Snuna Showcase: Ashes, by uninhibited333
Dear Members,
The snuna_exchange won't officially open until February, but I thought that you might enjoy indulging in some Snuna before then. Toward that end, I'm introducing the Snuna Showcase. From time to time, I'll post a Snuna fic that I find particularly fine. The first of these stories is Ashes, by uninhibited333.
I bid on a fic from uninhibited333 during the livelongnmarry auction, which was held to support marriage equality by raising funds to defeat California Proposition 8 (2008). While it is profoundly upsetting to me that Proposition 8 was successful, I cannot be sorry that so many of us in fandom gave of our time and talent to support the basic civil right of marriage for all people, regardless of their sexual orientation. I am certainly not sorry to have received such an amazing Snuna fic from uninhibited333, and I believe that lovers of the pairing should have the opportunity to read it-right now!
Without spoiling the fic, I tell you that Ashes is a story of incredible depth and characterization, told with sublime succinctness, and it illustrates for me why Snuna works without destroying the mystery of the 'ship. Ashes proves that hope may be found rising from them, and the fic left me wanting more without being wanting. I hope that you'll love it as much as I do.
iulia_linnea
Mod-in-Chief
The Snuna Exchange
~*~
Snuna Showcase: Ashes
Author: uninhibited333
Beta Readers: betelin_notecor and bryoneybrynn
Rating: NC-17
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): For some violence.
Word Count: 6767
Summary: After the end of the war two unlikely survivors come together: one injured, one pushed past all endurance, both of them broken.
Ashes
i.
You remember a scene. The view from behind a polished desk. A round room.
A pale girl, standing tall. The smooth lines of her arms going into wrists going into hands going into fingertips...
A glint of defiance in the grey eyes, the shape of her mouth: "I won't stop."
Your hands in front of you, clutching the edge of the desk as if waiting to be brushed off. Your voice: hoarse; uneven; scared?
"Kindly shut up, Lovegood -"
Again. "I won't stop."
"Lovegood -"
"I won't stop."
Her shoulders thrown back and the sudden rise of terror inside of you, this isn't working, a sudden taste of bitterness and then a forced calm: "Silencio!"
Her gaze rising, meeting yours, and the words, written in her eyes and soul and mind and you don't know what to do -
"Crucio." Pain will work. Won't it?
The elegant curve of her body as she falls, the burst of blood from her lips before she screams, twisting...
"Lovegood, stop being so foolish. If you continue to act in this way you will be punished, and harshly. Somehow you have failed to understand the magnitude of your situation, and I will not stop until you have been convinced of it!”
She will understand. If it kills you, her, if it kills you both, if it - Urgently you grab her arm, you speak into her face, you meet her eyes and you cup her jaw and she listens -
"Lovegood, the Dark Lord and his followers are not to be trifled with and mocked and they are not there for the amusements of you and your little friends. You think you are being smart and clever, you think that death and pain and humiliation will never happen to you, but they will. They will, do you understand me? I do not care how long it takes, if I have to beat this rebellion out of you I will - you are not accomplishing anything but the pain of your friends and followers, such as they are. You are putting yourself and them in danger and I will not stand for it!”
And then she speaks, and her face is too close but you don't move and blood rolls down her cheek: "Are you scared for us? You are, aren't you..."
Yes, "Shut up. Shut up, you impudent, stupid child!"
"We won't stop it, you know." She seems content here, broken as she is; she smiles, looks as if she would laugh if she could, her eyes very wide, "You can try to protect us all you can, but if we don’t fight then we’re on their side.” Isn't it obvious? she laughs inside her mind, knowing that you can understand her, and there isn't anything you can do - “If we go along with it then we’re no better than Voldemort himself -”
- Around you, the portraits rustle and tut -
- You shake her; she smiles; there is blood on your hands -
You remember the scene. The old ugly man and the young girl; black robes against pale skin; harsh terror against pure faith -
__________
ii.
You are the injured, now. No longer Voldemort’s most trusted, no longer Voldemort’s follower at all, you lie struggling in the soil, gasping and weakened. You are dying, she knows, when she finds you at the mouth of the tunnel, but that does not stop her for calling for help, or pressing a wad of her robe over the gushing wound in your neck.
There is a curious kind of poetry in it, though: once you crouched over her in this way, your hand tight around her arm and your hand in her hair; now it is she that watches your grimacing lips, and brushes her hair away from where it falls over your face. Oh, how the roles have reversed, but there is little pleasure in the thought.
__________
iii.
While the anxious girl calls for a Healer and tries to save his life, Severus dreams.
He dreams for three days; for two, they are of pain and sorrow and Lily. At first she crumbles to sighs and dust, again and again; he tries to pick it up, screaming, but the air whips around him and his voice is lost and the dust creeps into the ground and is gone -
(She sits with him in the hospital; close enough to touch, though she doesn't. She watches the walls and crunches a Dirigible Plum, and the Healers all ignore her politely)
The dreams change, slowly. The one that wakes him up
(he wakes up on the third day)
is ethereal and delicate and very unlike him. In it he sees Lily lying face down in a lake of water, her hair floating like a billowing sheet all around her. He wades in, pulling at her shoulder - and something breaks, something below his chin, on his throat; like a final breath of air escaping from a dying thing. He looks down and there is blood spreading down his chest, and when he reaches up there are flaps of skin, ragged, on his neck... a snake? Poison? He remembers - something - Looking up his hand falls, but she is further away now - has she drifted? There are no ripples - and he can see that the tips of her fingers are blue and the water is rising, is he moving? He tries to walk towards her, the water is almost up to his neck now, it sucks him in, and as he nears Lily he sees his blood spiralling outwards in the water like her hair. It reaches her, and with a shock he thinks No because this isn't Lily, Lily's hair is red, not gold, not -
(Luna is reading a rather interesting Prophet article on the subject of Slimy Snape's Lost Love (which Proved the Key to Defeating Y-K-W, apparently), and doesn't notice him stir. She notices when his breathing hitches, though. He begins to tremble and she calls for a Healer, and reaches out and grasps his hand firmly, he shouldn't be alone)
- He turns her over and she is not Lily but Lovegood; the shock is so great that he nearly slips, the water lapping at his chin, the blood issuing through the water and making it a thick reddish-brown. She opens her eyes suddenly and they are very grey and sleek, and without any trouble she stands up, rising out of the water and saying, "I won't stop, you know, I can do this -" She is wearing a thin white dress; it clings to the shape of her shoulders and breasts and the water keeps rising. It reaches his nose and then further, and the water feels very light and sweet in his lungs and not bad at all.
("That's it," says the Healer, as he slowly stops thrashing and his eyes begin to flicker. "He's coming round now..." Luna licks her lips, which are suddenly very dry)
__________
iv.
The air in his chest screams and scrapes; the girl sitting watching him is pale and calm.
"What are you doing here?" and it sounds nothing like him, it shakes and quails and it sounds very small, and - thank Merlin - there is no sympathy in her eyes.
"I wanted to sit with you." Her hands are folded in her lap, her hair tangled and hanging past her shoulders.
"You -" and Merlin, the pain - he flounders in it, coughs and coughs and feels the rawness of new skin and the cold air hitting it, and he turns away but then her hand is on his shoulder, go away -
"What?" he croaks.
"There's water, here. It's got something in it - painkilling, to soothe the burn..."
"I - yes." He takes it. There is silence for a moment.
One last attempt at dignity, as he turns away his face and grimaces with the pain of it: “So why are you really here, Miss Lovegood? To laugh at me? To mock the failed spy who died mere hours before the end of his mission? Or perhaps you imagined some sort of reconciliation, in which I reveal that my personality is really a facade concealing some sort of - of friendly exterior… well, I can assure you -”
“You should drink the water. Your throat is probably still tender. You’ve been through serious magical surgery, you know.”
No, he doesn't know. "Where is this?" he snaps
"St Mungo's. This is a secure room; there are press waiting for you. They want to congratulate you, take an interview..." She trails off, still watching him steadily, but not with any hostility. "The war is over. Voldemort is dead."
"But then - Potter -"
"Harry lived. He did die, for a while, but then he came back." A tiny smile shapes her lips.
"Why are you really here?"
"You know, Professor."
