WARNING: This is a slash story, which means it contains male/male erotic content involving consenting adults. If you're not of legal age or are offended by such material, please go find something else to read.

Title: Diptych
Author: Spydre
E-Mail: spydre@yahoo.com
Rating: NC-17
Summary: This story takes place on the night of a full moon, the day following it, and the evening of that day in Severus Snape and Remus Lupin’s married-couple’s quarters at Hogwarts a few years after the fall of Voldemort. This isn’t quite a Porn Without a Plot, but it comes very, very close. I’d call it an EWE, Erotica Without an Excuse.
Warnings: There’s no actual bestiality in this story, but if the very thought squicks you something awful, do us both a favor and please go read something else.
Disclaimer: The wonderful wizards contained herein belong to the illustrious JK Rowling, but I like to borrow them occasionally and have a good time before I take them home. I have no interest in or intent of profiting economically from the time that I spend with them.
Notes: This Snape and Lupin are not the same Snape and Lupin as appear in any other story of mine, although they resemble some of them more than others. The Potterverse is a big, branching place and I just love exploring diverse possibilities. :D

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By the time that I set aside the scroll that I’ve been studying and enter our bedroom, Remus is already curled up on his side of the bed, with his bushy wolf’s tail covering his sensitive wolf’s nose and his big wolf’s paws neatly tucked beneath his prominent wolf’s chin, snoring softly. As always I pause in the doorway, momentarily arrested by the beauty of his non-human body, which I only get to see one night out of approximately thirty. I haven’t attended one of his transformations in many months now. That’s no longer necessary. My husband is a happily mated werewolf, who has both the Improved Wolfsbane Potion that I discovered and my daily presence to ease him through his moon changes. But as close as we’ve become during the past two years, he’s still shy about letting me watch him shift from his human form into that of the wolf, so I’ve learned to let him do so alone and join him a few minutes after the full moon’s rising.

As always my gaze and, even before that, the sound of my footfalls and my robes swishing about me, along with the intensification of my scent, awake him. The wolf drowsily lifts his huge head and fixes me with his great golden eyes. That breaks my reverie. I quickly move to his side and, stooping, place a kiss on the tip of his nose. His soft, wet tongue caresses my check, catching the corner of my mouth as it withdraws.

I stretch and brush a few silver hairs from the sheet on which he rests. “The trouble with sharing your bed with a werewolf, is that he sheds all over your best black satin sheets,” I tease him. “When will you remember to ask that idiot friend of yours, Black, to get you one of those fancy electric Muggle brooms that he gave Potter for a wedding present? It would make cleaning up after you far less arduous!”

Remus growls and tugs at my sleeve. He’s being playful not threatening, and I’ve long since learned to tell the difference. I know from experience that my husband wants me to strip off my robes and climb into bed with him. I’m all too happy to oblige him.

Neither of us is willing to give what, on the surface of it, would be bestiality a try, despite the fact that both of us realize that sex with the wolf wouldn’t actually be bestiality. The creature enticing me to lie down beside him naked and snuggle up to the luxuriant warmth of his pelt is, after all, still Remus Lupin, albeit in altered form; and thanks to the potion that I brew for him monthly, he retains his right mind on the night of the full moon. My husband is wolf and man, as he has been every day and night since his fourth birthday when he first turned—just as he’s man and wolf every day and night that he wears his human form. As counterintuitive as it seems, a werewolf is the same being at all times. Madness when the moon waxes full is the curse of lycanthropy, not the simple fact of a transfigured body.

Although we don’t engage in sex on full-moon nights, they’re a very loving, special time for us. They offer rare, privileged opportunities to indulge in unselfconscious sensuality and unembarrassed affection without recourse to sex—and not that many British wizards are comfortable with either sensuality or affection except insofar as they do serve Priapus. Odds are that I would never have braved bussing Remus on the tip of his nose for the first time two Decembers ago had he not been embodied as a beast; odds are equally strong that he would not have been so bold as to run his human tongue across my cheekbone the following April had he not previously done so with his wolf’s tongue in February. There’s nothing inhibited about a wolf’s love, and that lack of restraint has been our door into previously unimagined pleasures.

So I sink down on the bed beside him and let my hand carelessly bury itself in the thick fur of his ruff. Even now I have to ease my way into intimacy. To say that I’m sexually and emotionally inhibited by nature is quite an understatement! With a loud whuff and a growl of feigned irritation, Remus closes the gap between us, ending up half sprawled atop me and half snuggled close to me.

“Oh, the sheet’s aren’t enough! Now you’re going to shed on me, are you?”

Withdrawing his head and shoulder from my chest, he mercilessly tickles the length of my ribcage with first his wet nose and then his hot, slippery tongue; and then he caps it all off by snapping at the air a fraction of an inch away from my side. I would trust him to deliver a mock bite to me, but Remus is obsessed (as he has been all his life) with the horrifying spectre of inadvertently infecting someone with lycanthropy. I don’t have the only neurotic personality in our household, despite what others think. He growls again and tosses his head provocatively.

