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Could that truly be an Aquivirius Maggot?
Luna cocked her head in surprise, and in cocking her head, twitched her wand, and in twitching her wand, sent the spell she’d woven twenty-two degrees left of its target.
“Miss Lovegood,” Headmaster Dumbledore said, “you missed.”
“Sir, did you see that maggot crawling on the frame beside you? I’m quite certain it was—” She broke off. “Oh.”
“Oh? Is that all you have to say?” Headmaster Dumbledore harrumphed, no twinkles in his painted eyes.
But who could listen when one frame over, paint was melting into tiny rivulets, mostly glistening streaks of green but also a bit of silver, a bit of pale flesh tone, a dollop of dull black, and two tiny, glittering orbs, too dark to identify with color at all. The paint drooled from the painting of a long-forgotten Quidditch game in progress, leaving a riderless broom dipping and spinning.
The rivulets spun in the air before her and stretched like a waterspout reaching down to touch the surface of the sea. Only this was a spin of magic, and when it touched the floor of the isolated classroom in the dungeon, instead of a sleek, twisting column of water and wind…
There formed a whirl of darkest green billows, slowing to reveal Slytherin Quidditch robes of heavy green satin settling softly around a young wizard crackling with raw energy, lean and long and tense. He whipped out his ebony wand and spun to face her, his stance aggressive, his hair a heavy fall of black, half-covering his eyes that were dark as coals and just as fiercely hot.
The 1977 House Championship Quidditch match continued its endless game on the wall behind him, minus one Beater.
Instead of bringing back Professor Dumbledore, she’d brought back Professor Snape.
A seventeen-year-old Professor Snape who now was one breath away from hexing her. “Who the bloody hell are you?” he spat.
The thoughts, Oh dear, and, Whatever have I done? were quickly followed by an even more compelling one. She stared into his face, as yet unmarked by age or pain or guilt or torment, at his bare left forearm, unmarked by evil, and thought him quite unexpectedly—
Beautiful.
And then, the most urgent and bittersweet thought of all, as her mouth fell open in surprise.
Someone should have taken better care of you.
His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.
“Miss Lovegood!” the headmaster called from his portrait. “Do it again, only this time—”
“Unfortunately, sir,” she said. “I’m only allowed one test subject.”
“I’m your test subject!”
But the small squirming larva beckoned her. Luna smiled with delight. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, pushing Snape's wand aside and stepping around him, “I need to rescue a maggot.”
She tugged a radish earring free, popped open its hinged top and gently eased the squelchy, grey-striped larva into it, then snapped it closed and hung it back on her ear. She hummed brightly, for it was a well-known fact that the Aquivirius form responded well to music.
She stopped. Severus not only still had his wand poised to attack, he also twitched nervously.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. “And how the bloody fuck did you get me out of there?”
She sighed, snatching the wand out of his grip and patting him gently on the head before he could jerk away. “Come with me. I’ll explain everything.”
Perhaps the head pat hadn’t been a good idea.
Or perhaps it was the snatching of his wand.
Either way, he spat words she’d never heard and lunged forward.
“You know,” she said, ignoring him as she eyed his wand carefully. It seemed as real as he did, which was very real, indeed. “The question isn’t how I got you out. It’s what happens next.” She tucked his wand up her sleeve with her own and smiled.
He glared at her, but dropped his hands to his sides.
“Miss Lovegood!” Headmaster Dumbledore exploded.
“Don’t worry, sir,” she said, as she guided young Severus Snape through the door ahead of her. “I’ll let you know as soon as it transforms. Just think, an Aquivirius fly!”
She closed the door and locked it.
Severus’s lip curled as he stared at her ear in disgust. He sniffed and glared down his nose at her; even at seventeen, he already possessed a quite arrogant nose. “Impossible. Aquivirius flies don’t exist.”
“And wizards don’t get brought back to life from portraits, either,” Luna agreed placidly. “Except, of course, when they do.”
She took his arm and—using the special dispensation given for her secret project—Apparated him home.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They had barely arrived at her small flat in Hogsmeade when he began spitting questions at her.
