Entry tags:

2009_fic, fic4:eeyore990, snape/luna

*bonus fic* for eeyore9990 'Time and the Moon' (Snape/Luna)

Fic for: eeyore9990
Title: Time and the Moon
Author: irena_candy


Pairing: Snape/Luna
Rating: G
Warnings/Content Info: highlight between brackets if you prefer story warnings:
[Slightly AU, assumes that Snape lived through the war and went back to teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts.]
Summary: Caught in a time turner accident, fifteen year old Snape meets Luna Lovegood for the first time.
Disclaimer: The characters in this piece of fiction are the property of J. Rowling. The situations are the author's own.
Word count: ~6,200
Author Notes: Many thanks to beta-reader elethian who straightened out some of my problems with time.

Time and the Moon


Hogwarts fifth year Severus Snape caught a glint of gold out of the corner of his eye, and frowned as the sun-bright gleam of metal and glass interrupted his concentration. He shut Practical Transfiguration over one thin forefinger and stared at the object that Mulciber was holding in his hands.

"That is a time turner. Where did you get it?"

Mulciber held the hourglass up close to his nose, squinting at it. "I nicked it off of my uncle. He makes them and sells them to the Ministry."

"Interesting. I always did wonder where they came from."

"There's a bunch of witches and wizards who make them at home," Mulciber said with a yawn. "Uncle Phelpes has been doing it for years."

"So, it is a cottage industry?" Severus asked, having picked up the term from Muggle telly.

"Yeah, I guess. Whatever. After he left Hogwarts, Uncle Phelpes went to some kind of school in Bavaria to learn how to make them."

"Are you going to use it?"

"Dunno. I just thought it was neat to have. If I'd had it last year, I could have gone ahead to see what the questions were on the O.W.L.S. Man, I could really have aced the tests when I got back." He snickered. "Hey, Sev, You want to borrow it? You could use it to find out when you're finally going to get it on with Evans."

"Very funny."

Mulciber tossed the small time turner idly in the air. Severus stretched out a lazy arm and caught it as it tumbled down, cupping the small hourglass-shaped device in his hand and looking at it curiously. His companion leaned back on his elbows and idly surveyed the surrounding lawn and the groups of students that dotted it here and there. Alone and in groups, some studying, some sleeping, they were all enjoying the warm Friday afternoon. It was mid-May, and the soft scent of summer flowers floated on a light breeze. It seemed like an almost perfect day.

"I thought time turners were only for going back in time," Severus remarked, as he closed his book and set it aside. "All of the ministry penalties for breaking time laws are about changing things in the past."

"Well, yeah," Mulciber said with another shrug. "What's the point in punishing someone for changing the future? It hasn't even happened yet. But you can use a time turner to go either forward or backward, You just have to push the right buttons."

Severus lightly fingered the small buttons on the flat upper surface of the device. There was a faint click. He turned the time turner over, looking for additional buttons.

"Hey, watch ooooooout..."

The lawn and trees dissolved around him, and Severus had the feeling that he was flying forward very fast. He whirled through a kaleidoscope of color, dizzy and disoriented. A moment later he found himself sitting under the same tree again, but without Mulciber and in about two inches of muddy rainwater - with more rain showering down on top of him. The warm sunshine was gone and the trees of winter loomed up against a grey and ominous afternoon sky.

"Oh shit," he said staring at the time turner.

There wasn't any way to reverse what he'd done, because he didn't KNOW what he had done. Of course, he knew that he had activated the time turner, but he had no idea where he was in the great scheme of time--except that it was raining and he was starting to shiver in his light-weight summer clothes.

He got to his feet and turned his collar up against the rain. Stowing the time turner away inside his shirt, he shoved his fists in his pockets, lowered his head, and started toward the castle, where warm golden light streamed out of the windows.

