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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
Disclaimer: JK Rowling & her associates own the Harry Potter universe and I make no money from my stories.

Chapter List
- 65
- 66
- 67
Direct quotes in bold from Chapter 26 of OotP are © J.K. Rowling

Chapter 66: Incursion

They lay on the sitting room floor where Lupin had pulled Snape, kissing and holding him and now Lupin's head was lying on Snape's stomach, nuzzling into it as if it were a comfortable pillow, rather than the flat plane it actually was. Lupin's arms were wrapped firmly around him, whilst one of Snape's draped lightly over Lupin's shoulder, and his other hand carded Lupin's hair. Since he had told Lupin he would not hold him to his vow if the Dark Lord were vanquished, Lupin had not left him alone. It was as if their relationship, already so beautifully ardent to Snape, had shifted yet again. If anything, Lupin's attentions had become even more intense and Snape revelled in it.

"What made you think again, Severus?" Lupin asked, his expression soft and enquiring. Snape could not resist stroking the jaw line and tracing the lips of the man he loved.

"You," he said simply. Then he spoke slowly, trying to choose his words carefully as if words could ever encapsulate how he felt – he wasn't sure they could, but he would try. "The way you love me so completely. The way you have made me feel so differently about myself over time – the strength you give me because you love me, no matter how appalling and flawed I am." Lupin opened his mouth to protest, but Snape laid one long finger gently over his lips. "You even made me feel safe and loved in my home where I never knew safety or love." He swallowed audibly, afraid he might choke on his own words, and he calmed himself again.

"I thought I was not an emotional or affectionate man, but you have found those things in me and given me more love than I ever could have realised my life could contain. How much more perfect than to give those things to a child, to share those things with a family of our making? I don't know if I will be a good father and I still fear my own temper and jealousy, but I trust you to help me and guide me – you who seem to have been able to find so much in me I did not know I had. I trust you on it completely."

He saw Lupin's eyes shine as his eyes filled with tears, but neither was embarrassed or even brushed the tears away. That Snape could even make such a speech amazed him, but it was truth, so why should it not be said?

"Tell me about the ritual," Snape said quietly, after some time.

"Well, I'll leave it to you to tell me where the Electio Potion will fit in but I suppose whoever takes it ...

"That would be me if I carry the child," Snape interjected.

"...yes, well you would take that before we start and then, well, you and I … we use our essences …

"Sperm," Snape corrected pedantically.

"Yes, Severus, sperm, if you must be so prosaic about a beautiful ritual."

"You've seen it?"

"Yes, once in a pack I was visiting. So, as I was saying, we collect our essences …

"How? Collect how? Who collects it?"

Lupin started to laugh softly. "You'd hex me into next week for interrupting you this often," he said gently, squeezing his sides.

"I'd give an appropriate amount of detail so there'd be no need to interrupt me," Snape chided.

"Very well, Severus," Lupin said, an amused smile still playing on his features. "If we were in a pack, the ritual would be celebrated before the pack ..."

"What, the sex and everything?"Snape asked, horrified.

"Yes, 'the sex and everything' including the ritual, and the pack witnesses would join the incantation with us. You know how treasured cubs are in a pack so it is a pack celebration, and we certainly don't have the same hang-ups about sex that some wizarding people do," Lupin smiled indulgently at Snape's wide-eyed horror. "But we are not part of a pack, so we will do this together, privately."

"Not here though, but somewhere beautiful ..." Snape said quietly, looking wistful.

"Yes, somewhere beautiful ... and tranquil." Lupin watched and waited for Snape, who eventually snapped his attention back to him.

"Go on," he said.

"You and I do whatever we wish to make each other orgasm and collect our sperm in a ceremonial chalice."

Snape nodded as if it were a better explanation, but for one thing: "Do werewolves have a ceremonial chalice just hanging about then?"

