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The folds of his invisibility cloak whispered around his legs as Harry Potter climbed the narrow, winding stairs to the owlery. The bulk of the castle was dark, although a golden light still shone high in the Headmaster’s tower. It dimmed and brightened as Dumbledore paced between the lamps and the window. Harry was equally restless and knowing that Dumbledore was worried did not help. If he thought that the old wizard would actually tell him anything useful, he might have gone up the moving staircase for sherbet lemons, tea and conversation; but he knew that he would gain nothing. To Dumbledore, he was still a child, a kid to be protected from anything as dangerous as information. Being attacked every year since the age of eleven – okay, that was now a part of his life. Knowing that he was going to have to murder another wizard or be killed himself – hey, that was just the price he had to pay for being the Boy Who Lived. God knows, it wouldn’t do for our little hero to actually be TOLD anything, would it? He might get ideas above his station, think he was something more than a weapon to be sharpened, aimed and wielded by older wizards and witches. Who ever bothered to tell a knife or a wand who it was going to kill or why?
He snorted softly, more at his own morbid thoughts than at the drift of feather-dust. A big, cruciform shape blotted out the waning moon for a moment as a tawny owl glided in through the open doorway, tilted in mid-flight to avoid his head and settled on a perch. Harry drew his wand, muttered a soft “Lumos minima” and looked around in the firefly glow until he spotted the familiar white shape high in the rafters. Hedwig peered down at him, shuffled her wings and then flapped down so that he could stroke her neck and back.
“I haven’t got anything for you to do, I’m sorry,” he whispered, offering an owl treat, which she accepted graciously. “No one to write to since Sirius went. Nothing I want to buy by owl-order - unless I could hire an assassin to get rid of Voldemort. And Snape while you’re at it.” She nudged him with her beak for another treat. “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind getting rid of the greasy git. We’re doing bloody Occlumency lessons again and is he a pain in the arse or what? Git.” Harry stroked the smooth feathers and Hedwig let out a soft hoot of appreciation, although he liked to imagine that it was sympathy. “I always thought he was a bully and a spiteful bastard but not too bad as a teacher of Potions. I suppose you need to keep firm control of a class of kids when they’re messing with poisons, explosives and magic so he’s no choice but to be strict with us. That doesn’t explain why he has to be such an evil git when it’s just me trying to learn Occlumency! Why won’t he explain what I have to do, why does he just keep attacking me, then sneering when I fail? And I only fail because I don’t understand. Does he still hate my Dad so much that he has to take it out on me?”
He felt the owl shift slightly under his hand. Hedwig cocked her head and he heard what she had already detected, the sound of footsteps on the stair. Harry did not even need to think twice; he put out the light from his wand and crept into the far corner, sat down on a pile of sacks that might have been left there some time in the last century judging by their musty smell, and pulled his invisibility cloak over his head.
Someone was walking up the stairs with a firm, steady tread. This was no student, creeping as Harry had crept, on the way to a tryst or a moment of solitary contemplation. No, this had to be a member of the Hogwarts staff. Harry tried to make himself even smaller, pressing his shoulders back against the cold stones of the wall. With luck, they had just come up to send an owl-message, although surely the professors had their own owls, or would simply call for one? He wondered if he had been followed or if the faint glow of his wand through the windows had given him away. He hardly dared to breathe.
As the figure came in amid a swirl of black robes and hair, a heavy weight seemed to settle in Harry’s chest. Great, the very last wizard he needed to be caught by. He almost stood up to admit defeat and face the inevitable lines and detention. Almost… but not quite, his optimistic Gryffindor side urged him to remain silent just in case Snape really was here to send a letter to his old granny. When Snape spoke, Harry’s heart gave a breathless little skip in his chest. The deep voice was oddly mesmerizing when it was not berating him.
“Good evening; you’re Potter’s owl, aren’t you?” He reached out a slim, bony finger and scratched Hedwig exactly where she could not reach, the spot on the back of her neck. She arched against his touch and Harry thought “Traitor!” at her. If she had been a cat, she would have purred. “Beautiful bird,” Snape murmured. “But you are very distinctive. I hope that you don’t betray him entirely by accident. That would be so ironic, would it not?” He gave a little huffing breath that in anyone else, Harry would have identified as laughter. “After all this effort and trouble, the golden boy should not be captured thanks to a pretty bird. No doubt you are loyal to him in your avian little way; you are as Gryffindor as he is, aren’t you?”
