The war with Voldemort has dragged on long and long. So many dead or turned that only old witches and wizards and young ones, barely men and women, are left to fight. The children joke about avada kedavra and how the dementors will take them. They live on a forced slog to an uncertain destination, and if the war should ever end, I wonder how they will endure the peace. Their hardness and despair keeps me from sleep at night and, more often, wakes me fretfully before dawn.

Then, if I am not in my wolf form, I pace a mindless track around the Hogwarts grounds, skirting the Forbidden Forest, trying to wear myself out and wring another hour of sleep from the night before I must teach again, teaching which becomes more and more like the organization of guerilla warfare.

This is such an anxious night, chilly, with the dew soaking my trouser legs. An hour before dawn and every window in the castle dark. I feel like the only living thing. An unfamiliar sound just inside the edge of the Forest stops me. The coughing of a fox? I take a few tentative steps through the border.

Someone on hands and knees, gagging and spitting, long hair hanging. It is you.

“Snape." You look up.

“Lupin.” You manage a tone of disgust -- “Get away from me.” -- then rest your forehead on clenched fists. I see the dried blood on your hands and clotted in your hair. Your jaw sports a fresh bruise. You have displeased your Master.

Of course I know of your spying, and unlike some, I have never doubted your loyalty to Dumbledore and our cause. But I haven’t known all that your role cost you.

“Come on, I’ll get you back to the castle.” I crouch, gauging where to lift you to add the least amount of pain.

“Fuck you! I said to get aw --” A fit of coughing, this time leaving your chin running with blood and spittle.

“If you’ve punctured a lung you need to see Pomfrey right away,” I say, surprised at the gentleness in my voice; you’ve always scared me a bit, and it feels odd to be in the position of soothing you. I take out my wand to perform mobilus corpus but before I can speak, yours is out, pointed at me. The motion has dropped you onto one elbow, and your face is contorted with pain.

“Don’t,” you say through gritted teeth.

I shrug and drop my wand into my pocket. “All right then. But let me help you.” No refusal, so I offer my arm and you pull yourself upright. With my arms under yours you stand in stages, catching your breath with each stab of pain but otherwise making no sound. A wound on your forehead breaks open and bleeds and I wipe your eyes clear with my hand. You are gasping too hard to object.

“Can you walk?”

“Yes, damn you.” This seems to be less about my question than my presence. I am queasy, not at your injuries but at seeing you so unmanned. I carefully lift your left arm over my shoulders and support you around the ribs with my right. You are thin and light, even more than I’d have imagined, bizarrely like a child. The sky is growing paler and the swelling birdsong forms an ironic counterpoint to our grim business.

“I’m sorry if I’m hurting you.”

“Oh fuck your sympathy. Take me to the dungeons and have done with you.”

We start toward the castle, slowly, struggling over how much of your weight I will bear. You pull away from my supporting arm, I tighten it. Then you stumble and I have to catch you with both arms. Suddenly you are grappling with me. I don’t understand. I hold you tighter to keep you from falling. Your hands roughly clutch my head. And you kiss me.

Your lips are hard. You are trying to hurt. Your front teeth scrape against mine. You pull my head forward to increase the pressure. This isn’t desire or even sex, but revenge for my helping you.

And I open my mouth.

It has been so long since I’ve been kissed. Your mouth tastes of blood and bile. I splay my hands over your back, pulling you against me. Every knob under my fingers is sticky.

You shove my head away, swaying on unsteady legs, and it is over. Eyes slitted, sneering, daring me, but to do what? Be disgusted because we are men? Because you are Snape? Because you used your kiss as a weapon? I have been on this lonely planet too long for any of that.

“Come on, Snape. I’ll get you home.” This time there is no pretense that you can support yourself, and by the time we are approaching the castle, I’m holding as much of your weight as I can. Your feet drag.

“The small gate,” you gasp. It is only past dawn but you don’t want to risk being seen. It represents many more steps, but I concede without argument. I’m afraid that any outrages against your privacy will kill you outright, as an injured wild bird will die in its box from the nearness of people.

Your head is lolling when we reach your rooms.

