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Chapter Text

Even as a child, Severus knew he would leave Spinner’s End.

His mother never let him forget it. A Prince of Elbe Hill was meant for greater things than to live in the shadow of machinery. She told him of the all the beautiful things in the world, of the rolling green hills owned by her father, of the fresh, cool, pure air that swept across the Scottish Highlands, and the shimmering sea that she promised one day Severus would sail.

“You’re not like your daddy,” she whispered. “You’re special. You’re better than him, and cleverer than me. Your poor mammy – she’s stupid and dull and everything you’re not. That’s why you’ll get out of here. You’ll leave and you’ll never come back.”

Severus had hoped to see Elbe Hill one day, but he had forsaken that dream shortly after his fifth birthday when they received a Howler. His maternal grandfather had recently died, apparently, and now his uncle inherited the headship of the Prince Family. Apparently, he hadn’t known that he was an uncle. Mrs. Prince had hidden the newspaper announcing Severus’ birth, kept it a secret from her son, who finally uncovered the affair and took it poorly.

He had fostered secret hopes of returning his sister to the family, it seemed. Wanted to undo the harshness of his father, but he had not accounted for a child. Thus, the Howler.

“I knew you were stupid when you married a Muggle,” roared a deep, heartbroken voice, “but to then deliver into this world a mudblood bastard? Eileen, you stupid, stupid little girl! God help you if you ever come home! I swear to God, I swear I’ll kill you both!”

His father had overheard the Howler. Severus had spent the night hiding in the cupboard, playing with mammy’s wand while she and daddy tore the insides out of each other. There was blood on the walls the next morning, and both their eyes were blacked.

Hogwarts was a bust, too. Severus remembered bitterly the nickname Potter and his friends had slapped unto him. They had barely left London, let alone crossed the border, when Potter declared his seven-year campaign against Severus. He called him that awful name and tried to trip him up, and there Severus’ troubles began.

But he was leaving Spinner’s End! He was, he was, he was! He was leaving and, Severus promised, he would never, ever return.

Still, it rankled his pride when Regulus narrowed his eyes at the house of Severus’ birth. “And…have you always lived here, or did you move from elsewhere…?”

“Regulus,” he said sharply, “I told you I didn’t need an escort to the Manor. You invited yourself on this errand, remember?”

“But who would have helped you with your bags?”

Severus raised a curious brow. “Bags, plural?”

“Of course,” said Regulus incredulously. “When my brother ran away from home, he took with him two large Muggle bags on top of his Hogwarts trunk. Where’s yours, actually?”

“My trunk is already at Malfoy Manor,” said Severus. “Remember that Squib we met at King’s Cross?”

“That old woman?” Regulus snorted. “I’m surprised she was able to enter the platform. I’ve never seen a more mundane individual. Her face is already a blur in my head.” He folded his arms. “I thought she was your mother’s friend. They were talking. Was that really a Squib?”

“Yes, but don’t worry – she’s a pureblood.”

“That’s worse. You do see how that’s worse, right?”

“And she’s employed by the Malfoys,” said Severus pointedly. “Lucius sent her to the station to meet my mother and give her the letter he wrote her. He said it was something to set her mind at ease.” His mother had been happy, at any rate. She wished him a happy summer with the Malfoys and promised to send him the rest of their magical books once Severus found a flat. “Mrs. Squib took my trunk while she was at it.”

“Where was I?”

“Hugging your sickly father.” Severus frowned. “How is he?”

“Better.” Regulus smiled, though it was a ghostly thing. “He’ll be taking the waters this summer with my mother, which means I’ll be a frequent visitor to Malfoy Manor. Narcissa won’t begrudge a favourite cousin, will she?”

“She can’t very well deny you, her pureblood cousin, access to the Manor while hosting me. Catch!”

Severus picked up the bin bag where he had stuffed the books he needed with him at all times. Then he tossed it at Regulus. It slammed him bodily, nearly toppling him onto the concrete. Severus laughed, slipped on his backpack, and shut the door. “Let’s go.”

“Is this everything you’re taking with you?”

“Do I impress you as somebody with many things to my name?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go.”

Because Regulus was still under the age of maturity, the boys were forced to travel to Birmingham the Muggle way. It wasn’t ideal, particularly when they were harassed by a rail worker determined to mark them as wrongdoers, but at least the train was empty. They had a whole compartment to themselves.

Leaning against the window, Severus listened to Regulus talk about all the wonderful things he planned for them to over the holidays. Outside of experimenting with Dark spells and potions – a pursuit Regulus, who was desperate for Severus to receive his own Mark as well, supported wholeheartedly – there were dreams of theatres, dances, and revelries.

The Blacks had once hosted their own parties, but that was before Sirius Black shamed his parents and Orion Black fell sick. For the last two years, Regulus had spent every holiday and Hogsmeade weekend at home. He had told Slytherin House that now that he had been inaugurated as heir, his parents were grooming him for leadership. Insane though they were, controversial though they were, the Blacks wielded a great deal of influence. They couldn’t have an idiot heading the family.

But Regulus told Severus a different to story. Between them, he had told Severus that his mother wasn’t coping with his father’s sickness. “Sirius made it worse,” Regulus had said contemptuously. “He was my mother’s strength, the rock on which she built her life, and he just upped and left her. Now while my father is dying, Sirius is drinking tea with Fleamont Potter and the brother he always wished he had.”

Orion Black was fading fast, and a part of Regulus would go with him. Severus dreaded the day Mr. Black would pass because he knew what a blow it would be to his friend. Regulus already grew sombre and sullen as he waited for the expected.

But talking of the Malfoys lifted his mood. They kept a lively household at Wiltshire; Narcissa assured Regulus that her in-laws would never resent the society of a Black, especially one as promising as her favourite cousin.

Severus was glad that she had outdone the Lestranges. They had tried to beguile Regulus into their own hall for the summer too, but Narcissa had written countless letters insisting that she simply could not do without Regulus. She was only recently married, living in a strange home with purebloods whose lineage left much to be desired, and she absolutely had to have Black by her side. Bellatrix, who disliked Lucius immensely and considered him merely a half-blood, relented.

Regulus had shown Severus one of the letters Narcissa had sent her sister. It was prettily written; Severus had to applaud Narcissa’s acting because every time he saw her with Lucius, he felt himself an intruder to their intimacy.

Then he learned that Lucius had also written a letter to the Lestranges. Narcissa had let slip that Severus would be staying at the Manor as well, and the Lestranges took offense – Bellatrix didn’t want her favourite cousin mingling with a Mudblood.

Lucius claimed that he wrote them ‘a scathing defence of half-bloods’ and cited just how indispensable Severus was to the Malfoys. After all, Lucius was newly married! How did they expect him to ease Narcissa into marriage while sharing a home with an ancient father and an overbearing Frenchwoman of a mother? Did they expect him to attend on Narcissa and his parents? Of course, not! Why should he do that when he had house elves, Squibs, and a half-blood at his call?

“Bellatrix need not know that all you’ll be doing this summer is recuperating from that place,” Lucius had said. “But I trust that you would be willing to brew a couple of potions for my parents, yes? Your stuff is so much better than what they sell at the apothecary; I’ll provide you with any ingredients you might need, naturally.”

Severus had smiled.  He liked it when Lucius praised his potions. Lucius was always interested in his inventions, too; he never questioned Severus as to their purpose, only applauded his creativity. “Then I’ll be happy to brew anything your parents might ask.”

Lucius had leaned back against the booth and smiled. “See, Narcissa, this is why your family must let go of their ridiculous prejudices. Where would we be without our clever half-bloods? Your family would have everybody of lesser blood transfigured into hedgehogs and obliterated into dust, whereas I would have every member of society know their place: purebloods at the top, half-bloods like our dear Severus in the middle, Mudbloods way down there, and Muggles—” he laughed, “—we know what I think about them. But notice that Severus is only a rung below us! Ah, if only I had a sister! Then you two could have married and you would have become my brother in law as well as affection.”

“Darling, I have already come around to your way of thinking; and my dearest cousin, too,” Narcissa had added slyly. “He’ll save the family name from extinction, and he will choose a better partner than whichever girl Sirius would have married to spite us. Isn’t that right, J. Selwyn?”

Severus had blushed. Leave it to Narcissa to see through their charade and pull the truth out of them. He blamed it on Regulus. Although he protested the accusation, he must have left his letters lying around and she saw them, took them, and read each one.

They were a childish fancy. Severus knew they should have just toughened it out, but Regulus wouldn’t hear it. He insisted upon it, and Severus relented.

They began their correspondence in the summer after Severus’ fifth year, at the same time when Severus agreed to see Regulus.

Although Regulus had scorned him at the start of his schooling, they had befriended each other for Narcissa’s sake. In his third year, Regulus had grown uncomfortable by his brother’s cruelty towards his housemate. He began to comfort Severus in the privacy of their common room, learning a few healing spells to help stitch together the cuts and soothe the bruises Sirius inflicted upon him.

Then after the incident by the lake—, Regulus had spent the whole night with Severus, keeping watch at the showers while the latter tried to wash the humiliation off his skin. It had taken the better part of the night, and he didn’t complain when Severus repeated the wash for the next three days.  

Regulus had kissed him the night before they left for the holidays. “Are you connected to the Floo network?” he had asked.

“No, I live in a Muggle area.”

“Then let’s write letters,” he said, “but we have to use fake names.”

Severus had lit up at the idea of letters. Then he scowled and cracked his knuckles at the desperate way Regulus declared the need for pseudonyms. He hated himself for it. He felt like his father, the way he’d rifle through his wife’s handbag in search of secret letters she received from her mother. Severus would watch him tear the wax seal, hungrily read the contents, sigh and scowl, and at last reach for the drink.

Severus had asked his father why he went through his mammy’s things without her consent. His mammy said it was alright for her to have her secrets – she said his daddy had his own secrets she couldn’t pry out of him and she wasn’t upset by it – so Severus asked daddy why he was so angry by the letters. What could his mother possibly be doing that saddened his father so?

“She knows my secrets.” His father had tapped the side of his head. “I don’t want her to know them, but she scoops her way into my dreams and learns them anyway. Doing that, she gave me a right to read these letters.”

“Who’re they from?”

“Her mam.” He sneered and shoved the letter back into the bag. “You’re too young to be knowing this, but your mammy’s a special type of witch. The kind that aren’t supposed to be marrying fellas like me. That’s why we got that screaming letter way back then, remember?” His father had folded his arms and sighed. “You’d think that’d inflame her heart into defence, at least for your sake if not mine but…I’ve read a dozen letters since then, from both your mammy and grandmother, and neither one mentions us at all. We’re dirty to them, we are.”

Like a child, all Severus had said was, “Mam loves us.”

“I know,” his father had sadly said, “but she’s ashamed of us, too.”

Severus had said as much to Regulus. “Why should I omit my name? If you’re going to screw this up with me because you’re ashamed of me then—”

“I won’t, I won’t! But my mother can’t take another heartbreak!” Regulus had cupped Severus’ face in his hands and pulled them close. “Do this for me, please. I’ll be loyal and faithful to you, but we have to keep us a secret from my parents. They’re not like the Malfoys, trust me. They think Abraxas is insane for speaking nicely of you, and they call your friendship with Lucius proof of Hogwarts’ deterioration because this wouldn’t have happened in their day.”

“But if they were like Abraxas then—”

“Then I would proudly have taken you home and presented you to them.” Regulus smiled and laughed nervously. “The Malfoys have the right of it: Purity Will Always Conquer. Who cares that you’re a half-blood? Your mother is pure, and my blood will elevate yours so our children will also be pure.”

Before Severus could protest the sudden topic of children, Regulus kissed his knuckles and asked, “Will you mind it very much if you write to me under a woman’s name? After Sirius, my parents scrutinise my male friends closer than they would any girl. Have you any names in mind?”

“Unfortunately, I do,” said Severus, who had written a few epistolatory stories as a child and fancied himself the next great novelist. “But then you have to sign off your letters with a pseudonym as well; and you must send them to me through the Muggle post!”

“What’s wrong with Regulus?”

“There are no Muggles with your name. God forbid my neighbours see your letters – they’ll start asking questions about Hogwarts that I doubt my mother could explain away.”

“So, what’re you thinking?”

And so Jane Selwyn and Edward Fairfax were brought into this world. Severus had admired Jane Eyre since he read it as a boy of nine, though he had to change his Jane’s surname to completely avoid detection. The first word that popped into his head was Selwyn – which coincidentally (and ironically) was the name of his Muggle uncle – and Regulus approved of it: the wizarding family of Selwyn was old, respectable, and pure with many, many distant cousins of little notoriety.

Their letters quickly took on a playful tone. They enjoyed their little characters so much that that they continued to swap letters under the pseudonyms even at Hogwarts, though now that Severus had graduated, he expected there was little point in upkeeping the scheme.

“Lucius and Narcissa know that we write to each other, and I’ll be at their place until I can find myself a flat. We can ditch these names for good now,” said Severus.

“It’s a bit sad though, isn’t it?” Regulus propped up his elbows on the table between them. “I quite liked being Edward Fairfax.”

Severus smiled. “And it was fun being Jane.” Two plain little people, he thought, who found happiness with their own strange brooding men. Will Grimmauld Place be my Thornfield Hall?

“I’ve brought you a gift to mark the occasion,” said Regulus, now grinning. He shoved a hand into his pocket and took out a small velvet box. With his other hand, he reached for Severus’ wrist and carefully held it. “I know you like to doubt my fidelity, but to thank you for compromising your pride and sparing my parents’ hearts, I’ve brought you a token of my love.”

Regulus lifted open the lid and Severus felt his brows rise up his forehead. He stared as Regulus removed from the small cushion a delicate ring. It was made of white gold. The band was carved to look like a thorny stem while the head was split into two small roses. Their petals hugged the twin rubies set at the centres. He slipped it onto Severus’ finger and laughed.

“My grandmother’s ring,” said Regulus, smiling. “She was a Macmillan and married my grandfather out of love rather than duty. She always thanked Fate that she was pureblood because it would have broken her heart to deprive my grandfather of his rights.”

“Well, I can see why you chose it for me.” Severus waggled his fingers in disbelief; this little ring was worth more than his father’s yearly wages, and it was on his Spinner’s End bred and born finger. I’m not from Spinner’s End anymore. “Are you sure it’s alright for me to wear?”

“It’s mine to keep and give,” said Regulus. “You’ve been patient with me, Sev, and you promised me that you will wait until I can declare our relationship public, which I obviously can’t do as long my parents…” He shook his head. “I’m so lucky to have you.”

“Bellatrix won’t like this, you know?”

“Her opinion won’t matter so long as you earn the Dark Mark.” Regulus flexed his left arm and smiled dreamily. “We’ll be alright under the new world. The Dark Lord accepts half-blood into his fold; so why should he reject you? Prove yourself to him, and maybe we won’t have to wait for my mother’s…” He hesitated.

“I understand,” said Severus. “I’d like that too. It’d be nice for your mother to have two sons again, wouldn’t it?”

Regulus drew a deep breath and pressed his forehead against the back of Severus’ hand. “Thank you.”

“And thank you for the ring.” Severus could not quite believe its beauty. “I’ll cherish it forever. I promise.”

Regulus smiled, and as the corners of his eyes crinkled, the sun burst through the clouds and painted them gold.

Severus dreamt of that smile for many years to come. It warmed his cold bed better than any spell, and soothed the ache deep in his chest that not even his strongest draughts could numb.

Chapter Text

Remus did not like to wallow in memories. He had enough sad recollections to last him a lifetime, and he knew that if he looked back on them, he would need more than a pack of cigarettes to keep warm in the deluge.

Although he was passive as a schoolboy, the last twelve years of his life had been – by his own design too – an incessant whirlpool of activity. Some part of it, of course, was caused by the vagrant modus vivendi inherent to lycanthropy. Remus never held down a job for too long. He never stayed in one place too long, either. There were years he would not even bother renting a flat. Bouncing between hostels and the beds of faceless women was more cost-effective.

When he had one too many shots of whiskeys, however, Remus wondered if he was trying to outrun something. It wasn’t like he was unwelcome at home. His father would probably weep with joy if Remus came back to him; a room waited for him, alongside a man mindful of his pride – Lyall Lupin never failed to say how this was for his own benefit rather than that of his son, that Remus would be doing him a favour instead of the other way around.

Remus was sorely tempted by that offer after a short stay in the shittest flat in Brighton. In fact, he had already begun writing a letter home when Dumbledore swept in to the rescue with a job offer.

Remus accepted it without a second thought. His happiest memories came from Hogwarts. He made his first friends in that school and maybe, if all went well, it would once again offer him sanctuary against the hard, discriminatory world beyond its walls.  

But in his haste to return to hot baths and elf-cooked meals, Remus had completely forgotten about him.

On his first day back at school, Remus avoided Snape as sneakily as the latter had once done in their childhoods. Remus had even praised himself for the smashing success…that lasted until the start-of-term feast where they had been seated next to each other.

The last time Remus had seen his former schoolmate had been on the black-and-white pages of The Daily Prophet. In addition to being the youngest professor to accept a teaching position at Hogwarts (and to become Head of House no less), Snape had in that same year earned the title of Potions Master.

How the man had time to write and submit a thesis and defend his newly invented potion in a viva voce style exam during a war, Remus did not know. What he knew was that the papers, desperate for any hopeful stories in this time of war, latched on to a promising half-blood potioneer and written a whole piece on him.

The picture they printed was awful. Remus had snorted at the haggard lines etched on Snape’s thin face, and he had to stifle a laugh at the fact that the photographer had forced Snape to pull his greasy hair into a ponytail. The little Snape in the newspaper was annoyed by it; he kept trying to remove the hairband, only for Lucius Malfoy, who stood beside him like a proud older brother, to slap his hand in reprimand.

Maybe it was a stretch to expect Snape to remain the same agitated, repelling creature he had been his whole life, but it wasn’t so outlandish given his interests; besides, Remus had to cling on to something while he fought mouldy walls in four of his apartments and drank himself into oblivion.

And how he had his full comeuppance at the feast as he realised that adulthood agreed with Severus Snape.

As a boy, everything about Snape had elicited either pity or disgust. He had been little more than a pile of bones poking out of taut, greasy skin. He twitched when he walked, and flinched whenever anyone raised their hands, and he always hunched his shoulders and hid his jaundiced face behind a black curtain of greasy hair.

Now at the feast…Remus saw that the creature had grown into a man. Although Snape would never be good-looking, he was more pleasant to the eye now that he had grown into his hooked nose and owlish eyes. His gait and figure – what Remus could make of it, anyway – had improved as well: the emaciated tattered spider of yesteryear had been crushed and replaced by an accomplished, willowy potions master fully cognizant of his achievements.

Perhaps it was exactly that which sent Remus into private fits of rage. Whenever Snape wasn’t glaring at him like he was a tramp that had accidentally wandered onto school grounds, he pretended Remus was invisible – and it drove Remus mad.

Back in school, the mere sound of the Marauders’ laughter would have had Snape standing at attention. Even Remus, who was innocent of those pranks, had to admit he relished the fierce expression on Snape’s face. His shoulders would roll inwards into a hunch, and his eyes grew all large and suspicious, and for a few moments, Remus was his whole world.

And now he ignored him.

The Wolfsbane Potion was a bitter consolation. Dumbledore had promised Remus a steady supply of the stuff so long as he was employed by Hogwarts. Remus had long heard of the miracle brew, and now he not only got the stuff brewed specially for him, it was often delivered to him by Snape himself.

So, no matter how hard Snape tried to ignore him, Remus knew that for at least one week of every month, he was at the forefront of Snape’s attention.

And when blue smoke filled his office and the foul taste exploded on his tongue, Remus let himself pretend that his brewer did not hate him. It was such an easy fantasy to construct, too. The mere thought of Snape labouring in the dungeons for Remus’ sake was sweet. The sight of him at the doorway with the goblet in hand was sweeter. The pleasure he felt in knowing that it was Snape bringing Remus his potion into his office would sustain him long into the future.

It had been going so well until Snape walked into his meeting with Harry. A flash of fear burst in those black eyes for a split second. Then he took a deep breath and frowned at Remus’ paltry attempt at conversation.

“Fascinating,” he said, without looking at the Grindylow. His eyes were locked on Harry. “You should drink that directly, Lupin.”

“Yes, yes, I will,” said Remus.

Snape continued staring at Harry warily. “I made an entire cauldronful,” he said softly. “If you need more.”

“I should probably take some again tomorrow.” Remus smiled. “Thanks very much, Severus.”

“Not at all,” said Snape, but there was a look in his eye that twisted at Remus’ insides.

He backed out of the room, unsmiling and watchful, and closed the door behind him with a resolute click. Remus bit the lining of his cheek. He could have tolerated Snape’s scorn of himself, but that unhidden childish fear towards the werewolf stung.

Two days later, Remus was lucky enough to chance upon a lonely Snape in the staff room. He was reading a book unrelated to teaching, but when Remus tried to glean its plot or title, he found that the pages had been enchanted to be blank to everybody save for the reader.

“I would have thought that the office of the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor came with its own reading list,” said Snape quietly.

“You must forgive my common curiosity,” said Remus, smiling. “Is it a good book you’re reading?”

Snape looked at him, but he did not answer.

Remus was not dissuaded. Snape might be able to silence a classroom full of children and discomfit their older colleagues into leaving him alone, but he would need to invent new tricks to shun a Marauder.

“I noticed that you were uncomfortable when you came into my office two nights ago,” said Remus, sitting down. “If you could tell me what I did wrong, I’ll be sure to correct my behaviour. Believe me, Severus, distressing you is the last thing I want to do as your colleague. I want us to have a good working relationship.”

Although he couldn’t discern any changes in Snape’s demeanour, Remus hoped they produced the desired effect and softened his heart if not his stare.

But he continued staring at him, so Remus added, “Severus, I would like for us to eventually become friends. I know that it’s more than I deserve, but a reconciliation would mean the world to me.”

After a few long moments, Snape closed his book and set it aside on the table. Long fingers rapped at the hardback cover. “Now why would that be the case?”

“Pardon?”

“Would it really mean ‘the world’ to you, Lupin?” His eyes narrowed; he drew back into himself rigidly, wrapping his cloak tightly over himself. “Since when does my opinion matter to you? Was the great wide world so awful that you now wish to make friends with me?”

His voice was so soft he could barely make out the words, but it was the crease between his brows that overwhelmed Remus. He knew that crease. How often had Remus seen it mar that pale face after a joke? When they were very young children, Snape would overlook the other three boys and watch Remus for his reaction. Each time, he would knit his brows together as if in anticipation of…what? Help? Surely not. The rivalry between their houses was too strong for any expectations of help.

But you were a prefect, a nasty voice whispered at the back of his head.

Remus crushed the surging guilt accompanying that whisper. He cast it aside with the ghostly memory of Snape as a boy, tears streaming down his bruised face.

“Is it really so outlandish for me to want your forgiveness?” Remus asked just as softly.

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

Snape got up to his feet, picked up his enchanted book, and stalked towards the door. He had tentatively placed his fingers on the handle when he stopped to linger. Lifting his face, Snape shot Remus a most contemptuous glare.

“I thought you would make it,” said Snape, startling Remus to no end. “After the graduation ceremony, when we had boarded the ships back to the station, I watched the four of you and thought that you would be the one to make it.”

“What did you think about the others then?”

“Potter would marry Evans and live the country life in Godric’s Hollow,” said Snape with a sneer. “He repeated his ‘ambitions’ so often that people below our year knew them. Black would have landed himself a position in the Department of Bloody Wastes of Space, married to the first woman he could not persuade to get an abortion—”

“Sirius would have just paid her off,” said Remus in spite of his better instincts. “That’s what his uncle did.”

“His uncle did not have a James Potter buzzing in his ear about the sanctity of marriage,” said Snape sharply. “And your little pal Pettigrew would have settled into a comfortable, albeit a boring life with some N.E.W.T.-less witch in want of a Kwikspell course.” He shrugged. “Had he lived, his ratty little children would have ended up as my pupils. I may very well thank Black for sparing me the necessity of teaching puny Pettigrews today.”

Remus stared at Snape, shocked and indignant. “He’s dead, Severus.”

“And we must not speak ill of the dead, I know,” said Snape in a cold voice. “Even if the dead in question were wholly unremarkable and unimpressive in life.”

“Unlike me?” asked Remus. “What did you expect of me then?”

“Something better than the Bohemian lifestyle I heard you favour. You were among the cleverest pupils in our year,” said Snape matter-of-factly, “and while you lacked your friends’ raw intellect, you were the only one of them who was willing to expand your knowledge more broadly.”

Remus understood what Snape had been implying. “They were purebloods. Of course, they would rather do Muggle Studies than Arithmancy.”

“They also chose Divination for no good reason other than laziness,” said Snape scathingly. “Granted, the subject was more respectable in our day.”

“Maybe you ought to have taken it, Severus,” said Remus, “because three of the four musketeers have defied your predictions.”

“Do you claim that you have made it in life?”

“I claim that I am alive.” Remus could not quite contain the pride and disgust he felt towards himself at that moment. “I’m free and living. That’s more than they can say.” And before Snape could take his words, sharpen them into a knife, and stab Remus with it, the latter added, “I imagine you’re awfully pleased with yourself, too. The youngest teacher ever to be appointed as Head of House. You must be proud.”

“Of course, I am,” said Snape coolly. “Why shouldn’t I be proud? I won’t have you telling me that ambition is a sin, or that it’s unbecoming of half-bloods like us. You would be surprised to learn that the Sorting Hat will occasionally place Muggle-borns into Slytherin so long as their ambition is strong. It is rare, but it does happen when a child is determined enough.”

“I suppose the same principle must apply to half-bloods?” asked Remus pointedly.

“We have some advantage.” Severus flexed his left arm and pursed his lips. “Diluted though it may be, we still have the blood, do we not?”

“And thank goodness for it,” said Remus pleasantly, “or else our pureblood friends in high places would have found us too distasteful then. Can you imagine my surprise when I overheard Mr. Malfoy say to his friends that my office ought to be yours? That his own father vouches for your expertise too.”

