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You Will Not Kiss Me	By : Prosperosdaughter Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Snape/Remus Views: 22836 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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Chapter 57: A Modicum of Understanding

Snape watched in horror as the Disillusionment Charm trickled away from Black to reveal him hunched in the corner, his back to them, but his face turned up to the ceiling in prayer at the horror of his discovery.

"Had an eyeful, Pads?" Lupin asked, seemingly lightly but his eyes were boring into Black and one leg was trembling. Snape himself stood quickly, turning his back on Black to tuck in his shirt and tie his cravat, feeling humiliation course under his skin like scalding water. Lupin stood quickly as soon as Snape got off his lap and stormed over to Black, wand poised in his hand.

How could he? How could he do that to me? Snape thought furiously as he buttoned his robe, feeling as humiliated as he had ever done out by the Black Lake that day. On my back in front of Black. At my most vulnerable in front of ... him! His eyes stung and his stomach churned. He wanted to vomit. His mind reeled that Lupin could have shamed him so, after he begged him not to. He understood now why the clothes remained on, so Black would not see Snape's nakedness, but he would have seen enough, wouldn't he? Merlin, he'd seen plenty, hadn't he? The shame crawled right to the tips of Snape's fingers and toes as he listened to Lupin berating Black, his voice getting louder and louder, and Snape feeling his own anger rising as he struggled to control his own breathing, his back still to the other men as he battled to regain his composure.

"Did you just forget my sense of smell, Sirius? Think you could just stay behind and spy on us like some peeping Tom? I never knew you were such a pervert!" Lupin yelled. Snape turned to watch the scene once he'd got his breathing back to normal. Black looked like a child being scolded for a juvenile solecism, his body half turned from Lupin and hunched in on himself as his grey eyes glittered and his skin reddened with embarrassment.

"Well, was it a good show? Did you see what you wanted?" Lupin barked, looming over Black.

"No! I didn't want to see that at all! Why would I?" Black shouted as he then turned to face Lupin, the men coming nose to nose. "I wanted to see how you were with Sn ... Snape. On your own. Merlin, Moony, I didn't expect you to ravish the bloke on the bloody kitchen table! How'd I know you'd do something like that? When you started on him, I tried to leave, but you'd locked down the damn room. I couldn't even Apparate out! I didn't want to see that ... I promise."

"I hope it burned itself on your brain!" Lupin bellowed.

"I'll Obliviate it, I can assure you! I don't want it," Black said, suddenly angry. "I just wanted to see you two together, talking! You want me to accept this but I never see just how the two of you are at Order meetings. You and Snape barely talk to each other." Black exhaled noisily. "I just wanted to see how you behaved together – that's all."

"And?" Lupin challenged. "Did you see anything worthwhile?" Lupin's voice was less hard now, and Snape watched, realising that for the moment, he was unheeded and this, in its own way, was as private a moment between Lupin and his friend as their own love-making should have been. He watched and listened, all the while his own humiliation still simmering in him.

Black fidgeted as he stood, his eyes still bright with shame, but refusing to back down.

"I saw his face when he talked to you without us there. I heard his voice." Black's voice cracked.

"And ...?" Lupin said, his voice still edged with hardness but his wand now lowered at his side.

"He relaxed as soon as you two were alone. I've never seen Snape look like that. His eyes burn when he looks at you, and yours are the same. His voice," Black made a dismissive gesture and noise of disgust, "it grates on me normally – but he speaks differently when he talks to you. It's warm. I don't know – it's – loving, I suppose. It was like watching a stranger." Black spoke as if the very words he uttered would choke him.

Lupin nodded, and Black's face had an odd, closed expression that Snape could not decipher.

"And you had to see this for yourself? Couldn't trust my word or our soul bond on it that this is how we felt? Or is that soul bonding means nothing to you?"

