Release
by
Rating: NC-17, check warnings if you need to know more details than simply "explicit sexual content" is present in this fic.
Pairing: Snape/Luna
Word Count: 1,938
Disclaimer: All the characters are Rowling's. All the smutty scenarios are mine.
Summary: Ten years after the war, Severus Snape is released from Azkaban mid-winter only to get help... and more... from an unexpected source.
Warnings: highlight between brackets if you prefer story warnings: [contains: h/c w/a sexual component, reference to past non-con]
Whilst the rest of the Wizarding World celebrated the 10th anniversary of Voldemort's defeat, the nearly frozen doors of Azkaban screeched open and a ragged figure was shoved out into the icy gale that blew. The figure was nearly blown back into the prison yard, but the doors had squealed and clanked shut behind him and instead, he was thrown against the gate with a dull thud.
He managed to right himself, just as the distinctive flash of a photograph blinded him. He blinked and watched as a familiar blonde witch approached him, quill in hand. Beyond her, there were a handful of others, reporters or perhaps those protesting his release. He did not know. He barely could remember his own name, and was too sick to offer up any protest of his own.
Before Rita Skeeter could reach him, as the flash of more photographs being taken blinded him and a racking cough overcame him, the thwap! of large and heavy wings made him look instinctively upwards.
The face of death lowered to his level and he cowered. Was this freedom? A few seconds standing in the freezing rain and wind before he was given the only freedom he should have expected to receive -- death?
Severus Snape passed out before the skeletal spectre reached him.
~(*)~
He woke up, naked and up to his armpits in water scented with a hint of grapefruit and mint and tea tree oils. He drew in a sharp breath, which rumbled and he coughed loudly and alarmingly, a thick wet nasty sound that produced a great volume of phlegm.
A pale hand proffered him a tissue that he took with a trembling hand and spat into, then nodded his thanks.
The same hand took the tissue, despite his wanting to protest at the unhygienic act, then lifted a pale green bar of soap that smelled very like the scents he could decipher in his water, dipped a flannel in the water and soaped it up.
Those slim, pale hands were gentle as they soaped him up, starting at his neck and back and chest and arms, and he merely trembled, breathing in a wheezy rasp, deeply fatigued, but deeply grateful at the feeling of being ministered to, cared for.
Tears filmed his eyes, but he did not try to hide them, nor could he. Whatever angel of mercy had rescued him from Death had already undressed him, seen his pale, scarred and unprepossessing body.
He wondered now if this was merely a hallucination. He'd had them before, the last two times he'd had this rumbly cough and a fever, but he did not have a fever this time. Or maybe he did but he couldn't feel it? Would a fever provide him a hallucination of being warm because he was in a tub of hot scented water?
He did not know. He decided it did not matter.
The hands rinsed him and he sighed, then they gently poured water over his head and he closed his eyes and felt the grime of Azkaban being gently lathered from him. The shampoo smelt rather strongly of tea tree and this he approved since it was both astringent as well as antiseptic and he was quite certain he had ringworm and impetigo.
He was rinsed and urged to kneel up and before he could protest, those slender, gentle fingers applied the soapy flannel to his genitals, prepuce carefully retracted to cleanse underneath, an action that made him gasp and go half-erect, then he was rinsed and the flannel moved to work itself into the crack of his arse. He bent forward and hoped whoever helped him would not, could not, see what had been done there.
His eyes closed tight as the fingers hesitated, though, and then he felt them, directly against his most private of places, tracing the slightly ridged scars, and he inhaled sharply, which made him wheeze and he fought to keep from weeping.
"Oh, Severus..."
He remembered that voice and it made him grow hot with shame at being in such condition before her.
He felt water pouring down his back and those careful fingers ensured his anus and perineum were free of soap. The gentle sensation was sinfully good for a man too long untouched except to abuse, and he felt himself go fully hard.
She said nothing, though, as she unstoppered the tub and bade him stand, wrapping a thick, warm towel about his waist and another around his shoulders.
Luna Lovegood returned with a folded, comfortable white nightgown with a Muggle-style stretch neck.
She gently helped him dry, handing him a tissue when another cough disgorged more congestion, and then carefully spelled his hair dry, also.
"Can't have you getting sicker," she murmured in her lilting voice.
Then she helped him dress, ignoring his rearing erection, and he wondered now if she was, perhaps, a married woman, mayhap with children. It made him feel better to think so, because then it could be chalked up to a form of maternal concern.
She had to help him walk, but she put him to bed with a hot cup of tea with whiskey and lemon and honey and handed him tissues as needed, as well as a small rubbish bin to chuck them into. She fed him savoury porridge and buttered toast. She gave him a swallow of Pepper-Up that helped him breathe a bit better and gently tucked him in bed.
