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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
- 79
- 80
- 81
Direct quotes in bold from Chapter 8 of HBP are © J.K. Rowling

Chapter 80: Reasons for Concealment

The full moon had taken its toll on more than Snape and Lupin.

The Order meeting two days later was fraught. Snape arrived with Dumbledore, as usual, to find Tonks sitting with Lupin, desperately attentive to him. Lupin apologised privately to him as their eyes met, but still Snape seethed.

Dumbledore called the meeting to order as soon as Molly and Arthur had distributed drinks.

“Greyback and two of his cronies took down Audley, Darvill and Lucas and their wives,” Kingsley reported to the hushed Order meeting.

“Were they Turned?” Lupin asked, his voice tremulous.

“No,” Kingsley said, shaking his head. “Torn apart,” he added, unnecessarily in Snape’s view, as he watched Lupin’s face drain as he scrubbed his hands over his face.

“But, worse,” Kingsley continued, with a concerned look at Lupin. “Each had young children. Masked Death Eaters came with the werewolves and took them.”

“Took them?” repeated Snape. Lupin caught the hopeful note in Snape’s voice.

“You think they may yet be unbitten?” he asked.

“Well, it doesn’t fit Greyback’s previous handiwork. I suspect there may be a ritual Turning planned. A show of how werewolves who serve the Dark Lord are rewarded.”

“That’s appalling,” Tonks chimed in, her lip curled at Snape.

“Yes, Miss Tonks,” Snape sneered, holding her stare. Dumbledore coughed lightly next to him. “It may have escaped your notice that some werewolves can be – quite appalling.”

“Well, perhaps some supposedly double agent shouldn’t be making them Wolfsbane, Snape!”

“Then the whole household would be dead, Miss Tonks!” spat Snape.

“Thank you, Nymphadora,” said Dumbledore mildly.

Tonks turned quickly in her seat to remonstrate with him over using her name, but exhaled angrily instead as Lupin patted her hand. Snape gritted his teeth so tightly, it hurt and then he tore his eyes away from the too-friendly gesture.

“It is well to remember that Severus does certain things under my instruction. Chastising him for doing so only ensures that we fight amongst ourselves. That can only play into Voldemort’s hands.” He looked at Tonks and then at the others reprovingly over his half-moon glasses, but Snape knew they didn’t hear. They didn’t want to. Dumbledore had told them all countless times that he trusted Snape; still it made no difference. Snape’s jaw set and looked off to the middle distance. He knew Lupin was trying to catch his eye, but Snape was just too angry. Too angry about the calming pat to her hand. How dare he touch her hand to calm her!

The rest of the meeting had passed in a fug of Snape’s own hideous imaginings of Lupin and Tonks together, every now and then catching a glimpse of them: Lupin’s gorgeous smile bestowed upon her as she, so clearly infatuated with him, hung on his every word. The meeting was torture. It couldn’t be over quick enough for Snape.

“Severus ..” Lupin moved towards him as the meeting closed. Snape turned to leave the room, his insides still burning.

“Don’t bother with him, Remus.” He heard Tonks whisper loudly to Lupin for Snape to hear. “I don’t know why you try to befriend him! Remember what he did to you. He’s just a bastard.”

Snape said nothing as the sides of his face burned with shame and anger as he strode out of Grimmauld Place.

When Black had been alive, and Lupin had stayed at headquarters, Snape had waited in Lupin’s bedroom rather than socialise with members of Order. Nowadays, he returned to their flat to wait for him. Usually, he would read or just wait for him in bed.

This night, however, Snape counted the minutes, second by painful second, as he paced the drawing room waiting for Lupin. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. His anger and jealousy mounting. He picked up a bottle of Firewhiskey but put it down quickly, flinching from the realisation of how much trouble that could cause for him, as it always caused for him.

Thirty minutes. Forty minutes. His gut was churning, but now his anger at himself warring with his irrational anger at Lupin. He should have come straight home! He should not make Snape wait like this! Lupin knew how he felt. I trust him. Of course, I trust him. He has never, never let me down.

One hour. One hour and fifteen minutes. It was no longer than he had waited before, but the wait felt so painful. An hour and a half.

He heard Lupin at the door. Part of his heart leapt but he could not seem to calm his own anger.

“Home, finally, are we?” spat Snape, before Lupin had even closed the door. Lupin blinked fast in surprise.

“Severus,” said Lupin calmly, walking over to him. “What’s the matter? I haven’t been that long.”