Employing the element of surprise, I flip him over and pin him to the mattress, pressing my long torso against his to keep him in place, as I catch a foreleg in each of my hands and rest my chin lightly atop his head. He struggles half-heartedly to work free of my hold, but I know from many conversations on the subject that there’s nothing that my darling likes better than having his wolf’s body dominated by someone who loves him. Potter the Elder and Black had that privilege as his friends when they were boys; I enjoy it as his mate now that we’re grown men. I press myself against his squirming body a bit more firmly, becoming keenly aware of the harsh rhythm of his breath and the pounding of his heart as I do so. Suddenly I realize how like the last moments of foreplay this is, just before the moment in which I would bury myself to the hilt in the welcoming heat of his body. More swiftly than I can reflect upon that awareness my cock grows hard. As it brushes against his belly, the wolf’s cock stiffens, too. I draw my legs up so that I’m kneeling over the wolf with my weight resting on my hands, which I’ve shifted to his shoulders. This separates our bodies enough that our erections no longer brush against one another, enflaming us each time they make contact.

“You’re not the master of this house, Master Wolf!” I remind him with the snarling voice that I routinely use to quell the rowdiest of my Slytherin students now applied merely for sport. Remus needs to be reassured that his wolf’s body is under control over and above his own, but ironically my spouse is the one person in the world that I feel no need to stay on top of, literally or figuratively. I would be just as happy was I caged beneath the insistent weight of the wolf.

He struggles a moment more to break free, but his heart isn’t in it. Remus in wolf’s guise is not an alpha, although in human form he enjoys dominating me as much as he likes submitting to me. As soon as he goes limp beneath me, I murmur, “That’s better!” and begin stroking his fur slowly, sensuously, teasingly, and—oh, yes—appreciatively, too, because it’s an extravaganza of velvety to silky softness and warmth as I move from one spot to another. I kiss the tip of his nose again, wrap my arms around his neck, and nuzzle one rakish ear that happens to flick against my cheek.

His tongue strokes the hollow of my throat until I moan in unreflective pleasure. This isn’t sexual—at least not as grown-ups understand the word. Rather it resembles the bliss that children and puppies have with each other, only with the poignant nostalgia for long-forgotten innocent happiness that only adults can experience. “I love you,” I breathe softly upon the crown of his head, and Remus’s tongue moves up to lave my chin and cheek and lips.

“Great slobbery dunderhead!” I growl vigorously, but my lips are curling into a smile despite my best efforts to keep a straight face; and I know that if I could see my jet black eyes, I would behold them twinkling with mirth. “Such a messy beast you are! Have I ever told you that?”

When he nods ever so humanly, I simply humph and assure him that, “Well, it can’t hurt to remind you. I think I shall have you give me a proper bath tomorrow since you can’t refrain from bathing me in wolf’s drool at the moment.”

By way of reply, he gives me another very big, very wet kiss. When I make a great show of wiping my mouth, he promptly follows that sloppy buss of his with another. “Enough! Enough! Enough!” I playfully scold, and again he relaxes his body completely.

I caress his chest for a long time with the flat of my hand. Remus loves that! He whimpers with pleasure at every stroke and licks my hand every time that it roams incautiously close to his muzzle. After awhile, I realize that I’m humming a wordless tune delightedly as I continue to pet him. As I move my attention below his ribcage onto his belly, his erection returns. Mine doesn’t this time. From the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail, my husband is as beautifully made in wolf form as he is in human form. His elegant, glistening pink wolf’s cock fascinates me, because… Well, a man theoretically ought never possess one! But it’s the warm, velvet rose of his human cock that I want to penetrate me. “Tomorrow,” I promise us both. “Tomorrow, as soon as you’re ready, I want you to take me, darling!”

I console myself with the image of what I desire—who I desire—and surreptitiously touch myself between my legs. Absent hands to fondle me with, Remus licks me from as far back on my balls as he can manage to the tip of my by now thoroughly excited member. I pull away, half reluctant to do so, and breathlessly tell him, “No. I know you mean well, precious. But it’s just too strange! As soon as the moon sets, you can do whatever you like to me, with your tongue and your hands. Not yet, though. It’s too much. I need to wait.”

His next kiss is to my belly button. Playfully. Gratefully I move my hands from his belly to his hips. Eventually I work my way down to his enormous paws. As I play with them, press on them, massage them, squeeze them gently, and kiss each sharp-clawed toe affectionately, Remus alternately laps at my back and rubs his head against it.

I always lose track of the time while we enjoy his wolf’s body. It’s only when the great beast yawns and bats at his eyes with his paws that I realize that we’ve been at it for hours. I nod. “You’re quite right! We should sleep.”

He wiggles close again, and I throw one arm across his chest and draw him to me. “Wake me as soon as you’ve changed back,” I request, honouring the fiction that I can sleep through it. Mild as his transformations have become, they still wake me. He gives another thoroughly unwolflike nod, and afterwards I pillow my head on his shoulder to take my rest. “Good night,” I mutter drowsily. “I love you.”

He grunts and licks the fingers that I’ve worked deep into his ruff. Moments later my husband is snoring contentedly.

I scarcely wake when Remus changes back into his human form. His transformation is exceptionally mild this month. He barely moans as once more he outwardly becomes what he is inwardly: a man gifted with the senses and sensibilities of a wolf. As always I remain quiet and still until his transfiguration has run its course and he nudges my shoulder to assure me that he’s, “Home again, safe and sound.”

“Is there anything that you’d like for me to get you?” I ask.

