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: It's dangerous to assume
Author: T'Pau Silver
E-Mail: TPauSilver@aol.com
Website: http://www.geocities.com/TPau_Silver
Rating: PG
Summary: Lupin's reply to Snape's letter
Category: Drama/Angst
NOTES...PLEASE READ: 1/ This is a follow up piece to forced communication. I strongly urge you to read that first or you'll think I've gone mad. 2/ This fic has a HEAVY Lupin bias. Take everything in it with a pinch of salt. (Who knows, if you read this and the other you may get a balanced view)
Disclaimer: If they were mine I'd be buying a blimp, not writing fanfic...

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I would suggest this it is your memory failing you, not mine failing me. I remember everything you've told me, but I still don't understand what you did.

Maybe I owe you an explanation as much as you owe me one. Either way, I feel I have to explain to you.

I do remember our childhood together Severus. Though, not exactly as you describe it, I suppose it's a matter of perspective. For example, I seem to remember that, though I did clutch your hand at the train station, you were clutching mine equally tightly. And you went so pail when we got in the carriage and you realized we were really going.

But I don't hold these slight errors of perception against you; they may well be my errors.

You remember how long it took for the hat to place me? Do you know why Severus? The hat does not place you according to any sort of admirable features, it places you in the house you desire to be in the most, and I was torn Severus. Both my parents were Griffindor, had met in the first year and been fast friend since to the point where they married. I'd always been told I would be an excellent Griffindor and I should try and fit in there.

But then there was you, wasn't there. All my childhood thus far I'd relied on you. On your intellect, your wit, your reassuring presence. Do you remember why we spent the night camped on the floor down the side of our beds Severus? I don't suppose you do after all these long years of bitterness. I was having nightmares about killing someone and hated to sleep, so you sat there all night and spoke to me.

You were my best friend Sev, you knew everything. I'd tell you think even before my parents knew.

I couldn't imagine being without you all year. Not being able to run to you with every problem, to have you there. I knew it was stupid and I would never tell anyone at the time but I needed you more then I cared to admit.

But I was placed in Griffindor. I supposed it was for the best.

I never knew you didn't believe why I didn't write to you Sev. I suppose you do now, of course. Well, you should anyway. As you have stated, the condition has always made me a bit sickly. Either I am the wolf and at the height of my physical prowess, or I am a wreck It's like, becoming the wolf rids me of all my energy.

This has always been worse in the winter and, through those winter months, though I tried to write, I kept getting illnesses and such and all the time I wasn't ill I was studying or they were there.

James had been so good to me hen we first started. I was, without a doubt, the quietest one in my year. I would sit at the back and read a lot and spend a good deal of time writing letters to you. James and Siri took me under their wing. They spent time with me, gave me friends.

In a way, they replaced you, though I never truly trusted them fully. I felt like a charity case to their friendship. They were so close, and I was the third wheel. I always was, thought I become closer friends with Siri after James became preoccupied with Lily.

Either way, they saw it as their job to occupy every waking moment of my time. At first I saw this as no obstacle to our correspondence and wrote to you with them around but once Siri realized whom I was writing to, he and James decided it was best I cut of contact with you. I tried to explain to them who you were to me but they insisted.

I was scared Sev. You must understand where I am. I was scared to be alone. I could feel you moving away from me, integrating yourself into Slytherin. I felt as thought I had to cling on to James and Siri.

I still wrote to you occasionally. You know how I managed that Sev? I got up after everyone else was in bed, crept to the common room and wrote letters then, but I was only young and I couldn't manage this often, it would sometimes be five in the morning before I got to sleep.

I missed you but I tried not to dell on it. I pushed the thought to the back of my head, thinking about other things instead.

I still loved the summer though. You were always so nice to me, never questioned my illness you were so accustomed to it, and though I know you wanted to know. The only reason I told James and Siri was they kept pestering me until I gave in.

If you must know, Sev, that summer was my best summer ever to. It was, almost magical. From the night I opened my window to find your there, looking all wind blown and scared, wanting my help, I knew that summer would be special.

Do you remember that first night Sev? Do you remember how you cuddled up to me, shaking. I was puzzled, it wasn't cold outside, but you explained it wasn't the cold, it was your parents.

Parents Sev. You may be choosing to repress this but your father was a million times worse then your mother. You mother, if I recall correctly, was an alcoholic and occasionally smoked dope. Your father, he was an alcoholic, he took every drug I know of and, I imagine, some I don't, and he was violent Sev.

I know you like to think your father was perfect and it was just your `damn muggle mother' but he was really ten times worse.

Don't you remember that time when you were six, then took you into care. You stayed with us for a few weeks because of your father.

I suppose it doesn't matter why you crawled into my bed that night, it just matters that you did.

You made a very good pillow Sev.

And they you appeared every day and it was as if we went back to being best friends again more or less overnight. And I was back to telling you everything. I don't know if you realize Sev but some of the things I told you over that summer would have hurt me more then telling people I was a werewolf ever would.

I worried, when you started being there 24/7. My parents worried to. They were scared that you might work out what had happened to me. You saw me getting weaker and weaker approaching the full moon, but you didn't seem to realize.

I'm surprised you didn't work it out when my mother told you, around the full moon, that I'd been taken into St. Mungo's for a few days I was so ill.

I don't know if you remember Sev, but you blamed yourself when I `came back'. You thought it was your pushing me to do things that had made me ill. For a few days after that you more or less waited on me hand and foot, rushing about, bringing me things. Taking care of me.