Snape allowed his hand to fall to his side and looked around. The slope of his nose, his thin-lipped mouth and determined chin were profiled against the moonlit sky. His expression looked unaccountably pensive and self-contained, and Harry wondered if Snape ever sent owls to anyone apart from the editors of potions journals or the suppliers of esoteric ingredients. For the first time, he questioned if Snape was lonely. Living an incredibly perilous double life, spying for two implacable masters, did the Potions master ever confide in anyone? Did he have friends, as Harry had Ron and Hermione? Did he share tea and gossip in the staffroom with McGonagall, Sprout and Flitwick, or was he always the outcast, the truculent friendless teen grown up into a taciturn and solitary man? Harry had no intention of attempting to befriend his professor – he could predict where any overtures of that nature would lead – yet he felt a grudging sympathy for him. Not enough to overcome his own smouldering resentment by any means, yet he imagined that, in the unlikely event of them both surviving the war and meeting in ten years’ time, they might one day come to a wary mutual respect. If they didn’t hex one another first, that was.
Snape peered down through one of the slatted windows, seeming in no hurry to get on with whatever errand had brought him here. He was obviously not expecting to receive an owl, nor did he make any move to call one to hand to give it a letter. What in Merlin’s name was the man doing up here? When a pale barn owl flew in, Snape stepped aside and watched the bird settle on a high perch, shake itself and shed a feather to float across a band of moonlight.
Just the thought of all the feathers and the dust made Harry’s skin itch and he longed to scratch his neck and wrists and ankles. He prayed that he would not sneeze. His bum was starting to go numb and the invisibility cloak did not keep out the chill of the night air. He was becoming more and more uncomfortable.
He began to think that Snape was lying in wait like a hunting predator. He could imagine Snape intercepting a coded message, gleefully allowing a courting couple to make their arrangements to meet and pouncing to interrupt them in mid-snog. He would take points for being out after curfew, for lewd behaviour, probably for indecent dress, bad language and being outside of their House boundaries. He would love every minute of it. Harry would have bet a hundred galleons that Snape had never met a lover clandestinely in his life. He would have no sympathy at all for someone trying to carry on a relationship in this gossip-factory of a school…. Harry caught his breath. Was that another footstep on the stairs? He saw Snape’s head come up as the Potions master listened. Harry crossed his fingers and hoped that the victims were not Gryffindors. How embarrassing would that be? Not that he could do anything to help them if they were, of course. Any interference from him would only make matters worse for everyone.
Whoever it was, they were making no more effort than Snape to be quiet. Either they were supremely confident that they were alone or they too had every right to be here – which would make them another member of the staff. This was becoming odder by the moment.
“Severus?” The voice was low, masculine and familiar. Harry stifled a gasp against the back of his wrist.
“In here,” Snape replied, and the footsteps speeded up until Remus Lupin stepped through the doorway. “Finally,” Snape growled.
“Sorry I’m late. Our dear Headmaster wanted to discuss infiltrating Greyback’s clique again. He’s desperate to know where the werewolf pack is planning to attack next.”
“Such wonderful spies, he has,” Snape muttered, “A reluctant Death Eater and a werewolf.”
“We make do with whatever comes to hand,” Lupin said equably. “Speaking of which, when can I collect the wolfsbane?”
“I shall give it to one of the others to bring to Grimmauld Place; I cannot guarantee to meet you on any particular day. He has been calling me regularly lately. There are potions that he requires.” No need to explain who HE was.
“Be careful, Severus.” Lupin’s voice was quiet and controlled but Harry heard genuine emotion in it.
“Yes, I shall endeavour to be more circumspect in my activities than your doggy friend.”
Harry bit his lip to keep from cursing. How dared he? How dare that sanctimonious bastard talk about Sirius in that way, to Remus of all people? He expected even the good-natured werewolf to draw his wand, yet Lupin only sighed.