"Well, no, I don't -" He bristles a little, lifts his head. "You had no right -"
"Why are you angry?" She sounds a little exasperated. “I sat with you because I had nowhere else to go, because my house has burned down and nobody was here with you and I thought somebody should be.”
"...Your house -?" is all he can think to say.
"The Death Eaters. They ran away," she swallows, her white throat flexing, "after Harry killed Voldemort. We thought they were just trying to escape, but they were carrying out some last orders." A slight shrug, her eyes still fixed on his, "They burned down the houses of blood traitors. Mine was one. My father was - was inside."
He would say he's sorry, but instead he sips the water.
__________
v.
Time slows inside the white room and clean, sharp corners of his bed. Lovegood stays, sitting in the only chair. Mostly he avoids her eyes.
He isn't allowed to leave, the bitch Healer tells him: he wants to kill something.
"I'm sorry," she doesn't sound it, "But I cannot let you leave unless I know someone will be with you. There are procedures - you'll need someone to apply the salve, it can be very tricky -"
"I know how to apply a damned recovery salve, woman!"
"Not this one, you don't. And I won't stand for that tone, either. You're not doing yourself any favours, young man." She is sternly stubborn, her arms folded across her impressive bosom.
Lovegood has been getting food, or visiting the bathroom or something; she slips in the door now, behind the Healer, her forehead delicately wrinkled as she listens.
"You'll be here for another week if you're not careful, the way you've been acting. You're talking, as well, more than you should be, and you're to rest that throat of yours -"
"I can do whatever I please!" he retorts. "I'm a trained professional, madam, or had you missed the fact? I have worked with potions my entire life -"
"I'm not letting you leave until you can prove that someone will be living with you."
"Just who would you suggest that be? I've no relatives living and I'm not one to open my home to strangers -" and the ache starts up again, deep in the back of his throat - soon it will begin to itch and then smart and then dig and he'll cough, "I've lived alone for years, I can survive without supervision -"
"I'll stay with him."
"I - what?" The Healer swings around, her robes flaring a little. Lovegood smiles a little.
"I'll stay with him, if he needs it. Unless Professor Snape would rather I didn't, of course." She almost looks demure, and has managed to run a brush through her hair. Severus sneers at her.
"I - Professor?" She swings round again, this time regarding Severus with her eyebrows raised. "You can say yes or you can stay here. What's it to be?"
Damn her. Damn them both. "I suppose... if Lovegood has nowhere else to go then I would be - content to provide some form of shelter, and if I just - happened - to need help with medical treatment, well then I couldn’t exactly fault… it would be - most convenient...” He trails off.
"It's settled then." The Healer gives a brisk nod, her glasses slipping to the end of her nose. "You'll leave tomorrow."
__________
vi.
For years you have hidden in the safety of words. You have sought them in times of distress and uncertainty, pulled them around you like a shroud and sheltered yourself with their harsh consonants and drooping vowels. They have nurtured you and you have used them for a thousand different reasons: to reject; to punish; to console; to kill. They have been your safe place and your certainty. They have been a part of you for as long as you can remember.
Imagine the pain, at losing that. Imagine the loss. Imagine the feeling of words lodged in a mouth like broken glass, unable to emerge; imagine the sense of blood and skin and friction as someone coughs, madly; imagine the fractured sounds that fly outwards and are lost to the cold air. Imagine that pain.
Feel the helpless rage as you choke on your own breath. Feel the line of your grimacing lips as you refuse to cough, and then cough anyway. Feel the sensation of words ripped through your ruined throat and forced outwards in the shape of a hacking and tearing pain, and feel the shame of it.
Watch her face, watch her mouth move in exquisite perfection and pitch and tone: "Let me put on the salve. It'll help. Don't be stubborn."
She can speak, she can shape the air; she flaunts it in front of you smugly. You feel a kind of trapped rage, and if you are sure of one thing it is that you will not let her put that salve on.
She sighs. Stop being such a nuisance, Severus. That's what she's thinking; you can tell. Stop acting like a stubborn child. But the words don't come, and the pain is worse than coughing, worse than Nagini's fangs, worse than the hot sweet venom running down your chest or the sight of Potter's shocked eyes or Lily's angry rejection or the Mark's evil burn or the children of Hogwarts torturing their peers under the Carrows or Lovegood who won't stop, won't stop, or the crack of your mother's arm breaking or your terrified young face in the mirror after you kill your first Muggleborn, who had red hair and looked like Lily.
The pain is of uncertainty; you feel the loss of control and the slow burn of it in your veins tries to send you mad.
(It's the shock, she thinks. After all, he had that special water with the pain-relief in it, and now he's refusing to let her put the salve on, and it's really very stupid of him to go completely cold turkey when he's been through something so invasive as magical surgery)
__________
vii.
House arrest: that's what this is. Quite literally. Apparently it was one of the Ministry's demands, that Snape be under supervision at all times and "strongly discouraged" to leave. When Snape heard this he felt like laughing: You think I'd be safer with a Lovegood than by myself? You utter fools -
He's not allowed his wand, but he'd rather not dwell on that - how its absence feels like a missing limb; how, numerous times, he has groped in his robes for it, forgetting.
He broods, silently glaring at the walls and the books. He tries not to think too much. Of course, he thinks too much.
Being back here... it does not bother him as much as he thought it would. After all, he has returned here every year of his life, and just because the Dark Lord is finally gone, nothing much has changed. He is still himself, he is still here...
The door clicks open behind him. He'd snap What? but he knows that it's Lovegood, for the third time. With that damned salve. Not to mention the fact that every attempt at speech ends with a rather humiliating fit of coughing.
"Professor Snape."
He looks at her. She looks back.
"Salve?"
He looks away, pointedly. She sighs. And then she bends over him and grabs his left arm, and says firmly, "Get up."
Who does she think she is? He jerks his arm back, but she just grips him harder and says, "No - you had your chance. You're getting up." He glares at her and she lifts her wand, pointing it into his face.
"Don't make me." She sounds tired when she says it, and genuine.
Somehow he ends up in the kitchen, in front of the window and sitting in a wooden chair.
"Right, then," says Lovegood, and swings a leg over his lap, effectively straddling him. He is shocked enough to let out a surprised hiss, but then she twists open the tub of salve in her hand and says blithely, "If you speak, Professor, I'll stun you, and I'm not sure what active external magical influence would do to this."
Bitch.
She wiggles a little on his lap, lifting away the dressing on his scars and training her eyes on his neck. "Just..." she holds his chin, angles his head upwards so that he has to look right down his nose to see her. Frowning slightly she puts one hand down to the tub of salve, which she must have left open on her leg, and scoops a bit out. A sharp smell, like citrus and herbs, reaches him, and he wants to close his eyes.
"I -tell me if this hurts you, okay?" and then she touches his throat with her fingertips. Immediately, he feels a warmth entering him and curling through his body; he swallows without pain for the first time since she got here. His eyes slide shut despite himself and he hears a high half-laugh: Lovegood.
"Better?"
Her fingers begin to move, then, stroking and gently pressing. He's only seen his scars a couple of times, but he knows what they look like - a mess of crosshatched lines meeting in the middle, very pink and sensitive-looking. Slitting open his eyes, he sees Lovegood frowning slightly, biting down on her lower lip, and the motions are now more circular, and - he can't think of another way to put this - it feels weird. Numbness suddenly washes down his throat - it disappears when he swallows, and then she strokes along each scar, careful and slow; the whole front of his throat is tingling and then she stops, and it's over.
"There you go." A secret smile painted behind her eyes, and her mouth twisting in amusement. "I suppose you'll let me do this three times a day from now on, now that you know how it feels?"
He opens his mouth, and when he snaps, "Get off me," he feels... nothing. No slow burn, no bitter taste - just a slight twinge of indignation when she smiles wryly.
She swings her leg round and off him, pressing her hands against his chest so that she doesn't fall. "I think I'll do it like that next time, as well," she says, thoughtful, "It was very comfortable, actually."
He feels a dull heat in his cheeks - for the life of him he doesn't know why - and shrugs off the hand that remains resting on the center of his chest. "Excuse me."
"Oh, sorry." She turns to the stove. "I suppose I should make dinner, then -"
"No. I will - you did yesterday. And besides," he curls his lip at her, "Your attempts at cooking leave something ... to be desired."
Oh, yes. It feels good to speak again.
