Disclaimer: Characters and situations all belong to JK Rowlings, not me. Caius the raven belongs to Draqonelle, who has kindly allowed me to borrow him (Vesta McGonagall is hers too). She also owns the Remus-in-the-closet incident, Caligula Snape, and young Sirius's boggart. In addition, I got the name Polaris Black for Sirius's sister from someone else's fanfic, but I can't remember whose (her character, however, belongs entirely to me and Draqonelle).
Posted by: Elspeth (also known as L Squared)
Ships: Professor Sinistra and an adorable black dog, hopefully hints at a future Snape/McGonagall
Chapter Three: In Which There is Pondering on Scars and Nightmares, and Remus Borrows a Potion.
"No, stop…no…" the sound of the tortured moans cut into Remus' slumber. Deep inside him, the wolf reared its head, protective instincts aroused. His packmate was hurting. No one was allowed to hurt his packmates; they were his, his to defend…
The low, threatening growl that emerged from Remus' throat startled him fully awake. He lifted his head from the pillow, turning automatically toward the couch where Sirius was sleeping. The other wizard was twitching and writhing in his sleep, face contorted into an expression of terror, breath coming in protesting gasps. "Please, no…"
"Sirius." Remus was out of his bed and beside the couch in two bounds. "Wake up." He shook Sirius's shoulder gently.
Blue eyes popped open and stared wildly around, unfocused and filled with fear.
"It's okay, Padfoot; it was only a dream."
Sirius was shaking, face white and eyes ringed with shadows, their pupils huge and dilated. Slowly, he focused on Remus, and sense began to seep back into those haunted eyes.
"You were having a nightmare," Remus said. "Screaming bloody murder. I woke up and thought someone was attacking us."
Sirius drew a shuddering breath, sitting up and putting his head in his hands. "Bloody sodding dreams," he muttered into his hands. "I don't know which are the worst: the ones where Harry is dead, the ones where the dementors are coming for me, or the ones where Lily and James…" his voice trailed off.
Remus laid a hand on Sirius's arm, feeling muscles quivering uncontrollably under his palm, and skin cold as ice and covered with goosebumps. Not good.
"Come on, Sirius, it's okay. Harry is safe is Gryffindor tower and the dementors are all penned up in Azkaban."
"No they're not." Sirius pulled his hands away from his face and glanced up at Remus through tangles of hair pulled loose from its ponytail by his tossing and turning. "They're out. You didn't hear it from Ron? It was all over the Gryffindor common room when I went to check on Harry. They left. The Death Eaters came last night and they all left." His voice sounded odd, distant and far too calm. "They could be anywhere." He looked down again, still shivering and rubbing absentmindedly at his scarred wrists.
Remus felt the hairs on the back of his own neck rising at the news, but managed to conceal the reaction. He reached over and turned Sirius's face toward his, forcing his friend to meet his eyes. "Calm down. You're being irrational. Nothing can hurt you inside Hogwarts, you know that."
Sirius sighed and leaned his face into Remus's hand, like a dog seeking reassurance. "Yeah, I know that, but apparently my unconscious doesn't."
Remus settled himself down onto the couch next to his friend, one arm around the bony shoulders. Too bony, definitely thinner than they had been even last week. He didn't think Sirius had gotten so much as one decent night's sleep since the boggart incident a week ago, and the nightmares were getting more and more frequent. And this new defection of the dementors to Voldemort couldn't possibly have helped.
"You really are a mess, Padfoot," he said gently. "I thought we agreed I was supposed to be the unstable one in this relationship."
That got him a faint attempt at a smile. "You are unstable. You get worse PMS than my sister used to." The attempted smile crumbled away again. "It's not your fault I turned out to be neurotic."
"You're not neurotic. Look, do you think you can handle it if I leave for a few minutes? I'm going to go down to the kitchen to get you some hot chocolate."
"Moony, you don't have to do that."
"Listen to the DaDA professor: you need chocolate. I'll bring back two cups. Spiked with Bailey's." Remus pulled himself to his feet and headed for the door, but not for the kitchen, at last, not immediately. Sirius's chocolate was going to be spiked alright, but judging by the fact that his friend still had not stopped shaking, he was going to need something stronger than Bailey's.
Remus didn't relish going to Snape's quarters, but there was no other way to get what he wanted at this time of night, and, really, no other person he could afford to obtain it from. Poppy Pomfrey would see through his lies in a moment, would know the potion wasn't meant for him, and he couldn't afford to have her wondering whom it was really intended for.
Miraculously, not only did he make it all the way down to the dungeons without encountering Peeves, but when he paused outside Snape's office, he found the door open a crack, a thin line of light seeping out from underneath it. Apparently, he wasn't the only one up late.
Tentatively, he knocked on the door.
"Who in Merlin's name is it?" Snape's voice snarled. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"Some hours after midnight, I would guess," Remus answered, nudging the massive wooden door open slightly and stepping into the doorway. It was surprisingly deep for all it's low height and narrow width—the doors in the dungeon were built for strength.
The glow from the twin pair of candlesticks on Snape's desk danced eerily across the score of glass jars lining the room's stone walls, the flicking illumination giving a grotesque appearance of movement to the largely unidentifiable objects floating therein, and refracting a hypnotic pattern of liquid ripples onto the ceiling. The candlelight also illuminated Snape's scowling face as he sat behind the desk, bent, quill in hand, over a pile of scolls.
"It looks like I'm not the only one having trouble sleeping."
"Lupin. Is it not enough for you to wreak havoc on the nights of the full moon? Must you extend your nocturnal depredations to the rest of the month as well?"