Not for the first time, Remus considered with a frown the changes time had brought unto them. His mother would have wept to see the state of him, and here was Severus in warm woollen robes that fit him too well to have come off the rack. Countless silver buttons embellished his shirt, jacket, and trousers; and a gleaming cape clasp wrought in serpentine shape glittered across his chest.

Whatever happened to the boy who once cast charms on his first-year uniform in a desperate (and fruitless) attempt to make it fit?

Remus remembered that halfway their third year at school, after the Christmas holidays, Snape returned with a newer hand-me-down uniform. Word was that Lucius Malfoy, who had graduated the previous year, had donated his old clothes to his pet half-blood.

No Slytherin ever confirmed the speculation. It was, however, within the realm of possibility; especially because it appeared that Snape, even as an adult, continued to take his cues from Malfoy. Remus knew that Lucius had a cloak just like the one Snape was wearing; the Ministry’s most slippery benefactor had worn it in a recent picture that accompanied the report of his generous donation to the Magical Horticultural Society.

Snape’s thin mouth curled into a mocking smirk. “What a bold statement from a man whose father is a renowned expert on Non-Human Spiritous Apparitions. A man so well-respected that he was personally asked by the leader of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to join their Spirit Division.

“Much as I dislike the governmental adulators working for the Daily Prophet, we must acknowledge their excellence at reporting every happy addition to the Ministry’s ranks lest we forget what a wonderful organisation they are.” Snape raised a finger to his right cheek in a feigned gesture of recollection. “I think I recall an article from 1973 announcing the ascension of Mr. Lyall Lupin to the headship of the Spirit Division. One might wonder whether his standing in the world in any way benefited his son, given that his boy was the first known werewolf to receive a formal education.”

Blood rushed up Remus’ face. For a moment (only a moment!), he imagined with relish what hex James might have cast on the Slytherin for the insult.

Their background was much the same – one Muggle parent, one magical parent – and yet Snape had always held himself above the crowd, above him, and Remus felt his blood boil at the fact that Snivellus was mocking him.

Snape’s smile faded slightly. There was still a great deal of amusement on his face, but a hint of…was it sadness? was it disappointment? The expression was elusive.

“You don’t have to be so hostile towards me,” said Remus, forcing his anger into a pit in his chest. “I confess to negligent behaviour, but otherwise I have done you no wrong.”

“Tell me, Lupin, are you lying for your benefit or mine?”

“I’m not—”

“You’re not lying, of course. How can I forget that you chivalrous Gryffindors do not lie. My mistake,” said Snape with a sneer. “What right have I to take from you the few things that let you sleep at night? It is only that I would hate for you to live under the delusion that though you were among those brutes, you were not of them.”

“The same can be said for you, Severus,” snapped Remus. “Let’s not forget what your friends got up to: Avery and Mulciber were even more violent than—”

“I will concede to their being just as violent as Potter and Black,” was Snape’s harsh interruption, “and while I defended them as a boy, you will be hard-pressed to find me praising their good names as a grown and wise adult.”

“But do you consider yourself guilty of their actions?”

“Yes,” said Snape matter-of-factly. “I should have never laughed at the curse they threw at Mary McDonald, although you will recall that I was not present with them when the incident took place nor that I had any authority to stop them even if I were. I was never made a prefect.”

Remus snorted. “Did you really want to be a prefect?” He couldn’t imagine the gleaming prefect badge pinned on Snape’s shabby uniform. Even Malfoy’s donated robes were scruffy by fifth year, not to mention the fact that nobody at school respected him. Not even Lily when Remus really thought about it.

“No,” said Snape, “but it would have been nice if the people chosen for the office were not so easily swayed by their friends. In another life, you would have made an incredible government official; but in this life, I hope that the man is stronger than the boy, not least because we are in castle full of children for whom we are responsible. Their parents have entrusted us to safeguard them from monsters and murderers.” He laid a delicate stress on the final word.

They stared at each other for a long time. Then Snape sighed, shook his head, and left the room without a single word.

***

Remus sat miserably at the foot of his bed. He did not like that conversation at all and brushing it aside proved to be more difficult than he had anticipated.

Snape was…strange. Remus neither liked nor disliked the man, but he could see why so many found him off-putting. Snape had always been unnerving, disturbing, and prouder than a person like him had any right being. Remus had never understood why Snape fought the Marauders so ferociously, why he never for a moment took the easy route and gave James and Sirius what they wanted –Lily for the former or attention for the latter – and why on earth he refused to part ways with the Dark Arts.

You’re off-putting too, said a nasty little voice at the back of his head. You’re worse than him. You’re a beast.

Remus rubbed at the self-inflicted scars at his neck and shoulders. Being a dark creature himself, he had as a child been as interested in DADA as Snape himself. The reading was enjoyable for the most part, and it eased the guilt in his heart to know others could defend themselves against him (though he would be lying if he said he was grateful that the textbook had a step-by-step guideline on how to kill him).

Remus had excelled at the subject. The only other pupils who knew defensive magical theory as well as him were Sirius, whose house was allegedly filled with dark objects, and Snape, who everybody knew was a bit of a freak.

Consequently, it had been very uncomfortable when in second year they had been paired together for a project and collaborated so well that they both earned an Outstanding.

James had consoled Remus by highlighting their differences: Remus was obliged by his nature to learn about the Dark Arts, and besides he enjoyed Defence Against the Dark Arts more, whereas Snape’s interests were beyond justifiable.

After all, that very same week as their Outstanding mark, Snape had landed himself in detention because Madam Pince had discovered his notes on human transmutation.

At the time, the Marauders had taken that as proof of Snape’s evil nature. Human transmutation was evil magic. While incomparable to Unforgivable Curses, human transmutation was indefensible. Professor Slughorn had claimed it was among the darkest magic an alchemist can practice, and Professor McGonagall had threatened Snape with another week of detention for arguing that it was not that different to human transfiguration.

Then, fourteen years later, when Remus was a depressed twenty-five-year-old rotting in a shady pub in London, he finally read the copy of The Practical Potioneer his father had sent him the week before, and bit his lip bloody because of it.

His father liked to send Remus any publications that spoke favourably of werewolves. Usually, they were the same old defences that, though helped Remus immensely as a child, he knew fell on deaf ears. He flipped through the magazine expecting the familiar arguments, but what he read was the most fascinating bit of werewolf literature in years.

For a few years after the invention of the Wolfsbane Potion, nobody dared to criticise it because of its groundbreaking implications on lycanthropy. Damocles Belby had made headlines with his potion, earned himself an Order of Merlin, too, and was all in all an untouchable superstar…or so Remus had thought, because this article proved him otherwise.

It was a detailed analysis of the consequences of the Wolfsbane Potion on its drinkers, as well as a criticism of its failure to account for the physiological differences between men and women. The writer also proposed slight alterations to the potion leading up to the full moon in hopes of diminishing lethargy that every werewolf felt after their transformation. It briefly touched upon human transmutation, insisting that lycanthropy fell under this category rather than human transfiguration:

Transfiguration implies that the werewolf is not only in possession of his or her human mind during a full moon, but that he or she is able to revert to a normal state on command. The terminology compares werewolves to animagi, or even those wizards who choose to transfigure themselves into inanimate objects for reasons best known to themselves.

Human transmutation is the correct term, and one that I will be using throughout this article. The official definition of transmutation is ‘the act or process of changing something completely, especially into something different’. On full moons, werewolves have not even a semblance of their human identities. They are so changed that the Ministry’s official classifications categorise them as Beasts rather than Beings; let my language reflect it.

What the article lacked in sympathy, it more than made up for it by the lack of any derogatory remarks or moral judgment on lycanthropes. It was written in a tone of absolute indifference, which made the conclusion all the more jarring for it argued that society was obligated to relieve werewolves of their pain simply because it was the humane thing to do.

Then Remus checked the authorship and saw that the kind words had come from the bitter pen of Severus Snape.

His next publication documented his own attempts to brew the Wolfsbane Potion for an anonymous werewolf girl. Snape had observed that the treatment had affected the girl’s menstrual cycle by stabilising it – unusual in female werewolves, whose periods were often disrupted by their transformations.

Belby had responded to this article with another altered Wolfsbane Potion he had tested on an adult werewolf female with great success; Snape quickly published a rebuttal, claiming that for the Potion to be available to a wider audience, they must find a cheaper alternative rather than the even more expensive Opaleye Dragon’s blood Belby used in his new recipe.

Then both potioneers vanished from The Practical Potioneer. Remus wondered if they had met privately and killed each other over their disagreements – the articles had begun to sound snippy – when three years later Snape and Belby surprised every scholarly werewolf in the country with their book collaboration – Barking at the New Moon; or, the Modern Approach to Lycanthropy.

There was a picture on the back of the dust jacket. Remus grabbed it off the shelf and looked at it resentfully. He had been teaching at Hogwarts for a few weeks now, and the only time he saw a genuine smile on Snape’s sallow face was on the back cover of a book his father had bought him.

Remus had never seen Snape so pleased as he was in that picture. He was sitting in a comfy chair in front of Damocles Belby, whose hand lay firmly on his shoulder. They smiled at each other a lot, and sometimes Snape would even laugh as Belby encouraged him to wave at the readers. He resolutely refused the request, but conceded to bowing his head every now and then. Belby clapped him on the back and leaned close. Too close.

Remus tossed the book on his pillow. He hated that he couldn’t accuse Snape of hating werewolves anymore. How could he when the man had spent so much time researching the condition and brewing his potion?

Pouring himself another glass of whiskey, he sighed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. How could Snape be afraid of him then? How? He should know that none of it was Remus’ fault.

***

The next time Remus saw Snape was in Filch’s office.

He had gone up to the caretaker to ask whether there were any more suspicious cupboards or drawers that had been taken up by Boggarts – the lesson turned out to be so popular that the older pupils begged Remus for a practical demonstration their previous teachers had never provided – but when he swung open the door, he was greeted by the strangest scene.

Snape sat on the daybed pushed up against the back wall. Filch was kneeling in front of him, wrapping what appeared to be a cold compress on Snape’s hands. Both men snapped their eyes on to Remus and frowned.

“What do you need, Professor?” demanded Filch. “At this late hour, too?”

Remus ignored the caretaker. His attention was focused solely on Snape’s hands and the strange marks seared into the flesh.  

The compress which Filch had placed only a moment ago had begun to hiss and steam; Snape’s fingers twitched in pain.

“What is that?” asked Remus. “That’s no regular burn.”

“And here I thought it was perfectly natural for a burn to take the shape of a cyclamen,” sneered Snape. “Filch, go assist our new professor with whatever he needs – I will tend to the burns myself.”

Filch heaved himself upwards, every bone in his legs creaking. “I’ve more of the violet infusion in the cupboard if you need it, Professor.”

“Violet-soaked compresses will hardly counteract the curse responsible for the marks,” said Remus sternly. He shut the door behind him, moved to sit next to Snape on the daybed (who tensed at their sudden closeness), and grabbed the wrists for inspection.

Snape was right. The marks had taken the simplified shape of cyclamen flowers. The left uncompressed hand produced smoke, while the right had already dried up its bandages; Remus took the liberty of removing it and revealed the red and hissing mark underneath it.

“I’ve a book in my office relating to curses that stamp floral symbols on the victim,” said Remus. “If Mr. Filch could fetch it then—”

“Mr. Filch has spent the day hounding the Weasley twins and their bagful of Dungbombs,” said Snape sharply. “His knees are aching from the day’s work. Fetch the book yourself if you must, Lupin.”

“Will you at least tell me the nature of this curse? Between the two of us, I’m more fit to use a wand than you.”

Snape blew cool air on his hands. Filch watched him with concern and – much to Remus’ surprise – a degree of exasperated affection. The caretaker went to grab another bottle of violet-infused water, refilled the bowl on his table, and proffered it to Snape.

A small smile ghosted over those thin lips. Snape placed his burning hands into the bowl and sighed with relief. “Thank you, Argus,” he said quietly.

“Any time, any time,” said Filch, smiling.

Remus felt himself an intruder. He did not like it.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Filch padded over to his filing cabinet and removed from it two thick folders overflowing with photographs and detention slips. Snape watched him lazily from the daybed. Then he raised his black eyes that bored into Remus.

After what seemed an eternity, Snape must have realised that it wouldn’t kill him to disclose his activities. He rubbed circles into his palms, sloughing blackened bits of skin into the water. Then he placed the bowl on the floor and pushed it beneath the daybed. Flicking his hands dry, Snape produced two handkerchiefs and wrapped them tightly around the marks.

“Touching though your concern for my health is,” began Snape, “you need not worry about it. The curse only poses a real danger to women. As I am a man with no intentions of parenthood, it will have no further consequence on me beyond these marks you see on my palms.”

Remus felt a crease form between his brows as he connected the dots Snape had drawn for him. “Is there a particular reason you were experimenting with a curse designed to induce miscarriages in women? Or were you perhaps dabbling with a dark love charm?”

“A female acquaintance has appealed to me to research this particular curse. She asked whether I knew of a way to lift it, and since I do not, I have decided to discover it.”

“Would it be too much of me to ask for the woman’s circumstances?”

The handkerchiefs started to blacken; Snape murmured a cooling charm. While he did so, Filch sat down on his chair and answered for him, “What’s there to ask, Professor? The woman was pregnant and did not want the child. So, she cast unto herself a curse to kill it. Now she regrets it.”

“She was uninformed of the curse’s full ramifications. She did not get to go to Hogwarts,” Snape threw Remus a meaningful look, “so when she fell pregnant by an unliked man, instead of brewing a potion to terminate the pregnancy, she consulted a book in her possession that she would have been better off destroying. Now she has a husband and wants babies, but until she lifts this curse, I, a man, have a better chance of falling pregnant than her.”

“Man or not, you should know better than to cast curses on yourself,” said Remus seriously.

“You won’t talk him out of it, Professor Lupin,” said Filch, still smiling. “Professor Snape lets vipers and spiders bite him for the fun of it.”

“To develop immunity,” said Snape sharply. “Given my line of work, I am likelier to be exposed to toxins and this is a guarantee that I won’t die on the spot the next time a snake gets the best of me.”

“It’s still dangerous.” Filch gestured at Snape’s hands. “Worse than that even. At least right now you are conscious and speaking to us.”

“Yippee,” said Snape flatly.

“Are you close to finding a counterspell to the curse?” asked Remus.

Snape broke his conversation with Filch and looked at Remus with no small amount of irritation. “Obviously not. If I had the answer to this mystery, I would not be here asking Filch to wrap my hands in compresses. Contrary to what you may believe, I am not the sort of individual who enjoys pain.”

And rising off the daybed, Snape wrapped himself in quiet dignity and left Remus alone with the old caretaker.

Filch tutted under his breath. Remus threw the old man a stern look at which he scoffed. “I would have thought you’d know the lad you’ve been chasing for seven years,” said Filch. “Did you never notice how Professor Snape, even as a boy, has to know everything?”

“It’s one thing to be curious,” said Remus, “but why is he performing curses on himself? He says that it will not affect him because he is a man, but mark my words he will eventually suffer the consequences of it.”

“He drinks poison,” said Filch firmly. “Does he sound to you like a man who prioritises his physical well-being? I’ve lost count of how many times I found the lad writhing on the floor of his office after agitating yet another one of Kettleburn’s – now that oaf Hagrid’s, I suppose – animals into biting him. I pour antivenoms down his throat and the second he’s alright again, Professor Snape reprimands me for getting in the way. Likes to write his reaction to the toxins while under their effect, he does.”

Filch tutted and frowned, but there was something undeniably soft in his eyes. Remus made a mental note to investigate this at a later time, when his mind wasn’t reeling with the knowledge of Snape’s insanity in the name of Potions.

“This doesn’t explain why he is helping that woman,” said Remus stubbornly. “Snape is already busy with his duties as Potions Master and Head of House, never mind that he’s still publishing in academic journals – unless he’s planning to use this woman as a case study?”

“Nah,” said Filch fondly, “she was just crying when she called on him.”

“Snape’s not soft-hearted.”

“But he owed the woman. She’s one of them werewolves, I think, that he studied with that Belby. For their book.”

Then all the gentleness with which Filch spoke about Snape vanished. He leaned forwards and rested his elbows atop his knobbly knees, bulging eyes glaring at Remus with an old man’s cold anger.

“The headmaster’s got the young professor on a tight leash,” he said, “but not me, oh no, no he hasn’t. God help you if there’s another Boggart situation, Remus John Lupin, because if there is, then I’ll give you a beating that’ll make up for every detention you dodged as prefect.”

***

Remus kept reflecting on Filch’s threat. He had no fear of the old Squib; why should he? No, what struck him as curious was the way in which the old man doted on Snape. When they were schoolboys, there had been rumours – admittedly spread by Sirius – that either Filch and the freak were related, or that they were fucking. Sirius much preferred this second explanation.

It was the only explanation his friend could contrive to explain Filch’s kindness towards the most unpopular kid in school. Sirius regularly complained of the injustice of their detentions: Filch would always force him to wash pots with his bare hands or scrub the floors with rags, while Snape he’d send restocking potion shelves or organising files in his own office. Nobody normal would like Snape for his own merit, but, Sirius argued, a young body was a young body.

If Remus hadn’t been sceptical of the theory as a boy, he was as an adult. He kept an eye on Filch and Snape in the following weeks, making conversation with both of them when he could, and all he discovered was genuine affection, or at the very least fondness, between the two men. Snape brewed cleaning solutions to lessen Filch’s burden, and the old man attended to the young professor’s needs first: Remus heard the other head of houses grumble that their chairs were yet to be fixed, or that their paintings were yet to restored.

His best friend in this castle is a Squib, thought Remus uneasily, and he is helping a werewolf woman to conceive a child at no small risk to himself. Just what sort of person was Severus?

Remus was almost relieved when he heard from the children about the lesson Snape conducted in his absence. He relished the indignation that swept over him while at the same time feeling genuine offence at Snape’s discriminatory treatment towards him and only him. How can Snape show compassion to wilder, more savage werewolves when he could not treat Remus kindly?

Bursting into the Potions dungeon, Remus strode across the floor and stood over Snape, who was practically rewriting some poor student’s essay in red ink. He looked up with some irritation. “What?”

“My third-year class was not meant to cover lycanthropy this early in the year,” said Remus carefully.

“Dumbledore gave me a peek at your lesson plans.” Snape put down the red-dipped quill and, reclining against the back of his chair, folded his hands. “A wise teacher would know better than to teach something as important as lycanthropy at the end of the year. The students have already departed for their holidays in their heads; they will not remember it.”

“Well, since I happen to be a lycanthrope,” said Remus with a taut smile, “I thought my judgment on this topic would be superior to that of a normal wizard.”

“The fact that you are a lycanthrope is why I relieved you of this responsibility,” said Snape softly. “Have you forgotten that you teach Defence Against the Dark Arts? You would have had to teach them all the threats posed by werewolves – something I doubt you fully understand given your laziness at taking your medicine – as well as appropriate curses to—”

“Kill me?”

“I already marked the essays.”

“What?”

Snape bent to open the bottom drawer of his desk. With a flick of wand, a stack of essays floated onto the desk and plopped between the two teachers. “I already marked the essays,” said Snape again, slower and clearer, as if Remus was a perfect fool. “Now you are free to move on to the next subject you had planned in your curriculum, which, if I recall correctly, was charmed skeletons.” Snape pursed his lips. “Charmed skeletons? Really? Is it your intention to transform DADA classes into the indoor equivalent of Care of Magical Creatures classes? Are the children so undeserving of one year of decent lessons in the Dark Arts?”

“The children enjoy my lessons.” Remus placed a hand over his beating heart; he had not realised just how quickly it pounded against his bones until it quietened. His lungs ached as well. Somehow, he felt himself out of breath. “Dark creatures fall under the appropriate subjects taught in DADA classes.”

Snape flicked the wand again, and the essays retuned to the bottom drawer. “Have you finished your presentation of the grindylow?”

Remus did not expect the question. Nevertheless, he answered it honestly. “Yes, I have. The Ravenclaws particularly enjoyed it. I suppose living in the highest dormitory would make them especially curious about aquatic creatures.” He fumbled with the hem of his vest. “Do your Slytherins ever express a yearning for avian creatures?”

“If they do,” said Snape, almost smiling, “they know better than to express their beliefs in the common room.”

“Why’s that?”

“More than a few of the merfolk know how to read human lips,” explained Snape. “They have an understandable enmity towards avian races and do not like to see any Slytherin swooning over those they consider their natural enemies. The merfolk are not above banging the windows in the common room. It’s all well and good during the day, but if they do it at night – and they like to do it at night – I am guaranteed a gaggle of eleven-year-olds swarming outside of my quarters, crying and asking me to do something about the noise.”

Remus couldn’t imagine the bravery those little children must possess to knock on Snape’s door at midnight; they very well deserved a place in Gryffindor for that show of courage. He’s kinder to his own, Remus remembered the actual Gryffindors moaning. Then he wondered just how kind he was to the smallest Slytherins in his house, and whether that kindness would ever make its way out of the dungeons.

He didn’t say that, obviously. Instead, he asked, “Does the Slytherin Common Room extend into the lake? I thought you were on the same level as the Hufflepuffs, and they’re right next to the kitchens.”

“You Gryffindors live in a tower that goes up,” said Snape matter-of-factly,” and we Slytherins reside in dungeons that go down. Helga Hufflepuff must have had a heavy hand in the planning of this castle because her common room and dormitories take up the whole of the basement with the exception of the kitchens. Slytherins live several floors beneath them on the same level as the lake floor.” He smiled to himself. “We are the only common room with an aquatic view.”

Suddenly, Remus decided he would very much like to see the lake as Slytherins saw it. The Gryffindor Tower provided its inhabitants the freshest air and the most breathtaking sunsets; but as he was currently reading a book on water demons, Remus felt envious of the dungeons’ residents. The lake hid so many fantastic creatures under its black sheen; the most exciting animals a Gryffindor could see was an owl, a distant Thestral, or a suicidal pupil (none of which were particularly common occurrences).

“I would have imagined that the Head of Slytherin’s office would have shared his charges’ lake-viewing windows,” said Remus slyly. “Or have you hidden them behind these tall shelves of yours, Severus?”

“Given the nature of my subject, I insisted on my office locating on a higher dungeon level.” Snape frowned. “If Hogwarts followed any semblance of sense or reason, the Potions classroom would have been placed up in the towers to better air out the toxic fumes we brew every lesson. The vents are good, but they’re not great.”

“I think Potions is taught in the dungeons because stone doesn’t burn,” said Remus kindly. “And with your closeness to the lake, you must have way to unleash its cool waters in the event of a fire.”

“Are most of our students too stupid to remember the proper incantation of the Aguamenti Charm?”

“Severus,” Remus raised a brow, “it’s an advanced charm.”

“We could have done it as second-years,” he insisted. “Professor Flitwick ought to challenge his students more. I’m tempted to teach them the charm myself. They need not conjure a wave of water. A small stream will suffice in my classroom, especially when Longbottom is in attendance. It may save the brows of whoever shares his desk that day.”

“You are too harsh with him,” said Remus with a hint of terseness. “Neville does well unpressured.”

“I will be kind to him once he stops melting all my cauldrons.” Snape matched Remus’ tone. “It is a good thing that my office and the Potions classroom are above the lake – the merfolk would have made it a sport to distract my classes and Longbottom, knowing him as well as I do, would have no doubt exploded a cauldron, broken the windows, and flooded the dungeons.”

“Are the windows really that thin?”

“Can any window withstand the Molotov cocktails Longbottom regularly concocts in my classes?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Remus, leaning against the desk. “I’ve never been privy to the inner workings of the dungeons.”

Snape raised his pale face and stared at Remus, a curious glint in his eyes.

As a boy, Snape’s eyes had been large and black and shining. They were the only nice thing about him; Sirius could talk about them for days, describing how they glittered when they chased after him. “I’d call him doe-eyed,” he had said, “if he had a smidge of a doe’s innocence.”

Remus took a sharp breath when suddenly, over a decade later, the doe-eyed boy peered at him through the mask of a bitter man.

Remus closed his eyes and rubbed his brows; he was just tired, that’s all there was to it. When he looked at Snape again, he knew it must have been a trick of the light because Snape was watching him with a grown man’s caution. Although, strangely enough, the high points of his cheeks were somewhat less pale than they were a moment earlier.

“It was perhaps presumptuous of me to ignore your syllabus,” said Snape quietly.

Five minutes ago, Remus would have gladly concurred with that assessment. Looking at the red-dipped quill, however, and he felt a knot loosen in the pit of his chest because Snape had spared him marking a score of essays analysing the best methods of killing him. “It’s not a problem,” he said. “Thank you, Severus.”

Snape nodded curtly. “Well, to avoid any future misunderstandings, we could discuss your lesson plans for the next full moon.”

“Will you be covering for me again? I had thought this duty would be shared between our colleagues.”

“Our colleagues suddenly remember their advanced age whenever the threat of additional teaching hours looms on the horizon,” said Snape contemptuously. “Would you be willing to join me in my quarters for this conversation? If we linger in my office for too long, my seventh-years will come crawling out of library in search of my help in their N.E.W.T. preparations. My quarters have the best view of the lake, too,” he added delicately.

Remus smiled. He waited for Snape to lock the essays from any desperate students wanting to sneak in their late assignments in his absence. Then he opened the door for his host and let him lead the way.

***

Severus kept a cosy home. His room had a luxurious feel, and Remus’ vagrant heart appreciated the lived-in atmosphere even more than the massive windows revealing the wonders of the lake.

In accordance with his higher status as a head of house, Severus’ quarters were more than twice the size of Remus’ own humble dwellings. Severus had imposed another aspect of his personality into the room, one that Remus rather enjoyed discovering: the walnut wood furniture was all upholstered with soft green and dark blue velvets; a plethora of brass-framed Muggle pictures hung on the wall, some depicting domestic scenes of olden days, whereas others showcased gorgeous seascapes; a book lay on every flat surface, and two large bookcases at the very back of the sitting room heaved under the tomes’ substantial weight; and further left of them was a glass cabinet that contained a nautical set of bone china – the painted ships had been enchanted to sail around the porcelain.

