It had been nearly two weeks since Remus had arrived at Hogwarts and although he had been trying diligently since he arrived, he still had yet to talk to Severus about the roles they would be filling for Harry from now on.
Each time Remus had managed to successfully track Severus down, which was far more difficult than expected, the man always had an excuse as to why he couldn't stop and talk. Either he had last minute lesson plans to work out, a time sensitive potion he was brewing, or the sudden, urgent need to go and buy more potions ingredients. There was always something to keep them from speaking.
Finally it was September 1st and Remus knew that Severus would definitely be in his
office until the feast, as there simply wasn't anything else possibly left for the man to do.
Remus knocked as respectfully as possible on Severus' office door. There was no answer. Remus waited for a moment and then knocked again. He was determined to have this conversation today, and he knew for a fact that the man was in his office as Remus had taken to watching Severus covertly (in a completely non-creepy way, of course) in the halls.
Not three minutes ago, Remus had watched from around the corner as Severus entered his office and, as the floos were down this morning for annual re-warding, there was no way that the man could have left without Remus seeing him go.
Remus knocked again for a third time, making sure to knock a bit louder this time. His patience was wearing thin. Remus was seriously considering doing something completely juvenile such as hammering continuously on the door while yelling "I know you're in there Severus!" or simply barging into the office uninvited, when the man finally jerked open the door.
Severus opened his mouth, likely to give some new excuse for why his presence was direly needed elsewhere, but Remus quickly cut him off.
"No!" Unfortunately, Remus had been so intent on making sure the other man couldn't sidestep this conversation again, that he momentarily forgotten whatever else he had meant to say.
"No?" Severus quirked an eyebrow in sardonic question. As if he couldn't think of anything he had been doing that Remus would have had any reason to object to. It was all Remus could do not to growl.
"No more excuses. You have been avoiding me these past two weeks, and I'm tired of it. We are having this conversation now." Remus said storming past Severus into the office. "I don't care if you've a potion on, or if you need to make a last-minute trip to the apothecary for some random ingredient, or if Madame Pomfrey needs you to help her inventory the potions she has so that you know which ones she needs to restock (which, by the way is now my job, so I know that one was an out-and-out lie.) Whatever it is that you need to do will wait for me to talk to you."
"Very well Lupin. What, may I ask, is so important that you feel such a dire need to speak about with me?" Severus drawled, making it abundantly clear that he could think of nothing important enough that he should ever need to speak to the likes of Remus Lupin: Werewolf. He also completely ignored any implication that he had been actively avoiding Remus, which on some level was more annoying than if he had denied it outright.
Then again, Remus thought, why would Severus want to speak to him? Remus had stood by and watched for years as Sirius, James, and even little Peter had terrorised Severus, never once truly attempting to stop them. Not until after the incident in the Shrieking Shack, and by then it was too little and far too late. Even after he had been made a prefect, Remus had turned a blind eye to his friends' dubious antics simply so that they wouldn't decide to single him out too. Looking back on it now as an adult, it was completely shameful.
Even so, Remus knew that if they were going to be able to properly care for Harry for the next five summers the past, though truly regrettable, needed to be disregarded (it was preposterous to even hope that Severus could actually forgive him; Remus knew that disregard was the absolute most he could hope for.) for the good of their new roles in Harry's life.
"I wished to discuss with you our new shared responsibilities. That is to say, Harry. I understand that you and I have had a… rocky history, which I'll admit is mostly my fault, and I had just hoped that we could clear the air about a few things so that in the future things won't be too uncomfortable for Harry." Remus said all of these things to the back of Snape's head, as the other man had conveniently found some random papers on his desk which apparently needed shuffling right that second and had turned away to do so. "Dumbledore has mentioned that when you were informed that I was to be allowed extended contact with Harry, you were… concerned based on my… illness. I completely understand that, as the… incident that took place in our 5th year is never far from my mind, and I'm sure that it was quite… justly traumatic for you-"
Snape turned and snapped like a viper at this. "Yes. The incident was quite justly traumatic for me. It was also quite deadly. Why Dumbledore would ever be convinced that you would make a good replacement for a godfather to any child is almost as concerning a question as why he thought it would be a good idea to stick Mr. Potter with his muggle relatives in the first place. If he wanted to stick him with an attempted murderer, perhaps he should have just left the poor child with Black in the first place. At least he seems to be capable of following things through to the end."
