Chapter 2

Remus hadn't told the other Marauders what had happened that Potions lesson, though they had tried very hard to get him to explain, for, of course, they had been as worried as he was that Snape was going to spill his secret. But Remus knew that if he told them anything – anything – that had happened they would either scorn him or go and find Snape and kill him… or both.

However, the second option would probably prove harder than expected. Remus hadn't really seen Snape at all the entire past week, not even on weekends or in the free periods that the Slytherin usually spent in the library with an absurd number of books forming a sort of wall around him and filling an entire table. Occasionally they passed in the corridors, and Remus would make a move to say something, but Snape would pull his hair farther out to shadow his face and become mysteriously deaf. Remus had almost come to believe that Snape was avoiding him; he wasn't quite sure what he felt about that, though, and so didn't think on it too much.

And now it was Tuesday and time for Advanced Potions again, and Remus knew that Snape wouldn't miss it for anything. And, sure enough, he spotted the Slytherin leaning against the wall with a book, as usual, about an inch from his face. Biting his lip, because he knew he only had one chance to get Snape to talk to him simply by the element of surprise, he walked cautiously over and said,

"Hello?"

Instantly Snape's book closed with a snap and his visible eye darted up to meet Remus'. But the look he gave the Gryffindor wasn't icy and cold, as Remus remembered it; it was curious, maybe… friendly? However, Snape was unsmiling, and Remus took this as a sign that he should be guarded in what he said, so as not to upset the delicate balance that kept the two them from tearing each other's throats out like Gryffindors and Slytherins are supposed to do.

"Look, Snape, I just wanted to say that– whatever I said last lesson– look, I'm sorry if I–"

"Offended me? How is an offer of friendship to be taken as offensive, one wonders? I am not angry with you. I made you something, actually." The last sentence was very different from the first three; instead of the clipped, eloquent speech it was quiet, tacked on to the rest like a last minute addition. There was something in Snape's manner as he said it that reminded Remus forcefully of himself: shy and unsure, adding things on that weren't really meant to be heard and yet that he desperately hoped someone would.

But Remus didn't have time to comment on this, because Snape had opened his schoolbag and was rummaging through it, biting his lip as though trying to remember where he'd put whatever he had made. Then, with a small 'ah' of accomplishment, he pulled it out.

It was a small corked Erlenmeyer beaker of something that was white and milky looking. Remus cocked his head at it; it was unlike anything he'd ever seen before and, unlike any other potion, he couldn't smell it at all.

Snape smiled very slightly; so slightly that it was impossible to notice unless you had a werewolf's superior vision. "It's to dull your senses, or at the least the ones that are not vital to potion making. It lasts for one hour exactly, and it took me the entire last week to invent, so you are going to be using it whether you have misgivings or not."

Remus couldn't help it; he laughed. Then, taking the beaker from Snape and looking at it wonderingly, he said,

"You really made this? I mean, you invented this… just for me?"

Snape shrugged. "It wasn't that hard really. You just take a simple sense-enhancing potion, reverse it, make a few alterations, and you've got the basic premise. I had to make it extra-strong, however, because your senses are so much more advanced than a normal human's. If any one who is not a… is not like you are… were to drink it, they would probably lose their senses of smell and taste altogether."

"So it's just smell and taste?" said Remus as Slughorn opened the door and ushered them all inside.

"Yes. I'm sorry," Snape said, picking out a table at random and motioning for Remus to sit next to him. "I know that it stings your eyes but as yet I'm not sure how to stop that without the acids burning your eyes in the absence of the tears that flush them out. Also, it isn't really your sense of sight that is the problem, but rather your eye's sensitivity to such chemicals. If you have any suggestions…"

Remus shrugged. "Maybe we could get together and work on it… we have the same free periods except on Thursday, because you don't take N.E.W.T. Arithmancy and I don't take Relatively Advanced and Terribly Strenuous Spell Theory."

"Actually," Severus said softly, "I've decided to quit Herbology and switch into Charms; everything in Herbology that relates to my chosen career I already know and I was always abysmal at Charms anyway; I might as well try to learn now. You and I, apparently, are going to be sharing at least one more period starting this Friday."

Remus stopped for a moment, and then said seriously, "You know, I think you just did it so you'd have the resident Charms expert to help you." It was common knowledge that Remus was probably the most gifted Charms student from Gryffindor, save perhaps Lily Evans.