"Ah, you see, you have succumbed to the age-old wizarding prejudice. Of course, packs normally do. They are wizards and witches after all," Lupin scolded gently. Snape flushed a little pink at his own presumption. "We perform an incantation which perfects a zygote from our essence …"

"Sperm," Snape reiterated.

"No. Essence," Lupin insisted. "We both know that mixing sperm together would never make a zygote. But the magic we generate in the incantation reduces our sperm to our reproductive essence at its most primal level to make the zygote. When that this complete, I make the womb in you."

"You touched me there – my navel – with your tongue when we made love before you left for Sussex. I felt the magic, only briefly. It cut through me," Snape said, remembering the extraordinary feeling.

"It is meant to be erotic. More erotic than anything else either of us could ever feel. I suppose it is to encourage us to have many children!" Lupin laughed as Snape raised an eyebrow. "Then we make love, chanting the incantation to transfer the zygote together so it implants in the womb that I've made."

"Like when you force-fed me," Snape said.

"No, Severus! Nothing like that at all!" Lupin complained.

"I meant transference magic!" Snape clarified, now his own smile broadening.

Lupin coloured slightly at his own misunderstanding. "Yes, sorry, Severus," he said meekly.

"Well, that's where we're going to come unstuck then, isn't it?" Snape said with an air of finality.

Lupin's eyebrow raised in enquiry.

"Well, I'm not very articulate, am I, when we have sex? Good grief, Remus, I can barely remember my own name by then let alone recite an incantation!" Snape admitted with embarrassment. Lupin smiled hugely.

"It is a superb accomplishment of which I am enormously proud, Severus, that I, Remus Lupin, impoverished werewolf of this parish can render you, Severus Snape, connoisseur of the cutting comment," kiss, "supremo of the supercilious sneer," nuzzle, "the virtuoso of vicious verbiage, the biting barb in badinage," kiss "the jagged jibe - incapable of speech or even coherent thought on my cock or my tongue." Lupin kissed Snape's stomach once more as Snape rolled his eyes and then laughed. "I also find it very sexy," Lupin chuckled. Snape didn't know whether to be amused or appalled, but even Lupin teasing him about his inability to speak during sex made his stomach squirm and then heat deliciously.

"So you can alliterate as well as you fellate," Snape said, with mock scorn.

"Not your best put-down, Severus," Lupin smiled.

"Not a put-down at all, actually. More of a request," he answered, his cock stirring very obviously now.

"Mmmm, you could practise talking while I take care of this for you," Lupin said mischievously, rubbing his hand against the growing tent in Snape's trousers. "What do you think?"

"I think you should allow me to be helplessly delirious until the Dark Lord falls – to keep me motivated ..." Snape retorted, stretching out in anticipation as Lupin spelled away Snape's shirt and then delved into his trousers and stroked Snape's cock with his hands and then he freed it from his trousers by pushing them down his thighs, and took it in his mouth, at first gently until Snape started to moan and writhe, holding Lupin's hair and watching as much as he could, straining to see Lupin's hot mouth working around his cock generating searing intensity, and groaning every time he saw Lupin's tongue dance around the tip of it, then hungrily and noisily, the heated and raw sensations building, making Snape throw his head back as he arched, wiping away Snape's consciousness as if to prove the point as Lupin relentlessly sucked and licked until Snape bucked his hips with his orgasm pulsing into Lupin's throat with a cry, as Lupin gently sucked on him until he was drained, moaning as he did so. Lupin gently kissed Snape's spent cock, and wiped a small amount of sperm from the corner of his mouth and licked it, looking directly into Snape's eyes now gazing glassily at him, as he ran fingers through Lupin's hair, his breath rasping as the pounding in his ears began to recede.

Lupin cleansed him and holding Snape's hip bones, kissed and caressed his stomach until Snape's breathing had calmed once more and then rested his head once more against Snape's still exposed skin.

"Are you going to become obsessed with my stomach now?" Snape said, a small smile playing on his lips.

"I was already obsessed with your stomach," Lupin admitted, "I just had to hide it from you." He kissed Snape's stomach as if to emphasise the point.