“I suppose you’ve been chatting with Nymphadora, have you? Talking about what a bastard I am!” Snape snarled.

“No! Of course not. Well yes, I’ve been talking to Dora, and Kingsley and Arthur, and all of the others too. I have not talked about what a bastard she thinks you might be,” Lupin replied, placatingly.

They stood facing each other now, Lupin’s eyes trying to search Snape’s own black, wounded ones. Why was being in love so very, very painful?

“Severus. Don’t start this, please. I like Dora. She’s a friend. She has been since we met back on the Retreat. But that’s all she is. What she has agreed to do for us at the full moon, Severus. It saves our lives – yours and mine. You can’t expect me to ignore her,” reasoned Lupin, reaching out for Snape. Snape pulled away.

“Don’t tell me you don’t see the way she’s started to look at you! You are not an insensitive man, Remus. If I can see it, so can you,” snapped Snape, refusing to listen to the pleading in Lupin’s voice.

“Yes, I do and it will pass. She is grieving, and yet she does this incredibly intimate thing for us that must stir such memories for her ...”

“... memories perhaps of sex before the full moon, as we do ...” interrupted Snape, his tone unpleasant.

“I don’t know, Severus. I’ve never discussed such things with her and nor would I,” Lupin cried. “It’s you I want to be with. You are all I want!”

“But you can, can’t you! You can have another mate if you’re alpha. And you can take a wife because these are ancient Greek bonding circlets! You can have the lot! You don’t need to even ask me!” Snape snarled, as savagely as the jealous creature in him could muster.

“No! I wouldn’t do that! I don’t want that! Stop it! Why would you say it?” Lupin pulled back, looking hurt and shocked.

“Why? Because it’s true! Everything I’ve said is true!” Snape shouted, as he pushed Lupin away from him so hard that he staggered.

Lupin quickly righted himself and grabbed both of Snape’s wrists and pulled them behind Snape’s back and rammed him against the wall, his eyes narrowed now with hurt and anger, but more too. The wolf moved behind Lupin’s eyes

“Don’t push me away,” Lupin growled in Snape’s mouth, and on that instant, grabbed the sides of Snape’s robe and ripped it open so the buttons scattered on the floor as Lupin’s hands snatched hard at Snape’s body and  Lupin kissed him ferociously and possessively. Snape returned the kiss forcefully, feeling his anger become heated desire on that instant. The more Lupin searched with his tongue and then bit his lips, the more Snape’s anger became hunger - greedy hunger. He groaned low in his throat, as Lupin began to bite and suck hard at his throat, pulling the torn robe off his shoulders, and finding the bite. He bit into it and Snape cried out as his legs weakened.

Lupin’s arms wrapped around him, as Snape’s head fell back, now delirious. Lupin pulled the robe off Snape fully and quickly took off his own robe and then pushed Snape to the floor and, on all fours over his prone body, Lupin kissed and bit and sucked across Snape’s chest and down to his stomach, littering Snape’s body with his possessive marks. Snape grasped at Lupin’s shoulders and hair as he stretched and writhed underneath him, loudly moaning encouragement, each bite shooting more desire to his gut and groin, making his body pulse until Lupin’s tongue found the tip of Snape’s erection, feathered it lightly and then ran his tongue and lips and guarded teeth along it, making Snape moan with every glorious touch as his eyes rolled back in his head as he burbled Lupin’s name.

There was only a moment’s hesitation, but it seemed like an age to be kept on this precipice of ecstasy. Snape let out a plea like a sob to Lupin, grabbing his hair hard. With that, Lupin took all of Snape into his mouth, and Snape cried out, arching back, feeling his orgasm rising as Lupin sucked on him greedily, his tongue swirling as he moved his head away before swallowing Snape whole once more. The sheer brilliance of the sensations sent Snape over the crest of his orgasm, as he came hard, his body juddering as his hands clasped once more at Lupin’s hair as he drained him, his hands holding Snape’s pelvis and then kissed all the way up his body once more to face him and kiss him.

“I want only you,” murmured Lupin, as Snape stroked his face, and Lupin reached down between Snape’s legs, his fingers preparing him gently at first, then more insistently as he found his sweet spot and made him groan loudly.

