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I Want You To Want Me	By : tambrathegreat Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Snape/Remus Views: 2116 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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Chapter List
- 1-I Want You To Want Me
- 1
“I think, Lupin, that your insistence on intervening in my well known lacklustre romantic life smacks of a deep-seated mental imbalance.” Severus peered at Remus Lupin over his coffee, a small smirk belying his usual insouciance. “Were I to analyse you as a Muggle might, I would think that you have ‘daddy’ issues.”

Remus stifled a snort, drawing the baleful glare of the new Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall, who had not quite forgiven Severus for his actions during his one and, thankfully, only term as Headmaster   Lupin said, “It’s fortunate you’re not a Muggle then, I suppose.”

“Too right,” Severus answered. “Otherwise, what would I do with all this magic?”

Remus laughed aloud at that comment with a now familiar mingled look of disbelief and quiet amusement at Severus’ drollness. It warmed Severus to know that he could be the author of a smile on Lupin’s face. After the wolf’s wife died and Lupin was mistakenly interred with her in the family crypt for a week, it was unclear to all who observed him if Lupin would ever be sane, much less express joy. They had come to an understanding of each other during their forced incarceration in St. Mungo’s new psychiatric ward, where Severus was forced to come to terms with his own past transgressions and his own horrors, and Lupin was led to admit his own failings. In group therapy, the two men had finally come to terms with their own parts in their chequered pasts and the animosity between them had finally turned into friendship.

If Severus had known that all it would take to get over his years of abuse at the hands of his mortal enemies was to be very near death and then incarcerated with one of them in a ward for mental illness in hospital, he still wouldn’t have. The inherent problems of being on that brink were too wearing to actually be grateful for what he had gained: aches from the dose of poison in his system, short-term memory impairment due to blood loss, and he still felt older than his scant forty-three years. But he was alive, and for the first time in years had a friend, and that was worth something he supposed.

If only his feelings for that friend weren’t so…carnal...in nature… if only he didn’t yearn, yet again, for an unattainable Gryffindor.

It suited Severus’ well honed sense of irony that his own personal history kept repeating itself like a skip on an old Muggle record playing that inane song that had driven him crazy years ago.   I want you to want me… hic…. Want me … hic…. Want me… hic….

Bollocks! Lupin was talking again, nodding his head at the table containing the students who had remained at school over the holidays.

Severus shot a dark glance at Lupin when he noticed that the werewolf was once again watching the newest Ministry experiment, another werewolf student (a Hufflepuff, for Merlin’s sake!) this one just as handsome as Lupin had been in his youth, but not marked by the same depredations of an early turning as Lupin’s own had been. His sandy blond hair and dusky skin made the boy seem more handsome than he actually was, at least in Snape’s opinion.

Severus sneered as the young wolf’s attention skittered past his own glare to rest hotly on Lupin. Snape had been teaching too many years not to know a crush when he saw one. He had even been the recipient of that self same look a few times from a few poor, deluded souls. Lupin had been kidding himself the entire term about the student’s intentions toward his own person, but Severus saw the signs of a problem brewing if the boy’s attentions weren’t soon turned firmly away, and soon. If Lupin wouldn’t do it, Severus had no problem doing so. That’s what friends were for, after all.

He decided the holidays would be an ideal time to turn away the boy’s attentions, and hopefully avert the very scene he dreaded for Lupin.

It was an act of goodwill from one colleague to another. Severus was most certainly not jealous, despite the twisting feeling in his guts that always gripped him when he thought of the boy’s obsession with Lupin. No, he wasn’t jealous at all. It was a ridiculous thought not even worth the time it took to dwell upon it.

“You’ve got your bastard look on, Severus,” Lupin observed with a wry twist of his lips. “I know that look too well not to know what you’re thinking.”

