Notes: Based on an idea by bluehobbit, inspired by a heart-breakingly beautiful picture by ildibp, and betaed by the wonderful juxiantang (all lj-users). I don't know about bluehobbit, but as for the other two: I hope I'll be as good as you one of these days. Thanks so much to all three of them!
Feedback: Gimme. Constructive criticism is favorite. Tell me what's weak, lacking or superfluous in the story.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit made, no harm intended.
Warnings: very slight slashy sexual tension, run-on sentences
*******
One thing Snape had learned early on in his life: every day and month and year brought something worse than the one before.
As if it hadn't been bad enough that Dumbledore had hired a werewolf, endangering all his pupils as well as Snape's sanity. As if making Snape brew one of the most demanding potions known for the monster that had almost killed him in fifth year hadn't added enough insult to injury, no, he had been obliged to take it to him too, as if he was the bloody creature's butler, for an interminable year until the creature left Hogwarts. And now the werewolf was back, moved into Grimmauld place No 12 of all places, not only obliging Snape to waste even more time on delivering the potion, but also forcing him to endure the chance of running into Sirius Frigging Black.
Granted, Black had shown a most untypical tactfulness and had never been around when Snape brought the potion. Still, Snape had no intention of letting that spoil his grievances.
An amateur at pessimism might have thought that it couldn't get any worse than that.
But while the two mutts had kept their sleazy exploits firmly under cover as long as Black was alive, now that he had finally managed to get himself killed in a fittingly stupid way, Lupin was exuding tragic loss symptoms as if he was running for the post of Gryffindor ghost. Not even to mention the whole Order plus the insufferable Potter trinity fawning over him.
Leave it to Sirius bloody Black to be a pain in Severus' neck even in his death.
At that point, even Severus had thought that this must truly be the point where it just couldn't get any worse.
Well, more fool him.
"You what?" Disbelief had momentarily shortened out his Aloof Disdain circuits.
"You heard me, Severus." The werewolf wasn't even looking at him, just sitting there, staring off into nothingness. Business as usual. The only thing missing was some Gryffindor hovering about him and encouraging this trite display.
"I did indeed hear you. And now I'm waiting for you to say something that makes even remote sense. Much as your predilection to endanger those around you is known to me from experience" – was that a flinch? – "surely throwing caution and a costly potion to the wind to become a feral werewolf isn't necessary."
Remus didn't even react. Not even his customary mild smile. He just stared ahead as if Snape's words had gone straight over his head. Well, he should certainly be used to that after years of tutoring empty-headed children! Usually, Snape considered kicking an enemy who already was on the ground to be beneath his dignity, but seeing the werewolf moon over Black's worthless hide, when no one would have shed a tear about a greasy Slytherin being fed to a werewolf for a prank was insufferable.
"Fine. I honor your attempt to fill in for the mutt by being troublesome enough for two, but if you feel a need to carry on the glorious Marauder tradition of wreaking havoc, I'd greatly prefer you to do that with something involving less bloodshed and mutilation. You could always tell Potter what a shining example of judgment and wisdom his late and unlamented godfather was."
Lupin's head jerked up and he fixed Snape with a feral stare that made the veneer of civilization shrivel and crumble down around their feet. For a moment Snape thought that this time he had gone too far as he saw the caramel brown of Lupin's eyes turning into molten gold.
Lupin rose slowly, not with his customary caution, but with a ferocious grace that made shivers run up and down Snape's spine. He could barely keep his sneer in place; moving was out of question as Lupin grabbed his arm and shoved him against the wall. Snape couldn't suppress a gasp - even through several layers of clothing Lupin's touch sent shivers running over his skin.
Lupin stood just a few inches too close to Snape, his face steady the same way a sky covered in thunder clouds from one horizon to the other is steady as he fixed the Potions master with a strangely intense expression. When he spoke, his voice was bare of emotion, and his breath fanning Snape's face, even though it smelled of nothing worse than cinnamon tea, made images of snapping jaws rise up in Snape's mind.
"Severus. I will not take the Wolfsbane Potion again. I will spend the full moon nights in the Shrieking Shack as I have done before. My reasons for this are no concern of yours. Do you understand?"
