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paulamcgAll the works at HP Unhappily Ever After have been made public today, and they aren’t anonymous, after all. This time I’m sharing my fest fic here without delay.
Title: The Darkness of This Shore
Author:paulamcg
Pairing: Remus/Severus, background Remus/Sirius
Characters: Remus, Severus
Word Count: 4040
Rating: R
Warning: Dub-con
Disclaimer: Not even Severus will help me make any money.
Notes: This was written for HP Unhappily Ever After, and the prompt I chose was simply Regret. Thank you once again for your wonderful beta work, Liseuse!
Summary: In November 1993 Remus must face memories of young people who are no more, as well as some regrets and some issues he needs to sort out with a colleague.
Read here on AO3
or right here.
The Darkness of This Shore
The waxing crescent moon is setting, leaving the stars to burn ever brighter – colder. Why is he not relishing the luxurious warmth of the fireplace in the comfortable premises designated to him, or practising diplomacy and snark among his colleagues in the staff room, but out here on the frigid lake’s shore? Certainly not for any pleasure. He can’t bear the cold in the way he used to bear… no, even cherish it at a time when he’d never yet been without a hearth to return to.
No, not for pleasure, but duty. Of course, Professor Lupin takes his responsibility seriously. And this way of wording it in his mind evokes a wry inward smile. This is how Remus takes him: keeping the secret and keeping watch.
He can’t do this constantly, but perhaps an occasional evening stroll can serve a purpose. A dog could sneak to the grounds any time and… Maybe if there’s enough left in the canine mind to recognise his scent, the dog can decide even to wait for a chance and approach him first before going to harm the boy. But no, Remus is not looking forward to the encounter.
And he wouldn’t see a black dog in this gloom. He reaches under the sleeves of the robes and pulls the cuffs of the cardigan – the thick woollen cardigan Poppy gave him – over his hands and, without looking around, starts to walk as fast as he can on the uneven path.
The relentless rains have extinguished the living fire of rowans and all the torches of silver birches. In the frost that’s followed, the landscape has been fully stripped of metaphors for the beautiful young people who are no more, and he can’t afford to summon back their images. There are just the harsh elements to brave.
Having reached the other side of Hogwarts Lake, he stops to stare back across the water. After everything Hogwarts has meant to him and still means to him, no matter how hard he tries not to feel too grateful for having been accepted – even asked – to return, the sound of the name, if only in his mind, always resurrects the image of the castle against the starry sky just like this, just how he first saw it.
He’d stumbled on the steep path and almost keeled over, grabbed the shoulder of the boy next to him, the one who’d kept close ever since they’d ended up sharing a train compartment with older, haughty girls. The awkward one with healthy round cheeks and with a both wary and eager look in his pale blue eyes…
No, he can’t see that face. It’s lost in the darkness of this shore.
He stands straight and looks ahead, and lets his spontaneous wow join the other awed first-years’ murmuring. Up on a cliff beyond the black waters, there rise the high walls and towers and turrets of a castle, and all its windows twinkle with welcoming lights.
He can’t take his eyes off of the sight while crossing the lake, and hardly notices with whom he’s sharing a boat. Only after reaching the underground harbour, does he feel again the fatigue that’s lingered in his frail, precarious body on these few days after the hard night. But like every month, his mind rejoices in this renewed treasure, and insists on ignoring its bruises and scars, and takes hopeful leaps towards new wonders.
And when their group, following the gentle half-giant, arrive on the lawn, they’re all suddenly bathed in white light from the waning moon in its rise. Now he hopes he can spot the tall, handsome boy from the platform, the one who looked like a tragic hero – who jerked his head, flicking dark tendrils from his eyes, which were full of hurt and proud rebellion…
No, Remus has been left behind. His limbs are cold and stiff.
By the time he’s limping across the magnificent entrance hall, all the other first-years have already crowded into a small chamber. Having squeezed in and when leaning against the door frame, he tries to focus on what a witch’s stern voice is in the middle of explaining. But he can’t help getting distracted in just revelling in the presence of so many people of his age – and all equal, all so similar in their black robes, particularly as he can now see their backs only, although he can’t forget to scan the crowd for one who’s taller than most and… No, he must forget.
The one who he can now see in profile is another boy whose robes are faded like his own, obviously handed down from a parent. Another boy leaning against the wall next to the door. And the profile is impressive, the nose fitting for a warlock, whereas the boy’s frame is scrawny like his own, and his skin pallid. The eyes are fixed on the witch, and the mouth is slightly open in concentration. But as if sensing Remus’s stare, the boy shifts his gaze to him and curls his lip in a sullen, suspicious smirk.
The stern witch has finished and passes between the two of them, striding out. When the door’s closed after her, Remus moves, sliding his back against the door, closer to the boy. “I came in late. Can you tell me what she said first?”