Common sense told him that he should find a Hogwarts teacher, explain what had happened, and ask for help. On the other hand, he was holding an unauthorized time turner, had no business being where he was, and stood the chance of getting detention both here and in his own time, if not expulsion when he returned. Whoever was Headmaster now would probably use a time turner to tell Dumbledore what he'd done and, in a colorful phrase he'd picked up from a Muggle girlie magazine, the shit would hit the fan. He hated to think what his mother—and his grandfather Prince, who was paying his school fees—would have to say about it if he was expelled. He shivered and cast a quick warming charm, but it didn't do much for the cold lump in his belly.

He pushed the great doors open and slipped inside. There was a babble of voices from the direction of the Great Hall, where students and staff were gathered for the evening meal. He realized suddenly that he was hungry himself, and started toward the Hall, then stopped abruptly. Not only would he lose points for being late, if he was too far out of his own time he'd be a stranger and would stand out like a grindylow in a goldfish pond. There was also the issue of the doppelganger. What would happen if he was already seated at the Slytherin table, starting his meal, and came face to face with himself? Not good.

Changing directions, Severus headed down the stairs toward the kitchen. Getting food from the kitchen elves was never a problem. They practically fell all over themselves offering anything that a student could possibly want. This time was no exception. They were only too pleased to give him a tall glass of pumpkin juice and a ham-on-rye sandwich with mustard, pickles, and lettuce. They never asked why he wasn't upstairs in the Great Hall, and were only disappointed that he hadn't asked for something fancier to eat.

Another convenient thing about the house elves was that they were almost as fond of gossip as the school portraits.

Perched on a stool and munching his sandwich, Severus asked, "Is Headmaster in school?"

"Oh yes, sir!" one of the elves said, hurrying to refill his glass of pumpkin juice. "Headmaster Dumbledore arrived back this afternoon."

Severus felt a wave of relief wash over him. If Dumbledore was Headmaster, he couldn't be too far away from his own time, maybe only a matter of a few months forward or backward.

"What about the rest of the teachers? Are they all here too?"

The elf nodded enthusiastically. "All of the professors are here, sir, except Professor Hooch who is visiting Professor Hooch's friend, Gwenog Jones."

Swallowing hard, Severus stared at the elf. The relief drained out of him like water through a sieve as the elf continued, "Professor Sinistra is here, and Professor Sprout is here, and Professor Firenze is here, and... "

Severus didn't stay to listen to the rest of the list. He hadn't recognized any of those names, none of them at all. Just Dumbledore, but did that mean Dumbledore was starting his career as Headmaster, or was a senile old codger on the verge of retirement? Severus slipped off of the stool as the elves began to scurry around getting pudding together, filched a custard-filled chocolate éclair off of a table, and headed back upstairs.

The library, that was the thing; he needed to visit the library. There were back issues of the Daily Prophet in the library and the paper would have dates and names.

* * *

There was a soothing, seemingly-unchangeable atmosphere about the Hogwarts library. The soft lights, the scent of paper and old leather, and the rows of age-darkened oak tables and chairs, with their surfaces polished by the hands and backsides of generations of student wizards, had a steadying effect on him. He took a deep breath, and walked toward the back of the huge room, where the newspapers and periodicals were kept.

He found what he was looking for without any trouble. The information was nothing that cheered him. He had moved forward. It was nice to have that settled, but what hit him like a punch in the gut was that he had moved forward over twenty years! That certainly ruined any chance he had of giving his teachers a simple explanation about a few missing weeks out of his school term – like being kidnapped by goblins or something. Wherever he actually was now, counting by his own time, he would be a middle-aged man. And Lily... Lily... she might even have wrinkles. Severus slouched forward in his chair, resting his forehead in his hands. For the moment, his mind seemed to have gone blank.

The sound of footsteps brought him out of his reverie. He looked up and saw a girl of about his own age, with a mass of dirty-blonde hair hanging down to her waist. She had her school satchel slung over one shoulder and was holding a list of some sort in one hand. She wasn't pretty in the accepted sense, but she was attractive in her way, and was looking at him with a good deal of interest.

"Are you all right?" she asked, dropping her school bag down on the table.

"Yes. Yes, I'm fine," he said, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "Fine." He dropped his hands and sighed, staring gloomily at the front page of the newspaper.

