6
Chapter 3.
Lupin smirked, as Snape flicked his wand at the cold, empty fireplace in what had been his quarters. "Not above a little 'foolish wand waving', Snape?"
Snape sneered at him, "I was not waving my wand, Lupin. I was using it appropriately. The fire was out, so it was appropriate to use my wand. Just as it is appropriate to use it to clean this old sofa, preferably before you fling yourself onto it and choke us with dust." Another flick of his wrist and the sofa was indeed refreshed. "It is however, inappropriate to use your wand while making ninety per cent of the potions on the school curriculum..."
"Ah, but there are potions that do need..." Lupin began, as he sat down and stretched his legs out towards the now brightly burning fire.
"Indeed there are," Snape continued, giving him a glare for interrupting, "they however, are not on the school curriculum, and therefore foolish wand waving is unnecessary in the potions classroom." Giving his favourite leather wing backed chair a quick swish and flick before he sat in it, Snape scowled at the grinning man in front of him. "If you require alcohol in that glass, Lupin, I suggest you hold it out."
Lupin held out both glasses. "So, tell me more, Severus. How on earth have you kept Evie hidden all these years?"
"Evelyn, Lupin, her name is Evelyn, and I'd rather hear about you and Granger. Are you really..." he paused, searching for the right words as he poured the firewhiskey and took a glass from Lupin.
"Shagging?" Lupin offered.
"I wouldn't have put it quite like that, but then I'd not expect delicacy from a depraved cradle snatcher like you," he sneered.
Lupin rolled his eyes. "We're not shagging, Severus, nor fucking nor doing the horizontal mambo. Hermione tells me we have 'a relationship', that we 'make love'." He drank deeply from his glass. "Sure feels like shagging to me, but you know what young girls are. Everything is romanticised and full of 'feelings'."
"You sound perfectly jaded, Lupin. Tough on you is she?" Snape couldn't help the chuckle that slipped out. "Whatever happened to 'good old Lupin', always cheerful, always seeing the silver lining?"
Choosing to ignore the chuckle, Lupin peered over the top of his half empty glass at Snape. "What about you? Surely you and Evie have 'a relationship'?"
"We have a marriage, Lupin." He smirked, "and we rut like fucking animals."
Lupin almost choked on his drink.
SSSSSSSSSSSS
"So, Evie," Hermione said with a wicked grin, as she put her empty tea cup on the small table in front of her. "Who asked who out first? I mean, after you fell on him and called him a pervert I can't imagine he was in a good mood."
McGonagall smirked. "Goodness, can you imagine? I'm sure he was furious."
"Well, as I said earlier, I think he was so shocked that he just sort of sat where I pointed and drank the tea I gave him," chuckled Evelyn. "We talked for a while. He had no idea that Mr Mistral had sold the shop, so we talked about that for a bit. He helped me move some boxes. I was still unpacking things, because I'd only just moved in. He was a perfect gentleman and helped me carry things upstairs, and then because it was late I offered him dinner as a thank you," she smiled shyly. "He offered to come back the next day and help me with moving furniture and such," she blushed, "he said it was because my cooking was so good, he couldn't pass up the chance of more."
McGonagall smiled at Hermione. "I don't care what you say, that was romantic."
Hermione nodded. "And did he?"
"Yes, and the next day, and the day after that. Only those times he wore jeans and a sweater rather than those black teaching robes," Evelyn told her. "Much more practical for humping things about, and far less bat like."
Hermione's eyes widened. "He wore muggle clothing? Professor Snape? Merlin!"
McGonagall laughed,"Don't be so surprised, Hermione, you know his father was a muggle. He's not ignorant of the muggle world; he just isn't fond of it. Bad memories."
"Well, no, I knew that, but it just seems so, well, odd, to think of Professor Snape in jeans." She turned to Evelyn. "I bet he looked pretty good didn't he? When I was at school we used to wonder about what he kept hidden under those robes, and all those buttons! So Freudian." Realising that both Evelyn and McGonagall were looking at her with amused grins, Hermione blushed bright red. "No! No, I didn't mean like that! I just meant we always thought he probably had a tight...." she shook her head and laughed. "We thought he was hiding a nice bum."