“How many times do we have to go through this? He was a dear friend but that was all. A friend, an ally against the rest of the world. I grieve for him as much as I grieved for James and Lily.”
There was silence for a moment and then Snape demanded in a harsh voice
“And will you grieve for me, I wonder?”
“Oh, Severus,” Lupin said gently, “You idiot. I won’t need to, because we’re both going to make it through this. Right? We need to believe that one day, it will be over and we can stop all this subterfuge.”
“And the moon is made of green cheese and the Dark Lord is really the tooth fairy in disguise,” the Potions master snapped. “You’re even more of a sentimental idiot than I feared. If I survive, I’ll be in Azkaban or worse. If I survive, it will be because the golden boy of Gryffindor comes up with a way of defeating the Dark Lord and dear Merlin, will he be happy to see me thrown into a pit of Dementors!”
“Harry isn’t vindictive,” Remus said strongly. “Unlike some, he doesn’t bear grudges for decades.” Harry had never felt so fond of the werewolf as he did at that moment.
“He hates me,” Snape replied levelly. “As he must. I have earned his hatred a hundred times over and I doubt that he will ever get past that.”
“Does it still have to be that way?” Remus sounded almost plaintive.
“You know it does. His Occlumency skills are … moderate at best. If the Dark Lord discovered that Potter and I were no longer enemies, neither of us would have a hope. When I am commanded to bring Potter to him, my only defence is to claim that Potter will not trust me enough to accompany me and a failed attempt would blow my cover at Hogwarts. If he no longer reads that enmity from either one of us, the Dark Lord would insist that I kidnap the boy and then where would we be?”
Harry bit the cloth of his sleeve to prevent himself from making a sound. In three sentences, Severus Snape had completely turned Harry’s view of him upside-down. Why had he not realised that Snape had deliberately set himself up as Harry’s implacable enemy from the start? That all the vitriol and unreasonable punishments were for a purpose?
“You could give up spying,” Remus said, but his tone held little hope of this coming about.
“As likely as you giving up your plans to infiltrate the werewolves. War makes unlikely heroes, does it not?”
“And unexpected allies,” Remus sighed. “Gods, Severus, I wish it was all over one way or another.”
Snape huffed.
“Then this would also end. Do you wish that?”
“Don’t be silly, you great twit,” Remus Lupin said and the fondness in his voice made Harry shiver. “Come here and kiss me.”
Harry went hot and cold all over. His skin broke out in goose bumps and he almost gave himself away by squeaking in shock. He clamped his teeth down on the sleeve of his robe and clenched his fists in his invisibility cloak.
How could this be? How could Remus Lupin, his replacement godfather, surrogate parent, all-round nice bloke and respected ex-professor, a man whom Harry regarded as his closest adult friend, possibly ask SNAPE for a kiss? He stared as Snape moved across the owl loft, going from moonlight to shadow to moonlight as he passed the windows. He opened his arms amid the trailing loops of his sleeves and enfolded the shorter man in their night-black wings like a vampire seizing his prey. Yet Harry could see that Lupin went gladly. His face was turned up, the lines softened and made more youthful by the silvery light. His eyes were open, fixed upon Snape’s.
“I missed you,” Lupin sighed into Snape’s mouth as the Potions master lowered his head. Then there was the almost-silence of two mouths locking together, the faintest sounds of uneven breathing, of lips and tongues pressing and sucking.
Harry could not have moved now if his life had depended upon it. The potential embarrassment of being caught was outweighed by his fascination. This was totally unexpected and – educational. That was the word; this was educational. He was learning a lot; like how kissing was so much more than the sloppy touch of lips. It was firm; it involved exploration and nibbling. He could see how the initial contact of mouths led immediately to the tangling of limbs. Lupin had his arms tight around Snape’s torso; Harry could see the lighter shade of Lupin’s tweeds against the black of Snape’s robes. He could see the Potions master’s pale hand, like a white spider low on Lupin’s back, moving down, the palm pressing in. The fingers curving, grasping, massaging the firm shape of Lupin’s bum and the werewolf pushing back as if he could not get enough of that hand, that groping hand rubbing up and down the crack of his arse through his trousers
This was mind-boggling. Harry had assumed that Lupin no longer had a sex-life – what seventeen-year-old ever believed that a forty-year-old could be considered attractive? Yet here was Lupin acting like a sixth-year after the Yule Ball, groping and snogging the most unlikely person in the world. Harry had not even realised that Lupin was gay, and as for Snape – well, who’d want him, even if he did have a remarkably compelling voice? Maybe that was it; Snape had hypnotised Lupin by the power of his voice and his potions. Harry peered through the translucent folds of his invisibility cloak. What were they doing now?
