Chapter 4
Severus was only half listening as McGonagall explained their detention (cleaning Dungeon Eleven with Filch). Instead he sat with his fists clenched on the arms of his chair, very aggravated indeed.
All of his work had been for nothing! He had done his best to avoid the stupid boy since Tuesday and now he'd have to spend upwards of three hours in his company! Simply put, he didn't want to spend one iota of his time with Lupin. Given the chance, he may even have skived off next period's Potions Class, had they not been finishing their Amortentia.
His Lupin-phobia had started out simple, with that odd, sugary feeling he had first experienced in the Library with Lupin the previous Saturday. But that had not been pressing; after all, it was a very new feeling to Severus to have someone to talk to, and so he had simply put that sensation down to the whole surprise of it.
The dreams were a bit harder to explain away.
He had had the first one Tuesday night, after the Potions lesson when they had first tested their spell. It had been quite short and relatively harmless, but it still worried him.
…it was the middle of potions class, but for some reason the classes were being held in the library… light was pouring in from the many stained glass windows, lighting the floor with warm patterns and making the motes of dust dance golden in the air… slughorn was writing the day's lesson on a blackboard that had magically appeared in midair against a bookcase across from the windows, and the library desks were set up in the formation usually attributed to the potions classroom.
…lupin, as per usual, was sitting next to him, his too-long honey-brown fringe falling delicately across his short eyelashes as he wrote in his notebook, glancing up at the board every now and again so that the light from the windows made his hair shine gold… severus found himself totally immersed in watching lupin's hand, curled so delicately around his battered pheasant quill…
…lupin apparently noticed, because he looked up, smiling in that way he always did: eyes warm and crinkled a little at the corners, mouth only slightly open to hide his sharp eyeteeth… am I really that interesting? he asked, still smiling… severus found it impossible to meet the glowing amber orbs and so looked at lupin's hand again. with a jolt he realized it was lightly entwined with his own…
He had been unable to shake the dream the day after. What in the world was it supposed to mean? Severus had never set much store by anything that you couldn't prove with science, but it had merited in his opinion a look-up in the Dream Oracle.
The entry that he had found read thus:
"Dreams involving homosexual themes may indicate that one is either a homosexual or is unsure about their own relations with the opposite sex." He had nearly put the book down then… and then just as quickly picked it back up and continued reading. This was much too pressing to be put off by simple embarrassment.
"It is also normal for expectant fathers to have dreams of homosexual encounters." This time he threw the book across the room and did not pick it up, as though afraid it might bite him.
Severus had deliberately avoided Lupin for the duration of classes, not wanting to embarrass himself further by remembering either the dream or the disturbing passage in the Dream Oracle. There had been a near miss in the Library, but by ducking quickly behind a shelf he was able to stay out of sight. He had been rather proud of himself when at last he was able to escape back to his dormitory: not one face-to-face Lupin encounter all day.
But, fool that he was, he figured it was a one-time occurrence and neglected to put up a protective Occlumency barrier on his mind before falling asleep. And the next dream he found a lot more worrying…
…he was somewhere dark but warm and dry, sitting on the edge of what felt like a soft feather mattress… someone was holding him against their chest and lightly stroking his hair… he felt a little dazed and tired, and he vaguely realized that his entire body was aching as though recently subjected to one of his father's beatings…unconsciously he tried to pull away from the person, a little frightened from not knowing who they were, but…
…it's okay, severus, said the person who was stroking his hair, and severus froze. gods, anyone but…
…lupin? he asked warily, pulling back a little and searching the darkness where he thought the Lupin's head must be. A pair of glowing amber and very wolfish eyes looked back at him and he shivered almost involuntarily.
…yes? came the totally unabashed reply without even a second's pause.
…severus seriously debated pushing the gryffindor away and hexing him for good measure, but to his own horror he found himself instead relaxing into the werewolf's touch… the warmth felt so nice against his bruised skin…
…see? lupin said quietly. i'll keep you safe… he pushed the curtain of waist-length black hair back from the side of severus's face that it covered, gently pressing a kiss to the slytherin's forehead, the tip of his nose, his –
Luckily he had forced himself to wake up before Lupin's mouth could do any more damage than it had already done. His first thought upon waking up had been, 'shit'. He could under no circumstances let that happen again! If these dreams kept progressing at the rate they were currently going, he and Lupin would be married in less than a week!
And so it was another forcedly Lupin-free day for Severus, and the best Occlumency he could work before he let himself fall asleep.
