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: Of Monsters
Author: Nitro
E-Mail: homicidalpixie@yahoo.com
Rating: R
Summary: Following the infamous incident in the tunnel under the Whomping Willow, Severus and Remus are forced to spend a night in the hospital wing together.
Category: Drama/Angst, First Time
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters, terms, and indicia are the property of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros inc. No money is being made off of this work of fiction.

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Of Monsters (part one: Moonset)

You think we can’t tell you’re listening?
Leave me alone.
Hear something good, did you?
Perhaps.
Look, whelp, if you’re that interested in what we get up to –
I’m not. The Headmaster might be.
Right. Well, there’s a black knot on the North side of the Willow that might be of interest. To someone.
You behave as if I care, Black.
Suit yourself.

The passageway was dark and humid, thick with earth scents: the spice of soil, the flat musk of decaying vegetation, the sour, morning-mouth tang of stagnant water. Now and then there was a hint of animal rot; just a hint, nothing fresh. Things crunched under Severus’ feet that seemed likely to be bones. He didn’t want to stop and check.

What the hell did Lupin do down here? And the rest of them? Of all the nooks and rabbit holes they must have found round the castle in their ceaseless quest to get themselves expelled, why this cramped, wet-smelling tunnel?

“Amplare,” he muttered, and the warm gold light at the tip of his wand glowed brighter. He cast it about, back and forth, sweeping the many uneven crannies of the tunnel, flushing the shadows out. They seemed to flee up the walls and hide in the pits and ruts along the ceiling. His eyes were beginning to play tricks on him. Now and then a root gave a startling wiggle, stopping the breath in his throat for an instant; the roots were no more than split, branchy hairs now but at the tunnel’s entrance they were thicker than a man’s arm. When the Whomping Willow had launched without warning back into its usual rage, the roots had reached out from the walls and snatched at him, tangled in his hair, sought and grabbed his hands and arms like the prematurely buried, while the Willow groaned and creaked sepulchrally all around. Severus had broken into a run, and not stopped until he couldn’t hear the moaning anymore.

There were still shiftings all around him, scratchings and little showers of dirt, trickles of water. Things didn’t echo in this tunnel; the walls were too soft. Instead the thick air and the many twists and curves distorted sounds, muffled and amplified weirdly, made distance impossible to judge. Like being buried under the bedclothes at night, blind and nervous, his own breath startlingly loud around him, a faraway creak seeming right in the room, the soft breathing of his roommates too distant for comfort, his heart pounding right behind his face. There in the tunnel he kept touching his cheek to see if he could feel his pulse through it, covering the movement by scratching an imaginary itch, as if anyone could see him, as if he needed to hide from himself the fact that he was frightened.

And what is there to be frightened of? he asked himself, an attempt at mental control. I have a wand. I know curses. How childish that sounded. It’s only dark, he told himself. I am not afraid of the dark. I am not that small.

He brightened his wand again. It flared so brightly that his eyes ached.

From somewhere ahead of him, there was a noise, gone before he could identify it, something low and sharp. He stopped walking.

It’s just Black. Fucking with me. Maybe Potter and Lupin too. I have my wand. I’m not afraid.

There was a hollow dripping behind him, and he hunched protectively, then relaxed.

“Black!” he called shrilly. “Black - Potter, I’m tired of this game, and I’m leaving. You can get your fun elsewhere.”

That sound again, louder – maybe closer, maybe not – and drawn out. Like a chair scraping against a wooden floor, a low, ragged roar.

“I’m leaving,” he called again, wondering if they could hear him. His voice sounded strangely muffled and close to his ears in this thick humidity, this tight and irregular space.

Another noise, a new one, and constant. Scraping, shuffling – something moving. Someone walking? Someone crawling? Crawling fast. Crawling hard, heavy, coming nearer – Black! Potter! -another roar, and oh it is a roar, it was someone, it was voice-but-not-voice, it was raw and savage and not human it’s not human is it? Black!

What have you done?

Grunting, low grunting, breathing, shuffling. Severus reached out and pressed a hand against the tunnel wall, still half-turned to go, now unable to stand on his own. He stared at the bend in the tunnel before him, his wand still raised and lit, staring at the spot where one wall eclipsed another, the spot where it (It? They? It?) would appear, daring it crazily to show itself and praying that it would not.

Something behind him, something, footsteps? Thudding, scraping – what have you done?

A voice, sticky-muffled and indistinct back behind him, round a bend, then again, and a word this time –

“Snape!”

- and he turned like a reflex before he knew what he was doing, and there was Potter, jogging toward him, and Severus’ back felt cold and tingling and exposed to whatever was behind it, and he was raising his wand like a sword, defensively.

“Snape, we’ve got to –“

And the roar again, from his other side, earthshaking, and he whirled with his wand now feeling useless before him, and there –

There were Potter’s hands on his shoulders, and there was a gleam of teeth, dripping – the walls dripping, cool trickle in the distance – hideous snout, hungry, monster, and there were his feet coming off the ground, and nothing else.

Hear something good?
I am not afraid.

* * *

Remus minced alongside Madam Pomfrey as she led him into the hospital wing, wrapped in one of the school’s clean-smelling terrycloth modesty robes. The scent of it, soap and starch and cedar, evoked a sort of tired comfort in him every time he caught it, even in broad daylight, coming off some student’s clothes or the fresh sheets in his dormitory. It meant the worst was over, for a while; it meant sleep. He was bleeding and sticky and sore.

There were only two torches lit in the infirmary, each jutting out at an angle over a bed, casting an impossibly sharp ellipse of light and bringing to mind interrogations, hot seats. One lit bed was empty, already half-embraced by a privacy screen; the other, Remus saw - with a bass note of resigned, expected dread - contained a still boy with a dark face.

Severus sat against the headrails of his bed with his legs held to his chest, the lower half of his face obscured by his knees, his eyes in deep shadow. He didn’t move as Remus was led around him and helped into the vacant bed; there was no flicker of eye contact or acknowledgement. Pomfrey pulled the covers up over Remus’ legs, pushing him gently back onto his pillow. She knew very well that he was cold, and his back was aching, and his ribs were sore. Like the mother of a sickly child, she knew all the pains and needs and comforts and tended to them silently, her face set in hard, inscrutable lines. He had years and years of memories of those lines on his own mother’s face, the dull, resigned eyes that went with them, the sad and comforting smile that made it only halfway up her face.

“There,” said Pomfrey absently, tucking the covers deftly under his arms. “Screen?” she asked, as she always did, and he snuck a glance at Severus before shaking his head. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to see to you,” she said, touching the screen with an automatic quickness and then bustling away. Remus wondered, as he often did, how perfunctory these nights must have been to her, how much maternal care he was projecting on her, how much was only practiced bedside manner, how much was genuine. As always there were no answers, only a vague feeling of shame.

“Severus,” Remus murmured after Pomfrey had left the room. Severus didn’t move. “Snape,” he said, louder this time. Nothing. Remus considered for a moment that Severus might be unconscious, but he doubted he could have held that tight fetal curl if not awake. Remus narrowed his eyes and held very still and studied him, finally detecting the slight, slow rise and fall of his shoulders and a muscle twitching frantically in his forearm. There was no voluntary movement at all.

