A few days later it was the night before that of the full moon, and Snape was sitting in Lupin's rooms drinking elderflower wine. He had not felt able to talk until they were on their third bottle, and now he had to concentrate very hard in order to prevent all that was in his mind from spilling out. The idea of Lupin looking horrified, Lupin disgusted, Lupin being understanding - that was what stopped him from saying more than he felt he should.

Lupin was talking about Wilkie Collins and The Moonstone, and from there he went on to Sherlock Holmes.

'…and I felt sorry for Sherlock, I loved him, but Watson… of course the character was important as part of the construct of the stories, but Conan Doyle always seemed to put so much emphasis on how Sherlock never found women attractive and I always thought, well, it's obvious, Sherlock's in love with his friend, no wonder he never seems to get any -'

Snape raised his eyebrows and took a swig of wine to hide his consternation.

'It's just imagined subtext,' said Lupin and he laughed, but Snape felt his eyes on him.

'I imagine many books can be read that way,' he said easily, and this made Lupin smile and nod.

'Friendships in the past seemed to be much - well, there was less pressure to hide your feelings. I don't mean they were romantic necessarily but - people just seemed closer. That's all.'

'You sound like you're yearning for the days gone by, Lupin,' said Snape, and Lupin laughed again.

'I don't know about that,' he said softly. 'Muggles used to lock away all sorts of people - people like me.'

'Werewolves?'

'Amongst others.'

Snape sat back in his chair and stared at his wine. He could read between the lines, but he was not sure if he was supposed to. He threw caution to the winds.

'So are you - that is to say…'

'Do I, er, like men? Yes… I thought everyone knew - at least, all the staff. It was the only way I could shake off Trelawney. She kept on and on about my fascinating hybrid nature and my undoubted divination talents… and my certain mastery of the sensual arts. So I had to break it to her that she'd never be a recipient of those arts.'

Snape gawped at him and Lupin began to laugh, gently at first and then uproariously.

'You thought everyone knew?' It was almost a disappointment, an anticlimax.

'Oh yes, a couple of days later Bay and Artemis turned up in my study holding hands and grinning and got me drunk. And Minerva keeps asking me when I'm going to find a nice young man - those exact words.'

'And what do you tell her?' Snape asked, feeling a slight smugness that his reading of Hooch and Sinistra's feelings had been correct.

He was shocked to see Lupin's face fall.

'I tell her I don't know.'

He felt panicked, like he needed to reassure Lupin but wasn't quite sure how.

'No doubt you will find another mate in time.'

'It's not quite as easy as that, is it Severus? Leaving aside the fact that I spend most of the year cooped up here, if I meet someone new then I have to go through the whole rigmarole, you know, oh by the way once a month I'm a monster.'

'If they love you, it will not matter.'

'You can't possibly believe that! How on earth do you think you'd react if - well, anyway, it's not like that's a current problem.'

'I have my own confession that I would need to make,' said Snape into the quiet.

Lupin rested his head in his hand, rubbed his face wearily.

'I forget,' he said, and there was a long pause before he added, 'You said another mate.'

'I assumed that you and Black -'

'No, never,' said Lupin sharply. 'I might have wanted to once, a long time ago, but he - he was never like that. And he never trusted me.' He saw something in Snape's face that made him add, 'I'm sorry. I'm tired, it's nearly the full moon. It makes me - not quite myself.'

'I will leave you to rest.'

'It might be best.'

Snape drained his glass and walked to the door, turned back.

'Good night, Severus,' Lupin said hoarsely.

'Good night,' Snape replied, his usual neutral face giving no hint that he was thinking of anything beyond bed.

Lupin looked old at breakfast, and subdued. He gave a welcoming smile but Snape's heart sank when he saw it; the social smile, the pleasant impersonal mask.

'Good morning Lupin,' he said, and picked up the coffee pot. 'Are you not hungry?'

'I'm not normally hungry, on the day before.'

'You ought to at least have something to drink. Here.' Snape replaced the coffee and took up the teapot, poured a strong cup of tea and added a dash of milk before putting it down at Lupin's elbow.