He fell asleep thinking of angels.
~(*)~
When he woke he was not in Azkaban. He was still in this cozy room with warm and sturdy wooden furniture and feather pillows and crisp white sheets and a handmade quilt. His bed was firm but plushy and his back was not as sore as it usually was. His head felt better, although his chest was still rather gunky.
He found he could still just barely stand, and Luna gently chided him for trying to as she stepped in with a breakfast tray. Then she set the tray down and pulled a chamber pot from under the bed and set it on the floor before him, and put a supporting arm around his waist and he found he could not argue as he wavered between need and embarrassment and finally lifted up his nightgown and took himself in hand and filled the chamber pot half-way. It was not like she hadn't already seen him, after all.
When he was finished, she asked if he needed to sit on it and he reddened and shook his head, so she put him back in bed and laid the tray on his lap.
Oatmeal and an egg under a cozy, a raft of buttered soldiers, a small pot of marmalade, a small pitcher of cream, a jar of honey, and a large pot of tea with two cups was on it. She was Mother and poured the tea for them both, giving him tea without milk, stating, as he knew, that milk would only increase his congestion.
Then she bade him eat as she watched, sipping at her own milky tea.
He did so; uncertain and trembling with the continued fatigue that plagued him, as it always did when he had bronchitis.
After a few swallows of tea and food, he finally had strength enough to ask his questions.
It was a thestral that she had ridden to retrieve him. They were quite strong and she had known he would need assistance. She did not say how she knew.
No, she was not a wife and mother. He did not know how to take this information, so he finally decided to think about it later.
When he was done eating, she had taken up the tray and told him to get some sleep. She did not have to speak twice. He was practically asleep before she left the room.
~(*)~
He woke up coughing to the sensation of warm hands rubbing his bare chest and the powerful smell of camphor, eucalyptus, menthol and cinnamon.
She had his nightgown lifted up to his neck, and was rubbing in unguent that was the source of the smell. It was warming his chest, although the flush warming his face had little to do with that, but more to do with the fact he was, once again, naked before her and helpless.
She did not seem to notice, merely humming slightly under her breath as she smoothed warmth and unguent into his skin. He could feel it start to heat and the vapours helped him breathe and his cough lessened and soon he fell asleep again with her gentle hands still rubbing heat into his thin chest.
She did this many times over the next few days as he slowly regained his strength. He no longer questioned her, although he still blushed whenever she had to help him with the chamber pot or bathing or when she rubbed the unguent on his chest.
~(*)~
On his sixth day in her care, he finally asked her why she was doing this.
"My mother was a Seer," she said, as if this explained everything.
He blinked and waited.
Luna explained, "I'm not like her. I don't see things all the time. Only once in a while. Like with you."
He frowned a little and waited patiently for more. He remembered her as a student and she had her own pace. She also had a surprisingly well-ordered and analytical mind, but definitely her own pace.
"I saw you were mine, and I had to take care of you."
He blinked again, swallowing, and wondered what she meant.
~(*)~
In a few days time, he was finally well enough to stand on his own, see to his own toilet and she allowed him to do so without a protest, for which he was glad. He wasn't sure what argument he could use if she had denied him. There wasn't anything she hadn't already seen.
She had helped him on the toilet, bathed him, soothed him through the worst of his bronchitis, and even held him to her on the one night he'd woken from a nightmare, screaming. She had said nothing about his trembling or his tears, merely rocking him while humming that same pleasant melody until he calmed, then gently wiping the tears from his face with a gentle kiss to his bewhiskered cheek.
The man he saw in the mirror when he was finally able to go to the toilet on his own, was not the Severus Snape he had once known. He decided the length of the beard had to go, but he kept a shortened goatee and a neat moustache. It was the first decision he'd made about himself, for himself, in ages. He was pleased when Luna approved. He felt himself blushing when she said it made him look dashing.
~(*)~
Two nights later, after she had gently massaged unguent into his chest against the night chill, she had spelled her hands clean, and then without preamble, gently stroked along the erection he had been unable to stop himself from getting at the first touch of her hands.
Arching into her hands, he reached for her with a cry, afraid and desirous at once. He was afraid to discover this entire interlude with Luna was not, had not been real. He would awaken, he thought, and discover himself in the Azkaban infirmary.
However, that did not happen. What happened was that she smiled her gentle, loving smile, and went to him gladly.
He was hers, and she would take care of him, and she did for the rest of his days.
~ FIN ~
Posted: 18 December 2006