Lupin looped his arm under Snape’s leg to push it high up, never removing his gaze from Snape’s and then pushed into him slowly, his eyelids fluttering at the sensation of Snape’s muscles engulfing him. Lupin rocked gently into him and Snape gasped at each sensation, as Lupin loved him slowly and deeply, kissing him and caressing him, making him hard once more, then thrusting into him deeply and rhythmically until Snape cried out into Lupin’s hair his second hard release as Lupin bent his body over him in his own hard, thrust of orgasm. Lupin gently pumped out his own last pulses and covered Snape’s body with his own, kissing his face gently, until they both had calmed.

“Only your eyes, your voice, your body,” Lupin repeated, barely a whisper now as he stared into Snape’s eyes. But an ugly thought crossed Snape’s mind, at once sharpening his jealousy again and, stupidly, he gave voice to it.

“I suppose she can always take my form if your creature demands sex when I’m not there,” he jibed acidly.

“How could you say that? Why would you?” gasped Lupin as his eyes widened with shock and hurt. Then he pulled himself out of Snape’s body, got up fast and strode out of the drawing room.

Still dishevelled and naked on the drawing room floor, Snape shakily sat up, shaking himself at his own crassness. Snape staggered up and then followed Lupin only to find that the the bathroom door was locked. Neither of them had ever even shut the bathroom door whenthey were alone before. Snape stood outside the door, suddenly feeling as locked out of Lupin’s heart as he was of the bathroom. Why had he said such a stupid thing? He ran his hands through his hair and then pressed his ear to the door. He heard the shower drumming away.

He leant against the wall and slid down it until he sat on the floor, cursing himself and his stupid mouth and his ridiculous jealousy. He waited with his heart in his mouth and the back of his head resting against the wall. He could have sworn it was well over half an hour until he heard the shower stop. He stood quickly and tapped lightly on the door.

“Please let me in, Remus.”

When there was no answer, he tapped again. He felt the magic on the door release and he opened it. Lupin looked at him sadly and carried on towelling himself dry. Snape breathed in deeply seeing Lupin’s skin was very red, just like Snape’s got when he ran the shower too hot. He went over and asked for the towel. Lupin passed it to him and Snape dried Lupin gently, taking his time. When he had finished, he kissed Lupin’s lips softly.

“I’m sorry, Remus. Please come to bed with me,” said Snape, his eyes beseeching Lupin’s. Ah, but they looked so wounded.

“I know how you feel, Severus. I don’t know how to convince you other than how I have already. I don’t know why you won’t listen to me, but I know you don’t trust me.” Snape could hear the catch in Lupin’s voice and he tried to interrupt, but Lupin raised his hand to Snape’s lips.

“How do you think this feels for me, Severus? That my mate cannot be with me? That I have to sit away from you at meetings? That I cannot even greet you with a kiss? That if I stick up for you too much, Albus will tell me later to watch my step or I will blow your cover? That I have to listen to my mate being called a bastard, when I know your soul? I hold your soul as you hold mine! That with all that we go through to be together ... you distrust me? That if I were just a man, not a beast, we could just be together and you would have no reason to distrust me ...?”

“No, Remus! You must not think these things!” Snape said forcefully, pulling Lupin into his own arms now. Lupin would drive himself mad thinking on these things, Snape knew. What had Snape done? “I am sorry. I am just ... so weak. I find it so hard not to imagine ...” Snape held Lupin’s face in his hands firmly. "Please. I beg you: forgive me.”

“Your jealousy scares me, Severus,” whispered Lupin.   “Please try to trust me.”

“I promise, Remus. I promise.” Snape didn’t let Lupin’s head from his hands, but brought it forward so their lips met, and they kissed searchingly until Snape felt the tension ease from Lupin’s shoulders. “Please come to bed.”

As Snape led Lupin back to their bedroom, he knew he could not stop his irrational feelings. They spoke of Snape’s very deepest insecurity that Lupin’s love was more – so much more - than he deserved. But Snape couldn’t hurt Lupin, couldn’t bear to hurt him. He had to cover his jealousy; he had to hide it from Lupin. He could dissemble. He was a master of concealment, after all. Yes, that was what he needed to do.

oooOOOooo

Another Obliviated visit to Wilkes elicited the whereabouts of the children of Audley, Darvill and Lucas. Snape went to survey the derelict warehouse in which they were being held. Without doubt, considering the size of it, Snape was sure a ritual was intended.

He hastily applied a Glamour and transfigured his robes to ordinary Muggle clothes. Producing his enchanted parchment to resemble a police warrant card, he questioned various Muggles – those in suits who looked the most respectable - who worked nearby if they had heard anything suspicious recently. With just the right application of Legilimency, at least twelve Muggles were convinced of suspicious activity involving trafficked children in that warehouse by the end of the interviews and each rushed off to the Muggle law enforcement to report their suspicions.

