A/N: Here is the first half of the concluding segment of "Casting Off Shadows". The second half is written and will be posted soon. And what happened to my reviews??? I feel unloved.
Seriously though, J.K. Rowling owns the characters, and they own my heart and imagination. This is RL/SS SLASH and is rated R for sexuality, violence, and language.
Part Two
"I'm glad to see that some things have not changed in my absence. Still utterly incompetent. 20 points from Gryffindor, Potter, and you will stay and clean up this mess. Everyone else, get out."
Severus and Remus had returned to Hogwarts that morning and, after a brief meeting with Dumbledore, a thinly disguised attempt to assess his sanity, he had resumed his classes. It had been a quiet day, and not only because he couldn't muster enough indignation and frustration to scare the whelps out of their wits. He was sure, however, that it would come after a few more sessions with the Potter boy. It was a miracle that he had passed his O.W.L in Potions, or a curse rather. Severus had to admit that he had improved over the years, but he was still capable of destroying cauldrons when hard pressed. At least Longbottom was out of his hair, something Severus was extremely grateful for. And Potter, for all his bravado, had undoubtedly matured these last few years following the death of Black.
Once Potter was done rectifying the havoc he'd caused, Severus dismissed him, along with all thoughts about work, and retreated to his rooms. Throwing himself onto his couch, he tried not to think about the light and warmth of the island, tried not to think about things that were now out of his reach. But that left him with what he did have, which was the prospect of returning to Voldemort and more torture, and he wasn't ready. He knew he wasn't ready. He had nothing to give the bastard anymore. He was useless. One more failure, and he was dead. He knew it, but that wouldn't keep him from going when called. As long as Dumbledore expected it from him, he'd always go. It didn't matter that he now had something to lose.
Severus remained where he was for hours, not caring enough to go to the Great Hall for dinner. As he'd expected, there was soon a knock on his door. Remus, bringing him sustenance.
"How were your classes?" Remus asked, setting the plate on the coffee table and sitting beside him.
"Tolerable. The students were obviously disappointed to see me back. It's comforting that the hate is such a constant," Severus answered lightly, picking at the food before him.
"Stop being maudlin and eat your food," Remus laughed, trailing his hand over Severus's back. Severus tried, half-successfully, to repress his urge to pull away, or shudder, at the contact. It was something he would have to become acclimated to, this casual touch. Among other things.
"What did Albus say?" Severus asked later.
"Very little," Remus sighed. "He expressed his concern for you, and asked for my assessment of your fitness to return to your duties."
"Which duties?" Severus sneered.
"You know which duties," Remus answered calmly.
"And what did you tell him?"
"I told him that I wasn't prepared to answer."
"Why?" Severus asked, genuinely uncertain about Remus's motivation.
"Because…because there was no way to answer that question without…hurting you," Remus answered, his anger and frustration fading to embarrassment and impotence within the span of one sentence.
"It's not your job to protect me from my life," Severus answered slowly, through gritted teeth. It wouldn't do to yell at the man for his concern, even if that was his first instinct.
"I can't help but try," Remus whispered.
"Did you tell him about our…arrangement?" Severus asked, shying away from calling whatever this thing was between them a "relationship".
"No, but I'm sure he'll find out, if he doesn't know already," Remus groused. And then, "When do you think you'll be summoned?"
"Tonight, most likely. He knows I'm back," Severus sighed, rubbing his eyes and leaning back against Remus's arm.
"What will you tell him?"
"The truth where I can. He'll know that you came with me and lying about your reasons would be futile. You were my chaperone. I'll leave it at that, and hope it's enough."
"Yes, but what will you tell him? You have to give him something."
"No, he won't really expect me to have anything for him, when I've been away. If he asks, it'll only be a pretense for whatever he plans to do to me."
They were quiet for some time, looking into the fire, waiting, for different things. Remus was waiting for Severus to be summoned, and Severus, he was waiting for Remus to ask the question. To ask him to stay.