Severus chose to serve their tea in those very cups.

They mostly talked about previous DADA professors. Severus clearly did not have a very high opinion on most of them, although there had been a few in the early eighties that had impressed him. He warned Remus that the older pupils lost all respect for the class, so it was even more important to get through their thick heads the importance of independent revision ahead of their final exams.

Throughout their conversation, Remus couldn’t help taking notice of a beautiful ring on Severus’ middle finger. He had never worn it at any of their earlier encounters, although Remus supposed that was done to preserve the ring: potioneers worked with their hands and jewellery would get in the way.

It was a delicate thing. Wrought in white gold, the band took the shape of a thorny stem wrapping around Severus’ finger; two small roses bloomed at the top with rubies gleaming in the centres.

Despite the many other treasures surrounding them, Severus seemed the most attached to the ring. It was a comfort, or so it appeared to Remus. Whenever the conversation grazed dangerous topics, Severus fiddled with the ring until his expression was not so taut, nor his demeanour so awfully reserved.

During a pause in their conversation, Severus outstretched his arms to refill their cups. Remus, whether out of foolishness or bravery, found himself seizing that pearl-pale hand and slipping the ring off it.

“What are you doing?” snapped Severus, trying to snatch it out of Remus’ grasp. “Were you never taught that we must not touch the property of others?”

“It’s a very beautiful ring,” said Remus, who was an old hand at ignoring Severus for his own benefit. “May I ask who gave this to you?”

“It’s an heirloom.” Severus turned his hand so that his palm faced upwards. “I inherited it from a very dear friend. Give it back.”

“I never saw you wear it at school.”

“Who receives heirlooms at school?”

Remus could have given a whole list of people, pureblood and Muggle-born, known for flaunting their wealth, and Severus would be the last person to ever appear on it. Maybe it was Lucius Malfoy…?

“The rubies suit you,” said Remus kindly. “Red is your colour.”

“I hope it is not,” said Severus, slightly curling his knuckles in anticipation. “It’s too bright for my tastes.”

“Black suits you as well, though I do prefer you in your shirtsleeves,” said Remus, admiring the slender silhouette that had, until tonight, been hiding underneath cloaks and working smocks. “Too much black washes you out. Your ring-giver knew it as well; that must be why it is white gold.”

Remus took Severus’ hand in his. He felt it tense around his grasp, felt the fragile bones poking underneath the skin and flesh. He stroked the curve of Severus’ wrist with a thumb. Then Remus slowly turned the pale hand and slipped the ring on the right finger.

“You ought to wear it properly,” said Remus, smiling. “And you ought to wear it in daylight more often, so that others may see what a gift you have been given. It’s what I would have wanted had I been this dear friend.”

Remus had meant to be kind but, for the first time since he became a teacher, Severus studied him with undisguised hurt.

Severus composed himself quickly. He reached to fiddle with the ring, taking deep breaths and mulling over his words. “Well, Lupin, you’re the man of the world, not me. Maybe you have the right of it.”

Then Severus smiled with an earnestness Remus had not seen in eighteen years, not since that terrible prank.

He never dreamt that Severus’ smiles could be so wonderful, until one stupid joke drew a gentle chuckle out of the man. The pale cheeks flushed pink, and those black, black eyes shone with something akin to real pleasure at Remus’ society.

Pale green light streamed into the room, softening their scars and souls. Severus tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and readied to continue their conversation when a merchild banged on the window. It pointed at Remus. Clearly, it wanted to know the identity of this intruder.

“I don’t usually have guests,” said Severus to Remus.

To the merchild, however, he spoke in Selkie Sign Language. His answer must have been unsatisfactory because the child refused to leave. It signed something in response, and Severus laughed.

In that pale green light, with laughter on his lips and merriment in his eyes, Severus could have been handsome. In that light, Severus could have been a friend.

They had a few good months together. Remus had even been so lucky to steal himself a kiss the night after the Milk Moon, and feel the pleasant warmth of a slender body in his arms, not to mention the warm look in those black, black eyes.

But it could not last. Nothing good could ever last for Remus Lupin.

Chapter Text

Grimmauld Place was a shadow of its former self.

Severus knew not to expect much from the house. Shortly after Regulus had disappeared and died, he had heard from Narcissa that Mrs. Black had gone mad with grief. The loss of her favourite son had already unhinged her; now the untimely demise of her loyal son so soon after the death of her husband shattered what sanity was left to her.

As a half-blood, he was unwelcome at Grimmauld Place. As a Malfoy friend, he reckoned he knew more about Mrs. Black’s final days than most of her kinsmen. Severus would not soon forget the sleepless nights in Malfoy Manor’s drawing room where Narcissa and Lucius, exhausted after their regular visits to Grimmauld, would regale him with their troubles and tales.

Regulus had loved his mother dearly. A part of Severus hoped that lost souls could not look back on their living relatives because he knew it would break Regulus’ heart to see the state of his mother.

Narcissa coated her words with metaphors and euphemisms, softening Mrs. Black’s condition even in the privacy of her own home. Her husband was blunter. Lucius had received Mrs. Black with caution; his grasp on Draco, already strong, grew tighter as Mrs. Black grew madder.

According to Lucius, the handsome, haughty matriarch of the Black Family had in her grief ripped half the hair on her head and scratched her arms red. Her eyes were bloodshot, her voice raspy from crying, and in spite of Narcissa’s best efforts, her nails grew and grew and grew.

“Then with those dirty nails she claws herself raw,” Lucius had said. “Narcissa’s afraid her aunt will die from an infection one of these days. My dear Severus, do you think you could make a gentle disinfectant for Narcissa to soak the bandages in? Mrs. Black screamed when we tried to use to the apothecary-bought stuff.”

Severus glanced at the curtains hiding the portrait of Mrs. Black. He had seen the picture beneath a few times, mainly when Tonks knocked something over, and wondered if his infusion had made the sitting more bearable. It must have helped. The portrait was too realistically painted for a jittery model.

While Black neither knew nor would have cared for this service, the house elf had expressed his gratitude towards Severus. Once he connected the adult Severus of now to the skinny little half-blood their beloved Regulus had brought home, the house elf bowed to him.

Severus had momentarily feared that the portrait of Mrs. Black would recognise him. She had been alone with an equally mad house elf for many long years; who knew what Kreacher might have said in that time?

But when Walburga made no distinction between Severus and the rest of the filth contaminating her house, he knew then Kreacher had fulfilled his promise.

Before Black had yanked the curtains down, Severus studied the lines in that once-handsome face. Regulus had wanted at least two sons and three daughters. Severus didn’t like to indulge in fantasies, but when he looked at Mrs. Black’s handsome jawline and large, grey eyes, he wondered whether one of their daughters might have taken after her.

He wanted to think their children would have been handsome. He hoped that they would take after the Blacks and, even if they did not, that they would be pleasant and happy and never want for anything. Regulus had promised their children would live in a warm, dry house with an indoor bathroom and steady meals and toys. New toys, splendid in their colours and cleanliness. They wouldn’t have to amuse themselves with killing flies in dark rooms. They would have had good lives, all of them.

Severus snorted. What good was it to remember the unborn children of unfulfilled fantasies? Besides, he remembered how alarmed he had been by Regulus’ wishes for a large family.

Even at seventeen, Regulus thought in the long-term: he had told Severus from the start that he would expect him to bear all their offspring. “It’s only right,” said Regulus innocently. “You’re better-suited to the task.”

“I’m older than you, Regulus.”

“Older, yes, but you’re also a half-blood.” He smiled like a boy. “It would be inappropriate for a pureblood to bear a half-blood’s children, but siring them is not beneath his dignity. Besides,” he grinned, “your hips are wider than mine!”

And Severus loved him enough to agree to the deal.

“Kreacher will be happy,” Regulus had said. “He’s ever so good with children. He did a fine job raising me, and he’ll do just as well with our babies.”

Better nurse a half-blood’s whelps than live with Black, thought Severus as he watched Black fling Kreacher back into the little room in the kitchen. He could not even be too angry with Black there because he had done Severus a favour: Kreacher was in a melancholy mood that evening, muttering about his ‘poor Master Regulus’ and how ‘Kreacher and the half-blood are alive, but poor, poor Master Regulus is dead.’

Kreacher peered out of his little room. He locked gazes with Severus, flooding the latter with painful memories of Regulus. Eventually, Severus began to console the wretched little elf with his own slew of memories: Regulus studying in the library, Regulus flying above the Quidditch pitch, Regulus talking with other house elves and praising Kreacher, Regulus living and breathing and laughing.

Kreacher had forgiven Severus his half-blood lineage. When Black wasn’t looking, he would mend Severus’ travelling cloak and spoke sweetly of him to the upstairs portraits.

Severus was grateful. Without Kreacher constantly wailing, Severus was able to concentrate his efforts on blocking out another love.

Lupin practically lived in Grimmauld Place these days. This displeased Severus, who had done his best to bury this newest hurt at the very back of his mind. He had hoped that his vast experience in Occlumency would have made it easier to cope.

He was wrong. Instead of the numbness he felt after Regulus, there was a disturbing hollowness. And when Severus heard Lupin laugh with Black, hazy memories of their own laughter echoed in the pit of his chest.

They did not look at each other during meetings. Lupin was far too busy with Black, obviously, and Severus did not dare to experience more emotions than necessary. Many years of practicing Occlumency, both in times of war and peace, taught him that a lingering look or a fond memory was more than enough to crack a wall – and now with the Dark Lord amongst them again, he could not risk it.

Severus simply did not think about it. He ignored it. He had locked and buried that whole year in secret gardens of his mind. He ought to have known better than to let himself fall into those arms. A double-agent had no right to fall in love. Severus wondered if his turmoil was punishment for breaking that rule, or rather if this was his just desserts for relinquishing the kisses he’d promised another.

Across the table, Black let out his usual bark-like laugh. He clapped Lupin on the back and cracked a revolting joke to Moody. The grizzled Auror hid a grin beneath a gruff reprimand.

Severus felt sick. The meeting had just ended and they all immediately became friends. Any more of this and Severus would have to fly out of the window to avoid them. He wouldn’t have cared for their camaraderie had he had the liberty of speaking freely with his own friends…but then he would endanger the Malfoys and compromise the Order.

Another lonely night then. Perhaps he could bully Filch into preparing them tea.

The Weasley children screamed several floors above them. By the sound of it, Severus guessed the twins were antagonising their younger brother. He might have chuckled at their antics had they not been dangerously similar to the Marauders. Severus found them less and less amusing every year, and now that they have those stupid sickness-inducing sweets, he wanted an excuse to put them in detention for the whole year.

Of the seven Weasley children Severus had the misfortune of teaching, his favourites were George and Charlie. The latter he almost cherished for his friendliness towards Slytherins and staunch neutrality in interhouse dynamic – no small feat for the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

Charlie Weasley had shared a year group with a particularly astonishing cohort of Slytherins: Merula Snyde, with her insistence on being the most powerful witch at Hogwarts, never gave Severus any peace; good-natured Barnaby Lee routinely found himself in Severus’ office, mostly asking for a repetition of every announcement Severus made in the common room; which was still preferable to hearing the details of the competition for his affections by Ismelda Murk and Isabella Fairchild; and Liz Tuttle had periods of what Severus now identified as veganism – God, they were a trying year.

And young Charles had befriended them all and the whole Slytherin Quidditch team to boot. He was on good terms with their eccentric little captain – whom Severus heard now worked as a life coach for the wealthy – and had been subjected to ‘Vivification’, which he met with good humour.

George, meanwhile, was both the kinder and the more intelligent twin. Having marked their essays for no less than five years, Severus could differentiate between their thoughts and knew who copied from whom (Fred copied off George more than a third of the time). George Weasley was clever. He was so clever; it aggravated Severus to no end that the boy insisted on living his life like it was one big joke.

But he ought to see the silver lining in this behaviour. Percy Weasley had been the exact opposite of the twins, and there was barely an office hour the boy did not try to monopolise.

Severus, who never ate at Grimmauld Place, had reached for his travelling cloak when the children tumbled down the stairs. They swept past him in a flurry and surrounded Black. Fred Weasley smacked a stack of papers on the table. “Sirius, you’ll never believe what we found in your brother’s room!”

“More newspaper clippings about Voldemort?” asked Sirius lazily, ignoring the flinches from the children.

“No,” said George Weasley, unfolding a bit of paper and smoothing it with his fingers. “We found love letters.”

“Love letters? Regulus?” Black barked out a cruel laugh. “My brother never had a real friend in his life, let alone a girlfriend. Quiet and reserved and soft-headed; how could he have gotten himself a girlfriend?”

“Surely some Slytherin girl would have gone out with him,” said Granger with a raised brow.

“Not when you had blokes like Avery and Mulciber around,” said Black. “They were taller, stronger, and however much I dislike them, I’ve got to admit they had a charisma about them.”

“Mulciber was very tall,” added Lupin. “Tall and pure-blood, that’s more than enough for a lot of girls.”

“But these letters are definitely addressed to him!” insisted Fred Weasley. “From somebody called Jane Selwyn.”

Black furrowed his brows and scowled. “The Selwyns do belong to the Sacred Twenty-Eight…Give me that. Let’s have a look.”

The letters flew off the table before they could be exchanged. Severus extended his arms towards them and, snatching every single one, pressed them close to his chest. Then he quickly Transfigured the scores of letters into a long string of pearls – each gem representing a letter – and slipped it into the small beaded bag hanging off his belt.

A litany of complaints burst out of the children. Most of the adults present were naturally taken aback, but Black got to his feet and sneered at Severus. “Now just what the hell do you think you’re doing, Snape?”

“You’ve no right to read those letters,” said Severus quietly.

“Speak up.” Black parted the children and moved towards him; Severus hand his wand at the ready. “You’re always whispering. It’s annoying.”

“Clear out your ears then.”

Black stood mere inches away from him. His haughty face, so much colder than that of his brother, glared down at Severus. “If I were you, I’d be more concerned with my own cleanliness.”

Behind him, the children (excluding Granger) sniggered amongst themselves until Mrs. Weasley smacked the table with a wooden spoon. Lupin, on the other hand, hurried to stand next to Black.

“Such brave words from a man whose hair is still teeming with fleas,” said Severus waspishly. “No wonder your mother screams at the sight of you: the wrong son survived.”

“It’s her own fault that my brother died,” said Black, though his eyes momentarily glanced down the hallway where his mother’s portrait hanged. “Now hand over those letters, Snape, and get out of here. You’re not welcome in my house outside of meetings.”

“I will take my leave and gladly,” Snape shrugged into travelling cloak, “but I’m taking the letters. Like I said: they are not yours to read.”

“But you can read them?” Black laughed.

Lupin placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Regulus was a Slytherin, only a year below Snape. He’d know more about your brother than you, let’s be honest.”

Black’s jaw flexed violently. “I forget how tight-knit you Death Eaters were,” he spat. “Fine. Take my brother’s stupid letters. Whoever this Jane Selwyn was, she must have already forgotten him. Probably married another pureblood and whelped him a brood of ‘respectable’ wizards.”

Somewhere in the hallway, Kreacher howled his grief. His sobs echoed throughout the house; he lamented his ‘poor Master Regulus’ and the fine, pureblood children he never got to have. He ran into the kitchen and looked up at Severus. Then he burst into a fresh wave of sobs.

“What’re you crying about now?” asked Ginny. “What children are you talking about? Jane’s children?”

“So there was actually a woman in my brother’s life?” Black almost smiled. “Good for him! Kreacher, come on, what do you know about her?”

Kreacher cringed into himself and muttered about orders broken. Black obviously stomped down the protestations, insisting to hear what the elf had to say about his long-dead brother.

Severus felt a stab of pity for him. He never quite understood the esteem in which Regulus held his doddering old house elf, but he knew that Regulus had loved Kreacher. Black accused his brother of soft-headedness, but what had really plagued Regulus was a soft heart.

For all his talk of pureblood supremacy, he had, for the love of Severus, cast aside his parents’ strict views and adopted the Malfoys’ softer position (and this while believing Lucius to be too French to be really worthy of respect). The same went for Kreacher: loath though he was to concur with Granger, the wizarding treatment of house elves was appalling. They reminded Severus of the overworked housewives at Spinner’s End – never a pretty picture. Oppressed, uneducated, and calloused by their lot in life, most house elves had a simpering, pathetic air similar to those exhausted women.

And Regulus had believed, with his whole heart no less, that Kreacher would have been the best nursemaid in the world. Severus remembered clearly how he balked at the idea. It was already too much that Regulus wanted lots of children to continue his name, but Severus had expected that they would raise the brats themselves. Besides, how good a nursemaid could have Kreacher been if Sirius Black grew up as he had?

“Sirius is a product of my parents’ upbringing,” Regulus had insisted. “They raised him themselves because he was the heir. Kreacher was in charge of my upbringing. Tell me, Severus, which of us turned out to be the better man?”

Without Regulus and Walburga, Kreacher was left defenceless. Black never liked him, would not give him the affection he wanted. Severus watched Kreacher fidget in a manner not unlike Dobby’s whenever the worst of Lucius exhibited itself. Those incidents were never pleasant, and Severus regretted the tension spiking between them because of it.

He glanced at Black. He saw that familiar glint in the grey eyes. Severus knew what it meant, just as he knew what Regulus would have expected of him.

Summoning a handkerchief, Severus proffered it to Kreacher. He was too aware of the universal attention on him, but this was not the first time he would behave the freak. “It’s alright, Kreacher,” he said quietly. “You have my permission to disclose to your current master my connection to Regulus.”

“Since when does Kreacher listen to half-bloods?” asked Black. “Whatever would my hag of a mother think, eh?”

“Kreacher’s mistress did not know about Professor Snape,” hissed the house elf. “Master Regulus knew it would break his mother’s heart all over again, if she caught him running around with a half-blood. He was going to wait! Yes, he was going to wait! And then! And then! And then we would have been happy!”

“We?” said Black sharply.

“Master Regulus and Kreacher and him.” He pointed at Severus with a long, trembling finger. “Oh, how dishonourable! But Master Regulus was right to hide the half-blood from Kreacher’s mistress – she would not have survived another disappointment; no, she wouldn’t have. Not after you!”

Kreacher screamed and flew into his den. Severus shook his head. Kreacher was wild and disturbing even to him, but he took comfort knowing that, beside himself and Mrs. Black, there had been another who mourned his poor Regulus.  

Black grabbed Severus by the shoulder and dug his fingers into the flesh beneath the cloth. “What the fuck was that about?”

Lupin, to his credit, pulled Black off him almost immediately. He looked Severus dead in the eye. His expression was unreadable. Severus would have poked around his head, but Black kept shaking him.

“Why should I tell you anything?” snapped Severus, forcing Black off him. “I’m no house elf like Kreacher. You cannot expect me to reveal to you my secrets so willingly—” Kreacher sobbed, “—which is why I would like to propose a deal.”

“You don’t get to give orders or make deals in my house.”

“And what a home you have made of it! Black, look at this place! Have you always yearned to live in your own filth? Or are you perhaps missing Azkaban?” Severus stepped aside and raised an arm to the door. “The way to freedom is right over there. Feel free to walk out of it. To such a great wizard like you, the second to have escaped Azkaban, there cannot be an obstacle tricky enough to prevent you from leaving this house. Fifteen steps separate you from the prison of your choice. You will be free of your mother in Azkaban.”

Potter seized his godfather’s forearm. He threw Severus the most contemptuous glare. For a moment, he did not resemble his wretched, horrible, insignificant roadkill of a father; no, for once in his life, there was character in those eyes – the very same coldness Lily Evans was capable of; the chill with which she met the death of their friendship.

Before his thoughts could take a violent turn, Lupin broke the tension with a question. “What’re you proposing, Severus?”

Breaking away from Potter’s glare, Severus folded his arms and sighed. This was stupid, but he had to do it. It was the least he owed to a man, the boy really, he had so recently betrayed. “Treat Kreacher gently.”

As expected, Granger gasped with glee. Her companions either groaned or frowned at the request. “Professor,” exclaimed the girl. “Why, Professor Snape, I had no idea that you were interested in elven welfare! Would you perhaps like to join—"

“Not now, Hermione!” snapped Ron Weasley.

Severus found himself amused by Granger’s expeditiousness. Maybe the girl could have been one of his; she had the grit to survive the purebloods, and a drive that was so out of character for Gryffindors.

“Miss Granger,” he said, not unkindly, “as a professor and a Head of House no less, it would be unprofessional of me to officially associate myself with any societies unrecognised by the school.”

“S.P.E.W. is a recognised organisation! I filed a form to Professor McGonagall for approval, and we’ve met the minimum requirement for any club to be considered a Hogwarts society.”

“Might I inquire into the identities of your members?”

“Of course, sir. We are a transparent organisation, unlike the Ministry,” she said smugly. “Currently, S.P.E.W. is made up of five members: myself, Harry, Ron, Neville Longbottom, and Dobby.”

Potter and his Weasley flushed red.

Granger spoke rapidly about her organisation and its beliefs. On most days, the girl irritated Severus to unprecedented degrees. He had no fondness for encyclopaedic students. They typically lacked the creativity he wished to see in young minds and Granger also went out of her way to help her less competent classmates – it made the marking process, already a nightmare, worse as he judged what had been an original thought and what had been taken from her.

But creating an organisation in support of a wildly unpopular belief? That was something Severus could admire, and not the least because his own father had been in charge of a wildly unpopular organisation himself. To this day, Severus heard people praise the late Tobias Snape for his contributions to the Cokeworth Textile Workers’ Union.

Lupin raised a hand to silence the girl. “Forgive a man his curiosity, Severus,” he said, “but why do you care for Kreacher’s treatment? Even if you were friends with Regulus, you could not have met Kreacher unless,” he exchanged a look with Black, “he accompanied his master to school. That cannot be true. Hogwarts does not allow such things.”

“You’d be surprised what a sufficiently motivated house elf could do,” murmured Potter, but nobody paid him attention except Ron Weasley, who snorted.

“Agree to treat Kreacher kindly and you will learn why I asked for it.” Severus folded his arms and cocked his head to the side, relishing the confused, unnerved expressions worn by the two friends. “Well? I haven’t got all night to ponder the question. Some of us have work waiting for them. Essays do not mark themselves.”

Then, purely for his own entertainment, he looked over their shoulders and said, “Mrs. Weasley, before I forget, I have been meaning to tell you that your sons’ marks would very much improve if they would do the reading every now and again. Otherwise, I am afraid they will not be able to handle their examinations as well as Charlie and Percy have done in their time.”

The Weasley children grew taut as bowstrings. Mrs. Weasley smiled sweetly at Severus, though her hands found and gripped her sons’ shoulders. “Thank you, Professor Snape. I’ll be sure that Ron does his holiday reading before the next term begins.”

Severus nodded. Then he waited for Black to speak. When it seemed that a little kindness towards an old, unhappy house elf was too much to ask for, Severus moved to leave the house.”

“Fine.”

He stopped. “What was that?” he asked delicately.

Black gritted his teeth. “I’ll be kinder to Kreacher.”

Next to him, Granger beamed.

“Now uphold your end of the deal and start explaining.”

Severus smiled. He uncinched the small bag at his belt and removed from it the white gold ring Regulus had gifted him so long ago. He intended to slip it onto his middle finger, just as he had done for seventeen years, but changed his mind.

All the colour drained from Black’s face. He looked for a moment as though he would like to accuse Severus of theft, but mustered the will to restrain his tongue. “He gave it to you?”

“He did.”

Potter and his friends neared them for a look. “What is that?” asked George.

“My grandmother’s ring,” said Black, still staring. “She was a Macmillan and married my grandfather out of love rather than duty. It was only by lucky chance their union was respectable.”

“Yes, blood supremacists though they are, the Macmillans hold kinder views than the Blacks towards half-bloods.” Severus withdrew his arm and admired the ring. “Consequently, Regulus chose to give me his grandmother’s treasure rather than bestowing his mother’s jewels onto somebody she would never have approved of.”

“But the letters…” Granger looked at the bag. “The letters were written by a girl.”

“Jane Selwyn is a pseudonym under which I signed my letters. Believe it or not, but your flight broke your mother. Then your father’s health began to fail. Regulus was afraid that the discovery of our secret courtship would have been the death of them.” Severus chuckled. “They knew I existed, however. Regulus told them about our…adversarial relationship, and according to him, they rejoiced to hear of it. When you and your little wolf here nearly killed me, she thought it was a good sign – a hope that you would return to her.”

Black grimaced. He balled his hands into fists; the knuckles went white.

“Regulus wished to continue conversing with me during the summer holidays, but he also wanted his parents alive and healthy. We dared not consider their reaction to our correspondence, so we wrote to each other under false names.” Severus smiled. “Regulus received letters from Jane Selwyn, a distant, dependant cousin to the respectable Selwyns, while mine were sent to me by Edward Fairfax.”

“She should have figured it out,” said Black harshly. “My mother was a fanatic, not a fool. She knew exactly what happened under her roof.”

Severus frowned. “I understand that you do not care much for your family, but have you really forgotten that your father was dying? Your mother was far too busy nursing him to obsess over the personal letters of her teenage son.”

Hermione raised her “But what about Kreacher, sir? You didn’t mention him in your story.”

“He’s not particularly prominent in it,” he said flatly. “My concern for Kreacher is mixed. A part of me feels for him as I would have felt towards a wounded animal, but my stipulation is more driven by my wish to honour Regulus. He loved Kreacher. Black knows that his brother loved Kreacher, and still he torments him.” Severus narrowed his eyes. “You might have asked the poor elf about your brother. It’s killing him that you do not even acknowledge his death.”

Somewhere unseen, Kreacher let out another bitter sob.

The room was silent. Black kept clenching and unclenching his fists, while his gaggle of child-guests evidently had no idea what to make of what they just heard. Black’s stupid Death Eater brother and their stringent bastard of a teacher together? Nobody will believe them!

