A/N: AU. Loosely inspired by lordhellebore's "By the Tips of Their Fingers."

Please, I'm so tired.

Just let me rest.

I'm so tired.

. . .

"Severus?" a voice floated out of the water. Darkness. Silence. "Severus?" A swaying motion, then a sensation like falling.

He caught himself against something soft, and blinked into an unfathomable blackness.

"Severus?" the voice said again, carried softly over waves of cool night air. "I know you're tired. You can rest now."

"You woke me." His voice didn't sound like his own. Odd. Mechanical.

"You were dreaming," the voice said simply. "You don't rest well when you dream like that."

". . . Did I speak?"

The voice hesitated. "You were begging." The body behind him shifted. "Begging someone to let you rest."

He swallowed, his throat thick and dry. He didn't dream; he remembered.

Slowly, a warm arm wound its way around his waist. He jerked away against his will; the arm hovered for a moment, then settled back down over his side.

"Shh," the voice soothed. "Shh-shh-shh." He couldn't stop trembling, and damn how he hated himself for it.

"Stop," he whispered. Make it stop. And he knew it was going to be another difficult night.

The body that belonged to the voice pressed up against his back and held him closer, and he trembled harder. He was so afraid, and he couldn't stop. His body jerked again, and he clenched his teeth so he wouldn't make a sound. But she knew, she knew, and she nuzzled up against his neck as he shook and shook.

". . . 'sorry," he finally managed to gasp, caught between choked, silent sobs.

"Shh," she said again, "It's alright. It's alright." She stroked up and down his arm. Up and down, up and down, up and down, and he started to feel his lungs again. Expand, and collapse. Expand, and collapse. Expand, and collapse. He could breathe.

"That's it," she whispered, "that's it."

Breathe.

He opened his eyes again, which he'd clenched tight against the room as it closed around him.

"There you go," she murmured against his neck, loosening her hold on him a bit. She began to trace her fingers over his back in strange, soothing patterns, and he felt his eyelids growing heavier. He was so tired.

He was so tired, but he could barely sleep.

Her fingers trailed feather-light over a sensitive spot on his side, and he shivered. She stroked over it again, then traced up and down his back some more. Small circles widening into larger circles. Criss-crosses over his spine.

He wanted to sleep. He needed to sleep.

"Lovegood?" he murmured.

"Hmm?" she breathed, her fingers never stilling their rhythm.

He struggled to make his mouth form the words. "Would you please . . . sing?"

Pressing herself tight against his back, she gave him a gentle squeeze. He could feel her smile. Then she began to hum softly, her breath tickling his ear.

She spun a familiar melody, something old and soft as a lullaby. He closed his heavy eyes again, and felt a slow rush like warm water flow over him, cradling him. The music was peaceful, sad, and yet full of light, like phoenix song.

Slowly, the warm, dark waters of sleep swallowed him up.

He sat at the kitchen table, pretending to read the newspaper as morning light danced over the dust particles floating past the window. Lovegood clattered about pleasantly with pans, attempting to fix breakfast.

They always did this, and there was comfort in the routine.

She set a steaming cup of coffee in front of him with a smile, spun around, and continued her light-footed dance about the kitchen, cracking eggs and splattering them all over the butter-smeared frying pan.

He nearly smiled in spite of himself, then turned back to the paper, trying to focus on the words in front of him. He managed a few sentences, before the letters began to blur together. He set the paper down with a sigh, and Lovegood, as if on cue, appeared behind him, her hands alighting on his shoulders. He just barely kept himself from jumping.

"Is there anything you want me to read to you?" He shook his head. If there was ever something he wanted to read, he'd point it out to her, and then she'd read it aloud to him while he pretended to follow along. But he couldn't. He couldn't ever read more than a few sentences before the page swam before his eyes and the words refused to make sense.

Gently, she rubbed over his shoulders for awhile, and then draped her arms around him and gave him a little squeeze. He was starting to feel himself slipping under again, and she sensed it, as usual. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head and began dishing out the eggs, a few fluffy yellow pieces bouncing off the plates as she scraped them from the pan.

Then she set both dishes in front of him with a little clink, right on top of the paper he'd discarded, and drew up a chair at his side. She began to stroke up and down his back as he stared at the eggs, feeling like he was sinking down into a dark well. The table seemed to be floating up and away from him, and Lovegood too, but his body felt too heavy to struggle against it. He couldn't lift his arms.

