Part Two - Contemplation

Remus Lupin had a choice to make.

And it was one he had never thought he would have to make. 

There were no indications that today would be anything other than an ordinary day.  The sun was shining brightly, an occurrence he was grateful for more than others would ever realize.  The air smelled of the rain that fell during the night - of wet grass, soft earth, and renewing life - and he inhaled it deeply into his lungs.  He drank his morning tea with a bit of milk and sugar. All in all, an ordinary, pleasant day. Well, save the fact that a madman was wreaking havoc on the world, but all things considered, not bad.

And then Sirius Black had to go and turn his world upside down.

Being a werewolf meant many things to many people.  To some , it meant being afraid and guarded, a focus of fear and apprehension. To others, it meant being curious and spellbound, a fascinating creature of magic and darkness. And to others still, it meant being sympathetic and sensitive, a beast to be pitied for his affliction, though still considered a beast.

To the werewolf himself, however, it meant being careful.  The werewolf must keep his emotions in check at all times.  The werewolf must always be in control of his reason because to lose control would be a matter of life and death, in the most literal of senses.  To be a werewolf meant to be an observer of life. Being a participant was made difficult by a condition that alienated you from others as much as it alienated others from you.  How could regular people understand the intricacies of a life consisting of violence and a hunger that never went away, and the agonizing dichotomy of  opposing personalities?  How could a werewolf understand a life without those things?

To lose control was to lose oneself to the wolf.  If one did not fight the call of the lupine instincts taking residence in every cell of ones body, one was destined to lose all humanity.  One would become the wolf, not just during the full moon but all the time. It was a price Remus Lupin was not willing to pay. 

Remus Lupin had resigned himself long ago to the fact that a beast resided within his skin, a beast that tore itself free once, sometimes twice a month.  He accepted his fate a long time ago and tried as best he could to live a life despite it all.  It looked like he would now get the chance at some happiness, as his best friend was found innocent of the most brutal of crimes.  He had a makeshift family in the form of a caring if not slightly calculating Headmaster and a group of professors whom he respected and who respected him in return, not to mention a faction of exceptional children whose ability to find trouble and danger certainly kept things interesting.

He also had a very vivid imagination.  And, when one is forced to be an observer of life as opposed to a participant, it came in very handy.

Severus Snape never showed him anything but contempt, if one doesn't count the years of indifference, that is.  Remus had no reason to love him, to be in love with him.  It started as a respect of his abilities and intelligence.  Remus grew to admire a boy who never gave in to the pressures of adolescence life.  Severus never tried to fit in.  He never tried to be what others wanted him to be.  He was who he wanted to be, who he needed to be, without caring what others thought.  Severus chose to be alone rather than not to be true to himself.  There was a lot of bravery in that.  Remus wasn't that brave.  He spent most of those years denying who he was for fear of being a pariah. 

What others saw as arrogance, Remus saw as pride.  What others saw as defiance, Remus saw as conviction.  What others saw as sarcasm and disdain, Remus saw as a biting wit and shrewdness.  What others saw as ugly, Remus saw as beautiful.  And, though Severus barely showed that he even acknowledged his existence, Remus was captivated and frankly obsessed by him.

He supposed it was love.   He knew he felt some strong emotion, and it was as complex as it was primitive.  Complex as it tore him apart almost as much as the beast in his skin; complex as it sent his body, mind and very soul into a valley of despair and a summit of ecstasy within seconds of one another. And yet primitive, as it was the most base of all emotions; to belong, to touch, to taste.

In reality, Remus held out no hope for a relationship with Severus.  So, it would come to pass that he would make one up. In his fantasy there was romance and passion and emotion and adventure.  There was also no fighting or bickering, no anger or uncertainties, no rejection.  Their days were full of spirited debates and profound conversations, stolen glances and passionate innuendo. Their nights full of hunger and need and desire.

It was a perfect relationship and he was content with that.  Before today he had had to be.

Now that delicate balance of fantasy and reality would waver and fall, the line between them crossed.  Remus had to let in the possibility that perhaps the fantasy could possibly be more than fiction--maybe.

Severus Snape had created the potion that saved Remus's sanity during his transformation.  The relief that Remus felt knowing that he could account for every minute of his life and not have huge blocks of lost time in some chasm was more than he could ever express.  The illusion of humanity was something he never before allowed himself to romanticize about, despite his aforementioned vivid imagination.

To make the potion monthly was one thing.  It could be attributed to the duty he felt to his school and the cause they were all fighting for.  It could be attributed to the need for competent soldiers.  It could be attributed to personal pride as Severus proved time and time again, his ability at one of the most difficult potions in the world.  It could also be Snape's way of keeping Remus in his debt and having control.  Remus understood the need to have control.

The actual development of the potion however was not as easily explained.  It takes days to make and includes no less than twenty separate ingredients, some of which are quite costly.  Quantities are measured to the most infinitesimal amounts.  He couldn't have just stumbled upon it.  He had to have been looking for it.  But why?

This is when that part of Remus's brain that was slightly more wolf than man spoke up, the part he tried his best to keep quiet as it almost invariably got him in trouble.  It said there was only one thing that could move a man to an action such as this.  One thing that could drive a man to such depths of compassion.  And, knowing Severus Snape as he did, he knew he did not do things simply because they were asked of him or expected of him.  He did things he felt passionately about.  Was there a possibility, even remotely, that some part of him felt passionately about Remus Lupin?

And, did Remus Lupin allow himself to lose control, even a little bit, and confront the man about it?  Did he risk the rejection he had spent years avoiding for a chance at the one thing he wanted more than anything else?  Did he allow himself to be hopeful when his life was basically a litany of hopes lost before he even got the chance to hope them at all?

He could choose to remain silent and live with the knowledge that some part of Snape, some small part, would always be connected to him in the form of a thick grey liquid that saved his reason once a month.  He could live with the knowledge that Snape did know he existed and at some level cared that Remus's existence was a comfortable one.  He could choose to be alone.

To talk to him about it meant to allow Severus the chance to rebuff him and irrevocably destroy the charade of a relationship that Remus had been subsisting on for years.  To some, it might not sound like a choice at all.  How could the façade of a life compare to a real one?  But he was a werewolf and werewolves did not have the luxury of a normal life.

What it all came down to was this; did Remus think he was more beast than man?  The beast is not governed by petty emotions such as love; he was governed by hunger and thirst.  Then again the beast did not fantasize about romance.  The man did. The beast did not dream about a silken voice and exquisite, elegant hands.  The man did.  And didn't the very potion in the center of all this controversy come from the notion that he could overcome the beast and control it, that he was, in the end, more man than beast?  To deny that would be to deny the very thing the potion was meant to do, it would deny the work Severus put into it.   At the very least Remus had to thank Severus for his efforts and attempt to find out why he did it.

He owed it to the man, the man he wanted to be, to try.