The boy glances around, and must conclude that Remus is talking to him, as all others nearby are still standing with their backs turned towards the two of them. But before he’s said anything, Remus is continuing, “It’s a bit nerve-racking, that Sorting… I just hope I’ll fit in one of the Houses and make friends and manage to learn something, too.” And he extends a hand, taking a chance that this handshake won’t hurt his bruised fingers enough for it to show. “I’m Remus.”
The dark eyes open wider as if in surprise – and it must be a pleasant one, as the frown between the brows smoothens, too. “Severus.”
But Remus turns away when, with barely any limp left, he hurries to his House table, and there’s no way for him to even think of ever glancing back again. He’s welcomed beside the boy whose Sorting has roused astonished murmurs and sparked new boldness in this new Gryffindor himself, whose first name suits so well with the almost silver-light eyes, scorching like the brightest star – these mesmerising eyes…
He turns, and ahead of him are the woods, dark and deep. But the slope up towards the train station is even less inviting, although since last week the mud must have frozen hard.
There’s no simple way of going back, ever. Ten years ago his self-imposed exile started taking him farther and farther away, towards warmer lands, but through cold winters, cold nights wherever he went, and further and further from his memories, but from himself, too. Only when he was close to disappearing completely, was he found and did he finally accept help, and when he learnt that he could help others, in turn, that was perhaps a change in direction. The slow spiral began to bring him back.
Remus knows these edges of the forest well enough, as in the company he kept ever since that very first evening, he soon learnt not to care if a place was forbidden. Now even without the golden and copper glow of leaves anymore, or the cold shine of snow yet, he can discern some landmarks, changed in the ways he observed on his first stroll this far after his return, on that October Saturday when the Potions Master had made it clear in the other teachers’ presence that he hoped the sight of Professor Lupin would never offend his eyes in Hogsmeade again.
He wanted to come here in any case, to paint, or at least make some sketches. A big part of his first salary – almost all he had left after paying back a moderate installment of the debt he’d made in Diagon Alley in August – had been spent on art equipment of a far less moderate price, as he couldn’t resist ordering the best quality, because that was what he got used to having here, when too tempted to accept these presents from…
The clearing is not much smaller than twenty years ago. Not many saplings have survived to grow tall in the shade of the old trees. Here’s one of the few fallen ones, a decaying trunk, and next to it something that hasn’t changed, the bolder of stone to offer shelter from north winds. Right here he came when in early afternoons a month ago there was still enough light and warmth for painting.
He decides to crouch for a moment. And now a weak blue flame flickers on his left palm as soon as he’s happened to bare that hand. In this light he spots the last chanterelles.
Shivering, as the humble, involuntary act of Magic of Needs has drawn heat from his body, he pulls the wool back over his fingers, and wonders why he needed to see these mushrooms – now that he isn’t starving. So as to admire the pure egg-yellow, the only remaining bright colour, he decides to use his right hand, draws out his wand and casts a Lumos. Back in his sixth year, when he was teaching how to recognise various mushrooms, these were the easiest and a favourite for…
There must be a need for him to approach his memories gradually. After years of his refusal to make portraits of any creatures closer to humans than cats, in October it was clear that he’d paint only landscapes and depict nothing like this in too much detail.
Now he cautiously extends his left forefinger and strokes the smooth cap of the most handsome chanterelle, then its gills. He can imagine tasting the apricot and pepper flavour, and almost smell it now – as well as the smoke of the camp fire on which he used to fry this delicacy to share it with…
A sudden rustle jerks him, alert, back to this desolation. These mushrooms are ice-cold, just as the dead leaves, dark sepia fringed with frost, are frozen to the ground, not rustling in any gust of wind. Someone’s stepping closer – or perhaps an animal, and perhaps that is… someone.
As he detects its dark shape out of the corner of his eye, his heart’s racing in too sweet anticipation. Trembling, he stands up and turns. The light of his wand illuminates a face – and it’s one he’s not needed to miss, at least not for the past couple of months.
“Lupin.” Severus certainly sounds like he’s never missed Remus. “What are you doing here?”
“The same as you.” His voice comes out hoarse and mumbling from his chilled lips. “I’m a Professor at Hogwarts.”
“Ha!” To his surprise, Severus acknowledges his feeble joke, and proceeds to open a conversation. “You used to come to the woods.”
As now there’s Severus’s Lumos, bright enough for them to see each other clearly, Remus pockets his wand, so as to show that he doesn’t want or expect a fight, and to warm his right hand, too, under the sleeve. “And you? I don’t know if you spied…” He’s chosen a word unwisely, but at least he doesn’t refer to us, any us, but continues, instead “…on me before, or only in our last winter.”
“I didn’t come here because of you. You followed me on that… cold day.” There’s a twitch on his face, and he stares at Remus intently.
What is this they’re starting to sort out? When, instead, Remus should finally express his regrets about not crossing the line between their Houses and at least trying to become friends in their first year. After that it was definitely too late because his secret had been figured out by... his House mates, and they were the invincible Marauders, in full swing of making pranks, more and more directed against their traditional rival House. And more and more against a particular Slytherin because of… jealousy, and some such vulnerability which they observed and Remus should have understood better. It’s impossible to apologise now – to bring up the humiliation Severus suffered.
