I just watched this Harry Potter movie marathon, which gave me a mighty need to write some fan fiction for Professor Snape, my favorite character of the series. This is my first attempt at writing for him, so I hope I do a decent job of it.

And of course, Snape, Luna, and anyone or anything else mentioned in this story is property of J. K. Rowling, the author of the only books I ever really enjoyed reading.

The Merits of Idiots

It was surprising how many idiots there were in the world. On second thought, he took it back. That didn't surprise him at all.

Professor Snape, or Severus Snape to his friends and colleagues, the former of which he had none, and the latter of which he had more than he wanted, was currently bent over the desk in his office, a dimly lit room which held the same biting chill as the rest of the dungeons and which many believed would have continued to do so had his office resided in the heat of the Hogwarts kitchens simply because of the man who occupied it. He was unfazed, however, by what was implied by such accusations. He preferred the cold. It kept him alert and more able to conjure up, pun most certainly not intended, his infamously snide retorts far quicker than those lazy Gryffindors who were made lethargic way up in the warmth of a tower as lofty as their swollen egos.

Now, if you had asked the Potions Master just what it was he was busy with, you wouldn't need one of Professor Trelawney's sporadic predictions to know with absolute certainty that you would be leaving his office with a wounded pride, detention, or lost points, though most likely all of the above. It was none of your bloody business, end of story.

Considering his reputation amongst staff and students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which had led to the word "Snape" becoming nearly a profanity to anyone who had ever attended one of his classes, it came as a great surprise when there was a knock at his office door that sent his head jolting upwards, several thick strands of his untidy black hair falling in his face that he put no effort into returning to their proper place. Of course, if such a reaction had made any change to his sour expression, it had only done so for the smallest fraction of a second, for he was now giving the door a withering glower that he half-felt would fill it with guilt over allowing itself to be knocked on.

Snape listened for a moment more, a black and flowing quill pen that was inexplicably frayed at the end poised in one hand. The noise was soft and could have very well been imagined, for no one, and he meant no one, sought him out unless it was absolutely necessary. When the knocking failed to repeat itself, he bent back over his work, only to slam his quill down when the sound broke his peace yet again.

Someone better have died…

"Yes, what is it?" the Professor asked in his usual, cold drawl, and the voice that answered back couldn't have been more different if it had been uttered by an owl.

"It's Luna Lovegood, sir," began a soft voice that could've been mistaken for a yawn in its nonchalance. "Can I come in please?"

Snape cringed, knowing full well that pretending he wasn't in at the moment was no longer an option. What a pest that one was. She was so airheaded and lost in her own convoluted, little dreams that he couldn't even gain any sort of satisfaction from punishing her because she would be too oblivious to even notice.

He would never forget the time she had asked him if Mrs. Norris was actually married.

Pulling his wand from beneath his robes, which were of a black even deeper than the quill pen, but not nearly as much so as his eyes, he unlocked the door with a muttered "Alohomora". He'd be sure to subtract ten points from Ravenclaw just as soon as she fell into another one of her silent reveries. She wouldn't likely even be aware such a thing had even taken place, but he would.

"It's open," the Potions Master said when the clicking of the lock failed to clue her in to this fact herself.

Nevertheless, he couldn't help but wince when the knob turned, and the daft and blankly grinning teen (and it was absolutely true what they said about blondes) entered the room with an obvious spring in her step and stopped squarely before him with a relaxed air that said she believed herself to have every right to be here.

"What do you want? I'm busy."

Luna, more commonly referred to as a very fitting, but uninspired, Loony Lovegood, took her time gazing about the room before her attention settled back on him almost as an afterthought. "Everyone's in the Great Hall, you know. For the feast before Christmas break. You should join them. I heard they even have pudding."

"Then it would seem I chose a good day to skip dinner. And why, might I ask, have you yourself not chosen to take your own advice?"

"Oh, I have something far more urgent on my mind right now than pudding." She cocked her head to the side. "Do you like pudding, Professor Snape?"

"Ms. Lovegood, I have already told you, I am busy, and if you came all the way down here just to talk, you're going to have to find someone else to blabber to." He took up his quill pen again, though he remained doubtful he would actually get to use it any time soon. "I should think you will have no trouble finding the door. It should be a simple enough task. Even for you." If people began flocking to his office for idle chitchat, he might very well have to seek employment elsewhere.

