Author: yue kato
Written: 040202
Pairing: Snape/LupinNotes: This fic is actually sort of a companion piece to my other Snape/Lupin fic 'An Acquired Taste'. It's from Snape's POV, and also includes how they first got together. Part of a series in progress inspired by Frank Sinatra's 'It Was A Very Good Year'. Sequel to 'Reaching Through A Veil'.
A/N: Thanks to those who reviewed. It's definitely appreciated ^_^
Part 3
I'm brought back from the memories by the sound of distress coming from you. You look so small, timid and afraid. The confidence and determination you exhibited during these few ill-fated months in pursuing and drawing me out is absolutely nowhere to be seen.
It's pathetic.
You appear to steel yourself, gearing up for another futile protest. "No, please Severus, listen to me. Let me explain, for the sake of our love—"
The mention of that phrase jolts me, even though I'd half-anticipated you would try to sway me from this angle. I swiftly regroup, forcing a slight sneer onto my features. "Interesting that you would bring that up." I reach out to curl my fingers around the cup, so as to hide their slight trembling as recollections of other times flash across my mind.
A bolt of pain spears through me, so sudden and shocking in its intensity that I can feel my blank façade crumbling. I bring the cup to my face to hide the flickering emotions, sipping the black liquid until I regain sufficient control to look you in the eye again.
"But I agree with you, I WAS wrong. About who you were. About us. About love." I savour the words rolling off my tongue, relishing the way it highlights the despair suffusing your features.
It turns out I have the same depth and capacity for viciousness I once thought was reserved only for creatures like Sirius Black.
***
"Looking for someone, Severus? Maybe I can help you."
He stiffened at the question. Malice was dripping off every word despite its apparent friendliness.
Reluctantly, he turned around to meet the stormy, hostile gaze of Sirius Black. "Yes," he gritted out. "Remus was supposed to meet me. He wanted some help with yesterday's Potions class." Among other things, was left unsaid, but still hung between them, nearly tangible.
"Oh, did he?" Black looked like the cat who had not only gotten the canary, but had tortured it, before twisting its head off and eating it. Clarion bells began ringing in Snape's head.
"Yes, is he not in the common room?" Normally, he would not even have deigned to set foot in the hallowed corridors of Gryffindor tower, but Remus had missed their appointment by more than two hours and he was getting concerned.
"No, unfortunately he had some important business to attend to." Black knew something – he sounded too gleeful for it to be otherwise.
"I see," Snape replied curtly, deciding to leave. He had no intention of remaining here to get baited into whatever Black seemed to be scheming at.
"But aren't you going to ask me what could be so urgent he would miss your little… rendezvous?" Black's silky voice floated towards Snape as he was halfway down the steps, forming an invisible barrier that halted him from moving further.
Doubts were niggling in his mind, singing a lively chorus to the alarm bells clanging. He had suspected for some time now that Lupin had a secret he was trying to hide.
Every once in a while he would cancel their weekly study sessions, or cut it short without much of an explanation. And when he reappeared the following day, he would be so subdued and seemingly exhausted. Snape, high on emotions that he had never experienced before, was usually too preoccupied to press him for an explanation.
Other times when they weren't studying, kissing, or exploring each other as best as they could, Lupin would ask him questions about himself, making him talk, easing him out of his shell. "I want to know you better, Severus. I want to share the secrets you hide beneath that mask."
But when it was Snape's turn to demand Lupin's confidence, he was inevitably distracted by kisses and caresses.
Snape frowned as he came to the unpleasant realisation that he might not truly know who Lupin was at all.
"Someone's been keeping secrets, haven't they?" He restrained himself from reacting to Black's taunting tone, forcing himself to keep still he felt the other boy slide up behind him.
"Why don't you find out for yourself?" His sibilant whisper was close to Snape's ear. "Go down to the Whomping Willow. It guards a secret passage that leads to Hogsmeade, and to open it, this is what you have to do…"
***
Curiosity – the downfall of cats and men alike. I want to wish I had never went down to the Whomping Willow, never picked up the stick and pressed that cursed knot on the trunk of that cursed tree, never jumped down into that hole and followed the passage.
But all that wishing won't change a single thing.
It won't change the fact that I was there. I know now what you've been trying to hide, and nothing you do or say can eradicate that knowledge.
I foolishly believed that things were beginning to change for me, since something wonderful had happened. You. I thought there was now a place in the world for me and me alone – inside your heart.
Now I see that you never trusted me enough to reveal yourself completely to me. Was I not good enough, so unworthy compared to them?
I try to obliterate the fact that you tried to kill me, but I can't. It's branded upon my mind. And it hurts, too much. Not from any physical wound your werewolf self might have inflicted upon me – Potter drew me back in time – but it still burns all the same. You raised the veil with which I face the world, forcing me into the harsh, unforgiving light. The pain is scalding.
I've learned a new emotion I've never really experienced in its totality – hate. Deep, unforgiving loathing. I now know what it's like to despise someone so much I can't find the words to fully describe it.
I loathe Sirius Black, for being the callous, indifferent creature that he is. For attempting to send me to my death over nothing more than a petty grudge.
I hate James Potter, for coming just in the nick of time to save the day. He didn't save anything. There wasn't any need – I didn't want to be saved.
Whatever meagre portions of faith and hope that still resided within me had already shrivelled and died, along with my heart.
In its place, hate and viciousness have sunk their venomous roots.
I watch you slump back against your seat, defeated, like a criminal awaiting his sentence.
"I don't love you anymore."
I should hate you. Yet all I feel when I look at you is this blinding rush of pain – how is that possible when my heart lies dead and dust in my chest – and I want you do experience that back threefold.
"It was wrongly given. I would never love a person who tried to kill me."
The light is dying from your eyes. Time for the final twist.
"I could never love a monster."
Absolute, complete silence.
Gently, I push back my chair, stand, and walk away.
…Strange, the walls and floors have never seemed so blurry before.
owari