“Snape, open the wards please, or I’ll have to leave you on the floor.’ You barely manage to choke out the words then your wand clatters to the floor and I drag you inside. When I lay you on the bed, I think you are unconscious. “Ill get Pomfrey and we’ll be right back.” Your eyes open for a moment, then close.

“Don’t come back,” you rasp. “And wipe the blood off your mouth.”

You are “away” and Dumbledore teaches your classes for two weeks. I assume that Pomfrey is caring for you in your rooms. I avoid thinking of you and that bloody morning. I expect if your situation changes, staff will be informed.

One late night there is a knock at my door. I open it in shirtsleeves and slippers, unsurprised to find you there, chin raised, staring imperiously. A yellowing bruise still marks your jaw. I step away to let you enter.

“Let’s finish it, shall we?” you say. You take two steps into the room, turn me by the shoulders and kiss me again.

This time it is not to hurt, but to dominate. I am afraid of this, and you are not.

“No,” I say, pulling away. “I’m not that desperate.” You glare at me, insulted. “I’m a feeling man, Snape. I need a little more than that.” You turn your back.

“Who isn’t now,” you sneer. “Desperate.” I am unsure if the tone of mockery applies to yourself or me. “Next time, you might find a corpse. I need -- something -- before then.” You speak as if you are ordering from a tradesman.

I wonder. If I could go back to that moment would I feel a delicate jerk as the hook was set? But I am too surprised to notice anything. Disguise it as you may, you are asking.

“Then, not to finish. To start.”

“If you like.” I contemplate your narrow, black-clothed back, remembering the feel of your delicate ribcage and the horror of your weakness. You are asking. Perhaps only Dumbledore has ever heard it before. With a feeling of falling, or is it leaping, I answer.

“All right,” and lay my hand between your shoulder blades.

You turn and grab me roughly, pinning my arms between us. Like the first time, your kiss is harsh, but now I feel its hunger. I want to feed you. I kiss you back, equally hard, then harder, crushing your lips against your teeth. When I shove you against the wall your head hits the stone and your breath hisses sharply in your nostrils. Suddenly I know the meaning of your roughness and my response. I know what you need, and shockingly I want to give it to you. I have only known myself as a gentle man.

You are taller but I am sturdier. Taking you by surprise I hook your legs out from under you and throw you on the couch lengthwise. I straddle you, pinning your forearms under my knees so that your shoulders are bent awkwardly backward. Jerking your head back by the hair I bite your jaw and your neck, just below your ear -- not love bites but real ones that stop just short of breaking the skin, a werewolf’s threat that will leave a bruise. Already you are panting, a vein in your throat pulsing. It is my meaning that arouses you, and my power that arouses me.

I unbutton your jacket and pinch your nipples through your shirt. The groan that escapes your clenched teeth sends an electric pulse through me. Taking your shirt by either side, I rip it open.

You are damp all over and the smell of sweat and skin hardens me painfully. Under your clothes you are even paler, each rib and collar bone protruding, suffering made emaciated flesh. Your body is a book of all I have chosen not to know.

I pause to make you wonder. Then I slap you, hard. My hand stings and its print rises pink on your pale cheek.

Beneath me your writhing grows more frantic. When I reach back and squeeze your prick through your trousers your whole body convulses.

As if in a dream, I know what to do. Accio sash. Your arms are so long it is easy to pull them behind you and tie them elbow to elbow. It makes for a painful posture when I pull you off the couch onto your knees. At any moment you could say the word and we would stop, but you do not. This is what you need and I will give it to you. Your breathing is labored, strands of hair plastered snakelike to your cheeks, eyes averted. I yank your face up.

“Look at me.” This is the most I can violate you, to make you look me in the eye. You are wide open, pupils dilated, breath racing.

I stand over you and unbutton my fly. You lick your lips for me, leaning forward. When I pull my cock free, you whine in the back of your throat.

“Suck it.”

Merlin. The slick heat and agility of your tongue nearly undo me and I have to clench my hands in your hair to keep from caressing you. Then I catch myself and thrust. You are so eager, so hot, sloppy and moaning. I hold your head and fuck your mouth while you struggle to keep up with me. One more look at your flushed, ecstatic face and I go over with a shout, pulling your head in to me and feeling you swallow as I pump my come down your throat.