"Well, you see…" Luna began, as if it had just occurred to her that she had come here for an actual reason, "I have a problem—"

"I'm glad we have finally come to an agreement on something."

"-and you're the only one who would know how to help."

The Professor continued to stare at her, arching a black eyebrow when she merely stared back. "Yes?"

"I need help making a Pungmungerous Potion."

"A…" Snape hesitated, before he managed to force out, "Pungmungerous Potion?"

Luna confirmed his reluctant pronunciation with a deep nod. "It's to scare away the nargles so they won't take my things anymore. They can't stand the smell of it, you see, and—"

"There is no such thing."

"Are you sure? The Quibbler—"

"If I haven't heard of it, it doesn't exist. Ms. Lovegood."

She grew silent, though her slack grin never left her face, and her gaze slipped away to peruse the shelves that lined the walls before landing on a jar containing the tail of a warty salamander. "Is that a real salamander tail?"

"No, I make a habit of sticking fake salamander tails in jars. Now, if you'll excuse me…" He waved the pen in her direction, or more accurately, the preferred direction he would have liked to take her if dragging students bodily hadn't been frowned upon. "The door's that way."

The young teen half turned to look back at the door in question to confirm his statement as truth, then returned her attention to him. "Well, if you happen to find my left shoe, do tell me."

Snape had to resist the urge to sit up straighter to catch just what she was wearing on her feet, but managed to reign in his curiosity until she ambled to the door, and he caught sight of the fact that she was only wearing one shoe, her other foot adorned in a sock patterned with Cornish pixies in winter gear, which accounted for a slight limp he had just now taken notice of.

"Ms. Lovegood," he said, "did it ever occur to you that students were stealing your possessions?" Most likely, definitely, Gryffindors.

She turned back to him and adjusted the wand she kept behind her left ear like one adjusts spectacles. "Hmm…oh, yes, sometimes, but this is definitely the work of nargles."

"And it doesn't bother you?"

"The nargles? No, I suppose it's in their nature—"

"No, you imbecile, the students. Doesn't it bother you that they call you names behind your back and hide your things from you? You are the school outcast, and yet you hardly seem to notice."

Luna pushed a few loose strands of hair behind one ear, which remained there for the better part of a second before coming free again. "They don't mean any harm. And it's only a few. Most people are actually quite nice."

The Potions Master snorted. "Well, if it doesn't bother you, then I suppose nothing more needs to be said."

The corners of the young witch's smile pulled up higher as she continued to study him from across the dimly lit room, her eyes managing to catch what little light was allowed to reside here. "Why do you ask?"

"Good day, Ms. Lovegood."

Wobbling on feet that were located at marginally differing heights, she spun on her heel to face the door, one hand lifting to its surface, but the desired action was stalled when one finger began to trace the grain of the wood.

"Try the knob."

"I've been thinking," she began in a tone that seemed to have gained an edge to it, "and I believe I might know why you're always alone." She looked back too late to catch the man grow stiff.

"Do you now?" He forced any tension to leave his body and rested his elbows on the desk, his fingers lacing together. "Enlighten me."

She turned to face him more fully and rested her back against the door. "Why, it's simple. You're an unhappy person, Professor Snape."

The Potions Master remained still, his cold expression a mask to cover what had begun to boil just beneath the surface, the only outward sign the tightening if his intertwined fingers. "An astute observation, however did you come up with that gem?"

"People who are wounded on the inside often tend to lash out at others. At least, that's what my mother once told me. Before she died, of course."

What had started its brewing had overflowed within him, and he had to press the palms of his hands even more tightly together to prevent them from shaking. "In that case," Professor Snape began, each and every word annunciated even more forcefully than usual and his voice frigid enough to further lower the temperature of the room, "it would appear your mother was as big of an idiot as your father. I see where you get it from."

Luna's grin only widened, but not from amusement, for it didn't reach her eyes. No, it was a knowing smile. But, he would not be pitied.

"Get out. Of my office."

The young witch inclined her head, and when her face rose again, her eyes attempted to latch onto his before his gaze dropped to rest closer to her nose, to maintain the pretense of meeting her gaze without being forced to actually do so.

"I'll see you after the break, Professor Snape."

He bolted to his feet and slammed his fist down on the desk, his voice, however, remaining soft and low in dangerous contrast to his actions. "Leave. Now."