That's when she started humming, drawing him up again as if a string were tied to the top of his head. He blinked into the bright sunlight, and felt her gentle hand on his back, stroking up and down, up and down. He breathed in, and realized he'd been holding his breath.

"You had a rough night last night," she was saying. "But that's alright. You'll sleep better tonight."

Neither of them knew if that was true. It didn't matter how tired he got, however much he exhausted himself. He simply couldn't sleep.

"We've got a long day ahead of us today," she continued. "We'll go outside and work in the garden. The sun will feel good." She stroked her fingers through his limp hair, brushing his cheek with the back of her hand. "It's a beautiful day." She smiled as if she knew a secret. "Every day is a beautiful day."

He loved it when she talked such nonsense, even though it made him feel sick. How could every day be a beautiful day, when she had to take care of him like this? When he couldn't even last a day without falling apart?

"What are you thinking?" she said, brushing his hair behind his ear. "Hmm?"

"The garden will be nice," he said. She beamed, leaning over and kissing his temple.

"Yes," she said. "It will be lovely."

Kneeling in the dirt, he let the sun-soaked earth crumble through his fingers. He loved digging for roots. It felt so solid, so certain. He grasped the thickest chunk of ginger he could find and pulled it up out of the ground, brushing off the clinging dirt with delicate fingers. He turned it over in his hands, examining all of its twists and knobs, then laid it in the pile at his side.

The sun felt good on his back, and the ground gave his knees a pleasant ache. This sort of work was something he could still do.

A few meters behind him, Lovegood was picking up dead flowers, arranging them into ornamental patterns around the stones that bordered her pond. She never tossed them away. They were too beautiful, she said.

He shook his head. She was such a ridiculous girl, which was why he couldn't understand the tear that tickled its way down his cheek.

She looked up then and smiled at him, and his eyes instinctively darted away. A moment later, he sensed her kneel beside him. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his hair, nuzzling him gently. She was always holding and caressing him, touching him affectionately, but he could never understand what he had done right.

Slowly, she released him from her arms, then caught sight of the pile of roots at his side, her eyes widening. "You're very good at that," she said.

"I've always enjoyed collecting my own ingredients." He smiled slightly, satisfied by her surprise. But his smile faded quickly.

That had been another lifetime. Sometimes, it felt like he could barely remember it.

"Severus," she said warmly, drawing him back again. He met her eyes, and she smiled as bright as the sun. He tried to reassure her by shaping his mouth back into a small smile, but it couldn't reach his eyes. "Would you like to wash those in the pond?" She gestured to the stack of dirty roots, and he nodded.

Pressing one last kiss to the top of his head, she moved back over to her flower bed, and he gathered up his roots to kneel again at the edge of the pond.

One by one, he dipped each root into the clear water and scrubbed it all over with a soft brush. The dirt came off slowly, fleck by fleck, and then he laid the clean roots into a small woven basket that Lovegood had made herself.

His cheeks felt wet again, and he still didn't understand why. It seemed to be happening more and more often lately. Lovegood said that it was a good thing, that he was finally letting himself grieve. But he didn't feel like he was letting himself do anything; he had no more control over it than his inability to sleep or the fluctuations of his panic attacks.

Just last week, they'd been working in the garden when he'd suddenly curled up in the dirt. He felt that he needed to hold onto the ground or else he would simply be swallowed by the sky. The sun had gone out and he felt the world crunching in on him. A weight pressed down on his chest, until he was gasping for breath.

"L-Lovegood," he'd managed. It had taken him a long time to learn to call for help. But she never mocked him; she always appeared immediately at his side, whenever he needed her. And so she did then; she was there as soon as her name left his lips, laying his hands on his belly for him so he could feel his own lungs expanding with every breath.

She knelt at his back until the sky went still again, and he no longer seemed to be drifting away. His chest felt tight, like nails were stuck in it, and his hands had gone numb. He tried to push himself up, but he only trembled, overcome with a sudden, unbearable weakness. So Lovegood slipped her arms under his and gently lifted him into her lap, where she stroked his hair from his face and traced her fingers over his side.

They'd laid like that for a long time, until the sun had begun to set.

A gust of wind blew, and he realized he'd been staring into the pond for god knows how long. Wiping his cheeks with the back of his dirty sleeve, and hoping she didn't see, he continued rinsing and scrubbing the roots, careful not to disturb Lovegood's lovingly arranged bouquet of fallen flowers.

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a bouquet of dying flowers.

He was lying on a bed in the hospital wing, screens drawn around him. Everything was white. Poppy had tried to dim the room for him by drawing the shades, since he was so unaccustomed to the light. But it still hurt his eyes.

