These short pieces are taken from my collection of snippets and ficlets written back in my RL/MM days and posted on my LJ. The five of them seem to fit quite nicely together so I thought I'd share them here for anyone that likes RL/MM and hasn't seen them before. They are set chronologically during the POA-OOTP era. The title is shameless stolen from the song 'As Long As You're Mine' from the musical Wicked.
I.
Dawn is breaking.
His limbs ache and his head feels strangely foggy, like a hangover without the pain. Morning dew soaks through his ragged clothes and he shivers violently. He can't muster the energy to lift his head, let alone get up and find his way back home. It's been almost a year since he's woken up this way and only now does he remember just how horrible it is.
She picks her way across the grass, lifting her skirt slightly in an attempt to keep it dry. Albus called her from her bed in the predawn darkness. Remember, he'd instructed solemnly. Not until the sun is fully over the horizon. I know you care about him but if you put yourself at risk you'll do him more harm than you could ever imagine. I know, she had replied. And he's just a friend, Albus, nothing more than that. Nothing less than that, Albus corrects her. Never underestimate the importance of friendship.
The rustle of foliage gives away her arrival, though he doesn't know it's her until she sheds her thick cloak and drapes it over his shoulders. He's too lost in his anguish to even care. He's taken a gamble and it's all gone horribly wrong. This was his one chance at redemption: an opportunity to make amends for youthful misbehaviour and childish mistakes. But once again he's only succeeded in proving that he can't be trusted. Is there blood on his hands even now?
"It's only me, Remus," she says, in tones of hushed concern. Her hands are shaking dreadfully as she wipes the blood from his cheek with a once-clean handkerchief. It's rather ineffectual but it's all she can think of to do right now. It hurts her to look at him: to see this thoughtful and considerate man battered and bruised from something he neither chose nor controls. She knows the bruising isn't just on the outside, too.
He can't imagine what he must look like. Nobody ever considers this, he knows. They think of the transformation as being the worst thing but it's not. It's the waking hour, when you reconnect with your battered body and wonder what horrors it might have committed whilst your mind was elsewhere.
II.
In the darkness of Grimmauld Place he hears a movement.
Soft footsteps creep along the landing.
Not Sirius, who put away enough firewhisky to fell a hippogriff this evening and who was snoring loudly enough to wake the dead when Remus checked on him half an hour ago.
So it must be…
Again?
Surely she's got the message by now?
The door to his bedroom creaks slightly and he groans.
"Tonks, we've talked about this-"
"Remus?" says an entirely different voice, this one low and urgent and, to his tired ears, unusually fragile.
"Oh, it's you," he mumbles. "Come in."
With everything that's happened in the last few days, he'd stupidly forgotten she was here. He hears the door close, the soft thud as her dressing gown is discarded, and then cold air presses against him, followed by warm skin clad in soft pyjamas. In the darkness he seeks her with his hands, slowly reaching until he finds her hair… from there, her cheeks… and from there, her lips. The last he claims with his own: a delicate, gentle kiss. This is overstepping the mark but luckily she doesn't complain and he settles with her into a comfortable embrace.
They never talk – that's one of the rules – and she's always gone in the morning, even though he wants her to stay. He's always wanted her to stay, right from the very first time she slipped drunkenly into his bed after too many glasses of wine and dark memories relived. But always in the morning she's gone and he might see her at breakfast or not at all, but always what he sees is 'Professor McGonagall' and not 'Minerva'.
And when she's not here he misses her: misses her warmth, misses the comfort that being her protector gives him. It's not often that he can be the strong one, especially with someone like her. He's feeling especially protective of her tonight, and not just because he knows that she usually comes to him when she's in need of comfort but too embarrassed to ask for it.
No.
Because he knows how hard she works, and how much she cares about the students of Hogwarts, and especially about Harry. What little free time she had away from the school is now stolen away by Order duties but he's never once heard her complain.
Because he's proud of her, though if he told her that she'd almost certainly take it the wrong way.
Because he's proud that, of everyone at Grimmauld Place and everyone at Hogwarts, she's chosen his bed as her refuge. Maybe the first time it was inadvertent, but she's come back again and again since to sleep peacefully in his welcoming arms.