Snape snorted as he got out his cauldron and began to assemble the ingredients for today's potion.

"As you'll notice," Slughorn called from the front of the room, "we are making another, much simpler, love potion, one that enables the drinker to spark lust in anyone they desire. I felt that, since our Amortentia has not quite yet matured and indeed won't be ready until next lesson, it would be foolish to start yet another hard project. This should prove quite easy for you, as the very first instruction is to let the water boil for about fifteen minutes without doing anything whatsoever. Carry on!"

Remus noted that Snape had his book out but, unlike everyone else, he also had out a quill and ink.

"Why…?"

"They are there just incase I run into any lines I feel need to be changed. I have never made this before; I don't quite know how Libatius Borage has mucked up its composition just yet." Then, turning to Remus, "you might want to take that potion I made you now, before the fumes become too much for you."

"Right," Remus said, uncorking the beaker. The potion within swilled easily; it did indeed look exactly like milk. "How much?"

"The whole thing," Snape said definitively. "I have more, but I figured all I needed to bring was one dose, since double periods for this class only occur on Fridays." Seeing Remus' look of slight apprehension, he said with a wry smile, "I've invented much more complicated and potent things than this. I assure you, I know when I have created a poison rather than an antidote. It is completely safe."

Remus nodded, took a breath, and drank the entire beaker.

Severus bit his lip, watching the young werewolf apprehensively. He hadn't been able to test the potion on himself, as he usually did, and so wasn't quite sure if it worked exactly as he'd planned it to.

For a moment the Gryffindor didn't seem to have any reaction at all, and then he blanched, doubling over. Severus halfway held out his hand, as though to steady Lupin, and then he realized what he was doing and quickly withdrew it. Best not to get to friendly with the Gryffindor just yet; go too quickly and the entire thing can be turned around and aimed at you.

Lupin shook his head and color returned to his cheeks. "For a moment I felt like I was going to be sick. Was it supposed to do that?"

"No," Severus said, aggravated. "It really is a bother that I can't test it. Here; smell this." He held out a glass of the champagne he was going to use in place of the red wine, just as he'd done last lesson.

He watched as the werewolf sniffed experimentally, and then took a sip. All of a sudden a warm look of astonishment and delight spread across his soft features. He turned to look at Severus with the air of a child who had just opened the Christmas present they've been dreaming of for months. "It's perfect! I can't smell it at all and there's no taste!" He smiled gently. "Thank you. This is… it's just amazing. No one has ever done something like this for me before. Thank you."

Severus merely nodded and threw in a noncommittal "Hmm" just for good measure. Lupin took it completely in stride, however, and began to work on his potion with renewed fervor. When the lesson was over, the only person who had a better potion than the Gryffindor did was the Slytherin sitting next to him with a very small, very secret smile hidden behind his oily curtains of hair.

The next weekend, on a rather cold and overcast Saturday, Severus left the dormitory early to go the Library before it became crowded by all the other students doing last minute homework. He tried to leave without waking anyone, but was stopped at the door as something soft and furry started to curl around his ankles.

"No, Malefica, you can't come with me," he said softly, trying to shake off his cat. The solid black Bombay only mewed insolently and tried to sneak out of the dorm through his legs.

Severus bent and picked her up before she could get farther and set her back on his bed, where she lay, looking at him with huge copper eyes that clearly said, Why don't you ever take me anywhere anymore, I mean I thought we had something good together, but oh no always sneaking off now, I wonder which of the other cats it is you're seeing?

Severus laughed at the haughty expression on his cat's face; she simply turned her nose up at him and twitched her tail indifferently.

"I'll sneak you some kippers from breakfast, alright? But you know cats aren't allowed in the Library. Now be a good familiar, and please don't try to eat Donohue's toad again."

A rather aggravated 'mew' was the only reply. Severus, still chuckling, left the dorms and started to make his solitary way up towards the Library.

Upon arriving at the Library, Severus was annoyed to discover that the table that was normally his was already occupied. He had figured that at five-thirty in the morning no one else was likely to be up, much less dressed and alert enough for the studying this person obviously had planned: the entire desk was stacked with a mountain of books.

"Oh, hello!" someone said brightly from behind him. He turned to see Remus Lupin striding towards him carrying two more large dusty tomes and was quite suddenly aware that the absence of his concealing school robes over the white shirt, trousers, and green and gray Slytherin vest made him feel rather unprotected. And so he did what any good Slytherin would do: he feigned incredulity.