Snape had ensured that enough ‘trigger’ words and phrases, such as “He said abracadabra or something like that,” and “came and went like magic” and “had a wand like a magician, dunno why,” and “ugly bloke, with teeth like a werewolf,” would be repeated so that the Covert Liaison Department between Muggle and magical law enforcement would be alerted.

So it was that within half an hour of the first report being filed, Aurors swept over the warehouses and found the children, together with five other Muggle children, of whose disappearance the magical world would have been unaware.

If Snape said so himself, sometimes his art of concealment was very effective indeed.

The Dark Lord was, of course, furious when he called the Death Eaters to him. Snape was spared too much punishment and no blood penance at all now his own blood was to be utilised for the Dark Lord’s potion.

Eight young lives. It was a good price, Snape thought as he took his post-Cruciatus potion. School term was due to start in a few days and he still felt he needed to apologise to Lupin for distressing him so. He told the Dark Lord that Dumbledore expected him at the castle early knowing that the Dark Lord rarely called him once Snape was at the castle. He took a gamble that he would not do so for these few days. He told Dumbledore the truth: he was taking Lupin away for a few days. Just a few days, on their own.

oooOOOooo

Snape had found a tiny Muggle bed and breakfast in Padstow, Cornwall. It was a chocolate box cottage and they had a double room with an en-suite bathroom. It was a five minute walk to the sea, and the sea-front was teeming with small seafood restaurants. Apart from that, there wasn’t much to do, and that was precisely why Snape had chosen it.

Perhaps neither of them had realised how very much they had needed to be alone together, without the business of werewolf packs, Order meetings, Death Eater meetings, potions brewing or anything else to distract them from each other.

They spent most of the time in bed together, resting in each other’s arms as they spoke about all the things happening around them and to them. They also made love a great deal, too. They walked around the town, occasionally having a drink or two in a local pub, dining on the freshly-caught fish every night in the small restaurants. It was bliss.

The last night, they had walked along the seafront until Lupin spotted a deep, cool cove and insisted they investigate it. Lupin had pulled Snape inside and made love to him in the sand, with the sound of sea in the background. It had been so beautiful, Snape had not wanted to leave, and they talked, lying in the sand, until they fell asleep in each other’s arms once more.

Snape awoke with the sharp, salted air prickling inside his nose and tasting its crisp tang on his tongue. He opened his eyes, aware that he and Lupin still held each other from the night before. He sat up in the sand, drawing in the saline-edged air deep into his lungs, feeling it cleanse them as the air tingled on his skin with just a touch of dawn chill.

Snape watched the sunrise: the ultramarine above that faded to grey, that paled as the rose leaked upwards, pushed away by the pink, then the peach under that until the gold glowed at the horizon, at first just a pool of light that slowly rose until the hemisphere of gold nestled on calm of sea at the horizon pushing at the peach, pink and rose darkening above to deep grey, rolling away the last of the ultramarine night. It was magnificent to behold.

“You’re awake early,” Lupin’s sleep-deep voice said into his ear as he sat up behind Snape.

“I usually am,” Snape replied softly, holding his hand to the face that leant into his hair. “But I don’t normally have anything like this to see.”

“It’s a beautiful sunrise,” murmured Lupin, draping his arms loosely around Snape’s waist and resting his chin on his shoulder.

“I so very rarely have the chance just to look around me anymore,” Snape sighed and leant back into Lupin’s chest. “Just to watch.”

“No, no chance at all,” Lupin agreed softly, and they watched the sun rise fully to morning, before they dressed to make their way back.

oooOOOooo

Snape brought Lupin back to Hogwarts with him for this last night before term resumed. Lupin was due to try to infiltrate a group of underworld werewolves in Manchester the next day and they wanted to be close to each other as long as they could.

After lunch in his chambers, Snape left for a staff meeting to set the curriculum for the coming year. The meeting took most of the day, as it always did, but he knew Tippy would provide for Lupin’s refreshment, if required.

Late afternoon, Snape returned to hear Lupin and Tippy in conversation. He peered around the bedroom door to see them engaged in a construction of magical mirrors around the tiny rectangular slash of the dungeon window.

“Severus!” called Lupin, happily, and Tippy clapped her hands together. Snape’s mouth quirked at them both. “Severus, come and see.”

