Moonstone and Vinegar, Part Two

[lesyeuxverts]

Title: Moonstone and Vinegar, Part Two
Author: lesyeuxverts00
Word Count: ~1800
Rating: R
Pairing: Severus/Luna
Prompt: Post-war, H/C: Luna is injured by a magical creature (one of those the Quibbler reported about that no one knew really existed until she got hurt), her father pays a hefty fee to have the best potioner available, Severus Snape, take care of her and try to create a potion to cure her. During this, Severus develops feelings for her, but convinces himself he shouldn't act on them... until Luna starts to improve and convinces him otherwise.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
AN: Thanks to bewarethesmirk for the lovely beta!

Part One



The apothecary refused to sell Severus hellebore. With a nervous flutter and a stuttered apology, she bobbed her head and smeared her lipstick with her shaking hands, looking askance at him.

"Haven't any more in stock?" he asked. He leaned over the counter, his oak wand tapping against the glass-topped counter with an ominous cadence, the rhythm of potential Unforgivable Curses measured out with precision. "You just sold some to your last customer and there's an abundance of it left on your shelves."

"Pre-ordered by another customer, yes," she said, shaking in rhythm with Severus's tapping. "The Aurors will be here in a second if I call them, Severus Snape. The new system's very efficient, and the Aurors have no love lost for you."

The smell of the fresh hellebore was in the air, floating in dimness and the shadows, enough to tantalize Severus. He leaned forward, his palms leaving faint smudges on the glass counter, and the apothecary cowered before him.

Her chin stuck out in defiance, though she ran a nervous, twitching hand across her face, smearing her lipstick further. "I'll not sell you hellebore or any other poison."

Glaring at her, Severus brushed the edge of her mind and found it opaque. He leaned in, leaned closer, pressed –

"Enough," she said. "Enough, Severus Snape. Get out of my shop. I won't have it sullied by a Death Eater."

Pivoting on his heel, Severus gave his cloak its trademark swirl as he strode from the shop. A parting hex caught the door bells and silenced them.

Lovegood was even more intractable than the apothecary had been. "I offered to clear your name and you refused it in favor of my daughter's hand in marriage," he said. "Why should I give you both?"

Severus scowled, but Lovegood cut him off before he opened his mouth. "Lower your voice, or you'll wake her."

Stalking over to the bed, Severus bent down over Luna and traced the line of her jaw with one finger. He took her hand and pressed a kiss to the palm. "Perhaps you should give me both because you don't want to see your daughter married to an acknowledged murderer. Perhaps you should give me both because you want to see your daughter live. I must be able to go to the apothecary to purchase ingredients, Mr. Lovegood."

Lovegood bent to kiss his daughter's forehead and then gave Severus a weary smile. "I will go to the apothecary, Professor Snape. My daughter can't afford the delay that it would take to clear your name."

-----

Severus crushed the moonstone with unnecessary force. The grit flew from the mortar and pestle, dusting the room with a shimmering powder. Severus coughed it out of his lungs and blinked it out of his eyes.

He glared at Luna, but the chit hummed and spread the rose petals across her blue duvet. Rose-red, rose-brown, the petals' edges curled and wilting, Luna arranged them in incomprehensible patterns, smiling all the while. She looked up at him for a long moment before she shook her head. "You needn't worry. Daddy will get the hellebore, I'm sure of it."

Severus brushed her thin hand away, knocking the proffered rose petals to the floor. They landed in a swirl around his feet. "Don't presume to know my mind, Miss Lovegood. I'm hardly worried."

Luna sat up in bed, her breathing faltering as she leaned across the brewing table to touch his forehead. Her touch was firm, but she wavered in midair. Her arms wobbled and windmilled, and Severus caught her before she fell face first into his cauldron.

"You have these two lines on your forehead, the ones that you get when you're especially worried," she told him as he helped her back to her pillows and tucked the duvet around her.

"Miss Lovegood, you know nothing. You know nothing about my potions, my thoughts, or my emotions. You were an execrable student and you are an unbearable patient."

She blinked at him, fidgeting with her useless pile of rose petals. "It's all right to worry."

Her face shimmered with the powdered moondust, glitter caught in her eyebrows and on her lips. Silver-pale, it shone against the forced blush that lingered in her cheeks, that mockery of life simulated by the toxins in her blood. With a harsh wave of his wand, Severus Banished the ground moondust.

"I am not worried," he said. "I merely prefer to select my own ingredients for delicate potions, in order to maintain the most efficacious –"

"Daddy will choose the best ingredients," Luna said. "I'm quite certain that your instructions were specific enough – oh, Daddy, you're back."

Lovegood dropped a wrapped parcel on the table, too near to the heat of the cauldron, and Severus winced. "If you have any interest at all –"

It was too late to secure the man's attention – he was kneeling by his daughter's bed, smoothing her hair, checking her pulse, testing her forehead for a fever. His hand was large, wind-reddened and coarse against her small pale face. Severus coughed.

