WOLF BROOD
Remus Lupin found school hard, something most children would understand, but for him it was particularly difficult. After all he had a secret, for Remus Lupin was in fact a werewolf. Only his closest friends knew the truth.
Friends who had a nasty habit of bulling a boy called Severus Snape.
Severus Snape was a quite boy who kept mostly to himself even though he had friends, who were of questionable morals. Though Snape had once been friends with one of the most amiable girls in school, Lily Evens. But now she was friends with Lupin and his lot, as Snape saw it.
Lily was beautiful and kind; she had been friends with Snape before they came to Hogwarts, which is the school they went to.
Maybe perhaps this is the time to tell you that Hogwarts was not a boarding school for your average child, no Hogwarts was a school for wizards and witches and it is this that is key to our story. Magic exists and is everywhere if only you know where to look or at least how to see it.
However back to the story, though Lily had been Snape's friend before they started school it was true that now Lily was friends with Lupin and his friends. Who were Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black and of course James Potter.
Snape hated Potter the most, after all Snape could see how Potter was with Lily and she with him.
One day, after Potter's gang had given Snape a particularly bad taunting, Lupin sent Snape a message to meet in the Shrieking Shack. It was an old dilapidated house, that moved in the wind and which caused it to create sounds as though it was haunted. It stood just outside of Hogwarts which Snape had recently discovered.
Snape was hesitant as he was well aware that this was most likely a trap, but his curiosity got the better of him and armed with his wand he stealthily slithered through the grounds to the whomping willow which he knew to be the secret entrance to the hovel of a house.
When Snape straightened up after getting out of the tunnel he knew that there was someone in the room to his right, so he walked forward with his wand raised and saw Lupin standing alone in the room with only two floating candles for light.
" I'm alone." Lupin said gesturing to the empty room.
Snape kept his wand pointed at Lupin while he checked all the corners and even under the four-poster bad.
"Happy?" Lupin asked with a smile as Snape stood up.
"Why did you ask me to come here?" Snape demanded his voice wavering with emotion, thought Lupin wasn't sure if it was anger or fear that it showed.
"I wanted to apologise for .. for what happened today." Lupin answered honestly and his cheeks showed the shame he felt for his own actions.
"Oh, so you can say that to me here and now but not in front of your friends. Not in front of the rest of the school but you could do THAT in front of them." Snape almost shouted he was so mad, so embarrassed, so mortified he couldn't even bring himself to say what they had done.
Snape's words had hit Lupin so hard he couldn't speak. He felt his cheeks become more crimson and felt his guilt turn darker too.
After a minuet Lupin spoke.
"Your right I should have stopped them, I should have stepped in but there is another reason I asked you here." He told him.
"Yeah? What other than to try and kill me again." Snape stated.
Lupin knew that this was a reference to the first time Snape had been in the Shrieking shack and it hadn't ended well for Snape.
"No, you once asked why we came here well the truth is I'm a werewolf." He explained looking down at the ground. He had told very few people this fact as it scared most people and had lost him many friends and even now he could never stand to watch the look on people's faces when he told them.
Snape laughed but stopped when he realised that Lupin wasn't joking.
"Really?" Snape asked.
Lupin nodded.
"And you and your mates call me a freak?!" Snape jeered.
It made Lupin a little mad that Snape had jeered him but it was the least he deserved or that's what he told himself as he stood there and took the verbal abuse that seemed to pour from Snape's mouth.
"Maybe I am a freak but at least I'm trying to be an honest one." He replied feeling Snape had said enough.
"Honest? Don't make me laugh you and that Potter areshole wouldn't know honesty if it ran around the school naked with Dumbledore's glasses on." Snape said smugly.
"I've told you the biggest secret I have, you could tell everyone and their parents would want me out of this school. Once it was out no school would take me. You could ruin my life with what you know, but I told you to prove I'm sorry. You haven't told me anything, you scoff at me for my honesty when you haven't said a word about you!" Lupin pointed out.
"Hey I didn't ask to be here!" Snape said harshly.
"So go then! I've apologised even put my life in your hands and you are just going to stand there and mock me?"
Snape wanted to leave, in his head he had already turned around to storm out but for some reason his feet wouldn't move. For a minuet it was like Lupin had cast "Petrificus Totalus" over Snape.
"My father is abusive." Snape blurted.
Snape heard his own voice and knew it was he's but he didn't remember thinking the words or giving his lips permission to speak them.
"What?" Lupin asked out of a mixture of shock and reflects.
"Nothing." He said turning red and surging.
"Your dad-?" Lupin began to say.