Severus snorted and picked up his cup of coffee, now cooled past the point he usually enjoyed, but he needed something to do with his hands, lest they stray around Lupin’s throat for his dogged obtuseness. An image flashed in Severus’ mind of Lupin’s throat under his hands, the golden skin exposed to Severus’ view.   He could almost taste Lupin’s chocolate and cherry pipe tobacco scent as his mind’s eye turned the vision into how Severus would truly like to correct his colleague, with tongue and sharp teeth, and nips along the tender underside of his chin…

Lupin slid his hand from under the table to grasp Severus’ elbow, causing the Potions Master’s heart to lurch painfully. “I know you think you have to handle things for me with Mr. Romulus, but trust me, Severus, it will blow over. Now, I’ve got some gifts to wrap, and I still have to buy one for an especially cranky, over-protective old friend, then I’ve got to see Teddy to Andromeda’s for Christmas Eve.   Are we still on for a late tea tonight?”

“If you can manage to fit such an inauspicious occasion into your social whirl, Lupin, then I suppose so,” Severus replied with more venom than he felt.   “I seem to remember needing to purchase a small trifle for a rather dogged companion of my own, and his son, of course, now that I think of it.”

Lupin squeezed Severus’ arm before he withdrew it. He said, with a warm smile, “Don’t ever change, Severus. I lo--… erm… You are a true original.”

Severus decided that the first order of business for the day would be the shopping.   He hadn’t intended to get Lupin a present. Truth be told, the last gift he had given was to Albus the year he murdered him. It had been a pair of hideous socks in a Fair Isle pattern that Dumbledore seemed to favour. Severus had bought them on a whim during his stay in a bothy occupied by a local wise woman at the beginning of his summer break. He had been in the archipelago to harvest a particularly rare variety of kelp used in very strong healing potions.   He hadn’t thought he would ever use a tenth of what he gathered that summer, but unfortunately, he found he had need of those ingredients due to Albus’ foolish actions. He had used the entire harvest and still could not save his mentor...

Severus turned his mind forcefully from those dark thoughts, remembering the lessons he had learned as an inmate of the “Happy Sunshine Ward” as Lupin had ironically called it much to their group’s Mind Healer’s dismay. He ran over his meagre list of gifts to purchase instead. He supposed socks weren’t an appropriate item for either Lupin the elder, or the younger, though they certainly were useful. He supposed he’d look around and see what, within reason, struck his fancy.

Severus came to the village and soon purchased an age appropriate book for both Remus and his son, after discarding a more intimate gift of cologne from the perfumers that had joined the cadre of shops in Hogsmeade. He dawdled some at the apothecary, after ordering a new supply of bottles for his own potions stores, when the garrulous old witch who ran the shop asked for his opinion on the latest developments in the realm of antivenins, a subject of which she knew Severus held a great deal of knowledge.   It was pleasant in a way that Severus hadn’t thought he’d be able to enjoy before the war, the exchange of knowledge with another professional. She had even hinted that she was looking to sell and thought that a competent Potions Master would find the situation ideal, especially a Master who was notoriously dissatisfied in his current position.

On his way back to Hogwarts, he was accosted by the remaining Weasley twin. Severus still regretted the stray curse that had severed the young man’s ear, but Weasley seemed to find it quite a badge of honour.

“Professor! Just the man I’ve been meaning to see!” It was a measure of how far Severus had come that, when Weasley called out, Snape did not grimace, flinch, or attempt to flee.

“Yes, Weasley?” Severus paused long enough for Weasley to catch up with him before he attempted to continue on his path.

“Mum asked me to give you your gift, since she won’t be able to get up here before Yule.” Wealsey said, “It’s in the shop, if you’ll come with me.   She wants me to watch you open it, so I can tell her about your reaction to it.   Women, you know…”

Weasley escorted him into the shop, the one that used to be run by Zonko’s before the war. “I’ll just fetch it and let you be on your way… Oh, and if you want, you can look over these notes, while you wait… I’m having some trouble with the base on that adult product I wrote you about. I think I’ve got it figured out, but mum will kill me if it explodes again and I show up bald for the Boxing Day pictures like I did last year… Well, you’re busy, so I’ll just go get Mum’s gift for you.”

Weasley thrust some bits of disordered parchment in Snape’s hands and disappeared behind the curtain that separated the shop from the office. Severus began looking at the notes. It continually baffled him how Weasley could make sense of his own scribbled mess, much less expect Severus to comprehend them. Even so, his nearly savant brilliance was clear in the array of products he and his twin had created over the years.   Severus wondered idly what they might have created had the other twin lived.