"You know that not true, Remus. I have to re-assess everything I ever thought about Sn – Snape." Black looked bewildered. "I'm trying. But it's hard." Black almost whined as he said that last. Well, Snape had had the very same thoughts about Potter when Lupin had told him about his and Lily's soul bonding, Snape suddenly recalled. It had been very hard for Snape to accept that Potter had been worthy of Lily's soul – but deep soul magic didn't lie and Snape had had to accept that – and, yes - it was hard when you hated in the way that Snape and Black hated. Snape's anger suddenly reignited - he did not want even a modicum of understanding or sympathy with Black or with Potter!

"You still don't trust Severus, do you? Even though you saw the state of him when he came back from Voldemort in June?"

"This isn't about Snape, Remus," Black said softly. "It's about our friendship. I can't bear that I've hurt you – the way I behaved to Snape. I didn't think about you." Black's head hung suddenly and he inhaled deeply. "I want you to forgive me. I'll get on my knees and beg if you want me to, Moons."

"I don't need gestures; I need your sincerity. If you're going to beg on your knees to anyone, Pads, it should be to Severus," Lupin said, his voice still harsh.

Black flinched. "Is that what you want me to do ...?"

"Would you, if I asked?" Lupin challenged, leaning into Black's face, his eyes narrowed.

The disgust on Black's face was evident and yet ... "Yes, Remus. I would, to show you how sorry I am. I can't undo what I did."

"No, you can't," Lupin snapped and Black's eyes flicked away then met Lupin's again with renewed courage.

"But, I'll do what I can. Snape's your mate. I understand it. I'll respect it. Will you ever trust me again?"

"That will take time. I want to but ... it will take time," Lupin said, backing one step away.

"Well, this is all very touching, I'm sure," Snape said, in his coldest voice, whilst the intensity of his shame burned deeper still to see the men starting to come to an understanding over his prone body, as he saw it. He stood ramrod straight, his sneer every bit as real as the humiliation that was scorching his shattered pride.

"I am delighted that you have each attained the reassurance that you need from that little ... exhibition. Now, undo the wards, Lupin, and let me pass." He went to walk past both men to stand by the door to wait for the wards to fall but Lupin grabbed his wrist harshly as he passed. He heard Black take a sharp intake of breath of shock, then felt the squeeze of side-along Apparition.

They Apparated into Lupin's bedroom, Lupin still holding Snape's wrist in a vice-like and painful grip. He pulled Snape into his arms by that wrist, but Snape struggled away.

"Get away from me, Remus!" he growled. Lupin swung to the door and warded it locked with a violent slashing motion of his wand and then turned to Snape and grabbed his shoulders in his hands.

"Don't push me away," he growled. It was almost a command. At any other time, Snape knew it would make him compliant, that he would desire it, but he was too angry, too humiliated. To allow Lupin this submission would be to compound the humiliation. He searched the blue eyes that not even one hour ago had looked upon him with lust and longing, and then with love.

"Why did you call me by my surname? Why?" Lupin spoke urgently, his eyes were hard and angry. It was not really his Lupin at all. In just in two weeks! This Lupin didn't soften and apologise when he caused offence. And yet they had just made love in the most spectacular way and his words and hands had been so loving and sensual.

"Why did you do that to me?" Snape shouted, pushing his own arms against Lupin's grip. "You knew! I told you I couldn't bear it if you did that. Why did you?"

"Severus, listen to me, please" Lupin said, loosening his grip. "I knew, but I could not stop. I have been with the pack for two weeks and only on one of those nights were you with me. I wanted you so painfully all those nights and tonight I could not stop, even when I realised I could smell Sirius."

"Not even for me. You could not stop, even for me?" Snape cried, feeling so worthless. Again. "I should not have let you take me with the pack. You would not have thought it was acceptable if I had not been so weak."