I have to brace myself against the back of the couch, panting. Sweat drips off the tip of my nose and you hold my softening cock in your mouth. You won’t move until I tell you.

I tuck myself in and button my fly, leaving you kneeling painfully while I catch my breath. Your legs are shaking with fatigue.

All has been done well so far in my tender care for you. I tip your head up and force you to look at me.

“Should I let you come? Or should I send you home?”

Your red ashamed cheeks are almost hidden by a curtain of black hair when you murmur, “Come. Please.”

Oh Merlin, I want to suck you, but I must not. So I unbutton you and roughly pull out your prick, deep red and painfully hard. Your head falls back with a cry until you are leaning against the couch, pelvis thrust forward and legs bent double. I squeeze the shaft and watch you work against your awkward position, trying to thrust. Your arms and shoulders must be agonized by now.

“All right. I might let you come. Beg.”

You choke out the word. “Please.”

Drying my hand on my pant leg, I kick you forward and take the place of the couch, kneeling behind you and supporting your back. I wrap my arms around you. At first I fondle you lightly, your pleas and struggles exciting me all over again. Then three hard strokes and you are on the brink.

“More?”

You thrust into my hand with a desperate noise and I give it to you, fast and hard, filling the room with your cries as you come and come, jerking backward like a man in a fit. Your pearly semen sprays over the carpet. I milk you until I know it hurts and you are shuddering with quiet sobs.

Before now I knew myself as a gentle man. I have never done anything like this, nor been so guided by instinctive understanding of the lover.

I tenderly untie you and lean you forward, rubbing the spasming muscles of your shoulders. Your arms are senseless and I move them for you. I sit on the floor to cradle you against my chest. You are quiet and relaxed; it has been done well. Now I may stroke your hair and kiss your face, murmuring shhh shhh shhh against your closed eyes. Now you are all mine.

The next night you return to the Great Hall for dinner and I learn the rules of engagement. I haven’t meant to speak to you -- I never do -- but my glance lingers, remembering. Your high collar hides the old bruises and the ones I made last night. I wonder if you will change toward me, even subtly.

The blank, black eyes that sweep past make an absence where I had been. Nothing acknowledged. What had I expected?

Again, I try not to think. I do not know if I will ever touch you again, if the sleeve that slipped from my fingers as you left was the last morsel. I do not know what to make of the violent self who fulfilled your wish and made you peaceful. I do not know if I have been contaminated or freed.

A few days pass and I am half asleep. Something is pressing on me, suffocating, yet I am afraid to remove it. I teach my classes and take my tea, grade essays and watch quidditch drills, all with a strange sense of being unable to wake. My night sleep is dreamless and unrefreshing. And then in a meaningless moment -- I am standing in the corridor with streams of students passing on the way to class, watching a beam of light from a leaded window -- I wake up.

I love you.

It seems that I have always loved you, and kept my love a secret from myself. The past swings dizzily, rewriting itself. You were there. You were there all along. It is as if I have waked from one dream into another, a vivid dream in which every detail is alive with meaning.

Yet even as I treasure it I know this is not good news. You have not asked for my love. Maybe you will not come again. If you come again, I do not know if such a thing can sustain me.

Another week goes by and we ignore each other as always. I learn to watch you without turning my head. In the halls, at breakfast, I know where you are. At Friday afternoon staff meeting I hold your sleeve in my peripheral vision -- more precisely, the lowest button of your coat sleeve and the outer flange of your wrist bone. It is like church.

No matter that I can map every injury that binds me to you – my mother’s cheek coldly proffered for a kiss, my father’s scorn for his damaged son, my vagabond pariah’s life. If I could free myself from you I would not. No matter that I myself have created this beautiful numinous life you possess. From wherever the gods call, we must answer.

It is late and I am just putting down my book when you knock. You sweep into my room, robes flying, as if to confront me. Wordlessly, you sit on the couch. Your eyes burn with despair and a plea. I am not sure I have it in me to do what you wish.