'Thank you.'

Snape poured his own drink and marmaladed a slice of toast but somehow his appetite had gone. He took a reluctant bite and chewed it slowly.

'Your wolfsbane should be ready this afternoon. I'll bring it to you.'

'I'll be in my rooms from about half two,' Lupin told him and wrapped his scarred hands around his cup.

There did not seem to be anything left to say so Snape finished his coffee, left half his toast uneaten and left the table with a nod to Lupin and a mild glare for everyone else.

All through the morning he kept a very close eye on the potion simmering away in his store cupboard. He was absent-minded with his classes and forgot to take any points off the Weasley twins for purposely dropping their flask of finished potion after the contents of their cauldron had been cleared. He just half-heartedly waved his wand and vanished the mess before looking up to see the red-heads standing in front of him with identical quizzical looks on their faces. He waved an impatient arm at them and they escaped eagerly.

At break he sifted through his hundreds of bottles of potions he had arrayed on his shelves, glancing at the neat labels, uncorking and sniffing them, checking their brew dates. A few passed muster and he put them carefully into a small basket before turning his attention to the first-years pouring in and giving them their instructions for the lesson.

At lunch, Lupin was absent. Snape snapped at Sprout when she asked for the mustard, and he all but growled when Hagrid cheerily asked him if he was well. He stalked out as soon as he could.

How he got through the next lessons he could not remember, but somehow they passed without major incident and finally his duties for the day were over. He checked once more on the wolfsbane, ladled some into a goblet and was about to leave when he remembered something else. He rummaged in a desk drawer until he found it and then dropped it into the basket along with the potion bottles before heading up to Lupin's rooms.

The werewolf answered the rap at his door with an vague smile that broadened a little when he noted his visitor.

'I will not detain you,' Snape said. Lupin looked rumpled as though he had been in bed fully clothed. His hair was standing on end and his eyes were bleary, his cheeks hollow.

He handed the steaming goblet to Lupin who drank the potion down in reluctant gulps and then returned the cup, wiping his mouth distractedly on the back of his hand.

'Thank you, Severus,' he said, trying not to grimace.

Snape dipped his head in acknowledgment and then thrust the basket at Lupin who caught hold bemusedly.

'Some things to improve the transformation,' he blurted out before turning and almost running away so that he would not have to see Lupin's reaction although he didn't miss the faint 'Thank you very much,' trailing after him.

Snape sat at his desk staring out of the window and watching the moon rise, a neglected pile of parchments in front of him. At this moment Lupin was turning from a man into a beast in the confines of his study. The amount of power he had over the man chilled him whenever he thought about it. If the potion were to fail… though surely Lupin charmed his rooms well no matter how much he might trust in the wolfsbane.

It had surprised him, Lupin's willingness to be his guinea pig and to take something he did not understand brewed by someone who, at least at the beginning of the year, had given every impression of loathing him. He wondered, was it that he hated his monthly loss of control so violently, or that he knew Snape's skill and pride too well to fear the potion's failure? Of course, all the staff knew that Snape would do whatever the headmaster asked of him, though few knew why. Lupin must surely know that even had Snape found it possible to sabotage his own brewing, he would never risk Dumbledore's disappointment or anger.

He got to his feet and went over to one of his bookcases, scanned the shelves intently before finding what he wanted. An Illustrated Guide to Dark Creatures; Their Habits, Diets and Methods of Destruction.

He sat back down and flicked to a page near the back. Common werewolf, Lupus homine. Also: lycan, loup-garou, versipellis, waelwulfas, dementia canina, melancholia lupina.

Melancholia lupina seemed fairly apt and his lips twitched at the irony of Lupin's name before his attention was drawn by the large colour plates surrounded by text. They showed an artist's impression of a man transforming into a wolf, first naked but otherwise normal, then with a scream of anguish, before his limbs started to bend and lengthen, his head elongating into a snout, claws bursting from his fingertips, fur burgeoning from his skin. In the final picture, a large grey wolf sat on its haunches, howling at the full moon.