Remus remembered what had happened; he always remembered. His wolf memories were always clear and distant, detailed but somehow incomplete; they were made up of sounds and smells and isolated rushes of movement with no thoughts behind them; there were hungers and compulsions but no words, no names, no decisions. He remembered the smell dripping up from the tunnel like a flood in reverse: old sweat, new sweat, many-layered pheromones, the bitter pong of stress, unwashed hair and dander, faint soap and food. Coming nearer, getting stronger. Going for it, wanting to bite, wanting flesh between his teeth and blood and heat. Mouth watering, dripping in cool strings over his lips and jaw, trotting faster faster down the tunnel. Smell of meat, smell of prey, want and hunger burning in him, tearing up his insides like a wild, caged thing. Then a more familiar smell, a comforting musk that meant companionship and safety, and his prey – he could see it now, a mess of sharp contrasts, blacks and whites – was getting away, its scent disappearing along with the one he could now name: James. Then a hot rush, mad hunger, and he bit his own haunches from fury, the familiar cordy flesh between his teeth as unsatisfying as ever.

Moonset had found him clammy and nude in a top bedroom of the Shack, facedown on the floor, in all the usual agony. He was halfway down the tunnel before he knew where the blood was coming from, itching down his thigh in trickles.

“Snape, are you –“ His voice split in his throat, and he coughed softly. “I know I didn’t hurt you.”

“No,” Severus said quickly. Remus blinked, stricken, and waited for more. It didn’t come. Severus was as still and silent as before.

“Do you know what –“

“I’m not an idiot,” Severus snapped. He gave a huff of breath that may have been laughter. “Every full moon. I should have figured.”

“You’re going to tell, aren’t you.”

Suddenly Severus’ head turned, snapping violently to face Remus, eyes still in shadow, mouth a wide darkened gash. A yellowish bruise was creeping from under his hairline.

“How little does my life mean to you, Lupin?”

Remus lifted his head and shifted onto his side, frowning. “I don’t understand.”

“You would have killed me,” Snape said, hardly above a whisper. “Black would have fed me to you. My life would have amounted to dog food, do you understand?” He spat the words, his rage so evident it seemed to spray tangibly from his mouth. “And you. Are worried. About your reputation.”

Remus’ eyes widened, then shrank to slits. “Severus,” he warned. Severus’ lip curled resentfully, and Remus shut his eyes and said, “Snape. There’s so much more to this than –“

“- Than your reputation, yes. Yes, I’d imagine you’ve quite a bit at stake.”

Remus stared at him, waiting.

Severus bit down on his lower lip hard enough that pink faded to white. “The point, if you missed it,” he spat. “is that so do I.” His voice fell to a dull murmur. “So did I. But that hardly mattered to you, did it?”

Remus sat up swiftly, setting off rockets in his ribcage, feeling the hot points in his spine. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stared hard at Severus.

“You can’t think I had anything to do with this,” he said, a jagged edge of pleading in his voice.

Severus snorted.

Remus hung his head and shook it slowly, his mouth hanging open a degree. “Your problems with James and Sirius have never been any of my business, Snape. And I certainly – I certainly never – I would never.”

Severus’ lips undulated, pursing together and then stretching in a bitter parody of a grin.

“Of course,” he said archly. “Because werewolves are allergic to human flesh, aren’t they? Never touch the stuff, in fact –“

A rush of acid rose in Remus’ throat, stinging, and he choked it down. His voice, when it came, shocked him with its roughness.

“No, you’re right, Snape! Ever since first year I’ve wanted nothing more than to eat you up, haven’t I? ‘Mmm, Snivellus,’ said I. ‘What a tasty morsel, that one! A little greasy, perhaps, but then I’ve always had a weakness for junk food!’ I - ah -“

The pain in his ribs was flaring, webbing over his chest and back, spiking when he breathed. Chills crawled under his skin. He pressed his hands to his sides and eased himself onto his back. His head was at an uncomfortable angle on the pillow, but he didn’t dare move. The door to Pomfrey’s office creaked open, and there was the rustle of her skirts; Remus moaned gratefully, slipping back into the patterns of a sickly child, waiting to be comforted, given care.

He could feel Severus watching him.

* * *

Severus had never been cared for like that. Not by Madam Pomfrey, anyway. He had only dim, clipped memories of his mother bending over him, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead, his cheeks, the side of his neck, smoothing back his hair from his forehead while he let his eyelids droop, rubbing a cold and minty-smelling balm into his shoulder. Pomfrey’s body blocked most of the procedure from view but Severus watched anyway as she dressed wounds he couldn’t see (and what on earth could have so badly hurt a werewolf?), held Remus’ head at an angle and slipped a spoon into his mouth, wiped his face and hair with a wet cloth, made soothing nonverbal sounds at him. She hadn’t been as warm to Severus when Potter had dragged him in. She had clucked and patted his head and called him dear and given him a warm drink and a pill. He envied Remus’ bathrobe. His robes were damp-gritty like unwashed sheets and still smelled of the tunnel, and of his sweat.

Pomfrey moved to the trolley at the foot of Remus bed and began to prepare a syringe, shooting a little firework spray of silvery liquid into the air. A large rectangle of gauze covered Remus’ upper thigh, and Severus watched pinpricks of candy-red appear on it, one then two then three, spreading and staining, starting to darken to an earth shade and melting together, three then two then one long blot of blood. Then Remus flipped the corner of his bathrobe over his leg, and Severus looked up to see large eyes watching him before Pomfrey blocked Remus from view. A small hiss of indrawn breath, and then Pomfrey set the empty syringe down on the bedside stand with a hollow click.

“And how are you?” she asked, turning to Severus. “Do you need another…?”

He shook his head. She nodded and slid the screen around Remus. “I’m off to bed, then.”

Severus shot a nervous glance at Remus. “May I go?” he said gruffly.

“We’ll see how your head is in the morning, dear.”

“At least give me my wand.”

Pomfrey gave him a condescending smile. “Don’t be silly,” she said, flicking a glance at Remus, and disappeared into the back room.

Absolute quiet. Remus’ hand appeared above the screen, the bony wrist bare, and touched the base of his overhead torch. It flared blue, then died to an orangey, flameless glow. The hand retreated, and with a click, Remus’ bedside lamp went on, and Remus’ distorted silhouette was visible through the screen, sitting upright.

The screen held in all but a faint yellow glow, creating an eerie asymmetry, making Severus feel spot-lit. He reached up automatically for his own torch, then stopped. I’m not afraid of the dark; but he wanted his torch on. He was comfortable in the hard lines and glare.

Severus unfolded himself, holding in a groan, stretching out on the bed. Cramps shot through his calves and thighs; he felt made of wires.

“I’m sorry,” Remus said. “For shouting at you.”

It was hardly shouting, Severus thought. He wasn’t sure Remus was capable of producing a shout. Does he howl? Certainly he must howl.

“And – and for the other, obviously,” Remus continued, fumbling. Severus could see his head hanging at a sheepish angle, a shadow curtain of hair lifting away from his face when he spoke and breathed. A hand came up and raked it back, then fell away. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Not that it means anything to you.” The broken smallness was gone from his voice; he was talking fast, and there was an undertone of hyperactivity. Something rustled and his shadow moved: he was kicking off his covers.