Snape walked over to the construction, a group of small fixtures angling the mirrors fixed above his small window. Snape investigated the structure thoroughly, his long finger tracing all the joints and levers. He heard Tippy giggle behind him.

“Look, Severus,” Lupin said. Snape looked up at Lupin and then followed his hand to the wall.

There, on the opposite wall was a large landscape frame and within it, seen as if through a large picture window rather than the dungeon-light window that it was, was the view to the east of the castle, the direction of sunrise. Snape sat heavily on the edge of his bed, as if winded, to take in the beauty of the view. Lupin sat next to him.

“Do you like it, Severus?” Lupin said, excitedly.

“It’s beautiful,” said Snape, trying to take in all of the rugged highland mountainscape. He had had dungeon accommodation both as a student and as a teacher, and at Spinner’s End, there was little beauty to be seen from his bedroom window. To have this to look at whenever he wanted almost took his breath away. It was like looking at – freedom.

“How did you do it?” asked Snape, his eyes searching the panoramic view.

Lupin grabbed Snape’s hand and took him back to the mechanism and excitedly told him that he’d had the idea whilst Snape was at the staff meeting. He had worked out the design and then permanently Charmed the mirrors to be periscopic. Finally, he had asked Tippy to help him with the permanent construction spells for the mirrors as only staff and house-elves were enabled to perform such fixing spells on the castle walls.

“And look!” Lupin said with a broad smile. He moved the mirrors on their pivots and the view on the wall changed to the west side of the castle. Snape took in a breath sharply at the red and amber glow settling between the peaks of the mountains. “Because sunset is also beautiful.”

oooOOOooo

They had made love under the glow of the sunset the evening before, and Snape wondered how it was that Lupin always managed to capture Snape’s desires for him, physically and emotionally, as if the mirrored window would help Snape to recall their times of sunrise and sunset together when he needed his memories to be strong. It seemed to Snape that each summer they had less time together, not more. How long? Just how long would it be before Dumbledore’s secret plans for the end of the Dark Lord came to fruition, he wondered. He snapped out of his reverie as Dumbledore finished his instructions to tuck in to the feast.

Snape eyed the newly-Sorted Slytherins as they struggled manfully with the huge portions of food set out for the main course of the Welcoming Feast. His eyes raked the Gryffindor table, but there was still no sign of Potter. He caught Dumbledore watching the open giant double doors.

Just then, Snape spotted the ethereal silver glow of a Patronus coming through the Entrance Hall. He left the table and strode swiftly towards it, recognising it at a wolf Patronus.

Snape’s eyes narrowed as he neared it in the Entrance Hall. There was no doubt it was almost a facsimile of Lupin’s Patronus. He knew it as well as he knew his own. But this was a poor copy – indistinct. It was overlapping the features of another wolf. Snape thought he recognised that other wolf but he could not put a name to it. What could it mean?

Then it spoke with the voice of Nymphadora Tonks and Snape understood. The realisation sparked his temper. He knew it had been a dangerous plan. This confirmed it. He only vaguely listened to the babbled nonsense about her having found Potter hexed on the train. He grabbed a lantern and marched off towards the gate to get Potter, his jaw set in possessive fury. As he approached the gates, he saw the two of them – the thorns in his side – standing together at the gate. Tonks still looked drab and unhappy. Under other circumstances, he might sympathise with her: he certainly didn’t know how he would cope if he lost Lupin. But he had seen her Patronus now. He knew for sure what it meant, whatever Lupin might think.

‘Well, well, well,’ sneered Snape, taking out his wand and tapping the padlock once, so that the chains snaked backwards and the gates creaked open. ‘Nice of you to turn up, Potter, although you have evidently decided that the wearing of school robes would detract from your appearance.’

‘I couldn’t change, I didn’t have my -’ the boy began, but Snape cut across him as he took in the baleful look Tonks was giving him.

‘There’s no need to wait, Nymphadora,” Snape sneered, emphasising the name he knew she hated. “Potter is quite – ah – safe in my hands.’

‘I meant Hagrid to get the message,’ said Tonks, frowning.

‘Hagrid was late for the start-of-term feast, just like Potter here, so I took it instead. And incidentally,’ said Snape, standing back to allow Harry to pass him, ‘I was interested to see your new Patronus.’

The jealous creature reared in his own chest and he shut the gates in her face with a loud clang and tapped the chains with his wand again.

