Severus never learned the stars when he was young. He never wanted to see his future written out, as if he didn't know it already, as if it hadn't been written before he was born. Darkness and scorn and lies, and he didn't need to read the stars to seek his life in the shadows.

"They have no truck with darkness," she tells him, now. "They're suns, Severus. Burning thousands of kilometers away, brightening the universe. When I read your future in the sky, I see lights. Hundreds of thousands of lights."

He presses a finger to her lips to stop her from talking -- she knows he thinks it's sentimental sap -- and she lets him, because he isn't used to love.

Later, when he's finally fallen asleep, she pulls the drapes back and lets the moonlight caress him as she did, and kisses it into his skin.