“What year is it?”
“2001.”
He paled beyond his natural state. “And I’m already dead?”
“Not anymore.” She smiled happily and began assembling things for tea. “Do you prefer biscuits or scones?”
“The—” He rubbed his bare left arm. “The Dark Lord?”
He’d asked a question she could answer without distressing him. “The war is over, Severus,” she said gently. “Voldemort is dead. You’re a hero.”
He drew back. “A hero?”
“Biscuits or scones?”
“I’m not eating until you give me back my wand.”
She took a parchment image of a Triffler from its roost near the ceiling and held it close to his head.
“What the—”
“All right,” she said, and handed him his wand.
His lips curled into a sneer. “You should have demanded a wand-oath. You must be a Hufflepuff.”
“Ravenclaw, and I don’t need a wand-oath. If you had ill intent, the Triffler would have told me.”
His wand clutched tightly, he spun, staring at the scrolls piled on all surfaces, the books on the floor, the parchment models of magical creatures suspended from the ceiling.
“Trifflers in their flesh and blood forms seek the truth like Nifflers seek gold. Facsimiles, however,” she said, raising the Triffler, “find ill intent.”
He flicked his wand and sent her Triffler up in smoke, then smirked. “Indeed?”
“Ill intent toward me.” She smiled. “You’re the same as always. I’m so glad.”
“But he’s a seventeen-year-old Snape, Luna—”
“Oh, yes, and he’s perfectly lovely.”
Harry in the Floo dragged his hand through his hair and shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Luna, I don’t know how to put this but—”
She adjusted her bodice. “Tell Headmaster Dumbledore that the maggot is safe; I’m taking good care of it.”
“That’s no way to talk about Professor Snape, now that we know—”
“I know you want to be his friend, Harry. But he’s not ready to be yours.”
Luna warded the Floo, shifting uncomfortably in her robes. They really were too snug now.
She entered the kitchen. Severus was over his sulk and sat at the table amidst her projects. So far, “taking care” had proved to be a matter of providing lots of food, strong tea and returning the wand he kept clutched in his hand, even as he ate.
“Who was that?” he demanded.
“My friend, Harry. Nobody was supposed to know about my secret project other than my superiors and the headmaster, but he complained to Harry. That’s actually rather a good thing. Harry can smooth things over at the Ministry for you to return to the living.” She hummed loudly, glancing down and hoping the maggot could still hear her.
She raised her eyes to find Severus staring at her breasts. “Oh, you noticed!”
He put his wand down and wiped his hands on his thighs, swallowing nervously. “Noticed what?” he asked, his eyes never leaving her cleavage.
“My enhancement spell! I had to make them bigger.” She walked closer and leaned over. “Can you see better, now?”
This time, he gulped without saying a word.
She took his index finger and tucked it deep into the warmth between her breasts. His eyes flew open wide as he gaped up at her. “There… can you feel it?” She shifted a little, guiding his finger. “There it is. I’m incubating.”
She released his hand but noticed his finger stayed firmly in place. “He’s still in my earring, of course. Poor thing. Maggots are very social creatures, you know, and since he’s all alone he needs extra care.”
Still staring down her cleavage, Severus moved his finger a bit tentatively, as if, well, maybe he was trying to pet it?
He licked his lips as if they were suddenly dry.
Few people found the things she liked as interesting as she did, but from the expression on his face, he was absolutely riveted. She beamed at him. “I have to give him slivers of decayed meat. He has long teeth for shredding and secretes putrefying bacteria and digestive enzymes that create the warm, soupy environment he needs to—”
As his finger slid deeper into her bodice, his cheeks went from pale to flushed.
“Are you having trouble breathing?” She pulled his finger from between her breasts and began briskly rubbing his hand between hers.
“I’m fine,” he snapped, yanking it away. He seemed to be trying to look everywhere at once—everywhere except her cleavage.
“I shouldn’t have mentioned putrefying flesh while you were eating.”
“Fuck,” he muttered, dragging his hands through his hair.
“You don’t really look like him,” she said as he took a careful slurp of hot tea. He glared over the edge of the cup without speaking.