Evelyn grinned. "You were right. He's got a lovely bum. Pretty good legs too. They go right up to that lovely bum."
All three laughed out loud.
SSSSSSSSSSS
Lupin relaxed into the couch, the heat from the fire and the drink in his hand making him feel mellow and daring. "So, Severus, tell me, why did you keep going back to see Evie? You knew it was dangerous, yet you still did it. How on earth did you keep her a secret from everyone? Did Dumbledore know?"
Snape swirled the drink in his glass as he looked thoughtfully at Lupin. Drinking the contents in one gulp he spoke. "I went back, Lupin, because she had no expectations of me. To her I was just Severus, not Severus Snape, Death Eater, or Severus Snape, Spy for the Order of the Phoenix. I wasn't Severus Snape, Potions Master, Evil, Greasy Git or Bat of the Dungeons. I wasn't the most hated teacher in the school, nor was I the miserable, foul tempered, anti-social bastard that everyone else expected me to be. I was just Severus, who'd helped her move furniture and boxes, who'd laughed when she dropped Chinese food down her front because she couldn't get her chopsticks under control. Severus, who'd fallen off the stepladders because I leaned too far back while painting the ceiling. Severus, who sat next to her in the cinema, and shared her popcorn." He sighed, "I didn't have to be what everyone one else expected me to be, and you have no idea, no idea at all, Lupin, how good that felt."
"Did Dumbledore know?"
"I certainly never told him, but as you well know, that doesn't mean he didn't know. If he did, he never once said a word. I never felt any magic around her, so he'd not set any wards." He sneered, "of course, she was only important to me, so what did it matter if the Dark Lord found out and killed her?" He shook his head. "No, Lupin, I don't think he did know. If he did, I think it likely she'd have died long ago. A word spoken in the right place would no doubt have ensured that my distraction was dealt with."
Lupin stared incredulously at him. "You really believe that? That Dumbledore would have had her killed?"
"We were at war! He couldn't allow his precious spy to be distracted! To have his spy's loyalty placed anywhere but firmly at his feet!" Snape snarled. "Of course I believe it!"
"Well I don't, Severus, not at all."
"Then you're even more of a fool that I took you for!" Snape reached once more for the bottle of firewhiskey.
"He would have been happy for you." Lupin said softly.
"Happy? For me? Don't make me laugh!" Snape sneered. "He took any chance of happiness away from me, Lupin, time after bloody time! Any chance I ever had, he destroyed! He spent this war creating what he needed; he needed two things, a perfectly placed spy, and a weapon. He ensured my school life was a misery, knowing full well it'd drive me into the arms of the Dark Lord. He knew the power of revenge, and he wielded it well. What do you think he used to drive Potter? Revenge, Lupin, revenge. He moulded Potter to be his weapon from the moment he took him from Godric's Hollow. Revenge for the death of his parents. He knew that I still had, issues, from my school days, he knew how much like James the boy is, he knew exactly how I'd react." He drank deeply from his refilled glass, "I bet the old bastard rubbed his hands in glee over it."
"I thought you liked Dumbledore?"
"Liked? Oh, I trusted him with my life. He was, until I met Evelyn, probably my only real friend. I'll even admit that he was a sort of father figure to me, I loved him devotedly. But liked? Believe me, there were times I hated him." Snape threw his glass into the fire, the alcohol causing the flames to shoot up briefly.
"When he forced you to agree to kill him?" Lupin asked carefully.
Snape was on his feet in an instant, cold fury resonating from him. "Don't! Don't ever presume to think you know why!"
"Then tell me why."
Slumping back into his chair dejectedly, Snape glowered at him. "He made me promise, Lupin. That old bastard made me promise to do it if I had to. He knew what it would do to me, yet he still made me promise. I'll never forgive him for that," he whispered. "Nor myself for doing it."