Every sane part of Snape screamed at him to back down and get out of here, but his pride refused to be cowed. "The Shrieking Shack? Excellent choice, Lupin. That has proved so very reliable in the past, hasn't it? Or have you conveniently forgotten that harmless little prank you and your canine lover played on me?" The eye contact broke as Remus' head swayed in an exasperated gesture, and Snape had his footing back. "And I doubt that 15 years of decay have made that shack any more adequate to detaining a raging werewolf. Do you honestly think that Dumbledore will consent to this?"
Remus looked at him again, but now his eyes were back to their normal light brown. Snape felt a twinge of something which, he firmly told himself, was not disappointment.
"I already talked to Dumbledore, and yes, he does consent. Your approval is not necessary. I am merely telling you because I do not wish for you to do unnecessary work. Good evening, Severus."
With that, he turned and left the room. Snape stood frozen until he heard the door close and Remus' steps retreat. Then he sank into the nearest chair, hands shaking and fingers traveling over the spot where the werewolf had gripped his arm.
*******
Remus looked around the Shrieking Shack, trying not to think of a stag, a dog and a rat making themselves comfortable between the ramshackle furniture. He didn't know what shocked him more: that so little had changed, or the sense of belonging that he felt in this place. He had been here before to clean away the worst of the dust, but that had been during daylight. Now the light was fading, moonrise wasn't far off, and the echo of all those changes was creeping out of the walls together with the lengthening shadows.
Remus felt the old fear rise inside of him and forced himself to prepare. Breathe deep. Take off the robe, put it on the highest shelf. Years of practice allowed him to concentrate on folding his clothes and keep away thoughts of his bones breaking under the onslaught of the change. When his clothes were stored away as safely as they could be, he sat down in a corner, knees drawn up, head resting on them. There was no way of escaping the change, but at least this time, he wouldn't spend the night haunted by memories of dead friends. For a few hours, there would be only rage and physical pain, but no remorse, no self-accusations, no despair, no futile rage at Sirius for deserting him yet again. No thought. Surely a few hours of respite was worth pain that he'd have to endure anyway? Surely it was. Just breathe, take one breath after the other.
Finally he could feel the moon rising outside, and the first pangs of his body answering to it.
It wasn't what he had expected.
The pain of the change was sharper than he remembered it being, but that wasn't the worst. When the first spasms brought him to his knees, when his sinews and muscles started to tear at his bones until they broke, he could feel, for the first time in years, the beast rising in him. But it didn't come wild with anticipation to hunt and rent and tear.
It came with the same agony of loss that Remus had suffered for weeks, but where that anguish had been too much to bear for Remus, the beast never even tried to rein it in. Before the torment could subside in his broken and newly remade body, the wolf went berserk. It neither wasted time looking for a victim, nor did it act in frustration at the absence of such. It attacked its own flesh as if aiming to tear out its own heart; it started to throw itself against solid stone walls as if to bring them down.
Remus' dimming mind managed one last thought. This time, it will kill us both. There was no time left to feel relief or sadness, though. There was no Remus left.
The cessation of pain and animal howls was like the end of a sound one has heard all one's life: noticed only when it stopped. Only a regular drum beat remained, faltering now and then.
Remus felt peculiarly dispassionate as he looked down at the mangled, furry body surrounded by blood and destruction. Strange. This had held him in terror for most of his life? It still looked big and heavy, but mostly it looked like an over-sized soft toy that had fallen into the hands of a choleric child. Well, only that what was pouring out of it wasn't white.
A glimmering coming from where no moonlight should reach caught Remus' attention and he turned. If his heart hadn't been laboring down there in that torn beast, it would have skipped a beat at the sight of the familiar face and form in the corner.
Strange. Shouldn't I be afraid? Shouldn't I be glad to see him? Surely this means that I can go with him now?
Remus tried to get closer to where the specter stood wreathed in far more shadows than the corner should be capable of holding. What an irony that the image he saw was all in colors of the full moon: silver gray hair instead of black, the face a pattern of black and white like shadows on moonlit snow, the remainders of his robes unsubstantial like clouds passing in front of the moon.
Shouldn't I go to him?