Snape sat up slowly, leaving Lupin's head in his lap, and stroked his hair and his face as Lupin turned his face to look up at him.

"Is it really as strong as the bites?"

"Oh yes," Lupin smiled. "And sometimes, when I stroke it, beautifully flat as it is, I can imagine it full and round with our child inside." Lupin ran the flat of his hand over Snape's stomach, his fingers tracing the cup of the navel as Snape watched his hand, as if hypnotised. "Does that upset you?"

"A year ago, when I found out it could happen, it would have revolted me, Remus. It would have been a sign of how my body could be used to enslave me – emasculate me. Now," Snape sighed as his own hand hovered over Lupin's, "even the thought of you stroking my stomach like that makes me feel …" Snape searched for a way to express how he felt, his own brain busy conjuring the pictures Lupin was painting, "loved and proud that a loving man such as you wants a child with – a man like me."

Lupin kissed his stomach, and Snape laughed. "Of course, it won't be beautifully flat once a baby's stretched it," Snape said, stunned that he could even joke that way. He wasn't a woman who had grown up expecting that her body could host a living, growing being. He knew it was possible for a man, and that there were conception magics, but even so, not once in his life had he ever thought of his body as an incubator until Lupin had explained this werewolf magic. Then he had fallen so deeply in love that even he had come to believe that this would be right for them. And now, here he was joking with his husband about losing his flat stomach. Perhaps, he was mad. It felt surreal. But it also felt so right.

Lupin hummed into his Snape's skin. "Lupine healing. You will be perfect again, I promise you." Snape's stomach flipped.

"Who would perform the section? Lupercalian Section, Angharad called it."

Lupin raised his head onto his hand. "If we were in a pack, it would be the pack mother."

"So, if we were with Idris's pack – Angharad would do it?"

Lupin nodded, still smiling. "But as we're not, we could ask Poppy."

Snape's eyes widened in shock, and he saw Lupin's smile broaden.

"I think Poppy would be honoured, don't you?" Lupin said, matter-of-factly.

"Yes," he croaked, coughed and smiled sheepishly. "It's quite a concept to take in, but she would probably be more relaxed about it than I am," he admitted. "Is it very different to a Caesarian Section?"

"I believe not in procedure, but it's much less dangerous. Once the baby is born, you heal much faster by the magic that made the womb in the first place."

Snape nodded. He needed to ask the next question, and he feared the answer more than anything and even that annoyed him, man of logic that he was supposed to be. He steeled himself.

"How …" Snape inhaled deeply again, determined to bite out the question. "How do I feed the baby … do I …? " His throat dried out instantly, looking at Lupin's gently amused expression. No, there was no help for it – he knew he was blushing bright crimson by the intense heat that rushed up his neck to his face. "Merlin help me," he growled to himself. "Would I have to grow breasts?" There, it was out. He closed his eyes, covering them with his hands against the answer.

Lupin sat up and laughed, a deep, resonant, joyful laugh that provoked a crooked smile from Snape. "Dear Merlin, no! What stories have you been told?" He took hold of Snape's hands as the tension slowly left his body. "From the ancient days, when Lupercalia invented the ritual, all werewolves ran in packs so such a child would have been fed by one of the mothers in the pack; perhaps a beta mother would be chosen. It was never the case that the man could feed the child as a woman would."

Snape couldn't hide his relief. The book had said nothing on the subject of feeding; this must have been why. "Well, there could be no better person to mix a formula for infant milk than I, surely," Snape said, smiling at his own weak joke, but underlying it, a relief that was really quite profound.

It had been three long weeks since he had seen Lupin. They had only managed to talk briefly every so often with the mirrors to avoid David knowing about Snape (or rather, remembering Snape). Between Lupin's absence, Potter's ongoing disastrous Occlumency lessons and the poisonous atmosphere at the school created by Dolores Umbridge and her ridiculous inspections, probations and increasingly hysterical decrees, he had thrown himself into his werewolf research to keep himself sane, and doing enough research on his Muggle-murdering potion as he needed for it to look realistic enough to keep himself alive.