It hadn't had any effect whatsoever, much to his dismay. You can't stop dreams that you enjoy, no matter how little you want to admit you enjoy them.
…he had been dropped directly into the tunnel where all of this had started… the moonlight was shining from somewhere behind him, the opening in the Willow's roots that lead back to the safety of the night outside… but his feet, almost independent of his body, carried him forward instead of back to the outside, where he wanted to be. he had to bend almost double to fit in the tight tunnel, owing to his height, but eventually it began to widen and even out…
… after a few more minutes of walking he noticed a glow of light coming from somewhere up ahead… his forewarned mind was shouting, go back, you sodding fool! but his body wouldn't listen, carrying him relentlessly onward…
lupin? he called cautiously, wondering if black had been lying to him…
… a shadow leapt suddenly on the wall, gigantic, blurred with its movement… severus screamed and fell back as what he recognized instantly as a werewolf bore down on him, and he realized with a thrill of horror that there would be no potter this time to pull him to safety at the last moment, for that time had already long since passed…
… the wolf was a little larger than a normal wolf but much more feral looking. its eyes were a glowing amber just like its human counterpart's, but they held none of the warmth. the paws were graced with cruel, curved claws and the muzzle had been viciously slashed; the blood was dripping everywhere, staining the dark, honey-colored fur… its lips were pulled back in a snarl as it halted a mere few feet from him, low growls erupting from its throat… an alpha... the mild mannered, meek little Lupin was a bloody alpha...
…severus closed his eyes, fully prepared to die then… just make it quick, lupin, he thought, eyes clenching shut. i'm not really one for bleeding…
…so of course he was surprised when the hard, dirt floor of the tunnel seemed to disappear from under him and the lupine growls ceased abruptly, to be replaced with… laughter? it certainly did sound like it, but it was laughter of the like that severus had never heard before…
… cautiously opening his eyes, he saw the wolf, now sitting lazily back on its haunches in the total darkness that the tunnel had melted into and shaking with low, barking noises that were unmistakably its try at laughter. severus lay totally still, not wanted to provoke it again, and the wolf seemed to find this even funnier, for it bent its head and flicked its ears as more quick barks erupted from its open mouth…
… abruptly the form began to change, the hair receding and becoming a little lighter, the face shortening and the structure of the body itself twisting and blurring…
…i'm not going to hurt you, lupin said gently, a small smile curling his lips. severus noticed with a pang that the gash on his muzzled had melted into a slightly smaller but still very painful looking cut across the bridge of his nose and left cheek. he reached out before severus could stop him and took the taller boy by the hand, pulling him up into a standing position…
… but he miscalculated. severus was tall, but he was not weighted correspondingly, and the gryffindor accidentally pulled him too far forward… their lips brushed for just a moment…
And then he forced himself, this time a little regretfully, to wake up. Though he would never admit it to himself, he knew he had almost been enjoying that little scene, and vowed that very moment that, come hell or high water, he would not get within a ten-foot radius of the boy, so help him god.
But now that vow would apparently have to be broken.
"… and you are to report to Mr. Filch at eight o' clock sharp tomorrow in the Dungeons, do you understand?"
Severus nodded at Professor McGonagall in the present, still immersed in his musings. It was automatically that he took the shortcut to the Potions classroom; couldn't have the Half Blood Prince be late to his best subject!
Remus didn't know how he had done it, but somehow when he arrived at Slughorn's classroom Snape was already there at the usual table they now had an unspoken agreement to share. What was more, he had all of his equipment set up and his ingredients out, a beaker of Remus's potion ready on the desk, and his prominent nose already buried in a book.
"How did you do that?" Remus asked him wonderingly as he sat down and began setting up his cauldron.
"I'm reading, Lupin," was the vague response.
"Yes, but –"
"Reading."
"Yes, but – "
"What part of 'reading' do you not understand, wolf?" Snape asked more than a little sharply, turning a page with such force that it nearly ripped.
Remus fell silent, hurt. 'Wolf'. Snape had called him 'wolf', had practically thrown his defect in his face. And here he was thinking that maybe, just maybe, there had been progress. Silently he took his potion, not even thanking the other boy. There was no sign from Snape had he noticed or cared. Remus administered the Impervious variation they had created as well and got to work on the last stage of his Amortentia, not speaking and not wanting to.
A/N: I would like to thank the story 'You Give Me Heart Palpitations' for the idea of using the Dream Oracle to freak Severus out.