Perhaps better talk only about… “Our seventh year?”
“Yes. When I knew what you are – why would I have wanted anything to do with you?” So why is he stepping closer now, and pushing back the hood of the fine black cloak?
“Perhaps to… find out more?”
“I knew what the two of you were. No, I rushed out here to be alone. I had still not quite mastered the hiding of… the kind of loathing that needs to be hidden.”
He must mean self-loathing, because he demonstrates the other kind clearly enough.
“Yes?” Hoping to be done with this soon, Remus encourages him to continue, and folds his arms and buries his hands in his armpits. It’s too cold to be standing still, and maybe he should have ordered winter boots instead of the Quirrell-hair paint brushes. But as Severus now keeps only staring at him, he can’t resist trying if they could sort out more recent insults. “Now you do your best to help children learn what I am and… how to kill such a beast.”
“It’s a pity our headmaster wants to limit their learning. You didn’t make me cancel that essay. He did, just as he ordered me to brew the potion.”
“Thank you for making it clear to whom I don’t need to be grateful.” Of course, Remus has known all this. But he doesn’t want to spell out that he’s now referring to Dumbledore because Wolfsbane makes the transformations harder than how he’s learnt to deal with them when he’s had a magically-sealed shelter and a cat as company.
The wind blows back the lank curtains of hair from framing Severus’s face, and reveals the handsome balance of his mature, healthy features. His posture, too, is enviable. And there’s something enchanting in the way he keeps coming closer to Remus when there’s no one else to witness the disdain – which he won’t cease to express in any case.
“Perhaps,” Severus says slowly, “you think I’m grateful to you for not catching, and maybe not even trying to catch me in that tunnel – because a year later I said it wasn’t you who wanted to murder me – that it was…”
“No!” Remus has managed to stop him from saying the name, and he must know Remus doesn’t want to hear it. Remus also means that… nobody wanted to murder anyone then, but can’t bear sorting out the Willow Incident now. He resorts to saying, “I do regret… that September class – making fun of transvestites and you.”
“Oh, I can understand that you want to be virtuous. To defend those who are bullied. And that in your indignation you make the mistake of taking revenge and becoming guilty of a similar act of trying to humiliate.”
Now when Remus has nobody else to defend, he should be able to control his own behaviour. He’s not rashly pointing out that his indignation was not only due to how Severus had just talked about Alice and Frank’s son – not revealing that the boy had named the Potions Master as his greatest fear. But, of course, Severus must have concluded this when hearing the gossip about the boggart with his features and Mrs Longbottom’s attire.
“You’re right,” Remus says, “to call it bullying – what you do to that boy. And it’s clearly not a rare mistake made by someone who’s too young to know better. When an adult has taken the responsibility, and after years of experience gives reason for such fear…”
“Ah, we shouldn’t waste great words on each other. Indignation, responsibility… You just wanted to impress the boy – the other one.
Remus can’t help being thankful to Severus for not mentioning the name, although, of course, he keeps hearing that one, too, all the time. “If I wanted that, I could tell him about… my school years.”
“Could you? Anyway, you don’t have to tell me. Just let’s refresh some memories of seventh year.”
“Yes?” Remus must have stepped back, as he can now feel the cold stone against his hips. If they need to have this conversation, he wishes they could have it at a pub table with steaming tankards of Butterbeer warming their hands, or better still, with Firewhiskey heating them from the inside. But, of course, Severus doesn’t want anyone to know that he stoops so low as to talk to Remus.
Severus, too, is shivering, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He goes on, calm and controlled. “I’d given up on you. Then in sixth year I got a new reason to resent how you’d gained and retained your position despite what you were.”
“And soon after that you joined…” Remus immediately regrets taking up this topic, which will only prolong the conversation, but he’s thought too many times about how Severus must have got tempted to become a Death Eater partly because Dumbledore handled the Willow Incident with no grave punishment to… any Gryffindor.
“A mistake made by someone too young. But it turned out beneficial for Dumbledore’s side, because after hearing the prophecy, I realised I had to fix my mistake so as to save… her, my childhood friend. It won’t surprise you that I haven’t told Dumbledore everything I learned when serving the Dark Lord, just as I’m sure you haven’t.”
“If you think I’m here to help anyone come and hurt the boy…”
“If this someone’s around, perhaps he’ll still hate… what he didn’t witness in our seventh year and I’m afraid he never found out about. Now we’ve stood here long enough, talking. You’re cold enough. That’s what I like, as I figured out back then.”
Severus takes another step towards Remus, and lifts a bare hand to lean against a tree trunk, and his cloak opens to reveal a sliver of his thigh and hips. He’s wearing nothing underneath.
Staring at the bare skin, Remus hardly manages to whisper, “What do you want?”
