QL Prophet's Friendly Face. Pride, beater 2.

Written for: MournfulSeverity

Prompt: Snape/Lupin

Word Count: 1174

Warnings: Bullying

Beta'ed by: CupCakeyyy

Remus Lupin was absolutely furious and distraught over Sirius' decision to 'prank Snape' by sending him to the Whomping Willow during a full moon.

"Do you not understand how dangerous that was Sirius?" Remus asked, barely able to keep his temper in. This was something his three close friends rarely saw. "What if I had attacked him?"

Sirius, in an attempt to ease the severity, chuckled. "It's just Snivellus."

"No! It's a human being! I could have killed him!" Remus forced himself to take a breath to lower his voice. "Did you ever think about me? If I hurt or killed another student, what do you think would happen?"

"Gotten detention?" he replied sheepishly, knowing that wasn't the truth.

"Expelled. Maybe even thrown into Azkaban!" A sigh left his lips as everything settled in his mind. A long tense silence fell between the four friends. James had yet to intervene - though, they all knew he would eventually. "Though that might still happen. Snape is going to tell everybody. Do you think they're going to let a werewolf stay in Hogwarts?"

James placed a hand on Remus' shoulder. "We won't let that happen."

"What are a bunch of fifth years going to do to stop it?"

With that final remark, Remus turned on his heel and walked off. He couldn't bear to be in the same room as Sirius unless absolutely necessary, and he could barely speak to James or Peter. They should have stopped him. They shouldn't have let this happen.

Days went past without any incident. Nobody had confronted him about being a werewolf. Not even a mention or a weird look. It was as if nobody knew, just like before.

Remus ventured out to the Black Lake, having stayed indoors to avoid confrontation, and relished in the spring air blowing his hair out of his face. He noticed a certain Slytherin, sitting under a tree making notes in a book. Usually, he would find Lily nearby, however, the two of them had had a run-in a few weeks ago.

Curiosity fuelling his decision, Remus walked over to him. His shadow introduced his presence and Severus looked up, slightly panicked - he always looked like that.

"I didn't say anything," he instantly defended, his wand already in his hand. Snape was glancing around rapidly, looking for others.

"Why not?"

Slowly, the rapid eye movements slowed to a stop and settled on Remus' face. His words appeared to be caught in his mouth at either the question or the soft tone it was asked in. The greasy-haired boy shrugged his shoulders.

That wasn't an answer but Remus didn't want to test his luck. Maybe Snape was scared of him now or the consequences of what his friends would do if he had told anybody. It was a relief to hear that his secret hadn't gone any further, even though it wasn't secure. "Thank you."

Snape looked at Remus with utter confusion. "Why?"

"Why say thank you?" the sandy-haired boy questioned. To Snape's nod, Remus took in a breath. "You have the power to ruin my life. You haven't. I don't know why but that deserves the recognition."

A nod came from the Slytherin before he turned back to his book, picking his quill up once more.

Remus nodded in return before walking off. He didn't return to the Gryffindor Common Room immediately and simply walked around the grounds as all of the anger and fear he had been holding in for the last few days dissipated.

Things had mostly gone back to normal within another week. Remus had forgiven his friends and saw Severus in a new light. It bothered him slightly when James and Sirius laughed off his idea about apologising to Severus - but no harm, no foul.

The four of them decided to go for a morning walk to discuss new pranks before James' Quidditch game, just a normal occurrence. They didn't do most of their prank ideas and the majority that they did do was improvised. But it was fun to imagine.

"Just think about Dumbles having pink hair," Peter said followed by a burst of uncontrollable laughter.

Sirius threw an arm around his friend. "Not who I meant when I said about dying somebody's hair pink."

Peter shrugged. "But it would be so funny!"

"He's got you there," Remus commented.

"Oh, look, it's Snivellus," James smirked, his hand sliding his wand out.

Remus instantly put a hand over James'. "Leave him. You wouldn't want to get in a fight before your game."

"Leave him? But this is the perfect opportunity to prank him!"

"Come on," Remus prompted, nudging Sirius and Peter to walk with him.

It worked. But Remus knew he might not be able to convince them to do this again. However, the knowledge that Snape had kept his secret and hadn't blackmailed him was shocking. Perhaps pranking him wasn't the best thing to do; he clearly didn't like it a lot of the time. Though, explaining this to his friends might not go down well.

Remus was sitting with Lily in the library towards the end of the school year. He was exhausted; last night he had transformed. However, they had an exam the following day and he needed to prepare a bit more before getting a very early night.

Lily and he had fallen quiet nearly an hour ago, so they didn't say anything to each other when she stood up and walked a few meters to a nearby bookstand, clearly looking for something.

"Lily," Snape whispered - loud enough for Lily, Remus, and a few fourth years to hear. "Can we talk?"

"I'm not talking to you, ever!" Lily replied. Her voice low in an attempt to not disturb anybody.

Remus was aware that she had been avoiding and refusing to talk to Snape since he called her a derogatory word.

"Please," pleaded the Slytherin.

Lily, with her head held high, grabbed a random book, and strode back over to him, sitting down with a loud thud as the book practically fell to the table in front of them. This caused Remus to look up. Snape looked so defeated.

With a sigh, Remus leant towards Lily and whispered, "Why won't you even listen to him?"

Her sharp gaze instantly turned to him. "You know what he did."

He shrugged slightly, not wanting to get in the middle of this but also couldn't keep himself from saying: "Friends make mistakes. There have been times that I contemplated never speaking to Sirius again… but…" he drifted off.

Lily huffed. "Fine." She looked at Snape and signalled for him to sit down. The surprise was evident on his face.

The Slytherin sat down and started talking with such speed, Remus had to refocus to catch up. Even then, he wasn't entirely sure of everything that had been said.

However, at the end of the conversation, when Lily said she'd think about what he said, Snape turned to Remus. "Thank you."

Remus smiled. "You're welcome."

Neither of them knew, but that was the start of something neither of them had expected.

The End