Hey,
Someone asked me about where this fits in timeline-wise and I realised I'd never said, just hoped you'd get it/ wouldn't care. I know it's a bit uncanon but it's post-Snape's defection and pre-murder of James and Lily. Because, of course, Snape didn't swap sides because he was all smooshy for Lily, oh no. Not in this fic at least.
The Marauders had formed an uneasy truce, which consisted of them ignoring what had happened, but unsurprisingly Remus had hoped to sneak up to Severus's room for his potions lesson without anyone noticing.
Unfortunately this plan was scuppered when he bumped into Sirius, who had just come in.
'Alright Moony? Hope you haven't been too bored today. Since Jamie and Lily turned into love's young dream it's been a bit quiet hasn't it? And they're working me hard with training at the moment.'
'And of course you're spending a lot of time with Lola,' Remus said with a smile.
'Well… yeah…' Sirius said with a grin. 'But Pete never seems to be here either - what do you do with yourself?'
'Lots of reading,' Remus told him truthfully.
Sirius pulled a face. 'Rather you than me. What you up to now?'
'Actually,' Remus said, steeling himself for the outburst he felt was inevitable, 'Severus has offered to help me with my potion-making, so I was going to go and have a lesson with him.'
'You what?'
'You know I didn't do very well at it at school and I think I ought to improve a bit.'
'Remus! You got an E! And even if you were the worst in the world, why in the name of all that's magical would you get lessons from Snivellus?'
'Sirius, please don't call him that. He said he'd help me, and he was the best in our year.'
'What's he up to? I'm going up there to ask him!'
'What on earth are you talking about?'
'He's obviously got something up his sleeve, some plan or other, and knowing him it'll be something dark.'
'I know you don't like each other, but I had hoped that you could be a bit calmer about this.'
'How can I be calm? He's a bastarding great vampire who just wants to fuck with us! He's a Death Eater, for fuck's sake!'
'Would you keep your voice down,' Remus said sternly. 'And he was a Death Eater, but he isn't anymore. He's on our side. If you are so sensitive about dark magic, I'm amazed that you're friends with a werewolf.'
'That's completely different! You didn't choose to be one! It's not your fault!'
'Listen to me, Sirius. I don't lecture you on your life, I don't tell you what to do. I'm a big boy now and you are not my mother! I am going upstairs for a potions lesson with Severus and I will see you later.'
With that, he turned and walked up the stairs, not looking back. If he had, he would have seen Sirius with his mouth hanging open in shock at his meek friend being so unexpectedly stubborn.
Arriving up at Snape's room with his heart still beating unduly quickly, he knocked and was admitted.
Snape gave no sign that he had heard the altercation and Remus was relieved.
'What do you feel comfortable with?' he asked without preamble.
'I, er, oh,' Remus was blushing although he did not know why. 'I'm good at preparing the ingredients, I think. And I can follow the instructions. It just seems that I don't have the - I don't know what you call it - the talent? The touch?'
Snape looked at him and narrowed his eyes in thought.
'Perhaps the best way would be for you to brew something and I'll watch,' he decided. 'Something useful - that healing potion I gave you last week.'
Remus nodded. 'What book is it in?'
Snape looked somewhat discomfited. 'It is not in a book.'
He shuffled through the papers that had been swept to one corner of the table to make room for the cauldron that now stood there. Finding what he sought, he brought the scrap of parchment over and Summoned a couple of candles.
'Can you read this writing?'
'Yes, it's fine. Did you make this up yourself?'
'Yes.'
'Gosh… how did you do it?'
'I simply collated several healing potions and then tailored them to suit the situation. It was very straightforward.'
'You invented it for me? For after a transformation?'
Severus nodded tightly.
Remus's eyes were like saucers as he stared down at the paper which, he noticed, was trembling slightly.
'Wow. Thank you.'
'Many healing potions contain ingredients that would be toxic to a werewolf's metabolism,' Snape said brusquely, 'so it was more efficacious to create a new one rather than brew a traditional tonic with the poisons removed. I will fetch the components.'
Remus marvelled as he moved surely about the room collecting jars, bundles and bottles.
He moved over to the table and lit a fire under the cauldron, then searched for camellia sinensis. He found it tied up with string and labelled in the same impossibly neat handwriting as the instructions, and began to methodically shred the leaves.
Snape stopped what he was doing to watch, and seemed to approve. He sat down and started looking over his papers.
He added the leaves to the cauldron to steep, checking the temperature with his wand, and then looked for the next item.
'It is best,' Severus said suddenly, looking up, 'to slice the ginger with a silver knife and then crush it to release its juices. I have not found a good replacement yet for the knife, so I will do that this time.'
Remus nodded. He had had a couple of silver burns before. He moved over so that Snape had room to work.
Those white hands were fast and skilful in their work, the knife flying through the knobbly roots, and after a couple of minutes Snape added the ginger and then returned to where he had been sitting.