"Severus…" Remus began, and as much as Severus wished he could hear it out and do the logical thing, as was his custom, in this, there was no logic. Only what was right.
"Don't ask, Remus," he warned wearily. "Save us both the pain, and don't ask."
"Fine. Fine. Do you want me to…wait with you?" Remus asked, his voice so innocently hopeful that it drew Severus closer, laying his head on the man's broad chest.
"As long as you keep your mouth shut when the time comes," Severus casually answered, not caring that his movement belied his emotion.
"What, no tearful goodbyes and declarations of love?" Remus laughed softly. "No wishes of luck?" His muscles were taught, practically jumping with tension, and the hand slowly rubbing Severus's upper arm was trembling, slightly, but it was there.
"Perish the thought," Severus answered lightly.
They sat there quietly with each other, and when Severus's arm burned and he hissed from the pain, Remus only saw him to the door, squeezed his hand, stared at him with such intensity as betrayed all the pain and love and fear and regret he'd ever felt in his entire life, and walked away first, so he wouldn't have to watch Severus leave. It was what Severus had wanted, but he couldn't help but hate the man for being able to pull it off.
Severus did not come home broken that night. He was not beaten, not raped. In fact, he'd been largely ignored throughout the brief meeting, a mark of his uselessness. In his younger days, he may have been offended by the snub. He was now, in effect, a junior Death Eater, a warm body that could be useful in a battle, but of no tactical advantage. Severus would not have credited Voldemort with the patience, or common sense, to spare him for the "greater good of pure-blooded superiority", but the fact remained that Severus returned to Hogwarts that night without a scratch on him. It was a trend that continued for two months, with the exception of a few rounds with Crucio when plans fell through, when victories were too small, and when Severus had been unable to address a rumor that someone had broken through Hogwarts' wards, a possibility that Severus found laughably improbable. It would take a wizard as powerful as Albus Dumbledore himself to get through those wards.
That night, when Severus returned to his rooms and summoned Remus to show him that he was relatively unscathed and to tell him what he'd learned, he was met with a fierce anger, not directed at him, and unbridled passion, which, thankfully, was. The two men had continued their arrangement all this time, and it was undoubtedly a relationship at this point, though both had been wary of defining it as such. Severus was uncertain of the course of Remus's hesitation to make sentimental declarations, remembering that he'd been the first, years ago, to tell Severus that he loved him. For his part, Severus viewed it as a matter of pride, as if admitting to loving the man, which he unquestionably did, was to admit a crippling weakness. The part of himself that harbored delusions of being a good man was convinced that he was keeping Remus safe from outside influences that might seek to use him as a vulnerability to a generally stoic man. But in truth, Severus was simply telling himself that he was not in love to save himself the pain when it all ended.
These were not comforting thoughts, but the feel of Remus trying to catch his breath, and the feel of his sweat-slicked hand rubbing circles in his back, as they lay in his bed that night, were more than enough to put him at ease. Until Remus had to open his mouth and spoil the whole thing.
"It can't be just sex between us," he practically growled, something he'd been doing all night, since he'd heard about Voldemort questioning the security of Hogwarts' wards. Severus had known immediately that Remus was hiding something, and he briefly remembered the night at the light house, the memory charm, but, as was the point with memory charms, there was nothing to remember. Still, he had been surprised by the urgency with which Remus had taken him that night, and even more surprised that Remus was now calling for something more than sex, when what they'd just done to each other had little to do with emotions, only a fierce, near-violent need to hold on to each other and come.
"There's a past here, issues we both have with each other," Remus continued and, when he felt Severus stiffen with tension, he added, "You don't trust me."
"No, and you don't like me," Severus sneered, pushing himself away from Remus. He'd be damned if he'd have this conversation while cuddling.
"That's not true and you know it," Remus said calmly, but Severus didn't have to be skilled in Legilimency to see that the man was raging inside, and he couldn't help but smirk at that.