“Now that’s the right question.” Severus’s lip curls into a smirk. “I don’t want your conversation. I don’t want your contribution to defending the school against the murderer. Let me state this exactly, since we’re both inclined to verbal play, but this is the end of eloquence between you and me. The only use I have for you is to satisfy a primal, carnal desire.”
Remus closes his eyes. Severus’s breath is blissfully hot against his chilled face. Anticipating a rough kiss, he’s startled into opening his eyes again only when something touches his left shoulder.
Severus has poked his wand just at the spot of the bite scar, mercifully covered with some layers of fabric and wool. “If you don’t want me to fuck you, I’ll be more than happy to do it by force.”
“Why wouldn’t I want it? You’re a healthy man, and…” And that must be enough to make it clear that Remus is not submitting to anything against his will. No need to express how he’s just become fully aware of the desire he has in particular for this handsome, brilliant man, also because of their past – of how they were unable to share more in their past. Or to reveal how desperately he’s craved for physical intimacy and just anyone’s touch on his skin, having not been caressed by anyone since Omar held him on their carpet flight over the Mediterranean in July.
“You disappoint me if you like it too much. Perhaps I should do it without lube.” Severus takes out a beautiful malachite green jar, and now while lighting it with his steady Lumos, he’s effortlessly levitating it, and he sticks two fingers in it, then lifts them under his impressive nose and breaths in with relish. “But I’m too fond of the exquisite feel and scent of this lube I’ve developed myself.”
“Don’t worry. You’re getting your pleasure from torturing me. If you fuck me here and now when I hate all this.”
“What is it you hate? Say it. What are you suffering from now? Say! Then turn around and lift up your robes!”
Leaning closer to the warmth of Severus’s mouth, Remus begins to obey. “The cold.” His voice is trembling, but he adds with more force, “I’m so fucking cold,” and presses his lips against Severus’s.
But there’s a violent thrust on his shoulder, and he can’t help imagining how something, maybe Severus’s thumb bores right into his first, worst wound. He’s now bitten Severus’s lip, and he hurries to turn around and bend over the bolder of stone, but doesn’t follow the last part of the orders, leaving it for Severus to bare his arse.
He does want Severus. But there’s no way for him to get aroused now.
Not even when he summons back the image of the seventeen-year-old raging to himself in the winter woods, kicking off the shoes perhaps just to remove the snow, but then standing barefoot, leaning against a frozen tree trunk with his hard-on revealed, maybe wishing the cold to calm his cock. And Remus can’t help his curiosity. Unnoticed, though only at a couple of yards’ distance, he’s stopped under a rowan, and while staring he hardly notices how he tears off a pretty cluster of frozen berries. The dog, the stag and the rat have left him far behind, and he alone gets to wonder whether Snivellus is pining for Lily or for one of those older Slytherins, whom he must have kept meeting in Hogsmeade, after last spring they extended the Dark Lord’s invitation to him. And when Snivellus starts wanking, their eyes meet, and Remus knows they share the desire for a man, even before Snivellus wades to him, presses against him, spills his semen on him, and declares that now Remus doesn’t belong only to his fucking sweetheart. And it’s true.
Now when Remus is not quite eighteen yet, he starts suspecting that anyone can arouse him, and it won’t be easy to stay faithful. Already he’s not. He can still bear the cold, and his cock is hard, and he comes and he holds Sni… no, Severus in a tight embrace, until he’s pushed hard on the chest and he falls down, to stay lying in deep snow when Severus rushes away, not willing to admit this was more than a punishment, or that they are anything but antagonists.
“Yes. We are,” Severus now says, panting. He must be wanking. “Fucking. Cold.” Severus doesn’t touch Remus, just lifts the robes with wand magic. “Though you’re wearing too much.” He huffs. “Muggle clothes!”
When he feels his old, ripped jeans slide down to his ankles, Remus can only hope Severus hasn’t torn them fully to shreds. The Lumos goes off, and Remus closes his eyes. And now the warm cock slides along the cleft of his freezing arse. This makes his own shrivelled cock twitch, fortunately protected from the ice-cold of the stone by the wool of the long cardigan.
Severus must have been stingy or careless when applying the lube, and he pushes in harshly. But since Remus has known worse pain inside of himself, regularly and as long as he can remember, this is something he minds less than Severus is likely to hope. He clings to the memory of the embrace in their seventh year – to how Severus, too, remembered it. And to the memory of their first exchanged glances, the first handshake.
When Severus pulls out and pumps his hot semen onto Remus’s skin, Remus pushes back against his hand and his body, and grabs his own cock, and bares it just in time before coming.
Severus’s Lumos flashes for a moment, and now Remus is surprised he cares to use his wand for a Vanishing charm on the semen, and Remus bends to pull his jeans up. There’s another moment’s darkness before they must find a path towards the castle and hurry in, and Remus ventures to turn and lean against Severus, for their faces to touch, cold skin against skin.