“Uh-uh.”

“Would you like to sleep awhile longer then?”

“Yeah.” He rolls over, smiles at me, and strokes my cheek. “Someone kept me awake very late last night.”

“Is that so?” I reply. “I seem to remember that someone with big eyes and big teeth and a great deal of fur encouraged him to do so.”

His smile deepens, displaying his dimples. “True,” he admits, “but I still need to get a bit more beauty sleep.”

“I don’t see why,” I grouse gently, “you couldn’t ~possibly~ be more beautiful than you already are.”

He chuckles and gives me a kiss before curling up close and pulling the bedclothes about him.

“Water, Remus,” I remind him. “The change dehydrates you even after it’s outwardly done. You don’t want to wake up with a four ibuprofen headache, do you?”

Knowing how slowly his Muggle analgesic of choice relieves his morning-after migraines, he groans, sits up, and dutifully pours and downs a goblet of water from the carafe he keeps on his nightstand. Whilst he does so, I run my fingertips up and down the broad expanse of his upper back. As he sets down the cup, I wrap my arms around him and squeeze his nipples, which harden instantly.

He gasps and presses his back against my chest. “That is ~not~ how you help me get back to sleep, Severus!”

“Is that a complaint?”

“More an observation,” he remarks mildly, as I continue teasing his nipples with feather-light strokes of my index fingers.

When his breath begins to become harsh and ragged, I query, “Are you sure that it’s sleep that you want right away?” I let one hand glide down his belly to his crotch. His fully engorged cock oozing pre-cum from its head assures me that sleep is ~not~ foremost on his mind just yet.

“It wouldn’t be fair to you, you know,” he points out. “I’d like nothing in the world better than for you to suck me dry and lick me clean, but I’m far too done in to reciprocate. Give me a rain check?”

I let my hand stroke him once or twice before moving still lower to fondle the delectable weight of his hot, hairy balls. “There is such a thing as being too much of a gentleman, my sweet little wolf,” I observe, giving him a squeeze that elicits another gasp of pleasure from him before I move my hand back up his shaft, wrap my long fingers around it, and begin to work it in earnest. “You’re allowed to receive without giving—sometimes. Wouldn’t you like for this to be one of those times?”

“Yes!” he confesses urgently.

I laugh. “Then find a comfortable position flat on your back, and I’ll take good care of you.”

As he eagerly slips into place, I impatiently pull the bedclothes aside. “I want to see you,” I tell him in a voice already hoarse with desire. “I want to see every bit of you. There’s nothing in the world that I like more than having you beneath me naked and eager, my pretty treasure!” When his erection gets even harder, its skin impossibly taut I add, “If it were up to me, you’d never put clothes on again. I’d take you everywhere just as you are right now so that everyone could see how beautiful, how perfect you are and how very, very lucky I am!”

He smiles. For such a long time, my husband thought of himself as irredeemably ugly: too thin, too badly scarred, too hairy, marred in a disgusting way by the great white keloid across his shoulder that displays how the wolf ravaged him, in short unlovable and not to be desired. One of my jobs as his husband is to remind him regularly just how lovable and desirable he is. Sweet work! I relish it, as I relish the pretty mouth that I lean down to plunder first with my lips and then with my tongue.

Remus struggles to lean into my kiss—to press his whole torso against mine. I allow him to deepen the kiss but push his eager body back down onto the bed. “Not yet, my greedy little monster. If you fight me, I’ll tie you down so that I can do what I want without interference.” I press the base of his cock hard enough to make him whimper, but not hard enough to make him go soft. “I’ll tie this up, too. You know I will! Try as you might, you won’t be able to come until I’m good and ready.”

That’s his cue to offer just a bit more resistance. Tired as he his, he doesn’t disappointment me. He lunges against me hard enough to roll me off him.

“Be still!” I order him. “Don’t move a muscle or say a word. If you behave, I won’t defer your gratification too long or punish you before I commence it.”

I nod when he complies, and I deliberately lean across him to open the chest at the foot of our bed. Drawing out a handful of his favorite silk scarves, I bind Remus to the posts of the bed and prepare to gag him with yet another of them. He gives me the hand signal for “no” and I toss it aside.

“I’ll forego silencing you,” I muse. “I enjoy listening to you vocalize almost as much as I like looking at you. The silencing spell on the room will do. Mind you, I’d quite like for the neighbours to hear you sing that lovely little love song of yours but it’s early. I doubt they’d appreciate my generosity! No blindfold either, I think. It’s too much fun to look up and see those insatiable eyes of yours pleading for more!”

I give him a pinch that produces a sudden yelp of pain and makes his bulging hard-on subside a bit. I swiftly bind his penis and scrotum with a soft leather thong and contrive to brush my cheek against his offended member to console it for the necessary mischief that I’ve done it. His cock twitches its exquisite absolution, as Remus sighs with anticipated pleasure.

The game that we’re playing helps us both when my mate has just recovered his human body and is both painfully horny and painfully exhausted. It allows me to be a bit rougher and more domineering than Remus would normally let me get away with, which I enjoy thoroughly; and it allows him to be more passive and concerned with his own pleasure than he’s usually willing to be, which he equally relishes. Just what the doctor ordered! We both end up sexually sated (one way or another), flooded with endorphins, and able to sleep comfortably for hours. An elegant solution to my husband’s post-transformational delicacy, if I do say so myself!