"I thought you might be having trouble with glorbulgers," she said casually, as she consulted her list and selected three magazines from the racks. "They hover around in libraries at this time of year, licking the gilt off of the pages, and they can make your mind feel all squishy."

Severus smiled in spite of his gloom. There was a certain insane charm about the notion. He wondered where she had gotten it.

"I'm Luna Lovegood, and I'm a fifth year," she said, sitting down across from him and rooting through her bag for a couple of minutes before retrieving a bottle of ink and a quill. "My parents named me for the moon. Who are you? I haven't seen you in school before."

"I'm a fifth year too. My name is Severus. Severus...Prince."

"That's a nice name. We have a teacher named Severus, but his last name is Snape." She pulled a roll of parchment out of her bag and unrolled it on the table, anchoring one end with her ink bottle.

He had become a teacher, and was teaching at Hogwarts? Severus tried to think of someone else that it might be, but all of his Snape relatives were Muggles, and most of them worked in mills or had farms. He rolled the notion over in his mind. It wasn't a bad idea, exactly, but rather dull. It could be a cover for something else; something more exciting. He had gone to Muggle movies with some Snape cousins a few times, and saw several films about men who seemed dull and ordinary but had secret identities that were brave and heroic.

He didn't feel brave at the moment, just exasperated about the situation he had gotten himself into.

The girl cocked her head to one side and considered him. Severus thought that she had the most enormous eyes he had ever seen. They were an interesting silvery grey in color, and she didn't seem to blink as much as most people did. Her delicately arched eyebrows gave her a faintly surprised look, as if she found the world a remarkably fascinating place.

"I'm a Ravenclaw," she said. "You're a Slytherin; I can tell by your tie. I don't know very many Slytherins. They're not supposed to be trustworthy, but I can't tell if you are trustworthy or not, because I don't know you."

"That is true," he said rubbing his forehead. "There are exceptions to every rule."

She looked through one of the magazines, made a few notes on her parchment, and then said in a calm conversational tone, "You don't belong here, do you?"

"What do you mean?" Severus asked, suddenly feeling tense.

"It's the middle of October and you're wearing summer robes. They're Hogwarts robes, so you're a student here, but your shoulders are wet, like you've been out in the rain, and no one who belongs here would go out without a cloak at this time of year. You don't have anything with you; no quills, no parchment, and no assignment sheets. Most people don't come to the library unless they have homework to do, especially not on a Friday evening, with the weekend ahead."

"No, I suppose not," Severus said slowly. "You are right. I do not belong here. Well, I DO belong here, but not now." He took the time turner out of his pocket and set it down on the table between them.

"That's a time turner," she observed after a moment, "and I suppose you've had an accident with it. My father says that if you use a time turner too much your brain can't catch up with your thoughts and you get a bad case of prefrontal grippe."

Ignoring the last part of her comment, Severus said, "Yes, I had an accident. I've moved forward over twenty years; twenty-one years and five months, to be exact. It was Friday, the twelfth of May, in my own time, and I was sitting out on the lawn with a friend when it happened."

"It's still Friday. If you know when it was and when it is, you can go back," Luna said serenely. "You simply have to find out how."

To his surprise, she reached over and laid her left hand over his. It was the sort of friendly gesture he never expected to feel from anyone, especially not from an attractive Ravenclaw with enormous grey eyes.

"I could do that if I knew how to work the time turner, but I don't know what the buttons do, or how to set them. There's nothing marked 'reverse'." He smiled wryly. Severus hated to admit that there was anything he didn't know, but her sympathy seemed to draw the words out of him.

"Perhaps there is a book here somewhere that will explain it. I'll help you look."

It amazed him that she accepted the situation and didn't ask for explanations. The world as it was did not seem to trouble her at all.

They looked, and they found books on time laws and regulations. There were a couple of thick tomes on the theory of time travel. They also found some very old books on the history of time turners. There was nothing practical about using time turners except some vague and very general comments about avoiding crowds and checking the location of walls and buildings.