Remus fought hard to keep his temper from rising at the mention of his ex-best friend, and he instead addressed the real issue of Snape's anger, which was the main reason for Remus's apology in the first place. "Severus. I doubt that you will believe me, but I never knew what Sirius had planned that night. Either night, if you must know. He was acting alone when he convinced you to follow me into the Shrieking Shack, just as he was acting alone the night that he betrayed Lily and James to Voldemort. I had been changing there once a month every year since I started Hogwarts and I had never ever considered attacking any other student. I have lived with Lycanthropy since the age of four, and that night was the closest I ever came to harming a human. It was a betrayal of my trust when he sent you to me, and our friendship never fully recovered after that, as he could never understand how it would have affected me if James had been unable to stop me in time. I am so, so, deeply sorry that I ever trusted him with something so important as that, and that it nearly cost you your life. I begged for Dumbledore to punish him, even if it meant my own expulsion, but Dumbledore refused as he feared that if the wrong person found out that I had nearly killed you, it would have cost me my life. The fact that James was still so close to Sirius was something that came between us quite frequently after that and, although I was close friends with Lily at that point and we never lost touch, James and I sort of gradually drifted after that. I regret every day that we let a man like that masquerade as our friend, as eventually he did, as you say, finish the job. Lily, James, Peter, and 12 innocent bystanders. In the end, the only one he didn't finish was me."
Snape stared intently into Remus's eyes until he finished. Remus wouldn't have been surprised if the other man was employing a low-grade version of Legilimency to verify the truth of Remus's account of history.
"Very well," Snape began after a long moment of studying Remus in pensive silence. "I suppose things will go smoother during this task if we are able to maintain a certain level of civility. So, I will agree to not allowing our… distaste for each other to affect the way we treat Mr. Potter." Snape turned back to reshuffle the stack of papers on his desk, continuing. "In regard to the other things you addressed I -"
Suddenly, Snape was interrupted by the appearance of two preteens who had apparently just portkeyed into his office. They were holding a trolley each from the train station and both were overloaded with their school trunks and respective pets.
Because of the chaotic ridiculousness that was typically involved in using a portkey, both boys and all of their things were thrown violently in opposite directions as they landed. Unfortunately, neither Snape nor Remus were spared impact in the resulting pile up. Which is to say, everyone ended up on the ground, in a not inconsiderable amount of pain.
Harry would be the first to admit that upon realizing the platform wasn't going to let him or Ron through, he may have panicked a bit. They had been on their way back to the car when Harry had finally thought of the portkeys that Remus had given him the month before. Luckily it was before he and Ron had put the plan to fly the car to Hogwarts into action.
Once Harry had remembered and told Ron about them, Ron had suggested they spend the day hanging out in muggle London rather than heading straight to school as they would get there hours before the Hogwarts Express, but Harry disagreed as he didn't want to have to drag all of their things around all day and also, he didn't really fancy getting into trouble when they were inevitably caught. After all, it would be difficult to hide the fact that they had travelled by portkey instead of by train when every portkey he had was spelled to send him directly to someone or their office rather than sending him to the school train station.
"Bloody Hell, mate! Let's never try that again." Ron exclaimed to Harry before he noticed where they had landed.
Harry had specifically used his father's ring in order to be taken to who he hoped would be the most understanding and least busy of the three adults that were now in charge of him. Unfortunately, Remus had apparently been in the middle of visiting Snape's office (although why anyone would do that willingly was beyond Harry) when he and Ron had appeared in front of him. Oddly, though the man looked a bit annoyed on the surface, Harry thought he could see the same amount of concern underneath Snape's expression as was currently covering Remus's face.
