YAY book 5! I finished it in less than 24 hours, even faster than Goblet of Fire… I won't tell you who dies, but I can assure you that I DON'T like it! Oh, and I've also taken a serious dislike to James, and I like Snape even more than I used to… I won't say why, you'll have to read it for yourself. Hey, come to think of it, this chapter ties in pretty nicely with book 5… hmmm…

Anyway, enjoy!

November 1993.

"Professor Lupin says he is feeling too ill to teach today," said Snape with a twisted smile."    

The stone wall was cold and moist under his touch. His hand was spread out against it, feeling the stone with his whole palm. It was so smooth and polished by the thousands of students touching it through the centuries, that it almost seemed alive.

Remus tapped the wall with his flat hand, listening carefully if he heard anything that suggested a corridor or a room behind the wall. Nothing.

"There's nothing here," Remus told Argus Filch, Hogwarts' caretaker, who was standing right behind Remus and was eyeing him suspiciously. Even though Remus was a teacher now, Filch couldn't forget the pranks the Marauders had pulled. Filch still would never trust him completely.

"Are you sure?" the old man said suspiciously. "No hollow sound?"

"Absolutely not," Remus assured him.

"Well then," Filch sighed. "The whole school's been sought. No hidden entrance that I don't know of, no secret rooms, nothing. I´ll go and tell Dumbledore the good news."

"No, wait," Remus stopped him. "Uhm, I was going to visit professor Dumbledore anyway, and I´d be happy to bring the message for you."

Filch opened his mouth to say something, when suddenly both men heard a loud crash coming from the entrance hall, not so very far away. In an instant, the corridor was invaded with the unmistakable stench of –

"Dungbombs," hissed Filch dangerously. "Weasley." His eyes were suddenly lit with a predator-like gleam, and he bared his teeth. He had already turned when he suddenly remembered Remus. Filch head jerked from Remus to the Entrance Hall, torn between wanting to keep an eye on Remus and bringing the message to Dumbledore himself, and telling the Weasley twins off and hopefully giving them detention.

Remus tried to look with what he hoped was an innocent and decent look, and finally Filch jerked his head again in some sort of nod of agreement, and the caretaker hurried away to try and catch the twins red-handed, leaving Remus alone.

Time to pay a visit to the Headmaster, Remus thought.

~*~

Thunder roared outside and the rain seemed to attempt to flood Hogwarts. Dumbledore was looking out his window when Remus entered. There was a fire which warmed the room, and it was so cosy Remus immediately felt at home. A phoenix was sitting on a perch, blinking friendly at him. Lying on a pile of old books was the old Sorting Hat, patched and all. The former headmasters on the paintings paid no attention to Remus, but kept snoring softly in their frames.

Dumbledore heard the door closing and turned around, a pleasant smile playing around the corners of his mouth. "Professor Lupin," he said.

"Headmaster," Remus replied just as suavely.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"

"To a message and a question," was the answer.

"A message and a question!" Dumbledore said. He walked from the window to his desk, and picked up a glass bottle. "Would you, before you say anything, care for something to drink?"

"No thank you," Remus declined. "I can't stay long I'm afraid."

"Hm." Dumbledore poured himself a drink, then turned his full attention to Remus. "Go ahead."

"Well, first of all, the castle has been thoroughly searched, and Filch claims there isn't a passageway he doesn't know of." Remus tried to ignore that irritating little voice in his head which kept blabbing about the Marauders knowing more passageways than Filch would ever know. He tried to convince himself that Filch had had almost fifteen years to find out the rest, and the caretaker wasn't exactly stupid.

Dumbledore nodded. "Excellent. I trust you helped with the search?"

"Indeed. As you said, I know the castle as well as he does, even after all those years." However, Remus did not tell Dumbledore that he hadn't told Filch about the ways to enter the castle that were only familiar to the Marauders. Somehow, he couldn't tell it. He had been keeping it a secret for so long that it almost felt like telling someone your most dark secret, what you think of before you fall asleep.

And again he had this feeling of disgust. He felt pure disgust that he could look Dumbledore straight in his blue eyes and lie to the man, that he could tell with a straight face that he had no idea of any ways Sirius could enter the castle.

Dumbledore, however, didn't seem to notice a thing, amazingly enough. "Good, very good," he said. "Now, was there something I can do for you?"

"Yes, there is, actually." Remus swallowed, suddenly nervous. Completely ridiculous, of course, because it was Dumbledore he was talking to. Absolutely no reason to be nervous. "Uhm, it's about coming Friday. You know, it's a full moon on Thursday night, so I won't be able to teach on Friday. And, seeing how far behind the children are, they aren't able to miss a lesson, so I was wondering, uh, if anyone could fill in my classes on Friday?"

The Headmaster frowned. "I see the problem. The point is that there is hardly anyone with enough knowledge of the Dark Arts to fill in your position. There are a few teachers who have the day off then – Madame Hooch for example never teaches on Fridays – but they are all not qualified enough."

"But you said there were some who are," said Remus. "Who?"

"Well, first of all there is me," said Dumbledore. "Not very modest that I start with myself, but I consider myself qualified enough to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. But I haven't taught in a long time, and I have other things to do as well. Remus, you are not going to like my suggestion."

"If it has something to do with a certain Potions Professor, then I don't like it indeed," groaned Remus. "There is no way in hell I'm going to let him teach my classes."

"Be reasonable," Dumbledore said gently. "You know your students need the lessons. You will be unable to teach yourself, and Severus usually only teaches the first two hours of that day. And he knows a lot about the Dark Arts."

