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Professor Severus Snape despised many things. He despised stupidity, idle chatter, violations of safety protocols, and that disgusting peach colour Umbridge had painted her office. But more than anything in the world, he despised marking homework assignments from first-years.
Standing at his desk in the dungeons, he viciously dragged his quill across parchment, leaving a bloody trail of scarlet ink. "Gryffindor, minus twenty points. For attempting to brew a potion from what passes for your brain, you would have created not a 'Draught of Peaceful Sleep,' but a 'Potion of Eternal Nightmare.'" Next scroll. "Slytherin, minus five. While you might not kill yourself in the first exercise, your sloppiness is an insult to the very concept of 'the art of potion-making.'"
The air in the classroom was thick and heavy, smelling of the fumes of thousands of potions brewed long ago, dust, and bitterness. This was his home, his fortress, his personal hell, which he ruled with pleasure. Here, everything was under his control: the temperature, the lighting, the degree of fear in the students' eyes.
That's why he felt her quiet presence on his skin even before he heard the door creak.
He didn't look up, continuing to scrawl a vicious remark on some nobody Ravenclaw's work. "Professor Snape?" a quiet, airy voice sounded, as if coming from under a depth of water.
Snape slowly, menacingly, raised his eyes. She stood in the doorway. Luna Lovegood. The girl from fourth—no, fifth—year Ravenclaw. The one rumours said was not quite right in the head. She stood, shifting her weight from foot to foot, her pale, almost colourless eyebrows raised in surprise, and her huge, protruding eyes looked somewhere into the space over his left shoulder, as if watching a circling invisible Dirigible Plum. Her long, whitish hair was braided into a clumsy plait, into which were woven... were those live sage stems?
"Miss Lovegood," his voice cracked like a whip, making even the still air of the classroom flinch. "Unless your appearance here is related to the imminent demise of all living things within a five-mile radius, I suggest you turn around and vanish. Instantly."
She didn't vanish. Her gaze slowly drifted around the room and settled on him, expressing neither fear nor obsequiousness. "I was looking for Nargles. They say they like cool and dark places. Your classroom seemed ideal. But I don't see them. You haven't noticed any, by any chance?"
Snape froze. His brain, accustomed to tricky questions, bold lies, and outright idiocy, short-circuited for a moment. Nargles? "Miss Lovegood,"he hissed, beginning to lose patience. "Nargles do not exist." "Oh,that's a very common misconception," she replied seriously. "People don't believe in what they can't see. But that doesn't mean something isn't there. Like your irritation, for instance. It's not visible either, but it's here, it's thick and prickly, like a patch of thistle. Very interesting."
He stared at her. There wasn't a trace of mockery or challenge in her voice. She was stating a fact, as if talking about the weather. It was so unexpected that a venomous retort got stuck in his throat. He was used to being feared. She, however, seemed to simply... find him interesting. Like one of her fictional creatures.
"Your perceptiveness is astounding," he said with icy politeness. "Now, if you are finished with your zoological inquiries…"
"You're marking papers?" she took a few steps forward, her gaze falling on the mountain of parchment. "That must be tedious. Seeing so many mistakes. They're all wrong, aren't they?"
"Perceptiveness again at its peak, Miss Lovegood," he threw back sarcastically, but she missed the sarcasm, as she probably missed most social cues.
"Daddy says the biggest mistake is to be afraid of making mistakes," she said thoughtfully. "But I suppose that doesn't quite apply to potions. A mistake here can be very beautiful. Explosions, for example. Or unexpected colour changes. Once I crushed Mandrake root incorrectly, and instead of a calming draught, I got a solution that made all my hair stand on end and glow blue. It was lovely."
Snape, against his will, pictured it. And, even more against his will, a thought flashed through his mind: incorrect crushing of Mandrake root combined with, presumably, a higher brewing temperature could cause that effect due to the release of volatile esters… That was… interesting.
He dismissed the thought. "Your father," he said, and a familiar poisonous note crept into his voice, "is known for his… unique worldview. Now…"
"Oh, you read The Quibbler?" her face lit up with joy, as if he had just named her the most brilliant student at Hogwarts. "Daddy will be so pleased! He says he doesn't have many readers who can see through the veil of the mundane."
Snape was about to retort snidely that he only read it to keep track of what new nonsense to expect from his students, but he stopped. Looking into those wide, sincere eyes and lying felt… strange. Like kicking a baby puffskien.
He sighed, feeling his famous patience wearing thin. "Miss Lovegood. I have work."
"I can help," she stated simply. "Pardon?" "I can help.Sit quietly. Hand you parchments. Or just sit. Sometimes the presence of another person makes boring work less boring. Daddy says loneliness is the main food for Gulping Plimpies; they suck joy out of silence."
He looked at her, utterly dumbfounded. In his long career, students had come to him with bribes, threats, flattery, pleas for help. No one—absolutely NO ONE—had ever offered to simply keep him company in his underground dungeon to ward off some mythical Plimpies.
And the most absurd, the most ridiculous thing was that the thought of not being alone in this oppressive silence suddenly seemed… not so terrible.