"No, it is not what I meant by it, no, Severus!" Lupin's eyes had softened now, and he was staring intently at Snape, almost like he was re-focusing. "It is perhaps too great an instinct to deny. Taking you with the pack was more satisfying, more erotic, to me than I could ever explain to you. Hearing and seeing you so abandoned was such a joy. When I realised Sirius was in the room, I remembered what he tried to do to you and it just made me want to possess you more. That's why I didn't stop. The two events merged in my mind." Lupin's shoulders sagged and he backed away from Snape. "I know it doesn't excuse it, Severus. I know it doesn't."

Lupin went to soothe the Claiming bite on Snape's neck with his thumb, but that made Snape more angry and he brushed Lupin's hand away harshly and stepped further back from Lupin.

"It's like the Imperius curse, that thing, isn't it? To make me submissive," Snape barked and sent a stinging hex to Lupin's hands. To his horror, it deflected away. He groaned inwardly - his wand was submissive to Lupin's – he could not hurt him with it. His anger and humiliation brightened. Since he could not use magic, and Lupin was stronger, his weapons would have to be his words – his inexhaustible supply of contempt and malice.

Snape grasped the circlet on Lupin's upper arm. "What does this mean to you exactly?" Snape snarled. "That I am a piece of meat to be spread before your friends so you can demonstrate your possession of me? Are you a wizard or a dog wolf, Remus? You must decide."

On the instant, Lupin's eyes widened in shock and Snape saw something retreat from his eyes, from the set of his jaw.

"You have never been fodder for others' sexual appetites, have you, Remus?" Snape spat. "If you had, you would understand what you have done to me." Snape's voice was low and haunted, his voice constricted by the lump in his throat and the heartbreak in his soul.

The words stung Lupin like a whip that sent Lupin backwards staring at Snape in horror. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out as he backed himself to the wall and stared at Snape, standing still and unyielding, his eyes glittering with hurt.

"Let me out of this room. I want you out of my sight. If you can only behave towards me like a possessive beast, Remus, then I don't ever want to see you again," Snape hissed, looking away from Lupin's eyes, now shining with tears of shame of his own.

"Perhaps, it was always on the cards – I have no right to a human mate. I had no business bonding when I am a beast after all. And as a beast, I have lost your trust." Lupin voice was with thick with emotion. "You are not the first, after all." Lupin took his wards from the door, and rested his forehead against it wearily as he opened it, his eyes tightly shut. "Go. Go now." His voice was small and defeated, although Snape could register no hurt other than his own as he swept out of the room, his stride not wide enough nor quick enough for him to leave this place of burning shame.

oooOOOooo

It had taken Snape days to even try to think calmly about what had happened that night. Now he was thinking about it, he was becoming more and more troubled.

Snape helped himself to another liberal glass of Firewhiskey. Black's words kept coming back to him: how Lupin had changed when he ran with the wolves, so much so they had ceased to trust him. Lupin himself telling him all that time ago how unhappy he had become when he ran with the wolves. Lupin had told him he ran with the wolves for months on end. And here he was, judging Lupin instead of trying to understand him. Lupin was running with a pack now and when his territoriality was threatened, he had done what felt natural and taken Snape in front of Black. Being in the sexually charged atmosphere of the pack, his inhibitions on Snape's behalf had gone. Snape didn't have to like it, or approve of it, but he should have tried to understand it. Lupin put himself in the way of the one thing he couldn't abide – his boggart was the moon – the moon that represented the wolf and all the pain and the animal behaviour that entailed.

