"It's good to see you, as well, Severus," Remus muttered, stepping around Dea to follow Snape. "I'll be back before moonrise," he threw over his shoulder, smiling at her with a tinge of sadness.
They Apparated just outside Hogwarts grounds, making the rest of the trek in silence. Remus smirked at Severus's retreating back; if the Potions Master thought silence would unnerve a man who spent most of his time in solitude, then he was an imbecile.
Severus muttered the password at the Headmster's entrance, his hands clenched helplessly at his sides. It had been better to have the werewolf gone. The memories of tauntings past, of a rivalry so long outgrown it was ludicrous, lessened when the reminders were not there. Plus, Remus's absence meant Dea was alone, and some selfish part of Severus preferred that. Jealousy, old but strong, burned brightly within him.
"Welcome, my esteemed gentlemen," Dumbledore stood, studiously ignoring the hatred arcing between the two men standing before him. "Both of you may sit."
"Headmaster, I've lessons to prepare for tomorrow—" Severus started, only to be cut off by a small gesture from Dumbledore.
"I want you here, Severus. I will be speaking to Remus about what has been said, what has been planned during his absence. I am an old man, my memory fails me from time to time." Even as he said this, his eyes sparked with intelligent humor. "It may be that I will need you to correct my possible errors."
Not bloody likely, Severus thought, but he sat anyway.
Dumbledore stuck to small things at first, the condition of each member of the Order, the addition of Harry and his cohorts in several of the meetings, the ways in which the group was warming up to Dea. At this, Remus smiled and Severus shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"We—or rather, Miss Middlemarch herself—has suggested a way to busy some of the Death Eaters, a way to… how did she put it? Throw a monkey wrench into their works, which I'm assuming means to put them off-balance."
"As though they weren't unbalanced already," Remus said, but he was listening intently.
"As you might already know, the Middlemarch family was pure-blooded, and therefore had many ties to other wizarding families." He paused now, knowing his next statement would cause an uproar.
In the silence of the hesitation, Severus felt his stomach knot. The plan was ludicrous, though it made sense, but he'd stayed silent throughout the process. To put it simply, the idea frightened him.
"Miss Middlemarch has volunteered to visit a family member, if you will. Someone who will have thought her dead." Dumbledore watched Remus's face carefully. "She intends to visit Lucius Malfoy in the hopes that it will stir up dissention among the Death Eaters and turn Voldemort against whomever was to have been responsible for her death."
It had been a stroke of genius so stupid it was brilliant, Severus recalled. The Dark Lord would be incensed at the thought that he'd failed, and worse, that he'd not known it at all. The Death Eaters, Lucius Malfoy in particular, would be made fools of, and be vengeful because of it. Time would be spent—wasted—looking for Dea, and the Order of the Phoenix could move offensively.
But Remus didn't see the genius behind the plan.
He stood from his chair, his face a bright red. "This is ludicrous!" he shouted. "For Merlin's sake, she's nearly died once, and she's going to be thrust back into the thick of it just so we can thumb our noses at the people who most want us dead?" It was rare that he raised his voice, but his disbelief overrode his usual manners, and he whirled on Severus, who tented his fingers together and looked contemplative.
The werewolf's reaction was similar to the one Severus himself had bottled inside, but instead of commiserating, he studied Remus over his fingertips and smiled nastily. "Temper, temper," he chastised. "She volunteered, Lupin."
"You would condone this?" he asked Severus disbelievingly. Out of them all, Remus would have thought the former Death Eater most likely to protect the lark who had barely lived. "Amadea's been gone for twenty years, and this is the first thing you'd have her do?"
Whether it was the look in Lupin's eyes or Severus's ingrained talent for Ligilimency, he knew suddenly and clearly what was causing the reaction. "Ohh," he said, drawing out the syllable suggestively. "Is it that she's been gone for so long a period, or back for so little?" At Remus's sharp look, he smiled predatorily, feeling his stomach roll over. "Do you really fancy yourself in love with her, Lupin, you great protector?"
In a move so quick Severus didn't see it coming, Remus had one wiry, strong hand wrapped in the material of Severus's robes, their faces only inches apart. "Do you really fancy yourself not, Severus? And if I do and you don't, which of us is really the greater fool?"
"Stop this!" Dumbledore roared, flinging out a hand and sending them both sprawling into their chairs. "Remus, the decision is made. Severus, I ask that you not bait a fellow member of the Order. You two are acting like children, or worse, like adolescents. If and when I wish to see such squabbles, I will take my old bones to the Great Hall and provoke a food fight!"
"I beg your pardon," Remus said stiffly.
Dumbledore regarded them both with a complete lack of surprise. It wasn't as though either of them had revealed or suggested anything that hadn't started in the very halls of Hogwarts.
"Remus, go home, back to Grimmauld Place. I've no doubt you will try to talk Amadea out of this task, but I have no fear that she will be talked out of it. It was, after all, her idea." He then turned to his Potions Master and wished, not for the first time, that the man could find himself whole after so many years of fragmentation. "Severus, you may return to the dungeons and prepare whatever need be for tomorrow's round of classes."
Remus left the office first, knowing if he didn't his anger would only continue to manifest itself. He walked down the hallway quickly, the thin traveling cloak he still wore over his robes billowing around him. So ensconced in his thoughts was Remus that it took him several moments to hear the young voices clamoring his name behind him. Clearing the anger he knew was written on his features, he turned.
"You're back!" Harry, ever hungry for affection, especially since Sirius's death, gave Remus a quick hug.
"Did you see lots of things?" Ron asked excitedly. "There're tons of things I'd like to travel and see."
Hermione stood quietly at the back of the trio, watching, apparently caught up in thought.
"It's good to see you all," he said, fixing a smile on his face.
Hermione frowned a little. "It's a full moon, Professor Lupin. Shouldn't you be back at… you-know-where?"
Smart little mite, he thought, not without affection. "Yes, Hermione. I'm on my way now. It's only that the headmaster wished to see me."
"Don't you all have somewhere to be?" Severus spoke from the niche leading to the headmaster's office, his voice frigid.
The coincidence of location was not lost on Hermione, who looked at Remus with unnerving intensity.
"Go on," Remus said quietly. "I'll see you all soon enough."
When they all merely stared at him, he flapped a hand impatiently. "Go on now before you have points taken."
They said their goodbyes listlessly and walked down the hall, Hermione snatching at the backs of the boys' robes to slow them down. "Listen," she mouthed.
"Miss Granger was, as usual, correct, Lupin. Full moon soon. Maybe that explains your… tantrum." Severus smirked with an insolence he didn't really feel, crossing his arms over his chest to ward off a sudden shudder.
"My outburst stems solely from the fact that you're still the same emotionless git you were twenty years ago," Remus said quietly, his eyes fixed on Severus's dark ones.
"Why display my emotions like an exhibitionist when you seem to possess and exhibit enough for the both of us?" Severus asked, advancing. His eyes narrow, he lowered his voice to a hiss. "You don't know her, Lupin."
"And you don't own her, Snape," Remus retorted, sweeping a hand through his shock of streaked hair. Watching his adversary smile smugly at the statement, knowing Snape was simply provoking him out of perverseness, Remus let out a small noise that was very close to being a growl. "Your arrogance sickens me."
"And your ignorance never fails to stun me," Severus said. Emotionless? Hardly. Emotions were tumbling over and all through him, none of which he would—or could—hold onto.
Hate me if you must, as long as you stay away from me.
Shaking imperceptibly, he turned and clattered down the stairs to the dungeons.
In the darkened hallway beyond, three Gryffindors regarded each other with wide eyes.