Easy Injustices

Author's Note: I have heard some people say Remus Lupin is weak. I disagree. I think, rather, his courage is of a different kind, and needs to be. The demons Remus faces are of a different kind than other people's demons, and require a different kind of courage.

FFNet Description: one shot, angsty. Remus Lupin and Severus Snape have an intense conversation. As Dumbledore once said, it often takes as much courage to stand up to our friends as to our enemies. But sometimes the hardest person to stand up to is ourselves.

The Order meeting had finished long ago, but still Severus Snape sat in the shadowy, empty kitchen.

There would probably be a price to pay for delaying his return to the Dark Lord, but the fiery summons had not yet burnt his arm this evening—and, like to admit it or not, he desperately needed a few quiet, secure moments to collect himself. Full meditation would have been more appropriate—but striving for internal equilibrium at the price of completely tuning out the surrounding world was a price too high to pay. Severus took deep, calming breaths and mentally shook himself, redirecting his mind away from trivialities about the cons of meditation to the emotion-emptying, calm-restoring thought processes the practice of Occlumency had taught him.

A subtle change in the atmosphere; Severus stiffened—and the old, heavy wooden door creaked open, the dim light of the hallway spilling in across the threshold.

The person standing there was nothing more than a silhouette, but Severus, who did not even need to see that much to recognize this unwelcome intruder, kept his eyes closed, and, with control born of Occlumency, his voice even.

"You are interrupting."

The figure slumped a little, but stepped into the kitchen all the same, shutting the door softly. Without the hallway light, the kitchen returned to its near pitch-black state.

Severus opened his eyes. Remus Lupin was blinking rapidly, adjusting his eyes to the darkness, and walking slowly to the place at the table opposite him.

"Of course, you never did mind interrupting." The sneer in his voice was soft, but deadly. Remus, however, gave no sign of hearing besides a slight tightening in his face.

"I wanted to speak with you, Severus."

"Obviously. What is equally obvious is that I have nothing to say to you. You have interrupted my solitude here—I have nothing further delaying my return to business. Good night." His voice cold, Severus stood to go, turning his back on the other man.

Remus inhaled sharply, and let the breath out in one short, quick burst. "Professor Snape," he tried again, more formally, his voice quiet, "there is something I must explain. Something you need to hear."

Severus did not turn around—but he didn't stride out the door, either. "If this is Order business, you should have brought it up at the meeting."

"This is our business—and I am not foolish enough to broach this conversation anywhere but privately."

"Then what, precisely, is this conversation, Lupin?" Snape turned smartly in place and fixed the other man with a glowering gaze. "Besides highly inconvenient."

But faced with the possibility of actually saying the words out loud, Remus Lupin only swallowed hard and looked away, staring unseeingly into the empty fireplace.

Snape's gaze became, if possible, even colder. "My time is valuable. Speak your piece and be done with it."

Jaw clenched, Remus whirled around with surprising speed and fixed Severus with a furious glare, his hands clenching the back of the seat in front of him so tight all his knuckles shown pearly white in the gloom.

"You never did have any appreciation for emotions, did you, Severus Snape? Not for your own, not for the emotional difficulties of others... No wonder you're such a superb Occlumens, it's so easy for you to hide it all… You're so damn cold, even after one of those hideous pranks James would orchestrate; you were always so furious, but there was always more ice than fire…"

Remus seemed to lose his train of thought, his furious stream of words slowing and fading into nothing.

Severus, face inscrutable, was silent for a long moment, studying the man before him.

His voice was dangerous when he spoke again. "You damn me and praise me in one confused outburst—make up your mind. What, Lupin, is your point?"

Remus took a deep, silent breath, obviously making an effort not to shake as he let it out. "We spent seven years in rival Houses, among rival groups of acquaintances, and then, not very long ago, one year as colleagues. I have not forgotten your flawless brewing of the Wolfsbane Potion for me each month. I know you had not forgotten the trouble my friends gave you at school, but—"

"You are babbling," Severus interrupted, and there was an edge to that cold, even voice that stopped Remus mid-protest. "I did not brew the Wolfsbane Potion for you. I did as my Headmaster asked—which is far more than you can say—and although I did so to the best of my ability, it was certainly out of no concern for you." Severus' eyes glittered strangely as he locked gazes with the pale man before him. "You say I have not forgotten the "trouble" your friends gave me when we were students? What of the trouble you caused, Remus Lupin?"