It was a few days after I came back that the lake happened.

I don't know if you remember, but I finally convinced you to let me get up and go and do something. You agreed, but only to a quiet walk down to the lake. I loved the lake so I didn't mind.

I never told James and Siri about that lake you know, it was to perfect. It was my quiet place, our quiet place, and having them there would ruin it.

I don't know who started the kiss Sev. I've always thought it was you, but never been certain. I just know I welcomed it.

I was growing Sev. Things were starting to become sexual to me, and you were sexual to me. Something about you hade this entire subtle charm that seemed to be lost on everyone else. Since that night when you had shown up at my window, pale, doe eyed, your usually straight hair mussed around your face by sleep and the wind, all my thought had been centered on you. All my dreams, my fantasies.

I wanted you so much.

You looked so intense, sat there studying me as if you wanted to devour every bit of me, then your look softened, and you reached out, brushing my hand in a way I constructed as lovingly. Then you leant forward.

I presume you were more sexually aware then me Sev. Some of the things you showed me, I didn't even know. The kiss was ground breaking and earth shattering to me.

Well, there was the kiss you mentioned in your letter in the preceding year. Maybe I should explain that kiss to you. A small group of Ravenclaw girls, Abby, Lin, Mabel and Jess if I remember correctly, used to sneak out ever Saturday night to meet us up in the trophy room.

By then Peter was part of our little group to, the new charity case making me feel slightly more accepted. The girls were in the year above up and I still can't quite imagine what drove them to meet us every week. I'd never join in that much, I was far too jumpy about being out of bed that late at night.

They would play...games. Sometimes they'd just talk, do their homework. Sometimes they'd play drinking games. One of them brought a bottle of fire whiskey one week and they got drunk of it. I didn't join in and I was happy of it the next morning when they all had hang overs.

Sometimes they played spin the bottle or truth of dare.

James forced my to play spin the bottle, I only joined in the once. I for Abby. I suppose she was the prettiest, Siri and James seemed to think so, but I already knew I had little to no interest in girls so I didn't comment.

I suppose, kissing her was nice. It was a short kiss, soft. Just a quick touching of lips really. Hardly enough to constitute a kiss.

For the record Sev, I've always classed that day by the lake as my first kiss.

And I've always classed you as my first love.

I suppose that's why I avoided talking about my feelings with you. You never seemed to want to talk. I was scared that, for you, it was just kissing. No girls about so use the next best thing. I thought that, maybe, If I said I loved you, you'd leave me alone, maybe tell everyone at school and they'd all hate me and I really would be alone.

I'm still afraid to be alone Sev. The only reason I'm telling you this is I'm already alone, I have nothing to loose.

Surprisingly, the most significant moment of the holiday for me wasn't what you pointed out. I know it should be but it wasn't. I'm not even sure if you remember it, it seems too insignificant.

It was a few weeks later and I was worrying about school and the next full moon and everything like that. We were down by the lake and you were looking out, watching ripples on the surface of the water.

I don't know what you were thinking of.

It was late, the streetlights were probably on already (by which point we were meant to be in) and I was a little tired, we'd had a full day.

A leant over without thinking about it and lay my head on your shoulder. You slid a arm around my back, pulling me close, and I took this as encouragement to cuddle up to you, curling up into your side.

Noting seemed so bad while I was there, holding and being held by you. We sat there and watched the lake together, I don't know how long for. It seemed like forever.

I wished it had lasted forever.

When we were back at Hogwarts, I waited desperately for you to write to me. I waited for days and days on end, just for one letter. They never came. I eventually took the risk of writing to you. Siri caught me.

He started yelling, told me he'd said to stay away from you. James and Peter agreed, thought I doubt Peter knew what he was agreeing with. I told them I needed to talk to you. They wouldn't understand though, they couldn't. How could they know how much I loved you.

I gave them vague details about the summer we'd spent, they didn't seem impressed. I said you were my best friend, they said they were better friends they you'd ever be. I told them I loved you and they said if I had anything to do with you again they'd stop talking to me, abandon me.

Everything was uncertain Sev. You hadn't spoken to me and I thought maybe I'd done something wrong, maybe it was just sex to you, and now I was going to loose the only people I knew I had.

I agreed not to write to you, though I wanted to so badly.

Knowing what you have told me now, I wish I had written to you.

I remember the incident you described, I remember it well. I'd tried to keep them away from you for the mot part of the year, and I'd been quite successful. I think James may have took pity on my because of what I said, though Siri didn't understand it.

That day, I will I could have helped you but you'd been so cold to me all year and I wanted people around me so badly.

After they were really happy about it, you know. They drank to it, and to me, saying I'd shown real Griffindor loyalty and it was a good thing I'd got over my feelings to you.

The entire time they were hurting you I wanted to either punch then or burst into tears. I wanted to help Sev but I couldn't so I just concentrated on my book and bit my lip, pretended it wasn't happening.

I suppose that must be why you hate me, I didn't save you, and I was weak.

I suppose I deserve it really. It was a awful thing to do but Sev I was scared, more then I had ever been before. And I was weak. And I was 16.

I suppose, in that vein, I forgive you for what happened at the end of the year, for the record I had anyway. I have blamed you for very little in my life, even when you deserved the blame.

I suppose the big question now is, where do we go from here? It seems we've told each other so much, what do we do with it. Do we ignore it? Can we ignore it? Can you Sev, I don't think I can.

Thank you for the potion, Sev. Please reply soon.

Remus