Snape? A quick look on his watch told Remus that it was already 8:55 p.m. He had completely lost track of time. Remus knew he must not lose himself to memory; it was a dangerous path to take. Sometimes, however, he needed it. Needed to recall the happiness he had felt, needed to feel the pain as well, just to ensure himself he was still alive.
'Could he not have stayed away? Just tonight… I thought he wouldn't come anymore, I mean… he's almost an hour late.'
He could pretend not to be at home. Just keep silent and wait until his colleague would be gone. He was not supposed to sit here and wait for Snape all evening.
'But you promised you would be there for him. And now he's here, and he wants to spend time with you. It would be unfair,' his conscience protested, and Remus knew it to be right. His sense of duty was far too large to allow him to just let Snape leave empty-handed.
"Lupin?" Snape's impatient voice insisted.
Remus dried his face and tried to put on a relaxed expression. "Yes, I'm here. Come in, please."
The portrait swung open, and Snape entered the room. "I didn't mean to be late," he stated instead of a greeting. "I have been… delayed."
"Never mind," Remus replied. "Next time, however, please send a note."
Severus felt himself go stiff.
'Yes, of course, next time I'll send a note: Excuse my being late, I'm just having a blackout, but it will be over in about 20 minutes, so please wait for me. Great idea.'
Of course he did not say such a thing but merely grunted ungraciously, sitting down in the wing chair he had come to think of as 'his'. The chessboard was standing on the table, black figures on his side of the board, white ones on Lupin's.
"Let's get started," he said, gesturing the other man to begin. His colleague nodded and told his first pawn where to move.
'He's looking even worse than usual,' Remus thought, watching Snape, who seemed to be completely absorbed in pondering the next draw. There were lines edged in his face Remus did not remember seeing in the morning. His eyes were somewhat red and swollen, too, although he had tried to hide it with a Glamour Charm.
'Has he been crying?' Remus wondered. And why did he not even seem to have the concentration to maintain a Glamour Charm? Snape was a powerful wizard, and something really grave must have happened to upset him. Otherwise he would never be that distracted.
'Certainly it's not because of the Quidditch game.' That would be far too ridiculous an explanation. Remus suppressed the urge to just ask Snape if there was anything he could do for him - of course that was not feasible at all.
'There must be something that burdens him, some kind of psychological strain. Does it have to do with his father, I wonder? Considering what he said when he was dreaming… Or is there something else as well? Albus said he was afraid that being a spy would ask too much of him. And why doesn't he want to confide in Albus? I always thought Snape trusted him, if he trusted no one else.'
Remus broke free of these musings, knowing there was nothing he could do at the moment. When he again focused on his colleague, he noticed with some surprise that he still had not made his draw but was staring fixedly into space.
What really shocked him, though, was the look in the Potions Master's eyes. Although he could not figure out what it reminded him of, he knew he had seen something like this before. The dark eyes seemed empty and callous, but at the same time there was a fire deep down inside, flickering with an intensity that almost scared him. And suddenly he knew why this was so familiar a sight.
'Sirius!'
Remus gasped for breath when he realised it to be the same expression he had so often seen in his friend's eyes after his escape.
'But… what on earth…' Remus was aghast at the implications. Sirius had been a broken man after twelve years in Azkaban, and he doubted there to be many other things similar horrible, which would have such an effect on a man.
"Er… Snape?"
The other man winced at the sound of his voice and blinked, as if awaking from a dream.
"I was wondering if there was anything I could… do for you?" Remus could no longer abstain from offering his help. He had to at least try.
"No, everything is perfectly in order," Snape responded harshly, and within seconds his face became an icy mask.
"Well, you looked… a bit vacant."
"As I said before," Snape replied in a dangerously rising voice, "there is no reason to worry. And even if there were, you may be sure I would not tell you, of all people."
This silenced Remus immediately. He swallowed every answer that occurred to him, although it was hard to ignore this slap in the face. Instead, he turned back to the chessboard.
