hands, not crying exactly, but by no means dry-eyed either.
Realization hit Remus like a pail of ice water: He, Harry's only parent, had disapproved of Harry's actions - and all Harry had wanted to do, ever since the day Remus had gotten custody, was to make his guardian proud. Never, not once in his life, had he lived up to anyone's expectations, and that was something he wanted desperately - and now Remus had proven to him that once again, he fell short of what was required of him.
Remus crossed the room, put the pajamas on the coffee table, and sat back down.
"You know, Harry - sometimes - well - oh, I don't know how to put it. But we all make mistakes. This was a pretty big one, Harry, and one that I hope you won't repeat."
Harry nodded mutely. Somewhat heartened, Remus continued.
"But even though I'm disappointed in the actions you took today, Harry . . . I still love you."
Harry looked up at his guardian and sniffled.
"Did I ever tell you about the time I was in the haymow when I wasn't supposed to be, and I fell out into a great big haystack - luckily - and made a great big mess of myself, right after Mum washed my good shirt and trousers, no less?"
Harry shook his head.
"I broke my wrist. Mum took care of it, and then she whaled me."
Harry laughed uncertainly at Remus' picturesque way of describing a beating with what he and all his sibings had called, with reverence and dread, 'the strap.' A typical punishment with 'the strap,' really nothing but an old four-foot long strip of loosely braided cowhide, consisted of five hits right across the backside, with occasionally more or less depending on the offence (Remus' record was fourteen, for trying to climb the roof). After two or three run-ins with 'the strap' - four or five if you were really dense - you learned. Remus, though smart, was the troublemaker in the family and though he "learned," he could never quite help himself. He'd lost count of his own trips to the woodshed years ago. Now he waited for Harry to quiet himself before continuing.
"You know, in the twelve weeks it took for my wrist to heal, Harry, Mum helped me get my shirt on in the morning, and cut my meat for me, and made sure I wasn't going to break it again by doing something stupid. She was furious when she pulled me out of that haystack, but she didn't stop loving me just because I did something I wasn't supposed to."
Remus stood up and patted the pajamas on the coffee table. "You get changed, and tomorrow we'll go talk to Dumbledore and see if we can't at least get your work while you're out."
Harry nodded. Remus stood and made for the bedroom, pausing at the door to watch Harry padding toward the washroom. The temper of one and the mischief of the other, he thought. No doubt who his parents are.
"Although," Remus murmured to himself, "sometimes I really do wonder where he got a nose like that." (4)
REFERENCE NOTES:
(1) All through the books (and even in the movies), the position of the House tables change. At times Gryffindor is third from the left; sometimes it's last in the row. It seems to me that at another point it's right next to Slytherin, which would make it second in line (since Slytherin is the only one that never seems to move but is always on the left-hand end). In this story the tables will always run (as viewed from left to right from the main doors of the Hall, facing toward the High Table) Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, Ravenclaw.
(2) "Hands to yourself" in Italian. I have several Italian friends, and have noticed that many of them (or pictures of their older, more Italian-blooded ancestors) have many of the features we associate with canon-Severus: larger noses, dark, coarse hair (and two of them have to wash their hair twice a day or it looks oily, even though it's not dirty!), and dark eyes. In addition, "sallow" skin would be skin of darker coloring (like the olive coloring of many older Italian families) that didn't see much sun; the darkish coloring is enhanced by a perpetual suntan, so losing that tan (even if it's not a very pronounced one) creates an unhealthy-looking pallor. Ever since Brandi (one of the friends in question) pointed this out to me, I have been unable to view Severus as anything but part Italian and in fact I write him with a rather diverse heritage, so this is definitely not the last time that one of his quaint little bits of ancestral wisdom or foreign-language phrases will pop up.
(3) I invented this drink, actually, and it's quite good - and also something that I think Remus would love. Take the largest coffee cup you own (travel mugs work very well) and fill it half full of coffee. Make a cup of hot cocoa (as chocolatey as you like), using milk, NOT WATER (water makes the whole thing taste funny). Froth the milk if you can, but it's not necessary. Put two scoops of coffee-flavored ice cream (you can also use vanilla or French vanilla ice cream, but chocolate doesn't work - trust me) into the coffee, and pour the hot cocoa over it. If you'd like, drizzle a little bit of chocolate syrup over the top. Enjoy. (Note that this is going to be kind of chilly because of the ice cream - even though it makes use of things like hot milk and coffee, the ice cream turns it into an iced drink.)
(4) Remus is just amusing himself when he says this; there's no secret Lily-James-someone-else triangle going on here. Actually, you could almost say that he's referring to his own nose, sort of . . . in a sort of convoluted, Remus-being-silly sort of way.