Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

'Ah, Severus, I didn't recognise you for a moment,' Septima said, as Snape dropped the charms he had quite forgotten about, and strode across the hall. 'Could I have a quick word with you?' she called to his back. 'About the Yule Ball.'

'No, you may not, not now, or ever,' he snapped, as he walked on without breaking his stride, anxious only to reach his rooms and his whisky, and caring little what he left in his wake. 'Professor McGonagall is in charge of that, I believe.'

'Oh, I meant on a personal basis,' Septima called in a hopeful anxious tone, as she almost ran to keep abreast of his long strides.

Severus spun. 'Go away, Professor Vector,' he growled. 'I have no interest in Yule Balls, and even less interest in you.'

'I just thought that if you didn't have a partner...' she said, faltering under his stony glare, '... and I haven't picked one either... that perhaps...'

Severus didn't want to deal with this right now; he didn't have the mental energy, and couldn't trust himself not to hex the stupid witch through the main doors. He stalked off, ignoring what had become her stumbled entreaties, and walked straight into damned Peeves.

'In a tiz, Snape?' the poltergeist asked, hovering a few inches above Severus's head as he walked quickly down the dungeon steps, scattering a couple of second year Slytherins who were making their way up to dinner, with a scowl even he rarely bettered.

Severus raised his wand and blasted through Peeves's stomach, leaving a gaping hole as though he had been hit by a cannonball, as the poltergeist swooped off, cackling in delight at having elicited such a delicious response.

'I'll report you to the Baron, Snape,' he called. 'Then I'll tell Moony Loony that you're cruel, and she won't be running along the corridors to see you at odd times of the night.'

Severus slammed his door shut, trying not to notice the blue and gold box that sat on his workbench, and sat down heavily at his table, quite unsure of what to do. The last thing he wanted to do, of course, was what came to him first.

It all fitted so well now, he thought, pouring his first glass, the one to prepare his senses for the assault to come, the one he knew would not be put off. It all fitted perfectly: her interest in taking Lupin his Wolfsbane; her wistful little remarks as he, Severus, the man so clever he had duped himself, had listened to her under the full moon; even her damn name: Luna... lunar... of the moon. It would never fall from his lips again, he thought bitterly. He shook his head at his folly. He had even talked himself into believing she had come outside to be with him, allowed that misplaced hope to flare in his heart, when all she had been doing was communicating with the damned moon, and thinking about another man who could not be at her side, who could never dance with her in the light of the moon. Severus nursed it all along nicely, until he was a maudlin drunken self-pitying mess.

It wasn't nearly as long as it felt until someone knocked at his door, and for a moment the hope flared again, only to be doused as he remembered she had never knocked.

'Go away, I'm busy,' he snarled at the door, far too drunk to open it to a student, and not caring to open it to anyone else either, not anyone likely to be behind it.

'Severus, I need to speak to you about the Yule Ball,' Minerva said as she pushed the door open. 'Oh,' she said pointedly, her eyebrow rising under her hat as she took quick stock of him, 'perhaps another time... when you're sober.'

'I thought I had made it clear that I was not interested in Yule Balls,' he said. 'Not drunk, sober, or any state between the two.'

'And I thought I made it clear that your interest was not required, just your input,' she replied, quite able to deal with Snape in whatever mood he happened to be in, having seen them all. She turned to leave, peering into the blue and gold box as she did so. 'What are these, Severus?' she asked. 'I don't recognise them.'

'I really could not say,' he replied. 'They are Miss Lovegood's, and before you ask, I am not interested in them either.'

'I shall ask her then,' Minerva said tartly, not at all put out by Snape's remark. 'By the way, Miss... Luna seems to think that she has to learn your enviable drinking habits, as well as anything else you might have to teach her. I do hope she is not lying around drunk somewhere too.'

'I really would not know that either. Why don't you ask Lupin?' Severus snapped. 'Goodnight, Minerva.'

Minerva gave him a long look, peered into the box again with a puzzled frown, and left the room without replying.