“I will not soften Regulus’ beliefs,” said Severus. “He supported blood purity and wizard supremacy. Many of our letters contain entire manifestos on his vision for a better world, and precious few of them acknowledge the existence of Muggle-borns. Of course, he used a less kind term for them. But,” he added sharply, before Black could interject, “had Regulus lived, he would have been the first to sign up to Miss Granger’s little society. And, unlike you, he did not beat or strike or torment those he hated. He just ignored them, and had he lived, he would have outdone you in everything.”

Had Regulus lived, Severus would have resisted the temptation to steal a glance at Lupin.

***

When Severus was a boy, he dreamt of leaving Cokeworth forever and settling down in London.

He had read hundreds of books about and set in the great city. His father had spent his shore leaves in London, and told Severus every pub and park he haunted as a young soldier freshly returned from the Mediterranean front; his mother told fantastical tales of Wizarding London: all the shops on Diagon Alley, all the clever friends she had in Knockturn Alley and Carkitt Market, and how one day they would go together as a family to prepare him for school.

That was why they had taken from him every note and penny Severus had received on his First Communion. To make him decent for school.

Although his residence on paper remained, unfortunately, Spinner’s End, Severus sometimes indulged in the fantasies of a London boy’s life. He loved the museums and their free admission. He loved the Theatre District to the point of dragging pureblood, snobbish Malfoys with him. He also liked to ride the Underground, though this was mostly out of respect for his birthplace. Every Black Country man, regardless of trade or creed, boasted that London ran on their coal.

Once as a very young boy, Severus had asked his uncle why the men of Spinner’s End claimed this achievement: they worked with wool and cotton and looms; it was the Wolverhampton men that actually went down the mines, not Cokeworth lads.

His uncle had smacked the back of his head and said he really was his father’s son – Tobias was a pedant, too.

As a grown man, Severus finally understood the working-class pride that he had found insane as a boy. The Malfoys would suck their breaths to hear it, and his little Slytherins would pale and question his soundness of mind, but there was some pride to be had in his Muggle lineage. They worked. Maybe they were filthy. Maybe all that smoke and ash had seeped into their skin and dirtied their blood, but they worked.

Regulus had laughed when Severus defended his father. It was a decision made on impulse. At the time he really had nothing but hatred in his heart for Tobias, but that was still his father, and Regulus had called Tobias stupid. He wasn’t stupid, but Regulus would not listen.

Severus looked down at the ring. Roses represented purity of blood. After he had relaxed his views, Regulus formed grand ideas in his head of designing a personal symbol for Severus. Having no right to use the Prince Family’s heraldry or words, Severus satisfied himself with his secret nickname; but Regulus dreamt of roses and heirs and restoration.

They were beautiful dreams, too. Severus listened to them with starry eyes. To a boy born on old sheets of newspaper, it was everything he could have ever hoped to find in the wizarding world: dignity and acceptance.

And when both Lucius and Regulus assured him that the Dark Lord would not shun him, that really his blood was the right blood, that his birth was no sin…Severus had been so happy. For the first time in his life, he was not a freak.

It was a short walk from Westminster Station to the Victoria Tower Gardens. Severus didn’t want to go back to Cokeworth so soon after revealing those deep-buried secrets to Black of all people, but neither could he go back to Hogwarts: Filch was cleaning his quarters today and he would rather not disturb the man.

No park in London delighted him as much as the Victoria Tower Gardens. The view it provided of Westminster and Vauxhall Bridges was unparalleled, and Severus was fond of watching the ships sail along the river. There were few children here as well, which never failed to improve a location in his esteem.

And the memories here were sweet.

The old crew used to relax here in their downtime. It had been alright at the start, but once Bellatrix and the dogs that made up her new family decided that Regulus was too young and Severus too dirty for them, it became truly great. Lucius might have persuaded them to stay, but he disliked both Bellatrix and the Lestranges. “Crass,” he called them.

Only Narcissa regretted their departure, though even this did not last long. Once she realised how much nicer everything was without a paranoid sister looming over her shoulder, she partook in all their juvenile fun.

Narcissa had her first cigarette at the Tower Gardens. Lucius used to spy for drunken Muggles leaving the pub on the other side of the street. He’d cast spells to aggravate them into fighting each other for his amusement. Regulus would pick flowers for his mother and make lists of other nice locations for his ailing father to visit, to raise his spirits. Severus had just been happy to be next to a cleaner river.

It had been so easy back then. Smoking and drinking and dreaming of a better world under the Dark Lord, it was amazing. The last time all four of them had been here together, Narcissa was still basking in the afterglow of becoming the new Mrs. Malfoy. She urged Regulus to make a decent match as well and see to it that the Black name continued because, “Sirius will never have a legitimate child. I’m not surprised if there is already a brood of bastard Blacks running around London. Regulus, you are the family’s saving grace!”

Regulus and Severus had exchanged half-amused, half-worried looks.

He looked back on the memories fondly. Severus had not yet become a Death Eater. It took more than faith alone to earn the Dark Lord’s own mark. Regulus had gotten his early on account of his lineage and connections, but Severus, like with everything else in life, had to earn it.

Severus was a hard worker. Of course, he did everything he could do to prove his worth, and when finally brought the Dark Lord that bit of prophecy…for one glorious moment, Severus was happy. He was where he was meant to be, surrounded by people who loved him for who he was, and he would never go back to horrid, painful, tainted past.

Then the Dark Lord announced his intentions, and well. Even if she hated and wanted nothing to do with him, she had been his first true friend.

Severus reflected on the miseries and revelries of his youth when Lupin approached him.

“And to what do I owe this displeasure, Lupin?” he demanded. He had hoped to have the park to himself.

Lupin sat down next to him. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his shabby coat, and on his face, his face—

Severus tensed. Usually, he had no trouble reading people. As a spy, his very life depended on gauging situations and weaving through currents to safe harbour. He had dealt with tyrants and manipulators, the righteous and the self-deprecating, and just about every type of political opinion on both spectrums and lived to…Well, he told no tales, but the point was the same.

Yet Lupin successfully remained on the sidelines. His cheeks were flushed red with wine; his pupils were blown wide open, so large as to threaten to hide the blue of his eyes.

Severus did not know what to make of it. The drunk were a confusing lot. So, without meaning to do it, he reached for white gold ring and fiddled with it.

Lupin took a sharp breath. He glared down at the ring, then raised his eyes and threw Severus a look that nobody, not even Regulus, had ever cast his way.

“You left in a hurry,” said Lupin quietly.

“I was pushing my welcome,” said Severus carefully, “and while I may have revealed more of the past than I ever wished to be known, I would rather not reprise my role as Black’s favourite prey to hunt. Certainly not in front of my students.”

“Kreacher is glad. After you left Grimmauld Place, Sirius summoned Kreacher and had him retell him as much of Regulus’ life as he could.” Lupin ran a hand through his greying hair. “He wept to talk about ‘beloved Master Regulus’ and Sirius didn’t like it.”

“Didn’t like Kreacher’s sobs or Regulus’ memory?”

“Both, I think. They parted on the worst terms, you know. Regulus had tried to bring Sirius back into the family to appease Walburga, but Sirius—”

“I know what happened.”

“Oh. Of course, you do. Naturally.”

The silence stretched for a few minutes. Then Severus asked, “Will he truly keep his word?”

“Hermione will see to it,” said Lupin. “She’s already begun preparing a presentation to show Sirius, to help him better understand house elves.”

Severus snorted. “It will be a long night for everybody involved, though the real victim will be the portrait of Phineas Nigellus. Without Kreacher or me, he will undoubtedly be Black’s next target.”

Lupin’s expression softened slightly and he smiled. “Phineas Nigellus actually spoke of you. Said he had high hopes for your teaching career, and that Regulus could have chosen much worse for himself.”

“Phineas Nigellus ought to be at Hogwarts,” said Severus irritably, “but obviously he cannot resist the temptation of observing Black’s reaction to the revelation.”

“Speaking of the…revelation,” Lupin looked at the ring. “If you don’t mind me asking: how long had you and Regulus been together?”

“What do you care about us?”

“Just curious. I know so little of you, Severus.”

He couldn't help the acid in his voice as he said, “Well, a part of it is by choice, is it not?”

“Severus, you cannot still be upset about those events?”

“Why does everybody think that I am petty?” he snapped. “I’m not. I have the same right as the rest of humanity to be angry and upset. Why should I forget and, God help me, forgive the people who never forgot my sins and never forgave my transgressions?”

This was too much. Severus got up to his feet and lurched towards the stone railing. He gazed at the black waters of the Thames and bit back the hurt that threatened to rise up his throat. His knuckles whitened from the strength of his grip; if he wasn’t careful, he would bite through the lining of his cheek again.

Lupin laid a hand on his shoulder, but Severus flinched from the touch. “Don’t,” he said quietly.

“Severus—”

“Dumbledore should have made you his spy, Lupin. You’re a bigger liar than me!” Severus straightened himself and glared at the man. “Spending time in my sitting room, kissing me good night every night, I—” He slammed his hand against the railing. “Your horrid Wolfsbane Potion. I would have brewed it for you regardless of the state of our relationship.”

“Yes, because Dumbledore ordered you to!”

Severus was so startled by the surety in Lupin’s voice that he laughed. “Dumbledore? Ordering me to brew your Wolfsbane!” He almost smiled at the childish faith Lupin held for the man. The infallible goodness he, and the rest of the Order actually, believed Dumbledore to represent with his mere existence.

Severus smiled. The Order members thought that the room where everything happened was the kitchen at Grimmauld Place, but the real decisions were made at Hogwarts in a room where only two men ever sat: he that planned, and he that did.

“What’re you smiling about?” demanded Lupin in a manner so like Moony of years past.

“Were you really uninformed?”

“Uninformed of what?”

Severus nodded to himself. He ought to have expected this. He had forced Albus to secrecy, after all, although in this current situation, he found that his pride was stung. “I had protested and raged against your employment,” said Severus. “An unmedicated werewolf was the last thing I needed in a school teeming with hundreds of underage wizards, but Albus insisted upon hiring you. He assured me, however, that I need not take time out of my busy schedule to brew your potion, but I had raged at him again.”

“You were angry by his respect of your time?” asked Lupin incredulously.

“You’ve never taken the Ministry-approved Wolfsbane, have you?”

“No. It’s too expensive.”

“Given its quality, the price tag is unjustifiable,” snorted Severus. “Though my fellow potioneers will hate me for it, I am among those in our guild who believe that many of our potions can and should be mass produced. We waste so much time brewing the simplest draughts for fools that clearly never paid attention in mine or Slughorn’s classes, but,” he folded his arms, “Wolfsbane is not the sort of potion any self-respecting master would let brew in one cauldron among a hundred. It wants patience, it wants delicacy, and I am not even delving into its short shelf life or the lethal mistakes that may happen under a less skilled master.

“When I realised that Albus was serious in his consolatory offer, I confess that I shouted at him for a good fifteen minutes. I know the people who brew for the Ministry – morons! And Albus would have controlled your lycanthropy on their powers alone! No, I told him that I had to be the one to brew your potions.”

Severus had threatened to fully co-teach DADA with Lupin. He had gone so far as to officially add the title of Co-Professor of the Defence Against the Dark Arts to the pay roll, but Dumbledore stayed him. Sleeper spies were not allowed to fall asleep forever, not until they’ve done their duty to their masters.

Brewing Wolfsbane disturbed his schedule. It was a difficult, time-consuming potion that required hours of work, and Severus could not resist modifying the recipe. It was troublesome cleaning up after explosions or poisonous fumes, but he was proud of his labour’s result: doubling the amount of Mandrake juice spared Lupin of the worst muscle pains; the addition of shredded dittany kept the colour on his face; three drops of lavender essence ensured that Lupin slept through the night.

“You brewed it for me?” Before Severus could pull away, Lupin grabbed his hands and held them tightly. “You demanded to brew it for me?”

“I did,” said Severus, fighting the resentment that wanted to scream at the man. “And I would have done it to the same quality even if I hated you with my whole heart. But you’ll have to forgive me if I am angry that, despite nine months’ worth of flawless Wolfsbane and some…other things, you decided in the end that he was more trustworthy than me. Everybody thought I’d gone mad that night. You called it a schoolboy’s grudge, I remember.”

The humiliation of it stung. Dumbledore was still of the opinion that Severus was overreacting about the Shrieking Shack, and those monstrous children had defied him at every turn to save a man who was, is capable of murder, and then Remus chose him.

They had spent so many evenings together, held hands and laughed and drank tea and kissed. But when push came to shove, Remus chose Black.

Severus knew little of love. However, his mother taught him that there was nothing more important than loyalty. Remus had seemed to like him, so Severus started to hope that whatever they had could stay and grow into something beautiful.

Suddenly, Lupin let go of his hands. Severus tensed and reached for his wand, but Lupin wrapped one arm around his waist. The other he raised to cup Severus’ cheek and pull him into a wine-stained kiss.

He almost let himself be swept away in the heat, but then Remus pressed their foreheads together and it was too intimate. Severus pushed the man off him. Pulling at his necktie, he took a few steps back and watched Lupin like the moon was full tonight.

“What are you playing at?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” said Lupin softly. “I want you, Severus.”

Severus frowned and fought the anger pulsating through his veins. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Yes, you are,” he said in a raised voice. “Because the one you want is some sweet-faced girl who knows nothing about you. What could you possibly want from me?”

Lupin raised his brows. “I thought I made my attraction clear when we were colleagues.”

“Then you sided with Black, fell off the face of the earth for a year, and proceeded to ignore me throughout the meetings.”

“The last is a mutual reality,” said Lupin firmly. “You’ve never taken the initiative, either.”

“How am I to speak with you when Black and Tonks monopolise your attention the moment our meetings end?”

“You never feared to stand against the mainstream,” said Lupin. “I’ve always admired that in you.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he said, smiling. “And now I’m sorry. You know me, Severus. I don’t have your strength and Sirius is the only friend of my youth. You understand my affection for him, don’t you?”

Severus bit his lip.

“See, you know!” Lupin closed the space between them and held a very taut Severus in his arms. “Just as I know that you’re not immune to Black charms. You must have loved Regulus very much to have kept the ring.”

“Wouldn’t you have kept a memento of your lost love?”

“No,” said Lupin with suspicious quickness. “Besides, the eighties were tough economically and that ring is white gold. Some years were so hard on me that I would have pawned it without hesitation.”

“Don’t let Mundungus Fletcher hear you say it. He does not need another excuse in his repertoire.”

Lupin chuckled. It was a warm, comforting sound. He pulled Severus closer to himself. The familiar scent of Capstan cigarettes clung to his jacket. It seemed to hug Severus as much as the man himself did.

“I’ve seen the good and gentle heart you hide inside of you, Severus,” said Lupin. “You can’t fool me the same way you do the rest of our colleagues. That’s how I know that you will forgive me and give me another chance.”

“I should leave you right this instant,” said Severus, clinging to Lupin with all his might. “Your words are air. We should forget everything that happened between us.”

“But we will not,” said Lupin merrily, “and we will leave the Gardens together because you will forgive me.”

“Arrogance does not suit a man in shabby robes, Lupin.”

“Remus. My name is Remus. Say it.”

Severus blinked, startled by the force of the command. He might have fallen silent from the impact, but he would be damned if he ever let Remus have the last word. “I’ll call you by your name when you have earned the right,” he said.

Remus laughed and rubbed circles in the small of his back. “That means you have given me the chance to prove myself, then!”

Severus shrugged. “We will see how I feel about it in the morning. It’s been a long day.”

“Come now, Severus,” Remus brought their lips together, “we’re conducting this conversation with you in my arms, and you’ve already relinquished me a kiss. Like it or not, you have forgiven me.”

Remus tugged him into another kiss. He worried his lower lip. Severus gasped, and then he shivered at the strange sensation of another tongue in his mouth; or was it actually the odd feel of Remus’ moustache over his own smooth skin?

Severus wrapped his own arms around Lupin and hated himself for it.

The one thing Severus had done right in this life was keep faith with Regulus. For twelve lonely years, he had resisted both the Malfoys’ matchmaking and Filch’s clandestine caresses. Severus had sinned beyond measure in this life, but fidelity was a virtue he wanted to uphold more than anything. A double-agent and traitor, he had always consoled himself that at least he was loyal to the one person who fell in love with him.

But as Remus breathed in deep and pressed his face into Severus’ neck, kissing and stroking flesh Severus never dreamt another person would ever touch, his heart ached with yearning. He wanted this so badly he could have wept.

Severus would never forget Regulus, the boy who had fallen in love with him at his worst, but Severus wanted to remember what it was like to kiss and be kissed. To hold and be held. To love and be loved.

And if the invisible string had tied Severus to Remus, he could only be grateful that it had granted him anybody at all.

Chapter Text

It had taken no small amount of effort on his part to persuade Sirius that it would be better if he, Remus, was the one to confront Severus about the cancelled Occlumency lessons. Judging from what Harry had told them, Severus had worked himself into a fury last seen when Sirius escaped the law. Severus refused to talk about that incident. He skirted around the topic with an impassive face, but Remus had noticed that for the remainder of those days, Severus withdrew into himself.

He looked less like Professor Snape on those days. Remus would catch him biting at his nails and picking at his skin. Severus did that a lot as boy. Sometimes, he’d hurt himself so badly that it pained him to handle ingredients during Potions. But he wouldn’t let Evans help him, thought Remus with a small smile. 

The day he quit his teaching gig at Hogwarts, Remus had gone down to the dungeons to bid Severus farewell. He wanted their parting to be amiable, but Severus would not even look at him. Flinching at Remus’ attempt to touch him, Severus had told him to leave immediately and pointed at the door. He had bitten his nails down to the quick; the tips of his fingers had swollen pink from the hurt.

Although his teaching days were the most stable of his adult life, Remus didn’t like to dwell on them too long. Every memory had been stained by the suspicious, frightened expression on the otherwise stoic potions master – and now that he knew what Severus was like in happiness, those memories disgusted him.

Regulus Black’s letters had softened Severus. That was the only reason why Severus had taken Remus back to his place, in a horrible little neighbourhood in the Midlands. His home was even worse than the mouldering cottage Remus had rented at the time, but there were treasures beyond measure hidden between old shelves and creaky floorboards.

Severus had pried open the floorboard at the foot of the stairs. He had hidden a glory box within which he kept Regulus’ letters to him. Remus had never seen him so giddy and juvenile as he was when he reread the saccharine promises Regulus had written. It was hard to connect the Snivellus who was always ready to give the Marauders as good as he got with the Severus that blushed over decades-old proclamations of love.

“He loved me,” was what Severus had said. “He was the first person to love me. The only one, really.”

Remus had wrapped an arm around that slender waist. “Not anymore.”

Severus had answered his affection with a sceptical look. “We’ll see.”

Their new situation had done little to smooth Severus’ sharp edges. He was still reserved at meetings, and the children continued to complain about him, and it drove Remus mad to see the white gold roses on his little finger, but then their hands would intertwine and Remus would forget his anger.

Long-fingered and pearl-pale, Severus had beautiful hands. The callouses and scars blemishing the white were a result of his craft; Remus had a special fondness for the pink remains of a burn Severus said he received during a Wolfsbane mishap. He would rub the outline of the scar with the pad of his thumb. It was almost as sweet an act as the clandestine kisses they shared in the quiet corners of Grimmauld Place.

The boy was dead. Ran away from the Death Eaters and died some sorry death. Severus had thrice told Sirius that he had no idea what had happened to Regulus. Flashes of real anger burst through the impassivity, and though he refused to interrogate Kreacher for information, Severus was obviously angry that Regulus had disappeared just like that.

Then he would let Remus tempt him with a night out in Leicester Square. They ate cheap food and drank cheaper booze before traipsing into whichever theatre had tickets to sell. Afterwards, if Remus was lucky, he’d get to feel up the slender body hiding beneath layers and layers of black. Thank goodness, the boy was dead. Remus didn’t want to share.

Their courtship was a secret. Nobody suspected a thing. Severus never lingered at Grimmauld Place longer than necessary – although Sirius had begun to force him to join them at dinner, to ask about his brother – and Remus took care to throw off their scent.

He would dawdle at headquarters for another hour or so, flirt with Tonks and debate with Bill, before walking to the nearest underground station. It cost him a gleaming Galleon to travel by tube, but thankfully Severus would wait for him in the fifth zone, whereupon they’d Apparate together to busier parts of town.

Although Severus was the first to request that they keep quiet about their ‘arrangement’, Remus himself had no strong wish to tell their acquaintances about their relationship. He justified by saying that the Order would not take kindly to this news; Sirius would likely accuse Severus of feeding Remus a love potion. It was easier to keep it under wraps, and both of them had so much experience hiding their feelings – it was no difficultly whatsoever.

But when Tonks laughed and told the whole table how Severus was actually quite popular amongst Hogwarts’ female (and even male) population in her day, Remus realised just how much he liked having the ‘brooding, dark professor’ that charmed Tonks’ friends to himself. Severus knew the absolute worst of Remus, had nearly died at his hand, and he still wanted him. Meanwhile Remus was slowly learning the best of Severus.

It was like their little secret, something for him to cherish in the darkest hour of the night.

This was different than what Remus had with women in the past. Something about him attracted those saviour-type women; the girls who thought they could fix him with their sweet kisses and wet eyes. They fell into his arms with comical ease and gave him all the love and support their hopeful hearts could offer.

Remus would take his share and repaid them with the most romantic fling of their lives. He’d call them at midnight, dance with them in the rain, spend lazy mornings at their flats.

Then he kissed their cheeks and left without a word. He had to leave. The longer he stayed, the more likely they were to build expectations, and he refused to let that happen.

He did not like to think about how many tears fell for him.

Severus never wept for him.

No, his tears fell because of him. Remus never remembered his transformations very well, but the Prank had been an exception. He supposed that after so many happy nights with the Marauders, the sight of a frightened boy had seared into his mind.

Severus had burst into tears when he saw Remus in the shack. Tears had streamed down his hollow cheeks, but he had also raised his wand hand and cast a defensive shield around himself. Remus had, as a werewolf, momentarily wondered how hot Severus’ blood would be on his mouth. He’d aimed to rip open Severus’ throat; he remembered that very well, and the sob that tore through Severus when Remus slashed his chest open.

Then James pulled Severus out of the shack. He hadn’t been gentle about it either. Severus had slammed his head against a rusty nail, splattering his blood across the floor.

Remus had avoided him until graduation set them down separate roads. He had thought Severus hated him. Nobody had known Severus was a Death Eater until the trials. Remus had listened to the coverage on the Wizarding Wireless Network. With a bottle of cheap wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other, he readied himself to hear the Marauders’ schooltime accusations confirmed.

Excluding the extremists, just about every Death Eaters spent weeks defending themselves. They had the money to hire the best lawyers in the market; the Daily Prophet had a field day covering the trials, writing biographies on the small group of sympathetic lawyers defending Death Eaters on top of gnarly description of every crime committed by their clients.

Then Severus came alone to trial. Remus had found it surprising. He’d expected Malfoy to accompany his schooltime worshipper into court, although he supposed it was every man for himself at those trials. The reporters had written the same in their articles while speculating what exactly Severus had done as a Death Eater.

Remus’ thoughts flew to the little children Greyback had bitten during the war. He had drunk entire bottles wondering just how many of the kids Severus must have helped track, or whether he had instead killed a member of the Order.

Severus had been silent in court. Crouch had demanded the truth out of him, but Dumbledore had spoken instead. The headmaster had vouched for Severus, saying he was no more a Death Eater than Dumbledore himself. Moreover, he assured the Council that Severus had taken no life and harmed no civilian, wizarding or Muggle. Severus had been cleared of every accusation that very day. The wine was bitter in Remus’ mouth.

Then the scholarly publications came. It was with the same heavy heart that Remus had been forced to accept that Severus had a genuine interest in helping werewolves.

Today his heart clung onto these secret glimmers of goodness. He needed to believe in Severus’ benevolence to ensure Harry’s lessons continued. God only knew how stubborn Severus could be; Remus just hoped he would be able to press on the right buttons and, if it came down to it, guilting Severus into teaching Harry.

Remus took a deep breath. Then he walked into the dark, moody office where he had spent many happy evenings with Severus.

He was not there.

Remus had considered that it might be a stretch to expect Severus at his office. About a week had passed since the incident with Harry, and today was Sunday – when they had worked together as colleagues, Severus had always kept Sundays for himself, though he still usually spent them in the classroom with the only difference being the cauldrons of personal potions rather than the “student-made rubbish”.

With the help of the disillusionment charm, Remus snuck around Hogwarts in search of his lover. Severus was not found in his sitting room – and the selkies were stubbornly unhelpful – nor was he in the Slytherin Common Room, where his pupils complained loudly about his absence: half of them wanted his help with exam reviewal, the other wanted him to reserve the Quidditch pitch for the Slytherin team’s practice sessions.

Remus then worked his way up the castle: Severus sometimes joined the Bloody Baron in haunting the Astronomy Tower, and he was no stranger to the joys of smoking on the long, rickety bridge, but he was nowhere upstairs either.

It slowly and nastily dawned upon Remus that there were two people who must know Severus’ whereabouts. One of them was the headmaster himself, but Remus did not think it wise to inform him of the incident unless directly asked, and the other was the old caretaker.

It was with a heavy heart that Remus readied himself for a conversation with Mr. Filch. However, just as he had approached the sleazy old man, he overheard him talking to Mrs. Norris about their teatime with the young professor.

“I don’t think he’ll be back from church until late in the evening, my sweet,” said Filch as he polished Gobstones awards in the Trophy Room. “He was right upset this morning, he was, and much as he claims to be above religion, you mark my words that he’s at that church this very moment.” He set down a silver marble and sighed. “Used to escort his mother to that church back in our youth. She’d be glad that he finds his comfort there as well.”

Remus listened to the conversation with keen interest. Wizards in general were not a religious people, although he had met the occasional pious Muggle-born who saw their magic either as a gift or curse from God. He would never have suspected that Severus attended church; it was frankly quite shocking that his witch mother also prayed (and not to mention that Filch apparently took her to church in his days as an apprentice caretaker, and was fond enough of the task to remember it).