"He was dying, Severus. You knew it, he knew it, and Poppy knew it. You gave him a quick, clean death, better by far than what might have happened." Lupin stood and went to him, placing one hand on his shoulder. "You bore that burden and that guilt alone for too long, Severus, but you no longer have to. Let it go."
"I can't."
Lupin crouched down and looked him the eye. "You can and you will. For Evie's sake. She's the start of your new life, the life you always wanted. You can be happy now, with her." He grinned lewdly, "You can breed endless Snapelets to terrorize the school, and drive Minerva mad. Imagine how fun that'll be, and this time, Severus, maybe a Snape and a Lupin can be friends, real friends."
Snape stared at him, and then rolled his eyes. "You really are a hopeless optimist aren't you? Fetch me a new glass, I need a drink. The thought of you having cubs fills me with horror, and makes me glad I'm not coming back to teach."
Lupin grinned and stood. "Imagine how horrified the students will be to hear that you've children? I mean, the Greasy Git actually had to have sex!"
Snape's eyebrow rose. "There are no children, Lupin."
"Ah, but you've just got married, trust me, after ten years of waiting, there'll be children soon." Lupin told him as he fetched another glass. "Especially if you're 'rutting like fucking animals'" he laughed.
Snape sneered at him.
SSSSSSSSS
"What I have a hard time understanding," McGonagall began, "is the fact that you put up with barely seeing him for ten years." She peered over the top of her refilled tea cup. "How on earth did you manage that?"
Evelyn shrugged. "Severus told me quite early on that he taught at a boarding school, 'in the wilds of Scotland' I believe his words were, and that he was a Head of House and required to live there. I knew he'd not be about very much, but that was okay because I'd just bought the bookshop and that was my main focus. Severus and I just sort of fell into our relationship, we started out as simply friends. He'd show up, I'd cook him dinner or we'd go out for a meal, and we'd talk about what we'd been up to." She grinned broadly, "of course I always wondered why he taught when he seemed to hate it so much."
"And then?" Hermione prompted.
"It just sort of progressed. One night he woke me up yelling in his sleep, he was having a nightmare so I went and woke him up," she smiled shyly. "He always slept in my spare room. I used it as an office but I kept a sofa bed in there. Severus always said it was comfortable enough."
"You woke him from a nightmare? Did he hex you?" Hermione's eyes were wide at the thought.
Evelyn laughed. "No, but he did grab my arm and pull me down on top of him. Gave me the fright of my life I can tell you. That was the first night we ever slept together," she grinned. "And all we did was sleep. Well, he slept; I mostly was squeezed half to death, because he hugged me so tight I was sure I'd have bruises. He was absolutely mortified the next morning, but I managed to persuade him that it was okay. It wasn't like I was going to report him for attempted rape or anything, it was only a nightmare, and surely that's what friends are for isn't it?" she queried, "being there when you're needed."
"Indeed it is. However, I think you'll find that Severus has not had many people being there when he needed them. Friendship has always eluded him," McGonagall sighed. "Even when he was at school he had few friends. The poor boy was tormented mercilessly, though he gave as good as he got most of the time. Sometimes though..." she shook her head sadly, "there was more than one occasion I wished he was in Gryffindor, that boy needed mothering and Slytherin was not the place for that."
There was silence for a moment as the three women pondered that fact. Then Hermione spoke up.
"But he found you, Evie. I'm so glad he did. When he needed someone most, he found you." She smiled dreamily. "It's rather like a Fairy Tale isn't it?"
Evelyn stared at her in amazement, even as McGonagall snorted her tea.
"For gods sake don't say that to him, he'd have a fit," Evelyn laughed. "Besides, I don't recall a Fairy Tale where both main characters have hooked noses."
"The Brothers Grimm perhaps?" McGonagall offered with a smile.
Hermione looked horrified at the two women before realising she was being teased, and joined in their laughter. "Oh, you!"
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