Better Than You

[spinnersending]

"Better Than You"
Who:  Severus Snape & Remus Lupin
When: 6th Year
Chapter One:  Here


A pass to the Restricted Section was even easier than Severus thought it might be.  Dumbledore gave it to him without even glancing up, saying that he was looking forward to the results.  Severus could only imagine that he meant the Wolfsbane Draught paper he was going to submit, but who knew with the old wizard?  Dumbledore was not a man anyone ever underestimated.

When Remus did not show, Severus noticed and wrote it off.  That brief connection and near friendship had been enough to make him even more bitter about the whole idea of friendship and turned him off on it entirely.  Stupid git.  As if he might have actually found things in common with a creature like that!  Good riddance!

Too bad his breakthrough potion was going to help the mangy sod!  Severus groused as he found the book he was looking for and brought it back to the table.  This was not a potions book at all, but one on the animagi.

Comments

[hurleralalune.livejournal.com]

Remus was on his knees looking helplessly up at the two boys. He was so, so sorry for what Sirius was doing to Snape. "Sirius, stop it. I'm serious." He grit his teeth and pulled away from the other Marauder.

He gave Snape one last look, knowing it was better if he didn't say anything. "Come on, let's go to the Common Room." He stomped off, gutted.

They didn't have plans to meet again. It wasn't until he passed Snape in the halls the next day and thrust a piece of parchment into the boys hands. It simply said "Library. After dinner."

He knew that Sirius and James wouldn't look for him there.

[spinnersending.livejournal.com]

Severus looked at the note for a long time. He wanted to blame Remus for the pummeling he received, but he couldn't even force himself to get the wrong idea about it. It had been troubling enough to keep Severus up and awake for most of the night.

As he had plans to be in the library after dinner anyhow, his work on the potions paper almost finished so that he could not devote himself entirely to copying all of the books he needed to be an animagi for when his Restricted Section pass ran out. Meeting Remus was not going to be too difficult.

Even so, he didn't quite look up when the other boy came towards him. He knew he was there, but he was copying and important passage.

[hurleralalune.livejournal.com]

He sort of just stood there for a second. He felt so guilty from what happened the day before. He leaned on the balls of his feet and put his hands down on the chair. "I--" Remus started to say something, but choked up. "I'm awfully sorry. Are you alright?"

That was a dumb question. "I mean -- I don't know what I mean." He was kicking himself now. He shouldn't have come. This was stupid. The more he saw Severus, the more he was just going to end up hurting.

"I should go. I don't want to bother you." He said after a few awkward seconds. He didn't want to, but the last thing he wanted to do was hurt the other even more. This friendship was bound to failure anyway. A Slytherin and a Gryffindor just couldn't be friends.

[spinnersending.livejournal.com]

Severus looked up and the chair that Remus was leaning on was pushed back. He drew his foot back under the table and watched Remus for a moment. "Backing out, are you?" He wasn't going to talk about last night. As far as he was concerned, last night hadn't happened.

He could not put his finger on why he didn't feel betrayed. His over protectiveness on his privacy and his emotions should have kicked in by now. But they hadn't. And that was telling.

"I need an extra pair of hands or I'll never get this done." A ghost of a smile crossed his crimson lips.

[hurleralalune.livejournal.com]

He sighed and took a seat. If Severus wasn't going to address it, then neither was Remus. "Give me a book." He said looking over the other boy. He could see the bruises on the side of his face. His stomach lurched, but didn't say anything.

He took out a fresh roll of parchment. "Oh, you'll want to skip that book. It's all about how to guess what you're animal form will be. There's no way to tell, really." Remus pointed at a small book near the bottom of the pile.

[spinnersending.livejournal.com]

"I'm still trying to focus on 'bat,'" he murmured, inadvertently letting it slip. "Spider was an option, but I've no desire to get stepped on. And flying... I think flying'd be nice." He watched Remus sit, closing the book he was skimming to put in a pile of 'useless but interesting' reads.

They were quiet for a long time, though Severus's eyes flickered upwards on a regular basis.

Finally, wetting his lips, Severus sat back and addressed Remus rather formally. "Don't be sorry." He'd spent half an hour on this in his head while they worked together. "It wasn't your fault." Intense black eyes focused on him for a long, long time before dropping again. "Here, what about this passage? Breathing exercises. Do they work?"

[hurleralalune.livejournal.com]

They must have kept missing each other, because every so often, Remus would pick his head up to look over at Snape. The guilt on his face must have shown through, because even as he was copying things down, he was thinking about it.