The voices came through the screens faintly, but not so faintly that he couldn't hear them.

". . . just a-awful . . . how they could . . . I can't imagine . . . anything we can do?"

Minerva.

". . . requires constant attention . . . can't provide . . . not here . . . perhaps St. Mungo's . . ."

Poppy. But her voice sounded strange. Strained.

There was a long silence.

"If only Albus were here . . .," Minerva started.

"Please . . . talk like that . . . no helping it now . . . wish there was something more . . ."

"I know, I know . . . tell the others? . . . Potter will want to . . ."

"Yes . . . I suppose . . . for the best . . .," Poppy said.

Then their footsteps faded off down the hall, leaving him with too many questions for his exhausted mind to fathom.

"Lovegood." His voice sounded thready and frayed to his own ears. "I need to rest."

He'd managed to bring himself up onto one knee, but he couldn't muster the energy to pick himself up any further. Lovegood was at his side in a flash, slinging his arm around her shoulder, and lifting them both up onto their feet.

"I was just thinking a cup of tea sounded lovely," she said brightly. "How does that sound to you?" He could only nod, knowing that he might collapse at any moment. Lovegood seemed to sense this and quickly escorted them both inside, supporting him heavily.

Gently, she laid him out on the little settee just inside the sitting room, slipped off his shoes, pulled a light throw blanket over him, and then glided off to the kitchen, the kettle clanking as she set about preparing tea.

He ran his fingers over the blanket as he listened to the sounds from the kitchen; she had crocheted it specially for him on his very first day here. He could only vaguely recall that time—it seeped into his mind in little snatches, like scrounged pieces of a broken dream.

He couldn't stop shaking. He couldn't understand any of it—why he was here, why she had taken him in.

He couldn't stay at Hogwarts in his condition, he knew, so Poppy and Minerva had reluctantly decided to admit him to St. Mungo's, where he could be "properly cared for." It was clear to see that the arrangement made them uneasy, but they didn't know what else to do.

That's when Lovegood had stepped in. She'd heard about the situation from Potter, and so she walked right up to them and said, "I'll take him." They both oggled at her. "I'll take care of Professor Snape."

A lot of persuasion, meetings, and official paperwork later, and there he was, standing in Lovegood's colorful, brightly lit sitting room.

"Would you like to lay down?" she asked. He nodded, and she guided him over to her settee, laid him down comfortably, slipped off his shoes, tucked a pillow behind his back, and draped a colorful throw blanket over him.

"I made this for you," she said, toying with the end of the blanket. "I hope you like it. I thought you should have something special for your first day." Then she smiled, ignoring his bewildered expression. "How about I make us some tea?" she asked, then twirled around to head for the kitchen.

"Wait—" he said hoarsely, grabbing her sleeve to stop her from leaving. His heart was pounding out of his chest and his throat felt tight. He didn't want to be left alone—couldn't bear it, if he were to be honest. She seemed to understand, sitting down at his feet on the end of the settee. They sat there quietly for awhile, the only sounds coming from the open kitchen window—a fountain trickling, birds chirping—until he gathered enough strength to speak.

"Why did you take me?" he asked, his voice rough.

She actually giggled. "What kind of a silly question is that?" she said. He continued to stare at her, and she just smiled at him. "Because I love you, Professor." And with that, she got up and glided off to the kitchen to fix some tea, leaving him staring after her, his tired mind ticking wildly.

Because I love you.

It was that simple.

He still wasn't exactly sure what she meant. They weren't romantically involved, by any means. Even if that was what she wanted, he wasn't in any state to give it to her. All he knew was that they seemed to give each other what they needed. For whatever reason, it made her happy to take care of him. He wouldn't have believed it, but she'd said so herself one day—and whatever he thought to himself, he knew she didn't have it in her to lie.

"Why are you doing this?" She never grew impatient with him for asking, and for awhile he must have asked her several times a day.

"Is it so hard to believe," she said, "that I enjoy taking care of you, Professor?"

"Quite frankly? Yes."

She laughed, as was her habit. "You see," she said, "I've always wanted somebody to take care of. And it just so happened that you needed somebody to take care of you. The situation sort of worked itself out. Now please stop worrying yourself about it. Would you like some tea?"

He shook his head, closing his eyes. What an impossible girl she was.

When he opened his eyes, Lovegood was perched at his feet, her knitting needles working adamantly at some long, multi-colored monstrosity. It vaguely resembled a scarf. Some cheerful, unidentifiable music was playing softly on the victrola.