"It's still your turn."
Severus stared at the chessboard, unable to figure out any intelligent draw.
'I was wondering if there was anything I could do for you?' The words echoed through his mind, causing him to feel alarmed. When he secretly checked on his Glamour Charm, he noticed that it was almost gone. He silently cursed himself. After using this charm for years now it should have become as natural as breathing - so how could he have been that careless? And of course the werewolf had nothing better to do than to notice his condition. Snooper. He would do better in attending his own affairs.
And yet… Severus could not help feeling… touched by Lupin's care - even though it was, of course, not really targeted at him. Lupin would try to help anyone he knew was in trouble. Bloody werewolf idealist.
Distracted by these musings and his general bad shape, Severus lost the game pathetically in less than an hour, which only added to his sulkiness. Hearing Lupin's "Checkmate!" he felt close to exploding. The frustration over the Quidditch game, having disgraced himself in chess, the previous events and his anger at himself for not being able to pull himself together were searching for a - however minimal - chance to assert themselves.
"Checkmate!" Snape's king fell down clumsily, and his crown rolled, rattling, over the chessboard. Remus had won, but somehow he could not enjoy his victory as he usually would. Snape had played light-years below his standard, making disastrous mistakes Remus would expect of a beginner, not of a skilful tactician like his opponent.
Secretly watching his colleague, Remus noticed that the Glamour charm was almost completely worn off. Dark circles were under his eyes, and he looked as if he had not slept for weeks. Remus had never seen Snape in so pitiable a condition. Despite Snape's scathing remark a little while ago, he could not prevent himself from again trying to find out what might have happened to put Snape in such a state.
"Can I ask you something?" he tried, carefully choosing a neutral tone.
"What?" came the sharp reply.
"I… couldn't help noticing that you seem rather… troubled. And I was wondering, well… certainly Slytherin's defeat in Quidditch can't be the reason, nor our game. I thought maybe -"
"Oh, thank you very much for rubbing it in!" Snape interrupted him angrily.
Remus was perplexed. "Er… sorry, but… I don't' know what you mean."
"Of course not. Butter would not melt in your mouth. That's what you Gryffindors are truly skilled in."
Remus felt a prick of anger. 'You Gryffindors'. Again. Did he never get enough of cultivating this ridiculous animosity? And 'rub it in' - Snape could not be serious. They were grown men. Did he really think Remus needed to derive self-affirmation from humiliating him?
"I don't think my house affiliation has to do anything with this. And I didn't intend to 'rub in' anything."
"You do not say. You did not intend to. Of course not. No one ever does, do they? At least not any of you oh so honourable Gryffindors!"
"Snape, what in the name of Merlin has come over you? Don't you think this is somewhat childish?" Remus was having difficulty keeping his temper by now. Snape's behaviour was just absurd.
"Childish? I think it's childish to enjoy pinpointing my and my house's deficits. But then, you and your friends did always trifle with other people's feelings, even with their lives."
"Would you please stop it!" This was going too far. Remus would not listen to any absurd accusations of him or his friends. Especially not his friends.
"Stop it?" Snape's voice was considrbly louder by now. He had jumped up and was standing beside his chair, fists clenched. "I do not think I'm going to stop it. Did you ever stop it? Did Potter ever stop, or Black?"
"Would you leave Sirius out of this!" It took all his will power not to yell at the other man. Not Sirius. Not now. He could not bear it.
"Why should I? Wasn't it him who thought it to be simply wonderful fun to get me almost killed? Oh, I'm sure you would like to forget about it. Forget everything that could besmirch his halo. Let me tell you something about your friend: Do you remember third year, when I broke my arm and ribs?"
Yes, Remus remembered. Snape had had to stay in the hospital wing for some time and after that had worn a cast for weeks. Skele-gro had not been developed by then, and Bone-Healing charms were still extremely experimental.