They worked together in silence, Remus concentrating harder than he ever had at school to try to impress his new teacher. He continued dropping ingredients into the cauldron, paying close attention to every note on the parchment, and about half an hour passed swiftly before he gave the pot one last stir and then sniffed the delicate steam rising from it meditatively. His glasses fogged up and he took them off and wiped them.
'I have to leave it for an hour. Shall I leave you and then come back?'
'You should never leave an unfinished potion,' Snape told him firmly.
'So how have I done so far?'
'Fairly well. You were right; your preparation of ingredients is good, and you were careful and methodical in following the instructions. I believe the main things you lack are confidence and an enjoyment in the process.'
'So will my potion work?'
'I see no reason why it should not.'
'And how can I get better at brewing?'
'When you brew from recipes, the main thing is to prepare properly and then stick to the directions. Being able to tweak your brewing to improve the end product is a skill that only comes from brewing many potions. As you learn what ingredients combine well together for certain purposes, and how you can prepare those ingredients in order to improve their effectiveness, you can start to create your own brews. Other things, like ways of adding to the potion and methods of combining the ingredients within the cauldron, are really learned by experience, trial and error, and advice from others.'
'I think my problem is that when a potion starts going wrong, I don't notice it, and so I can't save it in time.'
'Again, that comes from brewing; how can you know something is wrong if you do not know what right is? You do have an advantage though.'
'I do?'
'Your sense of smell. I have read that the werewolf's sense of smell is far more acute, so you have a better sense to aid you in brewing than most people.'
'I never thought of it like that.'
'Of course, it can be a disadvantage in brewing strong-smelling potions, but you can cast charms to alleviate strong odours so that you are not overpowered.'
Remus looked surprised. He had grown so accustomed to thinking of his condition as a curse that he forgot the advantages it gave him. Though they were few, they were better than nothing. He smiled faintly, and Snape noticed it.
'It is difficult being different,' he said suddenly, and then looked aghast at himself.
'Yes, it is,' Remus said thoughtfully. 'You tend to think only of the bad things about it. Like you, having been a Death Eater.'
He risked a sidelong glance but Snape's face was in shadow.
'I mean, it's not good for you, I can't imagine what it must be like to have to go back and pretend, but because you were one you're probably the most useful Order member out of all of us. We'd have no idea what they were planning without you.'
'I cannot pretend that I am glad, though.'
His voice was quiet and dull.
'No more than I am. You shouldn't have to put up with the things you must have to. And you don't tell anyone either - well, you tell Albus I'm sure, but he's so busy… you must have so many things crowding round in your mind.'
'Albus gave me a pensieve,' Snape said, still in that voice that somehow seemed to convey a little of what he had seen and done in the name of the fight against Voldemort.
'A pensieve doesn't talk back though. And I just thought - I can keep secrets. If you ever wanted.'
Severus did not say anything, and Remus worried that he had overstepped the mark once more, that he might have been insulted by this enticement to confidence.
'I didn't mean to upset you,' he added finally.
'You didn't.'
Tell Lupin about the Death Eaters? Tell him about the torture of muggles, their screams spiralling up into the night as waves of unimaginable pain broke over them? Or witches and wizards, captured and tormented, to talk about their faces as they realised their agony only had one possible end? Tell Remus what it was like to know with certainty that one day it will be me on the receiving end of the wrath of the Dark Lord? How could I ever do that?
He turned away, sat back down and once more started annotating the sheaves of papers that littered the table and the floor. Remus bit his thumbnail unhappily and wished for a cigarette.
'You could go down and make tea,' Snape said without looking up, 'and I will watch the potion.'
Taking that as a dismissal, he went downstairs and fulfilled his twin urges for caffeine and nicotine before heading back upstairs with coffee for his tutor and a tattered copy of Jane Eyre that he had found under the sofa in the living-room when his chocolate frog had made a bid for freedom in that direction.
The time passed quickly although silently, and after an hour both men looked up, caught the other's eye, looked away again and then stood to check on the potion.
Snape bent over and sniffed it.
'Now you need to decant it into flasks,' he said. 'You can use a spell on this particular potion - although some potions are changed or damaged by being decanted using magic - or you can use a dropper. You need to stir it first and then transfer it quickly so that there is an even distribution of the ingredients.'
Remus took the dropper and carefully measured the potion, by now a cool yellowish-green, into the flasks.
'Now label it - the potion name and the date.'
He obeyed.
'And there you are. This potion ought to keep for about a year, and then I think its power will start to decline. Now you have remedies ready for each transformation.'
'Thank you very much, Severus.'
'You can keep the instructions if you wish. I have already noted them down elsewhere.'
'Thank you. And Severus… I know lessons might not help much, but they might… maybe one day… you'd be ready.'
Remus thought Snape was going to reply but then he dropped the quill he was holding and clutched at his left forearm with his right hand.
'He is calling me! Go!'
And so Remus went, with a backward glance that saw Snape turn on the spot to apparate to his master.