His thoughts were interrupted by the discordant jangling of bells over the door. He glanced up, noting the Hufflepuff robes and familiar sandy-blond hair of Lupin’s admirer. The boy walked to the back of the shop, looking about furtively. Just as Severus began to rise and investigate the boy’s movements, Weasley returned with an overly large box festooned with garish green and silver paper.

“Here it is. Mum’s gift.” Weasley’s lips formed into a crooked grin as he placed the box on the counter.   “Now open it, so I can tell her how overjoyed you were at her hard work.”

“I’ll be sure to make the appropriate grimace of appreciation, then.” Severus slid the ribbons and sharp, jabbing holly off the package, deftly separated the Spellotape from the paper, and slid the box lid back. Inside lay a soft, black and silver afghan. Severus suppressed a smirk as he drew the object out.   Molly’s handiwork was as perfect as her choice of gift, and Severus said as much before he shrank the box and put it in his pocket. “Please thank you mother for her thoughtful gift. It will be used with great pride.”

The bells to the door jangled once again as Severus stood. He saw the same flash of Hufflepuff robes and attractively coiffed hair. Lupin’s stalker had made his escape it seemed.

After discussing the atrocious notes, Severus made his own escape from the environs of Weasley cheer, knowing that he had lost his opportunity to find out why the Hufflepuff was in that particular section. He knew that the boy had been in the area of the shop set aside for the less savoury items such as love philtres and entrancing potions. Surely the boy wouldn’t be stupid enough to attempt to use one of them on Lupin. Werewolves and love potions did not mix because of the wolf’s need to mate for life. The consequences of administering one to a werewolf could be disastrous.

He decided he would keep a sharp eye on the boy in the near future. Lupin was too important to Severus. He needed the wolf’s continued existence, even if he would never admit why, especially to himself.

Severus wouldn’t say he waited impatiently for Lupin to return for tea, but he did wonder as the mantle clock chimed eight, where the man had got to. He considered firecalling the wolf, but the thought of sacrificing his dignity for curiosity’s sake did not set well with him. No matter that Lupin could not possibly know of Severus’ burgeoning feelings for him. He had hid them too well; being a spy for twenty years assured him of his skills at covering his true feelings.

Truth be known, Severus wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted from Lupin, other than the obvious physical acts. He had never been in a relationship with any gender, other than the one he fostered between himself and a dead girl who had chosen his enemy over him. Choosing Lupin as a paramour was possibly even madder than his obsession with Lily. The man had been married, to a <i>woman</i>, and obviously didn’t have the same feelings for Severus. He couldn’t. Could he?

His Mind Healer would probably say that Severus had chosen yet another unattainable target because he was trying to avoid intimacy or some such rot. Avoidance of intimacy wasn’t what Severus felt when he took himself in hand, much more frequently than was healthy for a man his age. His emotions were all a muddle to be honest, and Severus didn’t have the social skills to approach Lupin in a manner that would preserve both their dignities.

The clock on the mantle struck the half hour just as a frantic knocking sounded on his door, obviously not Lupin’s more measured tattoo. Severus rose to blast the hapless Slytherin who might wish to disturb his ruminations. He hastily drew on his teaching robes more for effect than propriety, and threw open the door.

The hated Hufflepuff wolf leaned against the door frame, obviously knackered from some great exertion.   Severus attempted to mask the spike of ire (<i>it was not jealousy!</i>) “What is it, Romulus?”

“P-professor Lupin…,” the Hufflepuff gasped. “Sir… I think he’s been poisoned!”

“Where is he?” Severus asked as he scooped up the old healer’s bag he had purchased when he was a bona fide Death Eater.   He still used it as a first aid kit for the minor burns and spills that occurred in his class. It still had a large supply of bezoars and antitoxins, which he still carried because of his own paranoia.

Romulus paled, “I-I went to see him in his rooms… I wanted to give him his gift.”

“We will discuss your impropriety in great detail later, Mr Romulus.” Severus swept past him. “What are his symptoms?”