__________
viii.
They receive two visits in the next fortnight. The first is from Minerva; the first thing Snape thinks when Lovegood says to him, "Professor McGonagall is here," and the woman herself steps through the door, is Fuck off, you old crone.
He doesn't - although thanks to his surrender on the salve front (Lovegood applies it three times a day as instructed), he could if he wanted to.
"I'll just ... leave you to it, then," says Lovegood, the hint of a question in her voice. Minerva nods curtly.
"If you please, yes."
"I do believe she was talking to me," Severus drawls as Lovegood slips out of the room. "Since this is my home. You are merely visiting, yes?"
"Yes. I -" She looks around her, presses an imaginary pin tighter into her hair. "May I sit down, Severus?"
"Feel free." He gestures limply at the sofa, himself sinking into the armchair. "Why are you here?" May as well get it over with.
She purses her lips and then looks up at him; the anxiousness in her eyes makes him lean back a little. "Well. I - first of all, I feel I must apologise."
"Whatever for?"
"For doubting you when - when Albus died."
He rolls his eyes. "Of course you did, Minerva. I killed him, remember?" His voice lowers to a smooth hiss. "Now, if that is quite all - please take your leave."
She draws herself upright. "I am not finished, Severus -"
"It certainly seems as if you are to me. As far as I can tell your sole motive in coming here was to apologise for - why? Because you felt you should, I suppose; ah, yes, a Gryffindor to the core, is Minerva McGonagall."
"You're welcome to return to Hogwarts, you know."
"Am I?" He lets that sink in for a second and then looks away. "In any case, I have no wish to return - there. I trust you understand why."
At least she has the grace to look abashed. "Yes."
"If that's all -"
"What about Miss Lovegood, Severus?"
"What about her?"
She sniffs. "I - she still has a year of schooling left. I thought that -"
"What has that to do with me? Ask the girl yourself."
"Well, I merely..." she trails off, fidgeting with the pin again. "You have to know what is being said, Severus..."
"Minerva, I'm under unofficial house arrest. I haven't been taking many trips around the neighbourhood."
"You have not been receiving the Prophet?"
"No. Should I have been?" Get to the point, woman.
She takes a deep breath and then says in one breath, "There has been a lot of speculation as to the relationship between yourself and Miss Lovegood."
He does not reply for a while, but when she stares at him for a few minutes longer he says, "... And?"
"And that should disturb you at least a little, Severus! The girl is barely of age, she's an orphan - do you know she hasn't spoken to her friends or - her friends - since the battle? She was with you in St Mungo's and now she's here! She hasn't even visited the site of her house, or gone to her father's funeral - Severus, what in the heavens is going on? There have been some - unsavoury comments about this whole affair, and though the Ministry seem content to ignore you completely apart from this - forced restriction on your movements - if this girl is in trouble I shall be forced to intervene."
He lets his lip curl a little. "Nobody does self-righteous quite like you, Minerva."
When she replies her whole body has gone taut as a harp-string, or a cat ready to pounce. "So you won't reply. I think I've seen quite enough, Severus, I will be taking Miss Lovegood with me when I depart -"
"What?" He almost laughs with incredulity. "Where is this coming from? Sit down, you are embarrassing yourself. Do you really assume," he says, "that I have been keeping Lovegood here against her will? As some sort of ... sex-slave? Really?"
No one can do sarcasm, he thinks smugly, quite like him.
"I am merely saying -"
"- That I am molesting a Hogwarts student, yes. The same one who saved my life, yes. Luna Lovegod, yes -" His voice rises and with panic he senses that ache again, that ache that comes before the coughing. "Minerva, I wonder why you apologised for thinking me evil when you seem perfectly convinced that I am a sexual predator preying on young girls."
"I was -"
"Lovegood is of age. She can come and go as she pleases; she has a wand and I do not. Please do not assume that I am keeping her here, imprisoned; as a matter of fact, she imposed herself on me, and I was obligated to receive her. She has since been an invaluable help to me and seems quite content to stay - if you wish I can get her right now and you can ask her exactly what sordid happenings have been going on under this roof: if the answer disappoints you, my sincere apologies. Now -" He stops, biting his lip.
"Severus?"
He holds up a hand, tries to swallow. No - he will not, he will not cough -
He coughs. Once, twice, three times. He loses count after that.
The absence of this for so long has made the recurrence far worse - he shakes with it, certain that blood will spatter his hand at any moment, this is so humiliating... Behind him he vaguely hears Minerva saying something but he tries to wave her away, and then the door opens beside him and he sees a blur of pale hair and smooth grey eyes: "Time for your salve, I think, Professor -"
Her touch, light on his elbow; she steers him into the kitchen and then returns to the living room, where he assumes she lets dear Minerva depart. When she enters the kitchen again the salve is clutched in her hand, and she runs a glass of water at the sink for him.
"Here, try to sip it. I can't put this on if you're coughing, you know that."
Her smile is impossibly peaceful, and somehow he knows that she has heard every word.
"That's better, then, Professor. Now -" she makes as if to straddle him again (a practice which she has unfortunately not stopped, yet).
"Don't call me that," he whispers, unwilling tears filling his eyes with the smarting pain. "It's Severus. I'm ... not a Professor ... anymore..."
"All right, then. Severus." She smiles when she looks at him, then, and he squeezes his eyes tight shut.
__________
ix.
Their second visitors that fortnight are one Harry Potter and one Girl Weasley. Apparently, Potter wants to 'talk' to him, and that is said very ominously; Weasley, on the other hand, feels as if she and Lovegood are due a "chat - gosh, Luna, you haven't been in touch at all!" Severus pretends not to notice the hostile look she gives him, and the protective way she grasps Lovegood's arm.
"We'll take the kitchen, then. Harry and Professor Snape can speak here." Lovegood's eyebrows have reached dizzying heights.
"Well?" demands Severus, rounding on Potter after the white of Lovegood's summer dress disappears through the door.
"Uh. I wanted to... talk to you?" The boy really should do something about that fidgeting problem. "About - about my mum?"
Something heavy sinks right to the pit of Snape's stomach.
That conversation... does not go well.
Half an hour later Potter and Weasley depart, the former looking severely disheartened (unfortunately not defeated, however) and the latter grimly offended. Lovegood watches them out the window, and then declares in a flat voice, "Salve."
"What? Oh. Yes."
In silence they go to the kitchen. He doesn't protest the straddle this time, putting up with it. It does make for a much easier application, after all. Lovegood twists open the salve, says, "Almost done, this, I'll have to get some more," and then, "Ginny thinks we're hiding from the world. She thinks we're fucking, to fill the void of grief, or - or something like that."
"Er." He lets her direct his head upwards again, closes his eyes as her hands move, as soothing and methodical as they always are despite the agitation in her voice.
"I mean," she suddenly says halfway through, "I'm not hiding. From anything. Anything. I'm not. I don't need - the Quibbler, or the house, or - This is enough."
He cannot speak (obviously, being in the middle of treatment), but cannot think of what he would say, in any case.
Afterwards, she says it again, not moving from him. "This is enough." A childish insistence in the way she says it, but then her eyes meet his, and he feels his pulse begin to throb a little faster.
"It is..." Her head slowly dips towards him and her hands move to each side of his face; an inch away from him she licks her lips, drags her teeth over them, and her eyes are still and smooth and furiously warm, like fresh ashes.
It is... like being dragged up from a great distance. Their lips meet, softly at first, and as gentle as the brush of her hair on his cheek. She breathes in, a backwards sigh, moving her hands to behind his head, opening her mouth; finally he responds, breaks the surface of whatever ocean she's dragging him from. One of his hands moves to the nape of her neck, the other on her thigh - slipping under the skirt of her dress and sliding upwards and she makes an urgent sound and rocks against him; their mouths begin to properly move now, she's licking his lips and his tongue slips past hers and he smells the scent of her, sweet and deep and reckless and - her thighs squeezing over his, their hands tighten, pulling hair. Tongues press against each other and Merlin, they're so wet, lips sliding and his nose hitting hers and the delicious friction of her arse against his cock and then she pulls away and licks a hot stripe down his neck -
__________
x.