“I don’t hate you, Snape.”

Severus narrowed his eyes and watched the silhouette, which was fidgeting rhythmically. The hands were moving up and down the shins.

“Do you hate me?” asked Remus. Severus turned his head, grimacing. Remus’ voice was plaintive and high, pathetic. “I don’t know if anyone’s ever really hated me before. I mean really hated.”

Severus sighed roughly. “Don’t embarrass yourself, Lupin.”

Remus startled him badly by laughing, loud and hard, for a long time. When he stopped – suddenly, like the needle skidding off a record – he cleared his throat softly and said, “Sorry.”

The bed creaked and Severus sat up quickly. Remus’ shape disappeared from the screen.

“What are you doing?” called Severus.

“Just walking.” A pause, and the quiet hiss of bare feet on the tile floor. “The stuff she gives me. Makes me a little, um, restless. I won’t come around the screen if you don’t want me to.”

Severus wished he had taken the opportunity to read Remus when his eyes were still visible. He wasn’t advanced enough to get anything specific, but he could get feelings, intentions – he could have recognized malice. He listened for a while to Remus’ indistinct shuffling, which stopped and started irregularly. Now and then he would hear a sharp ting of something hard on metal, or the low, gravelly scrape of fingernails on stone. It made him nervous that he couldn’t see Remus, but he could tell by the sounds that he was on the far side of the room. It occurred to him that this was intentional.

“What did she give you? In the needle?” asked Severus. The shuffling stopped.

“Why?”

“Curious.”

“It’s – uh, it’s kind of a cocktail, I think. It raises my blood sugar, it’s got some nutrients in it, I forget what exactly. And it’s got extracts of – something. Something with a long name. It helps me get my strength back. After.”

“Jack-In-The-Pulpit?”

“Pardon?”

“That’ll be the extract, I think. Probably steeped with Hellebore. A painkiller and a stimulant, respectively.”

“Oh.”

There was something subtly humiliating in the indifferent silence that followed. Severus’ throat constricted slightly.

“One would think you’d care to know what you were being injected with, hm? But I suppose your blood’s already polluted, so what’s another taint or three?”

There was a sudden violin-creak of springs from across the room, as if Remus had sat down hard on a bed.

“So fixated on blood, your House,” Remus mused quietly. “So morbid.”

“Unlike Gryffindor, of course.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Bleeding Gryffindors and your pretty little death fantasies, hm?” Remus made a soft noise. Snape pressed his lips together smugly. “You call me morbid. Lining up for Auror training, strutting about like you’ve just bloody arm-wrestled the Dark Lord – dreaming of your own photogenic corpse, aren’t you? The posthumous Order of Merlin? Like lambs to the slaughter.”

“And you know better, do you?”

“I’ll make it out of this alive.”

“Oh?”

“Provided you don’t kill me.”

Remus chuckled throatily.

“Don’t think I’m not considering it.”

Severus smiled grimly.

“Make sure you finish the job. I don’t fancy being your monthly playmate.”

“Ah,” said Remus. “It has a sense of humor.”

Severus’ face darkened. There was something too open and chummy about this. Something had been overstepped.

“There is only one “it” among us, Lupin,” he snarled. Remus didn’t respond.

Severus wanted to know what time it was. There was a clock across the room, but he’d have to cross around Remus’ screen to see it. He listened to the ticking instead, the prolonged echo of it coming off the tile floor, the nightmarish instruments, the slightly embarrassing bedpans. It had to be after midnight, probably after two. He felt like he’d be safer after sunrise, though he supposed claws were just as sharp in daylight, monsters just as savage.

* * *

“I don’t suppose…” Remus began. He let it hang, a litmus test of the air between them. Severus had been quiet for what seemed like a very long time.

“What?” A grunt, indifferent.

“There was a potion I used to have to take. When I was younger. Thick, bittersweet stuff, taken orally. It was supposed to, uh, put me to sleep after the – the nights. So I could recuperate. It tasted like –“

“- the way cheap wine smells.”

Remus started slightly, then broke into a bewildered half-smile.

“Yes…?”

Severus’ bed gave a long groan, and his sheets rustled.

“Elderberries, stewed for a day with a drop of ethyl alcohol, pure. Chilled for four hours in an opaque container with seven whole leaves of Dog’s Tansy.”

“Ah.”

“Did you chase it with peppermint? The next morning?”

A fond smile fell over Remus’ face, and he nodded even though he knew Severus couldn’t see him. “My mother made mint tea, always.”

“To wake you up.”

“Yes.”

Quiet again, but more comfortable than the one before. Remus hated the kind of quiet that came after sharp words, the anger still hanging in the air like smoke.

Severus made a small noise, the stillbirth of a syllable, then paused. Finally: “When were you bitten?”

Remus drew a slow breath and cast his eyes downward. Quickly Severus added, “Academic interest. It’s an old drug, the elderberry mixture.”

“Right. Um, I was about three.” He crossed the room and sat down on his own bed, which had cooled. “I remember that day, before and after, but not much of the – event.” Severus did not respond. Remus lay down and turned on his side, facing away from him.

“And your first transformation?” ask Severus. His tone was clinical, as if he were taking notes. Remus sat up again.

“It was… a few weeks later. The moon rose while we were all asleep. I was in the nursery – a little room off my parents’ bedroom. I woke them up growling.”

“You were a fully grown wolf?”

Remus slowly, gingerly wrapped his fingers around the end of the screen and pushed it back until Severus was visible, sitting cross-legged on his bed, facing Remus. His posture straightened and he regarded Remus down his nose

“I was – basically a feral pup. I was little, but I had teeth and claws; I was dangerous enough. That first night I chased my mum and dad out the bedroom, and they grabbed my brother –“

“Romulus.” said Severus, nodding.

Remus smiled apologetically. “Milo.”

Severus’ face fell sourly and he averted his gaze. Remus leaned his forehead against the screen’s frame and closed his eyes.

“And?” Severus prompted.

“Um. And – and they grabbed him, and they left the house and went to the neighbor’s. Good thing, too, ‘cos I clawed through the bedroom door and had the run of the place.”

Severus stared at him, his _expression unreadable.

“After that they were – cautious.”

Severus tilted his head quizzically. Remus’ mouth twitched at the corners, and he shook his head quickly.

“There was another potion,” he began, wanting to steer the conversation somewhere safer. “Uh, tasted like… sickly-sweet, sort of, like maple syrup with castor oil mixed in. Made me want to vomit. I had to drink a thimbleful every hour on the day before –“

“Dandelion sap, willow leaves, blood of a vole, and – it varied, but generally a small dose of Hemlock. Not enough to kill you. Sometimes Nightshade instead. The dandelion sap is what makes it so sweet. Ever tasted the milky stuff that comes out the stem when you pick one?”

Remus covered his mouth with one hand, struggling to blend the gesture in and make it look natural – he was hiding a faint, bemused smile. Severus picking a dandelion, touching the bleeding end to his tongue – no. Severus recognizing such things as sweetness – oddly difficult, for reasons Remus couldn’t quite pin down.