The boy seemed to wilt a bit at the first statement, and then recover as he nervously shuffled a bit of parchment from one hand to another. “He first started out pale, and then started clutching his stomach. I left to find you when he started vomiting.”

“Not a werewolf’s typical reaction to an illicitly obtained love potion then I take it?” Severus asked. He took the stairs from the dungeon two at a time, letting the boy scramble to catch up to him.

“Wha--? Sir… what do you mean?”

They came to Lupin’s first floor abode, the door still ajar.   Lupin sat slumped in the bathroom, his head over the toilet, retching pitifully.

“I did see you in the Weasley shop this afternoon, did I not?” The boy stared mutely at him, his mouth agape. “Don’t lie to me, Mr Romulus. The entire staff has commented on your unhealthy obsession with Professor Lupin, and if you’ve attempted to gain his affections with a potion, it will mean expulsion along with a trip to Azkaban.” Severus turned to Romulus, “I think you’ve done enough damage for the evening. Return to your quarters, and await a summons to the Headmistress’s office.”

The boy foolishly stepped in Severus’ way. “Listen to me, Sir, and listen well. I do love Professor Lupin… I would do anything for him, but I would never try to trick him or dose him with a potion. I did think about it this afternoon, but then…,” he dashed unshed tears from his eyes, “He loves someone else, and I know it now, so I won’t try to get his attention anymore. But if I were lucky enough to be the one he loved…” Romulus pushed the crumpled bit of parchment into Snape’s hand. “I wouldn’t be stupid enough to throw it away because I was too scared to tell him.”

The boy fled into the darkened corridors, his slick soles clattering on the cobbles. Severus tucked the parchment into his pocket absently and entered Lupin’s chambers.

He brought out a vial of Oil of Bezoar, the first in a line of potions he would be administering that evening, popping the cork from the bottle with a deft flick of his thumb.   Lupin retched pitifully, heaving nothing but bile into the bowl as he tried to speak. “It’s…ugh…. not…what you think…ugh… Severus.”

“What is it then, Remus?” Severus couldn’t resist the urge to smooth his hand over Lupin’s sweat slicked hair. “I told you the boy had an unhealthy obsession with you.”

“No… gah…,” Lupin heaved again. “Did I ever tell you… ugh… what a horrible cook Nym was?”

“You’re obviously much more affected by whatever potion the boy used, Lupin.” Severus shoved the oil near Lupin’s face. “Drink this. It will neutralize whatever agent is causing your delirium.”

“He didn’t try to dose me with anything.” Lupin shoved the potion away from his face weakly. “It was Andromeda… she’s a terrible cook… I have… urp…. food poisoning from the… crab she served this afternoon for luncheon… I’ve been like this for… ugh… hours. It was fortunate…”

Lupin’s words were cut off as he heaved over the bowl again. “Please, just give me something to make me pass out… I feel like I’m dying.”

“Oh.” Severus resealed the bottle and fished in the bag for an anti-emetic. Lupin drank it down with a groan as Snape said, “I suppose you expect me to apologize to that wretched boy now.” Severus brought out a second vial, one for the painfully strained muscles in Lupin’s wrung-out body. “Take this and I’ll help you to bed.”

Remus drank the proffered potion and again sank bonelessly against the side of the toilet. “Stay with me?”

An arc of joy jolted through Severus at the words, which he told himself was patently ridiculous to feel. Lupin wasn’t asking him to stay for a long shag and a cuddle. He was ill. He didn’t want Severus in that way. Almost of their own volition, the words came out of his mouth, “Of course I will, Remus.”

He helped Lupin stand and to the bedroom. The suite was laid out much like his own, even if the furnishings were a little sparser than Severus’, so it took little effort to locate everything that was needed for his patient.   Severus located a worn pair of flannel pyjama bottoms in the chest of drawers and placed them by Lupin. “I’ll just step out for a moment.”

Severus closed the bedroom door not willing to give into the temptation to gaze upon Lupin’s body. He wouldn’t take advantage of his friendship, no matter how desperately he wanted Lupin. He had learned that from the debacle with Lily at least.