"I said it was nothing! I didn't mean to say anything" Snape shouted angrily but turned away as he felt tiers well up in his eye and he didn't want Lupin to see.
Lupin walked around Snape. Snape's face was hidden by his hair, so Lupin lifted his face. Gravity made Snape's hidden tears fall and Lupin felt as if Doxy's were tearing his heart into pieces.
"If I had of known." Lupin began to say with a snitch sized lump in his throat.
"What, I was really going to tell you?!" Snape cackled as he pulled his face away.
Lupin realised Snape had probably told no one, after all what were his choices. Was Snape really going to tell Malfoy? Because Lupin wouldn't, not even if they were friends. Lupin understood that he was probably the only person on earth that Snape had told and he, Lupin had three friends to help him carry his burden. Snape, it dawned on Lupin, had no one.
Snape turned to walk out the door.
"Don't." Lupin begged.
"I'm sorry I heard you I just didn't realise." Lupin tried to explain.
"Don't you ever get sick of apologising?" He asked quickly turning around.
"I don't know, it's sort of new." Lupin said with a small smile.
"Please stay I want you to tell me about it. If you want I mean and if you don't want to we can talk about something else." Lupin suggested as he sat on the edge of the bed.
Snape sat next to him but no one spoke for a while.
"So I hear Ireland's in with a good chance for the Q.W.C this year." Lupin said feeling the awkward tension between them.
"Quidditch?! Really?!" Snape remarked.
"Well we can talk about whatever you want." He answered with an exasperated tone.
Snape thought for a moment.
"Does it hurt when you turn into a werewolf?" Snape asked.
Lupin was a little taken aback by the question but he had said whatever Snape wanted to talk about.
"Yes." Lupin answered curtly.
"How much?" He asked.
"A lot." Lupin answered taking a side glance at Snape to see if the answer pleased him.
Snape didn't smile in fact if anything he looked confused.
"Yes I guessed that. I mean like a bad fall or like having your heart broken." Snape asked his voice strained.
Lupin blushed at his own inexperience with love and all things related to it.
"I guess it's like falling out of the whomping willow and having the Hogwarts express land on top of you." Lupin said trying to smile.
Snape gave a weak smile too.
"It must be different." Snape said.
"What is?" Remus asked.
"To feel cared for and wanted and most likely loved." Snape shrugged.
"The truth is I spend most of my time in the Potters." Remus told him.
It was at this that Snape tensed up again.
"Everyone love's I'm bloody-James-bloody-Potter and everything I do I bloody brilliant!" Snape said sarcastically.
Lupin laughed but stopped when he saw Snape's face.
"Snape people like you." He tried to reassure him with his hand on Snape's back.
"Oh really? Who." He demanded.
"Malfoy and them." Lupin answered.
"Ha." Snape laughed.
"Me?! I like you." Lupin shrugged.
"You're just trying to make me feel better." He said cutting Lupin down with a look.
"Hum maybe. The question is, is it working?" He asked giving Snape a wide smile.
Snape smiled weakly again.
"Come on mate cheer up." Remus said turning Snape's face towards his.
Snape looked at Lupin and felt something he hadn't felt in a long time, not since he met Lily and yes this feeling wasn't so intense but it was still there.
Again Snape's body reacted without permission.
Snape leant forward and put his lips softly against Lupin's but the kiss became so passionate that Lupin was sure his jaw would break.
"Hold on there, I'm sorry if I made you think-" Lupin began
"You didn't, never mind." Snape said blushing and looking away.
"Besides I thought you had the hots for Lily?!" Lupin said still in shock.
Snape didn't answer but Lupin could tell by Snape's tense shoulders that he was right.
"So why did you kiss me?" Lupin asked.
"I didn't mean to ok?!" Snape hissed.
Lupin had never been kissed in such away sure he dated a girl here or there it was never anything serious and hadn't led too much, maybe a peck on the cheek but this was different and now that he thought about it he looked at Snape differently.
"But you wanted to?" Lupin asked.
Snape shrugged.
"Did you think about it?" Lupin asked.
"I just… I saw your face and I had to ki - do that." Snape said defensively.
"Look at me again then." Lupin asked but Snape didn't move.
Lupin reached his hand out and took Snape's face and gently turned it towards him.
"Severus." He said putting the left side of Snape's hair behind his left ear.
No one in Hogwarts called Snape by his first name, except for Lily who used to call him "Sev" but it had been years since he heard her say it. In fact he never heard Lily Evans talk about him at all.
Snape looked up wide eyed.
When Lupin looked in to Snape's eyes and saw the candle light reflect in dark irises he felt a tingling sensation all over his body.
Lupin leant in and watched as Snape's eye's widened even further.
