To his surprise and vexation, Ms Lovegood once again greeted him as soon as his eyes opened the next morning. "Good morning. I hope you slept well." Her long fair hair was again tangled up with her wand in a pile on top of her head. She wore a Ravenclaw blue jumper over a pair of brightly patterned trousers and some sort of cork hanging on a beaded necklace around her neck. Her eyes were as wide and dreamy as ever as she looked to him for a response.
He grumbled out a weak "Morning," and pushed himself into a seated position.
She held his letter in her hand and smiled brightly at his words. She must be staying nearby. Was it because of him? He hoped not.
"How are you feeling, Sir?" She leaned in.
"Still too early to tell," he whispered, noting the slight throb in his head and the gnawing burn in his throat.
She laughed. "Of course. I will ask you again in a bit then. Can I get you anything?"
He shook his head as he inspected her. She appeared well, perhaps a little pale with fatigue evident around her otherwise bright eyes, but she had put on some weight since he'd seen her last at the Malfoy Manor months ago. He saw no outward evidence of injury, but had no doubt she had suffered because of everything she had been through. How could she not?
"I received your letter. Thank you. It was lovely."
He cleared his throat, and her large, bright, grey eyes met his. "How are you, Ms Lovegood?" his damaged voice managed with only a fraction of the pain from the days prior.
"Oh?" She leaned back in the chair and fingered the letter in her hands. "I am still a bit odd most would say."
Severus got the impression she was being reticent. He scowled.
She smiled and gave him a characteristic dreamy look in response. "I am different now."
He nodded. "We all are," he murmured.
She nodded as she chewed her lip. "You seem stronger today."
He nodded. He was. It seemed likely he would survive this all.
"I'm glad. I really hoped we weren't too late. But your poor voice. I do hope you are not in too much pain, Sir."
He shook his head. How was he going to pry out the information from her about her own injuries if she remained so focused on his well being. He lacked the strength and control for legilimens.
They sat in silence for a while until Healer Pye pulled back the curtains. "Good morning, Mr Snape." He nodded to Severus who returned the nod. "And Ms Lovegood. Thank you for bringing the moondew." He handed a vile to Snape. "Drink up, Professor. This should help considerably"
Severus held the vile between his thumb and index finger, examining it by the poor lighting from the ceiling lamp at the center of the room. The color and viscosity seemed appropriate. He pulled off the stopper and sniffed its contents. Peppermint overwhelmed his senses but there were more subtle scents as well. As both the witch and mediwizard stared, he downed the vial and handed it back to the healer.
The healer nodded and looked to Luna. "I need to change that dressing. If you would excuse us a moment."
"Of course." She stood, becoming suddenly paler as her eyes became even more distant.
Before the healer could intervene, the witch collapsed to the floor with a thud, unconscious.
Ignoring his aching, stiff body and the tight burning in his throat, Severus jumped from the bed to join the healer next to Ms Lovegood. He reached for her wrist to find a strong pulse and the soft hum of her magic beneath his fingertips. Thank gods.
As he leaned over the witch, her eyes started to flutter open. "Oh!" She gasped and placed a hand over her diaphragm. "I guess I should have eaten breakfast this morning."
The healer waved his wand over the supine Ravenclaw running some sort of diagnostic charm and his eyes widened. "Ms Lovegood. Let's get you to a bed. I should do a more thorough evaluation. Can you stand?"
She sat up slowly, her eyes still distant. "Yes. I think so."
Both Severus and the healer assisted her to the cot next to his. "Are you ill?" Severus asked in a whisper as she laid back against the headboard.
The witch flushed as she shook her head and looked sideways at the healer. "No. I am as well as is to be expected. Probably just a bit dehydrated."
He had never known Ms Lovegood to be dishonest. He narrowed his eyes remembering Longbottom's words from yesterday. "Luna?" His injured voice chided despite the discomfort in his throat.
Her eyes snapped to his face at hearing her given name.