"I told everyone I had fallen down the stairs because Peeves had thrown a helmet at me. But do you want to know what really happened? Some of my own housemates had developed an appetite for teasing me, and worse. They beat me up whenever they got the chance, and it was them who broke my bones. And Black, your precious Black, happened to come in on them while they were kicking and punching me. I was lying on the ground, screaming with pain. And what," Snape laughed acidly, "what do you think Black did? Did he go for help? Did he tell them to stop?"
Remus did not want to listen. He did not want to know. He wanted to yell at Snape, wanted to tell him to shut up and get the hell out of his rooms, but he was unable to speak a single word.
"Of course he did not! Before I lost consciousness I could see him, leaning against the wall, smiling! It must have been simply great fun, seeing someone else doing his job so he would not have to soil himself in touching me!"
"I don't have to listen to this!" Finally Remus had retrieved his voice. He would not hear another word.
"Oh, I'm sure you do not like what you are hearing. Doesn't cast a good light on Black, does it? Well, I have some news for you: All that glistens is not gold, and certainly Black was no prince in shining armour! But there is no point in telling you so, since the two of you were more than friends, weren't you," Snape spat, every word dripping with venom.
"You have been and always will be blind concerning him, because he was special, right? So very special that on the one hand he could play the dedicated friend and lover and on the other hand watch someone get beaten up, actually smiling at the sight! And why? I once asked him why, I asked him why he hated me so much, and do you know his answer?" Snape was yelling at the top of his voice. "DO YOU KNOW?"
"SHUT UP!" Remus, too, had jumped up. All thoughts of the Potions Master having serious problems and needing help had vaporised into nothingness. The only thing that now existed in his mind was Snape's voice, dripping with scorn in speaking words that meant more to him than anyone could ever measure: 'You were more than friends… he was special.'
"What do you know about friendship?" Remus snapped, being beside himself with rage. "What the hell gives you the right to judge my friendship, my love? Friendship and love, those are things you never had and never will have! And no wonder no one wants to mess about with you, considering how you spurn their feelings!"
Time seemed to have almost frozen. Thick silence was pressing down on the creeping seconds, and Remus expected a sudden bolt to shatter the world at any moment - but nothing happened. Snape was standing beside the chair, wearing on his face an expression that was a mixture between anger, hatred… and something else, which he could not figure out in his present state of mind. Then, without another word, the Potions Master turned on his heel and stormed out of the room.
Remus kept staring in the direction the other man had taken, but he was not aware of his surroundings. Still he could hear Snape's words echoing through his mind. 'You were more than friends… special…' and, even louder and more haunting: 'Do you know his answer? Do you know?'
"Yes," he whispered, although there was no one to hear it. "Yes, I know…"
"Why can't you just leave him alone?" Remus demanded, looking down on his boyfriend, who was lolling lazily in bed.
"Whom?" Sirius yawned. It was Saturday, and they had decided not to go to the Great Hall for breakfast but rather to spend their time with things more… interesting. The only problem was that Remus could not get his thoughts off the events of the previous day.
"You know whom I'm talking about," Remus replied, slightly annoyed. "Snape. Why do you always have to tease him? Can't you just let him be?"
"Oh, come on, not now," Sirius complained, looping his arm around Remus's waist. "I know something much more interesting to talk about," he murmured. Remus resisted his lover's attempt to pull him down on the sheets.
"No, Sirius, please!" Locking eyes with the other boy, he tried to add weight to his words. "I want to talk about this now. I… I need to understand, can't you see?"
Sirius seemed to have noticed that he was serious, for he pulled his arm back and sat up, too.
"Look," Remus went on, "was it really necessary to cast this Transparency Charm on him?"
"I couldn't know the charm would work only on his clothes!" Sirius defended himself. "You know, I thought it would be fun when Snivellus suddenly found himself transparent – he always tries to appear so opaque!"