Lupin closed his eyes when their lips met.
Lupin gently caressed Snape's lips with his, then Lupin parted his lips slightly and Snape fallowed suit. Then Lupin massaged Snape's tongue with his.
When both of them felt they could no longer sustained the kiss they parted.
Lupin's breathing was a little heavy and he saw that Snape was scarlet.
"Wow." Lupin said
Snape smiled misunderstanding the comment.
"Is that what you look like when you get sun burn?" Lupin asked jokingly trying to make things more relaxed, unfortunately it had the opposite effect.
Snape jumped up and stood in the door way.
"You are jeering me again, is that all you want to ki – do that and use it to jeer me with? Or now you think you can hold that against me so I won't tell your secret." Snape demanded to know.
"That's not what I want to hold against you." Lupin said taking off his shirt.
Snape raised his wand.
"Put it back on." He shouted at Lupin.
"Put your wand to good use or put it away." Lupin said standing up.
Snape lowered his wand but didn't move towards Lupin.
"I want this and I know you want this so what's to stop us?" Lupin asked.
Lupin unbuttoned Snape's robe and undid his cravat as he walked backwards to the bed. Snape pulled his shirt over his head not bothering to open it.
Lupin lay on his back, sending dust particles in to the air, Snape straddled Lupin.
Lupin liked how Snape's hair fell around Lupin's face, it gave the elution that they were the only things in the world. Perhaps he would have even forgotten they had bodies if it were not for the hormones and chemicals racing through them.
Snape took a fist full of Lupin's hair , he held it so tight that Lupin's scalp hurt but Lupin liked it.
"I'm going to make you pay for everything you ever did to me." Snape grunted into Lupin's ear before he kissed Lupin's neck.
Lupin didn't find the threat scary, actually he found it quite the opposite and it showed.
It had been a little awkward and a bit painful being that both were novices but they found it exciting and pleasurable. Both lay on the bed Sweaty and breathing heavily. They smiled at each other as Snape lay on his stomach and was propped up on his elbows.
Lupin was sure it was the first time he had ever seen Snape smile like he really meant it.
"Oh my Merlin." Lupin chuckled in disbelief shaking his head.
"How did you do that thing?" Lupin moved his hands to indicate a move Snape did.
Snape shrugged.
"Really you've never done that before?" He asked.
"No."
"How did you know to do it?"
"Just felt right." Snape shrugged as he put his hand of Lupin's chest, the part where Snape could feel his heartbeat.
"What about you, I mean you had some moves too." Snape replied.
"Same as you I just felt it and went with it." Lupin said putting his hand over Snape's.
"So you've never-" Severus began to ask.
" No never!" He said telling the truth.
"Not even with your girlfriends?" Snape asked trying to be smooth about it.
Remus blushed and shook his head.
"You?" He returned the question, but deep down he knew that unless Snape had been closer to Lily then he thought it was probably a no.
Snape shook his head too.
In a way it made Lupin happy to know this was the first time for them both but maybe things would get worse between them, maybe they would resent each other after yes Lily was with James but maybe if they did beak up Snape might wish he had waited for Lily.
Snape saw Lupin's smile vanish and felt Lupin's apprehension but mistook it for regret.
Snape stood up naked and started to dress.
"Are you in a rush?" Remus asked.
"It's after curfew, we might be missed." Snape said his voice toneless and so gave Lupin no hint as to what Snape was feeling.
They didn't seem to cross paths again for a while Snape seemed to disappear every time he walked into a room then again he was usually with James and the rest of the pack.
Weeks went by and then months and apart from the occasional shared glance here or there, neither made reference to that night.
Yes now Lupin stepped in when Snape was being taunted by the others, he often put a stop to it and when he couldn't he wouldn't become a part of it. Lupin felt that Snape had opened his eyes and made him realise that he felt a stronger bond with Sirius then that of friends but Lupin felt that when he and Sirius became a couple he, Lupin, had betrayed Snape somehow.
Snape thought it too he felt that Lupin must have been ashamed of him after all Lupin was now openly dating Sirius.
They finished school, Lily married James, Sirius and Lupin moved in together much to the dismay of the portrait of Sirius's mother and both Snape and Peter joined the Dark Lord even if no one knew where Peter's loyalty really lay.
Snape grew to hate Lupin after all Lupin had betrayed Snape just as much as Lily did or at least that's how Snape saw it.
Snape wasn't to know that in only a few short years he would lose Lily for ever and that ten years later Lupin would lose his happy ever after with Sirius.
Lupin however was to have another chance at love and the name of this love? Tonks. Not exactly what you would call a graceful or coordinated woman but she was everything else, smart, beautiful, cunning, caring and loving.