"I am afraid we are wasting our time," Severus said wearily, closing the cover of the last book, which did have a reference to the school in Bavaria that taught people how to make the devices. He shoved it back onto the shelf. "None of these books explain how to use a time turner."

"I suppose it's because they're all different."

"You mean because they're made by different people?"

"Yes, and everyone who makes them probably makes them a little different than anyone else. People are like that. They like to mark things as their own."

A low mellow bell-tone sounded through the room.

"That's the closing bell," Luna said, walking back to the table in the periodical room and gathering up her things. "We have to leave the library, and it will be curfew in another hour. Where are you going to sleep tonight?"

"In one of the unused classrooms, I suppose. I hadn't thought about it."

"You need someplace to sleep where you won't be cold and curled up like a hedgehog. I can't take you to Ravenclaw Tower because we all know each other and people would wonder about you. Do you know about the Room of Requirement?"

Severus smiled a reminiscent smile. "Yes."

* * *

He knew the Room of Requirement very well. He thought about it after he and Luna parted and he walked up to the seventh floor. One of the few times that he'd had Lily to himself after their third year, he had asked for a special room for her birthday. The weather was icy January outside, but the room had created big arched windows looking out onto summer and there were vases full of white lilies. He could still remember their sweet, almost overpowering, scent. He never had much pocket money, but he had saved until he had enough to buy her an inexpensive brooch from the little jewelry store in Hogsmeade—a lily of course. He did not have enough courage to ask her for a kiss.

This time, all he asked the room for was a place to sleep. It gave him a simple square room with a duplicate of his four-poster bed in the Slytherin dormitory, complete with a green and silver duvet. He did wonder how it knew that he was a Slytherin, but perhaps knowing was part of the room's magic.

He dreamed of Lily, of course. Most of the dreams that he remembered in the morning were about her. This one started out well. They were dancing together and somehow he knew the steps and he and Lily were perfectly matched as they whirled around in an empty ballroom. But then the shadows closed in, and he dreamed that she was whisked away by a great storm. No matter how hard he tried, he could not hold her, and he dropped to his knees and cried out as she vanished into nothingness. Then he felt a warm pressure on his hand and a soft voice murmured words into his ear that he could not quite understand. He awoke feeling disoriented and oddly adrift in his own thoughts.

He left the room cautiously; checking to be sure that there was no one in the corridor who might see him. Lacking any other place to go, he started downstairs to the library. Luna caught him up on the second floor. She had a dark bundle under her arm and held out a packet wrapped up in a napkin.

"I brought you some breakfast," she said. "Rashers on a split roll, and an apple. Apples are good for healing Blubling Witnarfer bites."

"What if I don't have any whatever-it-was bites?" Severus asked, after a mouthful of crispy bacon and roll.

"You could have them and never know it,' she assured him. "Witnarfer bites are painless, but they make you dizzy when you go out in the sunlight."

"Makes sense to me," Severus said good-humoredly.

"I brought you a winter robe and a cloak, too," she said, handing over the bundle under her arm. "The robe is a little scorched along one sleeve because of a Potions accident, and the cloak has a hole in it where it was gnawed by a badger during Transfiguration. That's why Marcus Belby is getting rid of them. They'll keep you warm, though."

Severus took the old garments, trying to conceal his surprise. No one except his mother had ever worried about his welfare, and that was only when she wasn't totally taken up with his father. Bolting down the last of his sandwich, he slipped the winter robe on over his summer one and fastened the cloak around his shoulders. Even indoors it was chilly at Hogwarts in October.

"I've been thinking about the time turner," Luna said, as they continued down the stairs. "Didn't you say that your friend's uncle made it?"

"His Uncle Phelpes, yes."

"If you could find your friend's uncle, he could tell you how to work his time turner. It's been over twenty-one years since he made it, but that's not very long for a wizard."

"And there aren't very many people named Phelpes," Severus said, as the two of them hopped over the vanishing step without pausing to think about it. "We were looking in the wrong books. We need something that has a list of time turner makers; advertisements or something like that."

"I could owl my father," Luna offered. "He publishes The Quibbler, and he knows all kinds of people."