They don't make it far past the living room. Afterwards Severus gasps for breath on the cold floor, feeling the air scrape against his throat. Lovegood lies against him, watching him; one cheek is on the floor, one arm too, splayed out above her head and bent round. With the other, she runs her nails up and down Severus's side. He quite likes the feeling.
"Lovegood -"
"Please," her lips are very red, "Don't call me that."
"I -" but he doesn't know what to say and stops, feeling quite discomfited. Her gaze travels down his scarred neck, over his chest, lower, to his cock. He wants to pull away, cover himself, say something cutting, leave... But before he can, she puts her hand flat against his side and moves it slowly, inexorably downward. "Severus," she says (breathes), moving her head up round, towards his, "Stop thinking so much." She even sounds a little amused, and that does it. She's laughing at him, she's - he tries to roll onto all fours to get up but only gets halfway there before she's there again, so very close and warm and strong -
"No - no, no, no," she says into his mouth, and somehow she's twisted so that she's under him, mostly, and that hand sweeps upward again to his ribs as the other arm winds around his neck. "Don't, I -"
"Lovegood -"
"Luna."
"... Luna... I don't know how - I can't..." Focus, man. Focus. (Her hair spread out like a fan around her face, cheeks tinted... Under him, her body slim but firm, her legs tenacious and one rubbing against his, her knee bending and relaxing again and again) "No, I -"
"Shh." That sounded almost vicious, and she bites his lower lip and then licks it. He kisses back (helplessly, how can he not?) as she arches her back and flexes her stomach; presses up against him as he presses down against her. He's hard again - Merlin - her small breasts against him, one leg bending -
The first time had been with her on top - Luna - they had both been rocking desperately, her mouth open and breathing harsh, and his orgasm had been frenzied and so powerful he had almost passed out. This - this is slower, he on top and kissing her slowly, one hand braced against the floor and the other touching her face. She makes a tiny sound of contentment, stretches up against him, and her legs wrap around his waist as both his hands brace his weight now. He sinks into her, inch by exquisite inch, and she flexes around him and her breath hitches. She props herself up on one arm to kiss him more easily - he feels her smile against his mouth - and they move in tandem, long strokes and flowing lines that neither of them ever want to escape from.
The orgasm builds up this time, gradual and powerful; he can feel tingling, moving up and down his back and legs and focusing on his groin, the feeling concentrated in his cock as it moves in and out of her, languid at first and then with increasing speed and friction. She makes little breathy sounds, gasps into his mouth, and he bends his head to kiss behind her ear, and then lower, as far down as his neck will allow him. She arches into him, her breasts rubbing against his chest, and her legs squeeze around his waist more and more quickly. "I - I -" she says, and then "Ohhhhh," and her eyes slide shut, her muscles locking up and releasing abruptly, shaking. He thrusts a little harder and then comes himself, and the feeling is like an immense pooling heat, like being sunk into a pit of molten gold or silver or - or like - like - he can't think. He - Merlin -
"This is enough," he hears as he slips out of her and then collapses with her.
"Wh- what?"
Her eyes just meet his and one of her hands finds one of his; the fingers twine like vines around it. "I don't want to leave," she tells him, sounding hopeless, somehow, and he wants to kiss her.
"Then don't. Why should you?"
Her head shakes almost imperceptibly. "Just - I don't think... I want to stay here. I like it here. I'm not hiding."
"All right." Ginny Weasley? And she heard Minerva talking to him - is that it? He doesn't -
"I'm not!" she whispers, angry not at him but someone - something - else.
"All right," he repeats, and they stay like that for a while, on the cold floor. After a while she reaches up and he thinks she is pulling him down for a kiss, but instead she just bows her head against him as if she is tired, or despairing.
__________
xi.
She does hide. You would be a fool if you thought she didn't; she hides from her life before you, from her broken house and father's corpse and the once soft love of her parents for her that has now rotted - now leaks and stinks of death and the clutching, desperate hands of ghosts. You hide too: from Potter's desperation that day, his need for any type of family, any type of connection to someone; you hide from the outside world and the tabloids, and what people would do to you if they saw you in the street (embrace you or tear you apart? You can never decide. Neither can you decide which you'd prefer). You hide from sunlight, from the absence of Voldemort and something definite to fear (or serve).
Together the two of you forge a normality and the semblance of a life. You no longer need justifications or words, you realise; a touch can convey a thousand words and thoughts and more, and above all you love to touch Luna, love to stroke her skin and pull her hair and see her skin bruise under your fingertips.
She can pull you apart and fix you with a sigh, she can be gentle and angry and violent all at once, she could rip your skin with her nails and carve her name in your soul as you watch the blood rise up to fill the furrows. On some days you panic, think she's harming herself, by being here - what did Minerva say about closure? Shouldn't you make her leave rather than keep her here for nothing more than your own pleasure?
But all it takes is a look from her and you are undone. Her delicate fragility is what seems to get you, every time, and you could believe that she knows exactly how to move against and under you to make sure that endures.
Do you love her or do you hate her? You can never tell -
One night after you have fucked and are still tangled together and slick with sweat, she suddenly curls up against you.
"Don't make me leave," she whispers, "I don't want to leave."
"I don't know what you -"
"I want to stay here with you," She kisses you, tasting of salty copper. "Let me stay, let me - I like it - I -"
In the end you (always) attempt comfort clumsily, and try to make your voice gentle as you say, "You can stay. If you want to stay, then I..."
Her smile in the darkness, her teeth against your cheek, "Oh, Severus..."
__________
He dreams.
The landscape is harsh and empty; the ground is hard and flat; the sky no colour at all, like eggshells. He narrows his eyes and hunches his shoulders, feeling disturbed. Instinctively, he knows that he is dreaming, although powerful magic can still be performed through dreams; the knowledge brings him no comfort.
-ck-ck-ck-
The sound comes from behind him, a click-clicking like the rattle of train-tracks. Turning, he frowns, looks, there's nothing there, is there? But then colours blur and shimmer and then she stands in front of him, Lily, bone-white and carved-looking, as if this is not her or the memory of her but some imitation, a fake model of the way she once was, not her and yet so much more...
"Sssssseverus..." her teeth glint like blades, her hair very red and eyes a deep green and her voice hissing and this isn't anything like her, is it? but still he reaches towards her and feels a deep joy inside of him at seeing her again because it's like she isn't really dead, I didn't kill you I didn't did I? and she laughs, reaching for and into him and then for a while there is nothing but her and the feel of her, and the joy.
After a (second) (day) (week) (life) while she pulls away. He falls to his knees, looking up at her as she smiles and walks seven steps back from him. Her wrists and fingers look very fragile and yet strong, so white and her fingernails so blue -
Her eyes close.
She hisses a "Yessss."
And then he sees it - a pair of hands around Lily's waist, small and delicate, and a leg twining around Lily's leg from behind. He tries to stand, feeling a burst of anger, who would enter his dream and steal his lover? but he cannot move, and then a face peeks from around Lily's shoulder, hair more white than yellow, and keen grey eyes, and blood-flushed lips, and -
"Lovegood?" he mouths, and doesn't know if it makes a noise.
A tiny smile on Luna's lips, now, a gentle curve of cruel amusement, as Lily gives a raucous laugh and twists and then there are hands everywhere, moving and smoothing and stroking; they both fall to the ground and there is laughter in his ears from both of them. As he watches, watches the bones of Lily's hand fondling a breast and stroking down her ribs, he sees: Luna's face begin to blur together as Lily kisses her; their legs writhing together beginning to merge and swirl together, like watercolours sloshed together and combining; finally, not two separate bodies but one, one that wears Luna's eyes and Lily's mouth and both of their wrists and ankles -
And then it reaches towards him and he feels himself begin to move. No, but their smiles are so inviting and their hands stroke so lovingly, no, but they don't listen and their breath is so cold and he hears himself sigh, like death, no... but he is blurring and they are eager, now, their teeth and nails livid as they feast upon him, no - but then there is nothing but noise and colour and nothing very like him, anymore. There is: a high keening cry, more terrifying than terrified. There are: two pricks of light in the non-dark, yellow eyes that watch and wait. There is: something huge and disgusting that lifts its face to the light and upturns its hands, snatching it.
There is: the sound of snapping tendons. The wail of a tortured soul. A point of tension and knowledge that is - just - out of - reach -
__________
You are left slightly bewildered in the morning.