Trying to move was like trying to wade through a swamp, and while Remus tried to, he heard the heartbeat drum falter and grow weaker. Now he felt scared. He tried to catch the eyes half-hidden by spider-web hair and saw that the apparition too tried to come closer. And failed, too. And there it was: the old stubbornness and impulsive anger in Sirius' eyes. Even in the unreal state he was in, Remus thought he could feel a stab, too intense to tell whether it was pain or pleasure, going through him at the familiar sight.
Remus lowered his eyes to follow Sirius' gaze. In the dim Shack, he would hardly have identified the colorless shape as his hand, but there was a red glow softly pulsing in his palm – as if touching Severus still burned under his skin.
Looking back at Sirius he recognized the expression on the pale face and felt an answering anger. After all the pain Sirius had caused and been forgiven he still assumed a right to be jealous?
You betrayed my secret and I forgave you. You would have made me the murderer of one whom I watched suffering too much already, and gods, it felt as if I was giving up a part of myself when I forgave you that. I lived twelve years, with hardly a day free of the image of you in Azkaban. You left Harry, you left me to get yourself killed and I'm trying so hard to forgive you for that. How dare you be jealous of another's touch when I won't ever hold your hand again because you could not think first for once?
The words burned inside of him, but there was no sound – they were as in a void, with no air to carry sounds. The only thing he heard was the labored heartbeat growing yet more labored.
Remus looked down at the bloodied mess of the wolf, and felt a ripple of fear run through him at the thought of returning to that broken shell to go through the ordeal of change. Surely he would not survive that, surely it would be easier just to wait for the beast to stop breathing and finally have it done with?
Surely then this barrier would let him through.
At the same moment he knew that he could not do that. Imperfect and helpless as he was, he was Harry's last flimsy connection to his parents. He could not leave him to face Snape's hostility and Dumbledore's well-meaning ruthlessness and the expectations of the whole wizarding world on his own.
He took one more look at the colorless shadow of what Sirius had been - only his eyes as they were in life: burning with anger and yearning. Remus had to turn away and allow himself to be drawn back into the broken body on the ground, or the sight would have rooted him where he was. What an insult to human sensitivity that a heart could feel like this and still not break!
The heartbeat grew louder and the wolf's body enveloped him like a far too hot bath, scorching him as he forced himself not to draw away from it. And then the heat and pain were all around him, and he was grateful to lose himself again.
*******
Snape hadn't slept all night. Not, of course, because of any foolish worries for the werewolf. But there had been lessons to prepare, potions to brew, plans and alternate plans to be juggled in his head and changed according to what news he or other members of the Order could come up with.
And there was the wolfsbane potion – Severus had promised Dumbledore to brew it when Lupin had returned and as far as the Potions master was concerned he wasn't relieved of that duty just because Lupin choose to spend the night in the Shrieking Shack. So he had prepared and delivered the potion as usual, ignoring the werewolf's exasperated look and leaving before Lupin had any chance for more assertions of his firm resolve to be a fool.
So the calm hours between night and morning found him in the laboratory adjoining his potions class room, preparing for whatever rescue measures Longbottom's next attempt at potion brewing would require. He looked at the expanse of greying sky the high windows revealed, barely resisting the urge to chew on his lower lip – spies could ill afford nervous ticks.
Lupin wouldn't have gone through with this insane impulse. So he was yapping over his dead lover, fine. But Snape had read all about werewolves, had written some of the less moronic information about them himself. He knew how a werewolf reacted to having no prey. He had seen the scars on Lupin's body when they were both in fifth year and stood rooted from the sight: admiration of the muscled, graceful teenage body tainted with horror at the scars...
He shook his head to rid himself of the memory. Gone and lost and never to regain. Here and now was important, and nobody, not even a Gryffindor, would go through such an ordeal simply for the melodrama of it.
He would be at the breakfast table in the Great Hall. He would have his usual drained air that always made Snape want to shake him, while the rest of the table competed for the title of Most Obviously Pitying Look While Pretending To Be Trying For Unobtrusive.
He looked to his stock of healing potions, and back at the window. He could pick up Lupin at the Shrieking Shack and haul him to the Great Hall. Just to check, of course, because the Shrieking Shack had a history of not keeping the werewolf where he belonged...
Snape cursed himself for a fool, fetched a cloak with pockets sewn into the lining and began to select the bottles with first aid potions altered to interact best with lycantrope metabolism.
