Silver whips of liquid framed a perfect image of horror.
Maybe no one saw it as he could... no, it would be impossible for them to. Impossible for them to notice how it wasn't only his skin that had become wan and ailing, but something far deeper. Impractical for them to care that it was not only his face that had become hollow and sunken, but that the void was clear in his voice and strained smiles as well.
To plain vision it was only the countless patchwork of outer scars that marred him.... while it was the inward wounds that time had turned its back on that were still busy hurting.
"Sirius... gone and left me again?" It came out nearly a whisper, a painful hiss in the back of his throat. A sound he didn't recognize. ...He didn't recognize anything anymore.
Staring down into a small basin of molten water, his pensive as it were, Remus Lupin could only gape in wonder at the reflection it gave him. His image had never been quite right... not since that night long ago when an accusatory finger broke his world into a thousand unmendable pieces.
"Not since Lily and James were sent to heaven... and you were bound for hell."
He could still recall it. Sitting alone, walled in the hearth of useless wood that shook around him like thunder whenever the wind blew. Tea had been on, herbal, a sweet remedy for an aching soul. The lamps had been lit against the darkening sky, so the place looked brilliant enough. Like a little fire he could hide within until the storm had blown over.
But it had only grown worse.
He could never forgive the man he admired so much... could never get that picture of Dumbledor out of his mind- strikingly calm, sickeningly so as those words struck the air and hung there like a terrible portrait. He'd painted those words on his memory. And now he wanted only to get rid of them...
'Remus... Lily and James were found out. Sirius is a Death Eater.... And will be hunted for his betrayal. Peter is gone. All is lost. ...I'm sorry.'
I'm sorry...? That was all? Your world, your hope, it's gone, been stolen from you- I'm sorry? How did 'I'm sorry' make anything better!
"You didn't sound sorry-" That weak voice shook with a sudden surge of emotion. "You didn't sound sorry!"
The pensive murmured and swirled as a few salty liquid drops fell into its depths, staining old memories with new tears. That was what his life could be summed up into... he could write his history in tears, simply because there were always fresh ones to be shed.
"Wallowing in self-pity as usual, Lupin?" The drawl, loose and offending, would catch Remus off guard, tearing him out of his vague mental world to look towards the door.
This was Sirius' old house. The meeting place for The Order. Ironic, almost, that while old Padfoot the blood traitor was lost, in his place now stood Severus Snape, glowing like a trophy in this house of his worst memories.
This entire reeking house was a pensive.
"I was simply enjoying a moment alone, Severus." Came the response, a hand going up to put an end to that welling in his eyes, to push back the pain for a while.
"Oh, please." Pushing up off the door frame, arms folded, familiar scowl set in place, the brooding man would enter the room, unphased by Lupin's acting. All he needed were eyes to see past it. "All you have is 'alone time', Lupin."
"Come to keep me company then?" A frail, mocking smile was managed. He'd meant it to sound cheerful, and instead it came out... bitter.
Snape shot him a look. A glare that rolled on, swept over him, and became something more amused then livid. "Yes. ...Come to keep our lovely house pet company. To see that the werewolf doesn't do something idiotic, as he is so prone."
Severus' voice stank of triumph. "You see, Lupin- the headmaster is slightly worried. Doesn't trust you to your own sanity. Thinks you might try something.... Oh, suicidal?" Lupin grimaced. That glower on Snape's lips twisted into a laughing smirk. Once again he would continue to pace towards his prey. "Let's see now.... What could he mean, do you think?"
"No idea." Remus replied quickly, standing his ground as his 'companion' came closer... close enough to smell him, actually. "You know, Severus, there are showers here. I could show you to one if you can't manage on your own."
The look in Severus' eye was momentarily thrown off before it just became more feral at the insult. He'd be face to face with Lupin now, fingers crawling over to the rim of the pensive bowl, hand clasping against the cool marble as if he were to strangle it.
"...Trying to change the subject, Moony?" He hissed, spitting out the nickname that sounded less then foreign on his tongue. "Oh, yes, yes.... What IS it the headmaster could have been worrying about? As opposed to what we all would like, I doubt the werewolf is going to hang himself... obviously too much of a coward, or he would have done it long ago. The first time he realized Sirius Black wasn't coming back to lick his wounds."
Something in Lupin hardened; darkened. "Interesting analysis. But one problem. He did come back."
Snape just smiled, a pleased look unfitting on a face that was so used to the gloom of its personality. "But he won't now, will he? Dead for good, this time, isn't he? Though I will say I am sorry... he deserved a death far more painful then anything a drapery could have done." He shrugged silkily. "But it'll do."