In your arms Luna sleeps, heavy and peaceful.
The snuna_exchange won't officially open until February, but I thought that you might enjoy indulging in some Snuna before then. Toward that end, I'm introducing the Snuna Showcase. From time to time, I'll post a Snuna fic that I find particularly fine. The first of these stories is Ashes, by uninhibited333.
I bid on a fic from uninhibited333 during the livelongnmarry auction, which was held to support marriage equality by raising funds to defeat California Proposition 8 (2008). While it is profoundly upsetting to me that Proposition 8 was successful, I cannot be sorry that so many of us in fandom gave of our time and talent to support the basic civil right of marriage for all people, regardless of their sexual orientation. I am certainly not sorry to have received such an amazing Snuna fic from uninhibited333, and I believe that lovers of the pairing should have the opportunity to read it-right now!
Without spoiling the fic, I tell you that Ashes is a story of incredible depth and characterization, told with sublime succinctness, and it illustrates for me why Snuna works without destroying the mystery of the 'ship. Ashes proves that hope may be found rising from them, and the fic left me wanting more without being wanting. I hope that you'll love it as much as I do.
iulia_linnea
Mod-in-Chief
The Snuna Exchange
~*~
Snuna Showcase: Ashes
Author: uninhibited333
Beta Readers: betelin_notecor and bryoneybrynn
Rating: NC-17
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): For some violence.
Word Count: 6767
Summary: After the end of the war two unlikely survivors come together: one injured, one pushed past all endurance, both of them broken.
Ashes
i.
You remember a scene. The view from behind a polished desk. A round room.
A pale girl, standing tall. The smooth lines of her arms going into wrists going into hands going into fingertips...
A glint of defiance in the grey eyes, the shape of her mouth: "I won't stop."
Your hands in front of you, clutching the edge of the desk as if waiting to be brushed off. Your voice: hoarse; uneven; scared?
"Kindly shut up, Lovegood -"
Again. "I won't stop."
"Lovegood -"
"I won't stop."
Her shoulders thrown back and the sudden rise of terror inside of you, this isn't working, a sudden taste of bitterness and then a forced calm: "Silencio!"
Her gaze rising, meeting yours, and the words, written in her eyes and soul and mind and you don't know what to do -
"Crucio." Pain will work. Won't it?
The elegant curve of her body as she falls, the burst of blood from her lips before she screams, twisting...
"Lovegood, stop being so foolish. If you continue to act in this way you will be punished, and harshly. Somehow you have failed to understand the magnitude of your situation, and I will not stop until you have been convinced of it!”
She will understand. If it kills you, her, if it kills you both, if it - Urgently you grab her arm, you speak into her face, you meet her eyes and you cup her jaw and she listens -
"Lovegood, the Dark Lord and his followers are not to be trifled with and mocked and they are not there for the amusements of you and your little friends. You think you are being smart and clever, you think that death and pain and humiliation will never happen to you, but they will. They will, do you understand me? I do not care how long it takes, if I have to beat this rebellion out of you I will - you are not accomplishing anything but the pain of your friends and followers, such as they are. You are putting yourself and them in danger and I will not stand for it!”
And then she speaks, and her face is too close but you don't move and blood rolls down her cheek: "Are you scared for us? You are, aren't you..."
Yes, "Shut up. Shut up, you impudent, stupid child!"
"We won't stop it, you know." She seems content here, broken as she is; she smiles, looks as if she would laugh if she could, her eyes very wide, "You can try to protect us all you can, but if we don’t fight then we’re on their side.” Isn't it obvious? she laughs inside her mind, knowing that you can understand her, and there isn't anything you can do - “If we go along with it then we’re no better than Voldemort himself -”
- Around you, the portraits rustle and tut -
- You shake her; she smiles; there is blood on your hands -
You remember the scene. The old ugly man and the young girl; black robes against pale skin; harsh terror against pure faith -
__________
ii.
You are the injured, now. No longer Voldemort’s most trusted, no longer Voldemort’s follower at all, you lie struggling in the soil, gasping and weakened. You are dying, she knows, when she finds you at the mouth of the tunnel, but that does not stop her for calling for help, or pressing a wad of her robe over the gushing wound in your neck.
There is a curious kind of poetry in it, though: once you crouched over her in this way, your hand tight around her arm and your hand in her hair; now it is she that watches your grimacing lips, and brushes her hair away from where it falls over your face. Oh, how the roles have reversed, but there is little pleasure in the thought.
__________
iii.
While the anxious girl calls for a Healer and tries to save his life, Severus dreams.
He dreams for three days; for two, they are of pain and sorrow and Lily. At first she crumbles to sighs and dust, again and again; he tries to pick it up, screaming, but the air whips around him and his voice is lost and the dust creeps into the ground and is gone -
(She sits with him in the hospital; close enough to touch, though she doesn't. She watches the walls and crunches a Dirigible Plum, and the Healers all ignore her politely)
The dreams change, slowly. The one that wakes him up
(he wakes up on the third day)
is ethereal and delicate and very unlike him. In it he sees Lily lying face down in a lake of water, her hair floating like a billowing sheet all around her. He wades in, pulling at her shoulder - and something breaks, something below his chin, on his throat; like a final breath of air escaping from a dying thing. He looks down and there is blood spreading down his chest, and when he reaches up there are flaps of skin, ragged, on his neck... a snake? Poison? He remembers - something - Looking up his hand falls, but she is further away now - has she drifted? There are no ripples - and he can see that the tips of her fingers are blue and the water is rising, is he moving? He tries to walk towards her, the water is almost up to his neck now, it sucks him in, and as he nears Lily he sees his blood spiralling outwards in the water like her hair. It reaches her, and with a shock he thinks No because this isn't Lily, Lily's hair is red, not gold, not -
(Luna is reading a rather interesting Prophet article on the subject of Slimy Snape's Lost Love (which Proved the Key to Defeating Y-K-W, apparently), and doesn't notice him stir. She notices when his breathing hitches, though. He begins to tremble and she calls for a Healer, and reaches out and grasps his hand firmly, he shouldn't be alone)
- He turns her over and she is not Lily but Lovegood; the shock is so great that he nearly slips, the water lapping at his chin, the blood issuing through the water and making it a thick reddish-brown. She opens her eyes suddenly and they are very grey and sleek, and without any trouble she stands up, rising out of the water and saying, "I won't stop, you know, I can do this -" She is wearing a thin white dress; it clings to the shape of her shoulders and breasts and the water keeps rising. It reaches his nose and then further, and the water feels very light and sweet in his lungs and not bad at all.
("That's it," says the Healer, as he slowly stops thrashing and his eyes begin to flicker. "He's coming round now..." Luna licks her lips, which are suddenly very dry)
__________
iv.
The air in his chest screams and scrapes; the girl sitting watching him is pale and calm.
"What are you doing here?" and it sounds nothing like him, it shakes and quails and it sounds very small, and - thank Merlin - there is no sympathy in her eyes.
"I wanted to sit with you." Her hands are folded in her lap, her hair tangled and hanging past her shoulders.
"You -" and Merlin, the pain - he flounders in it, coughs and coughs and feels the rawness of new skin and the cold air hitting it, and he turns away but then her hand is on his shoulder, go away -
"What?" he croaks.
"There's water, here. It's got something in it - painkilling, to soothe the burn..."
"I - yes." He takes it. There is silence for a moment.
One last attempt at dignity, as he turns away his face and grimaces with the pain of it: “So why are you really here, Miss Lovegood? To laugh at me? To mock the failed spy who died mere hours before the end of his mission? Or perhaps you imagined some sort of reconciliation, in which I reveal that my personality is really a facade concealing some sort of - of friendly exterior… well, I can assure you -”
“You should drink the water. Your throat is probably still tender. You’ve been through serious magical surgery, you know.”
No, he doesn't know. "Where is this?" he snaps
"St Mungo's. This is a secure room; there are press waiting for you. They want to congratulate you, take an interview..." She trails off, still watching him steadily, but not with any hostility. "The war is over. Voldemort is dead."
"But then - Potter -"
"Harry lived. He did die, for a while, but then he came back." A tiny smile shapes her lips.
"Why are you really here?"
"You know, Professor."