“It erased your memory of the transformations, didn’t it? Or rather, made sure no memory was made in the first place.”

Remus nodded slowly.

“How did you feel about that?”

Look at what you’ve done!
I’m sorry.
It’s not – it’s not your fault, love, It’s just – look how much you’re bleeding. Your brother won’t come out of his room. But it’s not your fault.
I’m still sorry.
I know.

Remus narrowed his eyes.

“It’s a rather controversial medicine,” Severus added hastily. “A few of… your kind lobbied for banning it. Unsuccessfully, of course.” He smirked. “The Terrifying Monster lobby is not a strong one, as you might imagine.”

“I didn’t… really… have an opinion on it then. I was very small, and it was my parents giving it to me – you know. But… I regret it, a little bit, now. I think I could have… learned to adapt better, had I been able to remember things.”

“Ah.”

Silence again. Severus was looking at the floor. Remus got up again and began to pace, still feeling restless and wired from the shot. His scalp tingled and his skin was slightly oversensitive; the friction of his bathrobe felt like spiders crawling over him.

Severus’ interest made him nervous. He had a small, frightening compulsion to say much more than he knew he should, spill his innards out on the bed, elicit empathy or sympathy or pity or whatever Severus was capable of – detached comprehension, probably, couched in terms of logos and pathos. Something very scientific. He remembered, with a strange lurch of regret, the skinny boy with subtly shabby robes and a defensive hunch to his shoulders who had stared with narrowed, suspicious eyes at everyone who passed through his compartment on the Hogwarts Express. This was not a boy who had once picked dandelions. What was the point in trying to make him understand?

“Did they cage you?” said Severus, startling him.

“What?”

“You parents. After you’d chased them out the house. Did they cage you up?”

“Um – not caged, no. There was a room. At the top of the house. They reinforced it, lined the outsides with silver.”

“Rich.”

“Not really.”

“Silver lining, Lupin?”

Remus padded timidly around the end of his bed, emerging from behind the screen and stopping well short of Severus’ bed. Severus watched him warily.

“My parents loved me, Snape. They found ways.”

Snape looked away very quickly, turning his face to the opposite wall.

“Yours?” said Remus.

“My what?”

“Your parents. Rich? No,” he guessed. Something in the way Severus had pronounced the word; as if it were an affliction, something humiliating.

“None of your business,” Severus snapped. “Have you ever bitten anyone? Hurt anyone?” Remus blinked in surprise. Severus wasn’t looking at him; he recognized this as deflection.

“Never bitten, no.”

After a moment, a small smile dawned on Severus’ lips.

“I see.”

Remus crossed to sit on the end of Severus’ bed.

“It’s not something –“

Severus scrambled off the bed, sending the covers hissing to the floor, and climbed onto Remus’ slightly rumpled mattress, pulling his knees to his chest and glaring back at him. The screen, which he had shoved out of his way, crashed against a row of cabinets across the room. A sudden tingling chill went over Remus’ overdelicate skin, making him shudder.

“Right, of course.” he murmured. “Sorry.”

Severus just glared.

“You should get some sleep,” Remus said, resigning himself to a night of bitter silence, feeling suddenly heavy and spent.

“I’m not sleeping with you here.”

Remus snorted. “If I’m such a big scary monster, does it really matter if you’re asleep or awake when I decide to eat you all up?”

Severus slowly crawled onto his side, his knees still bent protectively around his belly and his head resting on his bent elbow. His eyes remained open.

“I’m going to get some myself, if you don’t mind,” said Remus. “I’m told I don’t snore.” He killed his torch and lay down on his back, over the covers.

He felt sick and itchy. He wanted Madam Pomfrey back to soothe him, or better yet his mum, her tea, her callused hands, her tuneless hum. The pillow under him smelled of sweat and unwashed hair and just slightly of herbs: rosemary, menthol, and something bittersweet.

He fell into a heavy sleep.

* * *

The gray wolf walked alongside him, trotting to keep up. Severus’ gait was smooth and quick. There were no doors off this hallway, he needed a door. He couldn’t look up, but he knew there was no ceiling, either, only space.

I think I’m lost.
You’re not, said the wolf. You’re with me.
What are you doing here?
You know.
It’s too dark.
Are you afraid?
I have my wand. I am not that small.
It doesn’t matter how big you are.
Look, If you’re not going to help me then leave.

And the wolf grew smoothly into Remus, nude and bony on all fours, looking up at him. His fingernails were long and sharp. He opened his mouth – enticing, sexual, Severus thought, but then he saw the teeth. The lights went out.

“No one can hear you, you know.”

Severus opened his eyes, which felt sticky and clogged. Remus was somehow over him, very tall. The bedside lamp was off, and the sun seemed to be rising: diffused yellow light.

“Pomfrey sleeps under six feet of silencing charms” Remus continued. “Trust me, I’ve woken the dead in this wing. It’s useless.”

“What?” Severus’ throat was dry; it came out as a scrape. “You were – making noises.” Remus grinned sheepishly. “Didn’t seem to be having a very good time of it. Look at your sheets.”

Severus became aware for the first time that he was uncovered. There were no blankets, and his robes had ridden up to his knees. He sat up, aching everywhere, and pulled them down. His sheets, he saw, were twisted into ropes and hanging over the side of the bed.

“You thrashed them off,” said Remus. Severus looked up at him.

“What are you doing here?”

Remus fell to Severus’ level, sitting on his heels. “Seeing that you don’t kill yourself.”

Severus blinked. His eyes felt swollen. “And to be honest,” Remus continued. “you were quite entertaining. What with your incoherent mumblings and your interpretive dance.” He grinned impishly, exposing his teeth. They were long, gleaming, biting a gash in his face.

“Get away from me,” Severus whispered. Remus rocked back, then forward, bringing his face close.

“Come off it, Severus,” he said quietly. His teeth flashed, yellow light moving down them like a liquid. “You can’t –“

Severus shoved him away, hitting out clumsily, landing a hand on Remus’ face and another on his shoulder. His elbows and shoulders cracked, a painful spark. His thumbnail bit into the side of Remus’ nose, dragging a little, coming away with an uneven strip of damp flesh underneath it. Flash-quick, Remus snatched Severus’ wrist in his bony hand and held it tightly. Slowly he stood up, extending his free hand, ready to catch Severus’ other arm if he struck.

“Let go of me,” Severus said darkly.

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid of you.”

“Let go.” Severus’ voice cracked. I am not afraid. “Now.”

Remus split into a high-pitched, manic laugh, throwing his head back violently. “Don’t be so melodramatic, Snape,” he said, his voice incongruously calm and low. He tilted his head just slightly. “I believe I’m the one who’s bleeding.” With his free hand, he dabbed at the side of his nose, bringing it away with a smudge of bright blood on the tip. Severus eyes followed the little red dash as Remus held it out to examine it.

“Like this, do you?” Remus said softly. “There’s plenty more.” He snatched open the breast of his bathrobe, exposing a slice of his weak chest, the starving hollows and sharp bones. He was latticed with scars: long stripes, claw marks. Some had healed in sharp little concave valleys, some in smooth protruding hills. There were a few new scabs, red and brown and black, rough and jagged, skin just beginning to stitch itself over them. “Blood, Snape.”