"Lupin, what the–"

"I know you always come here Saturday morning," Lupin said with a small smile, depositing the books on the desk and straightening up, seemingly not noticing his ersatz companion's noncompliance to the dress code A/N: I always figured that you didn't have to wear robes over your school uniform, yes I know that they don't really wear one, in my world they do. So there. But robes aren't mandatory, just so long as everything else adheres to the dress code. Robes are mandatory for really formal occasions. "Nobody in my dorm gets up this early on a weekend, so I'm free until about noon. I figured we could work on that potion."

"Mm," Severus said noncommittally, which for him meant 'okay'. Lupin, however, looked worried.

"I didn't mean to impose or anything, I just, I figured – now is the only time we're going to have to do anything together, because once the rest of the Marauders get up I won't be able to go anywhere near you without them coming along and hanging you by your ankle or something," he finished quickly, looking the pile of books instead of at Severus.

Said boy raised his eyebrow with a lopsided smile. "Did I just hear the mild-mannered werewolf being assertive?"

Lupin looked slightly taken aback, and then grinned. "Yes. Yes, I suppose you did."

"Well, now I can't refuse," Severus said sarcastically, drawing up a chair from one of the other work tables. "I'm glad I thought to bring my schoolbag." He started rummaging through it as he sat, and soon had pulled out a small black book, an equally miniature cauldron, a beaker of the white potion, a loon feather quill, and a bottle of black ink.

"You're going to have to explain the whole thing to me from the beginning, because I doubt I'll understand it if we start in the middle," Lupin prompted.

"Right…" Severus said slowly. Then, with an expression as though a light switch had just been thrown on behind his eyes, he picked up the black book and flipped through it, then lay it out on the table so that Lupin could see. "This is everything that went into it, starting at the beginning –"

"What's that?" Lupin interrupted, leaning across to point at something scribbled in the corner.

"That? Oh, that's just a spell I made up in my spare time. It glues the person's tongue to the roof of their mouth and is highly amusing. I'm actually thinking of using it on Potter when I next see him; as you can see, I've written that as a little reminder here."

Lupin was looking at him disapprovingly. Seeing the look and interpreting it for what it was, Severus said quietly, "Obviously you and I have very different opinions of James Potter. I doubt brining it up will cause anything but confrontation, however. I suggest we simply let it be, the both of us. This is after all a truce."

Lupin stared at him for a moment, and then nodded with a smile and motioned for Severus to continue explaining the potion to him.

"So…" Remus said thoughtfully about fifteen minutes later when he finally figured he understood the potion nearly as well as Snape did, "what we need is some way to make my eyes non-reactive to the acids…?"

Snape shook his head. "No. Then the chemicals would burn your eyes, because your eyes wouldn't recognize the need to flush them out. No, what we need is some way to make your eyes repel them altogether…" He looked at Remus quickly. "Maybe we don't even need to remake the potion… have you perhaps tried an Impervious charm?"

Remus shook his head ion turn. "I have, and it's a very unpleasant experience; it dried my eyes out entirely. The Impervious charm only works on water."

"So we'd have to either change the makeup of the charm…"

"…or figure out someway to work its equivalent into the potion," Remus finished.

The two them looked quickly at one another, and then looked away.

"That was very…"

"Anomalous." This time it was Snape who ended Remus' sentence. He blinked hard, and then looked at Remus, who had a similarly confused expression on his face.

"We're finishing each other's sentences," the young werewolf stated quickly, almost trying to finish the sentence before Snape could. The Slytherin nodded, looking a little nonplussed.

"I suppose I'm so unused to being around someone whose level of articulacy matches my own that I keep forgetting that I don't need to stop and try to reword my sentences to be less eloquent," Snape said thoughtfully. "And since your mental speed matches my own you naturally don't like pauses where you feel they aren't needed. You and I, if I am guessing correctly, are simply filling in the gaps in each other's sentences because our mental agility does not allow for those gaps."

Remus nodded slowly, and then smiled yet again. "It's rather nice to finally have a friend who speaks my language." Snape turned to look at him quickly, and Remus, slightly misreading the expression to mean 'language?' instead of 'friend?', elaborated: "Well, I'm always with James, and of course he only talks Lily-Quidditch talk, and Sirius speaks Girls-Dating-Hilarity, and Peter hardly speaks at all and when he does it's usually small squeaks. They're lovely, they really are, but not one of them is intellectual when you want them to be. Oh, sure, James and Sirius are the smartest Gryffindors in our year, but only when they're actually in the examination rooms."