"Well, no, I don't -" He bristles a little, lifts his head. "You had no right -"
"Why are you angry?" She sounds a little exasperated. “I sat with you because I had nowhere else to go, because my house has burned down and nobody was here with you and I thought somebody should be.”
"...Your house -?" is all he can think to say.
"The Death Eaters. They ran away," she swallows, her white throat flexing, "after Harry killed Voldemort. We thought they were just trying to escape, but they were carrying out some last orders." A slight shrug, her eyes still fixed on his, "They burned down the houses of blood traitors. Mine was one. My father was - was inside."
He would say he's sorry, but instead he sips the water.
__________
v.
Time slows inside the white room and clean, sharp corners of his bed. Lovegood stays, sitting in the only chair. Mostly he avoids her eyes.
He isn't allowed to leave, the bitch Healer tells him: he wants to kill something.
"I'm sorry," she doesn't sound it, "But I cannot let you leave unless I know someone will be with you. There are procedures - you'll need someone to apply the salve, it can be very tricky -"
"I know how to apply a damned recovery salve, woman!"
"Not this one, you don't. And I won't stand for that tone, either. You're not doing yourself any favours, young man." She is sternly stubborn, her arms folded across her impressive bosom.
Lovegood has been getting food, or visiting the bathroom or something; she slips in the door now, behind the Healer, her forehead delicately wrinkled as she listens.
"You'll be here for another week if you're not careful, the way you've been acting. You're talking, as well, more than you should be, and you're to rest that throat of yours -"
"I can do whatever I please!" he retorts. "I'm a trained professional, madam, or had you missed the fact? I have worked with potions my entire life -"
"I'm not letting you leave until you can prove that someone will be living with you."
"Just who would you suggest that be? I've no relatives living and I'm not one to open my home to strangers -" and the ache starts up again, deep in the back of his throat - soon it will begin to itch and then smart and then dig and he'll cough, "I've lived alone for years, I can survive without supervision -"
"I'll stay with him."
"I - what?" The Healer swings around, her robes flaring a little. Lovegood smiles a little.
"I'll stay with him, if he needs it. Unless Professor Snape would rather I didn't, of course." She almost looks demure, and has managed to run a brush through her hair. Severus sneers at her.
"I - Professor?" She swings round again, this time regarding Severus with her eyebrows raised. "You can say yes or you can stay here. What's it to be?"
Damn her. Damn them both. "I suppose... if Lovegood has nowhere else to go then I would be - content to provide some form of shelter, and if I just - happened - to need help with medical treatment, well then I couldn’t exactly fault… it would be - most convenient...” He trails off.
"It's settled then." The Healer gives a brisk nod, her glasses slipping to the end of her nose. "You'll leave tomorrow."
__________
vi.
For years you have hidden in the safety of words. You have sought them in times of distress and uncertainty, pulled them around you like a shroud and sheltered yourself with their harsh consonants and drooping vowels. They have nurtured you and you have used them for a thousand different reasons: to reject; to punish; to console; to kill. They have been your safe place and your certainty. They have been a part of you for as long as you can remember.
Imagine the pain, at losing that. Imagine the loss. Imagine the feeling of words lodged in a mouth like broken glass, unable to emerge; imagine the sense of blood and skin and friction as someone coughs, madly; imagine the fractured sounds that fly outwards and are lost to the cold air. Imagine that pain.
Feel the helpless rage as you choke on your own breath. Feel the line of your grimacing lips as you refuse to cough, and then cough anyway. Feel the sensation of words ripped through your ruined throat and forced outwards in the shape of a hacking and tearing pain, and feel the shame of it.
Watch her face, watch her mouth move in exquisite perfection and pitch and tone: "Let me put on the salve. It'll help. Don't be stubborn."
She can speak, she can shape the air; she flaunts it in front of you smugly. You feel a kind of trapped rage, and if you are sure of one thing it is that you will not let her put that salve on.
She sighs. Stop being such a nuisance, Severus. That's what she's thinking; you can tell. Stop acting like a stubborn child. But the words don't come, and the pain is worse than coughing, worse than Nagini's fangs, worse than the hot sweet venom running down your chest or the sight of Potter's shocked eyes or Lily's angry rejection or the Mark's evil burn or the children of Hogwarts torturing their peers under the Carrows or Lovegood who won't stop, won't stop, or the crack of your mother's arm breaking or your terrified young face in the mirror after you kill your first Muggleborn, who had red hair and looked like Lily.
The pain is of uncertainty; you feel the loss of control and the slow burn of it in your veins tries to send you mad.
(It's the shock, she thinks. After all, he had that special water with the pain-relief in it, and now he's refusing to let her put the salve on, and it's really very stupid of him to go completely cold turkey when he's been through something so invasive as magical surgery)
__________
vii.
House arrest: that's what this is. Quite literally. Apparently it was one of the Ministry's demands, that Snape be under supervision at all times and "strongly discouraged" to leave. When Snape heard this he felt like laughing: You think I'd be safer with a Lovegood than by myself? You utter fools -
He's not allowed his wand, but he'd rather not dwell on that - how its absence feels like a missing limb; how, numerous times, he has groped in his robes for it, forgetting.
He broods, silently glaring at the walls and the books. He tries not to think too much. Of course, he thinks too much.
Being back here... it does not bother him as much as he thought it would. After all, he has returned here every year of his life, and just because the Dark Lord is finally gone, nothing much has changed. He is still himself, he is still here...
The door clicks open behind him. He'd snap What? but he knows that it's Lovegood, for the third time. With that damned salve. Not to mention the fact that every attempt at speech ends with a rather humiliating fit of coughing.
"Professor Snape."
He looks at her. She looks back.
"Salve?"
He looks away, pointedly. She sighs. And then she bends over him and grabs his left arm, and says firmly, "Get up."
Who does she think she is? He jerks his arm back, but she just grips him harder and says, "No - you had your chance. You're getting up." He glares at her and she lifts her wand, pointing it into his face.
"Don't make me." She sounds tired when she says it, and genuine.
Somehow he ends up in the kitchen, in front of the window and sitting in a wooden chair.
"Right, then," says Lovegood, and swings a leg over his lap, effectively straddling him. He is shocked enough to let out a surprised hiss, but then she twists open the tub of salve in her hand and says blithely, "If you speak, Professor, I'll stun you, and I'm not sure what active external magical influence would do to this."
Bitch.
She wiggles a little on his lap, lifting away the dressing on his scars and training her eyes on his neck. "Just..." she holds his chin, angles his head upwards so that he has to look right down his nose to see her. Frowning slightly she puts one hand down to the tub of salve, which she must have left open on her leg, and scoops a bit out. A sharp smell, like citrus and herbs, reaches him, and he wants to close his eyes.
"I -tell me if this hurts you, okay?" and then she touches his throat with her fingertips. Immediately, he feels a warmth entering him and curling through his body; he swallows without pain for the first time since she got here. His eyes slide shut despite himself and he hears a high half-laugh: Lovegood.
"Better?"
Her fingers begin to move, then, stroking and gently pressing. He's only seen his scars a couple of times, but he knows what they look like - a mess of crosshatched lines meeting in the middle, very pink and sensitive-looking. Slitting open his eyes, he sees Lovegood frowning slightly, biting down on her lower lip, and the motions are now more circular, and - he can't think of another way to put this - it feels weird. Numbness suddenly washes down his throat - it disappears when he swallows, and then she strokes along each scar, careful and slow; the whole front of his throat is tingling and then she stops, and it's over.
"There you go." A secret smile painted behind her eyes, and her mouth twisting in amusement. "I suppose you'll let me do this three times a day from now on, now that you know how it feels?"
He opens his mouth, and when he snaps, "Get off me," he feels... nothing. No slow burn, no bitter taste - just a slight twinge of indignation when she smiles wryly.
She swings her leg round and off him, pressing her hands against his chest so that she doesn't fall. "I think I'll do it like that next time, as well," she says, thoughtful, "It was very comfortable, actually."
He feels a dull heat in his cheeks - for the life of him he doesn't know why - and shrugs off the hand that remains resting on the center of his chest. "Excuse me."
"Oh, sorry." She turns to the stove. "I suppose I should make dinner, then -"
"No. I will - you did yesterday. And besides," he curls his lip at her, "Your attempts at cooking leave something ... to be desired."
Oh, yes. It feels good to speak again.
__________
viii.