"And he hates me, and God only knows what he might do to my classes. For all we know, he might turn up with a practical lesson about vampires and have the whole class killed!"

"Now you're exaggerating," commented Dumbledore, a slight warning note in his voice.

"Maybe I am, but Severus – he just – " Remus stuttered, lost for words. The most annoying thing was that he knew Dumbledore was right. "I will not have him teach my classes!"

"That will be enough," the Headmaster cut in. "You have made your point more than clear." Remus opened his mouth to say something, but Dumbledore didn't let him speak. "I will not tolerate that my students fail their tests just because two members of my staff can't stand each other. You will go down and you will ask Severus to take over your classes, or you can go teach them yourself. Your choice." Dumbledore pointed to the door.

"But – " Remus tried. 

"Did I ask for any comments?" Suddenly, Remus understood how Sirius must've felt just after the Whomping Willow 'joke'. Dumbledore didn't seem at all like his normal, friendly self. There was a cold look in his blue eyes, and Remus decided that it would be best to back out of the room and do as he was told…

~*~

"So if you just – Severus, are you listening?"

"Of course I am," muttered Snape, meanwhile casually adding some more ingredients to a potion.

"Right," continued Remus. "Well, as you can see here – " he waved two leaves of parchment in front of Snape´s nose " – this is a list of what I've covered so far. If you would just take it from there and follow the book I will lay ready on the desk, there won't be a problem."

"Hm – hm," said Snape absentmindedly, and he stirred his potion. Remus felt like strangling him.

"Will just try and work with me here?!" he said. "You – you – "

Snape turned towards him, his full attention now on Remus. "Ah, I was already wondering when you'd start scolding at me," he said, an amused glitter in his eyes. "Go ahead."

Remus merely clenched his fists and glared at Snape. He wouldn't allow himself to be tempted into an argument with Snape. He considered himself above that.

Snape raised an eyebrow like only he could. "Nothing?" he said. "I'm disappointed. The list of obscenities your friend Black would've called me would be endless by now."

The mention of Sirius was like a stab of a knife to Remus. "Well, I am not my friends," he somehow managed to say through his clenched teeth.

"So far, I have seen nothing to convince me of that!" Snape hissed.

"What is your problem?" Remus burst.

"My problem? You're asking what my problem is? You and your friends have been annoying the heck out of me my entire time here at school, I was nearly killed by a werewolf, fifteen years later you come here again and make me take over your classes, and you ask what my problem is?!" Remus tried to say something, but his question seemed to have triggered something in the other man. The change of expression on Snape´s face was remarkable. His usually cold, dark eyes shot fire, and his upper lip was curled up in a snarl.

"You have no idea what I've been through, do you, Lupin? Oh, I remember perfectly how you were at Hogwarts, with your three friends to cover your back for you. Remus Lupin, the werewolf, one of the brightest in his class. And how did you use your intelligence? By pulling idiot pranks and picking on your classmates." Snape started pacing the room in long, agitated steps. "And did it ever occur to any of you, ever, what effect it could possibly have on those classmates? No, of course not, you were too busy getting yourself in and out of trouble. It didn't occur to you that maybe, maybe, your classmates didn't like watching how their homework is being folded into aeroplanes and thrown to the other side of the greenhouse." He paced to Remus, face mere inched away from Remus', eyes narrowed maliciously.  "Maybe one particular Slytherin, who seemed to be the main target of your 'funny' pranks, didn't like having notes pinned to his back on an almost daily basis. But oh no, you never thought about that, did you? And why should you? You are a werewolf, but nobody ever treated you like a monster. Nobody ever backed away at the sight of you, and you have no idea how damn lucky you are for that. So don't start about problems, because you have no idea what you're talking about, understood?"

Remus exhaled his breath in a soft whistle. Whatever he had expected, this was certainly not it. "I had no idea…" he said.

"No, apparently not." Snape suddenly sounded tired. He took the sheets of parchment from Remus. "I´ll teach your class. Now, get out."

But Remus felt he couldn't let this go so easily. "Severus, about what you said – it's true, we really had no idea – " He had wanted to say more, but Snape suddenly threw the two sheets of parchment on his desk.

"GET OUT!" he bellowed. And for the second time that day, Remus thought it better to retreat from the room…

~*~

The cackling fire dimly lit the room, and it was dark outside except for the very last rays of the sun, just above the trees of the Forbidden Forest. Remus sat, dressed in only some loose robes, in the windowsill, looking out of the window. He was waiting for the moon to rise again. He could still taste the Wolfsbane Potion on his tongue, a sickening sweet aftertaste. He tried to scrape his tongue clean with his teeth.

His mind was wandering about, but mainly on the subject of Snape. Remus had spent a great deal of the afternoon thinking about him, and ended up with the confession that the Marauders had indeed never paid much consideration to the effect of their antics. It was even more painful that they had spent a lot of their time on revenging bullied co-Gryffindors, but they had never, not even for a moment, thought about the fact that they might be bullying others themselves.

And the mention of Remus' Lycanthropy had made it all even more painful. It was true that, until now, Remus had never really realised how lucky he had been that he had been so completely accepted at Hogwarts. The conversation with Snape this afternoon had been a real eye-opener, almost literally.

Remus sighed and stood up from the windowsill. He walked towards the fire, warming himself in front of it. He could already feel the change in his aching muscles. In a few minutes, Remus the man would be gone, and there would only be Remus the Wolf.

He stared into the fire, but couldn't help a small smile appearing up his face. He had done so much wrong, but maybe he could try and make it better. It was never too late for that, right?

And while the fur was already growing up his legs and his hips, he promised himself that he would make up for what he – and his friends? – had done.