Snape continued to look at him with a slightly puzzled expression on his face, and then he shook himself and said, "So. Back to our actual purpose. I find it much easier to change the makeup of spells than potions. Do you think you could give me a few moments?"

Remus nodded. Snape, without anymore prompting, put the potion and small cauldron back into his bag and instead pulled out something thin and rectangular, made of a hard black plastic-like substance.

"It's a laptop computer," Snape explained, flipping up the top and tapping the keyboard to start it. "Muggles won't have these for another twenty, thirty years; they are immensely slowed down by the absence of magic and anyway they were always slightly behind us where inventions are concerned. Wizards, however…" he said as he typed in the password, "… if they wire them correctly and incase the inner workings in a titanium-diamond alloy, can make and use these little beauties just about anywhere. I can even access the Ethernet with this." He looked genuinely smug about it.

Remus stared. He'd heard about laptops, but never actually seen one. "And how does this help us change the spell?"

"I," Snape said, pulling up a window, "have a program based off of the simplest Arithmancy that allows you to freely change the components of spells and see their outcomes without actually testing them. However, since you will be using the spell, not me, you will need to create an account. Fill this out, if you would."

He pushed the computer over to Remus, who looked down at the window on the screen. "How do I… put stuff in?" he asked slowly, blushing. Snape laughed, catching Remus totally off guard.

"Here, I'll type it. I forgot; when in the absence of a keyboard, one cannot easily learn to type. I need your name, age, birthday date and time both, Astrological sign, wand length, core, and wood type, and your height and weight."

"Umm…" Remus said, trying to remember all of that. "Remus Joseph Lupin, 16, September 21st at 4:27 am, Virgo, 12 and 2/3 inches, unicorn hair, willow, five foot 6 inches, 114 pounds 9 ounces," he said all in one breath, ticking them off on his fingers. "Is that it?"

"No," Snape said, still typing furiously. "Now I have to bring up the file for the spell… that's it… and… get to the bit that indicates what the spell makes one impervious to…" He was biting his lip, his lank hair flopping in his face and onto the keyboard.

Remus looked around while his companion was occupied and was surprised to find that the windows, which had been black when they had started, where now beginning to turn blue and pink and gold. The sun was rising. He stood without giving any explanation and walked over to the window, leaning on the sill and watching as, slowly, the sky grew lighter and lighter and then, like a flower suddenly bursting into bloom, that single sliver of molten gold burst over the treetops of the Forbidden Forest.

Remus smiled. He'd always had a thing for sunrises; sentimental, one would call it. But nevertheless, love them he did.

"Alright, Lupin, I think I've got it," Snape said, turning from the screen of the computer for a moment to beckon Remus over. "Try this," he said, pointing to a small window which only said,

'Impervious. Emphasis on second syllable, flick wand sharply to the left after saying the incantation. While saying, point wand at intended object.'

"Are you quite certain this is going to work?" Remus asked apprehensively, taking out his wand.

Severus nodded. "Nearly completely positive."

Lupin took a deep breath and, pointing his wand straight between his eyes, he said, "Impervious," and then gave his wand a sharp flick to the left. For a moment it looked as though he were, yet again, going to be sick, but then the color returned to his cheeks and he looked apprehensively at Severus.

"I don't think anything's wrong…" he said slowly. "How can we test if it worked, though?"

"We're simply going to have to wait until Potions next Tuesday," Severus said, very glad that all the Gryffindor could see of his face was the half not covered by his hair, as he was smiling again. Very undignified behavior for a Slytherin of his status. The Half-Blood Prince does not smile. He'd even laughed; honestly, there had to be something weird going on.

"That long?" Lupin whined almost endearingly.

"You know quite well how Madame Pince is likely to react if we took out some chemicals near her precious books. Speaking of, what are all these?" Severus asked, indicating the mountain of books Lupin had coated the table with.

"Everything on Werewolves, Potions, and Theory I could find," Lupin said with a hint of a blush. "I figured we might need them."

"You don't mind if I…?" the Slytherin said vaguely, gesturing in their general direction.

"Not at all," Lupin said quickly. Then he asked, "Would you mind if I… if I had a look at your computer? I've never been around something that… expensive. My family's rather poor, you see and we… um… we don't get much stuff like that." He was blushing furiously.