In truth, if his loyalty to the Dark Lord were pure as it had been all those years ago, he realised that he could indeed have invented this poison. The deep disgust at this realisation had left quite a taste of bile in his mouth. All those years ago, he could have been a mass murderer, without question – there would have been no chance for any redemption then. He could only thank fate that he didn't have the skill then that he had now.

Still, Lupin was due back shortly. He'd just given Potter another woefully unproductive lesson and then left Hogwarts to wait at Grimmauld Place with the Wolfsbane for both men. He'd saved The Quibbler with Potter's interview for Lupin to read and had left that in Lupin's room.

Lupin and David let themselves in. Snape and Black waited for them in the kitchen in silence, Snape with two smoking flasks of Wolfsbane. Snape noticed there was no friendly banter as they came along the lengthy hallway, like last time. In fact, they didn't talk at all. All that could be heard was the deep grumbling of Black's deranged house-elf and his vicious tirade against half-breeds. This did not bode well.

Both men came through the door, pale, dirty, smelly and, Snape could tell by the way they held themselves, hurt. He removed his apothecary bag from his cloak and enlarged it and asked Black briskly to get dressing and hot water without further enquiry.

The men sat themselves down gingerly with weary salutations, depositing cloaks roughly against chairs. Snape said nothing, his face a mask of indifference but his eyes caught Lupin's. He didn't know what to say. He wanted to hold him, run his hands over him, see where he was hurt, but he couldn't in front of David.

I'm so pleased you're back, he thought.

My love, so am I, Lupin's mind voice sounded strained.

Snape tore his eyes away and out loud, he said brusquely, "Tell us where you are hurt and tell us what happened."

Black brought what Snape asked for and then set about making tea and sandwiches for the men.

Lupin took his shirt off to display various large bruises, cuts, scratches and hex burns, and David had similar. Snape worked silently with his salves and potions as the men told the tale.

"Well, you know we were going to this large urban pack in Birmingham. We found them living out of a derelict industrial estate just outside the city. I'd say there were over one hundred in this pack, wouldn't you say, David?"

The young man nodded as he gratefully received a mug of tea from Black, Snape noting that he was very much subdued.

"It was different to any other pack I've been with," Lupin continued. "Absolutely brutal even amongst themselves and very few of the usual pack rules apply. There is so little freedom for the pack to move, they are no better than caged animals. At best, fractious; at worst, on the edge of murderous fury. I was shocked they had not pledged to Voldemort already, they seemed so bloodthirsty."

"Even to be allowed to share their space before talking to the Alpha, we had to show them we could fight," David interrupted.

"Against each other?" Snape asked, as he cleaned all the cuts on Lupin's torso and arms, and then sealed them.

"No, their choice of opponent. They mis-matched us as much as they possibly could, finding the largest opponents – but luckily for us, large does not mean skilled," Lupin said, hissing as Snape found and healed a broken rib.

"I should say," David laughed sourly. "Remus made short work of the brute they asked him to duel …"

"… because that's all he was – large and scarred – so he looks intimidating, but too large to move well and only three attacking spells in his armoury and no defensive spells at all! Can you believe it? A second year could do better. Sorry, David. That's a bit of an in-joke – I taught Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts for a while," Lupin explained and then resumed. "I Disarmed him and bound him in short order: it wasn't even a contest. Thank you, Severus," Lupin said, snatching a look into his eyes, as Snape finished rubbing in the Bruise Salve to his back and then moved to David.

"Mine wasn't quite so useless, but luckily Remus has been helping me train, and I eventually bested him," David said, perking up, anxious to impress the three seasoned campaigners he currently spoke to. He would have been wide-eyed, had one eye not been swollen shut and vividly black and blue.

"I'll call Poppy for that eye," Snape said, "when I've finished with these bruises."