His stare continued until she looked away, flushing again.
"Healer Pye, could you excuse us a moment?" She said softly. "I promise I am well enough for now."
The mediwizard nodded. "Of course. This is not my area of expertise, anyhow. I will find you a more suitable Healer."
Her eyes slowly turned back to Severus, and she swallowed before looking away to the curtain. "I am not ill, Sir. I am… I am…" She paused and took a deep breath, looking at him again. "Why is this so difficult? I had no trouble at all telling Ginny or Neville." She shook her head.
He sat at the edge of her bed, still watching her with a raised eyebrow. His mind was flooded with images of the girl back at Hogwarts, dreamy-eyed and usually shoeless, in her Ravenclaw robes that never quite seemed to hang on her properly and usually adorned with some odd piece of jewelry; of her chewing her lip in potions lab as she struggled to stay focused on her work and not to daydream or conjecture aloud alternatives to the assigned recipe; of her constant defiance of him and the Carrows last year. Never, not even that night when he had been forced to harm her in front of an audience of Death Eaters, had she ever looked so unsure of herself.
"Luna? You are worrying me." He whispered, still feeling the sting from his last attempt at speech.
Her eyes brightened as they met his.. "Really? That's nice." She replied in her songlike tone.
He cleared his throat.
"I rather thought you had no feelings toward me one way or the other."
He clenched his jaw and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Is there not a point to get to?" He sighed.
She looked down at the letter which she still clutched in her hand. "Well, yes. There is. You see, Sir. I am not ill exactly, I am pregnant."
His jaw went slack. These were the last words he had expected from this former student, especially this one. He looked her up and down and swallowed against the sour taste in his throat, ignoring the burn, and cleared his throat. "How...how do you know?" His voice raspy but present.
"Well. There are many ways one knows, or course." She paused, her eyes closing briefly as she inhaled deeply. "None of which you likely want to hear details."
He nodded in agreement when she looked up to him.
"So it is probably easiest just to show you."
A weight grew in his chest, but he leaned into the witch as she repositioned herself as he wondered what she could mean to show him. Laying back on the bed, she pulled up her blue pullover to expose a sliver of her porcelain skin. She pulled her wand from her hair causing it to tumble down around her face and shoulders in waves before she pressed the wand tip just below her navel and mumbled an incantation under her breath. The sound of galloping hooves, like a hippogriff stampede, flowed from the wand. "It's a heartbeat, can you hear it?" She smiled. "Mrs Weasley taught me that charm. I think it's wonderful." She closed her eyes again for a long moment before looking up at him.
He nodded. His throat felt dryer and sorer than moments before. "How long have you known?"
She pulled her wand away and the sound ceased. "I assumed all along."
He looked at her abdomen, seeing the beginning of the roundness to hint of what was happening within. "How long have you been…with child?"
"Just over four months." She pulled down her sweater.
The blood drained from his face as his mind quickly calculated that that put her at Malfoy Manor. "Whose?"
Her eyes widened even further, if even possible, as that strange look of uncertainty appeared on her features again.
"Yours…" her tiny whisper answered as her eyes kept his, in a way few ever dared.
He swallowed as her words echoed in his thoughts. "Are you cerain?" Her face darkened, and he immediately felt guilty for what his words implied. "I mean, it was only a single encounter."
She nodded, still watching him. "Oh yes. That is why I am sure. There have been no others." She sat, pulling her knees into her chest with a small sigh.
He stood, running his hands through his hair. His throat tightened and his lungs burned as he struggled to maintain his breath and his mind. He had spent days suppressing the memory of his assault on Ms Lovegood so many months ago. It had disgusted him and the guilt became so distracting that he could not concentrate on anything else for days, but never once had he considered this consequence. But of course she had no access to her wand in the cellar of Malfoy Manor. How could he be so dense? This was completely preventable and entirely his fault if only he had been thinking clearly. He had let his own disgust and hatred cloud his better judgement. In his misguided and cruel attempts to protect her in the only way he could think, he had harmed her in ways he had not even bothered to consider. Fool.