"Fine. I'm too tired to argue," Severus answered curtly. It was the truth, but still, he felt as if he was backing down from a challenge, something he tried never to do. "What is your issue with me?"
"That…that you might not be enough," Remus answered, begging Severus with his eyes to understand. It was a futile hope.
"I'm not demanding monogamy here, Lupin," Severus sneered. "If you need to fuck someone else on the side…"
"Severus, stop assuming the worst of me, and twisting my words when you know god damn well that I…listen, when you think of me, what comes to mind?"
"I don't know what you mean," Severus answered.
"Just…do you look at me and see…a werewolf? The bastard that took a job you wanted? The dissembling idiot that always gets away with things? The 15-year-old shit that broke your heart? What do you see?" Remus asked desperately.
"Everything. All of it, and…I see you, Remus. I do. Only, the rest of it is there as well, and nothing you do will change that."
Remus looked at him for a heartbeat, taking in this honesty and openness that was always hard-earned from this man. It made him tired, fighting for it all these months. But Remus looked at him, and knew it was worth it. Severus was worth almost everything. "Well, I'm glad I suppose, because it's all true, isn't it? And I'm happy to be all of it, all of me. For you. But you…will you ever be so whole, for me?" Remus asked softly. This was what it came to, really. How much they were willing to give. It's what it always came to, for them both.
"I…" Severus began, but Remus didn't have the strength to hear what would follow. He'd seen Severus's eyes shutter, and his Gryffindor courage failed him, as it often did when it came to this man, and he interrupted his lover before anything could be said that would take something away from him that he needed more and more every day.
"I'm sorry," he said, quickly. "It's too much to ask, when you…when you've been hiding various parts of yourself half of your life, but…" And then his strength came back to him, as he realized how important it was to him. How important Severus was to him. "Severus, it's what I need. Everything I need…it's in you."
"How can you be so sure?" Severus asked, damning his voice for not being derisive or cruel, when he thought Remus was being incredibly naïve and sentimental. But his voice betrayed him, and his question sounded so scared, so pleading. So needful.
"Look at us. For fuck's sake, just look! We have quiet mornings, tea and scones and warmth, and talk of all things. We have openness, or what passes for it in our circumstances. We have space. We are separate, you know me, you…you make me want…you make me want. Christ, I want to be encompassed by you half the time. And, you make me want to cry and scream and decimate your enemies and…all of this, I want it to last longer. I want to be with you."
Severus knew. And he believed that Remus believed it. He just couldn't accept that it was true. These things, these emotions…they shouldn't involve him. Not him. "Will you?" he asked. His voice hard. "When I come home to you reeking of blood and someone else's cum, will you want that? Will you want the bereavement, the mourning that will probably come, sooner than later? You can't protect me, Remus. And I…I can't protect you."
"You don't need to," Remus answered, rolling over and pulling Severus to him, pleading. "You do enough. Everything could go to hell in a heartbeat, in these dark days. But I don't want to wait."
"Because I might not be there?" Severus asked, his sneer lost for the fact the Remus's face was buried in his neck.
"Yes. And I might not be, either."
"You'll tear me apart in the end, Lupin. You know that, don't you?"
"I won't."
"You will. Repeatedly, I'm betting."
@@@
"Ow," he moaned blandly, as if he hadn't 3 broken ribs, a fractured wrist, broken jaw and so many bruises and scrapes that he was sure to piss blood for a week. "Fuck fuck fuck," he hissed, and then cried. It was a kind of semi-hysterical sobbing that Severus recognized but found hard to place. It wasn't pleading. It wasn't fear. It was…grief. Remus was lying there on the floor, where Severus had put him, curled into himself, crying as if…as if the love of his life had just died before his eyes and he had been powerless to stop it.
"I've never -," Severus began, looking at his bleeding knuckles, but then stopped himself before he hurt the man even more. What could he say? That he'd never hit anyone before? That wasn't true. It was rare, he conceded, for him to resort to physical violence, but it had happened on occasion, such as the first time they'd made love as adults. And qualifying it to, "I've never hit anyone I love before," was equally ridiculous, because who did? And he couldn't say he didn't mean it, and "I'm sorry," was so laughably inadequate, and the whole situation, his whole being, was so revolting that Severus followed his baser instincts once more. He ran.