David nodded, his expression becoming closed with distrust as he looked at Snape. Snape registered it but didn't wonder at it. Youngsters had no subtlety or nuance to understand what Snape did or how he did it. He carried on tending the young man's bruises, impervious to the occasional worried look he received, and setting his expression to be more intimidating, so that every time David caught Snape's eyes, his glare was harsh and forbidding.

"So, we'd earned our admission," Lupin continued. He ran his hand through his dirty hair. "It was just the start. Every day, someone or other, man or woman, would challenge us for our possessions, especially any food, or just try to steal things while we slept. It wasn't just us; they would behave like this with each other too. They thought nothing of walloping you as you passed to get the element of surprise. They are properly feral. I've been with Dark packs that still have honour amongst themselves, if not for others."

"I never knew werewolves lived like that," David said quietly, the eagerness now absent from his features.

"Thought they would at least all be noble savages, did you?" Snape sneered. David looked shocked at the cutting edge in Snape's voice. Snape smirked. "There are Muggles and wizarding folk who live like that as well in large cities if they're too poor or too damaged to fit in," Snape observed. "Lost people in the most anonymous of places."

"Yes," Lupin said quietly, "lost people. Still," Lupin said, shaking off his reverie, "we were in and eventually managed to work our way to speaking to the Alpha of the pack. His name is Magnus. Brutish and powerful, physically and magically. I had to duel him several times before he'd even listen to what I had to say. 'Might is right' would be his maxim. He had already been approached by Greyback and some of his lieutenants. They had fought viciously, but Magnus would not concede, and refused to pledge. I thought there must be some room for me to manoeuvre if he hadn't pledged. I was wrong. They won't pledge to either side. Magnus's view is: whoever wins, their lives will not change – they will always be outcasts but they won't risk Azkaban for anyone's politics."

"Politics!" Black barked, and squeezed Lupin's shoulder companionably, to that small knowing smile from David that Snape spotted. "Since when has life and death been politics!"

Snape rolled his eyes as he went to fire-call Poppy.

oooOOOooo

After Poppy had left, David had left to see Tonks, and, after Lupin had showered, he went to join Snape in his bedroom where no sooner had Lupin warded the room than he pulled Snape to the bed and crouched at Snape's feet, holding Snape's face in his hands.

"What is wrong?" he said gently. "I've watched you all evening tending to us and I can tell you have pain. What is it? Is Voldemort torturing you still?"

Snape ran his hands through Lupin's hair. His headache was low level but it rarely left him now and somehow Lupin knew. He didn't want to lie to Lupin. In fact, he wasn't sure he could, but it had all become so complicated, he wasn't sure how to tell him. He took a deep breath.

"You know that both Albus and the Dark Lord wanted me to teach Potter Occlumency, albeit for different reasons?" Snape said quietly. Lupin nodded, dropping his hands to hold Snape's hands between his own. "The unfortunate part of it is that Potter does not want me to teach him."

"How is that related to this?" Lupin asked, frowning.

"The boy fights me constantly," Snape said wearily.

"But that's good isn't it?" Lupin asked, clearly confused.

"No, he fights not to learn. He will not control his emotions or empty his mind. He never practises. I know he secretly relishes the connection for the insight it gives him."

"I'm sure that's not true, Severus. Why would he? He knows Dumbledore wants him to learn, and I told him he must do his best to learn from you when I took him back to Hogwarts in the New Year."

"He is so resistant to me and the more he resists, the more he hurts himself. He hurts himself when I am in his mind and sometimes that pain rebounds on me. I have just come from a lesson with him. It normally takes a while to settle. It will die down shortly; it's not like before."

"Before? What do you mean?" Lupin asked sharply. Snape closed his eyes. Sometimes he forgot how much happened in Lupin's absence.

"The Dark Lord has withdrawn his instruction to me to break open the boy's mind, so it has become somewhat easier for me – at least, for the time being. Before, the Dark Lord always Legilimised me for my memories of the lessons. Double the headache," Snape said, tapping his forehead with a faint smile.