Remus scowled at his friend, who was obviously stifling his laughter by now. 'Really great fun,' he thought, inwardly still squirming with embarrassment as he beheld the images of the previous evening.
Sirius had been mysterious the whole day, not giving his secret away to his lover but promising him it would be 'killingly funny'.
'And I'm sure killing is exactly what Snape felt like.'
Sirius had convinced his friends to go to dinner very early, and instead of sitting down at the Gryffindor table he had hidden behind one of the big pillars beside the entrance, gesturing his friends to sit down and wait for what would happen. Gradually the other students had come in, separately or in small groups. The tables had almost been full when, as one of the last, Severus Snape had walked through the door. With a growing sense of uneasiness Remus had seen Sirius briefly wave at them, a mischievous smile on his lips, then his boyfriend had quickly pointed his wand at his unsuspecting fellow student.
By the time Snape had arrived at his table, every conversation in the Great Hall had stopped. It had taken the Slytherin some moments to realise that all eyes were directed at him, and when he had noticed what had happened, Remus watched speechless horror spread across his face. For what seemed to be ages Snape had been standing there motionless, his skinny, sallow, naked body perfectly visible through his transparent clothes. The teachers, too, had been paralysed with shock, and before any of them had been able to react in some way or other, Snape had turned round and run out of the room, followed by most of his fellow students' laughter, which finally had broken out.
Remus, however, had not been able to share their amusement. It seemed the sight he had been presented with had been very different from what the others had seen. Snape had looked so humiliated, so hurt…
"Honestly, Sirius," he scolded now, "it's not funny at all. Have you never thought about how degraded he must have felt? Imagine someone had done this to you!"
Sirius looked mildly amused at his boyfriend's tirade. "Well, if someone had done it to me, I would have had no reason to be ashamed. At least I don't look like a naked mole rat," he replied, stretching his muscular torso as if to prove his statement.
"Oh Merlin!" Remus groaned with frustration. "Just tell me why! I mean… you don't have to like him - there are lots of people I don't like, and I don't feel like taunting them all the time, either. So why do you hate him that much?"
"I don't hate him," Sirius answered in a careless voice. "It's just the fact that he exists. It annoys me."
Remus had not been able to think of any answer to this. James had said something similar one day, he remembered, and he simply could not understand how his friends could be capable of such viciousness - or was it just thoughtlessness?
"So, could we now please speak of something more interesting?" Sirius inquired. "I have a really awesome idea…" and with these words he pulled his now unresisting – because utterly surprised - lover down on the sheets and, bending his head down between Remus's legs, made him soon forget about everything else.
Suddenly, Remus felt all shaky and weak, and he just managed to stumble over to his chair before his legs gave in and he sat down in it heavily.
"It's just the fact that he exists…" he whispered, his voice trembling ever so slightly as he realised that the main reason why he had lost his temper was not that Snape had insulted him or even Sirius, but the fact that he had known Snape to be right.
He had not wanted to think about it, had not wanted to face the truth and admit that Sirius, his Sirius, who had been so loyal to his friends and to him, Remus, so tender and understanding that it had left nothing to be desired, had indeed had so different and dark a strain. This side of his lover he had never been able to understand, and so he had - after several useless attempts - preferred to overlook it, as he had been far too afraid of losing Sirius if he insisted upon speaking about the subject.
And now Snape had come and within a few minutes had shattered the misty-eyed image Remus had built up of Sirius. Without a warning he had thrown him into reality - a reality he had deliberately been blind to in order to cope with his grief, and, as he realised, even more horrified, with his guilt. For in ignoring Sirius's tantalising behaviour towards Snape he, Remus, had become as guilty as his friends.
The fire had died down, and darkness filled the room. Remus Lupin buried his head in his hands and cried.
Severus did not know where he was going. The only thing he knew was that he could not stay in Lupin's presence for another single second.
'Friendship and love, those are things you never had and never will have!'