I move to the crown of his head and work my way down slowly. ~Very~ slowly. Remus has so many sensitive areas for me to tease, arouse, and exploit: eyelids, earlobes, lips and mouth (including a thoroughly succulent tongue), hollow of the throat, collarbones, armpits and axillary hair, nipples, body hair, navel, pubic hair, genitals, inner thighs, knees, ankles, and toes. When I’ve worked my way down, I begin working my way back up—just as slowly. When I’m done with his thighs, I bypass his cock and balls and nuzzle his pubic hair avidly, breathing in the heady perfume of his musk. Denied the attention he longed for, he lets slip a single half-stifled sob.

“Patience, precious,” I whisper. “All good things come to those who wait.”

His reply is a frantic, nameless sound of desperation. I frown. “Don’t tell me your eyes were bigger than your hard-on, Remus,” I order sternly, giving him a chance to speed me up. I place my hand within his grasp and he presses “no”. Laughing I proclaim exultantly, “Because I can see that they’re not!” I reward him with a few delicate swirls of my tongue to the head of his cock that make him tremble and pant and then I resume my upward journey. When I reach his mouth, I snog him breathless—and, like as not, witless as well.

By now, I can’t take much more myself. Without benefit of a tie-down, my own cock is hard as a rock, so red it’s almost purple, and weeping pre-cum copiously. I shove my pillows under his arse to elevate his hips enough to enter him comfortably without releasing his legs. He’s willing. Sweet Merlin, he’s willing! He struggles against the scarves to give me better access. “Be still,” I remind him, slipping a finger into his mouth for him to wet.

When he’s done, I work that finger into his extremely friendly arsehole. Encouraged by his enthusiasm, I withdraw it and give him two fingers to suck on. Once I have them up his bum, I don’t just prepare him either. I fuck him with them for a long time, delighting in the inarticulate, needy sound that every thrust draws from him. I withdraw my fingers from him at last, and he makes a small, inconsolable noise that tells me the moment has arrived for my cock to come a-calling.

“In we go,” I chortle, replacing the fingers with half the length of my impressive endowment. He wants more. His body strains with its effort to pull me further into his hot, tight depths. I gladly cooperate, pushing so far in that my balls come to rest against his buttocks. Then I set up a slow, sensual rhythm and distract him (and myself) with occasional nuzzles to his belly, squeezes to his nipples, and kisses to his mouth. With every stroke holding back gets harder, though, concentrating on any thing other than completion, more difficult.

“Had enough?” I inquire haughtily.

He nods, eyes half shut with the intensity of his pleasure.

I swiftly release the ligature with which I’ve impeded his ejaculation. “I want to hear you scream when you come,” I instruct him and begin pumping his cock almost roughly, and with every move I make I demand, “Scream!” A few strokes of my hand and three powerful thrusts of my cock later, he does. He also bears down on my penis so intensely that I scream and climax with him, our voices weaving into an uncanny duet before ending in a shared sigh. His still twitching body goes limp beneath mine, and I momentarily collapse against his chest.

When I catch my breath, I carefully pull out of him and sprinkle soft kisses against the salty slickness of his sweat-soaked body. I drag myself to my knees and begin untying him. From time to time, he presses kisses of his own onto whatever bit of my flesh his lips can reach. Once he’s free, I take him into my arms and stroke his arms, back, neck, and the side of his face gently until both of us have caught our breath and brought our minds back from blissful oblivion.

“Shall I clean you up a bit before we sleep?” I ask. “You really do look too tired to move at this juncture.”

He shakes his head. “Later. I want to revel in all this sticky, slippery stuff awhile longer.”

“You hopeless slut!” I tease. “And to think that you and Black used to reproach me for my allegedly poor personal hygiene.”

“That was Sirius, ~not~ me,” he corrects me. “I like sweat, saliva, and semen very much, thank you, and have never claimed otherwise. I’m well and properly sleepy, Severus. You can give me a bath when we wake up.”

“Hah! You owe me a bath for smothering me in wolf drool last night.”

“I didn’t see you rush for the tub first thing, so it can’t be bothering you that much.”

“I reckoned you needed your rest.”

“Right! Well, I can’t honestly say that I dislike the hypnotics that you employ.” He breaks into that quirky, impish smile of his—the one that drives me mad. “I’ll tell you what, Sev. I did get you all slobbery, so I’m prepared to wash every last bit of you I drooled on. However, you’ve mussed me up more than a bit this morning, so I think that you should give me a good wash, too. Fair enough?”

I shrug. “Fair or not, I’m prepared to indulge you.” I point at the water carafe. “Have another cup before we sleep,” I advise. “You worked up quite a sweat, you know.” He dutifully obeys and I cover his shoulders with kisses as he drinks.

“Severus!” he protests. “I have got to sleep.”

“Oh, very well!” I tell him, and when he’s set the goblet down I pull him onto the bed beside me. “Are you good for a snuggle, at least?”

“Of course!” he answers, fitting his body against mine perfectly, back to chest.

I kiss the nape of his neck and he manages the seemingly impossible feat of working himself just a bit closer to me. One big hand reaches behind him to rest on my hip. “Sweet dreams, Sev,” he tells me before withdrawing it to allow me to wrap my arm around his waist and press my palm against his breastbone.