Lupin was running his hands up and down the length of Snape’s back. Harry could hear the rub of skin on woollen cloth. Then Lupin spoke in a whisper.
“Did you bring…?”
“Of course.” Snape’s response was a low, amused chuckle, a sound as rich as Honeyduke’s finest dark chocolate. “I know what an insatiable werewolf you are.”
“Hardly insatiable,” Lupin murmured into the taller man’s neck, in between placing little kisses and – were those bites? – in the hidden place behind collar and hair. “I don’t call once a month insatiable by any means.”
“We cannot make it any more often, particularly if you intend to comply with this latest folly of Dumbledore’s.”
“The werewolves? Yes, who else could do it? The promise of the wolfsbane potion just might sway enough of them to our side.”
“Hush,” Snape whispered, “We could argue all night and never reach agreement.”
Lupin did not reply. His hands were no longer visible to Harry, being busy doing something in the narrow gap between their bodies. Then Lupin reached up and slid the heavy robe back from Snape’s shoulders, allowing it to fall in a puddle of darkness around their feet. Snape’s white shirt was a bright shape in the moonlight. The man had strong shoulders tapering to a slim waist. If Harry had not known whom he was watching, he might have wanted to see if Snape’s arse was as slender and taut as the rest of his anatomy promised. His mouth fell open in a silent gape. Was he actually considering Severus Snape, the evil greasy git of Hogwarts, as a person to be desired? Ron would tell him to scrub his brain out with scouring potions if he found out. Hermione might be more sympathetic, although her first response would be to rush off to the Restricted Section to look up aphrodisiac potions, erotic charms and hexes causing inappropriate desires and then test him for them.
Quite clearly Remus Lupin desired Snape, to judge from the gasping, open-mouthed kisses and the wriggling, and it was not a one-sided attraction either. Snape was easing Lupin’s patched robe down, exposing the werewolf’s cardigan and tweed trousers.
“Sexy beast,” Snape muttered, tugging at a fold of the cardigan. Harry stifled a giggle when Lupin stopped kissing him and remarked, “At least I don’t look like some bloody great vampire bat.”
“No, but you don’t have to dress like your own grandfather.”
“I aimed for the kindly paternal professor image,” Lupin said with dignity, “and unfortunately I no longer have an income that allows me to replace my wardrobe with an appropriately – oh yes – fashionable – just there – or erotic – unngghhh – ensemble… Severussss…..”
Snape had opened both the cardigan and the shirt beneath it, and had bent down so that his face pressed against Lupin’s lightly furred chest. Harry leaned to see what was going on. Snape seemed to be licking – yes, actually sucking and licking at Lupin’s small dark nipples, one after the other.
Harry was well aware that a girl’s breasts were both sensitive to touch and an object of male fantasy. He had never found them a turn-on himself, but he had listened to Ron going on about Lavender’s and Hermione’s boobs to the point of boredom. He had wondered what the fuss was about. He hoped that eventually, if he and Ginny ever got back together, he would find out. Now he watched as Snape laved his agile tongue across Lupin’s nipples and realisation hit him like a thwack on the head. Girl’s boobs were boring but a man’s were – wow. He wondered if Lupin was going to do the same for Snape and if that happened, whether he, Harry Potter, would be able to stop himself from creaming his y-fronts.
Snape stood upright again and watched as Lupin drew his wand and muttered a charm. Harry shut his eyes hard and then opened them again. Oh god. They were both stark naked. With one swish-and-flick, Lupin had removed their clothing and separated them into two neat little piles of garments. The moon cast deep shadows and Harry so wanted to see – ah, they moved together and for a moment, Snape’s tall, lean frame was in full moonlight. He was pale except for a light scatter of black hairs on his chest and a line down his belly, from his navel to the thatch at his groin from which sprang out the proud jut of his cock. It was long and thick and dark, the tool of a powerful, virile wizard. Lupin was a smaller man all over, although his cock was nothing to be ashamed of.