Tonks had wanted to wait, she had loved Lupin from afar while he was with Sirius but now she had seen how short life can be and no matter how long or short her life would be she knew she wanted to spend it with Lupin.
The only thing that kept Snape going was his contempt for Peter and Voldemort after all they were the reason Lily was dead. Of course on the inside he hated himself too. Yes besides Lupin, Peter was the only connection left to Lily, well besides the Potter boy but he was his father's son through and through, well in Snape's eyes anyway. The thing was that Snape couldn't admit not even to himself that he still, in some way, loved Lupin, maybe not as strongly as he loved Lily after all first loves are different.
It was many years before Snape and Lupin would be in a room alone together. It was during the Dark Lords second war, Snape was head master of Hogwarts and he had learned from spy's that Lupin had volunteered his services as Order of the Phoenix messenger which meant he would be spending the night in shell cottage. It had not escaped Snape's notice that Lupin had been there most night.
Snape apperated into one of the smallest rooms at the top of the stairs, he knew he had the right room because of the curtains.
It was well after midnight when a creak from the door woke Snape from his light slumber and quickly without speaking he cast "Muffliato" so no noise from the room can be heard.
When Lupin saw Snape he ran around the bed and almost killed Snape with his bare hands.
Yet somehow Snape convinced Lupin to listen.
Snape explained that Harry, Ron and Hermione were fine though he couldn't tell Lupin where they were or how he knew they were ok.
Lupin sat on the edge of the bed and Snape took his seat again.
Snape also explained that he had no choice in killing Dumbledore. Snape said that Dumbledore had used a cursed object and would have died anyway also that Albus's dying wish was to have Snape kill him instead of Draco.
Snape left out the part about the Horcruxes.
Lupin told Snape about Tonk and Teddy.
Snape had answered that he knew about her and the baby.
"Well what isn't common knowledge is that Tonks and I are separated at the moment. I found it hard becoming a father, it's a job I feel ill equipped for, though I love both Tonks and Teddy so much." his tone showed his shame.
"I'm sure you will find your feet soon after all it wasn't so long ago you felt ill equipped for love." There was a pause of silence then Snape spoke again.
"I came to say goodbye." He told Lupin.
"Good bye?!" Lupin said half laughing.
"Yes, the war will end soon and I couldn't face the end with you thinking badly of me." Snape said blushing slightly.
"And why does the war ending mean you won't be here?" Lupin asked stunned.
"Call it a precaution." Snape muttered.
"Why?" Lupin asked.
"If you could have had the chance to tell Sirius everything you wanted to wouldn't you do it?" Snape demanded.
"Yes but that just makes me more worried. If you felt the need to come here and say good bye you must know something?!" Lupin added with a begging tone in his voice.
"Yes I do." Snape said and Lupin's eye's widened.
"Not everybody survives a war." Snape looked a Lupin and even though only the light from the moon shone around the room Lupin could see tears in Snape's eyes.
"Snape, please you are worrying me. I can't stand to see you this upset." Lupin reached forward but Snape stood up and faced the window.
"Is the night always our time? To be secret? Everyone knows you are a werewolf now, everyone knows you have loved men and women. Yet I have to remain your dirty secret?!" Snape sneered.
"Oh yes I'll just stick my head out the door and shout to Bill and Fleur "Guess who is here" shall I?" Lupin joked.
"Yes, well not knowing the truth can affect people's judgment." Snape shrugged.
"Please don't be mad with me Snape, not if you really think this is goodbye." Lupin came up behind Snape and tilted his head to the side so he could kiss Snape on the cheek.
"Didn't you regret it the last time?" Snape said pulling his head away.
Lupin spun Snape around.
"Not for one Merlin dammed minute." Lupin said kissing Snape passionately.
Snape felt himself drawn to Lupin, here they were two people who in one way or another had lost everyone they loved. They could become one again even for a brief time they could share all the love they had in their hearts even the love they had for others. Their whole truth, the truth of every part of their soul had set them free and allowed them this chance to be with each other even just once more.
They spent the night together, the way they did when they were teenagers.
Neither knew the bond they had made, the magic they had cast.
When sunshine started to stream into the room Snape stood up.
"Do you not want the day to belong to us as well as the night?" Lupin asked teasingly.
"If I could I would make all hours of the day and night ours but my absence will be noticed." Snape said standing in front of Lupin as he dressed.