*****

He had just reached for another bottle, had its neck in one hand and a glass in the other, when his door was shoved open, leaving him feeling like a schoolboy with his hand caught in the biscuit tin, rather than the composed disinterested façade of a man he had intended to present to her.

Luna hadn't seemed to notice though, and went straight to her blue and gold box and peered over the edge, as he watched her and tried to see signs of whether she were dishevelled in any way, or if the lips he had so admired had been kissed by another man, or if she were wearing the same clothes that she had worn earlier, but he couldn't remember what they had been. She looked up before he realised he was staring at her.

'Remove the box, Miss Lovegood. I find I am no longer entertained by the fact that you have charmed small rodents to appear like the creatures you pretend to imagine exist,' he said, quite off balance, yet pleased to hear himself sound like the old Severus Snape, the pre-Luna one, the one he hadn't much liked.

'I have not charmed anything,' she said, drawing back a little unsurely. 'You know that, Severus.'

'Please, Miss Lovegood, it is no longer amusing; now it's just boring. Really, how naive do you think people are?' he asked, pretending to feel gratified by her shocked look. 'In fact, the ambitions on your original curriculum vitae were about right. Suitably unattainable. You see, you haven't conned anybody,' he said, glad he was more than a bit drunk; drink always honed the edge of his tongue to a perfection few could withstand without wilting, and yet it didn't seem to matter much if he failed to make any real sense. 'You'll never con anyone into believing those are anything but a sack of rats,' he said, nodding to where she had moved to stand defensively in front of the Snorkacks. 'And you'll never dance by the light of the moon either... not the full moon anyway. How does that feel, I wonder?'

'It's a lot better than what some poor souls have to put up with at full moon,' she said, confirming the worst to him, biting her lip, and lifting her blue and gold box. 'Goodnight, Professor Snape.'

Severus watched the door close. He was almost shaking in a horrible mixture of rage and remorse. He waited for a long few moments, trying to compose himself before finally whispering, 'Goodnight, Luna,' wondering if revenge were supposed to be sweet, why its aftertaste was so bitter.

*****

'Nearly killed Peeves, he did,' Hagrid said. 'He were in four pieces before the Baron put him back together again.'

'Peeves has been dead for longer than I have,' Binns remarked.

'Yeah well,' Hagrid muttered. 'He blasted him good and proper.'

'About time. That damn poltergeist is a bloody pest,' Dean said, watching Binns carefully to check that he hadn't broken some unspoken code that the dead were not to be maligned.

'He didn't go for dinner, come to think about it,' Flitwick observed, turning to where Lupin was hiding behind his newspaper as he usually did, the only evidence that he was actually there being the steady column of cigarette smoke. 'You weren't there either, Remus. Menu not to your liking?'

'I went to meet some friends,' Lupin drawled, hoping to end his participation in the conversation.

'Snape went out too,' Dean said. 'I saw him leaving as I was going into the library.'

Lupin sighed and stood up, wondering why he ever went to the staffroom at all.

*****

'I've changed my mind about taking Severus to the Yule Ball. I think he's too old for me,' Septima said lightly.

'He's a good five or six years younger than Lucius,' Pomona replied, puffing out yellow smoke that looked slightly sulphurous, but smelled of custard. 'And you said you wouldn't jump over Lucius to get to your teddy bear.'

'Yes, I heard you say that too,' Sybill remarked.

'I have changed my mind,' Septima replied. 'You may have him, Sybill.'

Trelawney narrowed her eyes behind her spectacles, peering at Septima in suspicion. 'I'm not sure what the stars will say about that,' she said, looking towards the window to where all that could be seen was rain.

'I'm pretty sure what Severus would say though,' Minerva muttered sotto voce to Aurora.

'I don't think he'd be much interested in either of you. Isn't that right, Irma dear?' Poppy said, nodding to Pince as she always did to confirm her remarks. 'We think he'd be interested in a much younger model than either of you... and if I'm not mistaken he's a good deal younger than either of you two anyway. He can't be more than about forty-three or four.'