Lupin had to dissemble to be a spy, had to blend, immerse himself in the pack. Didn't he, when he stood before the Dark Lord, take on the persona of the Death Eater he once was? What he had once chosen to be. Lupin had never chosen this, and fought the animal in him all the time. Now, the Order sent him to what he hated, and it affected him. Did Snape turn his back on him now? What kind of a husband was he?

oooOOOooo

They had not got round to discussing any arrangements: not for the weekend, not for the Wolfsbane, not for what would happen at the full moon. On the Thursday, he took the silencing spell off the mirror he had placed on it when he had got back from Grimmauld Place, and tried to call Lupin. He kept trying throughout the evening, but there was no response. Perhaps, he was giving Snape a taste of his own medicine. Snape cast a revealing spell on the mirror to see how often Lupin had tried calling him since the weekend. His heart fell when he saw that Lupin had not tried – not once. He started to fret. He was supposed to go to him at the weekend. He had meant to go at the weekend to help maintain Lupin's cover, but also – he wanted to patch things up. Now he had had time to think – to realise what he had said would mean to Lupin – he needed to patch things up. He knew where the encampment was – he could just go. But he did not know how Lupin had transfigured his face. He had not looked at himself. Should he send Tippy to find him? Into a pack of werewolves? He shook his head at his own stupidity. Nor could he send an owl. He cursed himself. He had been so wrapped up in his own feelings of offence, he hadn't seen the wider consequences. Now he was becoming fearful.

He spoke to Dumbledore to see if he had heard from Lupin. Dumbledore told him he had not spoken since the day after the Order meeting and asked jovially if they had had "a lovers' tiff." Snape had left Dumbledore's office without another word.

There was an Order meeting after the weekend. Hagrid had returned and Dumbledore reported that the prospects of the Giants joining them looked slim, although Hagrid still held out hope. Even greater reliance would now be put on Lupin to recruit more werewolves – when he got in touch.

The meeting ended and, while the others socialised, Snape slipped away to Lupin's room. "Accio enchanted mirror," he whispered, hoping nothing would come. It came from Lupin's bedside table. Snape felt as if his world had fallen away from him. He had told Lupin he hadn't wanted to see him again, and Lupin had believed him and left the mirror behind. Left the mirror that he had kept to himself for all this time. Snape's head was reeling as he stared at the small mirror in his hand.

"Only took you two weeks, Snivellus."

Snape's back stiffened and he turned slowly to regard Black standing just outside the door in the hall.

"Meaning ...?"

"Two weeks he was with the wolves and you couldn't cope with the change in him. And you have the nerve to criticise me ... Remus ran with the wolves for months on end last time. The change was profound. Well, now you know how hard it can be when you think you know someone ..." Black stood casually, his expression disdainful, his eyes knowing. "So, will you beg on your knees to him now, Snivellus?" he sneered.

Snape curled his lip and pushed past Black heavily and stormed out of the house, clutching the small mirror in his hand.

oooOOOooo

He stood in his quarters with the flask of Wolfsbane in his hand. He was quite distracted now. No-one had heard from Lupin since Dumbledore had seen him. Lupin did not have his mirror. Snape could only hope that Lupin would think the same as he. It was the only place they had in common if he was with Idris's pack. He wrote a note begging Lupin to get in touch – just let him know he was safe - and wrapped Lupin's mirror in it and sealed it to the flask. He called for Tippy and asked her to take the Wolfsbane to the farmhouse and leave it on the sitting room table, and then he waited and hoped.

Although he kept the mirror with him all the time, Lupin did not call him and Snape's stomach started to churn with worry almost constantly, his conversation with Black now haunting his dreams.

"Running with the wolves ... it changed him. You don't understand. He became someone else – so unlike Remus..."

"Perhaps, a young man in pain ... running with those from whom he had always striven to be different ... to prove he was not an animal ... and yet running with them because he was commanded to by the Order ..."

"We ... that is, I, never thought of it that way – what kind of toll his missions were taking on him. Oh Remus."

"Two weeks he was with the wolves and you couldn't cope with the change in him."

"Two weeks he was with the wolves and you couldn't cope with the change in him."

"Two weeks he was with the wolves and you couldn't cope with the change in him."