"And what, in your opinion, should I do?" he asked, and for the first time in this conversation, there was no poison in his voice, only weary bewilderment.
"You could say, 'yes, Miss Lovegood, please take a seat on that stool and, for heaven's sake, don't touch any vials labeled 'poison,'' she answered perfectly seriously.
The corner of his mouth twitched. Damn it. That was almost… amusing.
"Take a seat on that stool, Miss Lovegood," he said tersely. "And, for Merlin's sake, don't touch anything. And don't speak."
She nodded with the air of a scientist receiving an important assignment and settled on the indicated spot, folding her hands on her knees. She didn't make a sound. She just sat and watched him with her unblinking, intent gaze.
For the first fifteen minutes, Snape felt on edge. His back, always hunched over the desk, straightened. He was tense, expecting some foolish question, a comment, anything. But nothing happened. Only quiet, even breathing and the sensation of her attention, which was not judging, but… accepting. As if he were as fascinating as her Nargles.
Gradually, the tension began to ebb. The silence with her presence was different. It wasn't empty. It was filled. And he, to his own astonishment, began to work faster. His quill flew across the parchment almost automatically, his brain freed from the usual oppressive background of self-loathing and bitterness, focusing only on the task at hand.
He finished the stack half an hour earlier than usual.
He set down his quill and looked at her. She sat in the same pose, but now her eyes were closed, and a light, serene smile played on her face.
"Miss Lovegood," he called, and his voice was quieter than he intended.
She opened her eyes. "Are you finished? I was thinking about nightshade tubers. If they were brewed not by moonlight, but by the light of the full moon reflected in a silver vessel, do you think it would enhance their soporific effect? Or perhaps endow the potion with the property of showing the sleeper good dreams?"
Usually, he would have immediately shut down a student daring to theorize about something they understood not a tenth of. But her question wasn't without a certain… logic. The magic of moonlight, reflected magic of silver… It wasn't academic nonsense; it was a curious, though naive, supposition.
"Unlikely," he snapped, but then, after a pause, added: "Reflected light loses its potency. Direct light would be required, which is technically difficult to maintain for a brewing process lasting several hours. But the idea of a connection between oneiromancy and the alchemical properties of metal… is not entirely absurd."
She smiled as if he had just awarded her the Order of Merlin, First Class. "I thought so. Thank you, Professor."
She hopped off the stool. "Goodbye. And good luck with the Nargles."
And she floated out of the classroom, leaving behind a faint scent of sage and a sense of complete, deafening surreality.
Severus Snape remained sitting at his desk, staring into the void. He felt as if he had just weathered a very strange, very quiet hurricane. And on his usually impeccable conscience, a tiny, almost imperceptible splinter had appeared—doubt. Doubt that he had just spent nearly an hour conversing with a mad girl, and it hadn't sent him into a rage.
He extinguished the candles with a wave of his wand and plunged the room into darkness. But the sensation of that other, filled silence lingered in the air for a long time, like a ghost.
---
It became a strange tradition. Once a week, usually on Thursday evenings, the door to the Potions classroom would creak softly, and Luna would appear in the doorway. She didn't always ask permission to enter. She just appeared, like the moon from behind clouds, and silently took her place on the stool in the corner.
Snape would grumble at first, mutter something about rule-breaking and intrusive students, but it was all a ritual now, devoid of real anger. He even, without realizing it, began to leave that particular stool free, pushing it farther away from the tables with reagents.
Their communication was peculiar. She could sit in complete silence the entire time, or she could, after he finished marking, ask him a question that would make any snide remark catch in his throat.
"Professor, do you think if you cry into a cauldron with a brewing potion, the tears would change its properties? Tears are a potion too, brewed by the body from grief." Or:"Is it true that ginseng roots whisper underground? I tried to listen to them, but I only heard the earth."
At first, he brushed her off. Then he began, grudgingly, to answer from a scientific standpoint, debunking her "nonsense." But gradually, he noticed that behind this "nonsense" often lay an unexpected, almost poetic logic that forced his brain, set in its dogmas and formulas, to look at something from a new angle.
Once, she watched him furiously cross out an entire paragraph in a paper by a Hufflepuff girl—Neville Longbottom, who had apparently decided to get creative in describing ways to crush a newt's eye. (Translator's Note: The original Russian text had a made-up name 'Niv Dolgopups', a likely misrendering of 'Neville Longbottom'. This has been corrected to the canonical character.)
"She was trying to be precise," Luna remarked quietly. "A newt's eye is very slippery. If you press it instead of cutting it, it squirts out and flies into a corner. Maybe she just wanted to warn about that?"
Snape froze with his quill in hand. He reread the passage. "…significant pressure must be applied for crushing to avoid unintentional displacement of the object…" Bloody hell. That idiot Longbottom was actually, in his clumsy way, trying to describe a safety technique, not be cheeky. He had always read such things as insolence. It turned out to be a… timid attempt to help.
He slammed his quill down. "Miss Lovegood, your ability to find excuses for other people's incompetence is truly boundless."