"Harry. What happened?" Remus demanded, helping Harry and Ron up. Ron's trunk had popped open when they landed, and his clothes and things had been spilled all over the room. Hedwig was screeching in alarm at their unorthodox travel and landing and Harry noticed that Ron's rat Scabbers had decided to run out of Ron's pocket and hide himself deep inside of Ron's trunk underneath the clothes that he and Harry were now desperately attempting to shove back inside. Snape straightened out their belongings with a wave of his wand and glared silently while he picked himself up and brushed his robes off.
Harry's stomach sank as he remembered that he was only supposed to use one of the portkeys if he had an emergency. Harry hopped that this would count, but it most likely wouldn't. Hopefully, Remus wouldn't decide to take the portkeys back as his punishment. "Well, we were trying to get through the platform to get on the train, you see, but it turned to stone, and we couldn't get through. We thought perhaps the train had left early and we decided to wait for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley to come back through so that we could tell them what had happened and ask them what to do, but eventually when they didn't come back Ron reminded me that they had probably just apparated home and to work and were planning to come back for Mr. Weasley's car sometime later. It was getting later and later, and we were afraid that they wouldn't find out that we hadn't made it to school for hours, so we took all of our things to a deserted bathroom, and I used the portkey. I'm sorry. I know it wasn't exactly an emergency, but we were beginning to draw attention from the muggles, and I panicked…" Harry trailed off and studied his shoes.
"Harry," Remus gently grasped his shoulder. "Look at me." He waited until Harry met his eyes to continue. "You did the right thing. While not immediately dangerous, being stranded alone in a populated area when adults think you are safely on your way somewhere else definitely counts as an emergency. Anything could have happened to you. You handled that very well. I'm glad you kept a level head and remembered the portkeys were an option. You should be proud of yourself." Harry blushed at the unexpected praise. He chanced a glance at Snape and was surprised to see that the man didn't seem to disagree.
"Perhaps we should postpone our current discussion in light of this situation, Lupin. Undoubtably, someone on the train has by now noticed Mr. Weasley and Mr. Potter are missing and as such may have already informed Mr. Weasley's parents of this fact. I'm sure they would appreciate a fire call reassuring them of the two boys' whereabouts and safety. Be assured, I shall take our conversation into consideration in the interim." Harry and Ron glanced at each other in disbelief. It was weird to hear Snape sound so much like an actual teacher discussing business with a colleague. Usually, by now he would have already found multiple reasons to dock them points, but instead he was now politely motioning towards the door.
Remus nodded and enchanted their belongings to follow them while he ushered them out the door. "You're quite right Severus. Thank you for the consideration. I appreciate the fact that this isn't easy for you."
Harry thought he heard Snape scoff under his breath as he closed the door behind them, but he couldn't be sure.
A/N: It took me a little longer than I expected to get this chapter out. My miniature dachshund had a much needed surgery a few days back and things have been very stressful. She had tumors in and around a lot of her mammary glands and so the Veterinarian decided to do a full radical mastectomy. He removed all of her mammary glands on her right side, and once she's healed he'll have to remove them on the left. It's very extensive for such a little dog, (she's only 10 pounds) plus she's already 12 years old, so she's basically a senior citizen. I wish someone had told us that the reason you're supposed to spay and neuter your pets is in defense of hormonal cancers. My mom and I had no idea, and had fully believed it was only to prevent unwanted pregnancies. We've had Magrathea since birth (her mother Schnitzel was my first personal dog as a child, and her father belonged to my ex-stepdad) and we've never socialized her around any male dogs, so we assumed it was fine not to get her fixed. We were, apparently, very wrong. Around 70% of mammary cancer diagnosed in female dogs are in dogs who were not spayed before their third heat cycle.
Anyway, I hope the chapter was to your liking, and that I didn't miss too many typos. Hopefully as we're at the school now the chapters will start getting longer.