"Withdrawn? Why?" Lupin asked gently.

"Rookwood has now told the Dark Lord the truth of how to get the Prophecy that I had withheld by feigning ignorance. He has now told me not to try to crack open Potter's mind – instead he wishes to be more subtle – to direct the boy there to retrieve the Prophecy or assist him to. Dumbledore strengthens the wards every week, but I feel the intrusion in the boy's mind. Potter simply will not close his mind. He should train with someone he respects. You could teach him better than I. He respects you."

"You're a far superior Occlumens, Severus," Lupin stated, moving to sit next to Snape on the bed.

"It's rather irrelevant if he refuses to learn, don't you think?" Snape sighed. "The point is that I am achieving nothing while he refuses, he continues to dream what the Dark Lord directs him to dream, which is to get to the Department of Mysteries. I see it every time I enter his mind."

"Has he not yet thrown you out?" Lupin asked, now clearly concerned.

"Not once. He produced a Stinging Hex against me in the first lesson but nothing since. Nothing. He makes a ridiculous fuss flailing about as if I force myself into his mind, but I do not. Getting into his mind is as easy as spreading butter. You know, Remus, that I can enter a mind forcefully if I wished but I do not cast with violence, just determination, and I can call his memories to me as easily if I leafed through a book. The trouble is that he doesn't want me to look and he fights that, rather than building barriers to block my entrance in the first place. All he ends up doing is damaging himself and so leaves himself more open to the Dark Lord's thoughts. I make sure Albus sees the memory of each lesson so he knows the danger the boy is in, but," he shook his head, "he will not relieve me of the responsibility for it."

"This is ridiculous – you're both being hurt through this," Lupin said. "Okay, so Dumbledore refuses to teach Harry because he thinks that will interest Voldemort even more to try to possess Harry. So, what if we can just get Sirius to tell Harry to trust you – say that you and he have reached an understanding and you can be trusted ..."

"That's a terrible idea, Remus," Snape said.

"But why?" Lupin said, crossly. "I mean, surely it would do Harry good to know that this old rivalry can be put aside and that people can work together when they have a common goal," Lupin said pleadingly. "I hate that he carries this old rivalry as if it's his own."

"You forget, Remus, I do everything to encourage it," Snape said. "I am a Death Eater who scorns the Boy Who Lived. I treat him disrespectfully. His enmity towards me pre-dates his knowledge of who you and Black are." Of course, Snape would never fully confess to Lupin the depth of his dislike for the child of James Potter, confused as it was even in his own mind.

"But you're a member of the Order, a double agent. Wouldn't Voldemort expect all its members to trust you – wouldn't that be what he would want? And if we can show that you and Sirius are coming to an understanding then perhaps Harry will learn to trust you and that will help these lessons," Lupin reasoned.

"You are asking for a subtlety in our interactions that would be difficult to sustain. If Black and I are civil to each other, how long before one of you drops your guard and lets something slip about us so that other members of the Order know or Potter finds out."

"Would that really be so bad?" Lupin challenged.

"Of course Potter cannot know!" Snape cried. "The Dark Lord has a direct connection with his mind. Our lives would be over in an instant if that undisciplined child gets this information! Even if Black and I find we are able to string a couple of sentences together without hexing each other, we should not do so in front of anyone other than you and Dumbledore. Our cover is important. If Black and I are seen as even civil when our hatred of each other is legendary, questions will be asked. We cannot afford it! There'll be time enough for bon homie when the Dark Lord falls."

"It's like our life is postponed until that monster dies!" Lupin said, wrapping his arms around Snape at last and resting his head against Snape's.

"It is really, isn't it?" Snape said softly. "But we have everything to gain – everything."

oooOOOooo

Even Lupin had tried to convince Dumbledore that Potter should be taught by another and had even offered himself for the task. Dumbledore would not be moved on it: Lupin's work with the werewolves was too important. Snape should continue to teach the boy. And so it was that the lessons continued so very pointlessly.