"It's not an excuse," she said simply. "It's an observation. You see things others don't, too. You see not just the mistake, but how it was made. That's why you get angry. You see too much."
He looked at her. There was no flattery or reproach in her eyes. Only that same calm statement of fact. She saw his irritation, his "thistle," again. And this time, he didn't deny it.
Something changed from that evening on. He began not just to tolerate her presence, but to… anticipate it? No, of course not. That would be absurd. But when on Thursday she wasn't in her usual spot (it turned out she had an extra Care of Magical Creatures class), the classroom felt unbearably empty and cold, and marking papers seemed three times more tedious.
And then the gifts began.
The first one was tiny, inconspicuous. He found it on his desk next to a stack of freshly marked essays. It was a dried henbane flower, neatly encased in a transparent ball of hardened resin. It formed a perfectly smooth, dark pendant. Gloomy, sombre, without a hint of foolish sentimentality. But made with immense care and… understanding. She wouldn't have given him a bright, shiny pebble. She gave him poison, encased in eternity.
He looked at it for a long time, rolling it in his palm. Then, glancing around, he shoved it into the pocket of his robes. Never wore it. But sometimes he would finger it in the depths of his pocket, feeling the smooth, cool surface.
Her gifts were always like that. A small wooden figurine of a bat with carefully carved wing membranes. An intricate pig-bone keychain in the shape of a DNA helix (how did she even know about… ah, yes, Muggle-born students). Trinkets that no one but the two of them would notice or understand. He once, to his horror, caught himself attaching that keychain to his ring of keys for the ingredient storage closets. He immediately detached it but… didn't throw it away.
In response, he began leaving small packages for her on the stool. Not bouquets. Severus Snape did not give bouquets. They were samples of rare but non-dangerous herbs: a packet of dried wild saffron leaves, a root of angelica, perfectly cleaned and tied with a dark thread, a few seeds of moon saxifrage—a plant that blooms only under the full moon.
He justified it to himself as simple… encouragement for a talented, though odd, student. A stimulus for her botanical inquiries. But once, entering the class early, he caught her sitting on her stool, pressing a packet of dried mint he'd left the previous week to her cheek, with that same light, absent smile.
He retreated into the shadows and pretended not to see. But something warm and extremely uncomfortable pricked him deep inside.
Their conversations after the "marking sessions" grew longer and more complex. She shared theories from The Quibbler, and he, gritting his teeth, explained where the scientific basis was (however far-fetched) and where it was pure fantasy. He began to see a method in her "madness." Her mind worked not linearly, but associatively, drawing connections between things an ordinary person would never connect. And sometimes these connections yielded astounding results.
Once, she was musing aloud about "water spirits" that, according to her father, inhabited stagnant waters and fed on the dreams of the drowned.
"…and Daddy writes that if you ask nicely, they can grant a drop of water that holds a forgotten dream…" "Nonsense,"Snape automatically retorted, finishing putting a 'T' on Zabini's essay. "But…" he set down his quill. "Stagnant water, especially in places with strong emotional residue, can indeed absorb residual magical emanations. Mostly negative ones. It's the basis for some powerful poisons and…" he fell silent, his own brain making a leap. "…and antidotes. If we assume 'dream' is a metaphor for a congealed emotion… then theoretically, one could attempt to extract…"
He fell silent, staring at the wall. The thought was insane. But not impossible. He spent the next week in his personal lab, experimenting with water from the Lake, trying to isolate and crystallize those very "emanations." He didn't succeed, but the train of thought she had set in motion was brilliant.
He began to respect her. That was the most shocking part. He, Severus Snape, cynic and misanthrope, began to respect the airy, illusion-dwelling girl from Ravenclaw.
One evening she said, "It's easy with you. You don't try to fix me."
He looked at her profile, illuminated by the flickering candlelight. "Perhaps because some things are beyond fixing, Miss Lovegood."
"Or because they aren't broken," she countered. "They're just… different. Like different ingredients. You can't fix henbane to make it mint. But both are useful."
For the first time in many years, someone was talking to him not as a damaged person, not as a teacher, not as a villain or a hero. But simply as an… ingredient. A part of a complex, peculiar universe. And there was a strange comfort in that.
---
Their friendship, if it could be called that, did not go unnoticed. At Hogwarts, where the main entertainment was observing others' lives, the strange connection between the gloomy Potions master and the eccentric Lovegood couldn't help but cause gossip.
The stream of poisonous gossip peaked when Snape, at another staff room dinner, responded to Filius Flitwick's barb about his "new favourite" by turning and saying in an icy tone audible across the hall, "Unlike some, Filius, I value intellect in students, not the ability to squeak out Christmas carols. Miss Lovegood possesses one of the most unorthodox minds I have ever encountered. Pity its uniqueness is lost on mediocrities."
Dead silence fell in the room. Flitwick turned red to the roots of his hair. Even Dumbledore raised his eyebrows in surprise; McGonagall squinted. Defending students was in Snape's style. But praising them? Publicly? And in such terms?
For Luna, however, his words became a shield. The mockery grew quieter and rarer. Now people laughed at her with caution—no one wanted to incur Snape's wrath, who had apparently seriously taken the oddball under his wing.