He rarely spoke to her. She supposed it was his attempt to exert his independence while they waited for the Minister and the Aurors and the elite panel of the Wizengamot to figure out how to deal with a newly alive and innocent Severus Snape. If he were anyone else, she might think she annoyed him, because she did often annoy people; she’d be silly not to notice. But she was absolutely certain she didn’t annoy Severus, because… well, because the thought that she might annoy him made her ache.
Professor Snape would have been annoyed, though. She slid the last chocolate biscuit across the table to him. Don’t be annoyed, she said with her eyes.
He took the biscuit without grace. “Whom don’t I look like?”
The clock on the wall wheezed. Thirty minutes had passed. She slid her finger delicately between her breasts and eased the radish earring up until it peeked into the cool air. Maggots did that. They lived in a swarm and rotated constantly between the heart and heat of the community and the edges to cool down. Even if you liked being warm and belonging to a group, too much would stifle and steam you. Sometimes you must come out for air and for relief from the heat of all those squirming bodies…. “My mother loved Elvis,” she said. “Is that why you do it?”
He let out a long-suffering sigh. “Do what?”
“Curl your lip? To look sexy like Elvis?”
His cheeks flushed. She crossed to the door to let in cool air. He’d been around her too long, was getting too hot, too squished. Sadly, she decided to leave him alone, but part of taking care was helping him develop some social skills, since he certainly hadn’t had many when he’d been her professor.
Thoughtfully, she paused in the door and looked over her shoulder at him. “When you curl it that way, it makes me want to suck it, you know. Just to see how it feels and tastes.”
It wasn’t until later that she realized that perhaps the way he’d choked on his biscuit might mean she’d hurt his feelings, because he probably meant his sneer to be off-putting, but really, she had to prepare him for the world and for happiness, and that meant for women, and if curling his lip made women want to suck it, he should know, shouldn’t he?
She wished she weren’t three whole years older than he was now.
She really would like to taste his lip.
His voice was sullen and his expression resentful, but he’d actually started a conversation. She paused in her efforts to feed the maggot a sliver of meat without actually removing it from its snug home down her bodice. “Because I can’t give it a corpse.”
“No.” His features twisted in disgust. “I know that. I mean—you flinch every time you…” He crooked his finger, his eyes glued to the earring jutting from between her breasts.
“Oh… breasts weren’t meant to grow so large so fast. They haven’t adjusted yet.” Relieved that he didn’t seem to find the process disgusting—perhaps because of his interest in potions?—she leaned forward and handed him the tweezers. “Would you?” Then she supported her breasts from underneath. The heft of them was quite new and uncomfortable, but raising them for him to see better relieved a bit of the ache.
His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed thickly. Perhaps the smell of rotten meat was getting to him after all. His eyes captured hers and she thought, how lovely they were, those dark eyes, narrowed in suspicion.
“You’re serious,” he sneered.
“Usually,” she agreed, watching his lip again.
“This isn’t a ploy. You really want me to—” He studied her until she might have considered squirming, but then he smirked and flung his hair back. “All right.”
He leaned near and his hair fell forward again, brushing her skin as he delicately lowered the shaving of meat into the earring, then snapped it shut. But the brush of his knuckles against her flesh and his breath—puffs of warm, moist air—made her shiver. He stayed that way longer than necessary, giving her an enchanting view of his long, lush eyelashes.
And then, when he sat back again, she murmured, “It needs humming, too. I don’t think it hears me, now that it’s insulated.”
“Humming.”
“Hmmmm…” she demonstrated a bit breathlessly.
He licked his lips. It wasn’t curling now, but his upper lip still looked tempting. As did his lower lip.
“This is fucking awkward,” he said, standing.
She blinked up at him and lowered her breasts, suddenly chilled.
He stalked restlessly to the door and jerked his chin. “Come with me.”
She followed.
He moved through her bedroom with grace, as if books and research materials weren’t littering the floor. She followed in his wake. He motioned to her bed. “Lie down,” he said impatiently. “If I have to do this, I insist on comfort.”