He had heard of an abandoned church somewhere beyond the school grounds. Before the Whomping Willow and the Shrieking Shack, Dumbledore had considered the church as a possible transformation site for Remus; the scheme was discarded after a group of Catholic wizards from the southern Hebrides protested the school’s attempt to incorporate the land into Hogwarts territory.

Not for the first time in his life, Remus found himself hating the charms that prevented Apparating and Disapparating on school grounds. It was a long walk through the expansive green hills that surrounded the castle. Dodging children was its own nuisance, and Remus was glad when he saw the last of the students herded back into the castle by Hagrid and Filch; the former amiably shouted at them to go get their supper, whereas the latter – obvious even out of earshot – was threatening them with his fist shaking in the air.  

The church was hidden in a dip between two hills. It was very small and very old. Remus reckoned it was abandoned sometime in the sixties or seventies, when the magical community had bigger worries on their mind than some big man up in the sky. Bits of brick crumbled to the ground, and ancient tendrils of ivy finally extended their reach to the cracked roof; their green fingers just barely shrouded the sizeable breach on the western gables.

Remus pursed his lips. It had been a long time since he’d been to church. Not since Mum died, he thought uneasily as he pushed open the weather-scarred oaken doors.

He stopped halfway through the threshold. Whatever he had expected or imagined, it could not even begin to paint the scene that awaited him.

Severus sat alone on the front pew. His face was raised towards a wooden plank on which the Virgin Mary had been crudely painted with charcoal. Ivy leaves had fallen onto Severus. They clung to his wind-swept hair and trembled upon his shoulders as he furiously mumbled under his breath the angriest prayer Remus had ever heard.

When Remus shut the door behind himself, Severus went silent and snapped his head towards him. Tears streamed down his hollow cheeks, but still he raised his wand and cast a defensive shield around himself.

“Severus…” Remus tried to think up words of comfort or consolation, but nothing came to him. He had not seen—it had been so long—fifteen years had passed since Severus last—

“Remus.” Severus lowered his wand and rose from the pew. His pale skin was mottled with the blue light of evening that fell through the ivy, and while tears still fell down his face, there was something not unlike hope kindling in his expression. “Remus, what a pleasant surprise! I would have never thought that anybody would find me here.”

“I had a hunch,” said Remus, walking up the aisle. “Did take me a while though, I admit.”

“A man can live in Hogwarts for a hundred years, know it inside and out, and it would still take him days to see all of it.” Severus quickly brushed his face dry. “You must have a real need of me then. What is it?”

“I…” Remus took a deep breath, “I came here to talk about Harry’s lessons.”

Severus stiffened. “What about them?” he asked quietly.

“You must continue teaching Harry how to close his mind—”

“I mustn’t do anything,” snapped Severus. His posture was dagger-straight and brittle. “Those lessons were a favour to the headmaster on the condition that Potter would try to master the art to the best of his abilities.” He raised his arms with mocking despair. “Not only does the boy refuse to practice, he would rather gallivant around school and kiss pretty girls than put in the effort of closing his mind! Why should I teach him?”

“Because the fate of the wizarding world depends on him. Severus,” Remus grabbed those cold, elegant hands, and brought them close to his heart, “Severus, more than anybody in the Order, you understand the precariousness of our position. Believe me when I say it doesn’t inspire any confidence in me that Dumbledore expects us to fully trust a fifteen-year-old boy, but if that’s what he says—”

“What say you?”

“What?”

“Forget Dumbledore. What do you have to say about Potter? Have you any idea what he had done?”

Remus had thought he had seen every side of Severus’ anger. He was wrong. Back when they were schoolboys, it had been the raw rage of an upset ganged-up-on boy; when they were colleagues, before they had come to their brief understanding, it was the suspicious mistrust and cold fury of a wronged man. He had seen every extreme and everything in-between. So why did it hurt to see Severus upset now?

Severus shook off Remus and brought his hands close to his own chest. His hair and cloak flourished about him, their blackness a stark contrast to the bloodless face. He wrung his hands in a conflicted motion and looked at the stony saint at the end of the aisle. It seemed to give him courage because he threw Remus a look full of hope.  

Remus did not like it. It reminded him too much of his former loves. They had looked at him with those same eyes when they clutched at his clothes and begged him to stay.

“Harry told me what happened,” said Remus in an even tone. “Severus, how long do you intend to keep your grudges—”

“Don’t you start this game again,” said Severus sharply. “I’ll not have you paint me a petty schoolboy again, not when the incident in question is you—Potter attacked me! With my own spell! He attacked—my spell! Mine!”

Remus nearly snorted. “It wasn’t your spell, Severus, come on. Jinxes come and go, and that was the fashionable curse of the day—”

“Go check the spellwork inventory and you’ll see that it was non-existent until the seventies when I invented it,” hissed Severus. “And it certainly wasn’t anybody else in your year group because not one had the grit to experiment with spellwork like me.

“I invented that spell and showed it to my friends and we used to flip ourselves around for fun. Then other children saw us at our play, you and your friends saw us and, and, and!” Snape threw a hand atop his heart and held onto something with terrible desperation. “And I wasn’t doing anything! I didn’t do anything! Nothing! You started it! Your friends—they started it, not me!”

Remus balled his right hand into a fist and slammed it against the pew, splintering the rotten wood in twain; Severus flinched. “You always had to fight back,” said Remus contemptuously. “You could never let an insult die and you couldn’t keep to yourself. You always had to stick your nose into our fucking business!”

“And how did I intrude on your gentlemen’s holy business that day?” demanded Severus. “Let’s hear it! What did I do that fine June afternoon? Did I breathe too loudly during the exam? Or was my handwriting too small for Pettigrew to copy off me? Was it all the noise I made afterwards when I sat away from you all, kept to myself, and minded my own fucking business! What was it? What was it? Tell me! Tell me!”

“Why don’t you calm down first and then we can talk?” Remus suggested earnestly.

Severus paled. Then he raised his hands into the air with such fierceness that Remus was sure their argument was about to escalate into a fight; but Severus instead reached for his hair and pulled at it sharply. He let go of it just as erratically and, with a frustrated scream, threw across the aisle every rain-dampened pew cushion within reach.

Honestly, Remus would have preferred if they just fought. It would have been better than watching Severus childishly let out his anger on rotten wood and moth-eaten wool.

Remus was just about to sit down and wait until Severus was in a fit state for a normal conversation when he, much to his own surprise, flung into action and pulled his hysterical lover into a tight embrace; and hysterical he was because Severus had begun to destroy more of the church with flashes of furious accidental magic.

Severus screamed and kicked him hard on the shin, but Remus maintained his grip. He cupped the back of Severus’ head and pushed him into the crook of his own neck. With his other arm, Remus kept him in place and brought them both down onto the cold stone floor. Severus fought him every step of the way, but a newfound strength rushed through Remus as he pinned the man beneath them.

“I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

“You’ve already hurt me.” Severus bared his teeth and bit the inside of Remus’ forearm. He tore through the shirtsleeves and drew blood. Spitting up the cloth, he said, “If it makes you feel any better – because I know how important it is for you to feel good about yourself – it’s my fault for letting you in. That’s what I get for trusting you. Twice! I fell for your charms twice!”

Remus dug his nails into Snape’s skin until the latter let out a cry of pain. Remus then raised his wrists and slammed them against the floor. He hoped it hurt him. “Why did you let me in then? I was much happier before I knew you.”

“You were the one who knocked on the door,” said Snape angrily. “You reached for my hand and stroked my cheek when you—”

Remus hated how sad Snape looked. He wanted to scream and rage at him, wanted to punish him for meddling with the Marauders and then having the audacity to act the victim when—

The ghostly image of Snape as a boy flickered in his mind. Remus had not yet become friends with Sirius and James, so he moved quietly amongst Gryffindors towards their classes. Their first joint lesson with the Slytherins had been Defence Against the Dark Arts. Professor Ismene had warned them that she will not tolerate any tomfoolery and expected them to stick to the course material.

Snape then proceeded to antagonise her by revealing his knowledge of the entire first-year curriculum. Professor Ismene found him highly disturbing. She asked whether his mother was also a teacher.

Her scowl deepened when Snape said his mother was a housewife, but she was the cleverest witch in the world. He said his mother had lots of books on Dark magic. She let him read whatever he liked, and that he had a note from her that she wanted him to give to ‘whoever the school has teaching DADA this year’.

Professor Ismene read the note aloud. Snape’s mother had a curt way of expressing herself, and her note essentially declared that when it came to the Dark Arts, her son would benefit more from guidance than teaching.

Remus couldn’t help gawking at this brave little boy. Professor Ismene, in her dragonscale clothing and multitudes of scars, cut a frightening figure; but Snape just looked up at her with wide, starry eyes.

“What exactly does your mother expect me to do?” asked Professor Ismene.

“I dunno,” he said earnestly. “I learn a lot from reading books though. Maybe I can read the more difficult books from the library, Professor? With your permission?”

“No, you may not read from more difficult books, Mr. Snape!” Professor Ismene tore up the note and incinerated it in front of the class. “Your mother is not a teacher, and neither are you. It’s best to approach the Dark Arts under an impartial supervisor in a neutral setting. These are the Dark Arts we are discussing, not housekeeping! I will write to your mother and tell her to hide those books from you. In the meantime, I will try to undo the damage she caused. Have a seat now, Mr. Snape.”

James and Sirius had exchanged intrigued glances.

The moment class ended and Professor Ismene left the room, James jumped to his feet and hit Snape with a hex. Thus, their rivalry was born.

“Professor Ismene was a bitch,” said the full-grown, embittered Snape beneath him. “The day God sends me a bright, clever student eager to learn, I will sing every hymn and psalm I know in front of the whole school.”

Remus stared at him incredulously. “Are you a Legilimens as well as an Occlumens?” He squeezed the wrists tighter. “Were you rifling through my thoughts just now?”

“Pardon me for wishing to know your intentions for me. I’ve bad experiences with your lot pinning me down.” Severus suddenly went limp and looked to the side. He looked exhausted. “I don’t understand you, Lupin. You sympathise with me, but never raised a hand to help me. You seemed to admire me while simultaneously condemning the very traits you want for yourself.”

“I admire many things about you, but not your grudges. You must let them go, Severus. Harry isn’t James. More importantly, he needs you to teach him how to defend himself against Voldemort. Voldemort! Surely for that alone you can let bygones be bygones?”

“I’ll let go of my grudges once you stop defending James Potter.” Severus closed his eyes and inhaled a slow, deep breath. “I’m trying—I really am trying to make peace with the fact that even under the belief that he was a murderer, you rose to Black’s defence sooner than you did to mine. I tell myself that it’s because the dog’s alive. Had he been dead, you would not have been so eager to embrace and fight for him…but Potter’s been dead for fourteen years and you love him more than me. You kiss me, hold my hand, then rise in front of the whole world and preach James Potter’s goodness.” Severus sighed. “I hate it.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked Remus. “Tell me and I’ll do it”

“No. You won’t. You value public opinion far too much to ever praise me. I don’t want praise, mind you, but you could at least have some understanding towards my side of things.”

Severus raised his eyes and, as he had torn down the invisible walls inside of him, gazed at Remus with all the pain he had held inside of him for twenty-five years.

It was too much. Remus let go of Severus’ arms and scrambled off him.

Rocking into an upright position, Severus ran a hand through his hair. “Forgive the intrusion into your mind, but I saw enough.”

“What do you mean?” whispered Remus.

Severus brought his knees up to his chest. Tilting his head, he rested it against the back of his hands. A weariness that could match Remus’ own spilled out of him. “I can’t do this, Lupin. How many times will I have to remind you that I have as much soul and heart as you? Either you start remembering that I am a human too, or just leave me alone. It’s exhausting.”

Remus frowned. Although he knew little of his potioneer, he was not so stupid to overlook what had just been offered to him. “After everything you’ve said,” said Remus, “why are you giving me a choice?”

“I don’t know. I have more reasons to hate you than love you, and in a more just world, nobody would condemn my grievances against you but…” Severus shrugged. “I’ve had practically unlimited access to a Pensieve since I became a teacher. Albus granted me permission to use it whenever I saw fit. I used it to hone my Occlumency skills at the start of my career as a spy.

“A Pensieve is a highly useful object, though perhaps not one that should be readily available to a twenty-year-old freak with enough horrors to last a lifetime.” Severus tugged at a stray lock of hair, letting it fall and hide his face. “I went and scrutinised every hurt I could remember, never caring that every venture into the Pensieve left me worse for wear. I went about it in a chronological manner too, so feel free to imagine the state of me when I got around to that memory.

“I became obsessed with it. I thought…I don’t know what I thought. What I wanted was a satisfactory explanation to the events of that day. Maybe I hoped that once I got my answer, I would be able to let go of it and breathe a little easier.” He parted his lips slightly and, placing a thumb between his front teeth, gnawed at his nail.

“I take it that there never was a satisfactory answer?” asked Remus quietly.

Severus shook his head. “I would’ve been better off smashing the Pensieve and have Dumbledore be disappointed and disgusted with me than going back into it.”

“You know,” Remus paused, “I struggle to imagine what you could have found that made it worse—”

“Lily smiled.”

“What?”

Severus tore off the edge of his nail. He spat on the ground beside him. “Lily Evans smiled. When Potter and Black humiliated me in front of the whole school, she rose to my defence but not before she cracked a smile.” Severus looked up at the stone statue looming over them. “I knew I was losing her but…she smiled. I’ll spend my whole life making up to her every mistake I made, but she shouldn’t have smiled.

“I talked about the whole situation with my friends later – years later – and they both said it wasn’t right to be scared every day in my friendship with Evans. What’s the point of holding on to a friend until your knuckles went white if they were resentful of you? I’ll answer before God for everything and gladly go without complaint but…we were supposed to be best friends and she smiled. Why?”

“I don’t know, Severus.” Remus wanted to take his hand, but thought better of it. “I’m surprised that Dumbledore allowed you use the Pensieve after the incident.”

“Sharpening my Occlumency skills was far more important than whatever diseases were taking hold of my brain. Filch didn’t like it though. He caught me red-handed as I relived the worst of my life. You ought to be glad of it, however,” said Severus in slightly calmer, more amused spirits, “because if I hadn’t rewatched my worst day over and over again, I would not have noticed that you were the only person that day who didn’t laugh at my plight.

“Admittedly, your detachment was not inspiring to my tormented heart, but at least,” he hurriedly swiped at his eyes, “you didn’t smile, and you didn’t look. You didn’t look at me, not even when Pettigrew shrieked gleefully at the poor state of my undergarments; or when Black said those things about my—”

Severus let out a long, hissed breath. He raised his hand again, and turned his face away from Remus.

Remus felt his own eyes sting dangerously. He had never apologised for the incident at the Shrieking Shack, nor have they ever broached that day. Remus thought of every contemptuous remark he received for his lycanthropy. Then he wondered what it might have been like to have dealt with those hateful individuals every day for seven years.

Or after thankless missions for unfriendly people.

Severus fidgeted as he bit his nails into uneven semicircles.

Remus fancied himself clever, but he had no idea where to even begin with Severus. So, trusting in his baser urges, he did the only thing he could think of and raised his arms in invitation.

Severus peered at him through curtains of black hair. He shrank into himself and placed a hand over his wand. Remus leaned closer and smiled as kindly as he could. “Please,” he said.

There was a horrible, erratic thumping in his chest. Remus feared that the wolf that lived inside had at last decided to live its own life; it raged and clawed against his ribs, threatening to break free and kill him and Severus both.

But then Severus fell into his arms, and everything was in its right place.

***

Although Remus had done his very best to keep them at church, Severus threatened to permanently transfigure him into a teacup unless they returned to the school and secluded themselves in Remus’ former chambers.

“Why can’t we go to yours?” asked Remus. “I’ve no right to that room anymore.”

Severus snorted. “And no doubt you would like to gawk at my sleeping area as well?”

“I won’t deny that I am curious to see it. You’ve only let me into the sitting room.”

“Yes, the public part of my quarters,” said Severus matter-of-factly. “And where my prefects and head pupils feel entitled to dawdle in anticipation of me.”

Remus stared at him. “They actually disturb you? You?”

Severus threw him a look. “I’m their Head of House. They have a right to disturb me. Do not forget that it’s also spring, meaning we are rapidly approaching final exams. I’ve come to expect fifth and seventh-years knocking on my door past curfew with tears in their eyes and notes spilling from their arms as they beg for help.”

He brushed a lock of stray hair and folded his arms. “The seventh-years are bold. They know I’ve helped them study in the past and will not leave me alone unless I tell them off; the last thing we need is them accidentally spotting you, a former teacher who left in disgrace, in my quarters.”

“But surely Umbridge has moved into my chambers?”

“No, Professor Umbridge lives at her original residence. She arranged a Floo connection between her home and her classroom.” Severus clicked his tongue. “Would that the rest of our colleagues do so. Unless you are a Head of House, you are under no obligation to stay at Hogwarts.”

“Ah, but you cannot blame them for wanting to indulge in the creature comforts of the castle,” said Remus with a smile. “I’ve never eaten so well as I have as a teacher here.”

Severus tapped his fingers against the crook of his arms. “Would you like something to eat? I can have the house elves prepare something for us.”

“It’s alright. I ate at Grimmauld Place.” And with confidence bordering on insanity, Remus nonchalantly draped his arm around Severus’ shoulders and pulled him close to his side. “I had something else in mind, actually. I’ve long dreamt of it but never had the opportunity to act upon the urge.”

“Urge?” Severus tensed, dropped his arms, and intertwined his fingers together in a nervous gesture. He cracked the knuckles of his hand; in the abandoned church, every pop was like a gunshot. “You must be mistaken.”

“No, I’m not,” said Remus. “Honestly, I can’t see why you should be surprised. The way you wrap yourself up in cloaks and capes – it’s rather obscene.”

Red suffused that bloodless face. Severus raised a hand to brush a strand of hair, though there was no need for it. He rolled his lips inwards and tilted his head to the side, away from Remus, and locked his eyes at the stony feet of the Virgin Mary.  

Remus waited for a reaction, but it never came. Severus just stood beside him, seemingly intent on staring at the brightening spots of moonlight chasing away the shadows within the church.

When Remus tried to let go of him, however, Severus took the slightest step towards him and maintained the contact.

So, making bold and taking the lead, Remus took his hand and together they returned to the school. Then he led Severus to the abandoned tower room that had once been his own. It was exactly as it was on the day he had vacated it two years ago: empty, sterile, without any character or personality. Apparently, the disguised Barty Crouch Jr. had not brought with him many personal effects.

While Remus shut the door, Severus opened the window shutters and leaned against the wall between it and the bed. He had folded his arms again; his fingers held onto the hem of his cloak. “You had quite the vinyl collection stored up against that wall, I recall. Have you taken them all to Grimmauld Place?

“I sent them to my dad,” said Remus, placing a Locking Spell on the door. “I can’t trust them at headquarters; somebody might have broken them.” And though his patience was famous, he was fairly certain that a broken record would have caused such a fury as to ruin his reputation.

“I’m the same with my books,” said Severus quietly. “The most expensive tomes I’ve hidden at home.”

“What about the sixteen copies of Wuthering Heights you’ve got in your sitting room?”

“That’s different. I need them close.”

“Just like how you need every translation of Crime and Punishment?”

“I’m comparing them,” huffed Severus.

Remus chuckled. He cupped Severus’ cheek and smiled, enjoying the wide-eyed trepidation it drew out of the stoic man. Then he dragged his hand down the long column of Severus’ neck. When he reached the long row of buttons, Remus struggled to maintain his breath. It’s just…it really was offensive how Severus kept himself wrapped up, hiding from the world the svelte body he had felt in his arms the few times he had been allowed to hold him.

As he took his time unbuttoning the many shirts and vests in which Severus shrouded himself, Remus used his free hand to caress and touch the newly exposed flesh. He hoped to relax Severus in this way. The poor man was frozen to the spot with only little gasps and reddening cheeks as signs of life.

After he stripped Severus to his undershirt, Remus seated himself on the edge of the bed. He pulled Severus into his lap with little resistance, and brought their lips together for a kiss.

Remus had long known that Severus, despite his age, had very little experience. His kisses were stilted and awkward, his embraces short and careful. That’s why he was determined to make this feel good for him. Remus wrapped his arms around Severus and kneaded the tight muscles in Severus’ back; he ran his tongue over Severus’ shut lips, encouraging him to kiss back properly.

Severus dug his nails into Remus. When they drew back, he let out a shaky breath and grazed his lips with the tips of his fingers as if in disbelief.

The bed creaked under their weight. Remus carefully moved to place Severus on the bed. He made short work of the undershirt, removing it with the practiced mutter of a trusted incantation. Excitement rose in the pit of his chest as he realised that he must be the first person to see Severus laid half-bare; and they were in the moonlight, hidden in a room up an ancient tower – all of the girls he loved before would have wept with envy, but Remus decided it was no less than his lonely Severus deserved.

Then he saw them and a chill swept through his whole body.

Four enormous scars ran across Severus’ torso, slashing him from shoulder to hip. They had faded to a dusty pink, but were still jarring next to healthy flesh. Not even magic would heal them. Remus knew better than most the consequences of wounds inflicted by a werewolf’s claws.

Severus sighed. “Hideous, aren’t they?”

Remus winced. “Don’t say that—”

“I tried to create salve to erase them,” he continued, “but none of my inventions fully achieved my ambition. A shame, really, because I wanted these gone. Entirely.”

God, and didn’t Remus understand the feeling? As a child, waking with new scars did nothing but inflame his anger at the world and stir in him strong feelings of hatred against every reflective surface in his house.

He had come to accept it as an adult, but he didn’t like it. He often dreamt of walking into the bathroom one day to a reflection of himself unmarred by the hundreds of scars marking his body. He had not realised that he had given Severus the same wish.

Severus silently accio-ed the undershirt into his hand. “It’s alright,” he said, rising from the bed. “I know it’s disturbing. None of yours are as big as mine, presumably because even an unhinged werewolf has some sense of self-preservation. I’ll put the shirt back on and it will all be fine—"

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t even know that I’d hurt you that night,” said Remus. “Physically, I mean. Dumbledore told me that James had pulled you out of the Shrieking Shack before I reached you.”

“That’s not entirely false. If you had gotten to me in time, I wouldn’t be lying here beneath you, would I now?”

Remus traced the outline of the outermost scar. It was jagged and angry.

Severus watched him. He appeared nervous, uncomfortable. “Remus, it’s…I cannot say that I’m not angry about the scars, but I’ve learned to live with it. It could have been worse. Far worse.”

Remus ground his teeth. Unwanted memories flooded his mind: the smell of hot blood, the rusty nail, the salty tears and screaming; and with Severus beneath him, looking up at him with large, anxious eyes, Remus felt his self-deprecating voices painting him a picture of a dead boy torn apart by the very hands that now held the man.

Before the portrait could manifest, Remus emptied his head and focused entirely on the man beneath him.

He ran his hands down Severus’ chest and belly. He laughed lowly at the surprised gasp that left Severus when a thumb brushed over his nipples. Goosebumps spread across his arms and he rolled back his shoulders onto the bed, pushing his chest closer to Remus.

Although the room was dark, moonlight splashed across the bed and illuminated them. Remus let out a small sigh of relief that the scars, though large and gruesome, had not truly mutilated Severus. He was also pleasantly surprised that Severus’ nipples were not ruddy or brown like that of most men, but as pink as the inner lining of seashells.

He circled and pinched them gently. Then he blew hot air across the chest, rubbed his face against the scars, and finally fastened onto a nipple and sucked.

Severus cried out loudly and dug his heels into the mattress. He flung his neck sideways as well and bit into the corner of a pillow.

Remus pressed himself closer to Severus to keep him in place. He kept pinching and mouthing at the nipples. As much as he appreciated their pinkness, Remus wanted to see what shade of red they’ll become after him. So, alternating between them and relishing the desperate sounds Severus was making, he hoped to undo as much of the hurt he had brought him.

Something pressed against his thigh. Just as Remus raised his head to confirm his suspicions, Severus grabbed his head between his hands and stilled him. The deepest red suffused Severus’ face and chest, and his breathing was hard. He opened his mouth to say something, but the words never came. Instead, Severus took a sharp breath and squeezed his legs against Remus’ hips.

Remus smiled and pressed their foreheads together. While his hand strayed to their belt buckles, he distracted Severus with long, loving kisses. He almost laughed at Severus’ renewed enthusiasm, but he stifled the impulse lest his lover felt himself mocked.

Once he had removed his own belt and undid the zip, Remus groaned and palmed at his cock. He needed to take the edge off, just a bit, so that he could better handle Severus. The man had trouble kissing; there was no chance that anybody expect Remus had ever feasted on him.

And wasn’t that a pretty thought? It was like Severus had been waiting for Remus, preserving his body until it was ready to be claimed by the right man.

Remus had only started to pull down the hem of Severus’ trousers when the loudest, angriest knocks froze them. Severus quickly summoned his many shirts and vests, throwing them over himself as if they were a blanket, whereas Remus pushed himself up on his elbows and glared at the door. Always, always something or someone got in their way – he wondered if he could ask Peeves to torment whoever it was that disturbed their moment of bliss.

Then the person outside the door spoke and Remus knew the idea was pointless. Peeves already did his best to torment him daily.

“Professor Snape?” came the wheezing voice of Argus Filch. “Professor, are you in here?”

Severus wriggled out of Remus’ arms and fell on the floor with a soft thud. He sighed. “Yes, Filch. I’m here.”

“But why?”

He growled. “I don’t have to explain myself to you! The question we should be asking is why you’re looking for me at such a late hour!”

“A third-year Slytherin was looking for you,” said Filch slowly. “She couldn’t find you in your quarters or your office, so she called on me. I thought she was just being stupid – you know what the children are like; they never look for teachers properly – but you really weren’t in your office and…The Pensieve. What were you doing with it, Professor?”