Severus could feel his lips twitch as he tried to keep from laughing. Now he knew where Luna got her strange ideas. Someone had brought a copy of The Quibbler into the Slytherin common room this past April—well, this past April twenty-one years ago, if you wanted to be exact--and they all had a good laugh about it. It wasn't her fault that her father was lacking a few knuts to the galleon. She had some wonderful logic of her own, and she had to be smart or she wouldn't have been sorted into Ravenclaw.

"Yes, do that; I'd appreciate it. I can check in the library again too."

"All right. Let's go to the owlery.

Standing in the dim light of the tall owl tower, with a frigid breeze blowing in through the unglazed windows, Severus watched with some amusement as Luna delved into her school bag looking for her parchment and quill. Among the many things she turned out were a turnip-like root vegetable, some gray sand, and a long loop of pale yellow string.

"What is the string for?" Severus asked.

"Oh, it's for catching Skufkullers."

She finally found her writing supplies, carefully penned a note to her father, and gave it to one of the school post owls. They watched the bird as it soared on its way, and then Luna turned back to him and continued, "You have to use different colors of string to catch Skufkullers, depending on the time of year. They're always rather melancholy during the cold months, so yellow works best in October. They'll make you sad if you don't catch them and release them over water." She slipped the loop of string over both of her hands, quickly and deftly using her fingers to create a pattern of two lines with a zigzag between them.

"It is a cat's cradle," Severus observed.

"My mother called it a heart-catcher. She said that you could ensnare someone's love with it. She was a brilliant witch. Skufkullers can't resist string patterns, you know." She slipped the loop of string off of her fingers, coiled it up neatly and handed it to Severus.

"You'd better take this one. I have others, and you might need it. Use it if you feel yourself getting sad."

He turned the small coil of string over his fingers a couple of times, then thanked her politely and stowed it away in a pocket rather than risk hurting her feelings.

Severus felt oddly comfortable with Luna. She made no demands on him, and she always seemed perfectly at home with herself, as if she needed nothing more. When she confided to him that some people called her "Loony Lovegood," he understood why she lived in that armor of serenity. It was the same as James Potter and the other Marauders calling him "Snivilus." Isolated by ridicule, both he and Luna had learned to be self-sufficient. They had no other choice. It made them very much alike, and Severus realized that Luna was someone he could treat as a friend.

* * *

They shared lunch in the Great Hall. Luna reasoned that lunch was a rather informal meal, with students and teachers going in and out at odd times. "No one will take much notice of you. We'll sit at the Ravenclaw table and if anyone asks I'll say that you're my cousin from Bermuda and are visiting for the day. You'd better take off your tie."

Severus slipped off his green and silver Slytherin tie and tucked it away. As they were walking in through the broad doorway of the Great Hall they brushed past a tall saturnine man in black teaching robes who was going out and who swept past them without a glance. Severus thought for a moment that he knew the man; there was something familiar about his dour face. He could not place the memory though, and followed Luna to her House table.

After lunch, which was as uneventful as Luna had predicted, she went off to Hogsmeade, where she had promised to meet some friends, and he returned to the library. When she met him there later, just before supper, she had a note in her hand.

"It's from my father, but it's not very good news," she said, sitting down across from him. "Daddy remembers a Phelpes Mulciber who made time turners, but he died five years ago of complications from dragon pox."

Severus folded his arms on the pile of books in front of him and rested his chin on top of them. "It was a good idea. Too bad Uncle Phelpes didn't cooperate."

"Daddy does say that there's a text book from the Bavarian school which describes all of the time turners that students can learn to make there."

"I guess Hogwarts doesn't have a copy. We looked through everything."

"They must have a copy," Luna said, with the supreme confidence of a library addict. "We probably didn't look in the right section."

"That is an interesting point," Severus said, frowning. "In all of the times that I've been in the library, I have never seen any books on making anything. No wands, no time turners, no clocks, no astrolabes, nothing."

"Were you looking for them?"

"No," he admitted.

"I'll ask Madam Pince," Luna said, getting to her feet.