Harry pressed the heel of one palm onto the seam of his jeans. The sight of the two naked wizards, now embracing so closely that he could barely see where one set of limbs ended and the next began, was having a profound effect upon him. They were just so damned … hot. There was no other word for it. Remus Lupin was no podgy middle-aged man despite his dowdy clothes; he was well muscled and almost as lean as Snape. He was scarred, though; Harry could see the pale stripes of old wounds on his back. No new ones, thanks to the wolfsbane potion. Snape must have been brewing it for him ever since he had left Hogwarts the last time. Of course he had; they were lovers. Lovers. Two men – two wizards, responsible adults – who were trying, in the midst of war, to find a little happiness and pleasure together. Harry could not blame them for that. He could not blame Snape in the least for falling for the kindly, good-natured Lupin. What Lupin saw in him…. Well he did brew the wolfsbane, and he had a really neat arse and a decent body all round, if you ignored the nose. Harry tried to imagine Snape with an ordinary nose. Take away the nose, wash and cut the hair, give him a kinder mouth and brown eyes and you might have a good-looking wizard. Remus might like that.
It hit Harry then, with a sharp sense of having missed something important for a long time, that the tall bloke would no longer be Severus Snape; he would just be some reasonable-looking wizard. There were enough of them around to satisfy anyone and yet Remus had chosen Snape: the master of sarcasm, the viper-tongued, brilliant, irascible and crotchety git. He must actually LIKE that wicked tongue – by the way he was sucking on it, he absolutely loved it. Harry shifted slightly to ease the pressure in his underpants. The trouble with jeans was the area around the zip was thick, stiff fabric without any give, and suddenly far too tight.
Face to face, Lupin and Snape dropped to their knees onto the heap of discarded robes, still joined at the mouth. Then the werewolf allowed himself to sink back and Snape followed him, leaning over him, kissing his face, rubbing his nipple with a thumb, the other hand curling around his hip to squeeze the cheek of his arse.
“Are you ready for me, werewolf?” Snape growled and Lupin gave a breathy little whimper.
“I’m always fucking ready for you.”
He had never heard Lupin swear before, not even when Sirius fell through the veil. Lupin was arching upwards, as if he was trying to rub his belly against Snape’s, their cocks nudging side by side. Harry imagined that if the light was brighter, he would be able to see twin trails of moisture left by their leaking tips. He could feel a damp spot forming in his own underwear, cool against the heat generated by his cock. He rubbed himself harder and then, because he realised that he was beneath his father’s old cloak and no one would know, he seized the tag of the zip and began to ease it down, one tooth at a time, trying to time each tiny snick so that it was hidden by a gasp or a moan. Harry knew that if he had been one of the participants, nothing short of being tripped over would alert him to the presence of anyone else; but it never paid to underestimate the werewolf or Severus Snape.
Now Snape rose up again, kneeling astride Lupin’s thighs and staring down at the panting body as he stroked Lupin’s chest and belly. He held out a hand.
“Accio lubricant.”
A little jar rose from the pile of his clothes and landed on his palm. He unscrewed the top, plunged his fingers into the jar and then put it aside, rubbing his hands together. They gleamed wetly as he lowered them, then to Harry’s breathless enthralment he slicked his own cock with one hand and Lupin’s with the other. The wet slide of his hands, the long fingers cupping each member, the look of concentration on his face – Harry wondered what it felt like to be the focus of such intensity. Then the hand which worked Lupin’s cock moved down, laving his balls in their nest of hair, and further back, almost as if Snape was inserting lubricant into Lupin’s arsehole… as Lupin arched upwards, whining in the back of his throat, Harry could see that this was exactly what Snape was doing. And Lupin wanted it. He was trying to push himself onto Snape’s long bony finger, wriggling around in order to impale himself, and Snape was smirking down at him with that smug, superior expression. Except that really, it was not smug at all. If Harry was honest with himself, he had to admit that it was a look of affection. Snape was amused at Lupin’s antics, but it was a deeply fond amusement, and if he was pleased with himself it was because he was proud of the way in which he could create such longing in the other wizard.