“Nothing of that nature, I assure you.”

“Professor, please.” Filch’s voice was soft. Remus had never heard him speak like that to anybody except to his own cat. “If you’re troubled in the mind again—”

“You say that I’m ‘troubled in the mind again’ and I’ll make sure that you are,” snapped Severus. He scrambled to his feet, hurriedly threw on the bare minimum amount of clothing, and flew out the room.

He shut the door behind himself, but Remus fully overheard the lengthy conversation between them. Filch held his ground against Severus, interrogating the latter on his activities with the Pensieve. Severus repeatedly told him that it was nothing serious, that it was his right to parse through his own memories, and eventually – what finally worked – that the headmaster made a request of Severus that could only be fulfilled with the Pensieve’s help.

Filch attempted to take Severus into his own office. He wanted to make the young professor tea, said that he also had those cinnamon biscuits that he knew his professor enjoyed.

“Tomorrow, Argus,” said Severus, more gently. “We’ll have tea tomorrow. I’m afraid I am in no state to provide pleasant company tonight.”

“Don’t need to be pleasant,” said Filch softly.

Severus chuckled, and Remus frowned. I am not, he thought ferociously, going to be jealous of an old Squib.

Chapter Text

Their relationship was not without its difficulties, but the joy it brought Severus was unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life. Yes, he knew it was a dangerous game they were playing. Severus really ought to know better than to place his trust in a fickle, aimless, cowardly werewolf who had proven himself time and time again unwilling to sacrifice his reputation; yet all good rationality flew out of his head whenever Remus held his hand and smiled at him.

Those smiles cleared the fog of misery and pain in Severus’ mind. Suddenly, his heart and head were filled with pictures of a normal world without Death Eaters or members of the Order tearing each other apart, a world where he could move in peace without the terror of loose ends unravelling him to bits of thread. There was laughter in the air, and happy little Slytherins unburdened by filial duties, and no people unsaved for the sake of the greater good.

And Remus would smile that dazzling smile that burst like the sun through a thick layer of clouds. Severus forgot his fatigue in the face of that smile; it brought him back to life and he would gladly scratch, claw, and bite his way into the happy world on the other side.

Remus expressed similar wishes in his own quiet way. Spying on werewolves made him miserable. From what Severus understood, Remus felt himself an Acromantula out of the woods in that company of wolves and they likewise met him with suspicion. Most had been turned as children or teenagers and promptly ran away from home to find their equals, which of course meant that they were an uneducated, uncivilised lot resentful of Remus’ wizardly airs.

Precious few of them knew how to properly use a wand as they had either dropped out of Hogwarts or never attended it in the first place, rendering their magical efforts paltry. Many decided it simply wasn’t worth the effort to learn magic beyond basic spells. Those who tried to educate themselves and become wizards did so with painstaking effort; they especially hated Remus for his talents and abilities, and cursed him with envious rage.

Remus’ complaints did not surprise him. When Severus had studied lycanthropy with Damocles, they had purposefully avoided werewolves attached to communes. It was too risky. Communes were not typically made up of eccentric shapeshifters content to live off the land. Their members actually, unfortunately lived up to the stereotype that they were a half-savage lot hardened and maddened by a shitty life.

Damocles had suggested they contact solitary werewolves. Those that lived alone in the middle of heaths and hills of the Scottish Highlands, the Hebrides, and the smaller Channel Islands. While their lives were no less challenging than their brethren in communes, they were far more reasonable and less hateful towards wizards. They were at least willing to hear their research proposition.

“I’d love to speak with those werewolves,” said Remus tiredly. “Mine are determined to confirm every wizarding stereotype against us – it’s frustrating.”

He fell into the loveseat Severus had recently purchased and leaned against him. It had been weeks since they had been able to see each other. Severus had been busy with his usual spying duties, not to mention the approaching school year meant that he had to go through his stores and order ingredients for the autumn term. Remus meanwhile had disappeared quite literally underground and could not leave until he had fully integrated himself into their ranks.

Before Remus had gone spying in the outskirts of Cardiff, Severus had pulled him aside and given him a whole lecture on which topics to avoid so as not to betray his middle-class background. Remus had protested the lesson, saying that the laws preventing him from work meant that his adulthood was very a hand-to-mouth existence. He’d be fine.

Severus had almost laughed at him. He told Remus that he still carried himself like somebody who grew up with three daily meals and fell asleep in a warm bed to radio music rather than a mother’s nervous crying when she checked the money box at midnight. Severus also suspected that these werewolves, raised entirely on streets and fields, would have lived skittishly for fear of assault and rape. Their communes were hardly better, but at least they were a united front.

And his poor dear Remus had been brought up in quaint little towns and sleepy villages. Those werewolves would eat him alive if he so much as implied that he’d gone camping in France with his parents. 

Severus listened patiently to Remus’ grievances against the members of the commune. He found most of it secretly amusing. It reminded Severus of his own outbursts to his mother after he returned to Spinner’s End for the summer after spending the winter holidays with wizards at Malfoy Manor.

He didn’t even need weeks to work himself into a rage like Remus. One weekend with the neighbourhood lads was enough to have him writing a desperate letter to Lucius, though not before he and his mother devoted two hours to criticising the low-lifes surrounding them.

When Remus mentioned the brawls that he got into with werewolf men jealous of his popularity with the commune’s female population, Severus raised his brows and cracked the top knuckle of his right pinkie.

Remus chuckled. “I’m not interested in them, love.”

“But their interest was such that it warranted the men to fight you,” said Severus pointedly.

“Their interest is juvenile. They all joined the commune as girls and rarely left its territory because of Greyback’s vision for women in his new world order.”

“Mhm. And is Greyback aware that the havoc wrought on these women by their transformation significantly decreases their fertility?”

“That’s why he wants to start kidnapping healthy Muggle women and witches. The younger the better, he claims, because their ‘garden is riper’,” said Remus with no small amount of disdain. “Although I heard from some of the girls that a werewolf woman on the Isle of Coll gave birth last year. Did you know that?”

Severus shot him a flat glare. “Yes, Remus, it’s the same werewolf on whose behalf I researched that curse. You can ask me stuff directly, you know that?”

“Ah, but where’s the intrigue in that?”

“I think we have enough intrigue in our lives.” Severus raised his hand and looked at the flesh once burned red by a curse. “And yes, your sources are correct: Janet, the Coll werewolf, gave birth to a baby girl. I was too busily occupied at Hogwarts because of the Triwizard Tournament, so I was unable to attend on her. Thankfully, Damocles left his abode in Copenhagen and travelled to Coll.

“The birth nearly killed Janet. She had begun her labour the evening before the full moon and had to endure the full misery of it; we did not dare to give her Wolfsbane for fear of its toxicity on the child.” Severus folded his arms as he recollected the details. “Damocles cast a series of charms to trap Janet in a field so he could observe her from a distance and knock her unconscious if she began to hurt herself too badly.

“Come morning, Damocles and her husband dragged her back to the cottage. He cut her open and removed the baby, which weighed a shocking ten pounds.” He pursed his lips. “Janet named her Flora Severa. I wrote to her as soon as I heard of it because no child deserves to be saddled with such a name, but Janet refused to budge. In fact,” he sighed, “she asked me to be godfather alongside Damocles.”

“I think it’s a nice gesture,” said Remus, slipping an arm around Severus’ waist. “We’re not the type of men to become fathers, but now there’s a child out there carrying your name.”

Severus snorted. “Flora Severa Ross will not thank me for her middle name.” He traced the edges of the white gold roses on his finger. “But you are right, I suppose. Neither of us would be very good fathers. Our generation was twice broken by warfare. Some of us died during the first war, and those of us that survived are too damaged to start families of our own.”

And he had known that a second war was imminent. It would have been foolish to deliver a child just to leave it fatherless. He was not so selfish, nor so desperate for love to do that.  

“My uncle on the Muggle side fought in the war,” said Remus. “He had a wife but they separated five years after he returned. My mum thought he was too haunted. Like a part of him was shot and left for dead in Normandy.”

“He fought in France then?”

“Mhm. Second Army.”

“My father was enlisted in the Eighth Army. They were engaged in the North African campaign, which didn’t help with his admiration of the Greco-Romans. Hence,” he gestured at himself, “a Severus sits beside you rather than a Brendan.”

“Your name could have been Brendan?” Remus laughed. “I’m sorry but I could never imagine you as anything other than Severus!”

“Then you’re lucky that my father was so insistent upon it,” said Severus, smiling softly. “It’s not an easy name to bear, but he never regretted it and I learned to carry it. Hopefully, Flora Severa Ross grows into hers as well.”

Remus pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’m sure she will,” he said, “but let’s stop talking about babies and werewolves and wartime. Don’t you have other news to share with me?”

“I share nothing without Dumbledore’s consent. You know that.”

“Well, how are things at Grimmauld Place?”

Severus rolled his eyes. “I try to maintain my distance from it. Whenever Mrs. Weasley isn’t shouting reprimands at Potter – and, by extension, me – for our ultimately fruitless lessons in Occlumency, she disputes every single one of Black’s godfatherly decisions. One of these days, she is going to kidnap Potter and hide him from Black until this war comes to an end.”

“I can’t imagine Sirius is taking it well,” said Remus cautiously.

“He’s fine. He’s taken to fighting with the paintings upstairs,” said Severus, trying very hard not to smirk. “When I last took my leave of the place, I heard him recount his exploits with Muggle men to the portrait of Araminta Meliflua Black. She’s the one that tried to legalise Muggle-hunting,” he added, “and her portrait now accuses Black of bestiality on the grounds that Muggle men are nothing more than beasts of burden. Everybody except Miss Granger misses the days when he just kicked Kreacher around the house like a football.”

Remus laughed and it was the best sound Severus had ever heard.

***

Not for the first time this year, Severus wished he had not been so easily reprimanded by Albus. The headmaster had the unique ability to guilt Severus like a mother and shame him like a father. He had done the latter when Severus tried to kill himself at twenty-two; now he played up the former, acting like a beloved grandfather on the verge of death, to prevent another suicide attempt that would get in the way of further espionage.

If only Severus had known what sorrow awaited him in this life. He would have begged his parents to kill him too. Then he could have been forever small, unburdened by grief and sin, just lying asleep next to his mother.

But they had been selfish. They killed themselves and left him alone at seventeen, to wipe their blood after them and face the world with nobody but God on his side – and He didn’t even like Severus that much.

Sometimes, when he drank a little too much and thought about the war a little too intensely, Severus imagined he saw the face of God watching him with a resigned and unhappy coldness.

Then he would wake up with a hangover and remember that Albus had called on him again. Making sure he didn’t slash his wrists again, no doubt.

He flexed his hand and glanced at pale blue veins underneath the skin. The weather today was perfect for ending it all, but Albus once again had need of him; and once again they spoke about his imminent death.

“Severus, you must understand that it won’t really be murder,” said Albus for the hundredth time. “You will be sparing an old man of a long, drawn-out, painful, and humiliating—”

“I heard your string of adjectives loud and clear the first time!” Severus closed his fingers into a fist and stifled the urge to slam it against the table. This old argument again. Albus could not, or perhaps would not, let Severus fully grapple with the consequences of the task imposed on him.

Of course, who cared about his soul? Nobody at all.

No. That wasn’t right. His father—he had cared. Always told Severus that a man did not recover from murder. I can’t believe I wish he was here, thought Severus miserably. His alcoholic father had beaten him and neglected him, but he would have protected him from this sin – maybe he would have even killed Albus himself just to spare Severus this agony.

But Tobias Snape was no more than dust buried in a distant corner of an obsolete church. Severus was alone; and Albus would see to it that this time he would be alone forever.

He released the fist and ran his fingers through his hair, roughly pulling it down over his face. “Albus, it’s murder. You can sugarcoat it however you want, but it is murder. You would have me commit the ultimate evil for the sake of the ultimate good – would you have me be the Judas to your Jesus?”

“Come now, Severus. You are strong enough of a man to face the world without religion to soothe you.” Albus conjured a boiling pot of tea and poured them both a cup. “And I recall a youth,” he said quietly, “that once had no qualms against joining a society of known murderers. I’m surprised that it weighs so heavily on your mind, Severus, especially when I’ve made it clear to you that it is not murder to help an old man leave this world with as much dignity as his situation,” he raised the blackened arm, “would allow. Or have you perhaps finally grown conscious of your reputation?”

“You know I do not care for it. The world may think me a killer and a traitor forever if it so wishes. What matters to me is the state of my soul and—”

He thought of Remus. He thought of those smiles, and their kisses, and the rare lazy mornings they spent together at Holiday Inns across the country. More than his eternal soul, he could not bear to think what Remus would make of him once the word spreads that he, Severus, had killed Albus Dumbledore in cold blood.

Remus claimed that he loved Severus. He said as much every time they saw each other and whenever they…partook in certain activities best reserved for the marriage bed but which they practiced in slightly grotty hotel rooms.

Severus had read plenty of books and thought himself well-trained in every situation life could throw at him. Wasn’t that the point of books? To live a thousand other lives from the comforts of your own home? Not once had they failed him: every page and paragraph had shown him worlds beyond his own miserable existence, painting him glorious portraits of what could and would one day happen to him as well; and that included…it (though he had given up hope by twenty-five).

He pressed a hand over his chest and felt up the cross hidden underneath his clothes.

Severus was not a religious man. He had dabbled with agnosticism since his adolescence and read the works of philosophers: he knew as well as the next man that religion was the opiate of the Muggle masses, and he was no Muggle.

And there was no God. His father had believed in God with his whole heart; but what had that done for him in the end? Tobias Snape had fought nobly and bravely for the empire – unlike his son who never made a good choice in his life – and attended church dutifully, praying for divine mercy on the souls of his magical family.

Then he pointlessly wasted away in a factory and sunk himself in drink, drowning out the echoes of distant gunfire, before his wife had killed him. How can a benevolent God be so unjust? Severus refused to believe in such an evil God. There was no God.

And yet he was also sure that this non-existent God was punishing him.

He clutched the cross and fought the tears that threatened to burst forth. “I never killed a man, Albus,” he said quietly. “I’ve fought people, and as a spy I hold myself responsible for the deaths of those we had to sacrifice, but I have never—my hands—”

His hands trembled; he dropped his mother’s wand on the floor. It rolled away from him and bumped against the carpet. Albus would have me kill him with my mammy’s wand, thought Severus numbly.

“One day, Severus, whether you like it or not, I believe your name will be vindicated,” said Albus gently, “and our fellow witches and wizards will have to accept that you are not as bad you believe yourself to be. I expect that they will find your story inspiring, whereas mine will be a sourer sherbet to suck,” he approached him and placed an old, papery hand on Severus’ shoulder, “though a few of our friends in journalism may rejoice to have fresh material for their articles. I can only hope they find a better portrait of me to print in the papers; the last one made me seem so much older than my humble hundreds.”

“Albus, I would rather you tell me to kill myself than speak as if this is some great joke.”

“Nonsense, Severus. How can I expect you to kill me if you take your own life first?” Albus draped what felt like a shawl over him. “Young people must give way to their elders. And I would like to remind you that your request of the Malfoy pardon hinges entirely on your willingness to preserve the integrity of your godson’s soul. I would prefer it if poor Draco would be relieved of the horror of being my murderer, and as I have said to you before…”

Severus heard Albus without listening. He had not told him of the Unbreakable Vow he had sworn to Narcissa. Imminent death already bred in Albus a sense of entitlement that Severus found galling.

In-between their horrid discussions of which member of the Order to sacrifice to the Death Eaters, Albus would insist on cosy teatimes during which he tried to ‘catch up’ with Severus; and he dared not think about the weekend the old man insisted they watch a cinematic adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion starring Ciarin Hinds.

And Albus all the while dodged every attempt Severus made to discover what was happening between him and Potter.  

He pressed the balls of his hands into his eyes until he saw white confetti dancing in the black. Severus wondered if he could perhaps crush his eyeballs with the pressure. Then he would be spared from seeing Remus’ contempt; and that was only if Remus hadn’t murdered him on sight.

Severus was painfully aware of his lover’s regard for Albus. Remus might kiss and hold him and say that he loved him, but Severus was nothing compared to the man who let him taste normalcy.

“Albus, you’re an old man,” said Severus, cutting whatever justification the headmaster had contrived this time. “You have known more of life than I ever will, and over the course of our time together, I’ve come to suspect a few things that lead me to believe you may have advice for me.”

Severus raised his face and looked up at Albus, who watched him with an expression of apprehension and concern for his sanity. “My dear boy,” he said gently, “I’ll be glad to help you in any way I can. You know that as well as you know my limitations. But my heart demands that I reiterate my belief that if we play our Gobstones right, you will survive the war and – I sincerely hope – will appreciate your life’s meaning—”

“My life lost meaning long ago, Albus,” said Severus calmly as he rose to his feet, “but it has recently regained some of its warmth.”

Albus immediately understood him. He smiled and raised his arms in an embrace, but Severus shook his head and shrank into himself. “This isn’t a good thing. Don’t you understand? I find myself paralysed by fear of what I will lose if we go through with this plan.

“At the same time, I cannot allow Draco to become more of a social pariah than he will be after this war is done; nor can I allow you in good conscience to be tortured by Bellatrix and Greyback. But,” he pushed his nails into the flesh of his hand to stay the unspilled tears prickling at his eyes, “but he will lose all love and respect for me once I’ve killed you. Even if he dared to trust in my better instincts and share your beliefs in my trustworthiness, he does not have the strength of character to keep faith with me.”

“So is it the loss of him that frightens you?”

Severus would never descend so low as to nod silently like some scared little boy, but he did gasp for air and walked hurriedly to the open windows. The cool air froze the grief within him. It gave him strength to explain himself properly because he would actually kill himself if he so much as snivelled.

“It’s strange,” said Severus, folding his arms. “I am beginning to think that he really loves me, and I have reason to trust that his fondness for me is more than common. He says he only cares for me – but he’s a coward, Albus, and would sooner bend than break in the face of adversity.”

Albus smiled and offered him the cup of tea, still piping hot thanks to the enchantment burnt into the porcelain. “You have always been a tad too harsh on Remus.”

Severus frowned. “Has he told you?”

“I may be in my early hundreds, Severus, but I am not so old as to fail to notice a visitor calling on my most irascible professor.” Albus pushed the cup into his hands. “I am glad that you have found yourself a friend and companion. You have always had too little happiness in your life, my boy, and I’m grateful to Remus for all the joy he brings you.” The blue eyes twinkled. “The staff as well has taken note that on some days – usually after those evenings your suitor has called on you—"

Severus flushed red. “He’s not my suitor!”

“Your admirer then,” said Albus amiably. “It is obvious to those with eyes to see that he makes you happy, and given his behaviour at headquarters – chiefly how he scolds Sirius Black and the children for their untoward comments about you – I am positive that the feeling is mutual. But you must forgive an old man for getting ahead of himself.” He sat back down his chair. “You asked me for advice, did you not?”

Although he was half-tempted to throw himself out the window, Severus just released a long, frustrated sigh and nodded.

“When I kill you,” he said slowly and lowly, “and the entire Order wishes me dead, Remus included, how am I to harden my heart against the pain? Should I break this affair while I have time in the light?” He pressed himself against the wall and scowled. “It would have been easier if we had never fallen into each other’s arms. Now that I know that we were built to fall apart, I find myself regretting every touch between us. I hate our happiness. I wish he hated me instead.”

“Oh, my boy, you must really love him,” said Albus, his eyes impossibly sad.

“It doesn’t matter that I love him. He will hate me forever.”

“I do not believe it, but if you do, then I would rather you cherished every moment you had with him. Fate has often been difficult to you, but Severus, don’t you think that – because you know when you are going to lose him – you have been granted a gift most others would die for? You know that a painful goodbye is unavoidable, so don’t you want to hold onto him as tight as you can while you still have him?”

“What if when the time comes, I am unable to let go of him?” Severus stomped his foot angrily. “Has your genius brain considered that, Albus?”

“You’re a better man than me, Severus,” said Albus, smiling the saddest smile. “I was a selfish and impossibly foolish man in my youth. I think the fear of final goodbyes would have scared me to death. I may very well have let the world burn just to keep my love close to me. Even now at my esteemed age,” he raised his arm, “you see how foolish I can be.”

Albus sighed and wiped the tears brimming in his blue eyes. “You have never failed me, Severus. If you cannot trust yourself, trust me when I say that I know you will let go of him when the time comes. Until then I ask that you allow yourself to feel what love you can; once I am dead, I’m sorry to say that it will be extremely hard to come by.”

“Will it really be alright?” asked Severus. “To bask in love when people are dying?”

Albus smiled. “I think you owe it to the dying to enjoy living.”

***

Although he had grown up in a religious household, Severus was more than aware of what happened behind closed doors. The walls at Spinner’s End were thin, and his parents – however much they hurt each other – liked their connubial pleasures. Severus often left the house when he sensed their affection was about to take centre stage in their bedroom.

It seemed to him strange and unpleasant at the time. His mother screamed, his father groaned, and Severus ran as fast as he could to the playground. Even as a teenager, he was small enough to sit idly on the swings and wait out his parents’ passions. Sometimes, he would spend the whole night at the playground. Better there than anywhere else: even in Cokeworth there were boys ready to hit him for no reason other than their own amusement.

Maybe it was this formative experience combined with his endless reading that founded his belief that he was better off as he was – a virgin. Nobody could hurt him if he never let them close, and besides, virgin blood was a relatively common ingredient in darker potions.

If he had known that Remus would change his point of view and claim him as a husband would a wife, Severus would have stocked up on his own blood. That was his only regret, however; everything else was beyond his wildest dreams.

Remus had returned from another fortnight at the commune, complaining of illiterate savages and wanting the touch of an equal. They had the house elves deliver them supper, which they ate in quiet conversation, and then Remus insisted on skipping tea. Instead, he intertwined his fingers with Severus’ and pulled him into the bedroom.

Severus was immensely proud of his quarters. He earned enough as Head of Slytherin to improve the quarters that Slughorn had left in disarray, though between Albus’ bonuses and Lucius’ patronage, he had the means to completely renovate his dwelling.

He was most proud of the bed. Back at Spinner’s End, the wooden bedframe on which his mattress lay was broken beyond the repairing scope of spells. Whenever he returned home – as he refused to sleep in his parents’ bedroom – Severus prepared himself for daily stream of small heart attacks as his mattress fell through the frame and him with it.

But it was fine. So long as he had his king-sized four-poster bed at Hogwarts, he couldn’t care less about his rotting little bed at Spinner’s End. For years and years, Severus thought this was it: there was no pleasure greater than sprawling oneself across a gigantic bed and enjoying a good book in a sea of featherdown pillows and fur throws. It was almost dangerous to have depressive spells in his bedroom because it was so cosy. No death would be gentler than overdosing on the Draught of Living Death and drift into eternal sleep in his bedroom.

Remus, on the other hand, seemed determined to show him the active pleasures of the bedroom. Never before had Severus been so grateful for the thick stone walls of the dungeons, especially during the school year with pupils running about breaking curfew.

He dug his fingers into the flesh of Remus’ nape, trying to stay calm as a third finger pressed into him. It was not their first time together – far from it – but Remus had a way of surprising him with new tricks and unexpected actions, fully breaking Severus’ idea that this was a formulaic event.

Remus bucked his hips, sliding his cock across Severus’ white thigh and streaking it with precum. Severus held onto him tightly, shivering as gusts of hot breath raised the hairs on the crook of his neck. His own arousal was familiar to him, though he was never the one to debase himself with masturbation, but the feel of another man’s cock was something else entirely. He spread his legs further apart to coax Remus into repeating the motion, and when the hips bucked again, Severus felt even more blood rush south of his head.

Then the fingers were gone. Severus hissed at the emptiness, which felt both wrong and unpleasant. He scratched at Remus’ shoulder-blades and lifted his hips in protest when something warmer and bigger pressed against him.

They had done this before, and still Severus momentarily caught his breath for fear that it would not fit. The first time Severus had seen Remus naked, he had gazed raptly at the fully aroused cock that stood above him. It was already dripping wet, though it was its size that somewhat alarmed Severus. While it was not much thicker than his own, it was longer and flushed a dark intimidating red. How could it possibly go there?

But it did then as it did now, and Severus again moaned in pleasure as Remus pushed into him. He gave a tremulous sigh as he tried to describe to himself what it felt like to have Remus inside of him; he could think of nothing other than the fullness of it, and how it made him feel whole.

Remus’ cock entered him deeper than the fingers. It took Severus some time to adjust to the length, but no sooner were they fully joined together than Remus tightened his grip on Severus’ hair and pulled his head to the side. He kissed the column of his neck, pausing here and there to suck on the tender flesh.

Eventually, Severus pushed Remus slightly off him and gave a shaky nod of the head. Remus gave him one last kiss on the corner of his mouth. Then he lifted himself on his forearms and took a deep breath. He drew most of the way out and, grasping Severus’ hips, pulled him in.

Severus let out a strangled cry and clawed at Remus’ back. He wrapped his legs around Remus’ waist and held onto him with a white-knuckled grip as he rode out the waves of pleasure.

“Is this alright?” murmured Remus, raising a hand to caress the curve of Severus’ cheek. “Do you need me to slow down?”

“I’m fine,” choked out Severus. “Don’t stop, please.”

Remus ran his hand down Severus’ neck and chest, grazing the skin with his nails, and wrapped it around Severus’ prick. He gave it a few good tugs while picking up his own pace little by little. Severus whined and twisted against the bedsheets, trying and failing to muffle the moans Remus thrusted out of him.

The feel of a cock sliding in and out of Severus had him seeing stars, but the firm grasp around his own cock, the quick way Remus stroked him, fuelled the heat stirring deep in his abdomen. Severus squirmed beneath him. The heels of his feet pressed against the mattress, as if he wanted to jump out from beneath and run, but his chest would not stop rubbing itself against Remus, relishing the scratchy sensation of curly hair against his smooth skin.