He watched her walk toward the desk and his opinion of Luna Lovegood as an extraordinary girl went even higher. He did not know anyone who voluntarily asked the prune-faced Hogwarts Librarian for anything. Now that he thought about it, it was little short of amazing that the woman was still Hogwarts librarian. She had looked as pinched and pickled back in his time as she did now.

After a brief conversation with Madam Pince, Luna came back and said, "They're all in the Annex."

"The Annex?"

"The basement, actually. She said that it's down the corridor from the Hufflepuff common room. I guess whoever opened the Annex thought that Hufflepuffs would be more apt to make things with their hands than the other Houses."

Sure enough, when they found the Annex, which was a large comfortable-looking square room with arched ceiling beams and tall oak bookcases, there were two Hufflepuffs seated at a table with several books on wand-making spread out in front of them.

The Annex was filled with all of the books on making magical objects that needed clever hands as well as charms and spells. Here were the books on weaving magic carpets, on cooking and baking charms, on household spells, and even books on making magical books. The books on time turners, magic clocks, and other timepieces were on the left wall, near the back corner.

"Here it is," Severus said, pulling out a rather battered book published by the Bavarian Trade Technical Magic Institute. He thumbed through it rapidly while Luna looked over his shoulder. "And here's a drawing of the time turner that I have!"

They scanned the text together, and Severus gave a sigh of relief. He closed the book carefully and slipped it back between Magical Clocks and How to Build Them and The Boy's Guide to Time Turning.

"I can't use it here," he said, glancing at the Hufflepuffs. "I had better find a vacant classroom or something."

Luna shook her head. "You should use it wherever you were when you first used it. Then you'll go back to where you were before."

"The grounds then, by the big beech tree."

They went outside together, pulling their cloaks close around themselves in the icy wind that was whipping across the grounds. It was when they reached the tree, its foliage drenched with rain, that it struck Severus that he would never see Luna again, not like this, at any rate. Something turned in his chest, wrenching his heart.

"Luna," he began awkwardly, "I can't think of anyone else who would have helped me the way that you have done. I wish I could tell you... I will never forget it! I will never forget you!"

"We're friends, Severus. Friends are people to go to when you think that you're lost. Friends help us find ourselves." She reached up and laid gentle fingers on his forehead, smoothing back his dark hair. "You'd better give that cloak and heavy robe back to me. People will ask questions if you show up in summer wearing them."

He struggled out of the garments and, trying to control the chattering of his teeth in the icy wind, folded them into a bundle and gave them to her. He took the time turner out of his pocket and pressed a few buttons. This was it; the end of the adventure. Severus had always hidden his emotions, even as a child, but now a great flood rose up that almost overwhelmed him. He didn't want to lose what he had found. He did not want to lose this pale girl with the big grey eyes.

"Luna!" he said suddenly. "Come with me!" Clutching the time turner in one hand, he held out the other to her. "You'd like my time, and if you don't, we can go somewhere else. We can go anywhere we want in time, we can do anything we want together! Come with me."

She clasped his hand tightly for a moment and then let it go. "We can't do that, Severus. We can't tamper with time. Don't worry; we'll be together again, after everything is normal again. You don't know what has been happening in this time, but you'll understand later." Leaning forward, she kissed him lightly on the lips, as gently as the brush of a breeze in spring.

"Luna, I..." The words came hard to him. He hung his head and muttered the words so low that they were almost inaudible. "I don't want to lose you."

She reached out to him and the next moment they were in each others arms. This time their kiss was more than just a friendly brush of lips. There was all of the passion in it of two young people who had guarded their feelings for far too long.

At long last she pushed him gently away. "Goodbye for now, Severus."

"But..."

"It will all come out right in the end. You'll see." She stepped back from him, her grey eyes sparking with tears. His own eyes fixed on her face, Severus turned time over.


* * *


An owl tapped lightly on the window of Professor Snape's office, and he swung the lattice-glazed window open to let it in, also admitting a warm spring breeze and the scent of heather. He detached a small brown paper parcel, neatly tied with pale yellow string, from the owl's leg, gave the bird a treat and sent it on its way. As he started to open the package—which contained a book on Siberian protection charms that he had ordered from an antiquarian in Knockturn Alley—he paused, eyes fixed on the string.