This is when he hears a bark, and how it turns into a howl.
Title: The Darkness of This Shore
Author:
paulamcgPairing: Remus/Severus, background Remus/Sirius
Characters: Remus, Severus
Word Count: 4040
Rating: R
Warning: Dub-con
Disclaimer: Not even Severus will help me make any money.
Notes: This was written for HP Unhappily Ever After, and the prompt I chose was simply Regret. Thank you once again for your wonderful beta work, Liseuse!
Summary: In November 1993 Remus must face memories of young people who are no more, as well as some regrets and some issues he needs to sort out with a colleague.
Read here on AO3
or right here.
The Darkness of This Shore
The waxing crescent moon is setting, leaving the stars to burn ever brighter – colder. Why is he not relishing the luxurious warmth of the fireplace in the comfortable premises designated to him, or practising diplomacy and snark among his colleagues in the staff room, but out here on the frigid lake’s shore? Certainly not for any pleasure. He can’t bear the cold in the way he used to bear… no, even cherish it at a time when he’d never yet been without a hearth to return to.
No, not for pleasure, but duty. Of course, Professor Lupin takes his responsibility seriously. And this way of wording it in his mind evokes a wry inward smile. This is how Remus takes him: keeping the secret and keeping watch.
He can’t do this constantly, but perhaps an occasional evening stroll can serve a purpose. A dog could sneak to the grounds any time and… Maybe if there’s enough left in the canine mind to recognise his scent, the dog can decide even to wait for a chance and approach him first before going to harm the boy. But no, Remus is not looking forward to the encounter.
And he wouldn’t see a black dog in this gloom. He reaches under the sleeves of the robes and pulls the cuffs of the cardigan – the thick woollen cardigan Poppy gave him – over his hands and, without looking around, starts to walk as fast as he can on the uneven path.
The relentless rains have extinguished the living fire of rowans and all the torches of silver birches. In the frost that’s followed, the landscape has been fully stripped of metaphors for the beautiful young people who are no more, and he can’t afford to summon back their images. There are just the harsh elements to brave.
Having reached the other side of Hogwarts Lake, he stops to stare back across the water. After everything Hogwarts has meant to him and still means to him, no matter how hard he tries not to feel too grateful for having been accepted – even asked – to return, the sound of the name, if only in his mind, always resurrects the image of the castle against the starry sky just like this, just how he first saw it.
He’d stumbled on the steep path and almost keeled over, grabbed the shoulder of the boy next to him, the one who’d kept close ever since they’d ended up sharing a train compartment with older, haughty girls. The awkward one with healthy round cheeks and with a both wary and eager look in his pale blue eyes…
No, he can’t see that face. It’s lost in the darkness of this shore.
He stands straight and looks ahead, and lets his spontaneous wow join the other awed first-years’ murmuring. Up on a cliff beyond the black waters, there rise the high walls and towers and turrets of a castle, and all its windows twinkle with welcoming lights.
He can’t take his eyes off of the sight while crossing the lake, and hardly notices with whom he’s sharing a boat. Only after reaching the underground harbour, does he feel again the fatigue that’s lingered in his frail, precarious body on these few days after the hard night. But like every month, his mind rejoices in this renewed treasure, and insists on ignoring its bruises and scars, and takes hopeful leaps towards new wonders.
And when their group, following the gentle half-giant, arrive on the lawn, they’re all suddenly bathed in white light from the waning moon in its rise. Now he hopes he can spot the tall, handsome boy from the platform, the one who looked like a tragic hero – who jerked his head, flicking dark tendrils from his eyes, which were full of hurt and proud rebellion…
No, Remus has been left behind. His limbs are cold and stiff.
By the time he’s limping across the magnificent entrance hall, all the other first-years have already crowded into a small chamber. Having squeezed in and when leaning against the door frame, he tries to focus on what a witch’s stern voice is in the middle of explaining. But he can’t help getting distracted in just revelling in the presence of so many people of his age – and all equal, all so similar in their black robes, particularly as he can now see their backs only, although he can’t forget to scan the crowd for one who’s taller than most and… No, he must forget.
The one who he can now see in profile is another boy whose robes are faded like his own, obviously handed down from a parent. Another boy leaning against the wall next to the door. And the profile is impressive, the nose fitting for a warlock, whereas the boy’s frame is scrawny like his own, and his skin pallid. The eyes are fixed on the witch, and the mouth is slightly open in concentration. But as if sensing Remus’s stare, the boy shifts his gaze to him and curls his lip in a sullen, suspicious smirk.
The stern witch has finished and passes between the two of them, striding out. When the door’s closed after her, Remus moves, sliding his back against the door, closer to the boy. “I came in late. Can you tell me what she said first?”
