Another chapter instead of studying. I hope you all like it.

LEAVE COMMENTS.

Tomorrow we have city-elections in Brazil. I'm so bored! In my country voting is obligatory, so it's really boring to vote.

Severus Snape came back into school at the end of November, face blank and ignoring everybody that not a Slytherin and their stupid condolences, just like Lucius had told him to do.

Lucius was right, Severus was starting to realise. He had warned him beforehand that people would attempt to get close to him using the excuse of their sympathy for his situation to get him to pay attention to them. He knew far too well that, whether he liked it or not, he was something like a celebrity now – purebloods had questions about his home-life before his mother had been killed, half-bloods had a pitying look that made his stomach churn and his blood boil, muggleborns looked at him as if he had been the one to blame for the Stinging Hexes that they were receiving whenever their backs were turned.

Surprisingly, it as Regulus Black that received him the best when he walked back into the Common Room. He didn't smile, he didn't show pity, and he didn't run towards him to get his attention before his other friends. He lurked in the back of the room, hands behind his back, watching Severus entertain the students that had questions and, once Severus was done, he slowly walked to the dormitory's entrance and waited. Severus stopped in front of him, expecting some sort of question, but all he got was:

"Welcome back. You know where to find me."

And Regulus walked away.

At first, Severus didn't know what he meant or what he expected from him, until he realised that Regulus was just offering company if he needed someone. Now, Severus was close enough to family that Regulus felt somewhat responsible for him as Heir of the House from the House his new female guardian came from.

Severus liked Narcissa. From the moment he met her, walking up to where he was sitting in the Ministry's assigned room where he would keep children that were to be transported to a facility or orphanage, she had been kind, understanding and her voice had been soft towards him, never sharp or cold. She knew what had happened and never, for a moment, asked him any details like the photographers and journalists were doing. She had given him a cup of pumpkin juice and said simply:

"You'll be mine and my husband's Ward, you shan't go to the facilities," and it had sounded like a promise.

Lucius was slightly less approachable than his wife at first. He had stared at him with his blue eyes as if analysing his worth for his attention, then he had watched attentively when Narcissa put a hand on Severus' shoulder and gently squeezed it with a sad smile upon her lips. From then on, he had said nothing and had not looked at Severus longer than a glance to make sure he was following the correct path towards the Floo Network the next day, when they came to pick him up. It was understandable why Severus found it so shocking when Lucius came to his new bedroom's door and knocked, lingering in the doorway as he started getting off the bed for dinner to say:

"My mother passed as well. It's alright if you're sad," and with that, he turned and walked away, leaving Severus stunned in place for a minute.

Severus hadn't cried.

It wasn't that he wasn't sad at all. He was. He loved his mother with every fibre of his being, but he was so exhausted that he couldn't cry for the first few days of her death.

There was a part of him that thought that he knew something like that would happen at some point of his life. Every year he would worry when his mother's letters would become spaced out and shorter, and when he wouldn't receive any at all he would wonder if he still had a mother to come back to. He knew that the lack of use of her magic was killing her, for she had stopped using wandless magic when his father was out working and was no longer Occluding her nightmares away, so she would wake up crying and climb into bed with him during the summer, swallowing her sobs and hoping she hadn't woken him up. He woke up every time.

His father a violent man in every way possible. He would scream, slam his hand on the table, throw plates and cups at the wall and hit – and he hit hard every blood time. Even Severus had been a victim to his ire before. At first, his father would only hit his mother, punishing her for spending too much time outside or using magic in front of him, but as he grew and his mother insisted that he needed to go to Hogwarts to learn to control himself, his father turned his anger towards him as well, irate that his son had such a sin running through his veins after he had tried to beat it out of his wife, who had assured him that it wasn't genetic.

And now, his mother had died for her lie after years and looking down and allowing Tobias to do whatever he wanted, as long as he didn't as much as look at Severus.