“Hit me,” you say in a low voice. Instead I bend to kiss you, inhaling your scent of musk and brimstone. The moment our lips touch, you shove me away.

Now I am angry, and my hands need no encouragement to yank your head sharply back. How dare you refuse my kiss. How dare you ignore me in the halls. Now I want to hurt you. It is easy now to pin you to the back of the couch and slap you. Your eyes fill with tears and it is even easier to slap you again. Now you can kiss, head rolling back and a moan in your throat. The tears flow backward, under my hands clenched in your hair.

I pause on the brink. You need to be played, and I cannot play you in a rage. As I turn away from anger the yielding softness of your mouth, your silky hair in my fists, the damp wool smell of your coat and your helpless noise of pleasure fill me with certainty.

I cease kissing and slap you once more, backhanded. Your head snaps to the side.

“Take off your clothes.” Startled, you rise and begin unbuttoning your long coat. You work quickly, pausing a moment before shucking off your pants and hopping twice to take off your socks.

You stand very straight, fighting shame, your chin raised but eyes averted. You are no more substantial than a boy of seventeen, blue-white skin lightly dusted with black hair, navel nestled in a concavity between hipbones. I circle you slowly. Each vertebra protrudes and your shoulder blades point like folded wings. Your skinny legs meet at the ankles. Across your back and neat little buttocks are the marks of whippings, thin white lines that crisscross like sled tracks on snow. And your cock is already hard, protruding from its dark nest and moving slightly with your quickening breath.

I return to stand in front of you. “Look at me.” You struggle to bring your eyes to mine. There it is, that wide open beseeching gaze and as I stare you down, your face flushes and your cock rises gently as if drifting on a breeze. Holding your eyes in mine, I button up my shirt, rolling the cuffs down and fastening them as well. I reach back to my jacket hanging on a chair and pull it on, then toe my feet into my shoes.

“Get down there and tie them.”

I know this is right because you whine in the back of your throat as you kneel. When you are done, I put my shod foot on the back of your neck and press until you are folded at my feet like a white frog. Your skinny buttocks form points and a fine sheen of sweat covers your skin. When I grind my heel into your back you press yourself up into it.

“Roll over.” You hesitate, and I know you are fighting yourself. You will be so vulnerable, naked and on your back, as I stand over you clothed. Then you obey, splaying yourself out untidily. All white and black on my Persian carpet, but for the redness of your prick and your cheeks. Your eyes are completely dark and your bony chest rises and falls.

You are mine, if I play my part.

But first I must turn my back and collect myself, for what I most want to do is gather you up -- so open, so needy -- and kiss you, hold you, carry you to my bed and warm you. All wrong, wrong, wrong.

Instead I think of giving you peace. Instead of kisses I rub your prick and balls with my shoe and watch you writhe, tossing your head against the floor. Instead of my gentle tongue I twist my heel against the head of your cock, hurting you but not too much, watching the tears gather in your lashes.

“I’m going to fuck you.” Your eyes spring open. “Get up on your knees.” You roll over but not fast enough. “I said, get up,” and I kick you against the footstool. Another sharp kick in the back and you scramble into position. I kneel behind you and close my eyes for a moment. Your skin is tender; I can feel each birdlike bone beneath my fingers. I run my hands down your sides to your narrow hips, your long straight thighs, and around to your soft belly. This is not completely wrong; your head falls forward as I soothe you, and you sigh like a sad child. I kiss your neck, breathing in the scent of your hair. Your cock is smooth and hot in my hand, and as I stroke it you make a pleading sound and back yourself against my trousers.

Which I unbutton, drawing my own cock out. I pull you into my kneeling lap with my cock lying alongside your balls. I wish I was naked -- I want your skin -- but I must take you in with my hands, which roam over your chest and hips and thighs, and my mouth, now biting and sucking your shoulder. You squirm at the feel of the prickly tweed.

“Accio lubricant.” It is a small jar, orange scented, and as I unscrew the lid, you shiver at the sound. I push you forward, elbows on the footstool, and slap you on the side of the head to hold you there. A second, following quickly, to keep your attention.