He wants to talk to her, to tell her these things and to tell her how, all of a sudden, his life has started to revolve around these nights together and how, through recent dark times, the thought of holding her was at times the only thing that kept him going. He can't explain why this is; maybe she'll have the answers.
Maybe she feels the same.
Maybe…
No.
He won't tell her for fear it'll drive her away and she'll find another who'll hold her without the need to turn into something more. Instead, he stays silent and listens until the soft rhythm of her breathing lulls him into a matching sleep of his own. In the morning she'll be with him no longer, leaving him abandoned again.
But only until the next time.
III.
Normally when she marches down the corridor she makes herself heard through the swish of her robes and the sharp tap of her heels. Today she slips silently, like a ghost, like students that sneak out in the night for mischief. She's listening for heavy, ponderous footsteps behind her but hears nothing. Perhaps tonight she's safe. She hopes so. She's tired of all this: the lies, the secrecy, the constant attempts at misdirection. She wants peace: for herself, for her world and for him.
He can't help what he is.
The burden he carries was thrust upon him with no thought of choice or mercy and though he bears it with quiet acceptance she knows that still through his darkest nights he curses it. Dolores Umbridge would have irritated her enough had she never met Remus Lupin, but now the woman's pious indifference makes Minerva tremble with barely suppressed fury. Doesn't she know that it's real people she's hurting? Doesn't she care that lycanthropy needs support and understanding, not cold disdain?
This year Minerva is changing. She feels herself growing harder, steeling her soul for the fear and sorrow that she knows will inevitably come, and as Umbridge assaults and abuses Hogwarts Minerva can bite her tongue no longer. She's never felt so powerless before. Remus cannot be seen at Hogwarts so she must cope alone. She dare not think of giving up. Sometimes at night she wonders if he'll still love her when he sees the person she's become.
Tonight, when at long last she strips off her clothing in the chill air of Grimmauld Place and slides between the sheets of his bed, she finds she's changed in other ways as well. His gentle touch turns her anger into desire, and her rage becomes lust as she reaches for him, possesses him, urges him on as if she'll never, ever have the chance to love him like this again. She must love him because nobody else will, because nobody else cares about him and how he feels, and how something that happened to him when he was just a child altered his whole life irrevocably.
Has he missed her?
He thrusts against her with matching hunger, calling her name and not caring who hears. She wants him to want her and he does, with his hands and his mouth, his voice and his body. He brings her alive again and she remembers…
When he explodes inside her she starts to cry.
"Don't cry," he whispers. "I love you."
"Oh, Remus…"
He's all she has and she clings to him. She wonders if he knows how much she loves him.
She prays they'll be all right.
IV.
They hurry along the deserted streets like excited school children, all breathless giggles and secretive whispers. They don't seem to notice the rain that pours from the sky and hammers the rooftops in thunderous applause to the heavens. They don't seem to care about the darkness that has fallen like a heavy blanket across the night sky. They don't see anything, other than each other.
Not tonight.
She's wearing white satin but her shabby cloak spoils the effect, and the care with which he has pressed his trousers cannot hide the patches where they've been darned. She stumbles on a misshapen cobble and he, ever watchful, is there to steady her with his outstretched arms. They move in tandem, as shape and shadow, as one.
When they pause under a street lamp the orange light catches the twin rings on her fourth finger. She lifts her hand to admire them appreciatively and he takes advantage of the opportunity and kisses her. They linger in the pool of light, reluctant to leave. It's as though they're living on borrowed time: every second is precious; every minute lost can never be regained.
She tugs gently at his hand.
"We should get back," she says. "Molly will be worried. I told her we were just going for a walk."
"You went for a walk with Moody last week," he teases, as rain drips from his hair and slides beneath his collar. "Am I to assume that you're married to him as well?"
"No, he turned me down. Between you and me," and here she lowers her voice to a whisper, "I think he's still got a thing for Arabella."
He smiles.
"Good news for me, then. Did I tell you that I love you, Mrs Lupin?"
"Once or twice that I can recall."
She pulls her sodden cloak more tightly around her shoulders and leans forward to share one last, lingering kiss.