It was the rain that made Severus cry the day before going back to Hogwarts.

He had been in the parlour with Abraxas Malfoy, playing chess with him until the rain started. Autumn rains usually were followed by strong winds that could make the trees dance along, but that one had been so calm and constant that it lasted the entire afternoon, only stopping as Severus lied in bed to sleep. And he broke down. He wasn't sure why or what made him fall to pieces, but he sobbed so hard that his whole body would shake, and he would have to put his jaw forward to gasp for air. He didn't even remember falling asleep.

It was the rain that made him say goodbye.

And it was raining again when the dread pooled on his stomach as a familiar handwriting stared back at him. Lily Evans had written him for the first time in almost a year... his mother only had to die for her to look at him again.

He could feel her staring at him from across the Great Hall, not daring to approach herself, but hoping – praying, by the way that her hands were clasped together – that he would understand what she had to say.

Once more, he wasn't sure what overcame him, because all he could think of Occluding away the way his stomach churned and his eyes burned, begging to produce tears that he had swallowed down several times that day already. Before he understood what he was doing, he had already torn it in half.

Evan Rosier chuckled to himself right beside Severus.

Severus looked away from the letter, glancing at the boy that had offered company during mealtimes if he wanted, thus Severus started sitting with him and his friends while eating, exhausted from the way people tried talking to him as he ate now. Then, he turned his eyes to Lily Evans staring at him with his jaw slack, eyes wide and hurt even from across the Great Hall, seeming as torn as her letter.

He looked away fast, before his shields could tremble in place.

"What did she even want?" Evan asked.

Severus cut both halves of the letter in half once more before throwing it over the table, almost offering Evan the pieces for him to read it.

"I suppose we'll never know," Regulus said, sipping his juice. "Most likely trying to convey her feelings due the present situation. Her condolences are not expected nor welcome if that's your reaction to it, of course."

Barty looked at the pieces of the letter. Severus watched emotion flick through his eyes before he went back to his soup, leaving the conversation to happen between Severus and the other two boys.

"I spent the last year trying to apologise for my outburst and she didn't want to hear me out. My mother only had to die for her to look at me again," Severus said bitterly.

Barty looked up again. "Grief is worse than shame, it makes us speak even more hurtful words. It's for the better she's away," he said.

Evan scoffed. "Evans would deserve some choice words after last year's scene," he said, rolling his eyes.

Severus opened his mouth to say something, but he held himself back. Evan and Barty were staring at each other, as they usually did before an argument starts, however Regulus seemed to have caught his slip. Severus looked down, embarrassed.

Regulus looked away.

"I'll go find Luna. She barely ate," he announced in a low voice before getting up and walking away from the table quickly.

Evan sighed dramatically.

"There he goes again! Snogging his free time away," he said, watching Regulus leave the Great Hall with long strides. "We lost our friend to love, Barty. Tragic loss."

"You like Luna, what are you on about?" Barty asked, turning to his friend again.

Severus raised his eyebrows.

"Luna Lupin? She's good company?" he asked, surprised.

"Oh, mate, she's wonderful. Fun bird, she is," Evan said, nodding firmly with his head. He leaned back, thinking through his words before saying them. "She's quite cool about everything as well. Learned a lot of thing to make sure Regulus' family wouldn't hate her at first sight; not that it worked very well, but they don't refuse to take her places, especially after she became the Potter's Ward."

He hadn't expected the sister of Remus Lupin to be good company at all, especially she was affiliated with the Potters. Even after Evan's description, Severus had trouble thinking of the short blonde girl as someone that he could bear being nearby for longer than necessary, especially after her brother had almost killed him – and she had threatened to kill him to keep him silent, not caring that professors and the headmaster himself were in the room, watching everything. He knew her to fearless and protective of Pandora, but that much everybody knew, because the rest of her personality consisted of her long library hours and, now, her long Regulus hours. Seeing her described as 'cool', whatever else that Evan was saying, was a shock.