Severus reached up and laid a finger on a scab, experimentally, like a child prodding at an earthworm, testing the texture, testing that it was real.

And what could so badly hurt a werewolf? Now you know.

Remus suddenly shifted away and gathered up Severus’ free hand in his own.

“Careful not to mix it with your own,” he said bitterly. “Who knows what kind of – monster – you might become.”

Gently, he brought both of Severus’ hands down, laid them in Severus’ lap, and held them there. Severus squirmed subtly at the touch, and then froze, looking up at Remus. Remus was still staring into his lap, mouth slightly open.

He shifted his grip on Severus’ wrists so that the pads of his fingers were resting on Severus’ robes, at the joint of hip and thigh, where the downward slope began. Severus sucked in a hiss of breath.

“Hm,” said Remus. He sat down on the edge of Severus’ bed. Severus backed himself up against the headrails, displacing Remus’ hands by a few inches. Remus smiled faintly and let go of Severus, laying his palms flat against the insides of his thighs. Severus shuddered and laid his hands on top of Remus’ meaning to pry them off and failing. Remus edged one hand a little farther up Severus’ thigh, and the muscles underneath twitched violently. Flames were licking up his thighs, the crux of them; that sweet, nameless compulsion was tugging at his groin.

‘What an odd creature you are,” Remus whispered. He studied Severus’ face for a moment, looking amused, nearly mirthful; then he climbed up and knelt between Severus legs.

“What are you doing?” Severus hissed.

Remus regarded him coldly and began to pull away. Severus grabbed his hips and held them. Remus laughed breathily.

“What is it that you want, Snape?”

“What do you want?

Remus let himself fall against Severus, catching himself on the headrails and locking his elbows. Their faces were inches apart, their stomachs touched and fitted together. Remus was obscenely warm, and softer than Severus had imagined. He had imagined skin-covered glass, a bag of delicate bones.

“Have you done this before?” Remus whispered.

“Of course I’ve done this before,” Severus spat. Remus nodded thoughtfully and shifted against Severus, letting him feel for the first time the stiffness, the heat. There was an uncomfortable amount of weight on Severus’ pelvis, but he didn’t dare move. “Have you?”

Remus gave a vague half-smile, unreadable, and pulled his bathrobe open, shrugging it down over his shoulders. Reaching down between them, he pulled up Severus’ robes – the friction of the coarse cloth was nearly unbearable – and slid his hand down, over the pale, moist belly, down the dark, uneven trail of hair. This was just how Severus had imagined it, except entirely different. This was just how he’d done it himself, cloistered behind the bedcurtains, stroking his belly gently, teasing himself, pretending not to know exactly where his hand was going next, pretending to be explored. He had not imagined a cold dawn in the hospital room, nor the lithe, warm flesh of Remus Lupin – Severus’ fantasies had always been faceless, a collective of parts, fleshes, skins, heat. These were the same movements, the same grip and touch, but they came from someone else this time, they were the work of two. Severus hadn’t known how different someone else’s touch could feel.

He was shaking. He twitched and twisted at every new touch, every new piece of skin explored. Remus’ breath, right on his face, dissipating over his cheek, was broken and shuddery too. Remus deftly parted the slit of Severus’ underwear and brought it down over the head of his cock, pulling the foreskin down with it. His thumb brushed over the exposed soreness, rubbing the opening, flicking down the cleft. Severus squirmed violently and one hand flew to Remus’, stopping him.

“Too much?” murmured Remus. Severus shook his head and moved his hand to grip Remus. Remus groaned and rubbed against Severus’ belly.

They were both shivering intensely now. Their faces bumped against each other, noses hitting cheeks, brows grazing.

“This is ridiculous,” muttered Severus.

Remus chuckled and looked into his eyes. “Yes.” Severus stared into him, but he was in no condition to read. His vision was blurry. Remus bent and pressed his lips against the side of Severus’ mouth, where his lips met his cheek. Severus turned his face and his mouth opened under Remus, his tongue flicked out and met Remus’; a moist vacuum seal was made between them. Remus’ face was dry and clean; Severus’ was gritty and slick against it. The space between their faces was dark.

Remus rocked against him, rubbing, whimpering, stroking Severus in all the familiar delicate places, seeming to read his mind.

Severus came embarrassingly quickly, shooting semen all the way up Remus’ belly and giving a wordless, guttural cry. Remus pushed desperately against him, free now to finish as quickly and clumsily as he wanted. Severus felt Remus’ hand alongside his own, hurrying him along.

A knock sounded behind them, and Remus froze. Severus throat closed. Both of them looked toward the door.

“Gentlemen?” called a low voice. Dumbledore. Without warning, Remus was off of him, a cold void in his place. Severus pulled his robes down and sat up straight. In the other bed, Remus had buried himself under blankets.

The door opened.

“Ah, I see you’re up,” Dumbledore said brightly. He nodded at Remus. “All right, Mr. Lupin?”

Remus nodded and smiled weakly.

“Splendid. Now, Mr. Snape – a word in my office, if you’d be so kind?”

Severus nodded and stood. Dumbledore beckoned him into the hallway. The torches had not been lit yet, and the corridor outside was dark.

Severus glanced back at Remus, who was curled up in bed, watching him. Their eyes met, and Severus felt a jolt: fear, regret. Remus’ heart, he knew, was pounding. He felt it alongside his own.

What have you done?
You know. Is it too much?
I am not afraid of the dark.
Yes you are.

Part two: Hallways

This is ridiculous, Severus had said.

And Remus had said, yes.

And Severus hadn’t wanted it to stop, hadn’t wanted the hands to go away, and the open, yielding, moving mouth, and the warmth, and the deep, half-stifled noises.

I’m sorry, Remus had said.

I don’t hate you.

And Severus had said: monster. He had said: get away.

And Remus had touched him anyway.

Now (again, some more, no difference) Severus was afraid.

“Would you like to change your robes, Mr. Snape?”

A freezing of his chest, stopping the heart with a deathlike thud. Severus knew it must have still been beating, but it felt like it had stopped. Constriction of the throat. A cold tingle over the skin. He knows, how does he know? Unconscious creeping of the hand, whispering over the front of his robes, checking for wetness, a stain.

“You’ve been in them all night,” continued Dumbledore calmly. “I think the passageway is a bit gritty, is it not?”

A flush, a flood of relief, like the heart starting again, the veins inflating and warming up. Still, a nervous nausea was rising up his throat. Does he know or doesn’t he? Severus felt heavy with dread.

Dumbledore paused outside the antechamber of the Great Hall. “I will wait,” he said, nodding at the open doorway, toward the stairs that lay just inside and twisted down into the dungeons. Severus nodded briskly and hurried down them, through the green-lit empty common room, and down the long, dripping, many-doored hallway of the dormitories. He crept into his room, cursing the creak of the door.

“And where have you been?” purred Evan Rosier, peeking out the slit between his bedcurtains. Severus stopped in the middle of the room.

“I –“

“- You’d be surprised how quickly news travels,” Rosier said, letting the hangings fall back over his face.