"You said you assumed all along." He returned to the edge of her bed as his strength drained from his legs and his head felt light.
She nodded, staring up at the ceiling, a soft smile still on her lips.
He closed his eyes to stop the spinning. "How?" He looked back to her.
"It was a full moon. I could see it out the window." Her smile widened, and she patted the top of his hand as though this completely explained all he needed to know.
He willed himself not to pull away from her soft touch, as he tried to reason out her response. After a moment's thought, struggling to connect the moon with what had occurred between them, it dawned on him that she must be implying a correlation between the moon's cycle and her own, well, cycle. The peculiar witch would be synced with the moon.
"And you said nothing?" His brow tightened.
"Come now, Professor." She clicked her tongue.
He cringed at her unfortunate choice of words.
"Who was I going to tell? Draco? Bellatrix? Rodolphus?" She laughed at her own joke as she tucked her wand behind her left ear. "You?"
He shook his head. He had not laid eyes on the girl after that night until the Shrieking Shack. He could not bring himself to. He sighed. Had he been less of a coward, he could have at least checked on her wellbeing on occasion, even once might have changed this for her. He had the perfect excuse, considering the bargain he had made with the Dark Lord.
"I am not upset so why should you be?" She locked eyes with him again.
"But you are just a child!" The words tasted insincere coming out of his mouth and brought with them another fit of pain. As he struggled to gain his composure, he observed the witch sitting before him and the falsehood became all the more apparent. She was no longer that shoeless girl from seven years ago. She had seen more in those seven years than most see in a lifetime. She had resisted harder than many, experienced more darkness than many, and paid a higher price than most. Furthermore, in Pureblood families such as hers, it was not unusual for a woman to be married shortly after graduation. Luna's own mother likely conceived her within a year or two of completion of Hogwarts if she followed the traditional expectations.
"No, Professor."
"Stop calling me that." He groaned as he stood again, pacing the small space beside the bed within the closed curtain. Why must she remind him of his position as her former professor?
"Of course, Sir. I'm sorry." She picked up his letter from where it laid on the crisp hospital linen, caressing its edges, tracing his writing.
He groaned again as his fatigued body forced him to sit on her bedside again. "Did you not consider your options?"
She laughed, genuinely and deeply as she looked back to him. "Oh yes. I thought of many things while sitting in the cellar with Mr Ollivander. Mostly food." Her gaze became distant. "But I knew of spells and potions I could use had I been anywhere else. I even thought perhaps I could try to talk with Mrs Malfoy, but she never looked at me when she came to the cellar." Her eyes darkened briefly.
His mouth snapped shut. He was being unfair. She was a Ravenclaw afterall, even if a bit eccentric. Of course she had thoroughly considered her situation from all angles.
"When finally the opportunity to do something came to me, I knew I could not risk the chance of being incapacitated for days or even weeks with everything going on so I gave the potion back to Fleur and decided not to take it."
"Shite, girl! Does everyone in the entire Wizarding World know about this except me?" His entire body tensed.
"Don't be unfair." She clicked her tongue again. "I needed support. And only Ginny and Neville understand your involvement in this. Mrs Weasley suspects the worst, of course. Fleur asked no questions, though. She and Bill have been wonderful hosts. I'm not sure what Dean and I and Griphook would have done without them. So, really, I'm lucky, don't you think?"
He felt his face darken with both anger and embarrassment. "Gods, Luna…" he gasped, truly at a loss for other words.
"Sir, don't make this a tragedy. I'm not planning to." She gave him a crooked smile.
He looked up at her. "Call me, Severus."
Her face brightened. "Yes...Severus."
They sat in silence, her eyes with their usual dreamy look about them as he tried and failed not to take another glance at the witch's abdomen.
"In other news, your voice seems to be recovering nicely."
He snorted. "Indeed."