But the real change happened between them. Their communication went deeper. Words, which were always distorted and subject to gossip, began to seem like too crude a tool.
The idea came, as always, from Luna. She was watching him silence a group of chattering Slytherins at a nearby table in the library with a single raise of his eyebrow.
"You're very good at that," she said later. "It's like speaking a separate language. Just with eyebrows."
"That is the language of power, Miss Lovegood, not communication," he grumbled.
"But it's still a language. Why not create our own? Just ours? So we wouldn't have to say aloud what others shouldn't hear."
He wanted to brush it off, but the idea hooked him. Creating a language. A code, a cipher. Something that would belong only to them. It was… intellectually stimulating. And damn practical.
Thus began their nightly vigils. They met in the empty Potions classroom after official curfew. They spread huge sheets of parchment on the floor and began to create.
She brought abstraction, poetry, symbols: "A sidelong glance could mean 'caution' or 'pay attention.' And if you squint a little, 'I doubt it.' And a raised chin—'I will listen' or 'a request,' depending on the tension in the neck muscles."
He brought structure, logic, discipline: "Not enough nuance. We need a clear system. Touching the temple with the index finger—a question. With the middle finger—an assertion. A hand movement with the palm down—negation. We must create not emotions, but an alphabet."
It was Herculean labour. They argued, found compromises, sometimes he shouted at her when her suggestions were too vague, and she would merely calmly parry, "But not all thoughts are clear, Professor. Sometimes you need to convey a feeling. We need a sign for 'I'm sad, but I don't know why.'"
And he, gritting his teeth, agreed.
They developed dozens of gestures, signs, facial patterns. Light tapping on the table with knuckles: "I'm here, I'm with you." Two short sighs: "Attention, danger." Biting the lower lip: "I need help, but I can't ask aloud."
They practised. First consciously, then it became their second nature. They could sit in complete silence in the large library and carry on a whole conversation: he—tilting his head slightly, she—adjusting her cork necklace. They discussed the weather, the latest article in The Quibbler, Zabini's stupidity. And no one around had any idea.
It was their fortress. Their universe for two. In this language, there were no taunts, no past pain, no social conventions. There was only pure, refined understanding.
Once, during such a "conversation," he asked her (quickly running his tongue over his upper lip—"How are you? Truly?").
She answered by pointing her right thumb down and gently pressing her palm to her chest—"Heart is heavy. Reason unknown."
He looked at her, then slowly, almost hesitantly, raised his hand and traced a smooth arc in the air, ending the movement with an open palm toward her—"I am here. You are not alone."
She smiled, and her eyes glistened with moisture for a moment, which she immediately blinked away. She responded by shaping her fingers into a figure resembling an opening bud—"Gratitude. I appreciate it."
That evening, walking her back to the Ravenclaw corridor, he suddenly realized they hadn't spoken a single word all night. And he felt peace. A deep, unimaginable peace for him.
He walked back to his dungeon, and in his soul, as dark and tangled as a labyrinth, one small but incredibly steady candle was lit.
He didn't know that very soon this candle would have to withstand a hurricane.
---
Xenophilius Lovegood died quietly. It wasn't a death at the hand of Voldemort or his followers. In this universe, the Dark Lord never regained a new body after that night in Godric's Hollow, and his ghostly shadow gradually dissolved, leaving behind only a handful of deranged fanatics who no longer posed a global threat.
Death came from a banal, almost Muggle cause. A weak heart. He was sitting in his favourite spinning room, editing the next issue of The Quibbler, making plans to catch the Crumple-Horned Snorkack… and simply fell asleep. Forever.
Luna was found by concerned magical neighbours, worried that no smoke had risen from the chimney of the strange house for three days.
An owl arrived at Hogwarts. The dispatch was addressed personally to Snape, as her mentor. He read the short, dry message from the Ottery St Catchpole village elder and went cold. The world turned upside down. The beating of his own heart sounded deafeningly in his ears.
He didn't go to her. He almost ran.
He found her in the garden behind the castle, sitting under an old chestnut tree. She wasn't crying. She just sat, hugging her knees, staring somewhere into the sky. Her face was empty, like a blank parchment. It seemed her soul had been scooped out, leaving only a light, fragile shell.
He approached and silently sank to the ground beside her. He didn't say stupid things like "I'm sorry" or "it will be alright." He knew that was a lie. He knew what pain was that burned out your insides.
He just sat. Next to her. Breathed in the same rhythm.
Maybe an hour passed. Maybe two. The sky began to turn pink.
She finally stirred. Without looking at him, her fingers slowly formed a gesture in the air: "Emptiness. Everything is empty."
He responded by touching his knuckles to her hand—"I am here."
She fell silent again. Then her shoulders began to shake. A quiet, soundless cry. He didn't look at her, staring at the reddening horizon. But his hand, without a command from his brain, rose and rested on her back. Not patting. Not comforting. Just… holding. Like an anchor preventing a boat adrift in the open sea from smashing against the rocks.
It was at that moment that Remus Lupin saw him.