Severus waited for more, terrified, but none came. The room was filled with snores, and he felt suddenly heavy, very sleepy. He got on with changing into his other set of robes, his heavy woolen winter ones, and wiped the drying tackiness off himself as well as he could with the hem of his bedsheet. He bunched the soiled robes into a tight ball and stuffed them under his pillow.

Upstairs, Severus followed Dumbledore into his office, where he’d never been before. It was filled with the gentle soughing of sleeping portraits, all of whom looked elderly and rich. Severus scanned them nervously.

“Have a seat.” Dumbledore nodded at one of the plush, voluptuous chairs that faced his desk and waited until Severus was in it before sitting down himself. He pulled open a drawer on the inner side of the desk and produced from it Severus’ wand. He placed it on the desktop, halfway between himself and Severus, and folded his hands in front of him. His face was neutral, his default expression, somehow open and closed at the same time. Severus took his wand and tucked it inside his sleeve.

“May I call you Severus?” Dumbledore said lightly.

“Yes, Headmaster.”

“Good.” The smile again. It put Severus on edge; smiles meant something was wanted of him. “Why don’t you tell me what happened, Severus?”

Severus took a deep breath.

“I caught Lupin underneath the Whomping Willow. He’s a werewolf – but you know that already, I suppose? He got – very close.”

“And, if I may ask, Severus, what brought you to the tunnel underneath the Willow?”

Severus chewed the inside of his cheek.

“Sirius Black set me up. He told me where to go.”

“Where to go – for what, exactly?”

“For… to find out about Lupin.”

“Ah. And Mr. Potter?”

Severus scowled. “Must have gotten cold feet.”

Dumbledore nodded and seemed to think this over.

“Is it possible, Severus, that Mr. Potter was not in on the joke?”

Severus stared at him coldly, boldly. “It is possible, Headmaster.”

“You know what you owe him, don’t you.”

“Yes, of course I know,” spat Severus.

“Hm,” said Dumbledore, staring unreadably at Severus. “Were you able to speak with Mr. Lupin during your stay in the Hospital wing?”

Severus nodded slowly. Dumbledore raised his eyebrows.

“He claims he had nothing to do with it,” said Severus flatly.

“And what do you think, Severus?”

Severus averted his eyes. “It… is possible.”

Dumbledore nodded thoughtfully and rested back in his chair. “Do you remember your first day at Hogwarts, Severus?”

Severus’ eyes shifted around the room; where was this going? He nodded mutely.

“And the train ride?” Another nod. “So do I,” said Dumbledore fondly. “It is one of my most treasured memories. On the train, everyone around me frightened, the older students telling us all wild lies about the pains and dangers that awaited us… the mix of dread and glee on everyone’s face… children from every background, every ancestry, every class, Muggle-born and Wizard-born, old families, broken ones, all indistinguishable from one another, all feeling the same frightened joy…”

Severus narrowed his eyes. He saw the technique now, like the brush strokes in a painting, ugly and intentional from up close.

“… what were you feeling on the train, Severus?”

Fear, freedom. Frightful freedom (but he was not afraid, he told himself. There was nothing to fear; anyway he feared nothing). Physical separation, the links between here and there (himself and his parents, himself and his rotting house, himself and all the things that had happened inside it) stretching and thinning like taffy. Fear for his mother, fear of letting her out of his sight, regret that he had spoken nastily to her before the train had left, because she had made him feel small, smaller than he thought he was, and babyish, and humiliated.

Let me go. I have to go.
Are you scared, dear?
No. Let me go.

“Happy,” said Severus, not really lying, because under everything he had been happy, crazily happy, like a Seeker in a desperate dive, spinning dizzy-lost toward the ground.

“Good,” said Dumbledore softly. “You’re wizard-born, yes? It was a given that you’d come here, that you’d be given the same chance as all your fellows…”

A hard lump rose in Severus’ throat. This was truly unfair; this was worse than he had expected. Dumbledore kept using his name, he was playing with him, he was looking for soft spots. You assume I have soft spots, Headmaster. And with a jolt Severus remembered Remus’ hands.

“I’ll spare you the trouble,” said Severus sharply, and Dumbledore fell abruptly silent, raising his eyebrows, clearly unused to being interrupted. “You want me to keep quiet? Fine. I’ve nothing to gain by telling, anyway.”

Dumbledore smiled indulgently. “Impeccable logic as usual, Severus.”

Severus stared at his hands. Soft spots. There was no logic to this.

He took the serpentine staircase slowly, dragging a hand over the stone walls, lowering himself into the ground.

How many mistakes had he made since sunset? How much debt was he in? He owed silence to Dumbledore – slick Dumbledore, pandering to him, holding this newborn life-debt over his head. Resentment was growing inside Severus like a bruise, filling and swelling, sore, vulnerable to the tiniest pressure.

And Remus. (oh, hands, belly, oh). Remus hadn’t finished with him, he had still been groaning, frustrated, against him (warmth, half-stifled noises) when the knock came. Severus owed him, and the thought brought disgust, arousal; a sick feeling in his stomach and a warm comfort running up the insides of his thighs. He felt fluttery and unstable, and dragged against the wall of the long dorm hallway.

What do you want?
Too much.
Are you scared, dear?
No, let me go.

I don’t hate you.

Severus wanted to vomit.

His roommates were all awake and lounging sullenly on their beds. In their good robes, Severus noted with a twinge of distaste. Those robes would be worn threadbare at the shoulders and hips within a year if they kept that up. Severus believed in taking care of the things that were his. Waste enraged him.

Rosier sat up smoothly as Severus walked in. He knows. Does he know?

“You in trouble?” asked Goyle.

“We heard you got beat up,” said Crabbe.

“By Gryffindors,” said Rosier, smirking.

“It was nothing,” Severus said, shrugging and sitting cross-legged on his bed. He pulled a textbook – a random one, Herbology – off the bedside table and opened it on his lap, bending over it and resting his forehead on his fist. His usual technique, casual avoidance, nothing personal.

“The old man have at you?” Rosier asked, leaning into Severus’ peripheral vision.

“He… there was a talk.”

“Sided with the Gryffindors, did he?”

Severus raked a hand through his hair and looked up at him. Rosier wore a hungry look: a half-smile, sharp at the edges, his eyes narrowed and bright.

“Made you feel like you were the one in the wrong,” Rosier continued. Severus nodded guardedly. “He doesn’t understand us, Dumbledore. Don’t you agree?”

Severus shrugged uneasily. Rosier had an evangelical energy about him, leaning forward with his angular and predatory face. He was scary in the way that evangelists are: something in their eyes, their devotion, their singleness and focus, a passion that borders on delirium. Severus spoke slowly, appeasingly, as he had to Dumbledore.

“He’s the most powerful wizard in the world; I don’t suppose –“

“The most powerful,” Rosier said, a slow and dangerous drawl. “The most powerful in the world.”

A smile split Goyle’s broad face.

“Perhaps you should rethink that, Severus,” said Rosier lightly, and he stared until Severus couldn’t help looking away.

Pulling back inside his hangings, pulling back inside himself, Severus stretched out on his rumpled bed, still feeling sick. There was a hard lump in the middle of his pillow, and he reached underneath and met the cool, sticky damp of his robes. His hand jerked back reflexively. It was like afterbirth, a dead body, congealing blood: something final and irreparable, visceral and hopeless. Ordinary and terrifying.