He had been told this before, and it had struck him deeply to hear these words from Lupin, who appeared to be so calm, so friendly a man.
'No wonder he was angry with you! Were you crazy? Badmouthing Black, whom you know he loved, in such a way! What has come over you? Congratulations, Severus, again you have proven your great worth!'
His fist hit the stone wall with untamed force, and mercifully the pain silenced the voice in his head. When the world had come back to focus, Severus carefully tried to move his fingers, but pain instantly twitched like fire through them. It seemed he had at least broken two of them, not to mention the bleeding scrapes. He did not really care much, and he most certainly would not visit he infirmary because of this - he could heal it later with the help of a potion.
'Friendship and love, those are things you never had and never will have!'
This time it was not Lupin's voice, trembling with anger and pain, no, the words Severus meant to hear in his mind were spoken in a sneering tone, dripping with smugness and amusement at his shocked reaction. He would never be able to forget the expression of cruel joy on the other man's face, the man who so many years ago had shattered his fragile hope for something which had always seemed too precious to be his some day. Yet, he had hoped, and he had paid for it.
"Friendship!" He spat the word, putting as much spite in his voice as he was able to raise. There was no such thing. There were only stupid romanticists who believed in that illusion, and he would do better in not becoming one of them again. It was less painful to deny the existence of something than having to admit that he would never be a part of it.
And even if something like friendship existed, he certainly would never share it with Lupin, of all people. First of all, because he did not even like him. He loathed Lupin, Merlin, the man was a werewolf!
'That didn't keep you from spending time with him and obtaining by fraud what you needed from him.' And, moreover, it was a lie.
Severus leaned against the wall, pressing his forehead against the stone, which felt pleasantly cool against his hot skin. No, he no longer hated or despised Lupin. However this change of mind might have happened, he had almost felt the wish to… befriend him.
Had he not learned his lesson? Why had he again allowed himself to nourish this ridiculous hope, minuscule as it had been, that somehow he at least might achieve a small piece of what he had almost forgotten having longed for in the past? But there was no point in musing about it. It was something which would never happen. Not after treating Lupin like that. Not after tarnishing the man's remembrance of his dead lover.
Love. Another illusion. It was worth nothing. Less than nothing, for nothingness was something you could live with. Nothingness was neither negative nor positive. How often had he prayed for nothingness, callousness, but he had been denied it.
Like today.
"Severus, how very nice to meet you." Although the man's face was hidden, he knew him from his silky voice, his shimmering hair, his graceful movements. He had known him for years, and he would never forget. He did not answer, but the other one did not mind.
"You know how much I enjoy your presence every time, don't you," the man purred, slowly raising one hand. Severus did not move when it lightly rested on his arm, although to him it seemed to weigh tons and the touch was burning like fire, even through his thick, black robes, the feeling spreading all across his body, making him wish to drop dead that very instant just to be delivered from this.
"I… have to go. They are waiting for me," he finally ground out.
"Of course," was the reply, but still the hand did not pull back. "I know a place," the man whispered, his grip abruptly becoming tight and painful. "What do you think, isn't that a grand idea? Just like the good old times." He chuckled, and Severus could see his eyes flicker with amusement before at last he released his arm and went away.
Abruptly, Severus snapped back into reality, but in his mind, the other one had come with him.
"No, leave me alone…" The words came out as a hoarse whisper.
But of course he would not leave Severus. He never did. And surely not tonight. Severus restarted meandering the corridors, as if trying to physically leave behind what was irrevocably stored in his memory. He would linger in his thoughts, his dreams, and there was no way to escape it.
Suddenly, Severus knew his destination. He needed to sleep, just tonight. Without dreams, without memories. Just sleep. One night.
When he arrived at the Gargoyle, his whirling brain refused for some moments to remember the password.
"Treacle Brittle!" Finally it came back to him, and the Gargoyle moved sideways, revealing the staircase that led to the headmaster's office.