They receive two visits in the next fortnight. The first is from Minerva; the first thing Snape thinks when Lovegood says to him, "Professor McGonagall is here," and the woman herself steps through the door, is Fuck off, you old crone.
He doesn't - although thanks to his surrender on the salve front (Lovegood applies it three times a day as instructed), he could if he wanted to.
"I'll just ... leave you to it, then," says Lovegood, the hint of a question in her voice. Minerva nods curtly.
"If you please, yes."
"I do believe she was talking to me," Severus drawls as Lovegood slips out of the room. "Since this is my home. You are merely visiting, yes?"
"Yes. I -" She looks around her, presses an imaginary pin tighter into her hair. "May I sit down, Severus?"
"Feel free." He gestures limply at the sofa, himself sinking into the armchair. "Why are you here?" May as well get it over with.
She purses her lips and then looks up at him; the anxiousness in her eyes makes him lean back a little. "Well. I - first of all, I feel I must apologise."
"Whatever for?"
"For doubting you when - when Albus died."
He rolls his eyes. "Of course you did, Minerva. I killed him, remember?" His voice lowers to a smooth hiss. "Now, if that is quite all - please take your leave."
She draws herself upright. "I am not finished, Severus -"
"It certainly seems as if you are to me. As far as I can tell your sole motive in coming here was to apologise for - why? Because you felt you should, I suppose; ah, yes, a Gryffindor to the core, is Minerva McGonagall."
"You're welcome to return to Hogwarts, you know."
"Am I?" He lets that sink in for a second and then looks away. "In any case, I have no wish to return - there. I trust you understand why."
At least she has the grace to look abashed. "Yes."
"If that's all -"
"What about Miss Lovegood, Severus?"
"What about her?"
She sniffs. "I - she still has a year of schooling left. I thought that -"
"What has that to do with me? Ask the girl yourself."
"Well, I merely..." she trails off, fidgeting with the pin again. "You have to know what is being said, Severus..."
"Minerva, I'm under unofficial house arrest. I haven't been taking many trips around the neighbourhood."
"You have not been receiving the Prophet?"
"No. Should I have been?" Get to the point, woman.
She takes a deep breath and then says in one breath, "There has been a lot of speculation as to the relationship between yourself and Miss Lovegood."
He does not reply for a while, but when she stares at him for a few minutes longer he says, "... And?"
"And that should disturb you at least a little, Severus! The girl is barely of age, she's an orphan - do you know she hasn't spoken to her friends or - her friends - since the battle? She was with you in St Mungo's and now she's here! She hasn't even visited the site of her house, or gone to her father's funeral - Severus, what in the heavens is going on? There have been some - unsavoury comments about this whole affair, and though the Ministry seem content to ignore you completely apart from this - forced restriction on your movements - if this girl is in trouble I shall be forced to intervene."
He lets his lip curl a little. "Nobody does self-righteous quite like you, Minerva."
When she replies her whole body has gone taut as a harp-string, or a cat ready to pounce. "So you won't reply. I think I've seen quite enough, Severus, I will be taking Miss Lovegood with me when I depart -"
"What?" He almost laughs with incredulity. "Where is this coming from? Sit down, you are embarrassing yourself. Do you really assume," he says, "that I have been keeping Lovegood here against her will? As some sort of ... sex-slave? Really?"
No one can do sarcasm, he thinks smugly, quite like him.
"I am merely saying -"
"- That I am molesting a Hogwarts student, yes. The same one who saved my life, yes. Luna Lovegod, yes -" His voice rises and with panic he senses that ache again, that ache that comes before the coughing. "Minerva, I wonder why you apologised for thinking me evil when you seem perfectly convinced that I am a sexual predator preying on young girls."
"I was -"
"Lovegood is of age. She can come and go as she pleases; she has a wand and I do not. Please do not assume that I am keeping her here, imprisoned; as a matter of fact, she imposed herself on me, and I was obligated to receive her. She has since been an invaluable help to me and seems quite content to stay - if you wish I can get her right now and you can ask her exactly what sordid happenings have been going on under this roof: if the answer disappoints you, my sincere apologies. Now -" He stops, biting his lip.
"Severus?"
He holds up a hand, tries to swallow. No - he will not, he will not cough -
He coughs. Once, twice, three times. He loses count after that.
The absence of this for so long has made the recurrence far worse - he shakes with it, certain that blood will spatter his hand at any moment, this is so humiliating... Behind him he vaguely hears Minerva saying something but he tries to wave her away, and then the door opens beside him and he sees a blur of pale hair and smooth grey eyes: "Time for your salve, I think, Professor -"
Her touch, light on his elbow; she steers him into the kitchen and then returns to the living room, where he assumes she lets dear Minerva depart. When she enters the kitchen again the salve is clutched in her hand, and she runs a glass of water at the sink for him.
"Here, try to sip it. I can't put this on if you're coughing, you know that."
Her smile is impossibly peaceful, and somehow he knows that she has heard every word.
"That's better, then, Professor. Now -" she makes as if to straddle him again (a practice which she has unfortunately not stopped, yet).
"Don't call me that," he whispers, unwilling tears filling his eyes with the smarting pain. "It's Severus. I'm ... not a Professor ... anymore..."
"All right, then. Severus." She smiles when she looks at him, then, and he squeezes his eyes tight shut.
__________
ix.
Their second visitors that fortnight are one Harry Potter and one Girl Weasley. Apparently, Potter wants to 'talk' to him, and that is said very ominously; Weasley, on the other hand, feels as if she and Lovegood are due a "chat - gosh, Luna, you haven't been in touch at all!" Severus pretends not to notice the hostile look she gives him, and the protective way she grasps Lovegood's arm.
"We'll take the kitchen, then. Harry and Professor Snape can speak here." Lovegood's eyebrows have reached dizzying heights.
"Well?" demands Severus, rounding on Potter after the white of Lovegood's summer dress disappears through the door.
"Uh. I wanted to... talk to you?" The boy really should do something about that fidgeting problem. "About - about my mum?"
Something heavy sinks right to the pit of Snape's stomach.
That conversation... does not go well.
Half an hour later Potter and Weasley depart, the former looking severely disheartened (unfortunately not defeated, however) and the latter grimly offended. Lovegood watches them out the window, and then declares in a flat voice, "Salve."
"What? Oh. Yes."
In silence they go to the kitchen. He doesn't protest the straddle this time, putting up with it. It does make for a much easier application, after all. Lovegood twists open the salve, says, "Almost done, this, I'll have to get some more," and then, "Ginny thinks we're hiding from the world. She thinks we're fucking, to fill the void of grief, or - or something like that."
"Er." He lets her direct his head upwards again, closes his eyes as her hands move, as soothing and methodical as they always are despite the agitation in her voice.
"I mean," she suddenly says halfway through, "I'm not hiding. From anything. Anything. I'm not. I don't need - the Quibbler, or the house, or - This is enough."
He cannot speak (obviously, being in the middle of treatment), but cannot think of what he would say, in any case.
Afterwards, she says it again, not moving from him. "This is enough." A childish insistence in the way she says it, but then her eyes meet his, and he feels his pulse begin to throb a little faster.
"It is..." Her head slowly dips towards him and her hands move to each side of his face; an inch away from him she licks her lips, drags her teeth over them, and her eyes are still and smooth and furiously warm, like fresh ashes.
It is... like being dragged up from a great distance. Their lips meet, softly at first, and as gentle as the brush of her hair on his cheek. She breathes in, a backwards sigh, moving her hands to behind his head, opening her mouth; finally he responds, breaks the surface of whatever ocean she's dragging him from. One of his hands moves to the nape of her neck, the other on her thigh - slipping under the skirt of her dress and sliding upwards and she makes an urgent sound and rocks against him; their mouths begin to properly move now, she's licking his lips and his tongue slips past hers and he smells the scent of her, sweet and deep and reckless and - her thighs squeezing over his, their hands tighten, pulling hair. Tongues press against each other and Merlin, they're so wet, lips sliding and his nose hitting hers and the delicious friction of her arse against his cock and then she pulls away and licks a hot stripe down his neck -
__________
x.
They don't make it far past the living room. Afterwards Severus gasps for breath on the cold floor, feeling the air scrape against his throat. Lovegood lies against him, watching him; one cheek is on the floor, one arm too, splayed out above her head and bent round. With the other, she runs her nails up and down Severus's side. He quite likes the feeling.