*******
Snape froze for a moment when entering the room. The Shrieking Shack had been in less than pristine condition when he had faced Sirius Black here two years ago, but this was worse. It wasn't just the furniture that was shredded, a door ripped from its hinges. Even the walls bore deep scratch marks, shadowed reddish-brown where the wolf had hurt its claws and blood had dried on the walls. The image of what the claws responsible for this might do to himself sent shivers running up and down his back like pernicious beetles. He could not stop his eyes from flickering to the windows high in the ceiling, could not suppress seeking comfort in the first light of dawn filtering in.
It was morning, no moon in the sky.
There was no wolf, there could be no wolf, but still Snape stood frozen, his knuckles whitened from the death grip on his wand as he strained for a sound, a breath, (a growl) Lupin's voice...
There was a moan, barely louder than a sigh.
Snape told himself not to be a bloody fool and stepped into the living room.
The smell of blood was overpowering.
Snape rounded a corner which bore a hole half as large as his face.
Debris of furniture was scattered over the floor, and around it puddles of blood were already beginning to congeal.
And in the middle, half-shielded by the remains of an upholstered chair, there was Lupin.
Snape couldn't hold back a gasp at the sight of the slashes crisscrossing all over the werewolf's body. Years of stomaching the sight of Death Eater torture revels allowed him to use at least part of his mind to assess the wounds, while the rest of him cringed in horror. The slashes were deep, baring bone and innards in some places. By sheer luck there was no fatal wound, but the blood loss would kill Remus. There was the lightest of shivers going through Remus' limbs as his muscles tried to use the last remnants of their strength to fight off the early morning cold. No time left to call for Poppy.
Snape tore off his cloak and threw it over the naked body to stem the loss of body warmth, barely pausing to select the potions he'd need first from the pockets. Hands flying, he used a knife from his sleeve to cut a strip of cloth out of the cloak, soaked it in Symphytum potion and began to carefully clean the deep abdominal wounds still oozing blood. He hesitated only a moment before pressing the cloth into the wound and then pinching the flesh together, trying to piece the torn flesh together as smoothly as possible. Snape's jaw clenched at the gasp the pain of it wrought from Lupin but he kept pressing the flesh together until the Symphytum potion had done its work and sealed the wound. It wasn't completely healed yet but at least the bleeding had stopped.
Snape worked as quickly and carefully as he could yet after a short while he felt as if he had spent hours like this: trying to staunch the flow of blood that only welled up as soon as it was wiped away, hearing Lupin's breath gasp whenever he had to coat living flesh with potion and knowing the pain had to be bad to to wrench even so weak a response from one hovering close to death, and all the time the smell of blood, Symphytum and dust, until he felt he himself must be drenched with it.
At last the worst wounds were closed. Some smaller wounds were still leaking blood, but he didn't dare tread those, too. Symphytum didn't heal so much as just pieced flesh and muscle together, preventing blood loss, but also resulting in a slower and more painful healing process. Like all magic it took its price.
Snape made himself check on Lupin's state and felt his heart skip a beat. It wasn't just that the skin was pale under all the blood, or that breath and heartbeat were weak. The skin was clammy to the touch even where the blood was cleaned away, and both heart and breath lurched, as if each intake or beat might be the last. Because each might be the last.
Snape's hands trembled as he pulled a small, golden-blue vial from the cloak and pulled Lupin onto his lap. Letting Lupin's head tip back and mouth fall open, he carefully let three drops fall into his mouth and tried to refrain from doing something undignified and inane like praying.
For a few endless moments, there was no sound.
No. Please, oh please, Great One...
A shudder ran through Lupin's body, and Snape's arms clenched around him. Still, no sound.
Then Lupin drew breath.
Snape released the breath he had been holding unbeknownst with a great sigh. When a quick check showed that not only Lupin's breathing but his heartbeat too was steady and strong, the tension that had gripped Snape when he first saw the werewolf's shredded body eased and he found his way back to his normal self.
"You utterly moronic quadruped! Were you so desperate for even more pain in your life? What imbecilic impulse is your canine brain going to spawn next, asking the house elves to upholster your bed with broken glass? Being a Marauder must enhance the well-documented natural Gryffindor potential for stupidity!"