'Forty-five at least,' Septima snapped, running along a path she hadn't intended, widening her eyes and sucking in her cheeks as though that would make her look younger, and not just as if she were startled to find she was sucking a lemon.

'Perhaps he told you he prefers someone younger?' Pomona suggested, the yellow smoke turning more citrusy in smell and colour.

'Miaow,' Minerva said to Aurora, without bothering to change form to do so, as the door swung open. The headmistress took one look at Luna, and stood quickly, ushering the young woman back out of the door. She didn't care for the other women, except perhaps Aurora, to recognise what she had seen below Luna's scant charms, that the girl had been crying. She was about to turn to Luna when she caught sight of the werewolf slouching along the corridor, with his ubiquitous cigarette dangling from his lips.

'Professor Lupin,' she called, stifling the urge to tell him yet again not to smoke in the corridors or classrooms. 'I wonder if I might have a word with you?'

*****

She didn't call before breakfast the next day, and Severus didn't bother going to the Hall. There were no classes, and for that tiny mercy of it being Saturday, he was grateful. No one would notice his absence; it was not unusual for him to confine himself to his rooms at the weekends, and he had often found that having an elf bring him a tray was a small price to pay for forgoing the dubious pleasure of the rest of the school, particularly when he didn't really need to endure it. Now, it just seemed empty, much like the fireplace and the whisky bottles, and Severus himself.

He avoided looking in the mirror as he shaved, still managing not to cut off his nose, and he was just about to make for Hogsmeade for vital supplies of the cigarettes and whisky he had dosed himself with the night before, when the door swung open, without a knock, and something flooded through him that he didn't recognise.

'Oh good,' she said. 'I was hoping you would be sober.'

'Miss Lovegood, what are you doing here?' he asked, quite unable to think of anything more suitable to say.

'I was going to ask you to watch the Snorkacks, Severus. You weren't going to drink all day today again, were you?' she replied, looking around the room, as he basked in the way she used his name, until he reminded himself just why he had been so drunk anyway. 'Only I'm not sure that the Snorkacks should be witnessing such goings on,' she went on.

'In that case, perhaps you should try Professor Lupin,' he suggested with a liberal dose of acid to his tone.

'Oh, no. I was going to Hogsmeade with Remus to meet some friends again.'

'Really,' he replied. 'So I shall just stay here and baby-sit; is that the idea? While you and your boyfriend spend the afternoon...'

'... Boyfriend?' she repeated. 'Don't be silly, Severus. Lupin isn't my boyfriend. He's old enough to be my father.'

Severus wasn't quite sure where that left him, being, as he was, the same age as the werewolf, but some instinct of self-preservation kicked in, and he found himself agreeing, mainly because he knew if she left her box, she would need to come back for it, and maybe he had misunderstood what he'd seen, and it was only reasonable to give her the benefit of the doubt, although he had never given such a thing to anyone else since the first day he had drawn breath. And then he remembered how it had been her own admission that she didn't always tell the truth, and it all fell apart again.

'Then when I come back, we need to talk about what we're wearing to the Yule Ball, Severus,' she went on. 'Minerva seems to be getting a bit touchy about it.'

'I am not going to any Yule Ball,' he replied, still riding the rollercoaster of his doubts and emotions.

He watched her turn to leave, with her school skirt on over a pair of odd-looking trousers that he thought might have belonged to her father; and her necklace made of a few bent teaspoons, ones that made him wonder if she had dug up the Nifflers; and her hair tied up in a strange ponytail at the front of her head, so that it had the opposite effect of what it supposed to have, and she had to brush it off her face; and her odd shoes, one white, one yellow, but both on the correct feet, and Severus knew in his heart that nothing about it was contrived, and it had just been what had been at hand.

'Miss Lovegood, why didn't you call before breakfast?' he asked before he realised he was about to do so.

'Oh, I didn't want to trouble you,' she said, looking surprised as she paused in the doorway. 'Snorkacks can be hard to deal with if you have a hangover. By the way, your tea's getting cold,' she added, nodding to where a cup of clear dark tea sat steaming invitingly back at him.

*****