The new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, having just arrived at the castle, decided to take a walk in the morning coolness. He was walking across the lawn and froze, seeing them. Snape. Sitting on the ground. And the crying Ravenclaw girl. And his hand on her shoulder.
Something sharp and familiar pricked Remus in the chest. Not jealousy. More like… bitter astonishment. Severus, always so sharp, prickly, venomous, was now… soft. Silent. Present. The way Remus had dreamed of seeing him… for himself. But this softness was not directed at him. Never at him.
Remus turned away and quietly left, feeling the old, gnawing pain inside. He was a ghost in his own life, doomed to always watch others' happiness from the sidelines.
Snape, however, broke all his rules that day. He escorted Luna to her dormitory, ignoring the curious glances of her housemates. He personally brought her a calming tea from his private stores, which he had brewed himself—strong, without a sleeping draught, but capable of taking the edge off the grief.
He didn't leave. He became her quiet rock in a raging ocean of despair. He spoke to her in their language of gestures when words were impossible. He listened to her quiet, fragmented memories of her father without interrupting or correcting.
He helped her organize the funeral. Modest, quiet, in the small cemetery at Ottery St Catchpole. He stood apart, wrapped in his black cloak, as she said goodbye to her father. He saw how the few gathered looked at her with pity and awkwardness.
And then, at the very moment when the coffin was lowered into the ground and Luna stood, straightening to her full fragile height, with dry eyes and trembling lips, he did something he hadn't planned.
He walked over and stood next to her. Not as a teacher. Not as a mentor. As… family. And when the ceremony ended and people began to disperse, he turned to the elder and said clearly and distinctly, for all to hear: "Miss Lovegood remains in my care. Any further inquiries are to be directed to me."
He didn't file any official papers. The magical authorities, who remembered him as a Death Eater, would hardly have approved guardianship. But in the world of Hogwarts, in their universe, it sounded like law. Like a vow.
On the way back, in the carriage, she looked at him with her huge eyes. "Why?"she whispered, the only word she'd spoken all day.
He didn't answer immediately, watching the fields flash by outside the window. "Because loneliness is the main food for Gulping Plimpies,"he finally said, using her own words.
She nodded slowly and placed her cold hand on his. He didn't pull his away.
From that day on, everything changed. He became more than a teacher to her. He became her anchor. Her home. She called him "Professor Snape" in public, but in his office, over a cup of tea, in their silence, she addressed him simply as "Severus." And he allowed it.
Hogwarts buzzed with gossip. "Snape adopted Lovegood!" they whispered in corners. Nothing was official, but everyone saw: he now personally checked that she ate in the Great Hall; he took her to his grim residence on Spinner's End for summer and winter holidays; he became even more ferocious in defending her from any mockery.
Without knowing it, he had gained not just a strange pupil. He had gained a daughter. And it changed him. Not dramatically. He didn't suddenly become a nice person. But the edge of his vitriol softened a little. In his eyes, always full of anger and contempt, sometimes, when he looked at her, something else flickered. Something resembling peace.
And in the shadows, watching this change, suffered another lonely man. Remus Lupin. He saw that Severus was capable of care, of tenderness. And this knowledge was the most excruciating torture.
---
Remus Lupin lived in a state of permanent internal storm, carefully hidden under a mask of weary kindness. His office was like him: temporary, a bit shabby, smelling of cheap tea and old paper. And loneliness.
Every full moon, he was taken to the Shrieking Shack, and in the morning he returned broken, gaunt, with new wrinkles around his eyes. And every time he staggered into the Great Hall for breakfast, his gaze involuntarily sought out one person at the staff table.
Severus Snape.
He always sat a little apart from the others, immersed in himself or in a vitriolic conversation with McGonagall. His long, thin fingers clenched a cup of coffee which, Remus knew, he took without sugar or cream. Bitter, like himself.
Remus remembered another Severus. The fifteen-year-old one, with lively, intelligent eyes, a sarcastic but sharp sense of humour, and an incredible, almost artistic talent for potions. Remus, then a boy torn between loyalty to James and Sirius and a vague, unclear fascination with this thin, pale Slytherin, often caught him alone in the library. He saw how he, engrossed, would draw something on parchment—schemes of highly complex potions their teacher couldn't have dreamed of.
He remembered once trying to talk to him. Not to tease. Really. "Is that an advanced version of Polyjuice Potion?"Remus asked, peering over his shoulder.
Snape started and immediately covered the parchment with his hand, his eyes flashing with suspicion and malice. "What do you want, Lupin? Come to gloat? Or are your idiot friends waiting for a signal?"
"No! I just…" Remus faltered. "It looks brilliant."
A look of bewilderment flashed across Snape's face, quickly replaced by even greater bitterness. "Don't try to fool me. Go back to your toys."
Remus left. He had called himself a weakling then. A coward. He couldn't break through his wall of distrust. He was too weak to go against James and Sirius, too afraid of their mockery, too afraid of his own secret, which made him an outcast squared.