The bed creaked with a steady rhythm. Remus let go of his cock and clutched onto his hips again. He drove into Severus relentlessly now as he chased his own pleasure. His breathing was hard, and his thrusts grew erratic. His hands seized onto Severus’ shoulders and gripped them so tightly that it would certainly leave bruises.

“Severus,” he gasped. “Severus, I won’t last—”

“Don’t pull out,” Severus cried in a tight voice. “I want—let me feel you.”

Remus brought Severus closer him as his hips bucked roughly forward, joining them so tightly together that their bodies felt as one. Severus whined at the last few thrusts, then twisted upwards as hot seed flooded him.

Remus lingered for a while above him. His breath slowly steadied himself, though not for long as he began to mouth at Severus’ collarbone and nipples. He took a hold of Severus’ cock again and started to stroke it in time with his kisses.

Before Severus could protest and demand a quicker pace, Remus gave him a good squeeze and quickly, finally tipped him over the edge.

When Severus no longer saw white, Remus had slid out of him and rested beside him. With his chest pressed against Severus’ back, he wrapped his arms around him and sighed. His face was buried in the tangled knot of black hair, while his hand gently petted the jagged scars above Severus’ heart.

Severus melted into the embrace. Pillows and furs were fine enough comforts, but he thought he rather preferred the raging heat of Remus’ body against him. It soothed the ancient hurt embedded into his bones, and right before he fell asleep, Severus thought he could withstand the worst of curses so long as he fell into Remus again.

***

He awoke to the smell of cigarettes and a decided lack of warmth around him.

Severus wriggled halfway out of the covers and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Remus was not beside him. For a moment, his heart jumped and he curled his hands into fists when his lover sauntered back into the bedroom with a cigarette in his mouth. Remus had taken the liberty of slipping into Severus’ flannel dressing gown, though he hadn’t bothered to tie it up.

Severus felt himself blush. Somehow, he felt as if the dressing gown highlighted Remus’ nudity; and their earlier activities rushed to the forefront of his mind.

The curtains flew up and tied themselves to the back posts. Severus jumped at the sudden spellwork and fell back onto his pillows. Before he could pull blankets over himself, Remus sat down at the foot of the bed and stayed his hand. “Severus, we’re both men here. You don’t have to cover yourself like that. And anyways,” he smirked, “it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Severus grabbed a pillow and forcefully placed it in front of himself. “It’s about the principle of things.” His jaw clenched as he pursed his lips. “Could you tie up your bathrobe?”

“Why? It’s nothing you haven’t seen. Or felt.”

A cigarette flew out of the dressing gown’s pocket. Remus proffered it to Severus, who accepted it with nothing more than a roll of the eyes. They leaned close to each other so that Remus could light the cigarette with the tip of his own.

Severus inhaled sharply and relished the sudden rush of nicotine in his system. He relaxed instantly and chuckled. “You’re going to turn me into a chain-smoker,” he said. “I’m surprised that you’ve done nothing to decrease your dependence on cigarettes. I would have thought you of all people would have taken the tobacco warnings to heart.”

“Lycanthropy affects my muscular system,” said Remus nonchalantly, “not my lungs. The government will have to do more than print Tobacco seriously damages health on the packaging to stop me.”

“You could just smoke wizarding cigarettes. They don’t follow Muggle regulations.”

“Muggle cigarettes hit different.” Remus slowly inhaled and let out three bursts of smoke. “And the best in the world is the Soviet papirosa.”

Severus was unimpressed but unsurprised by the fact that Remus’ favourite cigarette happened to the be type without any filtering system in place. He had shared a couple from his stash with Severus, himself a teenage smoker, but it was too much for him.

Unfortunately, Severus had no grounds for criticising Remus’ cavalier attitude towards health when he had a history of self-poisoning for research.

They sat in an easy silence. Remus placed his hand over Severus’ and smiled in-between puffs of smoke. He muttered a spell to extinguish the last smoulder of the cigarette and threw it at the dustbin across the room. Then he reached for and lit another one. When Severus raised a brow at this indulgence, Remus shrugged and said, “I can’t smoke the good stuff at the commune. Everybody starts asking for a fag then.”

“And naturally you can’t refuse them because you need to be on their good side.”

“Especially after they figured out that I have N.E.W.T.s on top of O.W.Ls.” Remus stretched his neck and scratched at the stubble growing down his cheeks. “The women are decent. They want to hear about my time among wizards, and the ones the commune forced into maternal roles for the—” he took another puff, “—the stolen children, they keep asking me to bring them my old books and whether I’ve got any notebooks to spare.”

“What are the children like? Are they clever?”

“I’m sure some of them are, but it’s hard to exercise your intellect when you live in an underground hovel with depressed women and drunkard men for company.”

“It’s not impossible,” said Severus, but he fell quiet as he recalled the monumental effort exerted by his parents the year before he was to go to Hogwarts; they worked harder than they had their entire lives to properly get him ready for school, and even Severus chipped in here and there.

They had all been very proud of themselves when they were done with the shopping with sickles to spare. Everything had been so expensive…

He looked aside as he considered the contents of his teaching cabinet and the fund maintained by the school for under-privileged students. He managed the fund alongside Professor Charity Burbage, and regularly met with the patrons – particularly the purebloods – to arrange further donations.

Oh, what the hell, he thought as he cast those ideas aside. My experimental potions and their exotic ingredients can wait. Those children are in need now.

He replaced the cigarette with the nail of his left thumb, running it down the space between his canine and incisor teeth. “I think…I could probably prepare for you three boxes’ worth of school materials. How many children are there?”

Remus blinked. “Severus, I didn’t mean that you should provide for them yourself. I was only making an observation.”

“Observations out of which I cleverly extrapolated that the deliverance of school supplies to needy werewolf children will win favour with the commune’s women. I suspect they will also be privy to information unknown by the men; unless, of course, Greyback has grown more open-minded since I last saw him.”

“He has not, but I see your point. Thanks.” Remus flung an arm around Severus and pulled him into a sideways hug. “Are you hungry by any chance?”

And that was how Severus and Remus found themselves in the sitting room at four o’clock in the morning. While the latter gave a rather lengthy order to a house elf, Severus pulled down the curtains lest any adolescent merchild spied on them.

Their conversations were always fond. Severus felt more himself at night than he ever did during the day. There was no need to wrap himself so tightly in Occlumency in the comforts of his own chambers, and Remus had a way of unravelling the cocoon Severus had spent years building.

He followed Albus’ advice to enjoy what time he had with his lover, but the imminent task that lay ahead of him was never far from his mind. As he watched the gusto with which Remus dove into the bacon, Severus thought about the conversations he had overheard between him and Black – mainly those where they wished Potter had not prevented their murder of Pettigrew; and Severus was especially shocked to hear the callousness with which his lover discussed murder.

“You’ve killed before, haven’t you?” he said, setting putting down the fork on the table.

Remus choked on his bit of toast. He washed it down with a cup of coffee and beat at his chest. “That’s unexpected, Severus. Why do you ask?”

“You ought to know that I have always possessed a morbid sense of curiosity.” Then he dropped the smirk and raised a finger against his temple. “The Death Eaters are growing more violent. I am something of a favourite with the Dark Lord, but my fellows in that order are prickly towards me.

“I’ve distanced myself from Avery given his consistent failures, and Lucius – who had previously defended me from the judgment of the most extreme supremacists – has lost a great deal of his influence since the disaster at the Department of Mysteries. I’m concerned that the next time there is in-fighting amongst the Death Eaters, it will lead to deaths – and I would rather it not be my own.”

“I feel myself honoured to be privy to information I assume would usually only be heard by Dumbledore,” said Remus, “but that still doesn’t explain why you’re asking me of all people about this. There are Orders members other than me with far more to say about the violence of war.”

“I would rather hear your experience of the act than Moody’s,” said Severus, almost snippily. Then he frowned. “Was it not distressing to you? To take somebody’s life?”

Remus shook his head. “No, never. All my actions have been justified.”

“But it’s still murder,” said Severus stubbornly. “Don’t you think that it is a moral evil?”

He finished his coffee in two gulps and rolled his shoulders. Then with a serious expression, he slowly his reasoning to Severus, who held onto every word.

“I think,” said Remus, “that we, as members of the Order of the Phoenix, are bound by duty to do whatever it takes to pave the path for a better future for the wizarding world. I’m aware that it makes me sound psychotic, but I’ve always viewed my killings of Death Eaters less as killings and more like…eliminations of those who would threaten the whole of wizardkind.”

“And you don’t feel yourself morally corrupted by these so-called eliminations?”

“Never,” said Remus with a confidence Severus envied. “Spiritually, I maintain my innocence; and no doubt in court I will have an iron-clad defence for my actions. I know centrists will protest the methods we use, argue that we have no right to kill just because the Death Eaters are murderous, but take a look in the history books and find me a leader who achieved peace without spilling blood. All those great men and leaders of mankind were murderers, every one of them; and their murders were necessary.”

Remus looked up at Severus with a solemn mask upon his otherwise gentle face. “We do what we must, Severus. I am not ashamed of that.”

Severus bit into his nail and tore a rough crescent from it. “You’re right,” he said, voice almost trembling. “You’re right. I think that you are right.”

Remus watched him curiously. “Thank you, I suppose. Are you alright? You’ve gone terribly pale.”

“I’m fine,” said Severus, forcing himself to smile. “I think it’s just the nerves are getting to me at last. I’m only human, and prolonged contact with the Lestrange Trio is the surest way to develop a severe case of paranoia.”

“But the killing…” Remus nodded with the airs of a man who had an epiphany. “I forgot that you were housemates, dormmates even, with quite a few of Death Eaters. They were your friends once, and none of them must be as despicable to you as Peter is to me. Is that why you’re worried?”

“Perhaps I am,” said Severus quietly. “Our colleagues will hate to hear it, but there is more than meets the eye to them. Even if they did make me miserable and took advantage of my poor decisions, I have a soft spot for them in my heart.”

“But you will do what must be done in the end.” It was clearly a statement. Not a question.

“Obviously,” snapped Severus. “As if Albus will let me do otherwise.”

They returned to bed shortly after their meal. Remus had sprawled his long, hairy limbs across the bed without a care for the pillows he pushed onto the floor. He watched Severus as the latter combed through the knots in his hair. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to tangle it so badly.”

“It’s something of an achievement really,” said Severus, forcing the comb through a particularly tough knot. “I can go days without brushing it and it remains smooth-slick, then you make a right work of it in one night.”

“When this war is won, I’ll show what it’s really like to have matted hair,” promised Remus.

“I’d rather you did not.” Severus turned his head to the side and brushed at the underside of his hair, which is when his eyes fell on a small wooden cross hanging off a hook on his wardrobe.

A crazed thought flickered through his head as he set aside the comb and summoned the cross to himself. It was his father’s cross. While fighting in the Mediterranean, his father had relinquished his own cross of bronze to a dying comrade; he had buried that fellow with it, so that his burial in a foreign land would still be Christian.

Shortly after he had parted with his friend and his bronze cross, Tobias had taken a bit of cypress wood his unit had cut down for fuel. He had carved himself a makeshift cross to keep the faith until he returned home, but then the war was done and he couldn’t bring himself to set aside the crucifix that protected him on the battle field.

Wizards were supposed to receive watches on their seventeenth birthday, but Tobias had instead gifted Severus the cross of cypress. “Your mother won’t tell me anything that’s happening in your world,” he had said, “only that it’s bad and lots of people will get hurt, maybe even die. This cross saw me to the end of my war; maybe it will do the same for you, too, son.”

As much as he despised his father at that age, Severus could not bring himself to destroy the cross as his pureblood friends had urged him to do. He did not wear it, however, until his defection.

Severus ran his thumb over the rough edges of the makeshift cross. He felt Remus watching him, could practically feel those blue-grey eyes burning holes into the back of his head. He turned around to face him when a sudden question demanded an answer. “Remus, do you have a cross on you?”

He did not expect that. “No. My parents weren’t religious.” He titled his head slightly; his pupils followed the movements of the swinging cross. “Severus, are you religious?”

“No, but I believe in God.” Severus frowned. “Or at least I think I do. I was brought up Catholic if that’s what you want to know. This belonged to my father. He wore it throughout the war and to his dying day insisted that it kept him safe.” He grabbed Remus’ hand and pressed the cross into the palm of his hand. “I want you to have it.”

“What?” Remus tried to jerk away his hand, but Severus kept a tight hold on it. “I can’t take your father’s cross. How can I?”

“He’s been dead for over a decade now,” said Severus sharply. “The cross is mine, and I want you to have it. I’ll be fine, I have my mother’s rosary with me.” He closed Remus’ fingers around the cross and pressed his own hands around them, to keep it there. “It’s carved out of cypress. Your wand is made of the same, isn’t it? So, it’s more suitable to you than me.”

Remus appeared to be extremely uncomfortable, but he nodded and did not try to return the cross. Once Severus let go of him, he carefully raised the iron chain and placed it around his neck; the cross lay right above his heart.

“My father will have a stroke if he sees me wearing it,” said Remus with an unamused chuckle. “He’ll think that my lycanthropy’s finally driven me into the indignity of organised religion.”

“It’s only until the end of the war,” said Severus quietly. “Just keep it until we have won. Afterwards, you can do whatever you want: burn it, keep it, pass it on somebody else – but promise that no matter what happens during the war or between us that you will keep it on your person until the end. Promise me, Remus.”

Severus could have strangled Remus for the piteous expression with which he met his request, but he swallowed his hurt pride until he received an answer. Remus agreed, he promised, and although it would take an exceptional fool to see that it was only because Remus did not want to hurt his feelings, Severus was grateful. It was more than he was taught to expect.

As they intertwined their bodies in bed, and Remus fell soundly asleep around him, Severus lay awake the entire night. He stared at the shadowy outline of the cypress cross against Remus’ chest. He memorised every grain of wood, every jagged edge where his father’s knife had failed him. This crucifix had somehow shielded Tobias long enough to deliver him from evil and to his wife.

Though it was a childish hope, Severus prayed it would do the same for Remus. Then they won’t have to say goodbye.  

Severus rarely prayed to God. The pleas of sinners fell on deaf ears; he had learned that lesson to his own sorrow…but he also never thought he would be loved again, and yet here was Remus. Remus, who loved him enough to want to touch him and make love and lay afterwards in the same bed.  

God had heard his lonely prayers and finally answered him. Maybe He will answer Severus again.

So, every night until that night, when Flitwick informed him of Death Eaters storming the school, when Albus reminded Severus of his promise with a sad, exhausted please, Severus clasped his hands together and prayed for happiness after the war.

Chapter Text

The Shrieking Shack was somehow worse than it ever had been.

Remus had never expected to return to its broken walls after he had left Hogwarts in disgrace – his secret spread far and wide across the British wizarding community – and before that he had little wish to come back into the house that stood as a memorial to his condition. Before the Marauders had discovered him and become animagi, Remus had spent many unhappy nights breaking his bones as he transformed into a monster. Those were the most miserable nights of his life.

Until tonight, when he stood amidst the broken walls and peeling wallpaper, watching a pool of blood slowly dry into a dark brown splotch – the last earthly remains of a man he called Severus.

Remus stared at how the sliver of moonlight reflected against the wet blood. He wondered what Severus had felt over the course of this last chaotic year of the war.

After the news of Dumbledore’s murder, Remus had done his best to expunge any traces of their relationship. He had burned the letters, thrown away the polaroids, and obliterated with magic a shirt and a pair of socks Severus had forgotten at his place. They were all foul objects – the personal possessions of Albus Dumbledore’s undeserving, scheming, ungrateful murderer.

When he had snapped the chain around his neck, however, Remus found himself unable to get rid of the cypress cross Severus had given him. He had tried very hard to burn it, but each time he held it over the fire, he remembered how Severus had asked him to keep it until the end of the war; and though he was selfish, broken, and cruel, the relief with which Severus had sighed and smiled could not have been faked. Occlumens or not, Remus knew it was real. He just knew.

He might have coped with the loss of their love better if Harry had let him come along on his secret mission. Both Sirius and Remus tried to accompany him and his friends. After the incident at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, they presented their case as to why they should join these children – these stupid, reckless, thoughtless children – and reminded Harry that this was what James would have wanted.

James would have absolutely wanted this, Remus had thought, and Tonks cannot follow me here.

But, of course, Harry refused them. Dumbledore had instructed the children to maintain secrecy, and the Order at large needed Sirius and Remus to help manage the underground movement.

Remus was irritated by his exclusion. He would have protested were it not for Sirius reminding them of the war. Then his friend pulled the Dumbledore card, knowing Remus wouldn’t disobey the parting orders of the greatest wizard that had ever lived.

It was during this strange, chaotic, manic period of the war that Remus fell into Tonks’ bed. She had always liked him. Since the very first Order meeting at Grimmauld Place, the girl had made her attraction to him known. She always sought his conversation, touched his arms, and laughed at every joke he cracked regardless of its humour.

It was quite flattering to have this pretty young woman fawn over him, though not as much as the tension Remus noticed in Severus’ face and shoulders whenever she became too generous with her affections.

The ease with which Tonks flirted bothered Severus. While he never outright expressed his jealousy, Remus took care to assure him of his love. Tonks was beautiful and buoyant and unbroken, but Remus never felt more himself than he was next to Severus.

But then that man went and murdered Albus Dumbledore. Dumbledore, who had given Remus an education and friends and a home – that, Remus could not forgive, and as he wept for what he lost, he found comfort in Tonks’ welcoming arms. He let her kiss and touch him, and when she asked to be his wife, he numbly gave her his consent.

She had screamed with joy. Then she rushed over the fireplace to Floo-call her parents and inform them of the decision. As she defended her choice and praised Remus’ virtues, his mind strayed to the white-gold ring around a pearl-pale hand. I should have gotten him something too, he had thought. He gave me a cross. I should have gotten him something too. He kept Regulus’ ring for over a decade. Maybe if I had gotten him a ring, he would have remembered me and stayed true to me and the Order.

The war was so strenuous on them that it was easy to brush off the cracks in his and Tonks’ marriage. It was because of the war, said Remus to himself. Once Harry defeated Voldemort, it would all be over and their shared life would fall into place. Remus almost looked forward to the normalcy that awaited him after the war. Tonks had been talking about houses and babies. Remus assured himself that as soon as he stopped dreaming about a man so lonely he spoke to selkies, he would embrace the happy life that marriage to Tonks promised him.

But the prospect of connubial happiness had done little to fill the Severus-shaped pit in his chest. Maybe that was when why Harry triumphed over Voldemort for good, Remus ran to the Shrieking Shack in search of a forsaken lover rather than seeking his wife. Harry had given him reason to hope that all was not lost. Remus ought to have known better, yet he could not and would not rest until he saw what became of his first real love.  

Earlier when he duelled against Dolohov, Remus had heard Death Eaters complaining that Severus once again left them with the dirty work of fighting; one of them then screamed that he had been summoned by Voldemort for something, and Harry later mentioned the Shrieking Shack.

Remus would have liked to talk more with him, but Sirius had pushed him aside to embrace his godson. Then Harry had disappeared with his friends, probably to smoke a well-deserved cigarette, and Sirius was swept aside by Kreacher who wanted to talk about Mistress Bella’s funeral.

How Sirius reacted to this absurd line of inquiry Remus did not know; he had already staggered out of the Great Hall.

Voldemort had announced in front of everybody that he had killed Severus, but Remus could not believe it until he saw it with his own eyes. Only the Marauders knew just how resilient Severus Snape really was, and no Marauder had brought him closer to death than Remus. Severus had survived him, just as he survived years of spying and infiltrating the Death Eaters. He couldn’t be dead.

No body greeted him at the Shrieking Shack. Remus choked out a sob of relief at this welcome absence until his eyes landed on the blood at the far end of the room. It was splattered across the walls, and oozed over the floors except at the foot of the stairs where it sharply streaked across the wallpaper. The trail went upstairs, where red handprints and blotches stained the carpet, and out the door.

Remus followed it as far as it went, hoping it would lead him to a familiar face. Instead, it stopped halfway down the hill over a patch of blood-soaked earth. All Remus was able to salvage there were bits of torn black fabric and the shattered remains of potions vial. He stuffed them into the pocket of his trousers. The glass pricked and scratched against his flesh.

Remus welcomed the pain. Severus must have suffered terribly as he bled to death; sharing some fraction of that pain was the least Remus could do for him. 

Back at the shack, Remus sat on a derelict armchair and stared at the blood. He watched how it spread over rusty nails and covered them in a thick coat of red. The smell of iron replaced the staleness that tended to linger here. Remus couldn’t say he preferred it, but then he caught a whiff of salt.

Iron and salt – Severus must have cried when Voldemort killed him.

Remus reached for a cigarette. A heightened sense of smell was one of the constant symptoms of lycanthropy. Usually, Remus enjoyed this ability as he smoked himself silly with interesting cigarettes and cigars. Severus thought it was funny when he smoked the cheapest pack while acting like a sommelier.

He didn’t feel like a fancy sommelier now. He felt like shit. Of all the places Severus could have been killed, it just had to be the Shrieking Shack.

Severus hated and feared this place. After the prank, Remus had caught Severus hovering around the Whomping Willow. He would approach and withdraw from it like a trapped animal in a cage. Then as his colleague, Severus had repeatedly said that he would like nothing more than to seal the tunnel with cement and raze the shack to the ground.

And a few weeks before he had killed Dumbledore, Severus had asked Remus to accompany him to the Shrieking Shack.

The request had surprised Remus, who might have disliked the place even more than Severus. He had narrowed his eyes and asked why they should go there when there were so many lovelier areas to explore. The full moon was more than a fortnight away too. Remus could think of so many better places they could spend what precious few hours they had together than a house that upset them both.

Severus had pressed his lips into a thin line. He tapped his fingers against the table in the sitting room and furrowed his brows. “I still have nightmares about that incident in fifth year,” he said quietly. “They’d mostly gone away by my twenties, but Black’s prison break brought them back with a vengeance. And with Greyback constantly flaunting his capabilities at meetings, I…”

Cringing at his own words, Severus absentmindedly cracked a knuckle and reached for the ring. “I thought maybe if we went to the shack together and I walked out of it unharmed, my mind will finally realise that there are worse places in the world than a broken little cottage. At the very least, it will encourage it to weave nightmares out of other events in my past. I am tired of constantly fighting you in my sleep.” He smiled. “I will like you better for it, and you shall have less a jumpy bedmate.”

Remus had agreed. Of course, he had agreed.

It was a long and awkward night they spent at the Shrieking Shack. Severus had held his hand the whole time, squeezing it whenever the distant howls of real wolves reached them. Remus had no comforting words to offer. Nothing he could say would ever undo the prank. What he did was pull Severus closer, and promised to watch over him when he succumbed to uneasy sleep.

And when the dawn broke through the clouds and poured through the rotting walls of the shack, Severus had opened his eyes and smiled at Remus. “I’m alive,” he had murmured.

In the dark and bloody shack, Severus’ voice came up to Remus unexpectedly clear. It was as if he was somewhere around the corner, pleasantly musing on his own miraculous survival while cracking witty remarks on the state of the place.

This was the last real good morning they had before Dumbledore’s death. Severus had been so alive and as happy as he allowed himself to be on their way home from the shack.

So, when the newspaper announcing his new position as headmaster had hit the racks, the picture they printed had startled Remus. Even though he hated the man, wanted him dead and regretted everything that had happened between them, he hadn’t forgotten the light of life that flickered inside of Severus – and it was frightening to see it snuffed out and replaced with the cold, tired expression of Voldemort’s favourite pet.

Remus pressed a hand over his pocket and the glass cut through his trousers and into his skin. Hot, sticky blood ran down the curve of his leg. Hopefully, it will drip on the floor and intermix with Severus’ own. That will be the last they ever join together.

Scowling, he growled and slammed his hand against the wall so hard it burst the skin and drew even more blood. Remus took a deep breath and held the palm over the floor. As much as he wanted to, Remus couldn’t bring himself to cry; but he couldn’t leave what remained of Severus unlamented. He hoped the blood would speak for itself, and that Severus – wherever he may have gone – appreciated the thought behind it.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, or when the revelries outside quietened. Upstairs, the door screeched long and slow like a banshee. Heavy steps fell against the ancient wooden planks, and soon the most familiar voice rebuked Remus for his negligence.

“You know that Tonks, your wife, is crying for you in the Great Hall?” Sirius walked halfway through the pool of blood before stopping to look down at it. “Where’s the rest of him?”

Remus slowly raised his head and narrowed his eyes. “What do you care?”

“Harry’s been explaining to us what happened between him and Voldemort, and what role Snape had really played throughout the war. He wants to give him a proper funeral, said that he’s worried the remaining Death Eaters will steal and desecrate his body if we don’t get to him soon. Either that or one of our own will find Snape and toss him into some ditch to rot.” Sirius folded his arms. “All of which you would know if you had stayed in the castle.”

“I came looking for Severus,” said Remus. “Harry mentioned the Shrieking Shack, but he’s not here. I don’t know where he is.”

“We’ll find his body or his bones eventually. Harry is determined to bury Snape.” Sirius leaned against a wall. “Is there a reason why you stayed in the Shrieking Shack for several hours instead of returning to the living? Like I said, Tonks is mad with grief and Andromeda—”

“Andromeda?” Remus frowned. “What’s she doing here? I thought she was at home.”

“She wanted to confirm with her own eyes that Tonks is alive. Can you blame her after what happened to Ted?” Sirius rolled onto his feet and offered a hand to Remus. “Let’s go, man. You’re long overdue to join us.”

Remus saw the hand. He tried to raise his own and take it, but his muscles betrayed him. The squelching sound of Sirius’ bloodstained sullied Severus’ pleased laughter that echoed in his head. Remus pushed the chair and himself with it away from his friend. “I’m not going. Not yet.”

“Moony,” said Sirius in a warning tone, “people are out there assuming you’re dead. I bet your dad is going to show up any second now to trawl through the corpses in search of yours. Don’t put him through that agony, come on.”

“Tell him I’m in the shack,” said Remus sharply, irritated by the mention of his father. “I’ll not be leaving it.”