"The Blacks treat her well?" Severus asked.

"'Well' is a strong word," Barty said, shaking his head a bit. "They don't hate her. That's already a lot."

"They barely treat each other well, something that you will learn from now on, Severus. Treating people outside of their family 'well' is simply unheard of. They can be polite, but they'll never be more than that unless they want something from you," Evan said. "Besides, Alphard, of course."

"Alphard? The painter, isn't it?"

Evan did a face before nodding.

"He's too nice sometimes. Lady Black worries about him constantly," Evan admitted. "Most people of the family think that he'll get himself killed by simple stupidity, including his own father."

"They're wrong. If there's one thing that Alphard isn't, it is stupid," Barty said, shaking his head as if the idea was ludicrous. "He's the smartest man that I have ever met, he just pretends to be stupid. It's easier to escape actually stupid people when you can be yourself without getting too much attention – he just knows how to disappear when the time comes for it."

"Oh, yeah? And how do you know that?" Evan mocked, turning to him again.

Barty forced an annoyed smiled, throwing his voice towards his nose so his mocking tone could be obvious.

"Because we're both wallflowers unless forced otherwise and we talk," he answered.

Severus narrowed his eyes. Something in Barty's tone made him suspicious – there was something that he wasn't sharing.

"I'm the one that you're usually talking to during the parties, and when I look back at you when I'm dancing, you're usually standing alone," Evan corrected.

"I never said that we talk during the parties. We exchange letters," Barty corrected his friend.

Evan made a noise, leaning forward.

"Since when?"

"Since last year."

"Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Because it's none of your business. Why do you care?" Barty asked, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms.

Evan leaned away, rolling his shoulders back and taking a deep, long and controlled breath, preparing to say something, but changing his mind as soon as he glanced towards Severus, who watched the scene with so much attention that it looked like some radio-show.

"Forget it," Evan said, dismissing it all and crossing his arms.

Barty seemed ready to laugh, until he glanced down at his wrist and made a little noise.

"Evan, you have choir!" Barty said, poking Evan on the stomach with his elbow. "You're almost late. You can run and make it –"

"I dropped choir," Evan said, dismissing the subject with a movement of his hand. "It was getting too boring for me, standing there for more than an hour. I have at least another empty slot in my timetable, so I can get enough rest after lunch, don't worry about it."

Barty turned to him, all signs of happiness or of a smile disappearing from his face as his expression scrunched up, lips twitching.

"Evan –" he started.

"Just leave it, Barty. It's fine," Evan said.

Severus felt like he was interrupting something, sitting there and watching something far too intimated to be witnessed. He didn't move, hoping his lack of movement would make them forget his presence, but Evan was looking directly at him and giving him a dazzling smile of someone that practiced it in front of the mirror for years before it didn't look awkward and borderline sociopathic.

"What class do you have now, mate?" Evan asked.

Luna hummed in approval when she turned the page in the newspaper in her hands. It was well printed; the images were clear even while moving, too, which was a difficult thing to do if one didn't know how to use the photographing camera really well. The Quibbler was much better than Luna had expected to be when Pandora said Xenophilius would start his own newspaper without his family's money, just the money he gained as a writer.

The first page had the exact same thing that most newspapers had, but with one important difference. 'Husband Kills Wife', it was written. Not 'Muggle'. He was a danger to the world because he's a horrible person that thought that his wife was an object and that he had the right to do whatever he wanted with her.

"I like it," Luna said, nodding and giving the papers back to Pandora. "He did a wonderful job, Panda. Do write the compliments in my stead, please."

"Yes, dearest," Pandra answered.

Pandora put the newspaper back into her bag, leaning away from Luna to have space. She leaned towards her once more, lying her head over the bag and taking a deep breath, enjoying the free moment that they had before another class.

"What is it?" Luna asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Xen is worried," Panda said.

"Over what?"