Lupin, trying to muster a suitably polite and nonconfrontational answer, was interrupted in mid-thought as what he had assumed to be a stuffed crow perching on a corner on Snape's desk suddenly moved, turning its head and regarding him with a glittering, unblinking stare unnervingly reminiscent of its master's.
"Wolf," it announced in an odd, croaking voice. "Wolf. Ten points from Grif-in-dor." It let out a cackle disturbingly similar to Snape's own malicious laughter.
"Excellent observation," Snape said silkily, lips twitching in a thin, amused smile.
"Sev-a-rus," the bird croaked, hopping sideways and cocking its head hopefully. "Raat?"
"You may as well cease that now, Caius. I assure you, it is not the slightest bit endearing."
"Rat? Raat?"
"No. And you can't have any of those pickled newts' eyes either; they're for the third-years' class tomorrow."
"Is that Caius?" Remus asked, mildly surprised. "I didn't know you still had him."
"Great Ravens live for an exceedingly long time," Snape said in a slightly snappish tone, clearly embarrassed to have been caught showing affection toward anything. "Sometimes they even outlive their owners. You of all people ought to know that"
"That wasn't exactly what I meant."
"I know. He came back after I started teaching here." His expression discouraged further comment.
Aside from their unusually long lifespans, Great Ravens were known for two things: their high intelligence, and their unwillingness to serve any wizard they judged unworthy. It was a rare dark wizard who managed to hold on to a Great Raven as a familiar, though they often kept other members of the corvidae family. Of course, there had been some speculation back in their student days as to whether the unusually small Caius was actually a Great Raven at all—Sirius had always opined that he was simply a rather moth-eaten crow with social pretensions.
"I assume you didn't come poking your nose into my dungeon merely to discuss my familiar, Lupin," Snape said, changing the subject. "What are you after?"
This was going to be awkward.
"Well, ah, there was a certain kind of potion I needed, and I would prefer not to go to Poppy about it."
"And so you thought you'd come whining to me?" Snape's voice was sneering. "What do you want; you won't need the wolfsbane for at least another five days."
How was he going to ask this without giving too much away?
"I was wondering if you would mind mixing up a dreamless sleep potion for me," Remus said, feeling his face heat slightly as he anticipated the blast of sarcasm he was surely about to receive.
He was not disappointed.
"Oh, is the poor werewolf having trouble sleeping? We can't have our esteemed Dark Arts professor performing under par because he's tired—not that anyone would notice a difference anyway."
Nevertheless, Snape got to his feet and crossed the room to open a wooden cabinet on the far wall, withdrawing a small blue bottle. He pulled out the stopper and decanted a small amount into a glass vial from a stack on one shelf, then thrust it ungraciously into Remus' hand.
"Here," he snapped. "Put two drops into something liquid and drink it. Be careful; it's very powerful and I don't know if it's ever been tested on werewolves."
"What is it?" Remus regarded the liquid in the vial gingerly. He wouldn't put it past Snape to try and poison Sirius (or at least, subject him to some rather unpleasant side effects), but the Potions Master could have no way of knowing who the potion was actually intended for, so it should presumably be safe. Still…
"Wormwood and asphodel, among other things. It can be highly addictive if overused, so don't come asking me to give you more when that runs out. And don't try to brew up more on your own; you'll get the proportions wrong and end up poisoning someone." Seeing Remus' raised eyebrows, he added: "I happened to have it on hand, and I'm not sure that something weaker would work properly on you anyway. I could mix you up some animal tranquilizers, if you'd prefer."
"No, this will be fine, thank you," Remus assured him, refusing to rise to the bait.
As he left Snape's office, he inspected the vial in his hands thoughtfully, a stray tendril of curiosity prickling in the back of his mind. If the Draught of Living Death (he had never been a potions expert, but he remembered what potion wormwood and asphodel went into) was "very powerful" and "highly addictive", how was it that Snape "just happened" to have a bottle—a half empty bottle—of it in his office cabinet? And why had he given any of it to Remus at all?
^_~
Snape glowered at the door viciously as it thudded shut softly behind Lupin's departing form. Already, he was regretting having given the DaDA professor any aid whatsoever, let alone that particular little mixture. Oh, it would work, he had no doubt of that; experience would have told him so even if professional pride did not. But now the werewolf would be curious, would wonder why he would have such a thing in his office, would, perhaps, pinpoint some vulnerability in his offer of help, however ungracious it had been.
It had been an impulsive act, an abrupt decision with no forethought involved, prompted by a moment of sympathy that he had no intention of ever revealing to the other man and was even now regretting. Nightmares…no wonder Lupin always looked like hell. If the werewolf were desperate enough to come to him, and to come in the middle of the night, red-eyed and obviously sleep deprived, it would not be over a mere handful of bad dreams. No, it would take the kind of dreams that jolted you awake screaming and sweating, the kind that ripped open all the scars on your soul and left the wounds of memory fresh and bleeding, the kind that came again and again, until the haunting specter of them drove away even the thought of sleep. The kind of dreams that led you to discover that the quiet hours of the night were an ideal time to grade essays, and to remember that many potions worked best when brewed between midnight and four a.m.
Firmly, Snape returned his attention to tonight's stack of essays, making an involuntary sound of disgust when he saw the name printed timidly atop the next one.
"Longbottom."
Caius twitched his feathers slightly at the sound of the name and cackled softly. "Boom. Ten points from Grif-in-dor."
^_~
Next up, Chapter Four: In Which NevilleLongbottom Melts a Cauldron and Snape and McGonagall Argue.
There will be snark, insults, collateral damage, and Unresolved Sexual Tension.