"You didn't deserve that." He said quietly, still looking at the book in front of him.

He looked up to meet his eyes, lost in the darkness of them for several moments. "What?" He shook his head. "They help with the pain the first few times. Eventually your body will recognize what you're trying to do and it will no longer hurt."

He continued to look in his eyes. If he managed to do it, he'd understand part of what Remus went through every day. Only the pain never stopped, because at no point was Remus ever prepared for the transformation or wanted it.

[spinnersending.livejournal.com]

Severus had already gotten Black back, so it didn't matter. The Gryffindor was already upstairs rolling around on James's bed complaining about an itchy crotch, making Potter stare at him in horror as he tried to figure out just what spells he could use to clean his bed off.

The thought made Severus smile, even if he was doing it while looking at Remus. Their strange report was easier and easier for him to relax during. Even if he was not exactly a handsome boy -- the bruises and his deathly pale skin did him no favors there -- there was just something about his smile that caused his kittenish, cupid's bow mouth to light up his eyes and that, in turn, lit up his face.

"I think this spell is more practical than research oriented. I just can't practice it in the dungeon. Even with curtains drawn."

[hurleralalune.livejournal.com]

Remus hadn't known any of this. He had only grabbed a piece of bread and pumpkin juice for dinner and dashed off to meet Severus - again looking forward to it all day. Even before he gave him the note.

He watched Snape's light up and smiled as well. He couldn't help it. He probably looked ridiculous, just beaming at Severus like it was Christmas or something. And he couldn't stop. His words broke the smile though. He bit his lip in thought.

"I agree. It helps, but it's not something that will help get you from human to animagus form." Remus said as he turned back to the book. "There's a lot of stuff in this book about Transfiguration and the mind. I remember Pads stole this at least twenty times."

[spinnersending.livejournal.com]

That thought made Severus snicker. He made sure to pay more attention to the book he was on, copying as much as he could verbatim. Stealing books was not his way. Technically, copying was as frowned on as stealing, but no one ever detained Severus. He was a shadow most of the time. Even when he was doing something wrong, the flashier people he was doing it with -- or to -- would get into trouble.

That was probably why Black hated him so much.

Severus sighed through his nose, trying to think of places to go where prefects -- like Remus -- or ghosts and professors could not find him. He came up blank.

"Lake's ruined. Greenhouse is where everyone goes to snog after curfew." He used his quill to scratch his cheek. He was thinking of the Shrieking Shack again...but Remus, understandably enough, was not himself there. "I'll find a place for us." Us. He didn't want to work on it alone.

It was so suggestive, and Severus had no idea.

[hurleralalune.livejournal.com]

He tilted his head and raised his eyebrows at Snape when he said 'us'. When did that happen? Must have been when they agreed to be friends. But it was such an odd thought. One that, oddly enough, made Remus' lips twitch with a brief smile.

"There's always the Shrieking Shack. No one will go there." The only other place he could think of was the Astronomy Tower, but that was also a snogging place. He gave Snape a shrug. If they went back, he was willingly inviting him back -- back into a part of his life he didn't like and rarely shared.

[spinnersending.livejournal.com]

Remus said it, not him. So that was a plus. Severus went back to copying. He needed to save up, he decided, for a quill that would do this for him. Of course, he'd actually have to find a way to convince his parents to send him money. His father would rather drink it away and his mother was too much of an enabler.

She loved the man. And love made people do crazy, crazy things. Like stay in the house Severus hated to think about, much less return to each summer.

"Yeah, 'm not opposed," Severus said, flipping the page. "'S yer guard dog gonna come lookin' fer yah tonight?"

[hurleralalune.livejournal.com]

Remus looked up at that. "No. I told him I had to help Abbott with her homework. That appeased him, since he keeps going on and on about me finding a shagging partner." He screwed his face up at that, wondering if he should have even said that.

And because he couldn't face talking about that subject with Sirius, let alone Snape, he dropped his eyes back to the parchment. Although thinking about it, he realized as far as he knew Severus didn't date either. He wondered -- no, he wasn't going to wonder what Severus had and hadn't done.

Remus went back to the book. Right, this was work. Although mates talked about that sort of thing. Or at least that is what Sirius said, trying to pester into talking about it.

[spinnersending.livejournal.com]

Bumped instead: http://spinnersending.livejournal.com/900.html?thread=22148#t22148