"He denied a bribe yesterday," she explained. Luna froze, turning to stare at her friend. "Someone that he didn't know appeared on his print shop and requested him to print something anti-Muggle within the article, offered a good enough pay for the space. Xen refused it. He's worried people will grow angry at him or refute his newspapers in response to it – some people can be petty when they can afford so."

"People are petty even when they can't afford it, Panda, just take one good look at me and I can prove it," Luna dismissed her worry over it. "And they won't refuse something that is true. The newspaper posted nothing more than the true. Feminicide – that's all it was."

Pandora's eyes closed for a moment, she breathed slowly, almost as if she was trying to fall asleep. The truth was that she was trying to calm herself down, talking herself down mentally of saying what she wanted to say, but she couldn't hold herself back. Pandora opened her eyes and slowly sat up again, crossing her legs in front of her in the grass.

"Luna..." she started, hesitating. Luna watched, knowing something was coming, still and frozen in time. "People are not seeing it as feminicide."

Luna sighed, lowering her eyes. "I know."

"I was talking to Barty. He's worried about how things are turning as well, said Xen did the right thing in not taking the blood-money, but Evan said he put a target in our back as well as blood-traitors for not posting something that it's most likely true. Regulus... well, Regulus just said that Xenophilius is grown enough to take care of himself and of his wife." She sighed. "I'm a bit... concerned, Luna. You should tell your mother to be careful," Pandora added.

Luna turned her eyes to her once more, sharply. Her eyes were wide.

"Do you think they'll go after her?" Luna asked, voice shaking in fear.

Pandora shook her head, her own eyes wide as she showed her palms hurriedly. "No! No!" she said, trying to calm her down. "I'm just saying it because spirits are high, people are angry. I don't think your mother will be a target without reason, and there is no reason for them to attack her."

Luna, not caring that she had a skirt on, pulled her knees to her chest, hugging herself tight at the mental image alone. She bit her bottom lip, deep in thought and trying to organise the stream of words in her mind into actual words.

"My mother is happy, Panda. I really don't want to worry her," she admitted.

"She doesn't know what's happening?"

"Remus and I agreed that it was for the best," Luna said, nodding. "The head of the hospital is moving up north, so a new person is coming to take over. It's a woman. Mum is so happy to work under a woman, you know? Wrote a very long letter to me about it, and I couldn't bring myself to put into words how shitty the wizarding world is becoming. I don't think she could take it – she would ask Remus and I to not come back to school. You know how she is, right? She's terrified of one of us getting hurt; well, more hurt than we usually do."

Panda pressed her lips together.

"You seem to be having a good year," Pandora said. "It's October and you seem to be dealing well with the moons."

Luna nodded.

"Madame Pomfrey said that some of the symptoms could disappear as I grew, remember? I think that's what's happening. And I've been healthy. I've been... eating," she whispered. "The full moons have been easier."

Pandora nodded.

She had noticed that Luna was no longer skipping meals as often as she did and, even when she ate little, she ate something. It wasn't good enough in Pandora's opinion, but it was certainly better than nothing at all. Besides, Luna seemed happier in general as well, which meant that she looked healthy – she had never thought too much about the correlation between those things, but she could see it so clearly in Luna's face. Now, truly, she wondered and worried about her friend's reaction to the growing tensions in their society, which she was just beginning to understand.

"You didn't eat yesterday at lunch," Pandora said.

"I had dinner with Professor Slughorn," Luna explained. "He even gave us ice-cream."

Pandora shook her head slightly side to side.

"I don't like him," Pandora said.

Luna gave a light chuckle, also shaking her head, but fondly.

"You don't like him because he refused to let us sit together in Potions, and he put you with your brother, you hate working with your brother," Luna guessed. "When he called me to make part of the Slughorn Club, I thought of refusing at first, but it's good my career in the future. Barty and Regulus are with me, so nothing is going to happen, don't worry about it."

"There's something wrong about him. Something... dark," Pandora insisted.