The boy glances around, and must conclude that Remus is talking to him, as all others nearby are still standing with their backs turned towards the two of them. But before he’s said anything, Remus is continuing, “It’s a bit nerve-racking, that Sorting… I just hope I’ll fit in one of the Houses and make friends and manage to learn something, too.” And he extends a hand, taking a chance that this handshake won’t hurt his bruised fingers enough for it to show. “I’m Remus.”
The dark eyes open wider as if in surprise – and it must be a pleasant one, as the frown between the brows smoothens, too. “Severus.”
But Remus turns away when, with barely any limp left, he hurries to his House table, and there’s no way for him to even think of ever glancing back again. He’s welcomed beside the boy whose Sorting has roused astonished murmurs and sparked new boldness in this new Gryffindor himself, whose first name suits so well with the almost silver-light eyes, scorching like the brightest star – these mesmerising eyes…
He turns, and ahead of him are the woods, dark and deep. But the slope up towards the train station is even less inviting, although since last week the mud must have frozen hard.
There’s no simple way of going back, ever. Ten years ago his self-imposed exile started taking him farther and farther away, towards warmer lands, but through cold winters, cold nights wherever he went, and further and further from his memories, but from himself, too. Only when he was close to disappearing completely, was he found and did he finally accept help, and when he learnt that he could help others, in turn, that was perhaps a change in direction. The slow spiral began to bring him back.
Remus knows these edges of the forest well enough, as in the company he kept ever since that very first evening, he soon learnt not to care if a place was forbidden. Now even without the golden and copper glow of leaves anymore, or the cold shine of snow yet, he can discern some landmarks, changed in the ways he observed on his first stroll this far after his return, on that October Saturday when the Potions Master had made it clear in the other teachers’ presence that he hoped the sight of Professor Lupin would never offend his eyes in Hogsmeade again.
He wanted to come here in any case, to paint, or at least make some sketches. A big part of his first salary – almost all he had left after paying back a moderate installment of the debt he’d made in Diagon Alley in August – had been spent on art equipment of a far less moderate price, as he couldn’t resist ordering the best quality, because that was what he got used to having here, when too tempted to accept these presents from…
The clearing is not much smaller than twenty years ago. Not many saplings have survived to grow tall in the shade of the old trees. Here’s one of the few fallen ones, a decaying trunk, and next to it something that hasn’t changed, the bolder of stone to offer shelter from north winds. Right here he came when in early afternoons a month ago there was still enough light and warmth for painting.
He decides to crouch for a moment. And now a weak blue flame flickers on his left palm as soon as he’s happened to bare that hand. In this light he spots the last chanterelles.
Shivering, as the humble, involuntary act of Magic of Needs has drawn heat from his body, he pulls the wool back over his fingers, and wonders why he needed to see these mushrooms – now that he isn’t starving. So as to admire the pure egg-yellow, the only remaining bright colour, he decides to use his right hand, draws out his wand and casts a Lumos. Back in his sixth year, when he was teaching how to recognise various mushrooms, these were the easiest and a favourite for…
There must be a need for him to approach his memories gradually. After years of his refusal to make portraits of any creatures closer to humans than cats, in October it was clear that he’d paint only landscapes and depict nothing like this in too much detail.
Now he cautiously extends his left forefinger and strokes the smooth cap of the most handsome chanterelle, then its gills. He can imagine tasting the apricot and pepper flavour, and almost smell it now – as well as the smoke of the camp fire on which he used to fry this delicacy to share it with…
A sudden rustle jerks him, alert, back to this desolation. These mushrooms are ice-cold, just as the dead leaves, dark sepia fringed with frost, are frozen to the ground, not rustling in any gust of wind. Someone’s stepping closer – or perhaps an animal, and perhaps that is… someone.
As he detects its dark shape out of the corner of his eye, his heart’s racing in too sweet anticipation. Trembling, he stands up and turns. The light of his wand illuminates a face – and it’s one he’s not needed to miss, at least not for the past couple of months.
“Lupin.” Severus certainly sounds like he’s never missed Remus. “What are you doing here?”
“The same as you.” His voice comes out hoarse and mumbling from his chilled lips. “I’m a Professor at Hogwarts.”
“Ha!” To his surprise, Severus acknowledges his feeble joke, and proceeds to open a conversation. “You used to come to the woods.”
As now there’s Severus’s Lumos, bright enough for them to see each other clearly, Remus pockets his wand, so as to show that he doesn’t want or expect a fight, and to warm his right hand, too, under the sleeve. “And you? I don’t know if you spied…” He’s chosen a word unwisely, but at least he doesn’t refer to us, any us, but continues, instead “…on me before, or only in our last winter.”
“I didn’t come here because of you. You followed me on that… cold day.” There’s a twitch on his face, and he stares at Remus intently.
What is this they’re starting to sort out? When, instead, Remus should finally express his regrets about not crossing the line between their Houses and at least trying to become friends in their first year. After that it was definitely too late because his secret had been figured out by... his House mates, and they were the invincible Marauders, in full swing of making pranks, more and more directed against their traditional rival House. And more and more against a particular Slytherin because of… jealousy, and some such vulnerability which they observed and Remus should have understood better. It’s impossible to apologise now – to bring up the humiliation Severus suffered.