She stretched out on her back.
“No,” he snapped. He took her shoulder and rolled her onto her side, and then slid against her body.
“Oh!” she gasped, as he pressed the side of his face gently against her bodice. She pulled his arm across her waist to bring them close and rested her chin on his head. This was much more comfortable, and so very nice. “You should have been a Ravenclaw.”
And then, he hummed, and his hum rippled right into her, deep and dark and melancholy. Her eyes fluttered closed and she thought how lucky, how very, very lucky her maggot was, to have such sounds vibrating into its very core….
He stopped abruptly. “Why is a map of Sweden on your ceiling?”
“Because my mural blew up.” It could still bring tears to her eyes, the loss of her “friends.” She pulled his cheek closer to the maggot. “Please,” she said sadly, “keep humming. The maggot is sometimes so lonely.”
She felt something soft and tickly—his lashes as he closed his eyes—then another lovely gust of warm, moist air as he started humming again.
“Fuck!” he said, flipping through the back section.
“They won’t let me tell you anything, and that includes letting you read about it.”
He jerked restlessly to his feet. “You said I was a hero. That was telling me something.”
“That was telling you something about you, and who you are. Not what happened.”
“You told me the Dark Lord was defeated.”
She avoided his eyes. “I thought it unfair not to tell you that much.”
“But—” He rubbed the pristine skin of his left forearm. “I don’t see how that could have happened.”
“You took the Dark Mark,” she said, deciding that was about him, as well. “Fortunately,” she added, and then whispered into his ear, “you were a spy.”
“A spy.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t intend to be a spy.” He turned his face to hers and she saw the fear behind the scowl. “What happened to change me?”
She should tell him. She should be the one to tell him gently.
But she’d promised.
“I knew I had a portrait in the Headmaster’s office, which means I must have been headmaster, but he—the sodding bastard me in the portrait—refuses to leave it, refuses to talk to me, and the other portraits look at me with strange looks and—” He slammed his fist against the wall. “I deserve to know what I did!”
Tears prickled her eyes. She reached to touch his cheek, but he jerked his head away from her.
“You were a brilliant spy. And it’s my honor to care for you until the world is prepared for your return.”
“That’s ridiculous. There’s no such thing as—” He bit off the rest of his remark and sneered, again.
He had to know what his sneers did to her. She’d told him, after all. Now that he was talking to her, she supposed this was his way of exerting his independence. Driving her mad with his lovely, lovely lips. “They gave me the assignment because I’m odd.”
“What assignment?”
“To bring back the headmaster. The formula called for powdered Crumple-Horn, and the first rule of using Crumple-Horn is believing in it.”
He stared at her.
“To achieve the impossible you have to believe in the impossible. And to believe in the impossible, you have to be odd.”
This time he smirked. “You should be an Unspeakable.”
She froze.
“Merlin,” he whispered. “You are an Unspeakable! But—you’re only twenty years old.”
“That’s why it’s Sweden,” she said. “On my ceiling.”
“Because you’re an Unspeakable?” He scowled.
“Because that’s where the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks are.”
Hermione was getting very pushy, wanting to take over with Severus.
She turned on her knees to find Severus watching her from the doorway. He’d been watching her a lot lately. With that look on his face. Sullen and calculating, yet, yearning and… guilty? It was a very disconcerting look. “I hope she can.” She leaned forward and hummed a little at the maggot, now snug in its little puparium, preparing to emerge as a noxious Aquivirius fly.
“You hope she can…?” His voice came from above her.
“Send your fish and chips. I thought a special dinner…” She stood and tucked her wand behind her ear, and stared at his chin.
He seemed edgy; his body radiated tension. “That’s your surprise for my last night here?”
“No, this is the surprise,” she said, her heart pounding. She slid her fingers into his hair, cupped a hand around each ear and pulled him down for a kiss. His lips were stiff beneath hers. “I’m trying to take care of you,” she said. “To prepare you for a happy life, because you deserve a happy life.” She pressed her lips softly against his again.
He squeezed his eyes shut. “There’s someone else.”