And then it happened. The "bullying" crossed all lines by the Black Lake. And again, Remus couldn't do anything. He just stood and watched as Sirius's cruel prank nearly killed a man. A man he… what did he feel? He couldn't even name the feeling. But it was something warm and anxious that clenched into a knot of pain and shame when he saw the humiliation and hatred in Snape's eyes.
And since then, a chasm had lain between them. Deep as the Mariana Trench and poisonous as Snape's strongest potion.
Now, years later, Remus watched him with new pain. He saw how Snape had changed around that girl. How a drop of softness appeared in his stern posture when she said something quietly to him at dinner. How he sometimes, without realizing it himself, watched her across the hall, checking if she was alright.
And this capacity for care, this tenderness, which Remus had always suspected in him and which he so fiercely buried under layers of sarcasm, was now revealed to the world. But not to him. Never to him.
Remus loved him. Quietly, hopelessly, as one loves a distant star. He enjoyed merely being in the same castle, breathing the same air, sometimes catching his gaze, even if it was full of the usual dislike. This was his punishment. To see the possibility of happiness so close and know he was unworthy of it. He would never be worthy. Because of his illness, because of his cowardice in the past, because he was a friend to those who had broken him.
After a particularly bad transformation, Snape brought him the Wolfsbane Potion in his office. His face was a stony mask of disgust. "Drink.Don't you dare spill it," he spat, setting the goblet on the table.
Remus, utterly exhausted, barely standing, took the mug. Their fingers touched briefly. Snape's skin was cold. Remus felt a shiver run down his spine. "Thank you,Severus," he said quietly, putting all his unspoken gratitude, pain, and longing into those two words.
Snape just grimaced as if tasting wormwood. "Don't thank me. It's a duty Dumbledore imposed on me. Personally, I'd prefer you to die of your own weakness."
And he turned and left, slamming the door. Remus closed his eyes, feeling the familiar, bitter despair fill him. He wasn't even worthy of simple human politeness from him. He deserved only hatred.
He didn't know that Snape, stepping away from his door, leaned against the cold wall of the corridor for a moment and ran a hand forcefully over his face. His own fingers were trembling. Every time he saw Lupin like that—weak, helpless, pale—an old, familiar rage rose in his chest. But now it was mixed with something else. Something sharp and stabbing, something suspiciously like… pity. And that infuriated him even more. He hated Lupin. Hated him for the past. Hated him for his weakness, which for some reason kept touching some hidden strings in his soul. Hated him for being a constant, living reminder of his humiliation.
He suppressed that tangle of conflicting feelings, as he always did. Shoved it deep down, sealed it under seven locks. And became Potions Master Snape again, the venomous professor.
But one person in the castle saw not only the masks but what lay beneath. Luna saw the pain in Professor Lupin's eyes when he looked at Severus. And she saw how Severus's back tensed when Lupin entered a room. She saw the invisible thread connecting them—not a thread of hatred, as everyone thought, but a thread of some old, unhealed wound that still bled.
She sat on her stool in the dungeon, drinking honey-sweetened tea he kept specially for her, and watched him stir a potion furiously. "He looks at you like you're the last star in a dark sky,"she said quietly.
Snape slammed the spoon down. "Do not start conversations with me about Lupin." "And you look at him like a broken thing that's pitiful but can't be fixed,"she continued, ignoring his warning tone.
He turned to her sharply. "Your fantasies have gone too far, Luna. What you see is not stars or broken toys. It's hatred. Deep and deserved. Don't try to romanticize what has long since rotted."
"Hate isn't that sad," she parried, looking at him with her clear eyes. "It's angry, hot. But between you… it's cold. Like in an empty room where a fire once burned."
"Enough!" he barked, and the echo rolled off the stone walls. "This is none of your business. You understand nothing."
She wasn't afraid. She just shook her head. "I understand pain. And I understand when two people are hurting each other because they're afraid to stop."
He didn't answer. He just turned back to his cauldron, but his shoulders were tense, his movements sharp and angular.
Luna finished her tea and silently left. She understood that words were powerless here. They didn't need a conversation. They needed a bridge. And she, like no one else, knew that the strongest bridges are built not of stone, but of quiet, almost invisible gestures.
But she didn't yet know how to build it.
---
The idea came to her as all the best ideas did—unexpectedly and with perfect clarity. It happened during a DADA class. Professor Lupin, exhausted from the recent full moon but mustering his will, was giving a lesson on Boggarts.
He was explaining the theory, his voice even, but Luna, sitting in the front row, saw how his hands trembled and how he avoided looking toward the windows where the light reflected.
And then she understood. Lupin's Boggart. What did he see? The full moon? His own distorted likeness? Or… maybe something else entirely? Something related to his loneliness, his guilt?
And Snape's Boggart? She knew that. She had seen it once, accidentally walking into the classroom when he was practising the spell with a few students. Then, a few years ago, his Boggart had taken the shape of… not Voldemort. And not Sirius Black. It was her, Luna, lying motionless and pale on the floor, with empty eyes. He had banished it with 'Riddikulus' so quickly that no one else had time to see. But she had seen. And understood.
His greatest fear was losing those he… was attached to. Those he loved.