"Lovegood -"
"Please," her lips are very red, "Don't call me that."
"I -" but he doesn't know what to say and stops, feeling quite discomfited. Her gaze travels down his scarred neck, over his chest, lower, to his cock. He wants to pull away, cover himself, say something cutting, leave... But before he can, she puts her hand flat against his side and moves it slowly, inexorably downward. "Severus," she says (breathes), moving her head up round, towards his, "Stop thinking so much." She even sounds a little amused, and that does it. She's laughing at him, she's - he tries to roll onto all fours to get up but only gets halfway there before she's there again, so very close and warm and strong -
"No - no, no, no," she says into his mouth, and somehow she's twisted so that she's under him, mostly, and that hand sweeps upward again to his ribs as the other arm winds around his neck. "Don't, I -"
"Lovegood -"
"Luna."
"... Luna... I don't know how - I can't..." Focus, man. Focus. (Her hair spread out like a fan around her face, cheeks tinted... Under him, her body slim but firm, her legs tenacious and one rubbing against his, her knee bending and relaxing again and again) "No, I -"
"Shh." That sounded almost vicious, and she bites his lower lip and then licks it. He kisses back (helplessly, how can he not?) as she arches her back and flexes her stomach; presses up against him as he presses down against her. He's hard again - Merlin - her small breasts against him, one leg bending -
The first time had been with her on top - Luna - they had both been rocking desperately, her mouth open and breathing harsh, and his orgasm had been frenzied and so powerful he had almost passed out. This - this is slower, he on top and kissing her slowly, one hand braced against the floor and the other touching her face. She makes a tiny sound of contentment, stretches up against him, and her legs wrap around his waist as both his hands brace his weight now. He sinks into her, inch by exquisite inch, and she flexes around him and her breath hitches. She props herself up on one arm to kiss him more easily - he feels her smile against his mouth - and they move in tandem, long strokes and flowing lines that neither of them ever want to escape from.
The orgasm builds up this time, gradual and powerful; he can feel tingling, moving up and down his back and legs and focusing on his groin, the feeling concentrated in his cock as it moves in and out of her, languid at first and then with increasing speed and friction. She makes little breathy sounds, gasps into his mouth, and he bends his head to kiss behind her ear, and then lower, as far down as his neck will allow him. She arches into him, her breasts rubbing against his chest, and her legs squeeze around his waist more and more quickly. "I - I -" she says, and then "Ohhhhh," and her eyes slide shut, her muscles locking up and releasing abruptly, shaking. He thrusts a little harder and then comes himself, and the feeling is like an immense pooling heat, like being sunk into a pit of molten gold or silver or - or like - like - he can't think. He - Merlin -
"This is enough," he hears as he slips out of her and then collapses with her.
"Wh- what?"
Her eyes just meet his and one of her hands finds one of his; the fingers twine like vines around it. "I don't want to leave," she tells him, sounding hopeless, somehow, and he wants to kiss her.
"Then don't. Why should you?"
Her head shakes almost imperceptibly. "Just - I don't think... I want to stay here. I like it here. I'm not hiding."
"All right." Ginny Weasley? And she heard Minerva talking to him - is that it? He doesn't -
"I'm not!" she whispers, angry not at him but someone - something - else.
"All right," he repeats, and they stay like that for a while, on the cold floor. After a while she reaches up and he thinks she is pulling him down for a kiss, but instead she just bows her head against him as if she is tired, or despairing.
__________
xi.
She does hide. You would be a fool if you thought she didn't; she hides from her life before you, from her broken house and father's corpse and the once soft love of her parents for her that has now rotted - now leaks and stinks of death and the clutching, desperate hands of ghosts. You hide too: from Potter's desperation that day, his need for any type of family, any type of connection to someone; you hide from the outside world and the tabloids, and what people would do to you if they saw you in the street (embrace you or tear you apart? You can never decide. Neither can you decide which you'd prefer). You hide from sunlight, from the absence of Voldemort and something definite to fear (or serve).
Together the two of you forge a normality and the semblance of a life. You no longer need justifications or words, you realise; a touch can convey a thousand words and thoughts and more, and above all you love to touch Luna, love to stroke her skin and pull her hair and see her skin bruise under your fingertips.
She can pull you apart and fix you with a sigh, she can be gentle and angry and violent all at once, she could rip your skin with her nails and carve her name in your soul as you watch the blood rise up to fill the furrows. On some days you panic, think she's harming herself, by being here - what did Minerva say about closure? Shouldn't you make her leave rather than keep her here for nothing more than your own pleasure?
But all it takes is a look from her and you are undone. Her delicate fragility is what seems to get you, every time, and you could believe that she knows exactly how to move against and under you to make sure that endures.
Do you love her or do you hate her? You can never tell -
One night after you have fucked and are still tangled together and slick with sweat, she suddenly curls up against you.
"Don't make me leave," she whispers, "I don't want to leave."
"I don't know what you -"
"I want to stay here with you," She kisses you, tasting of salty copper. "Let me stay, let me - I like it - I -"
In the end you (always) attempt comfort clumsily, and try to make your voice gentle as you say, "You can stay. If you want to stay, then I..."
Her smile in the darkness, her teeth against your cheek, "Oh, Severus..."
__________
He dreams.
The landscape is harsh and empty; the ground is hard and flat; the sky no colour at all, like eggshells. He narrows his eyes and hunches his shoulders, feeling disturbed. Instinctively, he knows that he is dreaming, although powerful magic can still be performed through dreams; the knowledge brings him no comfort.
-ck-ck-ck-
The sound comes from behind him, a click-clicking like the rattle of train-tracks. Turning, he frowns, looks, there's nothing there, is there? But then colours blur and shimmer and then she stands in front of him, Lily, bone-white and carved-looking, as if this is not her or the memory of her but some imitation, a fake model of the way she once was, not her and yet so much more...
"Sssssseverus..." her teeth glint like blades, her hair very red and eyes a deep green and her voice hissing and this isn't anything like her, is it? but still he reaches towards her and feels a deep joy inside of him at seeing her again because it's like she isn't really dead, I didn't kill you I didn't did I? and she laughs, reaching for and into him and then for a while there is nothing but her and the feel of her, and the joy.
After a (second) (day) (week) (life) while she pulls away. He falls to his knees, looking up at her as she smiles and walks seven steps back from him. Her wrists and fingers look very fragile and yet strong, so white and her fingernails so blue -
Her eyes close.
She hisses a "Yessss."
And then he sees it - a pair of hands around Lily's waist, small and delicate, and a leg twining around Lily's leg from behind. He tries to stand, feeling a burst of anger, who would enter his dream and steal his lover? but he cannot move, and then a face peeks from around Lily's shoulder, hair more white than yellow, and keen grey eyes, and blood-flushed lips, and -
"Lovegood?" he mouths, and doesn't know if it makes a noise.
A tiny smile on Luna's lips, now, a gentle curve of cruel amusement, as Lily gives a raucous laugh and twists and then there are hands everywhere, moving and smoothing and stroking; they both fall to the ground and there is laughter in his ears from both of them. As he watches, watches the bones of Lily's hand fondling a breast and stroking down her ribs, he sees: Luna's face begin to blur together as Lily kisses her; their legs writhing together beginning to merge and swirl together, like watercolours sloshed together and combining; finally, not two separate bodies but one, one that wears Luna's eyes and Lily's mouth and both of their wrists and ankles -
And then it reaches towards him and he feels himself begin to move. No, but their smiles are so inviting and their hands stroke so lovingly, no, but they don't listen and their breath is so cold and he hears himself sigh, like death, no... but he is blurring and they are eager, now, their teeth and nails livid as they feast upon him, no - but then there is nothing but noise and colour and nothing very like him, anymore. There is: a high keening cry, more terrifying than terrified. There are: two pricks of light in the non-dark, yellow eyes that watch and wait. There is: something huge and disgusting that lifts its face to the light and upturns its hands, snatching it.
There is: the sound of snapping tendons. The wail of a tortured soul. A point of tension and knowledge that is - just - out of - reach -
__________
You are left slightly bewildered in the morning.
In your arms Luna sleeps, heavy and peaceful.