"Come on," she says softly. "Let's go home."
V.
Severus Snape hears the loud crash from the far end of the corridor and curses loudly. He hates night duty at the best of times and now that Minerva has been excused on grounds of injury he's had to shoulder twice the burden. Not that he begrudges her a rest: four stunners at once has to be pretty nasty. He'd not seen her until her return to school but he hears her bruises amazed the St Mungo's healers. That and the fact that she's still alive. He's not surprised though, bloody stupid stubborn woman that she is.
But sentimentality isn't going to solve the problem at hand. Either Peeves has thrown a priceless artefact down the stairs or there are students sneaking around at night and Severus will be burdened with the task of arranging yet another set of detentions. Irritably he sweeps back towards the staircase, determined that whoever is responsible for disturbing his otherwise peaceful evening will get the sharp edge of his tongue.
"Lumos!"
But when he finally finds the source of the noise it is far from what he imagined.
The same bloody stupid stubborn woman is lying awkwardly on the stairs, chest heaving, one leg bent awkwardly beneath her and her nightgown riding up to reveal substantially more leg than Severus has ever been privileged to see before. Come to think of it, has he ever seen Minerva McGonagall's legs? After all, her usual nightwear consists of thick tartan dressing gown and long pyjamas. He can understand the lack of a dressing gown: the stifling June heat is enough to make anyone disregard modesty in favour of comfort. But the nightgown? Deep crimson silk with a delicate lace trim… the words 'Minerva McGonagall' and 'attractive' are usually forbidden from occupying the same sentence but not, not in that nightgown. It's not a nightgown for sleeping in, that's for sure.
Leaving that thought aside for later dissection, he saunters down the last few steps with a knowingly smug expression. He may have conceded the Quidditch cup to her house but at least he can score a few points back now.
"Expecting Lupin tonight, are we?"
"Very funny." Her expression is a picture: a mix of embarrassment, exasperation and rage. Severus knows perfectly well that the Deputy Headmistress is unaccustomed to being an invalid, to say nothing of being sprawled half naked on the Grand Staircase. He knows, too, that of all the people she'd want coming to her assistance, he would most definitely be the last.
He is never going to let her forget this and she knows it.
"Help me up," she instructs impatiently.
"I think you're forgetting the magic word."
Her face changes: now there is only irritation. Severus watches her take a deep breath, open her mouth to speak and then think better of it.
"Please help me up," she mutters, not meeting his gaze.
"Where's your walking stick?"
"I don't need it."
He raises an eyebrow.
"I distinctly recall Poppy saying it would be at least another week before you could manage without it."
Not that he cares, of course. He wouldn't even have been listening if the damn woman didn't insist on speaking so loudly.
At the mention of Poppy's name, Minerva rolls her eyes and sighs heavily.
"Severus, please," she repeats. "I've hardly seen him in weeks. If Poppy finds out he's here she'll have me back up on the hospital wing and probably chained to the bloody bed for good measure. I wouldn't even be down here except that I left my blasted wand in my office."
"So our dear friend Remus will be joining us after all? How delightful. But then I suppose that even a man like him deserves to get laid once in a while."
He reaches an arm down and she grasps it gratefully, leaning her weight against him as she struggles to her feet. One leg is perfectly fine but the other seems unwilling to cooperate. He sees her grit her teeth against the pain, propping her hip against the banisters as he releases her arm. Finally she is upright, tugging the straps of her gown back up onto her otherwise bare shoulders and trying as best she can to regain even a fraction of her dignity.
"Well," Severus admits grudgingly. "I just hope he knows what a lucky bastard he is."
Minerva gives him an uncharacteristically warm smile.
"Thank you," she says softly. "And, ah… do you think you could help me back upstairs?"
Severus lets out an exaggerated sigh. "Women," he mutters theatrically. "I suppose you'll be wanting me to… no, never mind. Let's just get you upstairs and maybe then I'll finally get the rest I deserve. And don't let me hear that you've done yourself another injury or I'll be telling the Headmaster himself how I caught you cavorting around at night like a bloody teenager…"
The sound of his complaining fades away up the staircase until all is quiet once more.