Snape looked down on Lupin who lay naked on the bed. Lupin's smiling face made Snape feel a pang of guilt. Lupin was hopeful enough to think that they might all survive the war but Snape knew different. He knew that years ago just after Lily's death he had placed himself on the tip of a wand and soon he was to be the victim of his own choice. Soon he would suffer either from the hand of the one's he so secretly loved or at the hand off those he pledged false loyalty too. Either way there was one thing Severus Snape was sure of, he was on borrowed time.
When Snape was dressed he leant down and kissed Lupin one more time he stood up and tried to take a mental picture of him something to hold on to for whatever was left of his life.
Deep down Snape knew that Lupin would spend the remainder of his life with Tonks and he was sure that was what was right.
Snape opened the window and with a half-smile he dissaparated out the window.
Lupin had just rested his head on the pillow after pulling the sheet up over himself, when a beam of light the width of a dragon egg but from the ceiling to the bed, the colour was red and so bright that Lupin had to shield his eyes. Just before the light disappeared it turned a powder pink.
When the light was gone Lupin felt something wriggle near his feet and when he lowered his hand there on the bottom of the bed he saw a baby girl with jet black hair just like Snape's.
Lupin sat up and looked out the window the cloud that had been Snape was nowhere to be seen.
That day Lupin took the baby girl to Tonks. Lupin told her everything, after all Tonks was the only person Lupin told about his relationship with Snape. Lupin had decided that if he and Tonks were to be married there would be no secrets so before their wedding day he had told her about the night in the Shrieking Shack and now there would still be no secrets between them.
Lupin told Tonks that he had not planned to spend the night with Snape and that he had been honest with Snape and told him that he still loved Tonks and Teddy.
It was hard for Tonks to listen but she understood that they had been separated and yes he was now here at her parents' house asking to be taken back and with another person's child but how could she refuse him In one night Snape had made Lupin see what he needed to be and what he had and after all that he had chosen life with her.
Lupin did less work for the Order and settled into married life and fatherhood well as much as you can during a war.
Then one day a message came, Harry was at Hogwarts and he needed the Order. Both Lupin and Tonks left the children with Mrs Tonks and rushed to Hogwarts.
Lupin and the rest of the Order walked into the Great Hall.
Harry was speaking to Snape, Lupin saw Snape and desperate to tell him he had a child Lupin moved forward but Snape made a hand gesture to tell him to stay where he was. Of course to everyone else it seemed like a flinch of fear but both Tonks and Lupin knew better.
Things started to get out of control and in the chaos Lupin had to choose.
Look around the whole castle and hope he can find Snape
Or stand at Tonks's side fight and look for Snape later.
Lupin headed for the roof with Tonks.
Later the war is won, but at what cost?
Snape's body lay in the boat house and Lupin's body ley next to his wife's body both side by side in the great hall the last place Lupin and Snape looked into each other's eyes. Had Snape lived he would have thought that I was right that Lupin and Tonks were together.
On the other hand if Snape had died and Lupin and Tonks lived they would have been sorry they could never have told Snape that he was a father or that his daughters name was Raven-Lily Snape. They would have felt he would have been at peace knowing that she would be raised by her step grandmother alongside her half-brother and that life for her would be good.
But there are no secrets in heaven and when they met in the waiting room of heaven Snape knew everything and his love and gratitude for both Lupin and Tonks was overwhelming.
Raven-Lily and Teddy would be much loved and taken care of on earth but little did they know they would have an army of angels watching over them, protecting them and loving them.
Unintentional Magic By Bert Carter
{ To be found in the restricted section of Hogwarts library}
Unintentional magic is most noticeable in underage wizards and witches, though a few cases have been reported by those of age.
Most are of no significance.
Though there is one type of unintentional magic that has occurred and is due to a particular kind of love.
This is where love between two persons (it is thought that both have to be of magical ability as no case is recorded to the contrary) where their love has not been able to flourish to its full ability. Physical contact is required to complete the spell.
The spell occurs when there is an abundance of love, so much love that it cannot be sustained in two separate bodies and so creates a new body, a new life.
These babies grow to be the most loving people in either the magical or muggle worlds. Most are magical beings and live in the wizarding world yet some are non-magical (Squibs).
It cannot be confirmed or denied but it is said that they have beauty to rival that of Veelas.
It is also believed that their life span is longer than the usual muggle or wizarding kind (Nicolas Flamel notwithstanding)
The reader of this book is to be warned, most have tried in one way or another to cast spells and potions to create these precious little ones with disasters outcomes.
Love potions or anything to do with a falsehood have unimaginable drawbacks and consequences.
Be warned history is littered with Healer Dummies who for a few galleons have interfered and turned their black market customers into drooling six month old babies.
Unexpected joy is not to be meddled with, not at any price.