How can my dreams be anything other than sweet? I have my heart’s greatest desire right here in my arms. I can still feel myself smiling as I drift into sleep.

As I slowly return to waking consciousness, I become aware of the small incentives to do so that Remus is providing each of my senses. First and sublimely, I feel his summons through the medium of touch: the insistent brushing of his soft hungry lips against mine, the swift deftness of his moist tongue imploring my mouth to admit it to its depths, the delicate, steady sweep of his fingers and palms over every bit of my nakedness that they can reach. I drown in the ecstasy of his touch—and in the heavy musk of his arousal that washes over me in its wake.

When I gasp, that wicked tongue of his works its way into my mouth, greets my own, and sets about the delightful business of stealing my breath and wit away. It tastes of Earl Grey heavily sweetened with honey; better still it tastes of Remus himself, as does his saliva mingling with my own. Even before I can open my eyes, my husband pulls me to him, so that the hardness of his nipples and penis evoke the arousal of my own. His huge hands play across my back, stroking me from the tops of my shoulders to the backs of my knees before coming to rest on the cheeks of my arse and kneading them gently but ever so insistently. I gasp again and feel gooseflesh rising all over my body as he carefully spreads my cheeks and runs the tip of one finger from the end of my tailbone to the base of my scrotum before he begins massaging the sensitive opening through which he’ll soon enter me.

“I’m being a rude, greedy bastard, I’m afraid,” he whispers ruefully.

Whether it’s his intent or not, the rich, slightly breathless timbre of his voice utterly seduces me. It’s all I can do not to beg him to take me instantly, but he needs a bit of reassurance now to avoid uncalled for guilt later. Remus grew up hearing the same shite we all did about the unholy, selfish, bestial lust of werewolves. “Go right ahead,” I encourage him. “I’ve nothing to complain of at the moment, I promise you.”

“I’m horny as hell, Severus,” he informs me—quite unnecessarily. “I could at least have the decency to feed you and bathe you before I start molesting you!”

“Don’t you dare, you impudent tease! Finish what you’ve bloody started.”

My eyes fly open as that skilful finger, so familiar with the shape of my desire, works its way into me. No small gasp this time! I sigh, I hiss with a satisfaction that instantly reshapes itself into an undeniable longing for more. The undisguised desire with which his green eyes regard me fall upon my longing like sparks upon kindling.

“Fuck me, you silly son of a bitch!” I demand. “If you have any decency whatsoever…”

My words drift away as a second finger thrusts into me a bit more forcefully than the first and Remus informs me, “Oh, I will,” as he uses his fingers as his first means of doing so. Those fingers, buried as deep in my arse as they can go at the end of each stroke, roll back and forth across my prostate, drawing deep moans and intense shuddering from me each time that they touch it. I feel feverish, on fire. I want him to quench the fire by gushing a flood of semen onto it.

Meanwhile my mate has slipped his other hand between us, the better to toy with my cock and balls When his lightest touch to the head of my cock smears pre-cum across his fingers, he withdraws his hand from between my legs. I whimper in frustration until he rewards me with the taste and smell of my own arousal. “Here, Sev,” he murmurs giving me his hand to lick. “I believe you really do want my attentions.”

“Of course I do, you crazy fuck! Will you ~please~ put your fingers back where you had them and do what you were doing a minute ago?”

When he does as I’ve asked, I scream myself half hoarse from the sheer pleasure of being finger fucked and pumped at the same time so adroitly. Insofar as I’m able to think at all, I wonder if he’s going to jerk me off before buggering me. I can’t deny that I would enjoy that, but I fancy him sodding me with that great, beautiful cock of his instead and not getting me off until he’s filled me with his cum.

“Oh, stop! Stop a minute. Stop,” I pant and he obeys without demurring.

The look on his face is somewhat troubled. I can’t prevent myself from reaching up to smooth away his slight frown. “I don’t want to come before you do,” I explain, “and I’m getting close. I want you in me now. Please? Not just your fingers.” I stroke the hard, pulsing heat of his erection longingly. “I want this.”

Pulling his fingers out of me and wiping them on the towel he’s laid out on his nightstand, he nods, smiles surprisingly tenderly to be so aroused, and gives me a quick kiss on the lips. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Yes! This time “comfortable” consists of two quickly deployed pillows and my long legs dangling over his shoulders. He enters me with a single thrust, painlessly because I’m still relaxed from his relentless fingering and in delirious need of completion. After a few cautious thrusts (and several choruses of “Do it!” on my part), Remus begins delving hard and deep into my body. “That’s it!” I sigh. “That’s it, that’s it, that’s it!”

His eyes are shut tight with concentration by now, but he manages yet another smile as he starts pumping away at my cock in earnest whilst buggering me to a fare-thee-well.

“Careful! Careful!” I caution. “I want to feel you come first. Please, precious? Please?”

He holds back my ejaculation with the pressure of his hand as he pounds his way to orgasm. His balls are drained but his cock is still twitching inside me as he loosens his grip on my member and swiftly brings me to climax. I howl fiercely in my satisfaction. My legs slip from his shoulders as if they were boneless, and I arch up high enough off the bed that he’s able to sit back and pull me onto his lap, still impaled on him, and hold my heaving chest close to his. Silently he strokes my back until I stop trembling. After a few breathless kisses that famous quirky smile of his spreads across his face. “That’s enough for now, I should think,” he remarks offhandedly.