He had fallen at the first hurdle.

oooOOOooo

The full moon was tonight. Snape resolved he would not go during the day. He didn't know what Lupin would be like after two weeks having left each other on such terrible terms. He suspected Lupin might even be violent with him and he had no way to defend himself now. Before moonrise, he Apparated into the farmhouse, his throat parched, not in desire, but in fear. He had his wand drawn, but how would it help? He had bonded his own wand never to hurt Lupin. Its weight in his hand reassured him anyway.

There was no sign that Lupin had been to the farmhouse since they were last here together last month. He took off his robe and his boots and went to the kitchen. He would have a tea while he waited though, Merlin knew, he needed something stronger to calm his nerves, his hands were trembling now, not knowing what to expect from Lupin at all.

Then, on the countertop, he saw them: five flasks in which he had sent the five doses of Wolfsbane, the note unread, the mirror still wrapped inside. Neatly lined up. Unopened.

Snape steadied himself as his head blurred and his balance nearly went. Lupin had been here – and moved the Wolfsbane to the kitchen and then ignored it. Lupin without Wolfsbane. But he wouldn't ... why would he? Where was he, if he had no Wolfsbane? Was he with the pack? Could they keep him safe? Would he roam free? Bite someone? Turn someone? Kill someone? After all these years? Snape was completely panic-stricken. Time was drawing on. Moonrise was coming and he could feel the tug in his gut. He had no idea where Lupin was.

He felt the tug harder and took himself to the bathroom. He remembered he had been violently sick last time so he went to wait for the worst to happen and sat on the tiled floor. He started to feel nauseous as the moon rose, but then he heard it. The muffled sound of human keening that was not his own. It was rising, rising to a scream. Remus! Snape scrambled to his feet. The cellar! He hadn't even thought to look in the cellar and he ran for it. He rattled at the cellar door handle as he heard the scream alter to the howl of the wolf.

He cast spell after spell against the door in increasing desperation, but he could not gain entry. Locked inside was the wolf: Lupin without Wolfsbane, now crashing against the huge oak door, strong in its grain and fortified by magic, to get to Snape – whether it was to attack him or just to get to his mate, Snape did not know. He did not care, for his own mind was completely blown by his hatred of the door that separated them that no spell of his could penetrate because his husband had cast the wards to keep him out – to keep him safe – and intention in deep magic was everything. Once again, his own wand defeated him.

He threw himself bodily against the door now calling Lupin's name, knowing he was hurting his own shoulder over and over again but the Claim drove him on, until he fell at the door, scrabbling with the tips of his fingers at it in desperation, listening to the wolf whining and whimpering as he too scrabbled with his paws on the other side. It tore at Snape's insides – a physical pain that made him keen until they both wore themselves out, panting and whimpering on either side of the magically reinforced barrier. There they stayed as the night passed with excruciating slowness. As the moon set, Snape felt the physical pain of the Claim depart, and the pain of his dislocated, bruised shoulder and torn fingers assail him, as he heard the whining turn to howling turn to screaming turn to agonised groans then the whimpering of the reversion from the wolf to man and a heavy slump behind the door.

Bearing the new pains, he stood shakily, still panting, using his bloody hands to brace himself against the door, he cast at the door once more and the wards fell and the door unlocked with a small click. The tiniest noise and the door opened. Snape's bloodied fingers curled around the door, and he realised as the door didn't give that Lupin's body was behind it. He cast a Levitation charm that gently manoeuvred Lupin's body away and then through the door and through to the sitting room where Snape Conjured a padded sheet and laid Lupin upon it, hissing as he saw the damage not healed in the reversion. One of Lupin's shoulders was dislocated, his scapula was shattered, and his clavicle broken, his skin was torn and bloody on his shoulder and his fingers.

Snape didn't have a proper potion store here and once again summoned Tippy. The little elf, bow intact, appeared before him smiling, but her wide smile fell from her face as she saw her Master Lupin so bloody and torn and her Professor Snape, blood coagulating on his hands, his shirt torn and bloody at the shoulder also. She grasped her hands together, waiting for instructions.