“Keep your arms on the stool.” I reach between your legs and roll your balls in their sac, feeling you press them into my hand. I stroke your ass and rub a bit of the orange cream on your puckered opening. You are very tight.

“Have you done this before?”

A pause. “Twice.”

Oh, Merlin. Maybe once, maybe never. My cock hardens at the thought. You, so worldly wise and bitter, a near-virgin. How to be gentle and brutal is the question. I stroke your hole, teasing, promising, then slowly work my finger into your channel. You freeze, then as I wait, push back against it with a sharp intake of breath. I pump your cock slowly, relaxing you, and indeed, even as your legs and hips tighten, the ring around my finger loosens. Carefully I withdraw, then jab two fingers back in. You reward me with a shuddering gasp of surprise, pleasure, pain.

I am calculating ahead. I will want to speak to you and I will need to drive you half mad first. I keep slowly thrusting, twisting and feeling but letting your cock alone. Leisurely changing the angle, looking for the sweet spot. You writhe and pant, impaled on my fingers. You want more. I slow down.

I knock your arms off the stool and pull you back so that your chest rests there, ass in the air, prick dangling. The feeling of controlling you, of drawing out moans and gasps with my hand up your ass, is exquisitely exciting. I could play you like this forever. You are beginning to build, your panting breath catching with each thrust. I withdraw my fingers and hold your hips, teasing you with the tip of my cock.

“Do you want me to fuck you?"

“Yes, yes,” you gasp.

“Beg.”

“Fuck me. Please. *Please.*” Your begging is real. Holding you tightly I probe with my slicked cock, a tentative sally, a warning. Then -- I set the tip, grab you hard and with a single thrust enter you to the hilt.

It is meant to hurt, and it does. A sharp shriek, followed quickly by a passionate glissando of cries and back thrusts. Your pain and pleasure are equal, and intense.

Too much. You stop, back arched like a cat. Your teeth are clenched and for a moment I fear that I’ve injured you. Then a sigh, and you relax. I pull you close.

Suddenly you are wild for it, scrabbling and fucking yourself backwards on me, stroking and gripping my prick with your hot, tight passage. If you keep it up I won’t last. I slap you hard on the ass.

“Stop. Stop moving.” I slap you again. You still yourself, quivering like an exhausted racehorse. “Don’t move.”

I begin again with shallow strokes. Settling into a slow rhythm, listening for your edge. Your hips make jerky bucking motions, your cock plows the air. I change my angle and yes I hit that spot because you give a mighty groan and shove yourself against me. I find it again, and again.

You are almost lost now, almost outside yourself. Close. I let myself sink into the feeling of you, the wet silk of your insides, the soft pliancy of your ass, the neat feel of your hipbones in my hands, your begging wheezing sounds. Almost. And myself, almost. I gather some lubricant and reach around to touch my fingertips to the head of your prick -- “*Please,*” you whisper. I close my hand around it and begin to stroke you in time with my thrusts and now you are sobbing and rocking and crying out, insensible, and it is my time to fuck you as deep and hard as I want and speak.

“Oh gods, my hot sweet, hot hot darling boy. My love, my sweet little fuck. Sweet dear love, sweet boy OH --”

And waves and waves of bliss as I pump and empty into you, letting out the words, the love, the come, and I feel you spurting into my hand, your hole pulsing around me and your sobs of release and relief growing softer and quieter as we slowly settle.

Pure blankness. I withdraw gently, then pull you down on the floor and spoon around you, cushioning your head on my arm. No more words. You rest there as I stroke your hair back from your forehead and lightly touch your features. Your eyes are closed.

“*Accio blanket.*” I pull it over the two of us. A moment of happiness, tucking it around your shoulders. You grow heavier as you relax into my embrace. Now I know that I am good for you.

Teaching, social life, marking essays. Meals, Defense practice, letters to my mother. And once or twice a week, falling down a rabbit hole. Because we never speak, there is no negotiation. You come to my door, or you do not. Once I did not answer, out of spite, and you went away. Five days later you returned and I let you in.

At night when I bring myself off it is not hurting games I imagine, but that wide open look in response to my tenderness or even to myself, instead of a smack or a pinch. I imagine that it is my kisses and whispers that excite you, that I can tend you and cherish you without bruising you first.