“Oh, Severus.” Her heart broke a little. She should tell him. She really should… but she’d promised. She took a deep breath and found her smile. “That’s all the more reason for you to let me teach you.”
He jerked away. “I know how to kiss.”
She curled her arms protectively around the puparium between her breasts. She wondered if it was afraid to come out. Didn’t it know what awaited it, that flying would be like heaven? She trailed her hand sadly along the back of the sofa as she walked toward the door. “Then your surprise will be fish and chips.”
Twice, his footsteps approached. Twice he stood outside her door. Both times she hummed louder, so he’d know she was awake if he wanted to knock. So he’d know she didn’t need him if he didn’t. Twice he walked away again.
It was getting harder to hum around the lump in her throat, with tears clogging her voice.
He froze. “I don’t want to see that chuffing bastard.”
“He wasn’t kind to you,” she agreed.
He frowned. “I’m talking about me, the other me.”
“So am I.” She held up a small vial. “This is my backup application, the one I was going to use if the first wasn’t strong enough.”
“You're bringing that old goat back to life?”
She watched the squirming puparium, cradled in her hands on a linen handkerchief. Her breasts were small again, but she wasn't sure Severus had noticed. He seemed not to want to look at her at all. “It’s how you're going to rejoin yourself and regain your memories. Toss the powder from this vial and use the spell I have written out for you. I've put instructions on your bed for how to Apparate into the Headmaster’s office without being seen.”
“Into his office?” he asked, startled.
She smiled to herself.
“You’re giving me an Unspeakable spell.”
“You need to be fully… yourself, before you meet them all. You've been cleared, but…”
“I’m not stupid. It’s obvious that these other people—my own bastard self, even—that you're all hiding something from me. If I’m such a sodding hero, why isn’t the world waiting to welcome me with open arms?”
“Oh!” She left him sitting at the breakfast table, sputtering, and returned moments later with the black robes. “These are yours.”
His eyes narrowed. “I stayed a lanky streak of piss, then.” He reached out and touched the fine wool. “I could afford this?”
“You always dressed beautifully, and smelled wonderfully of potions.”
He took the robes and disappeared back into his room.
And because the puparium was moving and her heart was aching, she took her carpetbag and the puparium and Apparated away.
She had failed.
She’d done everything she could, had kept it close to her heart, protected it, hummed to it, and it hadn’t been enough.
It hurt far more than she would have dreamed, this knife-ache in her heart, this shimmering of pain that was far bigger than an Aquivirius fly and much more the size of a lovely, seventeen-year-old Snape, and please, don’t let her have failed at that, too, because to fail at that—
The shadow fell over her.
She smelled him. Not Severus, but the potiony male smell of Professor Snape.
She turned and looked up into the harsh planes and stone-faced expression and felt a little clutch in her heart.
Severus was gone.
She smiled sadly. “It worked.”
“If you call bringing me back to life only to remember every unforgivable mistake I ever made working—” he snarled. “You could have brought Albus back with this morning’s application. They wanted him.”
“I couldn’t let them have you when you were… vulnerable.”
“Miss Lovegood, you never should have brought me back at all!”
His voice was ragged with rage and pain, and all she could do was blink away stinging tears and stare at the black smudge on the worktable. “It died,” she whispered. “I didn’t do enough.”
“Are you—are you crying?” he asked in disbelief. “Over a nasty, vile flying thing that nobody wants around them?”
“You never know who wants a nasty, vile thing around them. Some people are… odd.” She stared blindly through her tears. “Or so I’m told….”
“Oh for Merlin’s sake!” He snatched up the leaf and strode fiercely through the door with it.
She grabbed her carpetbag and ran after him, fighting for air.
He held it in the direct sunlight. “It just needs warmth to acclimate.”
And before her eyes, it quivered and stretched, its tiny wings spreading accordion-like pleats until they were as large as a butterfly’s, and where the oil-slick black surface caught the sun, it reflected colors the rainbow never knew.
It lifted and flew high into the sky, leaving the subtle stench of sulfur in its wake.