I have soft spots. I have.
You know what you owe him, don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t you?
Let me go.

He had his wand and he knew curses, but none of it was any good to him now. He repaid his debts. He hated them. He gave what he owed and no more.

* * *

The room was as lazily chaotic as it ever was; James and Sirius bantering loudly about Quidditch, laughter stuttering from them and hands waving in grandiose, unnecessary gestures; Peter bouncing on the bed and nodding along; ambient fidgety noise and voices running over one another. The usual sounds of Saturday mornings, of calm times. Remus, sequestered inside his hangings, hugging his knees to his chest, felt slightly embittered. He would have preferred a pall, he felt he deserved one. Some heavy air, some discomfort. Not that he was surprised.

Sirius was sorry, he knew that, and the pitch and speed of his chatter told him he was nervous too. When Remus had walked in just after dawn, making just enough semi-accidental noise to wake his roommates, Sirius had drawn back his bedcurtains and stared at Remus with eyes so huge and frightened that Remus nearly hadn’t recognized them. They hadn’t belonged on the square-jawed, laugh-lined face, they seemed to subsume it and float disembodied in the bluish half-light. They had stared until Remus granted them a sparing, strained smile, and then they had narrowed under that familiar half-moon grin and Remus had felt a rush of relief, as if he was off the hook, as if he was the one who had been forgiven.

Bare footsteps padded across the room, and Sirius inserted a finger between Remus’ hangings and drew them ever so slightly open, enough reveal a narrow streak of his face: one eye, a nostril, the grim corner of the mouth.

“All right, Moony?” the mouth said. Remus nodded. The eye looked up, and the brow above it crinkled. “Yeah?”

Remus smiled tightly and nodded again. Sirius let the curtain fall and from outside it muttered, “Good. Okay.”

But it wasn’t, and Remus resented Sirius for needing it to be.

He didn’t feel guilty, exactly. Fearful, nervous, regretful, yes, but not guilty. He hadn’t been the one with the power, had he? Though Severus would undoubtedly argue (were he ever in a position to argue such a thing. But when and why would he be?) that Remus was the one with the claws, Remus was the monster, the It, the thing. The thing that devours, that soils and takes. Primal, and full of urges and wants.

But Severus wanted it as much as he had. Hadn’t he?

What do you want?
Too much?
No.
Yes.

“I’m going to go get ready for bed,” Remus said, yawning genuinely – he was exhausted. His roommates nodded and watched him gather up his towel, his toothbrush, his comb. He eased the door shut behind him so that it wouldn’t slam. He was too edgy for loud noises.

He was on the second stair when he heard quick footsteps behind him, and a soft voice saying, “Remus?” He half-turned, and there was James, hurrying toward him with something in his hand.

“Forgot soap,” James said, and held it out, standing above Remus on the first step.

“There’s soap in the Prefects’ bathroom,” said Remus, but he took the porridge-gray washed-thin bar anyway, and slipped it in the centerfold of his towel. James shrugged, and Remus was sure he knew very well that there was soap in the Prefects’ bathroom.

“You know…” James began, scratching idly in his tousled hair and glancing around the stairwell. “You know, Sirius didn’t mean – he didn’t mean anything, I think. He didn’t think. I don’t think he really got what could have, um, happened with you until it was already done. And when he heard…” James’ voice dropped to a deep murmur. “…he was just – I’ve never seen him like that, he was so scared. He threw up all over his bed, you know? After I told him what had happened. We had to do three Cleansing Charms to get it all out. He was an absolute mess.”

Remus leaned back against the wall and ran one hand over his face, pressing the heel of his palm to one eye, which felt sunken and sore.

“Thanks, James,” he said hoarsely, and it sounded a little more casual and indifferent than he meant it. He brought his hands down and nodded at James. “I know – I mean, I know Sirius.”

James nodded gravely.

“Anyway,” he said after a moment, closing the subject. Remus shifted his armful of toiletries and dropped one foot to the third stair. James reached down and patted him roughly on his bicep, which hurt more than it was meant to. “It’s all okay, right?’

“Right, yeah.”

James turned and ambled slowly down the hall, his hands clasped behind him. Remus didn’t stay to watch him long.

The Prefects’ bathroom was off a stubby side corridor, isolated from the main traffic of the fifth floor. Other Prefects found this inconvenient; Remus liked it. It was at a safe distance, and quiet.

Today, though, there was someone at the end of the hallway, outside the penumbra of torchlight, indistinct but recognizable: Severus. Remus stopped at the mouth of the corridor and watched him, wary with a quiet undertone of thrill.

Severus stepped into the light.

“Lupin,” he said.

“Snape,” said Remus, nodding once, slowly. “Did you – what do you want?” Blackmail, he thought. But we’ve both got a secret, haven’t we?

Severus walked up to him, taking long, lurching strides. He stopped very close to Remus, leaving less than a foot between them. Remus’ muscles tensed, his bones felt icy and fragile.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he said. But in a small way, a way that he fought, he was.

Severus shocked him by chuckling. Not warmly, but dryly, mirthlessly, like a cough.

“Perhaps you should be,” he said, looking off to the side. Then, taking a small step back, he said. “That’s not what I’m here for.” He reached up with both hands and brushed the hair from the sides of his face, advertising his wandlessness.

Remus relaxed, but only a little.

Then Severus’ tongue flicked over his upper lip, quickly, strikingly, and he looked right into Remus’ eyes. Remus felt an internal jolt, a rearrangement: relief, desire, fear. Severus’ eyes flickered toward the bathroom door and back again. Remus stared at him a moment, then approached.

“Lukewarm,” he said to the door, and it clicked and fell ajar. Remus discreetly slipped a hand inside his robes, laying the first joint of his fingers over his wand, tensed and ready. He slipped sideways into the bathroom, unwilling to turn his back on Severus. Severus turned his back, though, and shut the door quietly. Then he walked boldly up to Remus and kissed him, like an attack, a pounce, seizing him roughly by the shoulders, smashing their lips together painfully, and with a jarring click of teeth. Remus dropped his towel, and the comb clattered on the floor. Behind them, the mermaid giggled, and Severus pulled away abruptly, rearing like a threatened snake. He let Remus go and rounded the ridiculous bathtub, tilting his head as he approached the painting. The mermaid squealed indignantly as he lifted the portrait off the wall and set it on the floor, leaning against the wall, its subject facing inward.

He turned back to Remus.

“You never finished,” he said.

Remus frowned for a moment before he understood. He shrugged uncomfortably. “Not your fault.”