He sat on the worn, brown couch, attempting to reign in his raging libido. He scrubbed his face with his hands and stood again. Something sharp poked him in his side as he did.   He ran a hand over his robes, and felt the parchment that the Hufflepuff had shoved at him. He pulled it out and unfolded it absently.

It was a letter.

It was addressed to Severus.

It was in Lupin’s neatly cribbed hand.

He read it…

Severus,

I don’t know if I’ll ever have the courage to give this to you. You have always been right to call me a coward. I am. I have been for years.

I know you think that you hide your feelings well, and to be honest, you are hard to read sometimes. But if you think I haven’t noticed your regard, you’re a bigger fool than I ever was. I have.

Severus stifled the urge to crumple the note and flee. Of course Lupin would know his secrets. He was a werewolf. No doubt he could smell Severus’ desire every time they spoke. With a feeling of sick fascination, he read on…

But, for all the skill you showed as a spy, (and courage, I might add) you’ve never once realised how much you stirred me.

You are not the only one who suffered under the curse of unreturned love.   I know what it’s like too. I have known since our fifth year. I can’t tell you how many times that year I tried to talk to you, to tell you how you stirred me, how you nettled me with your prickly wit and your pride. I did you a great disservice when I didn’t stop my friends from bullying you, but I did an even greater disservice to myself. I didn’t trust myself around you, and then after Sirius used me in an attempt to murder you, I could never work up the courage to apologize. Not that it would have done any good. I was, after all, one of your tormentors, and a dangerous one at that.

I know I’ll never give you this, so I will just come out and say it: I love you.

I have loved you for years. I have revelled in your triumphs and have ached for your losses. I wish it could have been me that you turned to after Lily. I wouldn’t have led you down such a dark path, I would have supported you, but my cowardice wouldn’t let me act on my feelings.

You asked me once, in the “Happy Sunshine Ward” what I wanted now that my life had gone to shit. I didn’t answer you because what I wanted was ridiculously unobtainable. It’s always been you, even when I married Nym, it was you that I wanted. Nym knew it, and would have welcomed you in our little family. She was a loving wife and a beautiful woman, and I should have been content, but I never was. You were my missing piece. I sometimes wonder what you would think if I had come to you with such an offer, but I didn’t because I am a true coward.

Now, I’ll consign this letter to the same place I’ve put all the others I’ve ever written you. I wish I had the courage to tell you that you’ve been…

“Severus?” Remus’ querulous voiced sounded behind him. His face coloured as he saw what Snape held. “Oh, you saw the… letter… I was just… don’t think…”

Severus rose from his seat and traversed the room. Without giving himself the chance to think, he pulled Lupin into his arms. “Severus, what are you doing? I smell of sick.”

“I don’t care.” Severus kissed Lupin beside his mouth, trailed his lips down the very throat that had tantalised him for months, tasted the chocolate and cherry pipe tobacco that made his mouth water. “You’re perfect just the way you are.”

He nipped that tendon that he knew would throb under his lips if he touched it. Lupin wound his arms around Severus’ shoulders and threaded his fingers in the lank hair at the nape of Snape’s neck. He gave an airy chuckle, “Well, Happy Christmas to you, too.”

Severus smirked, “Well, It won’t be that happy until you’re well enough to brush your teeth on your own, and tomorrow… when you’re feeling better…”

Lupin pulled back from him, “I play for keeps, Severus. You need to know that. I don’t do one offs.”

“Good.” Severus smiled. “Neither do I, at least I don’t think I do. I’ve not had much experience with all of this.”

Lupin returned his smile as Severus led him back to bed.   “You know, I don’t think you owe Mr. Romulus an apology any more. A thank you from both of us would be much more appropriate.”

“Shut up, Lupin.” Severus said, “You’re obviously out of your head.”

Severus sank onto the bed next to Lupin and gathered the man into his arms. It felt right.

“Don’t ever change, Severus.” Lupin laughed. “You are…just what I’ve always needed.”

Fin.

This story was written in response to LJ's 2012 Snupin Gift Exchange for shrinknviolet.

Thanks for reading. Please take time to let me know what you think.
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I Want You To Want Me