‘I think you were better off with the old one,’ said Snape, furious that she was starting to transfer her affections to Lupin so clearly. That damned bite! There was still time. The changes to her Patronus had not fully formed and settled. Not like his with Lily. He certainly wasn’t going to let her think he hadn’t noticed. ‘The new one looks weak.’

As Snape swung the lantern about, he saw his barb had hit home as he saw a look of shock and anger on Tonks’s face. Then she was covered in darkness once more.

The brat called out,‘Goodnight,’ to her and then he began the walk up to the school with Snape. ‘Thanks for ... everything.’

Snape did not speak for a minute or so. He took in the blood that covered the boy and wondered whether to check him for injury. Tonks had brought him. She would have told Snape if a student had been injured, surely. Of course she would. She was an Auror: she knew such information would be important. No. Whoever that student had been, Snape was sure he would probably turn up injured in the infirmary soon enough, tight-lipped about the identity of the perpetrator, just like Snape himself used to be.

Snape could almost feel the waves of hatred that emanated from the boy, doubtless blaming Snape for his own irrational actions, as Snape strode back the castle, trying to keep his anger in check. If the brat did but know ...

‘Fifty points from Gryffindor for lateness, I think,’ said Snape resentfully. ‘And, let me see, another twenty for your Muggle attire. You know, I don’t believe any house has ever been in negative figures this early in the term – we haven’t even started pudding. You might have set a record, Potter.’

He waited to hear Potter’s latest excuses. Even a reason would be interesting but the boy stood there, impudently facing him down, covered in someone’s blood without so much as an attempt to explain himself. Arrogant! Just like his father! Snape seethed: angry with Potter; angrier still with Tonks’s trespass.

‘I suppose you wanted to make an entrance, did you?’ Snape continued. ‘And with no flying car available you decided that bursting into the Great Hall halfway through the feast ought to create a dramatic effect.’

Still the brat refused to explain himself. Did the brat seriously think that Snape had nothing better to do than come to fetch him? Well, at least he could needle and torment the boy to try to get an answer.

As they reached the castle steps, Snape saw Potter fingering at the Invisibility Cloak in his pocket. No, that much he would not allow.

Snape said, ‘No Cloak. You can walk in so that everyone sees you, which is what you wanted, I’m sure.’

He watched Potter scuttle to the table and the know-it-all, Granger, siphon the blood away then he saw from the corner of eye Draco Malfoy miming the shattering of a nose to raucous laughter and applause. He felt a small sinking sensation in his stomach, and rested his chin in the cup of his hand. So, Draco had already come to blows with Potter. If the enmity between the two escalated, how on earth was he to fulfil both of the vows he had taken?

Then, Snape noticed that a number of the more astute students had seen Dumbledore’s hand. He had done nothing to cover it. Whispers swept the room. Dumbledore, interpreting them correctly, merely smiled and shook his purple and gold sleeve over his injury.

He started to make his usual address to introduce changes in teaching staff. Snape waited with keen anticipation for what was to come.

‘We are pleased to welcome a new member of staff this year. Professor Slughorn,’ Slughorn stood up ... ‘is a former colleague of mine who has agreed to resume his old post of Potions master.’

‘Potions?’

‘Potions?’

The word echoed all over the Hall as people wondered whether they had heard right. Despite knowing that this fulfilment of his desire would ultimately lead to tragedy, he could not help but feel a small frisson of triumph watching the confusion on the students’ faces as they muttered in frenzied conjecture.

‘Professor Snape, meanwhile,’ said Dumbledore, raising his voice so that it carried over all the muttering, ‘will be taking over the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.’

‘No!’ said Potter, so loudly that many heads turned in his direction. The brat did not care; he was staring up at Snape, incensed.

Determined to look as if he was taking it in his stride, Snape, who was sitting on Dumbledore’s right, did not stand up at the mention of his name, merely raised a hand in acknowledgement of the applause from the Slytherin table but no other.

Dumbledore cleared his throat to quell the whole Hall, which had erupted in a buzz of conversation at the news that Snape had finally achieved his heart’s desire. Seemingly oblivious to the sensational nature of the news he had just imparted, Dumbledore said nothing more about staff appointments. Snape wished he could be happier about it. But, of course, that post was no longer his heart’s desire – he briefly touched the bonding circlet. He already had that. At least, until he killed the man who had just made that announcement.   This and the clear attraction of Tonks to his husband made Snape’s stomach turn over violently. He had to confront Dumbledore again.
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You Will Not Kiss Me