Usually Pandora's feelings and guesses were taken seriously and even became a whole part of Luna's mind when she was meeting new people, but she couldn't see something dark in Professor Slughorn – the drunken man that often forgot how to lock the doors he went through, dropped a caldron on his own foot once and got distracted by the most miserably false compliment as if he had never been liked before. Luna thought the man to be slightly pathetic, even if he had some good connection and knew how to network beautifully, after all he was a cunning Slytherin regardless of how silly of a man he was.

"Why do you think that?" Luna asked, narrowing her eyes.

"He's not a good professor, not a good teacher. One must think what he has for Dumbledore to keep him here," Pandora explained.

Luna frowned.

Truly, Slughorn wasn't the best professor, indeed, if one didn't know the basics of potion-making, but he wasn't terrible.

"Perhaps there's just nobody after the spot," Luna said with a shrug.

"There are always people after a spot at Hogwarts, and there are many better professors that would be glad for the spot with less pay. Professor Slughorn has... something," Pandora insisted with a nod. "I just know it."

Luna leaned forward, towards Pandora and gave her a smile.

"I believe you, Panda, I really do," she said. "But I'm never alone with him. Regulus is my partner in class, and not only he's part of the Club as well, so is Barty. If anything happens, I can assure you everything is going to be alright in the end. They'd never hurt me."

Without much urging, Regulus' hand slipped from Luna's waist down to the back of her knee, leading her leg to curl around his hip while her other leg was still straight, feet on the ground and balancing them both inside the broom cupboard.

Blindly, her hands abandoned his shoulders to find some support on the shelves behind her or the walls. Once her back found the shelves in a slightly painful manner, her hands found his hair, fingers disappearing under his curls.

"Yes," she whispered into his lips.

Regulus nodded as if answering a question, hand on her leg slipping up to her thigh to give the support to keep it there. His other hand found her hip, pulling her flush against him, enjoying her proximity as much as he could without losing his mind – she could feel his desire brushing against her thigh without even grinding against him.

Again, her back found another shelf. She grunted with the contact and pulled her torso closer to him again, pulling away from the kiss to look accusingly at the sharp edge of the shelf that had dug against her rib painfully.

Regulus groaned, dropping her leg in frustration.

"We can find somewhere else," he offered, voice hoarse.

"No. This is fine," she dismissed.

"Luna –"

She took a hold of his shirt, turning them around so she was pressed against the wall, away from the shelves, but beside the door. Regulus didn't seem to mind the change, because he leaned down to kiss her again.

With one of her legs between his and one of his between hers, there was no denying that every movement of their hips against one another brought waves of pleasure that got closer to frustration by every moment. Neither would get the completion in a broom cupboard fifteen minutes before class.

"We should stop," Regulus mumbled against her mouth.

"Just a bit more," she begged.

He grunted at her words.

"We can't. We go to get down to the dungeons, Luna," he said between kisses. "We'll be late if we don't leave soon."

"You're hard," she whispered.

Regulus shivered.

"I'm quite aware of that fact, darling," he said, nodding and pulling away from her slightly. "It'll go away on its own once we stop."

Luna pulled him for another kiss, which he enjoyed before actually pulling away from her, letting go of her body and letting his own body hit the shelves behind him to put some space between him and his girl for his sanity's sake.

"I like when you call me 'darling'," she said, resting her head against the wall behind as they caught their breaths. "It makes my heart flutter. I wonder what else you can call me."

"For now, by your name, until you calm yourself," he teased.

She laughed, rolling her eyes at his deep breaths. She ran her fingers through the plait on her hair, making sure it was acceptably in place still and tucking it back under her scarf, which she had been wearing the whole day – she had been cold for the past few hours, shivering every now and then.

"We should go as soon as... you are not as apparent," Luna said, nodding at the watch on her wrist, trying her best not to look at his slowly softening erection. "We'll late and there's only so much our friends can lie for us, especially when Pandora is seconds away from a breakdown the last week."