Perhaps better talk only about… “Our seventh year?”
“Yes. When I knew what you are – why would I have wanted anything to do with you?” So why is he stepping closer now, and pushing back the hood of the fine black cloak?
“Perhaps to… find out more?”
“I knew what the two of you were. No, I rushed out here to be alone. I had still not quite mastered the hiding of… the kind of loathing that needs to be hidden.”
He must mean self-loathing, because he demonstrates the other kind clearly enough.
“Yes?” Hoping to be done with this soon, Remus encourages him to continue, and folds his arms and buries his hands in his armpits. It’s too cold to be standing still, and maybe he should have ordered winter boots instead of the Quirrell-hair paint brushes. But as Severus now keeps only staring at him, he can’t resist trying if they could sort out more recent insults. “Now you do your best to help children learn what I am and… how to kill such a beast.”
“It’s a pity our headmaster wants to limit their learning. You didn’t make me cancel that essay. He did, just as he ordered me to brew the potion.”
“Thank you for making it clear to whom I don’t need to be grateful.” Of course, Remus has known all this. But he doesn’t want to spell out that he’s now referring to Dumbledore because Wolfsbane makes the transformations harder than how he’s learnt to deal with them when he’s had a magically-sealed shelter and a cat as company.
The wind blows back the lank curtains of hair from framing Severus’s face, and reveals the handsome balance of his mature, healthy features. His posture, too, is enviable. And there’s something enchanting in the way he keeps coming closer to Remus when there’s no one else to witness the disdain – which he won’t cease to express in any case.
“Perhaps,” Severus says slowly, “you think I’m grateful to you for not catching, and maybe not even trying to catch me in that tunnel – because a year later I said it wasn’t you who wanted to murder me – that it was…”
“No!” Remus has managed to stop him from saying the name, and he must know Remus doesn’t want to hear it. Remus also means that… nobody wanted to murder anyone then, but can’t bear sorting out the Willow Incident now. He resorts to saying, “I do regret… that September class – making fun of transvestites and you.”
“Oh, I can understand that you want to be virtuous. To defend those who are bullied. And that in your indignation you make the mistake of taking revenge and becoming guilty of a similar act of trying to humiliate.”
Now when Remus has nobody else to defend, he should be able to control his own behaviour. He’s not rashly pointing out that his indignation was not only due to how Severus had just talked about Alice and Frank’s son – not revealing that the boy had named the Potions Master as his greatest fear. But, of course, Severus must have concluded this when hearing the gossip about the boggart with his features and Mrs Longbottom’s attire.
“You’re right,” Remus says, “to call it bullying – what you do to that boy. And it’s clearly not a rare mistake made by someone who’s too young to know better. When an adult has taken the responsibility, and after years of experience gives reason for such fear…”
“Ah, we shouldn’t waste great words on each other. Indignation, responsibility… You just wanted to impress the boy – the other one.
Remus can’t help being thankful to Severus for not mentioning the name, although, of course, he keeps hearing that one, too, all the time. “If I wanted that, I could tell him about… my school years.”
“Could you? Anyway, you don’t have to tell me. Just let’s refresh some memories of seventh year.”
“Yes?” Remus must have stepped back, as he can now feel the cold stone against his hips. If they need to have this conversation, he wishes they could have it at a pub table with steaming tankards of Butterbeer warming their hands, or better still, with Firewhiskey heating them from the inside. But, of course, Severus doesn’t want anyone to know that he stoops so low as to talk to Remus.
Severus, too, is shivering, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He goes on, calm and controlled. “I’d given up on you. Then in sixth year I got a new reason to resent how you’d gained and retained your position despite what you were.”
“And soon after that you joined…” Remus immediately regrets taking up this topic, which will only prolong the conversation, but he’s thought too many times about how Severus must have got tempted to become a Death Eater partly because Dumbledore handled the Willow Incident with no grave punishment to… any Gryffindor.
“A mistake made by someone too young. But it turned out beneficial for Dumbledore’s side, because after hearing the prophecy, I realised I had to fix my mistake so as to save… her, my childhood friend. It won’t surprise you that I haven’t told Dumbledore everything I learned when serving the Dark Lord, just as I’m sure you haven’t.”
“If you think I’m here to help anyone come and hurt the boy…”
“If this someone’s around, perhaps he’ll still hate… what he didn’t witness in our seventh year and I’m afraid he never found out about. Now we’ve stood here long enough, talking. You’re cold enough. That’s what I like, as I figured out back then.”
Severus takes another step towards Remus, and lifts a bare hand to lean against a tree trunk, and his cloak opens to reveal a sliver of his thigh and hips. He’s wearing nothing underneath.
Staring at the bare skin, Remus hardly manages to whisper, “What do you want?”