"Is there a point to this.... interesting visit Severus, or are you just here to gloat over the fact that a man better then you'll ever be has passed on?" Lupin was suddenly tired of all of it... the whole lot. Eyes trailed over to the pensive... to where Snape was holding it.
Following Lupin's gaze, a thumb would run over the smooth lip of the bowl, almost as if to caress it. "Unfortunately.... You need a baby sitter. So you don't do anything... less then brilliant."
"Careful wording there, Severus. If Dumbledor really does expect me to commit a murder, tell him it won't be on myself. It'll be on Peter... or-"
"Bellatrix Black?" Snape mused. "No, Lupin. That doesn't fool anyone. The calm before the storm. How you didn't shed a single tear when Black was killed... how you didn't do any of that awful girly whimpering, and how you didn't stiff out any of the self-pity people were just wild to offer to the poor animal who'd lost his 'friend'. Boo-hoo. Well... now here you are. Alone. Does it feel good, Lupin? All warm and fuzzy now that you get to spend your nights without a companion by your side but instead looking out the window- company of the moon now, are you? That's how it goes, I suppose." He sounded so smug, so proud... "Wolves mate for life, I heard. Is that true? ...Wait, look who I'm asking. Nevermind."
"That was a long time ago..." Remus breathed the words. This was all becoming ethereal for him. With every word Snape spoke he felt more light headed. He felt the truth sink in more. Sirius. Was. Gone.
"Ah, but you remember it, don't you?" A tutting laugh here.
Remus gulped back. "For the last time Snape.... I said a million fold I am fine. I am dealing with it. Why-"
"Why?" The dark man suddenly sneered behind his sheath of greasy hair. "Why? So you don't surrender to yourself. So we don't find you cut up like a fillet on the floor. So we don't find you swallowing silver. So you don't go insane!"
"I AM PERFECTLY SANE!"
"SO YOU DON'T MURDER YOURSELF BY TRAPPING YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS INSIDE OF A PENSIVE!"
There was a loud crash and then silence.
The pensive had been tipped over, the ceramic bowl hitting the floor with a shuddering cry, its liquid frothing over the old wood, and the broken shards of its face laying in a look of final terror upon the flooring.
After a long moment, Lupin found his voice. Breathless as it was.
"How did you-?"
"How did I know?" Snape was suddenly very calm, all the malice drained out in a rare moment of something like sympathy... a moment where, perhaps, he was able to relate. "Because you have no hope. Nothing left but grief and the memories of a time when there was none. You aren't fooling anyone Lupin. But it was a creative idea, really... drain your memories out one by one into the pensive, leaving only the instructions in your head to keep removing them. Take them all out until you existed only in that hole of water, where no one could revive you. Turn your body into a shell..."
"Dumbledor didn't send you."
Severus shook his head slowly. "No.... Dumbledor didn't send me."
"Then why? Why do you care?"
They were suddenly staring at each other. Why did Snape care...? How could Remus ask that question. A heartless question. ...Lupin was one of few left who had ever seen Severus in a good light, one of the only ones Severus had ever spoken to with something kinder then malice. ...As long ago as that might have been, it had happened. If Lupin died, so did that small proof that some part of Snape was really human. Could laugh. ...No, he couldn't let history forget that. Even if he himself was forgetting it.
"A stupid question, Remus."
Watching him for another moment, the weary man simply shut his eyes. "I see." ...Severus hadn't called him Remus for a very, very long time. ...But he could remember the first time. "You're right... perhaps you should stay with me. Just for right now." He sighed. "Just until I can be sure of it all again."
"Just so you can sniff out something to cling to? Fine. I was planning on it anyway. Even if the rest of the world could do without a bloody werewolf, 'the boy who lived' needs you... apparently."
"Yes, yes. ...Harry." For once... he wasn't interested in the boy's pain. He was being selfish. He needed to find something to avert his consciousness from his own sorrow if his sanity was to hang on. "Do you remember, Severus- when I first met you?"
"Hmm?" When Remus opened his eyes again, Snape was seated across the room, that scowl having returned.
"When we met. On-"
"Of course I remember." He snapped.
"Oh..." Remus seemed almost disappointed.
Rolling his eyes, Snape made a fervent gesture with his hand, somewhat frustrated. "Like a puppy being scolded... pathetic." He muttered. "If you need to tell a story, tell it, don't mind my disinterest. You never used to."
There would be a soft laugh, a familiar laugh, as Remus seated himself as well, in place of where the pensive once stood. "Still excitable, I see..."