A female voice interrupted from outside the curtain. "Ms Lovegood. It is Healer Hughes. Healer Pye sent me."
"You may enter, Ma'am," Luna replied.
The woman in green pulled back the curtain and gave a look of surprise at seeing Severus sitting at the edge of the bed. "Oh, I apologize for the interruption."
Severus cleared his throat, experiencing only minimal discomfort. "I will step out." He stood, moved out of her curtained space and back to his own.
Flopping onto the bed, he let out a long sigh. He had to be dreaming or in some sort of twisted afterlife. There was no reality in which the powers of the universe would even consider him as a potential father. And to punish poor Ms Lovegood is such a way. Was the war not over? Had they not defeated the Dark Lord and his throng? Why then did Luna have to continue to suffer as though it weren't so? Why should she give the rest of her life for his negligence?
He shuddered as he forced back the memories of his hands on the young witch as others leered. Her body trembled under his rough touch, but she never struggled, never cried out, and never even cringed. Briefly, his eyes had met hers, wide and deep, probing into his own as though trying to see the thoughts beyond. He had forgotten about that moment until now, buried it within his many mental walls. A look he had mistaken for surrender, he now understood had been resolve, and perhaps something more. Had she really seen his motives? Did she really understand the terrible choice he made then as she said? She of all witches might have. She had swallowed down her fear, closed her eyes and looked away; to the window, to see the full moon staring back at her. That is when he had tuned her out, started his fantasy of the other women in order to complete the assault. When it finally ended, much to the sneering delight of those around them, he could not bear to look his student in the face again. To see the judgement, fear, and hatred in her bright eyes, but would it have been there? Now, he wondered if he would have found that same look of resolve had he dared to look, or perhaps even the forgiveness he found in her eyes now.
"Okay, Ms Lovegood. No need to worry. Both you and the little one are well and on track," Healer Hughes pronounced from the bed next door.
"Thank you very much, Ma'am," Luna responded. "Sorry for all the bother."
"No bother at all, Dear. Best of luck with the next six months. I would be happy to see you for your routine prenatal care if you wish." She stepped out from the curtains.
"Oh yes. Thank you. I will return then."
The healer's footsteps moved out of the room and silence seemed to echo in his ears as his thoughts swirled.
"Profes-Severus?"
He looked up to see Luna standing at his bedside, head cocked as she looked down on him.
"Sit."
She sat.
"You do not-"
"Shh, Sir. I have made my decision." She responded, clearly predicting what he planned to say.
"But how... How will you provide?"
She smiled and her eyes took on an even dreamier appearance. "I have the Quibbler."
He scoffed, and her face fell.
"You should give me more credit. I've already sold out of our first post-War edition. It outsold our previous best-selling issue by hundreds of copies, and we had to print more, thanks to an exclusive from Harry about how he did it and the whole Horcrux thing. Really great article in his own words. And I've got loads more planned. Everyone outside of Hogwarts is begging for details on what happened that night and before and what's next for Hogwarts and the Ministry. And thanks to the Order of the Phoenix, I've got connections to all of that."
"It's only been four days…" He mumbled, his throat aching again.
She nodded. "Yes well, as I said, you should really give me some more credit. I survived it all, and I intend to continue to do so." She gave him one of her dreamy looks.
He nodded. "Yes. I would seem so." He swallowed hard, as he remembered why the witch was here. Closing his eyes, he rested his head back against the headboard.
"Oh! I'm sorry. You need rest. I should leave now."
"Luna…" He forced himself to look at her. "I-" a coughing fit overtook him.
She placed a hand on his back. "We can talk later, Si-Severus. Rest now." She handed him the glass of water on his bedside table. As he drank, she stood and left the room, her loose golden waves flowing in her wake.
He shook his head before allowing it to fall back against the headboard. Gritting his teeth, he sighed, hoping Healer Pye would bring him some Dreamless Sleep soon. Perhaps he could request some Mind Numbing potion as well.
A/N: Please show me some love, leave a review.