Sirius crouched in front of him and cocked his head to the side. “Yeah? And how long are you planning to brood here? You can just as well ruminate in your thoughts in the rubble, and there you’ll have me at your side sharing your cigarette; and Tonks will stop crying.”

“A little bit of crying won’t kill her,” Remus snapped. “She’s still alive and she saw me alive, too – I know that she did – and you can tell her that I’m alive and well in the Shrieking Shack.”

“What the hell’s gotten into you?” demanded Sirius. “I know you were never exactly thrilled by your marriage, and the last few months were tough on everybody, but you have to get over it now because—”

Remus jumped to his feet and, grabbing Sirius by his shoulders, pushed him away. “Shut up! I don’t want to listen to you right now. You think I don’t know that I should be celebrating with Tonks right now? Because I do, and I realise how fucked up it is that I’ve spent hours cutting my skin in this dilapidated shithole, but I can’t leave him.”

He sat down on the chair again and leaned against the armrest, stared at the bloodstains. A sharp needle prickled at the back of his eyes. Remus fumbled through his pockets for a cigarette. He wished he brought a bottle too.

Sirius didn’t stand back up. Instead, he sat cross-legged on the other side of the room and took a slow, deep breath. He scratched at his beard. The silence between them was thick, but discomfort never stopped Sirius from slicing through bullshit to get to the meat of the matter. Remus admired that about him.

“You know, back when Harry told us how Dumbledore died, I always thought you were more upset by Severus’ role in it rather than the death itself.  Don’t get me wrong.” he quickly added as Remus threw him a dangerous look. “I knew how much you cared for Dumbledore. You respected him more than I ever could, and you loved him, which after Azkaban was impossible for me.

“With that in mind, you regretted Severus more than the rest of us.” Sirius snorted. “You were actually shocked by his betrayal – so-called betrayal, I guess, now that we know what we know – but the Order wasn’t fully that surprised by the turn of events. We all thought Dumbledore was going a bit senile for trusting Snape.” Sirius rested his elbows on his knees. “You’re greying, true, but you’re not an old man gone soft in the head. So, why did you trust him?”

“Because I loved him.” His throat burned and ached, but for once in his life, the words came easily to Remus. “Severus. I loved him. I said as much to him whenever we kissed and made love—”

Two calloused hands grabbed Remus’ shoulders and shook him straight. He stared down at him. “Moony,” Sirius growled, “are you telling me that you’ve been having an affair with Snape? Snivellus? The little freak? Tonks has been throwing herself at you for literal years, and you’re telling me all this time you’ve been fucking—” he grimaced. “Why? We both know what he’s like.”

“Apparently, we don’t,” said Remus harshly, “because we all thought he was a treacherous, selfish, blood supremacist murderer when in fact he has sacrificed himself for a cause that treated him badly. I wouldn’t have been able to do that and neither would you, Sirius; so, how much do we really know of Severus? I thought I knew the best of him, but it turns out that the only person in this world who really knew him was Dumbledore – and Harry said he had Severus murder him on secret orders.”

Remus lit another cigarette and leaned back into the armchair. “It must have been difficult on him. He asked me about my experience with…Severus seemed nervous in the weeks preceding the murder. He clung to me a lot in bed, as if it was the last time he’d ever touch me, and then he gave me his father’s cross. ‘To see me through the war.’” Scowling, Remus picked at the torn upholstery and worried the shredded fibres. “He should’ve kept the cross. Maybe it really was lucky and if he’d had it then—"

“What could a little cross do against Voldemort?” asked Sirius quietly. “He was a goner the second he stepped into this place.”

“Then maybe we should have tried harder to kill him back in school,” said Remus. “Or back when you just escaped from prison! It would have saved him a world of pain, and he would have been spared this horrible plan Dumbledore imposed on him. And why did neither of them ever tell the Order anything? For a year, Severus had to live with the knowledge that we all hated him—that I hated him and—”

“And he ensured that Harry made it to the other side of the war,” said Sirius. His eyes flashed as a shadow loomed over his face. “If your relationship is what you’re implying it to be then he might’ve softened himself for you. He’d never do that for me.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning he was always honest with me. The Snape I knew liked being important, and he liked the position he had as Dumbledore’s specialest little spy. I never really believed that he killed Dumbledore for the same reasons the rest of Order did.

“He and Dumbledore spent lots of time together. He loved pointing out to me of how much more he knew than me. He wasn’t wrong either,” admitted Sirius. “The world passed me by in Azkaban, and then I guess I didn’t inspire the same confidence in Dumbledore to be kept entirely out of the dark. Then you had Snape, who seemed to know everything whether or not he shared it with us.”

Sirius looked down at the drying blood. “I doubt anybody would’ve been happy to be him, but I’ll be damned if he wasn’t proud of the role he played in the war. Don’t take that from him, Remus. Get up, leave this place,” he grabbed Remus’ arm and pulled him to his feet, “and live in this better world that Snape died to give us.”

***

Somewhere in the gloomy depths of the Black Lake swam a group of selkie children, each one fond of Severus and tolerant of Remus. Although the merfolk had scorned Severus with the rest of wizardkind when he had killed Albus Dumbledore, Remus thought it would be best if he broke the news to those children himself. It was too cruel to let his death be officially announced by The Daily Prophet like there was nobody that cared enough about him to spread the word themselves.

Remus wanted to run to the lake the moment it came into view. It was black under the moonlight, as black as Severus’ eyes had once been, and the waters glimmered in that pleased way his eyes had whenever he proved Remus wrong. Severus was such a know-it-all; he would have mocked Remus for losing faith in Dumbledore, and by extension in him, while offering him an olive branch in the shape of cheap theatre tickets or a cigarette.

But before he could dash through the windswept fields and the strewn corpses of fallen wizards, Sirius tightened his grasp on Remus and – just as a girlish wail cut through the air – flung him into the loving arms of his wife.

Remus accepted her embrace silently. Tonks thanked Sirius for bringing him back to her. Then she cupped his face in the palm of her hands and wept real tears for him. She reminded him of the women in his past who tried to fix him with their love, their kisses, their tears. 

At a glare from Sirius, Remus wrapped his arms around Tonks. He supposed this time would be different. They had won the war; he should no longer be an outcast. Remus would be counted among the heroes that served in the Order of the Phoenix. A war hero must receive better treatment than some vagrant werewolf; and he had Tonks by his side.

Who cared if his life would now be a little sterile and a little boring? It would be comfortable. Wasn’t that what he had always wanted? It wasn’t like Remus was being deprived of anything, because that would imply that there was something to be deprived of – and he never really had much of anything.

Yet for many nights after this terrible battle, Remus would lay beside his wife and wonder what sort of life he might have had if he hadn’t been deprived of the most interesting man he had ever known.

***

Credit where credit was due, Tonks agreed to his request for a divorce with as much grace as a twenty-six-year-old girl could. Her mother threw him out of the house that same day, which was fair, but Tonks later brought him his things. She had packed them neatly in new cardboard boxes. She smiled as she handed them over, and wished him all the best.

Then she said she still loved him. “If you want to start again, you know where to find me.” Her smile faltered, falling from her eyes but not her mouth; it looked forced. “I’ll be waiting.”

Remus could have kissed her for it. Instead, he just told her, “Don’t.”

Sirius obviously wasn’t thrilled by the separation, though he mercifully kept quiet about it. With the number of relationships he had blazed through as a young man, he had no foot to stand on; and besides, he would never kick Remus while he was down. He accepted him into his own home with few snarky remarks about the state of them, but soothed the burn by saying Remus could stay with him for as long as he needed to.

So, much to Walburga Black’s screaming chagrin, her home now housed two confused middle-aged men. Sirius had Harry to support him, thank God, and he was doing much better now that he was free to roam the streets. Remus was happy for him. Really, he was! He just wished Harry would have come up with a different sort of career for Sirius than ‘co-private investigator’.

“You’re pushing forty,” said Remus carefully, “and what you want to do with your limited time on this earth is chase after cheating husbands with your godson?”

“Yeah!” Sirius shrugged on a travelling cloak and winked at him. “And I’ll be damn good at this job. I’m the first person to ever break out of Azkaban without mummy dear helping them, remember? If I can slip past a fortress full of Dementors, then I can spy on a couple of wizards. Who knows? Maybe Harry and I will get a proper case soon and investigate some juicy murders.”

Remus grimaced. “Do you have to call them juicy?”

“Well, I don’t want a boring murder. Anyway,” Sirius threw another, shabbier travelling cloak at Remus, “don’t you have to go to Hogwarts today for your little interview with McGonagall? I still can’t believe that you want to become a teacher again when all the world’s your oyster. Harry and Kingsley would vouch for you if you want to pursue a career in the Ministry, and outside of it, people would be delighted to have a war hero on staff. Sells well on a brochure, I bet.”

“Hogwarts is a fine place,” said Remus. “I will have paid-for accommodations and meals for nine out of twelve months of the year, and the pension is good. The children enjoyed my lessons, too, and I’m willing to take the job. Everybody knows that the Defence position is no longer cursed, but it’s still not an office that many actively seek. McGonagall only had one other candidate applying, and she turned out to be a distant Selwyn cousin with blood supremacist views.”

Sirius gave him a strange look, and Remus pursed his lips. They both thought of another distant Selwyn, the person hiding behind the name, and what connection it once had to this house.

Remus brushed aside the faint silhouette of Regulus in his mind fairly quickly. The boy meant nothing to him, just a blot in his lover’s lonely past; but he knew that for Sirius the connection was deeper: Severus had bridged the gap between two contrasting images of Regulus in Sirius’ mind, and before he had ‘betrayed the Order’, they were almost courteous.

“If you find any of those letters they wrote to each other in Snape’s quarters, can you bring them to me?” Sirius darted his gaze momentarily at his mother’s shrouded portrait in the hallway. “I’d like to read them.”

“I don’t think either of them would appreciate you perusing through their personal correspondence.”

“Then they should have tried harder to live,” said Sirius with forced nonchalance, “but as neither of them are alive to stop me, I’ll have a flip through. I’m less interested in Snape’s thoughts than I am in my brother’s.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I want to know what the hell was going through his head when he began to idolise Voldemort and look up to Bella. I know Andromeda and I were out of the question as role models – we’re blood traitors – but Narcissa would have been better than Bella; and Narcissa is even more slippery than her husband.”

“You might want to write to Narcissa actually,” said Remus, “because Regulus was fond of her and, unlike Bellatrix and Severus, she’s still alive.”

“She’s not in England,” said Sirius. “Once Harry helped the Malfoys fully clear their name in court, they packed their bags and Apparated to France. Kreacher tells me that Miss Cissy is recovering on a beautiful pureblood estate on the outskirts of Rouen with her beautiful pureblood husband and son.”

“That’s good. They’re less likely to meddle in politics if they’re out of the country.”

Sirius barked out a laugh. “Oh, I’d like to see how Lucius meddles in politics after his humiliation and fall from grace.” He grew serious. “But if you want, I can give you Narcissa’s address.”

“Why would I be writing to your cousin?”

“Well, she was friends with Snape. That’s the impression I got, anyway: he always pressed his lips into the thinnest line when I spoke badly of her. It was really annoying. I’d insult everything about him and he’d snort and fold his arms all unimpressed; but the one time I compare my own cousin to a drowned corpse, he transfigured a spoon into a hand mirror and gave it to me ‘to have a point of reference’ as to what real dead men look like.” Sirius flexed his jaw. “God, I could have punched him right then and there.”

Remus chuckled under his breath. “Thanks, but I don’t think anything useful will come out of it. Harry already met them out of court to talk about Severus, and he said they were cagey about their knowledge. Lucius Malfoy was particularly reticent. Harry said that he acted like everything he said might be used against his friend.” He considered that for a moment. “They were friends. Isn’t that odd? Severus couldn’t have been popular in their circles.”

“I don’t think that’s strange,” said Sirius. “Lucius liked Snape from the very beginning. Don’t you remember how he used to send us to detentions and take away house points whenever we struck the freak?”

Remus did remember the little boy that clung to every word Lucius Malfoy uttered. He also remembered the cool manner with which Severus met any criticism of Malfoy that arose at Grimmauld Place.

So noticeable was it that Molly had eventually asked Arthur to keep some of the nastier comments to himself whenever she forced Severus to join them for dinner. “Well, that’s his friend, Arthur!” she had said to his complaints. “I’m not saying I approve of his choice of companions, but that’s still his friend! And I’ve invited Professor Snape to dinner, so behave!”

Remus must have lost himself in thought because Sirius repeated his offer. “You sure you don’t want it? Narcissa might have some of his stuff. Maybe he left something for you as well. She’ll never tell you if he did; you’ll have to ask her yourself.”

“They were friends, and so they must be in mourning.” Remus flinched at the sour taste speaking those words left in his mouth. “I don’t want to disturb them in their grief.”

“Suit yourself,” said Sirius, “and good luck with that interview.”

Remus saluted him on the way out. Then he poured himself some liquid courage and Floo’d to Hogsmeade. 

***

McGonagall gave him the job on the spot. “You’ve proved yourself to be a fine teacher, Professor Lupin,” she said, “and I’ve more pressing matters to attend to than interviewing lacklustre candidates. You have saved me the trouble with this tricky position. Now I must deal with Slughorn, who has been hinting at his imminent departure. Unless I can persuade him to stay at the school, I will have to find us a new potions master and Head of Slytherin.”

“Slughorn wants to leave?”

“Slughorn always wants to leave,” said McGonagall scornfully. “And while he’s been reminding me of his ancient age, Professors Sprout and Flitwick have been dancing around the subject of a pay raise for weeks now! I wish they would speak to me candidly so I could refuse them in the same manner. Do they think I am withholding a pay raise out of spite? If I had the funds to increase their salary, I would have done so already.

“As it stands, we need to cut as many corners as we can to invest in the reparations of the school.” She stopped suddenly and looked at Remus with exasperation. “How are we to teach our classes? Surely not amidst ruin and rubble.”

They walked towards the headmaster’s office. McGonagall was complaining to Remus that lately the door has been reluctant to work properly. Sometimes it opened for her, other times it would refuse her entry no matter how many passwords she gave. “The portraits make it worse,” she said bitterly. “Clearly, they know why the door is acting so mysteriously, but they will not share that information with me.”

“Will you be headmistress now, Professor McGonagall?”

“Acting headmistress.” Her shoulders dropped slightly. “It was never my desire to become headmistress of Hogwarts. I am more than happy as a head of house, teacher, and deputy. I will be heading the school for the next years though, until we can get this chaos sorted, and then I will hire an appropriate successor to both of our previous headmasters.”

She did not want to talk about Severus. When Remus brought him up earlier, her eyes became teary and she shut down the conversation. She did, however, advise him to find Mr. Filch for access to the late headmaster’s quarters.

“Potter’s been ransacking it in hopes of information that will make sense the baffling schemes concocted by Dumbledore and enacted by Professor Snape,” she said. “I’m afraid he’s wasting his time – those two were beyond secretive when they wanted to be – but I don’t have the heart to stop him.”

As they approached the office, however, they slowed their step at the sight of a young woman pacing in front of the gargoyle. She was smartly dressed in sky-blue robes. The colour brought out the yellow in her hair, which she kept in a braided ponytail, that bounced around her face as she read through a thick notebook. She was worried, though by what neither Remus nor McGonagall could deduce. They exchanged looks to see whether the other knew the woman; they did not.

“Excuse me?” McGonagall raised a finger and dove into the conversation. “May I help you?”

The young woman whipped up her head. She beamed at McGonagall and quickly set her book floating beside her to greet the professor. “Good afternoon, Professor McGonagall!” she said happily. “It’s so wonderful to see you again, ma’am! And to know that you are healthy and hale after the battle that occurred on school grounds!

“Oh, I was so worried about everybody; but especially the members of staff! You can ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you that I cried buckets until we received the good news. We kept track of the battle from our little potions lab in Tallinn. I have cards! From everybody at work, too! They want to pay their respects to Britain for defeating You-Know-Who!”

McGonagall stared at the woman for a long time. Remus watched how recognition slowly lit in those tired eyes, and for a brief moment McGonagall was filled with teacherly enthusiasm.

“Miss Haywood!” she exclaimed. “It is a pleasure to see you doing do so well for yourself! I heard from Professor Sprout that you had accepted a junior research position in Estonia.” McGonagall lowered her arms and sized up the woman, Miss Haywood. “Might I know what you are doing back in these halls? We are not open to the public right now.”

Miss Haywood handed her a letter of invitation marked with the headmaster’s purple seal. “Professor— I mean,” she made a silly face to show that she forgot herself, “Headmaster Snape wrote to me with an offer to interview for the position of Potions Mistress.

“I feared that I was too young for the job – I am only twenty-six – but Headmaster Snape – don’t you just love saying that? Headmaster Snape! – said that was no excuse. He said if he became a professor at twenty-one, then I can become one at twenty-six. Wasn’t that nice of him?”

She pointed at the gargoyle. “I’m supposed to meet him in about ten minutes. Hence, the revising.” She looked at Remus and smiled. “Are you also a new teacher? How lucky you are! I hope the interview goes well; then we’ll be colleagues!” She laughed. “I promise I’m good! And I’ll be sure to make all our lives easier and brew enough Pepperup Potion to see us through the flu season.”

McGonagall pressed the palms of her hands together in what was a very careful gesture. “Miss Haywood,” she said gently, “this cannot be. Have you not heard the news? Professor Snape died during the Battle of Hogwarts. Whoever wrote you this letter must have been lying to you. What a cruel prank to play on a young professional, and on you especially! I know how attached you were to Professor Snape.”

“I thought I was being lied to as well, Professor McGonagall,” said Miss Haywood, still smiling, “so I tossed the first two letters into the fire. The third I kept out of curiosity because it really was so well-forged, or so I thought, because the fourth letter was a Howler.”

She laughed somewhat uncomfortably. “I know my potions master when I hear him, and that was him! He said it was alright if I didn’t want to accept the position, but he still expected a written response of my refusal for courtesy’s sake. He was my professor, after all.  Did you know that he wrote me a brilliant letter of recommendation? It made all the difference when I applied for my last job in Tallinn! No wonder he was upset with my sudden turn of rudeness! But I swear I didn’t mean to disrespect him! I’d thought he died!”

Just then the gargoyle swung aside and revealed the staircase. Miss Haywood stared at it in horror and reached for her books. McGonagall was also taken aback and needed a second to gather herself.

But Remus ran up the circular stairs and burst into the office, his heart pounding like a war drum.

It was the easiest thing to imagine that he was asleep. Even before the divorce was finalised, Remus had dreamt of Severus, dressed in a flannel robe, sitting before him in a cushy armchair with a cigarette in one hand and an amused smile on his lips.

Severus would be comfortable and relaxed, without a trace of worry pulling at his face. A hearth was burning beside him, and when he spoke to Remus, it was with forgiveness underlying every word.

There was a Severus in front of him. And this Severus was sat in a cushy armchair with an amused, though somewhat awkward, smile on his lips. His hair had grown since Remus had last touched it – falling down his shoulders and collarbone – and his robes were decidedly not made of flannel: they were simple, clean, and a stark shade of white. It made the blooming spot of red on his throat all the more distressing.

Severus gestured at the chair in front of the headmaster’s table. “Feel free to take a seat, Remus,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. “I’m not expecting Miss Haywood for another ten minutes.”

“Your throat—”

“—is fine. It’s supposed to be this bloody. I plan to change the bandages right before Miss Haywood’s appointed session so as to not scare the poor girl. She’s very sensitive.”

Distantly, Remus heard the gargoyle swing back into position. Then he heard McGonagall yell and threaten to blast a hole through the door, but it sounded like Miss Haywood was dissuading her.

Remus stared at Severus. He never thought he would see that infuriatingly beloved face again and couldn’t break away from it. Just looking at him write letters filled Remus’ heart with a shaky sense of elation, and fear that if he turned away, Severus would jump out the window again – and this time never to return.

Severus paid him no attention. He was busy folding and sealing letters.

Remus pressed a hand over his pounding heart. Once he felt that it would burst out of his chest, he stormed across the room and wrested the quill out of Severus’ hand. He snapped it and threw into the fire. Then he pushed everything else – papers, artifacts, books – onto the floor. He would have liked to slam his hands against the table too, but Severus had flinched the last time he had done something similar; and the red bandages around his throat forced Remus to pull himself together.

Closing his eyes, Remus slowly sank into the chair opposite of Severus. “Where have you been?” he asked. “We thought you were dead. Your body—”

“Was never found,” murmured Severus, “but the court still ruled me as dead because most wizards are unlikely to survive Nagini’s bite.” He smirked. “Unless, of course, they’ve been goading snakes into biting them for over a decade during which they developed antidotes for just about every venom in the world.”

“But where were you?” Remus ran a hand through his hair and watched Severus, focused on the lively, animated parts of him: the fluttering of lashes, the rapping of fingers, the ghost of a smile on his bloodless lips. “I searched the Shack as well. You couldn’t have Apparated in your state, and yet the bits of glass and—somebody must have helped you.”

The sharp amusement in Severus’ eyes softened. “Lucius,” he said quietly. “Once he and Narcissa had gotten a hold of their son, he came back for me. I’ve been keeping them company for the last few months, actually.”

“The Ministry searched every nook and cranny at Malfoy Manor.”

“I wasn’t at Malfoy Manor. I wasn’t even in England.”

Remus bit his lip. “Rouen?”

“Mhm. Was it Black that told you?”

“I’m living with him.” Remus wanted to grab Severus by the shoulders and sink his nails into the flesh. He wanted to shake some sense into him and tear those wretched bandages off his throat. “Why haven’t you contacted anybody to let them know that you’re alive?”

“I was in a coma for over two months, so there’s that,” muttered Severus, “and when I awoke, I had not the slightest desire to announce myself to the world until Potter—” the massive portrait of Dumbledore behind him cleared his throat, and Severus sighed, “until Harry cleared my name. It’s not nice recovering from venomous bites while awaiting trial in Azkaban. I am not sorry for the secrecy.

“Besides,” he frowned, “it would have been rude of me to intrude on your honeymoon. Congratulations on your marriage, by the way. I wish you all the best in your new life with Mrs. Lupin.”

Remus snorted. “Mrs. Lupin,” he said. “This Mrs. Lupin was even more short-lived than the first.”

Severus glanced at him. The papers and quills floating around him quickly took their places on the table. Leaning forward, Severus pressed his forearms against the table and looked at Remus with suspicion. “You’re a widower?”

“No, worse.” Remus laughed. “I’m a divorcee. The paperwork went through a couple of weeks ago, which I would have told you had I known that you were alive.”

“And risked murder by your hands? Have you forgotten that I am the man who killed your beloved Dumbledore?”

“We all saw the memories that you gave Harry,” said Remus sternly. “There’s no use hiding behind an uncaring façade, not when your story has been printed and reprinted in every newspaper and magazine. Even Sirius was startled by the depth of your motivation, and he had the most belief in your loyalty to our cause.”

“I doubt it.”

“What reason have I got to lie on his behalf?” said Remus, not without a bite to his words. “He thought you might have been wrongfully accused like him.”

“Like him.” Severus rolled his eyes. “I don’t like this comparison. All of Black’s woes are a result of his recklessness, whereas mine are out of obedience. Don’t you ever compare us again.”

“I promise I won’t.”

A silence fell over them. Severus reached for a quill and started to pen another letter, but no less than five portraits scolded him for it – and even Dumbledore, who said nothing, raised a pointed brow and cleared his throat again.

Severus quelled their anger with a furious look. Still, he put away the quill and turned towards Remus. “You’re divorced then?”

“I am.”

“And I take it that Professor McGonagall has already made you our new professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts?”

“She has.”

“You’ll be expecting your old quarters,” whispered Severus. He picked at the bloody bandages around his throat; Remus wanted so badly to change them. “Unfortunately, we haven’t gotten around to fully repairing that section of the castle yet. There is a room in the dungeons we can offer you, but it is cold and—”

“Severus,” Remus grabbed those pale hands and brought them close, “Severus. Please. Don’t act like the past doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Says the man who married a woman within two weeks of sharing my bed.” His voice was bitter, but he did not pull away from the touch. “You forgot me quickly.”

“I didn’t. It was miserable, believe me. So much so that I thought a shotgun wedding to a girl thirteen years my junior would fill the hole your supposed betrayal had created.” Remus raised the left hand and kissed it. “We hadn’t been married a full year before I filed for a divorce. Even believing you to be dead, I could not make myself proceed with this lie.”

He pulled the hand towards his chest and laid it atop his beating heart, and the cross lay between them. “Your father’s cross,” said Remus. “I kept it. Yes, I married Tonks and yes, my faith in your goodness should have been stronger, but at least I kept the cross. I kept my promise.”

“You really—Why didn’t you throw it away right after the battle?” Severus asked, stunned. “Once the war was done, I told you that you were free to do with it as you pleased.” His hand hovered above the cross, the tips of his fingers grazing its surface. “And you did not destroy it? Not even after you fulfilled your word and I was presumed dead?”

“I considered it,” said Remus, “but not out of hatred towards you. I tried to make my marriage with Tonks work, but to do so I had to strip myself of every reminder of our love. I even got rid of some of my clothes that smelled like you,” he chuckled mirthlessly, “but when it came to the cross, I couldn’t bring myself to part with it.

“I thought you were dead, Severus, and this cross was the last thing I had left of you. The real you. Not the spy, but just you. How could I get rid of it? Any relic of the dead is precious if they were valued living. And I loved you, Severus.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I love you.”

Severus’ breath hitched, and he looked at Remus with wide, open, unguarded eyes. He wrapped his fingers around Remus’ hands. “Do you really mean that?”

Remus smiled and chuckled with relief. “I do,” he said as he leaned over the table and, caressing Severus’ cheek, drew him in for a kiss.

A long journey awaited them. Severus would undoubtedly be drawn into court once the public learned that he was alive, and war hero or not, Remus was still a werewolf in the wizarding world, an outcast and an outlaw to both sides. It would not be easy. It would be anything but easy.

But they finally had time, and Remus had his Severus by his side again.

All would certainly be well. Of that he was sure.