And at that moment, the thought crystallized in her mind with crystal clarity. She knew what needed to be done.
She waited until evening. She went to Snape's office not on Thursday, but on Wednesday. This immediately put him on alert.
"What's wrong?" he asked without preamble, setting aside his book.
She walked over to his desk and gestured for a piece of parchment and a quill. Frowning, he provided them. She wrote:I need your help with an extremely complex potion. It requires the participation of two experienced potioneers. And the presence of a third person—one who understands the nature of fear.
He read it and looked at her questioningly. "What potion is this?I know of none that fit that description."
She wrote again: It's not a potion from textbooks. It's… my project. Based on what Daddy and I discussed. A potion that doesn't cure, but… shows. Shows the truth about fears. Not to frighten. But to understand them and… maybe, share them.
He looked at her large, sprawling handwriting, trying to find the catch. Her projects were always eccentric, but this one sounded especially… personal.
"And who is this third person?" he asked, though he already guessed.
She shot him a quick glance and wrote one word: Lupin.
He shot to his feet, kicking his chair back. "No. Absolutely not. I don't know what you've concocted, but this is madness even by your standards. I will not participate in this."
She didn't back down. She looked at him and made a few gestures in their language: Trust me. Please. This is important.
He saw in her eyes not madness, but that same crystal clarity that sometimes visited her before her most brilliant insights. And he also saw… hope. Hope for something he was afraid to even name.
He turned away, clenching his fists. "Why?" She used gestures again so the words couldn't be overheard,even by the walls: Because you are both trapped. You are afraid of each other. Afraid of what was. Afraid of what could be. This potion… it won't erase the past. But it can show that your fears… are shared. That you are not alone.
He was silent for a long, long time. He looked into the crackling fire in the fireplace. There had been few moments in his life when he had truly listened to anyone. Dumbledore—out of a sense of duty. People stronger than him—out of fear. But here… here he was listening to a fragile girl because… because over the past few years, she had become the only person who saw the real him. And hadn't turned away.
"This is dangerous," he finally exhaled. "Emotions, especially fear, are unpredictable ingredients. This could end in disaster."
She walked over to him and placed her small hand on his clenched fist. "But isn't that the point of alchemy? To turn the lead of fear into something else? Trust me."
He closed his eyes. And nodded. Once. Short and sharp.
---
They prepared for a week. Luna brought drawings and calculations she and her father had made years ago. Snape, gritting his teeth, made adjustments, checked the logic, selected ingredients. He worked obsessively because only that could drown out the voice of doubt.
He invited Lupin to his lab under the pretext of discussing a new recipe for the Wolfsbane Potion that might soften the side effects. Remus, surprised and wary, came.
He froze on the threshold, seeing Luna bent over a cauldron. "Severus? I didn't know that…"
"Come in, Lupin, and close the door," Snape threw over his shoulder without turning around. "Miss Lovegood is the… co-author of this project."
Remus entered, feeling extremely awkward. The air in the lab was thick and heavy, smelling of something bitter and metallic.
"What is this project?" he asked cautiously.
"An experimental potion," Luna answered in her airy voice. "It works with fears. But not like a Boggart. It… manifests them. Makes them visible. Not for everyone, but for those who are ready to see."
Remus paled. "Severus, this is… this is madness! It's dangerous!"
"Thank you, Lupin, I hadn't figured that out myself," Snape retorted sarcastically. "But the calculations are correct. Safety protocols are observed. As much as possible."
"But why?" Remus looked at him with bewilderment and growing anxiety.
Luna answered instead of Snape. "To understand. Sometimes the biggest fear isn't the one hiding in the wardrobe. It's the one living inside us. And sometimes, to stop being afraid of it, you need to look at it together with someone."
She looked at Remus, and there was no madness in her gaze. Only deep, bottomless wisdom. "Are you afraid, Professor Lupin?"
Remus wanted to refuse, to leave, to run away. But he looked at Snape. He stood, turned away, his profile tense, but he wasn't leaving. He was here. Voluntarily. Participating in this.
And some part of Remus, the part that had thirsted for any contact, for any shared experience with this man for years, overruled the fear.
"What needs to be done?" he asked quietly.
"The potion is ready," Snape said, his voice hoarse with emotion. "It is not drunk. It is… inhaled. The vapours. They will induce a kind of waking dream. A hallucination based on our deepest fears. But we will not only see our own. If… if Miss Lovegood's theory is correct, we will be able to see each other's fears. It will… create a bridge. A bridge of understanding."
"This is a terrible idea," whispered Remus.
"Agreed," Snape said unexpectedly and for the first time that evening looked directly at him. Something complex was in his black eyes: fear, resistance, but also… a challenge. "Did you always think me a coward, Lupin?"
It wasn't an accusation. It was a question. Remus shook his head."No. Never." "Then prove you're no greater a coward than I am."
The challenge was thrown. Remus straightened up. His weariness vanished somewhere. He nodded.
The three of them stood around the cauldron, from which a strange, shimmering vapour rose. It shimmered with all the colours of the rainbow, but the colours were dull, anxious.
