As ever, standard disclaimers apply.
"Come along, Severus, stand up now." Remus patiently coaxed as he tugged the Potions Master's arms forward. "Look here. Hiding isn't the answer, you know that. It's high time you came down to breakfast." He wasn't actually sure the other wizard heard him for all the lack of response he was getting. Snape didn't bother to look at him much less pull away from the manhandling. "Severus--"
"No." The low baritone rasped faintly.
"Severus? So you are in there," the werewolf replied with false cheer.
"No. Go away."
"I think not, old boy. Come along, stand up now, I'll steady you."
"No."
"You need to regain your strength; you need some breakfast."
"No."
Remus sighed loudly with frustration. "This is getting quite old, Severus. Now, you've really no choice in the matter. You will come down or you shan't eat."
That resulted in no response whatsoever and Remus sighed again adding a short growl for emphasis.
"Listen Severus, Moody had no right to say what he did and the rest of us don't believe you are a killer of children."
"I do not remember."
"You don't need to."
The dark eyes looked up then, their fathomless depths full of disagreeing despair. "I do."
"Well you won't if you starve yourself, will you!"
"I do not want to know."
"You just said--"
"Need to know, do not want to," came a retort that was only a faint shadow of the spy's former acerbity. "Go away," was pleaded with a quiet and desperately sincere moan.
"Damn it Snape, stop being such a git and cooperate for a change!" Remus decided a little rough irritation might do what gentle entreaties wouldn't.
For a moment it appeared this tactic was not going to prove any more successful than the other. But at last Snape's low sigh of exhausted surrender let him know he'd won. Oddly, the achievement didn't make him feel any more at ease with his harshness. At least this time when he tugged at Snape's arms, the other wizard responded with some effort, albeit unsteady, to rise up with the pull. "Well done, Severus," he praised the other wizard encouragingly.
"Go away," came the half-hearted plea one last time.
"No. We're going down to the kitchen." Remus grabbed the dark dressing gown draped over the back of the chair and, one handed, pulled it around the other wizard's shoulders. "One step at a time. No hurry now." He wheedled.
The journey downstairs was fraught with adventure as the pair traversed the stairs with the same difficulty mountain climbers generally have with the escarpments they scale. By the time they reached the front hall Snape was breathing erratically and weaving dangerously and it was only by Lupin's efforts that he did not simply fall over.
Three teens ran down the stairs, laughing and yelling only to pause hesitantly behind them in sudden silence. Ginny reacted first. "Good-"
The Portrait was a close second. Traitors! Blood traitors! Get out! Filthy rotten murdering traitors!
Snape collapsed against Lupin with a groan, his face screwed in agony.
"Shut it, you old dead hag!" Ginny pushed past them, running up to the painting and smacking its frame hard. "You are a mean, nasty painting and if you don't shut it I shall rip your canvas out of your frame and burn you!"
"You can't, you little traitor! Just go ahead and try!"
At this all the other paintings starting yelling as well. Ron and Harry exchanged matching grimaces and clapped their hands over their ears. Remus could only wince at the shouting, he had his hands full trying to keep Snape from sinking to the floor, and Snape himself was muttering 'child killer' over and over.
Molly Weasley stomped into this cacophony and right up to the portrait of Mrs Black. "Madame, the only despicable one here is you and I am telling you now that your days are numbered! My boys, Fred and George Weasley, are right now finishing up something that will have you off this wall and in the dustbin where you belong."
The painting went silent and closely after the others followed suit.
"Your time here is limited. If you do not behave, out you go. This applies to all of you paintings." She spun about and looked at Ginny and the boys, all staring at her open-mouthed. "Children, there's a nice breakfast waiting downstairs." She smiled as the three scrambled for the kitchen.
There was, after that, a loud silence broken only by Severus' whispery mutterings. Molly turned to the pair of adult wizards. Snape's head lolled against Remus' shoulder. "Molly, I don't think we are going to be able to make it. He's all done in."
The matronly witch came up and peered into the two distraught faces, her hands on her hips. She pressed her mouth into a thin lipped glare of determination and pulled out her wand, pointing it at the dark haired potions expert intoning a soft, "Mobilicorpus."
Remus felt the weight lift away from him as the witch guided the now almost incognizant wizard toward the basement stairs. "You don't give up easily, do you?" he mused with a small smile.
"Remus Lupin, are you joking? I don't give up at all. I've raised seven sons and a daughter." She continued directing her charge down the stairs and over to an empty seat at the table. "And then there is Arthur," she murmured to herself with a faint, fond smile.
Remus hurried after and took over settling the other wizard into the chair while she went see to dishing out some breakfast. "Perhaps it is too soon." He said, holding the again unresponsive Snape in place.
"He can't afford to wait." Molly responded at once without turning away from the stove. "We would lose him if we waited."
"He has no strength. The blasted painting set him off!"
"I was not joking when I threatened that miserable creation with Fred and George. If we let him sink back, he is lost."
Ron almost giggled but he sputtered instead. "Oi, he's staring at Harry."
Lupin looked down. Indeed, the Potions Master's dark eyes, half hidden behind the ever present veil of black hair, were homed in on the bespectacled youth across the table from him. "Severus?"