When he forced himself to stop, Severus was thankful to find himself in his own rooms. He could have easily ended up in the middle of the Quidditch pitch, for all he was aware in his retreat. The rooms felt abandoned, and very cold. He'd taken to sleeping in Remus's quarters these last few weeks, trusting his Slytherins to behave themselves and govern their own, just as they always did when sequestered from outside influences. Lighting some candles, but not the fire, he sat on his sofa and tried to remember what had just happened that had resulted in him beating the shit out of Remus Lupin.
Severus had come to Remus that night, fresh from a Death Eater meeting, fresh from the first rape since that night that had sent Severus flailing madly into Remus's all-too-accepting arms. He'd come home to Remus so tired and sore and…numb, too, just a little bit numb, and wild, that he'd been desperate for something, anything with substance, and Remus was there, and Severus latched on to him like a drowning man to a…like a lost vessel to a light house.
"Severus," Remus had said softly, his voice breaking with sadness, and a little rage at the sight of him so obviously broke open. "I don't think we should…Severus, we should take care of these wounds, and let you rest."
But Severus hadn't accepted that, and he'd pushed and pushed and practically yelled at Remus to get on all fours and let him fuck him, and he knew that Lupin was hard, and he knew that he was crying, but he pushed him onto their bed and started tearing at the werewolf's clothes and ignored the whispers of, "Stop, no, stop," and was almost there when Remus rolled out from under him.
"We can't," he gasped. "I mean, God, Severus, you still smell like someone else's -."
And that's when Severus beat the shit out of Remus Lupin, before running away. He felt, as he sat there in his dungeon rooms, that he should be crying, like he'd left Remus crying. But he was too empty for it, too drained. Looking about his rooms, he deliberately sought out reminders of Remus, little pieces of the man's life that had generously settled in these hostile waters. A spare set of reading glasses. A copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. And that damned Penseive. "A vault for good times," Remus had said, suggesting that Severus pour his meager, but not insignificant, collection of "happy memories" into it, to sustain him in his darkest hours. Why not? Severus asked himself, standing to walk towards it. What better way to torture himself than to live in a memory of something he'd never have again, not after what he'd just done.
Once the swirling stopped and Severus felt his feet firm on the ground, less like clay but now uncomfortable like steel, or silver, Severus retreated to the corner of this remembered room, Remus's room in the sunlight. The two of them were in bed, late Sunday morning, smiling and holding each other, even as they held their own copies of the Daily Prophet. Laughing about some story, Remus suddenly stopped, took off his glasses, tore Severus's paper from his hands and pulled him closer.
"Why is it you haven't asked what I've done with my life, all those years we were strangers?" he asked.
"Lupin, I'm in the intelligence business. You'd be surprised about how much I know about you."
"What, you've been spying on me?" he laughed.
"Keeping tabs, more like. And not just on you. It was obvious to everyone with half a brain that the Dark Lord would not remain incorporeal forever."
"Of course."
"You don't believe me?"
"Well, I didn't – ."
"Then how do I know that you spent a night in a jail cell in Alaska some years ago?" Severus asked with a smirk.
"You – ha! I bet you got a kick out of that."
"Indeed."
"Still, do you know what I was in for?"
"Something mundane, I'd imagine. You put on an incredibly docile front, don't you? What was it, some civil protest carried to far?"
"Hardly," Remus snorted.
"Fine. Maraudering then. Vandalism?"
"Not even close. One more chance, and then you must forfeit your air of intellectual superiority for one whole day. Any longer than that, I'm afraid you'd shrivel up into a prune."
"Deal. I have it. Public drunkenness."
"Wrong! I can't believe it! I've bested Severus Snape! Hail hail the conquering hero, and give me a kiss," he grinned.