She didn't even flinch, nor did her smile flicker, but raised her hand in a wave, her fingers wiggling before she opened the door and was gone.

Professor Snape took to pacing about the potions lab with only half a mind put to the cauldron in which he was currently brewing the infamous Draught of Peace, a particular concoction that required a great deal of attention and care, not to mention a gentle hand, qualities few would suspect from the man, but he only showed them to whom, or what, actually deserved it.

It would so turn out, however, that the worst time for such an endeavor was when one was distracted by things that had happened a long time ago and which he could do nothing about, but which somehow seemed so much more important than the exact ratio of powdered moonstone to syrup of hellebore, thus the billowing and potentially toxic grey smoke that had begun to pour forth until he put a stop to it with a reversal charm, though he half-suspected this wasn't actually necessary. If the basic instinct for survival hadn't kicked in, an aspect common to all biological things that seemed to work without his consent, he would have liked to see if a mere glance could have sent the smoke back to whence it came.

Once he realized such negligence was putting his wellbeing in dire peril, though he was mainly inclined to practice safety when it occurred to him how utterly pathetic and painfully ironic it would look if the Potions Master died in a potions-brewing accident, he decided it would be best to devote all of his focus into his pacing, even if Minerva would label it as brooding, and a bad habit. But, he couldn't help it if the world never failed to reduce his thoughts to naught but negative ones.

It wasn't until some time later, when he was contemplating all things short of murder with crossed arms that made pacing feel that much more effective, that he was stopped in mid-stride by a knock at the door that caused his mind to turn to that one final thing he had yet to consider.

Without waiting for a reply, the door creaked open, and a familiar blonde head poked through to grin at him.

"Hello, it's me again," Luna said.

"I've noticed. Ms. Lovegood, I am about ready to expel you if you can't—"

Oblivious to his words and one hand he was forced to grip tighter about his arm in order to stop a twitching it had suddenly developed, the young witch pushed the door open further to make room for not only her own entrance, but a plate she carried that was piled with all manner of spoils she had apparently found fit to pilfer from the feast that had surely ended not so very long ago.

She wandered into the room, clearly in no rush, and stopped once she had reached a distance from the door more satisfactory to her, and she lifted the plate just a bit higher with the widest smile he had yet to witness that day. "I thought you'd be hungry, working through dinner and all, so I brought you something."

The Professor stared at her, and though he managed to regain his composure just enough to speak, it was not without the slightest waver, "Have…haven't I told you that food has no place in the lab?" One hand lifted in a slow movement to point to a table that bore more space than the rest. "Set it there."

She came forward on bouncing footsteps, looking as if she would have liked to skip if she hadn't been weighed down with a plate far more heavily laden than necessary, and placed it on the table he had specified. Her task complete, she gazed expectantly up at him as he drew closer. Without looking at her, he snatched up a plum in one hand and turned it this way and that in serious inspection.

"I've always hated plums."

"I hope you at least like pudding. I saved you some, after all."

His attention rose from the object in his hand to alight next on her, his composure fully restored to him and his expression returned to cold boredom. "That's no excuse to be out of your dormitory at this hour. Get to bed, Ms. Lovegood."

Luna smiled, though it could never be understood by any sane person why that should warrant such a response, and she spun around and pranced towards the lab door, stopping upon her arrival at it to look back once more. "Have a happy Christmas, Professor Snape."

"I'll try my best. Now don't make me repeat myself."

The teen slipped out of the room, the door closing behind her with a gentle click that marked the last sound he heard that night that wasn't his own musings voiced aloud or the steady boiling he had grown to only take notice of when it was absent.

Professor Snape studied the plum once again with dark eyes that wouldn't admit to the tiredness they felt, before he took a bite. Still just as objectionable as he remembered. He shrugged. And yet, he supposed it was something he could learn to get used to.

Kind of a weird idea, but when I was brainstorming ideas for my first Harry Potter fan fiction, I remembered that when I am learning to write for a new character, I typically start off by writing a conversation between them and someone else. The problem was, who would actually want to talk to Snape? And then it occurred to me there just might be one person, besides Dumbledore, that could more easily tolerate the grumpy Potions Master. And Luna's my second favorite character, so that was a bonus.

Please review, my fellow Muggles.