~ by Noppah

There was little she didn’t know about the people around her. They all thought she was weird. It suited her just fine; she didn’t really care. Many of them wondered why she was a Ravenclaw. She had a lovely chat with the Hat during sorting. He had warned her she was unique, and would often be misunderstood. Her inquisitive mind and instinctive knowledge, he had said, belonged nowhere else but in Ravenclaw.

Skipping through the ancient hallways, she pondered about the odd process that was communication. As a little girl, she had quickly realized nobody understood her as she spoke, nobody but her father. People always told her to stop being silly, or to stop talking nonsense. When she didn’t, they assumed she was crazy. It didn’t stop her from talking, though.

She passed a third year student whose aura was tinged grey; obviously the girl was troubled with sad and negative thoughts.

“You should weave some clover in your hair; it will keep away the Guidybows.”  

The girl sent her a confused look, smoothing out her hair as if trying to find the mentioned clover. Luna hummed.

Also as a little girl, she had figured out the problem wasn’t her. Her words made perfect sense, but apparently her brain worked differently. Other people’s brains weren’t able to translate her words into something that made sense for them.

Stopping her skipping, she struck up a conversation with a beautiful painting of a flower girl. Some students entered the hallway, turning a corner. Their auras were yellow, mottled with brown. Luna concluded that they were gossiping. The cloud of yellow/brown around the group wasn’t flaring or pulsing; on the contrary, it seemed rather subdued. Gossiping about something unpleasant, no doubt, Luna thought.

“Was it me, or was he even nastier than usual?”

“He’s such a git.”

“Did you hear how he tore down Emma’s potion? It wasn’t even half bad.”

“The bastard, she was near crying!”

“…”

Oh, Luna thought, Severus was summoned again. Quickly making up her mind, she said her goodbye to the painting and set out towards the dungeons.

***

Severus let out a sigh. He slightly regretted lashing out at Miss Thompson. His splitting headache was no excuse. Looking down at his hand, he scowled as a slight tremor hit his fingers. A result of the Crucio he had endured yesterday evening. No doubt the headache had the same origin.

On days such as these he sometimes wondered if the Potter brat was all worth it. Oh, he would protect him all right, he had promised, and he was a man that stayed true to his word. However, it was far from a pleasant life. He found himself wondering if it wouldn’t be better to disappear, or give up. He shuddered at the thought.

The door to his classroom opened. Severus was about to scold whoever dared to disturb him during his free period, but refrained as he watched Luna Lovegood walk in. She had that infuriating smile on her face. The dreamy look in her eyes always made him question her intellect, and the same could be said about everything that came out of her mouth.

She proved him wrong with each test and assignment. They were always filled with nonsense, but amongst it were all the answers he expected. It sometimes made him wonder if there was something sensible in what she said, after all.

The girl stopped in front of him. He should have expected her; she had the uncanny habit of showing up the day after he got summoned. It made him wonder how much she knew.

“What do you want, Miss Lovegood?” he snapped when she did nothing but stare up at him.

She reached out to put a hand to his forehead. He fought the urge to recoil. By now he knew that it was no use. She would just follow him until she got what she wanted, and no amount of scowling or snide comments would faze her. At least she only behaved like this when there was nobody else around.

The coolness of her hand did wonders for his headache.
“Too many Wrackspurts,” she said sadly, a small frown marring her otherwise smooth forehead. “They’re messing with your memory.”

He waited while she seemed to be thinking. He wanted to say that his memory was just fine, what was she thinking? But again he had learned better. Their conversations, if you could call them that, never required much input from him.

She had started showing up somewhere in the first semester of her fourth year. Suddenly she had been sitting in a potions class of the fifth year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. At his inquiry about what in Merlin’s name she thought she was doing there, she had simply answered that she thought the potion they were about to make sounded interesting. She had refused to budge, and in the end he had appointed the Ravenclaw next to her as her caretaker.

“Oh! I know!”

He snapped back to the present at her cheerful exclamation. With curiosity he watched her extract her wand from her robes.

“Hold out your hands, like a cup.”

Letting out a longsuffering sigh, he did as he was told. With a flourish and an exaggerated swirl, she twirled her wand above his outstretched hands. Only to beam up at him afterwards.

“Good day, professor,” she said, once more dreamily. Turning on her heels, she skipped out of the room.

Glancing down, Severus nearly broke. Lying safely in his cupped hands was a perfect, white lily flower.