"Don't be absurd. What were you in for?"
"Prostitution."
"What?!"
"Oh, don't worry, it was a misunderstanding that was cleared up within minutes, but it was a small town, cold night, and they let me stay in the cell."
"In that case, the wager was hardly fair. I was trying to deduce crimes that you might actually have committed."
"And you didn't put murder on the top of your list? I'm touched."
"Now for that comment, you deserve your kiss."
Severus pulled himself away from the scene then, not willing to watch as he and Remus made love. Even he had his limits. Returning to his rooms, he saw that it was almost dawn, and that he'd spent hours in his memory, hours living a moment that, in reality, was all to brief. He thought about the accelerated rate of decay for beautiful things, and then he bent over and vomited, not even trying to make it to his washroom. Sitting there, reluctantly trying to catch his breath, leaving the stench in the air for the hope that he'd just stop breathing, he remembered the first time he'd hit Remus, how he'd gone into shock, replaying every bad thing that had been done to him his whole life. He didn't have that luxury now. Now, he was painfully lucid, and very much aware that he was the cause of this pain. That it wasn't a new sensation was of little comfort.
Cleaning himself up and dressing for a new day, he spent his free hour before breakfast cataloging his personal stock of potions. Specifically, his medicinal potions. The least foul, least painful cures for broken bones, torn ligaments, scrapes and bruises. He looked at his collection of calming potions (he was forcing himself to acknowledge that fact that he'd nearly raped his lover last night), and of refreshers, for the red eyes that came with crying. He wondered if he'd knocked any of Remus's teeth loose. Or if he'd hit hard enough to cause internal hemorrhaging. Betting that he did, he set those potions aside as well. Finally, with nearly a dozen vials shrunk and stowed away in the pockets of his robes, he headed towards Remus's rooms, praying that he was still there, but hoping that he wasn't.
There was no answer at the door, so Severus let himself in. He heard running water. Remus, in the shower. Moving silently towards the desk, stopping to briefly stare at the stain of blood on the rug, he enlarged the vials and left them with a brief note on dosage. He tried to think of something else to write. In the end, he couldn't even sign, "With Love." So he left off his name, and left the room before Remus could find him there, so plainly lost for words.
Gryffindor paid dearly with house points for his sins that day. After his morning classes, Dumbledore sent word, asking him to cover for that afternoon's Defense Against the Dark Arts course. Remus had not been at meals all day, and Severus had assumed that it was only to avoid him, but now he was worried that he'd hurt the man more seriously than he'd realized. Suppressing a need to see Remus, to make sure he was all right, all the while knowing that he had no right to be concerned, Severus made it through the rest of the day by deducting house points left and right, and assigning detentions when a student dared complain. It wasn't enough, of course. Nothing would be enough. But it was all he had at the moment.
When the day was done, it found Severus alone in his rooms again, wondering if he should seek Remus out, or if it was more prudent to let the man come to him. He tried to remember how he felt, when he was broken. It happened often enough, but Severus couldn't decide. Humiliation, that was there, but also a need for comfort. Severus often needed…Albus. No matter how manipulative the man was, he had an amazing capacity to make one feel better, loved even, simply by flashing that damn twinkling smile in a moment of vulnerability. But Remus would never go to Dumbledore, that much Severus knew. He didn't pretend to understand the relationship between the two men. Like Severus, Remus owed a lot to Dumbledore for the faith placed in him when everyone else would ostracize him. And, like Severus, sometimes that faith was tested, and almost proved misplaced. But where Severus would kill himself over and over again to please the Headmaster, to prove himself worthy, Remus considered all debts paid, especially after Black's death. No, Remus would never go to Dumbledore. And he wouldn't go to Poppy to be healed, so he must have taken Severus's potions. He wondered if the pretext of retrieving his vials was enough to gain him an audience with Remus, but ultimately decided against it. When he slept that night, he dreamed of tanned, slightly scarred skin, and of a cry so heart-rending that he woke up in tears.