Over the weeks, I begin to understand. My *job* is to crack you open like a boiled lobster with slaps and kicks and commands. But the *goal* is to reach inside, where you wait for me.

In the day, you remain absolutely unchanged. You snap and sneer without fear or favor and I can hardly believe that you are the same man who comes to me at night. Did I really call you my boy? When I think of it I shiver with desire.

Then you are called away again. I know by late afternoon, for you normally pass on the stairs above me after my last class. You are not at dinner. Albus takes your classes again, announcing that you are away on family business. How amazing that just five weeks ago I didn’t notice your absence. It is understood among all staff that these things are not discussed. I wait and wait, reading the signs, monitoring the infirmary, the Potions laboratory, the entrance. Three restless nights. My window faces the school gates and I sit there, absurdly hopeful that you will just walk up the path, afraid to make my early rounds of the campus lest I miss you.

Now I feel the hook. I want to go back to the dull comfortable sleepy days before I knew you. Meals are a torment; my knotted stomach roils as I struggle not to stare at your empty chair. Now I know what it is to have placed my happiness outside myself.

And then you are back and I am weak with relief to see your scowling countenance at the breakfast table, so relieved that I have to put my spoon down and rest my head in my hands.

“All right, Remus?” Minerva McGonegall leans over the table, concerned.

“Yes -- I have a headache.” I don’t want to leave the room but I fear I’ll make a fool of myself so I rise and thread my way out while the school is still at breakfast. I have twenty minutes before class to wash my face and calm down.

Back in my rooms I throw myself on the bed and say it. “I can’t. I can’t do this.” The barb is deep; how to push you through and out?

I tell myself you are back and you are safe and I will not answer the door again. It is possible to starve this thing out, kill it with neglect. I won’t look at you. I’ll make myself busy and take long walks and sleep deeply now that you are back.

Three sharp, commanding raps on my door the next night. I go to my bathroom and start the shower full blast. I stay there until my fingers are wrinkled, half an hour at least, then dry off and go to bed. I’ve made a start of rooting you out.

Three days pass before you come again. No one else knocks so late. I’ve taken a dreamless sleep potion tonight, put on my shabbiest pajamas and brushed my teeth. I jam my head under the pillow. After the knocks there is silence, and the next thing I know, it’s morning.

Another five days go by. I think of you constantly, irritated to the point of pain by seeing you at meals and staff meeting. Dreamless sleep potion is becoming a habit but it gets me over the part where I lie in bed waiting for your knock. I’m starting to think you won’t come back. That’s the next step in my cure, knowing you won’t, and I sense the tide of sad grayness waiting to wash over me. Finally I’ll stop loving you and I can shift my attention back to the war and my child soldiers.

It’s been three weeks. Grow up, Lupin, some people never fall in love even once, so consider it a gift.

Then you surprise me.

It’s at the end of staff meeting, when I usually beat a hasty retreat to my rooms for another round of iron self discipline before dinner.

“Lupin --” you drawl lazily. “A word, if you don’t mind.” It feels like an electric shock, your address. The others are already gathering their things and heading for the door. I can’t very well refuse, but I’ll be left alone with you. I nod and busy myself with my papers.

All alone now, but the door to the hall is open. I can hear Minerva’s crisp heel taps moving away down the corridor. I don’t know what to say, so I just look, and oh Merlin, the lascivious pleasure of looking freely. Your sharp, ugly, sallow face with its black drill-bit eyes, the bitter disappointed corners of your mouth -- all that you mean is carved on you like runes that my hands itch to decipher.

You lean over, long fingers spidered on the table, slitting your eyes at me, but all your angry posturing leaves you no way to speak of it.

“Lupin!” you hiss and grab my wrist. It’s a hateful look you give me, but as I hold back, pulling slightly against your grasp, I see something else there, that unspoken plea. You need me. You are asking for me. You want me.

Instantly my hand flies up and slaps you. Your hair flies out with the snap of your head. My mark comes up red on your face, and there it is, that wide open look, that attention. You are mine.

“All right,” I say. “All right.”

When the gods address us, we must answer.