Snape gave Tippy a long list of potions he needed from his store at Hogwarts and the elf nodded and popped away. Whilst she was gone, Snape quickly checked for other injuries and then Summoned Lupin's clothes, which came from the cellar as Tippy returned and then busied herself bringing bandages, bowls of hot water, towels and a sling as Snape cleansed Lupin's wounds before mending the bones and healing all the open wounds. They were extensive this time, and his own wand movements difficult and laboured as he worked through his own pain to heal Lupin as quickly as possible before he came round. When all was done, he Levitated Lupin to the bed that Tippy had freshly made and sat heavily on it, his head dropping into his own damaged hands with exhaustion.

"Shall Tippy make some drinks and food, Professor Snape, sir, before Professor Snape heals his hands?" the little elf asked, tentatively, her eyes wide, looking at the ragged injuries on Snape's fingers. The question caught Snape by surprise. He had no idea how he had managed to lose any sense of his own self in the time since finding Lupin unconscious and damaged behind the door. He looked at his hands in horror.

"Tea, please Tippy, and can you make a broth for when Master Lupin wakes," he said, his voice sounding distant, as he held up his own hands for inspection and repair and wondered if he would be able to use his left hand to cast to repair his shoulder.

oooOOOooo

Snape, having laid down, fully dressed, next to Lupin once he had healed his own injuries and fallen asleep, awoke to find a frighteningly pale Lupin stroking the side of his face with a look on his face that approached wonder.

Lupin breathed Snape's name and kissed his cheek lightly. "What the hell did we do?"

"You didn't take the Wolfsbane I sent. Why?" Snape asked, turning onto his side, and draping his arm across Lupin's waist.

Lupin looked bewildered and ashamed. "Too long with the pack, I think. I didn't have the thought of you to anchor me. I thought you'd gone for good. I knew enough that I didn't want to run free on the full moon, that's why I came here but I didn't want to be here alone, knowing you weren't going to be with me. Without Wolfsbane, at least I wouldn't remember the night."

"So you undertook the transformation without Wolfsbane? You were punishing yourself?" Snape whispered, suddenly understanding. Lupin's eyes dropped.

"I suppose so. I messed up with you so badly. I deserved it," Lupin said, a flush of shame spreading up his cheeks.

"You are not a dog to be whipped, you know," Snape said earnestly.

"Am I not?" Lupin's eyes were afraid. Snape felt his heart seize momentarily. What have we done to each other?

Snape held Lupin's chin. "You are not." He caught Lupin's lips lightly. "You are not a dog. You are not a beast. I was very hurt and I lashed out at you."

"I don't know how to make it up to you," Lupin said softly.

"Never do it again - that would be a start. I want to understand you, Remus. I know being with the pack is hard for you and I want to help, if I can. We both have our insecurities after all, and we know mine are deep. But I don't want to be without you, I promise you I don't."

"Are you still mine, Severus?" Lupin said, as he pulled Snape to him gently.

"I am yours, body and soul," Snape sighed, not resisting the pull this time.

"I promise you I will never behave like that to you again, not with the pack, not anywhere."

Snape ran his hands through Lupin's hair. "It was, I believe you called it, my abandonment with the pack that made you think you could continue when Black was in the kitchen?"

Lupin murmured his assent.

"And yet, I enjoyed that night with the pack," Snape said. "I think that's where our problem arose. I was Transfigured, the pack didn't know me, I was anonymous, you took me on the bite – I was abandoned. I did enjoy it. It was liberating."

"Would you do that again with the pack, on my most solemn oath never to do that in front of anyone else," Lupin smiled, a hopeful smile, "unless of course you asked me?"

"I rather think I would ..."

oooOOOooo

The weekend came and Snape Apparated to the farmhouse. Lupin was waiting for him and Transfigured him into Seth Moore and took him by the hand to join the pack.
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You Will Not Kiss Me