'Get up, Potter,' Snape growled at the boy's ineptitude as, once again, Potter was kneeling on the floor of Snape's office, Snape having called up what were clearly very early memories of childhood humiliations except one – one that chilled Snape when he saw it.

'That last memory,' said Snape, 'What was it?' Snape knew, but did the boy?

'I don't know,' said Potter. 'You mean the one where my cousin tried to make me stand in the toilet?' Idiot child, you think I would be interested in such minor childhood insults! I could teach him a thing or two about a benighted childhood.

'No,' said Snape softly. 'I mean the one with a man kneeling in the middle of a darkened room ...'

'It's ... nothing,' lied Potter.

Snape's dark eyes bored into Potter's. Wisely, the boy blinked and looked away.

'How do that man and that room come to be inside your head, Potter?' said Snape. Snape had recognised Rookwood being interviewed by the Dark Lord and they had clearly been discussing the Prophecy, but Snape had only seen a snippet of the memory. Of course, he could rip the memory from Potter if he chose to, but that would never do, would it? But it would give him a taste of what he should be defending himself against, Snape thought with some disgust for the boy before him: it would serve the brat right.

'It -' said Potter, looking everywhere but at Snape, 'it was – just a dream I had.'

'A dream?' repeated Snape.

There was a lengthy pause during which Snape fought to control his temper. Did the boy really think he didn't need this skill – that he was in some way immune to the Dark Lord's attacks, when they finally come? And they would certainly come.

'You do know why we are here, don't you, Potter?' said Snape, in a low, dangerous voice. 'You know why I am giving up my evenings to do this tedious job?'

'Yes,' said Potter stiffly.

'Remind me why we are here, Potter.'

'So I can learn Occlumency,' said Potter, now glaring at a dead eel.

'Correct, Potter. And dim tough you may be -' The boy looked back at Snape, his hatred almost palpable. '- I would have thought that after over two months of lessons you might have made some progress. How many other dreams about the Dark Lord have you had?'

'Just that one,' lied Potter. Why did the boy always think he could lie to Snape who dealt on a daily basis with liars and dissemblers with far greater talent for falsehood than Potter – indeed, was such a dissembler himself.

'Perhaps,' said Snape, his eyes narrowing slightly, resolving to try a different tactic – to try to goad the boy to be defensive. (Well, the truth often hurts – doesn't it? he thought.) 'Perhaps you actually enjoy having these visions and dreams, Potter. Maybe they make you feel special – important?'

'No, they don't,' said Potter, his jaw set and his fingers clenched rightly around the handle of his wand. That's it, boy, we have our wands for a reason.

'That is just as well, Potter,' said Snape coldly, 'because you are neither special nor important, and it is not up to you to find out what the Dark Lord is saying to his Death Eaters.'

'No – that's your job, isn't it?' the boy shot at him ... in temper. For a long moment they stared at each other, Snape wondering if the boy had the slightest inkling just how much his 'job' centred on him.

'Yes, Potter,' he said, his eyes glinting. 'That is my job. Now, if you are ready, we will start again.'

He raised his wand: 'One – two – three – Legilimens!'

Dementors again, but look: the boy screwed up his face in concentration trying to see through the memories of Dementors coming closer. That's it ... think, boy, think! Concentrate! Focus! he muttered under his breath, knowing the boy's memories were growing fainter ... pushing them back -

Finally, the boy raised his own wand.

'Protego!'