Remus' breathing was shallow, and his eyes were wide, but locked into the forceful stare of the Potions Master, he could not look away.

"No, you did not turn your wand on me, but you stood by and watched as others did. You did not report them. You did not stand up for me. You," and Severus voice was a snarl now, "the brave, chivalrous, saintly Gryffindor prefect, were—a—coward!" He spat out the last word as though it were the darkest of curses.

Abruptly as furious as the dark man before him, Remus leaned into the chair and brought his hands down hard on the tabletop. He was pale as a ghost, but he did not shake, and his voice was low and hoarse as he choked out, "Bloody hell, man, what do you think I've been trying to tell you?"

It was as though time had frozen, and the two men along with it. When at last Remus spoke again, his voice was acidly bitter, full of a self-hatred Severus Snape recognized all too well, and had never before heard from another human being.

"I have wondered for years why the Sorting Hat put me in Gryffindor. The damned question has plagued me, haunted me, a curse of the soul to accompany the monthly curse my body endures. I was a coward. I was afraid. I was offered with that prefect badge the formal choice that had always, as James and Sirius' friend, informally been mine for years—the choice to object. To do the right thing—" his voice was suddenly tired, exhaustedly tired, but his eyes did not break away from Severus'—"instead of the easy thing.

"I failed that choice. I failed you. I failed my friends. I failed myself…

"But still, the Hat had put me in Gryffindor. Why?" Remus took a deep breath. "I had a kind of courage; I came to Hogwarts. I was brave enough to break rules. I just didn't have the kind of courage that matters." He swallowed, hard, eyes still locked with Severus'. "Until now."

Severus was silent.

"Our year as colleagues—however distant, besides the Wolfsbane—started the change. We were no longer schoolboys, able to indulge in House hatreds and senseless pranks. I had committed a great wrong. It was time to live up to the name of Gryffindor.

"I took… a long time, to decide—to realize—what I knew I had to do. I had to speak with you. To explain. To lay it all out in the open, to admit… But not—" he added harshly, emphasizing the negative—"to ask for your forgiveness."

His face relaxed slightly, easing the harsh, furious lines, and his voice was softer as he went on. "I know too well that some things cannot be forgiven. Some forgiveness is not deserved. The easy injustices… and cowardice is sometimes so easy… are the worst. But sometimes—sometimes—perhaps it is possible to ease the done wrongs a little. Unable to take back the past, it might… ease the present… smooth future roads."

Severus was silent.

Eventually, finally, their gaze was broken; Remus looked away. Not flinching, not in shame, but as an acknowledgement that he had said all he meant to.

"And that is why I had to speak with you," he added, quietly, so inaudible he could barely hear himself. His unfocused eyes stared into the empty, darkened fireplace, as he acquainted himself with the idea that he had finally had his say.

When he looked around again, Severus had gone.

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In the two weeks since their kitchen encounter, Remus had not seen Severus once. It was now the night of the full moon, and he had gratefully accepted Molly's offer of a small hiatus from Order work in the form of a back, out of the way bedroom at headquarters where he could safely ride out the inevitable transformation.

He was too late for dinner that night, but he entered the kitchen anyway, entirely distracted at the moment with thoughts of the leftovers Molly might have stored somewhere—he had just reached a still warm pot of soup when he looked up, startled, feeling a slight breeze as though someone had just strode from the room. His eyes swept the room—still empty, the door half-open just as he'd left it when he came in.

That was when he saw the goblet, newly placed on the end of the table closest to the door, still smoking; and, Remus knew, with a sudden twist in his heart, full of a potion entirely noxious tasting and made useless by sugar.

He did not smile, but he nodded once, and picked up the goblet, examining it. Alone in the darkened kitchen, he raised the goblet slightly, and inclined his head.

A moment later, pinching his nose against the noxious smell, Remus Lupin closed his eyes and took his medicine.

For some reason, it went down a little smoother this time than it had in months before.