After five minutes of cursing Snape's heart felt considerably lighter. He looked down on the werewolf in his arms. The worst wounds were closed, but the body was still covered in smaller wounds and blood. Carefully, he moved one arm to find another bottle; a proper healing potion this time, and to rip another shred of fabric from his cloak. Arranging his legs so he could comfortably hold Remus on his lap while having both hands free, he scanned the werewolf's naked body.
Even with the criss-crossing wounds and scars Snape could discern strong, well-defined muscles. He took Lupin's right hand and began to wipe the blood from it. The healing potion caused a swiftly fading bluish glow to sizzle over the area Snape had cleaned, abrasions and ripped skin closed and healed, and then there was only an expanse of smooth skin. Nothing left of the wounds but pale white marks that would fade within the day. For a moment, Severus' oldest love caught up with him: fascinated with the way the different powers of plants, minerals and animals mixed with the power of a potion maker – his power – to become one power with one purpose... he let his thumb glide above the skin of Lupin's inner wrist, revelling in the newly restored smoothness of it. Then he forced himself to snap out of it and concentrate on treating Lupin's right arm, left hand, left arm, meticulously cleaning and healing one wound after the other while trying to concentrate on the wounds and blood, not on the smooth skin and swelling muscles underneath.
As he reached the shoulder, his methodical movements slowed down, and his hand changed from detached cleaning to stroking newly healed skin, following the contours of warm, firm muscles. Snape tried hard not to think about the warm pleasure welling up inside of him. He wasn't doing this for his own sake. He was just... just searching for ruptures under the skin. That's right. He might have missed some parts, not used enough potion. His fingers spread in the attempt to touch, no check as thoroughly as possible. His thumb grazed the base of Lupin's throat where the pulse beat visibly.
Snape was well aware that the 'dotty old relative' garb Lupin favored was a camouflage to hide the monster behind a glamor of harmlessness and inconspicuousness. He hadn't been aware of what else it had disguised; he'd thought that years of poverty and mourning had destroyed the unearthly beauty of teenage Remus Lupin, the otherness of him which had caused young, clueless Severus to gaze at him unguardedly, making him the object of taunting by both Marauders and Slytherins.
But now, his face softened by healing potion and unconsciousness, his upper body bare to reveal strong, smooth muscles he looked ridiculously young, as if Snape was holding a much younger Remus in his arms, a Remus unprotected by Wolfsbane potion from the raging monster the moon pulled out of him. In the stillness of the early morning hour, Snape felt as if words were welling up in him, crashing against the gate of his teeth. Foolish, useless words like "it'll be all right". Worse. Words like "I'm sorry", so ghastly inappropriate to all that Snape had done and caused that he would never allow himself to speak them.
He tore his eyes away from the unconscious werewolf and looked around. The light in the room had changed; the sun had risen, but was still too low above the horizon for direct sun beams to fall through the windows. It was that eery, sourceless light you got in the very first hour of morning, when the world seems vast and empty and there's no one in it to tell lies to.
A shiver ran along Snape's back, as if someone were walking about his grave. As if somebody was standing behind him. Before he had time to think, his left hand pulled Remus closer and his right reached for his wand. Turning around as far as his sitting position and the unconscious weight on his lap would allow, he looked over his shoulder.
Nothing.
Snape cursed himself for a sentimental fool. Of course there was nothing. He was in an empty house, his back to the corner of a wall, with a naked, wounded werewolf on his lap whom he should have brought to Poppy as soon as he'd know Lupin would survive his own stupidity. He slipped the potion bottles back into his pockets and carefully moved Lupin off his lap. Mobilicorpus would surely be the easiest way to move Lupin...
Lupin's body floating over the ground
"Maybe the Dementors will have a kiss for a werewolf, too"
... but then again, directing an unconscious body through the subterranean tunnel wasn't easy, least of all a body wrapped in nothing but a robe that would easily slip down. Snape certainly wasn't going to leave himself open to accusations of trying to steal glances at the naked werewolf. He wrapped the robe firmly around Lupin, lifted him up and slowly made his way to the hospital wing, all the while cursing Dumbledore for never connecting the Shrieking Shack to the floo network, Lupin for being a bloody idiot even by Gryffindor standards, Salazar Slytherin for creating the werewolves, and Sirius Black for ever having breathed.