Canto V
This was the first time Luna displayed significant emotion in the entirety of their exchange; she drew in her breath and whispered, "You will miss him."
Taken aback, Snape besought his reason to define his emotive state. But the rational Athena had nothing to say, and the Greek authors of archetype, being the champions of reason, had never known or cared what kind of second child Metis was to bear Zeus.
Thus, Severus did not know that he should be pleading to the unborn and unacknowledged younger brother of Athena, the intuitive Diaisthisos. Because of the ancient oversight, there were no members of Severus' inner parliament that could suggest how he should mourn the last of the Marauders. So he did not, despite feeling a strange sense of guilt about it.
"No, I won't. Serves him right," he said lowly, though he could not help but remember his own urgent effort to save Lupin, at risk of his own hide, during the battle of far-too-many Potters. He still did not know what to think about this except that it had been his duty to try and prevent the death of the one man who actually could love Lily's boy unreservedly.
"Not everyone who hurts other people is evil," Luna suggested, absentmindedly twisting a ringlet around her finger five times. Before Severus could express his outrage and affirm that Lupin, as far as he could see, had developed few if any redeemable qualities since his first day at Hogwarts, as lithe as a water-nymph she had smoothly leaped away to another mental stepping-stone. "Do you know what the French chess players do with poly-ponies?"
In his state of irritation, this question, absurd in most circumstances, was far too esoteric for Snape, who just scowled at her.
"Excuse me, but do you know?" she asked, and he, in his best imitation of an angry poly-pony (whatever that was) flared his nostrils haughtily.
"I wonder why no one will tell me." This idea perplexed her for the briefest of moments, but she brightened again and cast her eyes upon him. "Maybe I'm mistaken, and it actually has to do with French cellists. The flobberworm who told me about it spoke an unusual dialect."
As she mentioned flobberworms, her luminescent eyes reminded him of a newt's, and he briefly considered filleting her for potions ingredients.
"But I understood most of the story as he told it to me," she continued, turning her head to look at the moon. "It was a sad tale. Since I do not like telling sad tales, I will tell it to you in a happy way."
"I don't want to hear it," said Snape, who did not think himself enough of a martyr to wade through such a story, especially when told to him by her.
"There was a French Something, a poly-pony, and an ugly duckling," said Luna, not paying him much attention. "The ugly duckling was deeply enamored with the poly-pony. I expect it was because the poly-pony thought the ugly duckling was actually handsome, in a rustic, wild, intense sort of way, and they had been friends for a long time."
The way she framed her tale actually caught Snape's attention, as an individual whose well-meaning mother would give him Hans Christian Anderson to read after his father yelled at him for looking like a snivelling little coward who should just go out in the cold white woods of winter and stay there.
Was Luna Lovegood just dotty, or was she giving him an impromptu lesson on morality?
"Don't go on," he insisted, raising his hand and pressing it against his bowed forehead.