"James Potter." One could hear the loathing even as flat as the voice was.
"Erm, no. That's Harry, Severus. Harry not James."
The answer was a frown of uncertainty behind the curtain of black, slowly replaced by a blossoming expression of vague comprehension. And then a sigh and the last expression dissolved into something forlorn and resigned.
For his own part, Harry was obviously first confused then angry. But a look from Mrs Weasley kept him from shouting out anything (whether or not he'd regret it later).
"Now, Severus," that good woman deftly moved the conversation along another path, "What would you like to have for breakfast?"
"Tea."
"To eat, dear."
There was a long silence.
"Severus?" Remus prodded.
"Would you like some eggs?" Molly made a specific offer.
"I do not remember." The answer finally came.
"How can you not remember what you want for breakfast?" Ron blurted out unthinkingly.
Snape cringed. Mad-Eye Moody chose that moment to make an entrance. "Now that's how I like to see Death Eaters behave," he leered. "Mornin' Molly, Remus. Kids."
"Leave off, Moody," Remus ordered quietly. But the older wizard was being egged on by Ron's and Harry's sniggering and he grinned back at them.
"Tea," Snape whispered again being careful not to lift his gaze from the tabletop.
"That's fine, then. Tea. And toast, I think you will like toast. Will you try some for me?" Molly was determined to keep her voice bright but her children knew her well enough to hear the note of ire just below the surface.
"Yes."
"Good. Alastor, will you have tea?"
"I'm fine," the ex-Auror declined. "Came by to see how things are here. Where's Arthur?"
Molly finished dispensing the tea before she answered and when she did, her voice was tense with worry. "He is at the Ministry. He returned late last night and left early this morning."
"I suspect, then, that they've still not come up with anything useful." He started to swear but changed his mind just in time to avoid another Mother Weasley glare and the sounds out of his mouth were meaningless.
"Were you expecting something to be wrong here?" Molly asked in an accusing tone while she set a plate of toast in front of Snape's place. she noted he had not touched his tea and she slid the mug closer to him. Unfortunately, it seemed he was not going to move at all with Moody nearby.
"I always expect trouble everywhere, Molly Weasley, you should know that by now. So, it's just the two of you and the kids here."
"And Severus," Remus reminded him pointedly.
Moody snorted in derision. "He hardly counts now."
"Alastor," Molly's voice held a quality best described as a warning one had better heed.
"Well then, I'm off. I have errands of my own to attend to. Molly, you'd do well to keep the kids inside today." He started for the stairs, stopping just beside Snape's chair. "Azkaban is where you belong, don't forget that. I'm watching you. One wrong step and I'll deliver you there myself." He smirked with delighted satisfaction when the sound of his rough purr caused the spy to cringe even more.
Remus grabbed Moody's shoulder and jerked him away. "You're not helping anything," he hissed, his normally placid face beginning to reveal anger.
Moody only grunted and, pulling away, clumped his way upstairs and outside. He paused just beyond the threshold, casting his so called "mad" eye in all directions as he sought to uncover anyone that might be lurking about. Plenty of small animals none of which seemed to be anything suspicious. Insects a plenty. (And recalling the annoying Rita Skeeter, growled a low epithet.) A man and a woman strolling along the road, dressed in Muggle clothing, neither had a gait he knew. Still, it bothered him that he couldn't see their faces. He found small comfort in the certainty that they would not be able to tell from where he had emerged even if they bothered to look back at him. With another discontented grunt he moved to the street and crossed it. He didn't plan on disaparating until he'd followed the couple several turns and blocks and satisfied himself that they were, after all, harmless.
He didn't get that far into his plan when he did notice something jarringly out of place: a pair of Aurors in Muggle clothing standing by a Muggle newspaper kiosk. He knew these two. Old timers, a few years senior to Kingsley Shacklebolt (though several years junior to himself) but not part of the Order. He hobbled over to them and they showed a proper respect for his intelligence by not pretending surprise.
"Traverse and Nyssa Mantell," he greeted sketching a mock bow to the witch. "In costume, I see."
"Covert operation, Moody," Traverse replied curtly. "Observing."
"Anyone I know?"
"Probably," the witch mumbled.
"Mundungus Fletcher. Ministry is tired of that petty thief taking on airs. Thinking is that he's about to move up to DE activity."
Moody snorted in disbelief, "That old thief? I doubt it. He's not that much a fool. Dung looks after Dung. He's a thief not a murderer."
Traverse only shrugged. "Orders."
"They're angry because he swindled them out of a few galleons. But he did help our side."
"Yeah. Well, there you are. Politics."
"What brings you out this way?" The witch asked.
"Not much. Any word on Severus Snape?"
"The Order has him Moody, we know that. So unless you hand him over to working Aurors we can't touch him." Traverse's voice wasn't entirely free of the disgust he felt.
"Catch him out of bounds and he's yours," Moody affected a nonchalant air.
"You could cooperate."
"I won't betray Albus Dumbledore."
"Give us a hand, old man. Where is he?"
"Can't say. But you're good and Merritt is a determined bloodhound. I don't doubt you'll have him. When you do, give him a few kicks for me if I'm not around to have the pleasure myself."