I nearly choke with laughter before I can restrain myself. “Indeed!”

A few minutes later, Remus claims first call on the loo. I’m standing there waiting my turn and watching him piss when he asks, “Baths first or breakfast, dear heart?” Before I can answer, he adds, “Best breakfast. We both know what shared baths lead to and I’ve no inclination whatsoever to see you faint dead away from… What’s it the Muggles call it?”

“Hypoglycaemia.” I reply, taking up the station he’s just vacated in front of the water closet. “Low blood sugar. I’m not ~that~ hungry, precious!”

He laughs. “I daresay that you’re even less horny at the moment,” he observes. “You’re not the family lycanthrope.”

The self-deprecation vexes me. “Damn it to hell!” I explode. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m every bit as hot for you the day after full moon as you are for me?”

Not wishing to stir up a row, he answers me cautiously. “You can’t be, Severus. You… You’re not able to come as many times as I am. There’s something wrong with my libido. I’m oversexed, insatiable.”

I interrupt his litany of self-reproaches before I can get angry enough to spoil what should be a delightful day. “The gods be thanked for that alleged insatiability of yours!” I insist. Turning to the sink, I watch him in the mirror as I wash my hands. “Remus, you are ~not~ oversexed. You have a very strong sex drive, but there’s nothing unhealthy or abnormal about it. Whether from some change in your hormones at full moon or the disinhibiting effect that spending the night in wolf form has on you, your libido is particularly active the day after. I really enjoy that, because… Well, because my sex drive is strong, too! If sometimes my eyes are bigger than my cock and yours aren’t, what of it? I derive enormous satisfaction from allowing you to continue satisfying yourself upon my perfectly willing flesh.”

He shakes his head and sighs deeply. “It isn’t decent!” he objects.

“No? Then bugger decency! Our community’s sense of decency is what’s indecent, because it’s wrong to say that what gives us so much pleasure without harming anyone else is indecent.” I see him bite at his lip and rub his eyes to keep back tears and instantly turn to draw him into my arms.

“Sometimes I think I’m corrupting you,” he explains in a small, choked voice, “turning you into a bad wizard.”

“Remus, you incredible, lovable dunce! Will you listen to yourself? I’m a former ~Death Eater~! That’s a bad wizard—and I turned myself into one all by myself. At the very worst, you’ve turned me into a naughty wizard, which is a vast improvement, don’t you think? And actually we both know that you and your love, including the part of it that lives betwixt your legs, have done a lot to make me a far better wizard than I would ever have imagined possible. If there are days when you want to make three or four goes of it in the course of the day, what of it? Teenage boys are oft-times that horny, though you and I managed to miss out on the fun at that age. If we can sometimes enjoy that kind of divine randiness now… Well, more power to us!”

“I suppose,” he murmurs against my shoulder uncertainly. Raising his head, he frames my face between his great hands and gives me a chaste, if lengthy, kiss. “But I would feel better if I fed you before I fell upon you again.”

I cover one of his hands with my own and return his kiss. “By all means! Shall I dress and join you in the kitchen then?”

He blushes a fierce deep shade of rose. “Just come talk to me while I cook. I, um, quite enjoy your nakedness as much as you enjoy mine, you know!”

So I keep him company whilst he makes breakfast, or rather lunch as it’s already well past three in the afternoon. My how time flies when you’re having fun! A plateful of scones, some scrambled eggs, a bit of bacon, and two cups of tea apiece later (not to mention a few double entendres, mostly mine, to preserve the mood of the day), and we’re finally ready to wash our salt-encrusted, semen-rimed—and, in my case, wolf drooled upon—bodies. I pull Remus up from his chair and drape myself about him as suggestively as I know how.

He eyes my lack of an erection. “Severus, you are not in the mood to fuck.”

“’S true,” I concede. “However, I ~am~ in the mood to get fucked. Let’s see: You could bugger me in the shower whilst we wash—or if you’re going to be a stickler for self-control, you could wait till we’re done and bend me over the tub…”

“Are you sure that ~you’re~ not the family lycanthrope?”

I give him a pseudo-innocent smile, one of those butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth things. “Positive! Just you’re average horny British wizard…”

He eyes me more than sceptically, struggling to keep from laughing out loud, “My very dear husband, allow me to assure you that there is absolutely nothing average about you! Shower or tub?”

“Definitely tub.”

One auburn eyebrow arches gracefully. “Oh?”

“It takes much longer that way. One might say that the foreplay’s far better.”

Green eyes twinkling, he gives my arse a playful squeeze. “Yes, One,” he acknowledges. ~You~ might. Let’s go scrub all the nasty wolf slobber off your flawless hide, shall we?”

“Not nasty. Not really. I like wolves.”

His chuckle is relaxed and resonant, his smile radiant. “I had noticed, Sev. I had noticed!”

We both get our baths before I get my sodding; and rather than having me lean over the tub to be taken, my spouse has me brace myself against the wall. Every stroke of his elegant endowment sends lightning running through my pelvis, and as the lightning strikes mount up so does my wayward member. Remus is unaware. Earlier neither of us could get more than a faint flicker out of the old boy. What a lovely surprise I’ll have for my mate sometime between now and bedtime!