Luna Lovegood had given him a loop of pale yellow string like that, many years ago. She said it was for catching... what? He couldn't remember. Hearts, was it? He smiled slightly. He hadn't thought about that in years. It was a memory that belonged to a gentler time. He had only been a boy when he had that little adventure with Mulciber's time turner, and after he returned to his own time there had been Voldemort and the war, pain, loss, and too much death.

What had happened to that coil of string? He had kept it for a long time. Maybe it was still tucked into the back of a drawer somewhere, relic of that odd byway in time that he had taken when he was only fifteen. It was something that one puts away because the memories that go with it are both too sweet and too painful to bear.

He shook his head, as if to clear it of annoying thoughts, and took a sheet of parchment out of his desk. He picked up his quill and started a list of optional DADA assignments for his seventh years. After a couple of entries he stopped, eyes returning to that coil of yellow string. He had never forgotten his meeting with Luna Lovegood, when they were both teenagers. He hadn't seen her again until the Sorting in her first year. She was a small pale child with a serious face and the rounded features of youth, but she already had those big grey eyes that he had never been able to forget. She was in his classes after that, of course, but she was a child, only a child, and he was a grown man.

He had watched her grow up. That thought kept cycling back through his mind. He had watched her grow up as he had watched Lily Evans grow up, but with Luna the perspective was different. He and Lily had always been the same age; he had been the same age as Luna for only two days. Their lives had intersected for a brief while and now there were twenty insurmountable years between them. She was sitting her N.E.W.T.S. and soon she would be gone from his life, as if she had never been there, as if she had been only a fantasy. He had given up his fantasies a long time ago.

He jabbed his quill hard enough on the parchment that he bent the point, swore under his breath, and was reaching for his pen knife to trim it, when there was a light knock on his office door. Frowning, his eyes fixed on the quill, Severus called out "Come in."

The door opened and when he looked up, a young blonde witch with the most enormous silvery-grey eyes he had ever seen was standing in front of the desk, smiling at him.

"I finished my N.E.W.T.S. today and I'm leaving Hogwarts tomorrow morning," she said. "I've been of age since the middle of last month, but I thought I'd better wait to say anything to you about us until I'd finished, in case you had scruples about student-teacher relationships."

"About us?"

"Yes, of course," she said with perfect serenity. "We can be together now that everything is straightened out. Remember, I told you that everything would be okay. I think I'd like to be married here at Hogwarts, by the sundial in the herb garden. That would be nice, wouldn't it?" Without waiting for his reply, as if the matter was already settled, she went on, "There was the war and all of that Death Eater unpleasantness, but that doesn't matter any longer."

"It doesn't?" Severus stared at her, overwhelmed by her calm assumption about their future.

"No. It's all over and done with. My father always says that there is no point in crying over spilt milk, and that's all the war is now, spilt milk. I'd rather think about important things, like spending my life with you."

"You knew who I was?" he asked hoarsely. "It's been over twenty years since we were teenagers together!"

"Of course I knew who you were, silly. We only met a little over two years ago in my time. I always knew that it would work out all right. When you meet a friend again after a long while, they may look a little different but you always remember them the way that they used to be. I knew who you had to be. You really did look like yourself, even when you were fifteen. The next time I had Defense class, there you were, all grown up. I was sure that you knew me, but it's all been very complicated and I knew I'd have to wait. Anyway, you can never forget someone that you really love."

"L...love?" His throat was suddenly tight.

"Of course. I've been in love with you for a long time now. When you asked me to go back in time with you I realized that I loved you. After you left, I missed you terribly and I knew that there would never be anyone else for me. We were friends and love is always best when it grows out of friendship; that's what my mother used to say. I've watched you for two years now, loving you more and more every day."

She walked around the corner of his desk and then bent and pressed a soft kiss on his mouth. Severus gathered her to him with trembling hands, burying his face in her long soft hair. He did not want her to see that he was crying.

-- end --





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