Severus stood and stared at him for a moment, looking oddly miserable. Then he advanced on Remus, laid both hands on his shoulders, and pushed his back against the wall. Remus ran a hand up Severus’ arm, squeezing affectionately, experimentally, just below the elbow and at the hard, knotty shoulder. Severus dropped his hands and fell to his knees, startling Remus. He looked up at Remus briefly; his face was flushed and there was an uncertainty and discomfort about it that Remus recognized. An empathetic stab went through him; Severus didn’t need to be on his knees for this, he didn’t need to feel Remus looking down on him. Remus slid slowly down the wall, pushing Severus back with his knees, and sat on the floor. Severus crawled over him like a prowling dog, his sharp shoulderblades working under his robes. He slid his hands up Remus’ thighs, pushing the fabric up around his hips. Remus watched, his chin pressed painfully to his chest, the face tilt down, the clumpy curtain of hair fall over it. The achingly warm breath on him, an unbearable tickling, and then heat, envelopment. A painful scrape against raw skin – teeth. Remus’ hand flew to Severus’ shoulder and squeezed. Severus pushed down, and Remus felt the hard, pebbled roof of his mouth, then the smooth, pliable soft palate. Severus gagged softly, and his throat closed around Remus. The teeth again, lower, a steady pressure this time instead of a nick. Remus pushed firmly on Severus’ shoulder and the mouth left, leaving wet cold in its place. Severus looked up, licking his lips and frowning.

“Don’t go – you don’t –“ Remus sighed shakily and wrapped his free hand demonstratively around his shaft. “Use your hands for – this. Don’t go all the way down.” He ran his thumb over the slimy head and shuddered. Severus’ hand slid over his own, pushing it down and out of the way. Remus closed his eyes, and the damp lips met him, opened to him, and the tongue slid over and under, flicking and caressing, the smooth underside and the rough upper surface. Remus’ hand went up the shoulder and around the back of the neck, which was smooth and moist. He had to stop himself pushing at the base of Severus’ skull, urging him to disregard Remus’ own advice and consume him, englut him, give him more and more flesh and suction and nervous movement and warmth. He noticed dimly the hard point against the fleshy side of this calf, and Severus’ soft twisting, soft moaning. They twitched and shuddered together, and Remus stroked the side of Severus’ face, which was alarmingly soft.

Ever tasted…
This was a boy who picked dandelions.

That’s what makes it so sweet.

When Remus came, the cry echoed eerily off the bathroom walls and the mermaid giggled shrilly. Severus stood immediately and went to the enormous bathtub; leaning over the side, he spat into it, retching a little. There was a tiny, hollow splat. He stood and faced Remus; a dark wet spot was spreading on his robes, and his shoulders were heaving. Remus covered himself and got shakily to his feet, bracing himself on the wall. Severus watched him expressionlessly, his face backlit and full of shadows.

“You okay?” Remus said, feeling strangely sheepish and awkward, as if he had just witnessed something he wasn’t meant to.

“I’m not going to tell on you,” Severus said, a baffling anger in his voice, disgust. “This is done.”

Then he walked steadily to the door, fumbled it open, and left.

“But you could get killed!”

”Oh, I could not, Peter. But that’s the point, though; everybody on the pitch is looking at you thinking you’ve gone and done hara-kiri on yourself –“

“- Hara-kiri is with a knife, Prongs.”

“Whatever; Kamikaze, then. Anyway, everyone thinks you’re done for, and you just hover under the bleachers out of sight while the Chaser scores, ‘cos no one’s paying any attention to the goal, right? Then you bob up again and everybody cheers. Remus, you were there when Stephenson did that against Puddlemere, weren’t you?”

“Right,” says Remus, who was listening only peripherally. “Bloody brill.”

It was a lazy, noisy Sunday breakfast. Only a third of the students had turned up, and there were gaps along the benches, and through one of these gaps Remus was sneaking glances at Severus, who did not notice him. Or pretended not to, and did it well. He was staring at his food, chewing rhythmically, listening to or being talked at by another Slytherin whose name Remus didn’t know. A dark-haired boy, more attractive than Severus, and cleaner. It looked like he was speaking very fast.

“You’re sure you’re all right,” Sirius said, hunching a little over the table, leaning across to Remus. It was not a question; it was a request, a demand. Be all right, so that I can be. Remus was feeling somewhat softer toward Sirius now that he knew he had at felt at least as guilty as Remus had. And anyway, he had never been one to let Sirius down.

“’Course,” he said neutrally. Brightly wouldn’t do; anything besides a reserved pleasance would give him away. Sirius knew him well.

Severus got up from the Slytherin table, then leaned down and spoke to his companion. With a slight sinking Remus realized that he might be more than just a fellow Slytherin. He hadn’t thought of such things. He hadn’t thought of Severus’ life underground, in the Slytherin dormitories, which must be unnervingly similar to Remus’ life in Gryffindor tower. Just a different height, a slightly different temperature.

“I’m going upstairs to study,” Remus said. James scooted aside to let him get over the bench, and Sirius watched him solemnly, and Remus was glad to get out.

Severus was already halfway down the dungeon stairs.

“Severus?” Remus called. He leaned against the mouth of the stairway, trying to languish but too nervous and stiff to pull it off. Severus stopped, his shoulders hunched and he turned around slowly.

“What do you want?” he said quietly. Remus shrugged.

“To talk?” An accidental whine. He was no good at this.

Severus just looked at him for a moment, his face masked by the dim grayness of the stairwell, before coming slowly up the stairs.

“Not here,” he said gruffly, when he met Remus on the top step. Brushing past him – a bit roughly, just removed from a shove – he let himself out the huge, heavy antechamber doors, stopped, looked up and down the corridor, then disappeared. Remus followed him down the left hallway, round a corner, down into a silent dead end.

Severus turned on his heel, sharp and militaristic, and laid one hand on the wall, nearly spanning the narrow hall.

“So,” said Remus nervously. “How are you?”

Severus’ eyes flared and narrowed. Remus smiled shyly.

“I mean - stupid question, I know. Just tying to make conversation, I guess. Not that I don’t want to know how you are –“

“What are you doing, Lupin?”

Remus started, taken aback, then recovered. “Well,” he smiled, he was being charming, he remembered how to flirt. His voice was honey-light, mirthful, promising. “I suppose I’m stalking you. You really should call the Aurors, you know. It’ll take ten of them to…”

Severus pushed firmly past him and began to walk away.

Remus turned and jogged to catch up to him. He caught the sleeve of Severus’ robe in his fist. “What are you doing?”

“I have things to do,” Severus said, his voice stone-cold, stone-hard. “Let me go.”

Remus blinked at him, boggling, baffled. After a long moment, he said, “You came back for me.” It was weaker, more choked and fragile than he’d meant it to be.

“I repay my debts, Lupin,” Severus said quietly, dully, as if it was a mantra, something memorized.

“Debts,” repeated Remus, which no voice behind the words, only air, a hiss.

“Do you not feel… adequately recompensed, Lupin?” He enunciated the words clearly, cuttingly. As if savoring them.

Remus could feel his face twitching and changing, searching for an expression that was properly appalled, disgusted, broken, angry, humiliated. In pain, an inexpressible pain, so much worse because it could and should have been prevented.

He could think of nothing to say.

Severus turned and walked away, his heel ticking dully on the stone. Remus imagined that he was satisfied, though he couldn’t see the _expression on his face from here.

He had called him a monster. Terrifying, he had said.
There is only one ‘it’ among us.
Oh? Which is it?

Severus turned the corner, cut from view, his footsteps fading after him. Back to the dungeon stairway, underground. Like burrowing, or being interred. Tiny coffin dorms. But there weren’t any dead bodies down there, only live ones.

I’m not afraid of you, Remus had told him.
Perhaps you should be.

Perhaps. Perhaps he was.