Snape leaned back. He had caught a glimpse of Lupin his wolf-form once, that awful night when he realised the depth of Black's hatred for him and the shallowness of Potter's, and his perception of meek Remus Lupin shattered and reformed itself into the image of a beast, a monster. He could barely remember though. He thought he had perhaps only seen a flash of yellow eyes, the glint of wand-light on teeth, a tail's swish. He had heard the howl though, a sound that had lingered on in his nightmares.

He realised with faint surprise that despite making Lupin's wolfsbane, the fact of his lycanthropy seemed to have filtered down into his subconscious, something that he knew but gave no thought to. Something that did not affect the way he saw Lupin now.

Lupin… he was filled with the urge to see him once again, perhaps to shake himself free of one of his demons. He shook his head at his own foolishness and looked around for something to distract himself. Then he remembered the letters.

X, he wrote,

I apologise for not responding to your last letter. I did not know, and I still do not, how I should reply, but thank you nonetheless.

It will not surprise you to learn that I have been trying to deduce your identity. Unfortunately I cannot think of anyone at all likely, both within Hogwarts and in the wider world. I believed that I was skilled at uncovering dissemblers but it seems you have beaten me.

I hope you are well.

Once he had sent the missive, he began thinking again about the writer's identity, and he realised that if he wrote back tonight, then it could not be Lupin. Although he yearned for another reply, he realised with a start that he did not wish it to arrive before moonset.

He got his wish. When he woke up early the next morning after a night spent turning impatiently in his bed, vaguely horrible dreams troubling his sleep, there was no sign of the little owl.

He went to breakfast and taught his lessons impatiently, waiting for he did not know what. When the lunch bell went, he found himself not heading down to the great hall but wending his way to the sanatorium.

Lupin was tucked up in bed behind a screen so that no unexpected student might see him there. His face was almost the same white as the sheets pulled up to his chin except for the grey under his eyes and the livid purple and red of the new wounds to his scarred face. His eyes were closed, black eyelashes lying on the white flesh, and for a moment Snape panicked inwardly that he might be dead. Then the eyes fluttered open; a bright light brown almost orange or amber, and the wide mouth stretched into a smile.

'Good afternoon, Severus.'

'Lupin. Did you take the potions?'

Lupin smiled as though he would have expected nothing less.

'I did, and I feel surprisingly okay, no matter how I look.'

'You look all right - no, you look like death,' said Snape, correcting himself.

'Thanks very much. But honestly, I usually feel worse.'

'I - er - I just came to see how you were,' Snape said, and stuttered to a halt. He dug his hands in his pockets and found a coincidental chocolate frog, half-melted. 'Are you allowed to eat yet?'

'All Madam Pomfrey has tried to do today is make me eat something,' said Lupin.

'Well then,' said Snape, and handed him the frog. Lupin fumbled with the wrapper before gaining entry and devouring it with evident relish, licking traces of chocolate off his fingers. 'Better?'

'Oh yes. Whoever discovered that chocolate is a healing aid has my thanks,' Lupin told him with a Dumbledore-like twinkle, 'as do you.'

Snape muttered something which could have been an ungracious acknowledgment.

'What I could really do with is a cup of tea,' said Lupin, wriggling so that he was sat up in his bed and his absurdly ornate hospital nightgown was visible.

Snape said nothing, simply conjured the various apparatus necessary and then handing Lupin a comforting cup of strong brown tea which he wrapped his hands round gratefully and blew on.

'Thank you Severus. I wish every werewolf could have a potions master taking care of them after a full moon.'

Snape stared down at the used tea bag he had hoicked out of the teacup and abandoned in a paper towel, and wished he knew what to say.

'I'm not trying to embarrass you. I just feel - well, what on earth have I done to deserve this? A comfortable bed in the san, a caring mediwitch, chocolate and tea, rare and difficult potions…'

'You must have earned it somehow.'

'I only wish I knew how.'

Snape said nothing, but got to his feet and turned to leave. When he glanced back, Lupin gave him the smile that transformed his face from tired and pained to endearingly open, and he returned it before he made good his escape.