"But of course," Severus said, pushing the computer over to where Lupin was sitting. "To move the pointer, just put your finger here and move it… see?" He nearly smiled again at the look of childish delight on Lupin's face when it did indeed do just that; luckily, he could hide it behind his hair until the urge had passed. "However, you must promise to be careful. This is a prototype my mother's having me test for her."

"Oh really?" Lupin said skeptically, now curiously pressing random keys on the keyboard. "Your Mum's a tech witch?"

"Yes," said Severus, now thumbing through one of the books on werewolves (Lupus Lycanthrocpica: A Guide to Everything Werewolf). "It gets her out of the house anyway, away from my father." He chose to ignore Lupin's curious look and instead pulled the book up over his face to indicate that the subject was closed; he wasn't sure how much he wanted to tell Lupin about his home life just yet. As he returned to the book he noticed, with a certain pang unlike guilt, that most of the pictures had mustaches or derogatory language written over them. Truly, wizard-kind's treatment of werewolves had never been all that trusting or welcoming, but to think that even those who were underage were doing it, without even realizing the magnitude of what it meant to those it was aimed at… he tried not to think that not too long ago he'd been doing the exact same thing.

They were silent for a long while, until the sun was high in the windows. The only noise was the rustling of the pages of Severus' book or the occasional tap-tap-tap of Lupin's fingers on the keyboard (he was only using one or two at a time, as many people who cannot type do, looking around for a letter or number before deliberately pressing down on it). Occasionally he would lean over and ask Severus something about some program or another, and now was immersed in a game of Tetris that had been going for nearly an hour. It was amazing how fast he could press those buttons if he wanted to.

Near about eleven in the morning Lupin said, "I think James and Sirius should be up by now, and anyway I'm hungry, and it's high time for brunch." He stood, and then picked up three or four of the books and started to put them away, but Severus stopped him.

"Put them down and I'll show you another highly useful spell I made up in Potions."

Lupin did so, looking a little anticipatory. Clearly he was starting to like these little shows, these insights into things it was obvious nobody else knew.

"Restituo!" Instantly the books gathered themselves up and zoomed away to their appropriate shelves, organizing themselves quickly and neatly as though they'd never been moved. Severus smirked behind his hair. "Literally, in Latin, 'put back, restore'. That one wasn't particularly complex."

"You have to teach me all of these sometime," Lupin said. "They're really good." He smiled at Severus, just as he always did, his eyes crinkling slightly at the corners and his mouth widening, though not opening (Severus supposed this was the hide the obvious signs of lycanthopically sharp eyeteeth).

Severus looked away a little quicker than was probably polite, but there was something in that smile that had prompted a light, sugary sensation in his stomach and it had frightened him. He moved his bag onto the table, where before it couldn't have rested because of all the books. "You may leave. I prefer to stay here; it is somewhere I know that Potter and Black would never willingly come and so here at least I find myself relatively safe. Good day to you."

Lupin blinked, then shrugged and turned to leave.

Severus wasn't quite sure what had caused this abrupt change in his mood. Only moments before he'd been happy, even slightly proud. And now he'd sunk back into his usual gloomy and cynical depression. What had caused the sudden turnaround? Had it been that weird, warm feeling Lupin's smile had given him? He shook his raven hair in farther around his face and clicked the small I with a red phoenix behind it that symbolized the Ethernet on his desktop; morbidravenphennet.wiz hadn't checked his messages in far too long.

He didn't actually have and messages, save for one from his cousin Onine, who was currently in Venice for University.

Onine Prince was very much like her cousin; that is, she was tall and lanky, with inky black hair and more nose than she knew what do with. She was also a genius in the field of fashion design, something that she reminded her 'widdle Sevvykins' of in every ethermail she sent him. She had a rather evil sense of humor, and her self-declared personal quote was 'Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.' (Actual credit for that quote goes to Mel Brooks. Thanks, Mel!)

He read through her letter quickly, and then paused, his eyes widening as they flickered across the line,

'So how's the werewolf doing? I suppose it must annoy you, having to clean his fur out of your bed…'

Mental note to self, he thought, still slightly nonplussed. Remind Onine that Lupin is not my boyfriend. He read through the rest of the letter quickly, but there was no more mention of Lupin or any allusions to a relationship that thankfully didn't exist.