“Do…shall I try to get you going again?” he whispers urgently. “I’m getting pretty close, but I can hold back if there’s reason.”

“Umm. No. What you’re doing feels fine,” I reply. “Very fine indeed! Just play with my nipples for now, if you like—or suck on an earlobe or give me a love bite on my shoulder.”

His response is incoherent. Something between a groan and a growl. Before he’s done, though, he lovingly courts nipples, earlobe, and shoulder. I smile at the thought of sneaking glances at the great purplish black bruise on my shoulder every day until it fades to a pale, yellowish-white scarcely darker than my skin. The force of his final thrusts is incredible. He takes me hard and deep and fast, just the way I want it at the moment. When he’s done, he withdraws quickly, drops to the floor, and pulls me down beside him to caress me languorously until he can catch his breath and regain strength in his trembling legs. I grab a bath sheet from the rack and spread it over both of us, just to keep us from taking a chill until we’ve recovered. After a few minutes of contented stroking and snogging, Remus remembers that it would be wise to get off the hard tile floor before our joints get sore and our bodies stiff. We hop back into the shower long enough to wash away the traces of our latest adventure.

Just before sunset my mate persuades me to dress so that I can join him in one of his monthly rituals. From first quarter to full moon, he can’t bear to watch her wax. As mild as his transformations have become, her power over him still…disturbs him, profoundly. However, nothing short of being in hospital can dissuade him from observing the first night of her waning.

(I remember helping him stumble onto the Great Lawn fronting the castle the first November that we were together, three months before we wed at the following Lupercalia. He was two days into a bout of the flu. Madam Pomfrey was furious when she came across us and his attempt to return her greetings stumbled into a racking cough. The woman is formidable! I felt sure that she would persuade Filch to flay alive me as soon as Dumbledore chanced to look the other way.)

Tonight is the hunter’s moon and an exceptionally cold one at that, so we don our warmest robes and heavy cloaks and wear thick woollen socks under our boots. Usually we trek down to the lake to watch the moonrise, but halfway there Remus arrests my progress by laying hold of my wrist and bidding me sit with him on a spot of snow-free ground beneath the broad branches of an ancient pine. I lean back against his chest, sitting between his drawn up legs with his head resting on my shoulder. From time to time he plants soft kisses upon my neck or tugs at my earlobe playfully with his teeth. Why not? The children are tucked safe in their beds inside the castle and the adults don’t give a bloody damn what we do on the lawn, so long as it’s discrete. Most of the faculty and staff attended our wedding, in fact, and were relieved to know that Remus Lupin finally got his heart’s desire. Why Sirius Black (who had set the 25-year delay in our relationship in motion) was positively beaming!

We stay beneath the pine spooned together, my back to his chest, whispering sweet nothings to one another for roughly a quarter of an hour. The evening is cold enough to drive us back indoors soon after the great white moon has lifted above the horizon and climbed over the tops of the tallest trees in the Forbidden Forest. “Are you ready to go home?” I ask. Remus nods. I rise and give him a hand up and we head back towards our quarters.

“You cooked earlier,” I observe. “Why don’t you catch a nap and I’ll bring you supper in bed?” I can see that he’s tired. On the day after the full moon his fatigue is, on and off, as great as his sex drive. I love to fuss over him when I have a good excuse! “Just give me a sec whilst I put the bed in order,” I add, gesturing for him to sit on our sofa in the meantime. He nods and sinks onto the couch immediately, a tired, grateful smile upon his face.

I use magic to light the candles on our dresser and nightstands and also to strip our bed of the rumpled bedclothes on which we frolicked last night and today. ~Flannel~ I think to myself as I summon fresh sheets and pillowcases. ~Softer than satin, soothing, snug. They’ll keep Remus warm and cosy until I’m done in the kitchen. ~ When the bed is freshly made, I return to the living room to find my husband sound asleep and snoring gently. I wake him enough to guide him to the bed, help him remove his cloak, outer robe, boots, and socks, and tuck him in before kissing him on the forehead, extinguishing some of the candles, and withdrawing long enough to prepare a bite of supper.

When everything’s done, I put it under spells to keep it fresh and warm, pile it onto a teacart, and head for the bedroom. I’m nothing if not a strategist. I wake my spouse ever so slowly, ever so gently, with soft words, soft touches, and softer kisses. Once he’s fully awake, I light the rest of the bedroom candles and announce, “Dinner is served!” Dinner consists entirely of finger foods, which we have a great time feeding to one another: finger sandwiches, cubes of cheese, pickles, cherry tomatoes, seedless grapes, with individual custard tarts and “slices” of dark chocolate apple for dessert. We dine well, but not too heavily. I’m hoping for a round of after-dinner lovemaking. The old boy has been ready, willing, and able from the moment that I drew the coverlet up to Remus’s chin and, after leaving a tiny kiss upon his brow, set off to assemble his supper.

“Are you too tired for one more go at it, darling?” I ask hopefully.

The candlelight doesn’t showcase it as well as the daylight streaming through the high windows of our dungeon rooms did, of course, but my husband blushes prettily and draws my hand to his lap where I discover that not only is the spirit willing but the flesh is eager. “I’d like to drift straight into sleep afterwards, though,” he confesses. “Would that be all right?”