By now, Harry had eased his own cock free from both jeans and underwear. It throbbed in his hand, hotter and harder than he had ever known, even when he had been fantasising about Cho or Ginny. The best he had managed when thinking of girls was sweetly romantic. He had never imagined anything as arousing as this pair of muscular bodies. Snape curved over Lupin, watching as his lover fucked himself on a greased finger. Snape withdrew, only to replace the single finger with two.
Remus reached down, his hand toying with Snape’s erection, tugging at the foreskin, cupping his balls and rolling them loosely. Harry heard Snape’s breath hiss between his teeth.
“Patience, fur-ball,” he murmured. Lupin sniggered.
“Who’re you calling fur-balls?” He gave a sharp tug on the black hair at Snape’s groin. Snape slapped his hand.
“Ouch! Do that again and you’ll be reduced to humping Hagrid’s dog.”
“Going to join us? Fang is a terribly sloppy kisser, I warn you, plus he has bad breath and he never seems to trim his claws.”
“God, I don’t need that image.”
Harry was gaping again, to the extent that a little drool escaped from his lips and ran down his chin. Was this normal, to arse about like his fellow Gryffindors playing catch-the-snitch on their brooms on a Sunday after tea? Was love like this, humour and affection and complete loss of dignity? Lupin clearly did not care that he was lying on his back and allowing Snape to shove his fingers up there, while Snape – well, hearing Snape being made fun of and teasing back, being silly – it was a revelation. The man was human after all, human and funny and affectionate. Who would have thought it?
“Now,” Snape said, and his voice was a low thrumming growl, “Now it is time to shag you senseless, you hairy beast.”
“About time,” Lupin muttered then grasped his own knees and pulled his legs up and back, exposing the dark shadowy cleft between his buttocks, his erection rising up against his own belly. Snape shifted in between Lupin’s thighs, reached to grasp his own erect prick and guide it home, then he pushed hard, forcing the head of his cock into Lupin’s arse. Harry’s gasp fortunately merged into Lupin’s soft exhalation and Snape’s grunt of effort.
“All right?” Snape whispered. Harry had never guessed that the man would be a considerate lover, yet his dark eyes were peering down at Lupin’s face. Lupin scowled.
“Get in, will you? I want to feel you – ah! Yes!” Snape thrust deeper, Lupin pushed to meet him, and both wizards moaned softly as Snape sank to the balls into Lupin’s body.
Snape squirmed as if being inside his lover was not quite enough; he had to shift around, trying different angles. It was quite obvious when he found what he was seeking because Lupin threw back his head, grabbed his lover around the waist and purred.
“Yes! There! Harder!”
Snape seemed more than happy to oblige.
Harry timed his own hand to the long, powerful strokes of Snape’s body. He wanted to come. He desperately wanted to speed up to a quick, sharp finale that he knew would be more intense than anything he had ever experienced, but he could not trust himself to be quiet and he dared not cast a silencing charm. He was sure that this pair of wizards would be alert to extraneous magic even in the throes of passion. He forced himself to meet stroke with stroke, reaching inside his jeans to hold his own balls in an attempt to slow down his climax. He watched Snape’s long pale back, the clenching of his buttocks, the steady driving motion of his thighs. He watched Lupin’s head tossing back, his hands roaming around Snape’s shoulders and arms and he listened to the noises they made. The soft, wet sounds as Snape withdrew and plunged into the well-lubricated orifice, their grunts, the slap of skin on skin, the rustle of the robes beneath Lupin’s back and beneath Snape’s knees.
The owls shifted on their perches, came and went in their soundless flight, scuffled and hooted, barely acknowledging the humans down on the floor of their quarters. The moon shone down, cool and clear out of a bare and open sky. Harry knew that he would never forget this night.