Snape staggered as his incantation rebounded on him, his wand flew upwards, away from the boy and the boy recalled memories from Snape in that instant: his father was shouting at his cowering mother, whilst Snape as a boy cried in a corner, knowing the blows that would follow and then that he himself would be next because his father had caught him crying; himself as a teenager sitting alone in a dark bedroom, pointing his wand at the ceiling, shooting down flies on a hot late summer's day, because there was no other way to relieve his impotent anger that Malfoy and the Lestranges waited for him on his return to school, knowing what they'd do to him in the abandoned classroom in the dungeons; Petra Bulstrode laughing as Snape, a gawky, eleven year old, tried to mount a bucking broomstick, and finally succeeding until he was thrown clear, breaking his arm and wrist, the broomstick having been charmed by Mulciber and Avery, on the instructions of Malfoy, so the new half-blood would learn his place –

'ENOUGH!'

Potter staggered several steps backwards, hitting some of the shelves. Snape was shaking slightly, and knew his face had drained, praying Potter had not seen it all.

'Reparo,' hissed Snape to a jar Potter had crashed into as Snape had repelled him and the jar sealed itself at once. 'Well, Potter ... that was certainly an improvement ...' Panting slightly, Snape straightened the Pensieve in which he had again stored some of his thoughts before starting the lesson, wishing he could store his whole childhood, far from prying eyes and minds. 'I don't remember telling you to use a Shield Charm ... but there is no doubt that it was effective ...' Snape steeled himself. His goading had been far more successful than he had bargained for, and Potter's resistance far stronger than he had thought Potter capable of. Snape must not allow him in that far again, but they must consolidate this. Potter certainly couldn't use a Shield Charm whilst he slept, but perhaps that victory would give him some incentive to learn to erect the Occlusion barrier.

'Let's try again, shall we?' said Snape.

They moved back into position with the desk between them.

'On the count of three, then,' said Snape, raising his wand once more. 'One – two -'

Snape cried, 'Legilimens!'

Now they were hurtling along the corridor towards the Department of Mysteries, past the blank stone walls, past the torches – the plain black door was growing every larger; he was moving so fast he was going to collide with it, he was feet from it and again he could see that chink of faint blue light – The Dark Lord was there – right there, directing Potter's mind with pinpoint clarity!

The door had flown open! They were through it at last, inside a black-walled, black floored circular room lit with blue-flamed candles, and there were more doors all around him – he need to go on – but which door ought he to take -?

'POTTER!' Snape shouted to bring the boy around from the violent intrusion the Dark Lord had just made on his mind, driving the boy to the floor with the strength of it.

The boy opened his eyes, panting.

'Explain yourself!' said Snape, now standing over him, furious that the Dark Lord had used the lesson to drag the boy into his mind.

'I ... dunno what happened,' said Potter, this time truthfully, standing up. 'I've never seen that before. I mean, I told you, I've dreamed about the door ... but it's never opened before ...' There, in front of Snape, the Dark Lord had entered Potter's mind whilst the boy was wide awake and dragged it into his own - it was too frightening. The boy must be made to take this seriously.

'You are not working hard enough!' Snape spat. 'You are lazy and sloppy, Potter, it is small wonder that the Dark Lord -'

'Can you tell me something, sir?' said Potter. 'Why do you call Voldemort the Dark Lord? I've only ever heard Death Eaters call him that.'

Snape opened his mouth in a snarl – just as a woman screamed.

Snape's head jerked upwards, unerringly drawn to the direction of the scream: the Entrance Hall.

'Did you see anything unusual on your way down here, Potter?'

The boy shook his head as the woman screamed again. Holding his wand at the ready, Snape strode out of the office and then ran to the Entrance Hall and pushed through a throng of students to see Umbridge cancel her Levitation spell on Trelawney's luggage, letting it fall unceremoniously on the flagstones, in front of the woman who'd clearly been pulled bodily from her tower. Snape frowned. It appeared Umbridge had taken it upon herself to evict Trelawney. He turned on his heel and swiftly made his way to the Great Hall, signalling to Dumbledore to attend at once from the double doors. How much further would this woman's excesses go? Snape wondered in anger, momentarily forgetting the Dark Lord's incursion into Potter's waking mind. Never mind, there would be time enough to tell Dumbledore after this fiasco.

Time enough.
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You Will Not Kiss Me