He pushed himself up slightly, only to sink back down against a pile of pillows. There was a kind of comfortable ache in his back. He sighed, and she noticed he was awake, smiling at him over her knitting.

"How long was I out?"

"About an hour," she said, rubbing his foot under the blanket. "Did that feel good?" He nodded. Working in the garden always helped him sleep easier. And a nice nap was something of a rarity.

Suppressing a yawn, he stretched slightly against her, feeling something give a satisfying pop. She smiled down at him again, giving his foot a little poke with a knitting needle.

He didn't just feel good—he felt wonderful. He wanted to stay like this forever.

Soon enough, though, the euphoria faded; he felt himself wanting to curl up again, to hide away. He felt the heaviness of his limbs weighing him down, and an exhaustion hanging over his head, clouding his mind. It was something that crept up on him slowly, and without fail—something that reminded him he would never be all right again. That's why he was here, with Lovegood, after all.

As a rule, he tried not to remember his life before, or what had been done to him, but sometimes it crawled back to his consciousness out of its own will.

Amidst all of the chaos, and with the Dark Lord dead at last, he was taken into the Ministry for questioning. But it wasn't until three months had passed that he was finally released.

Later, it was said that Potter knew nothing about the Ministry's intentions, and that he'd fought long and hard to get him out, but by that time it was too late—the damage had been done. Three months might as well have been an eternity; he'd lost the ability to sense the passage of time after only a few days in the Ministry's careful hands.

His interrogators had understood something essential to being an Occlumens—that he was designed to endure pain, that his entire practice was rooted in the ability to resist, to suppress his own suffering. It was a practice that required tremendous amounts of energy to control. And so they had decided to wear down his resources—to drain him of the energy he required to resist their search for absolute truth.

Unfortunately, what they hadn't understood was that he'd already given them everything they needed to know—they had insisted that there had to be more, that he was withholding information from the Aurors. And so they persisted in their ruthless methods.

At first, they'd tried various forms of torture—beating, whipping, Cruciatus. They all proved too crude, and that was when they realized that it didn't matter what pain his body endured if he could still control his mind. They began to starve him, but that also proved of little consequence. After a week without sleep, however, they noticed how he began to weaken. So they kept him awake, at first by administering pain whenever he began to drift off, and then by injecting him with various stimulants.

For three months, he remained completely conscious, living only in the company of his hallucinations, which continued to increase in how vividly and disturbingly they played out before his ever-open eyes. He lost the ability to think coherently, to speak in sentences, to distinguish reality from his own demented phantoms. Exhausted of every last drop of energy, his mental resources deteriorated past the point of no return.

Then, after several hearings and countless testimonies, Potter finally got the Ministry to release him. With the stimulants no longer being administered, he lapsed into a coma.

After a week of lying in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, he slowly regained consciousness, and after many thorough examinations, Poppy had determined him to be permanently debilitated. The only thing they could do, she said, was send him to St. Mungo's for the best possible care, from which she was certain he would never be released.

Potter fought hard against their decision, but saw no alternative. Lovegood, ever exceptional, found several. Her favorite meant that she would get to take him home, and so that was what she proposed.

He couldn't stop shivering. A few scattered memories kept flashing before his eyes, but he couldn't understand any of them. His breath shallowed, to the point where he began to feel dizzy. Lovegood dropped her knitting and pulled him close to her, cradling his head in the crook of her neck. Her long blonde hair closed over his face like a curtain, making him feel safer. She began to rock him slowly, humming a familiar tune.

For awhile, his body jerked of its own accord. Then he began to sob against her neck, hot tears dripping down his cheeks and into her hair. He couldn't cry for himself anymore, but he could cry for her. He cried for the fact that she could never have a normal, happy life, that he would always tie her down with his own selfish misery.

"I'm so proud of you," she murmured against his ear, and he realized this was the first time she'd ever seen him genuinely cry—not the dry, silent sobs in the aftermath of a nightmare, not the tears that slipped quietly from his eyes without reason—now he wept without control, without restraint.

"I'm—so—sorry," he choked, trembling harder. You could have been truly happy.

"Don't you dare be sorry," she said, sounding oddly fierce. It startled him like nothing else. "When will you understand—" Her voice broke off, and that was when he realized—she was crying too. "When will you understand . . . that I love you?"

And he did, then. He did understand. There were all different sorts of happiness, and Lovegood had always been a very odd sort of girl.

"I see now . . . Luna."