Regulus frowned.

"What's wrong with Pandora?" he asked.

"Xenophilius' newspaper refused a bribe and Evan managed to convince her that it was a bad idea, and he's put a target on his own back by doing it," Luna said, crossing her arms.

"He's not completely wrong."

She raised her eyebrows. "Regulus!" her tone was scolding.

"He's not, Luna. Xenophilius knows who bribed him. For him to comment on it without mentioning the person's name by writing to Pandora, then he knows that the person is powerful enough for it to become trouble if he puts in writing. Even he must think that refusing the bribe was a terrible idea – his morals will be the death of him," Regulus said, shrugging at her scolding. "He's a Hufflepuff."

"He was a Ravenclaw," Luna corrected.

"He might have been a Ravenclaw, but now he's married – he's a Hufflepuff. All sweetness and morals," Regulus mocked, fixing his shirt and belt before starting to ready himself to leave the cupboard. "They didn't want him to publish a lie. They want him to publish a hypothesis, an article to make people wonder in how much danger we truly are in the hands of Muggles that know about magic."

"Like my mother?"

"Like your --? No! Luna, of course not," Regulus said, shaking his head, taken aback by her tone of accusation. "I meant people like Tobias Snape."

"He killed his wife, who happened to be a witch, not a witch that happened to be his wife!" she said. "He hit his wife for years, he punished her out of jealousy and out of paranoia. He killed her because she was a woman and he took her only way of protecting herself and her son from him, the only that made him stronger than him – her magic. His accidental attack against the magical community was just that, accidental, and a complete collateral damage."

"Severus Snape's mother is dead," he said, frowning.

"And you never cared about him before. I doubt your pity is welcome, even in your new and confusing friendship with him," Luna said. "Someone is dead, and your first thought was if you were in danger, not the people that fit in the exact same model as her. There are several women getting beat up by their husbands, fathers and whatever else that dares to call themselves men."

"Don't you think I know that? Don't you think that I saw Cygnus do that to his own wife and daughters for years?" Regulus said, taking a step forward, voice wavering. "My parents did what they could without embarrassing the family. They protected the children, and they bought a separate house for my aunt because that's how things happen in my world."

"And in mine you get the fuck away before they kill you," Luna said bitterly. "Ask my mother. Ask Eileen Snape." She opened the door to the cupboard at once, the wood groaning under her grip. "Let me ask you something, if a man in 'your' world killed his wife in the same manner Snape killed Eileen, would it be an attack against women or against magic?"

Regulus hesitated.

His body grew cold.

"I didn't mean 'my' world as if you were not part of it –" he started.

"But I'm not," Luna said, not offended. "I'm part of that world of yours, as your parents make sure to remind me every time I get too comfortable, and we both know that, no matter how much we pretend otherwise."

"Luna, what I meant to say is that magical people married to non-magical people are in danger if their magic is taken away from them," Regulus said, words slower. "But you're right, women are in more danger, they cannot fight back physically."

"Just... think about it, Reg. Do you feel scared of my mother or her friends? Are you scared of walking in my grandmother's village with me?" Luna asked.

Regulus gave a slow nod, taking a stride forward and holding Luna's face in his hands and kissing her lips chastely.

"Yes, you're right, darling. I'm sorry," he said. He kissed her again. "I'm sorry." He kissed his cheeks. "I'm just scared. Everybody's panicking, I suppose I let it get to me. I'm sorry, darling. I'm sorry."

Luna sniffed, kissing his lips back.

"We're late," she mumbled.

Regulus nodded.

"We are. Slughorn will have to accept that from his Club members," Regulus said with a shrug.

I know, nobody expected Severus to become a bigger character in this story, but I was so excited about this! And we're already lying some of the things for the future in this last two chapters; nothing that we're excited about it, I'm sure lol.

Are you liking it? Anything that you want to say? Any questions?