"My darling Moon-fairy, are you any better? How did everything go while I was gone?"

"Do you truly wish for your daughter's recovery, Mr. Lovegood?"

Severus didn't wait to see the man's nod. "If so, then you will not put precious ingredients near an open flame or in any other extreme temperature conditions."

Lovegood blinked and nodded, turning back to his daughter without a word for Severus. He swooped down on her like a butterfly, tickling her chin until she batted his hands away.

"Moreover," Severus said, raising his voice to be heard over the giggling, "you will refrain from these nauseating displays of affection. Healing potions are delicate and volatile and do not respond well to this –"

Luna, with a flippant twitch of her eyebrows, levitated a handful of rose petals to float around Severus's face. They swiped at his skin like licks of a cat's tongue, gentle-rough and inescapable. The sheer effrontery of the girl, this irrational girl-child who was not his fiancée, who would never be his bride – Severus gritted his teeth and stormed out of the room, slamming the door on Luna's laughter.

-----

Severus dumped the failed potion out the window, watched it sizzle and smoke as it hit the ground. The smell of charred earth wafted up, the fumes curling the rose petals and turning them soot-black. Severus smirked and returned to the bedside.

"I'll need belladonna, more fresh hellebore, distilled white vinegar, and some myrtle," he told Lovegood.

The man hardly blinked, caught up in his vigil over Luna's bedside. Soap bubbles floated in the air, iridescent and unbreakable. They shifted with his every breath, they hovered around Luna's still form like a hazy halo, they rang with the music of the spheres. Beautiful, gauzy and ethereal, they were the most insufferable excuse for a healing ritual that Severus had ever encountered.

"Stop that," he said. "No more holistic remedies, none of this fluttery garbage or nonsensical ritual. Your daughter's illness is perfectly treatable by rational, scientific methods. There is no need for any of this insipid display, I assure you."

With a grimace, Lovegood rose from his chair, and all of the bubbles burst in a rainbow-hued haze. They splattered down through the air, splattering droplets landing on Luna's duvet and brightening the blue. He clapped a hand on Severus's shoulder, let the touch linger. "You sound like my wife, always practical."

Before Severus could hex his hand, Lovegood withdrew it and went to the door. His fingers were pale against the dark doorframe, still a tempting target. "Belladonna, fresh hellebore, white vinegar, myrtle," he said. "I remember the specific instructions from last time, there's no need to repeat them."

Lovegood was gone, his footsteps echoing down the corridor, just as Severus's hand twitched toward his wand.

"You needn't talk to Daddy like that," Luna said. Her eyes were closed, her limp golden hair was fanned out on her pillows, and her hands were folded at her breast as if in prayer. She was an unassailable image, pure as a virgin's portrait and pale as a waxen figure, perfect until she opened her lips.

The rosy, feverish blush had faded from her cheeks, the color had drained from her lips, and she was turned translucent and hazy without the unnatural blush. She was an almost-ghost in the dissipating haze of soap bubbles.

Severus blinked at her and Banished the haze with a flick of his wand. "I hardly think that your opinion counts at this stage, Miss Lovegood."

She smiled, as soft and hazy as the bubbles that were gone, and Summoned a handful of rose petals from the window. Charred by the smoke from the failed potion, they left a sooty residue on her fingers and she scattered the black flakes on the duvet. "My mother planted those roses, you know."

Severus shut his eyes and set his wand down on the bedside table. There was no rational conversation with Luna, and there was no possible response to her inane comments.

"You might have said that there was no point in my mother expressing her opinion because she was going to die, Professor. You might have said that there was no point in her doing anything, but she planted these rosebushes, and they flourished, and even now, even despite your wretched potions, they're going to flourish."

Luna reached beneath her pillow for her wand and sent the fragmented petals flying at Severus in a frantic black whirlwind. "There's nothing that you can do about that," Luna said.

She fell back on her pillows, drained by the spells that she had cast, and Severus strode to the side of the bed, uncorking an energy replenishing potion and tilting the vial to her lips. "Drink," he said.

She shook her head, crumbling the last of the rose petals between her fingers and clinging to the sooty remains. Severus pressed the vial to her lips and she pushed it away, bringing her fingers up to smear the ashes across her face. The gray overlaid her pallor, deepened the shadows under her eyes, and Luna shuddered.

"Enough sentimental nonsense," Severus said. "Drink."

Luna, her eyes closed, her fingers grasping at Severus's sleeve, said in a low voice, "Mother," and then she drank the potion without complaint.

Severus stroked her throat to help her swallow and he Banished the vial when it was empty. "You mustn't waste your energy with these inane fits and flurries of nonsense," he said. "I've told you –"

She brought his hand from her throat to her lips, pressing a kiss on the back of his knuckles before she released him. "I know."