"Inhale," Luna said quietly. "And remember… this is not reality. It is only fear. And fear can only be defeated by looking it in the eye."
They took a deep breath.
The world swam.
---
At first, Remus only saw the moon. Huge, full, freezing cold. It hung in the black sky, flooding everything around with its deathly light. He felt his bones beginning to break, his skin tearing, and an inhuman roar tearing from his throat. He was a monster. A lonely, cursed, eternally hungry monster.
And he saw himself. From the outside. Saw his werewolf form lunging at… at a small girl with whitish hair. At Luna. He screamed in horror, trying to stop himself, but couldn't. This was his worst nightmare—to harm an innocent. To kill someone whom… whom Severus loved.
And then the picture changed. He saw not himself-the-monster, but Severus. Severus stepping between him and the girl. But not with his wand ready. With his arms outstretched. Protecting her. Taking the blow himself. And on Severus's face there was no fear. Only grim determination. And… forgiveness.
This wasn't his fear. This was Snape's fear. The fear of losing her. And the willingness to die for her.
At the same moment, Snape saw his own. He saw Luna, his anchor, his quiet harbour, lying pale and dead. And he knew it was his fault. His past, his anger, his cursed life had caught up with her. He was cursed and brought death to all he touched.
And he saw Lupin approaching her. Lupin the werewolf, the monster. But the monster wasn't there to maul her body. But to… how? He saw Lupin bend over her, and his eyes were full not of beastly rage, but of infinite, all-consuming grief. How he howled in anguish, in despair. And Snape understood—Lupin meant her no harm. His greatest fear was the same—to cause pain. To lose. To be guilty.
Their fears intertwined, reflecting each other like in a distorted mirror. They saw not only their own nightmares but the nightmares of the other. And they saw that at the center of each nightmare was not malice, not hatred, but… love. Love that was afraid of itself. Love that caused pain because it was inseparable from the fear of loss and guilt.
They fell to their knees, gasping, tearing themselves from the grip of the hallucinations. The vapour dissipated.
A tomb-like silence hung in the laboratory, broken only by their ragged breathing.
Remus was the first to raise his eyes. He looked at Snape, and tears were streaming down his cheeks. He didn't try to hide them. "You…you're afraid of losing her," he whispered. "And you think it's you… that you're her curse."
Snape, pale as death, looked at him. His usual mask was torn off, and his face was frozen in raw, genuine pain. "And you… you're afraid of becoming a monster to those you want to protect."
They looked at each other, and there were no more walls between them. There was no hatred. There was only naked, trembling truth. The truth of two broken men who were afraid of the same thing.
Luna stood quietly to the side, her eyes shining. Her plan had worked. She hadn't connected them. She had simply shown them that they were already connected. By the same wound.
Snape slowly got up. He stepped toward Lupin, who was still sitting on the floor. He didn't offer a hand to help. He just looked at him. "All these years…"Snape's voice was hoarse with emotion. "I thought you despised me. For my weakness. For allowing myself to be humiliated."
Remus shook his head, struggling to swallow the lump in his throat. "I despised myself, Severus. For not stopping them. For being too weak to… to be a friend. To you. Or to them. I was just a coward."
"No," Snape said unexpectedly firmly. "You were a child. As was I. As were they. We were all damn children who didn't know what we were doing."
It was forgiveness. Not explicit, not loud. But it hung in the air, thick and tangible.
Remus got up, leaning against the wall. He looked at Luna. "Thank you," his voice trembled. "That was… terrible. And… necessary."
She smiled her radiant, childlike smile. "Sometimes you have to reopen an old wound for it to finally heal properly."
Snape heaved a heavy sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I believe I am in need of a very strong drink. And I suppose," he threw a glance at Lupin, "I shall have to offer you one as well. To avoid you fainting in my laboratory."
His tone had the familiar notes of sarcasm again, but now there was no poison in them. There was… a weary familiarity. Almost… warmth.
Remus nodded, unable to utter a word.
They left the laboratory, leaving the cauldron to cool. Luna went first, giving them space.
In the corridor, Snape and Lupin walked side by side, not looking at each other, but their shoulders almost touched. The silence between them was no longer hostile. It was thoughtful. Full.
They reached Snape's office. He opened the door, letting Lupin enter first. Lupin froze on the threshold as if entering a sanctuary.
"Come in, Lupin," said Snape, and a faint, barely perceptible tired smile sounded in his voice. "I won't bite. At least, not today."
Remus stepped over the threshold. The door closed.
And Luna, standing in the shadow at the far end of the corridor, saw a narrow strip of light appear under the door for a moment and then vanish. But she knew the light inside hadn't gone out. It had only just begun to kindle.
She turned and walked away, toward her rooms in the Ravenclaw Tower, feeling a lightness she hadn't felt since her father's death. She hadn't solved their problems. She hadn't matchmade their love. She had simply given them a key. A key to a door that had been locked for many years. What they did behind that door was now their choice.
But for the first time in a long time, she had a feeling they would make the right choice.
And the smile on her face was the most genuine, the calmest, and the happiest it had ever been.