“Why did you leave me to do that alone?” he asked stiffly. “What if I’d misused the spell? What if I’d splinched myself somehow and got caught between—”
“Oh, how silly. As if you could ever do such a thing,” she said, staring dreamily at the spot of sky where the fly had disappeared. “The Ministry is unhappy with me.”
“For bringing me back?” he asked bitterly.
“For misusing Ministry powers to steal you to take you home with me. For quitting my job. They wanted you, to protect you, they said, but it didn’t sound like protecting to me. It sounded like controlling, and testing, and experimenting.”
“You gave up your job?”
“I have to go to Sweden.”
“To find more Crumple-Horned Snorkacks,” he said, suddenly alert. “To bring more people back.”
Again, the little clutch at her heart. Of course he’d want to bring Lily back. “To help them hide. People will be wanting their horns.”
“They already hide so well that people don’t believe in them.”
“But that will change now.” Everything had changed. Everything. She gripped her carpetbag tighter and began walking to the Apparation point.
He was following.
She didn’t want him to follow.
She couldn’t say goodbye to him—not him, too.
She walked faster.
“Luna,” he said from close, too close, and—and—had he said Luna? He’d never called her that, not even when he was seventeen. She stopped.
“After everything I did, the things I allowed as headmaster—how could you treat me with such… such kindness?”
She frowned. Hadn’t she already told him? “It was an honor.”
“But I—”
“An honor,” she repeated.
“The others—”
“You needed someone to take care of you. It was an honor.”
He stared down at her.
A small glow warmed her from within. “It was the maggot that saved you,” she said, suddenly. “It needed us both, didn’t it? It knew.”
“That ridiculous maggot couldn’t—” he began, exasperated. But then he broke off. His eyes dark and fathomless and impossible to read. “Who takes care of you?” he asked.
How odd to think she needed someone to care for her, when she clearly didn't, because no one ever had, and here she was anyway, wasn't she?
He glared at her. “If I go with you on this ridiculous trip to Sweden, you will refrain from humming. You’re rubbish at humming.”
Her heart stopped. “But… why?”
“I'm feeling a bit… odd,” he said.
“You do get used to it after a bit, being odd.” She found herself unable to look at anything but the buttons on his waistcoat. There’s someone else, he’d said.
“There’s something about you that’s been driving me quite mad.”
“I drive everyone mad…” She held her breath as he leaned forward and gently… sucked her upper lip.
She dropped her bag and grabbed his forearms to stop from falling.
“Professor!” the deep voice called from a distance, and they slowly broke apart, but were unable to stop staring into each other’s eyes.
“Professor!”
“Bloody hell,” Severus sneered. “It’s Longbottom.”
His sneer set off flutters in the deepest parts of her, and sunbeams burst inside her.
“No, Neville,” she said quite breathlessly, “you can’t have him.”
And she took Severus’s upper lip between her own—bliss—as she stepped into the turn and thought of Sweden…
Only maybe his kiss distracted her because when the world stopped spinning, she reluctantly pulled away and saw palm trees, a turquoise sea, and the sun dipping behind lush, cloud-ringed mountains.
“This,” he said, “is not Sweden.”
Not Sweden, but better, because—could that truly be…? “A Blibbering Humdinger!”
And she grabbed Severus’s hand and dragged him into the sunset.
~~~~~~fin~~~~~
Thanks to annietalbot and deemichelle for being fabulous (as always) betas, to camillo for tutoring on Snape's language and attitudes at age 17, to ginny weasley and sevylu who came in with fresh eyes at the end, and to talesofsnape for the gorgeous banner, even though she hadn't read the fic and simply asked what to put in it. Look! It has a maggot! Isn't he cute?
The original prompt:
Luna creates a new Charm. Working on it for several years post VW II, she now has the ability to draw life from the Hogwarts portraits. Her aim was to bring back Dumbledore, but an unconfirmed sighting of an Aquivirius Maggot sees her aim instead for an old quidditch portrait of the victorious Slytherin team circa 1977, and one Severus Snape in particular. (Written for the 2009 SNUNA Exchange to a prompt by ozratbag.)