Snape began to lose his rhythm, the long driving thrusts gave way to spasmodic jerks, quicker and sharper, and then he groaned and shuddered, holding himself as deep as he could. His head was arched back, his uneven teeth, bleached to white in the moonlight, exposed in a grimace of pleasure or pain. Then he reached down and seized Remus’ cock. It only took a couple of strokes and Remus was coming between their bellies with a sharp cry of “Severus! Oh yes, Severus, god!” which drowned out Harry’s muffled grunt as he came in his hand.
Snape sank down onto the tangled robes and wrapped his arms around Lupin, both panting hard.
“Good?” Snape asked in a low murmur.
“Very good.” Lupin acknowledged. He reached up, Harry saw him gently smooth back the snarled locks of hair from Snape’s face. “As always, with you. As always.”
“Accio wand,” Snape said, waved it and muttered a cleaning charm. To Harry’s surprise, the cooling come vanished from his fingers and thighs.
“Can you stay just for a little while?” Lupin asked and the longing in his voice tugged at Harry’s heart.
“No. We cannot risk falling asleep,” Snape said and the yearning was there, too. “I must get back to my Slytherins and you should go before anyone finds you here, Filch is no doubt on his rounds. We will have time together. One day.”
Lupin sighed and then he forced a faint smile.
“Of course. One day.”
Even so, they stayed together for a couple of minutes, touching each other, as if committing the shape of a jaw, a cheekbone, a nose, to memory for another month. As if anyone could forget that nose… but the nose was Snape’s and Lupin touched it lightly, lovingly, as if he might never do so again.
Then Snape got to his feet and reached down a hand. Lupin grabbed it and Snape hauled him to his feet in one long, smooth motion. Then they dressed. They did not use charms, to Harry’s surprise, until he realised that they were delaying the moment of parting, a mutual unspoken pact to gain just a few more precious minutes.
“Take care,” Lupin whispered, leaning to brush his lips once more across Snape’s mouth.
“And you.”
Lupin turned away and Harry heard his feet scuff and thud as he went fast down the narrow stairs. Snape stared at the moon until all sound had ceased, then he tucked his wand in his sleeve and left as silently as a great bat, gliding away into the night.
Harry slowly unkinked his legs and got to his feet, hissing at the pins and needles of returning circulation. He waited a good ten minutes before making his way very cautiously down to the ground, and then back to Gryffindor Tower. He felt that he was not the same, something inside him had mutated tonight and he needed to think about what it was. Certainly his attitude towards Snape had changed. Harry had even more incentive to master Occlumency now – Snape would skin him like a shrivelfig if he ever found THIS memory. He would do everything he could to avoid Occlumency lessons altogether or if all else failed, make some truly embarrassing memories to distract Snape. If Snape could “accidentally” discover a memory of Harry wanking to fantasies of a naked Snape… that had possibilities that Harry dared not even contemplate right now.
There were a number of things Harry had to do. First, he was going to look for books in the Restricted Section about homosexuality and wizards. He had a very strong conviction why his relationships with girls had never worked out. Maybe it would be worth having a confidential chat with Hermione, without alluding to exactly how he had found out his preferences. As far as Remus was concerned, Harry was going to do his best to ensure that his werewolf friend and Snape had time together as often as he could engineer it. If he happened to be around at the time with an invisibility cloak, well, who knew what he might accidentally overhear? Remus deserved a little happiness and if he found it with Snape, Harry could live with that. There was a tiny seed of an idea that Snape might deserve a little love as well. It was not very big or strong as yet, but Harry knew that however nasty Snape was to him in future, he was going to be far better able to keep his cool. Just thinking about a naked Snape with his finger up a werewolf’s bum would help. Although possibly not if he wanted to avoid embarrassing things happening in his underwear.
Harry whispered the password to the Fat Lady and slipped into the common room, folding his cloak up under his arm. He wondered if he could find out when Remus was next due to visit Hogwarts or when Snape would attend an Order meeting in Grimmauld Place. He might arrange for Remus to give him tuition in Defence Against the Dark Arts immediately before or after his Occlumency lessons…
Before he could finalise his plans, Harry watched events unfold from under the invisibility cloak upon a different tower and everything changed forever. The werewolf and the Death Eater walked divergent paths and there was nothing Harry could do but silently support Remus in his sorrow.