I beam at him affectionately. “Of course, you silly prat! Go get your jammies and I’ll help you slip into them when the time comes.”

He shakes his head. “Just you and the bedclothes will be enough to keep me warm tonight.”

“Do you need to take the lead again? The little man is all stirred up and ready to do his part to keep you sated.”

“Truly? Then I shall gladly yield to his efforts. How do you want me?”

“On your side, if easy will serve.” “Easy” means slowly, romantically, carefully, savouring every moment.

“Easy will serve admirably,” he replies.

I begin kissing him, very thoroughly, but without any thought of dominance and submission. This game is a game between equals, for I’ve long since acknowledged that Remus Lupin is my equal in all things. Once we’re breathing hard and desperate to touch the beloved skin beneath the soft wool of our robes, I slowly undress him and allow him to undress me. We feast our eyes and feast our hands, feast our lips and feast our tongues upon the bodies that we have revealed.

With a smile he rolls onto his side and pulls me close. I bury my face in the spider-silk softness of his hair. I cover his neck with kisses. I run my hands down the whole length of his body from his broad shoulders to his narrow hips. Everywhere that my hands have passed, my lips press, offering him my devout worship. I pledged him that at our wedding: “With my body, I thee worship.” And, especially with the few human beings that I love, of whom he is chief, I am a man of my word.

I rest my hands on his hips and slowly kiss my way down his spine from axis to coccyx, ending each kiss with a slow swirl of my tongue. By now, he’s struggling not to toss wildly, which would push me away. His whole body is trembling with the effort to remain reasonably still. I linger at the tip of his tailbone, tracing wet, lazy spirals above the cleft of his buttocks before I proceed. I gently part the cheeks of his arse and play down the length of it until my fingers are tickling his balls, making Remus whimper and suddenly clutch a pillow to his chest.

“Would you like to roll onto your belly for just a bit?” I inquire.

“Yes! God, yes!”

When he’s made himself ready, I find a comfortable spot in our great four-poster from which to conduct a prolonged course of rimming. I kiss his opening repeatedly before barely touching it with the tip of my tongue, which makes him moan loudly and whisper, “Yes!” Pleased with his response, I keep on working him with my tongue, delighting him with lazy circles about its periphery and tiny darts into its centre. Gradually he dilates and my tongue penetrates him, loosening him still further, lubricating him, and leading him to want more than any tongue—however skilled—can give.

“Now. Please,” he bids me softly.

I withdraw my tongue and position the head of my cock against his anus. Slowly, effortlessly I slide my whole length inside him. Before I begin to move, I luxuriate in the marvellous heat of his depths. I carefully roll us onto our sides and wrap my arm about his waist angling my hand down to encircle his member. Slowly I move my penis within him; slowly I stroke his penis encased in my hand. Now both of us are moaning, trembling, seeking release. The rhythm builds, as my cock and my hand move in tandem, bringing us moment by moment closer to bliss. My thrusts are still easy, not at all like the slamming efforts of the day; but each of them presses deeper into him—and each stroke of my hand up and down the length of his erection is firmer and more insistent than its predecessor. The world narrows down to the intense sensations leading us to completion. Time seems to stand still, although I know by the ragged cadence of our breath that it has not. I come first, unable to bear another moment without bursting, breaking, giving myself up to my beloved’s intimate embrace and the ecstasy of orgasm and ejaculation. Automatically my hand continues to ride him until he comes hot and sticky onto his abdomen and chest. I keep on stroking him mindlessly, lubricating his still-erect shaft with his cum, smearing globs of it onto his pubic hair as I maintain the tempo that brought him to bliss.

I don’t stop until his hand closes over mine and he murmurs hoarsely, “Enough! Sev, that’s enough. That’s all I can take!”

I kiss his shoulder. “Are you sure?” I know the answer, but the question is a time-honoured custom from our first days together when I truly wasn’t quite sure where “enough” began.

He rewards me with a rich chuckle. “Positive. Absolutely positive.”

I kiss his shoulder again. “Can you stay awake long enough for me to go clean up and bring the basin and washcloth back for you?”

He turns in my arms and gives me a dimpled, irresistible smile. “Yes, Severus. When will you ever learn that at moments like this I want to kiss you and cuddle with you before I fall asleep in your arms?”

“Probably the same day that you learn that I love full moons as much as I do.”

“You do, don’t you?” he asks in amazement. “And I do. Can you believe it? I. Love. Full. Moons. Is that all right?”

“No.”

Puzzled, he frowns. I kiss the furrow between his eyes away. “New moons are ‘all right’. Equinoxes. Solstices. Cross-quarter days.” I kiss his lips and stroke his cheek afterward as I complete my thought: “Full moons are miraculous, times of great grace.”

He wraps both arms around my neck and holds me close. His silence lasts just long enough to worry me before he announces, “Oh, dear! I know that the phrase is clichéd, but that really ~is~ the most wonderful thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“Good,” I whisper. “Very good.” And I slip out of bed to perform my ablutions, clean Remus when I return, put out all the candles, and settle down with my beloved werewolf in my arms (in his more commonplace human form) to enjoy a night of well-earned sleep.