“Now that’s the right question.” Severus’s lip curls into a smirk. “I don’t want your conversation. I don’t want your contribution to defending the school against the murderer. Let me state this exactly, since we’re both inclined to verbal play, but this is the end of eloquence between you and me. The only use I have for you is to satisfy a primal, carnal desire.”
Remus closes his eyes. Severus’s breath is blissfully hot against his chilled face. Anticipating a rough kiss, he’s startled into opening his eyes again only when something touches his left shoulder.
Severus has poked his wand just at the spot of the bite scar, mercifully covered with some layers of fabric and wool. “If you don’t want me to fuck you, I’ll be more than happy to do it by force.”
“Why wouldn’t I want it? You’re a healthy man, and…” And that must be enough to make it clear that Remus is not submitting to anything against his will. No need to express how he’s just become fully aware of the desire he has in particular for this handsome, brilliant man, also because of their past – of how they were unable to share more in their past. Or to reveal how desperately he’s craved for physical intimacy and just anyone’s touch on his skin, having not been caressed by anyone since Omar held him on their carpet flight over the Mediterranean in July.
“You disappoint me if you like it too much. Perhaps I should do it without lube.” Severus takes out a beautiful malachite green jar, and now while lighting it with his steady Lumos, he’s effortlessly levitating it, and he sticks two fingers in it, then lifts them under his impressive nose and breaths in with relish. “But I’m too fond of the exquisite feel and scent of this lube I’ve developed myself.”
“Don’t worry. You’re getting your pleasure from torturing me. If you fuck me here and now when I hate all this.”
“What is it you hate? Say it. What are you suffering from now? Say! Then turn around and lift up your robes!”
Leaning closer to the warmth of Severus’s mouth, Remus begins to obey. “The cold.” His voice is trembling, but he adds with more force, “I’m so fucking cold,” and presses his lips against Severus’s.
But there’s a violent thrust on his shoulder, and he can’t help imagining how something, maybe Severus’s thumb bores right into his first, worst wound. He’s now bitten Severus’s lip, and he hurries to turn around and bend over the bolder of stone, but doesn’t follow the last part of the orders, leaving it for Severus to bare his arse.
He does want Severus. But there’s no way for him to get aroused now.
Not even when he summons back the image of the seventeen-year-old raging to himself in the winter woods, kicking off the shoes perhaps just to remove the snow, but then standing barefoot, leaning against a frozen tree trunk with his hard-on revealed, maybe wishing the cold to calm his cock. And Remus can’t help his curiosity. Unnoticed, though only at a couple of yards’ distance, he’s stopped under a rowan, and while staring he hardly notices how he tears off a pretty cluster of frozen berries. The dog, the stag and the rat have left him far behind, and he alone gets to wonder whether Snivellus is pining for Lily or for one of those older Slytherins, whom he must have kept meeting in Hogsmeade, after last spring they extended the Dark Lord’s invitation to him. And when Snivellus starts wanking, their eyes meet, and Remus knows they share the desire for a man, even before Snivellus wades to him, presses against him, spills his semen on him, and declares that now Remus doesn’t belong only to his fucking sweetheart. And it’s true.
Now when Remus is not quite eighteen yet, he starts suspecting that anyone can arouse him, and it won’t be easy to stay faithful. Already he’s not. He can still bear the cold, and his cock is hard, and he comes and he holds Sni… no, Severus in a tight embrace, until he’s pushed hard on the chest and he falls down, to stay lying in deep snow when Severus rushes away, not willing to admit this was more than a punishment, or that they are anything but antagonists.
“Yes. We are,” Severus now says, panting. He must be wanking. “Fucking. Cold.” Severus doesn’t touch Remus, just lifts the robes with wand magic. “Though you’re wearing too much.” He huffs. “Muggle clothes!”
When he feels his old, ripped jeans slide down to his ankles, Remus can only hope Severus hasn’t torn them fully to shreds. The Lumos goes off, and Remus closes his eyes. And now the warm cock slides along the cleft of his freezing arse. This makes his own shrivelled cock twitch, fortunately protected from the ice-cold of the stone by the wool of the long cardigan.
Severus must have been stingy or careless when applying the lube, and he pushes in harshly. But since Remus has known worse pain inside of himself, regularly and as long as he can remember, this is something he minds less than Severus is likely to hope. He clings to the memory of the embrace in their seventh year – to how Severus, too, remembered it. And to the memory of their first exchanged glances, the first handshake.
When Severus pulls out and pumps his hot semen onto Remus’s skin, Remus pushes back against his hand and his body, and grabs his own cock, and bares it just in time before coming.
Severus’s Lumos flashes for a moment, and now Remus is surprised he cares to use his wand for a Vanishing charm on the semen, and Remus bends to pull his jeans up. There’s another moment’s darkness before they must find a path towards the castle and hurry in, and Remus ventures to turn and lean against Severus, for their faces to touch, cold skin against skin.
This is when he hears a bark, and how it turns into a howl.
