Mist and Vapors

When Hannah had finished the dishes after Severus left, she moved around the room picking up little things that were out of place, fluffing pillows, and straightening knickknacks. Finally, she stood up straight and admitted defeat. She needed someone to talk to. And Flitwick kept late hours.

When she knocked, the door was opened immediately. Flitwick was in his night shirt, a long nightcap with a tassel at the end hanging down over his shoulder.

"Hannah. What a pleasant surprise."

"I am so sorry; I don't know what I was thinking," Hannah said as she saw his attire. "Did I wake you up?"

"Not at all," he answered in his high-pitched voice, a smile on his face. "Please. Do come in."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely." He stepped away from the door, and motioned over to the sofa. "Have a seat, my dear. It's been a while since we've had a nice long chat."

While Flitwick sat down in one corner of the sofa, Hannah sat down hesitantly on the floor, her back against the couch and her legs pulled up against her, not sure now if this had been a good idea. After a few minutes of small talk, Flitwick peered down at her with a sly grin and asked, "So, now that we have the pleasantries out of the way, why don't you tell me what you really came for?"

Pink creeping over her cheeks, she looked up at him in embarrassment. "Severus came for dinner."

"How very nice."

"I think I scared him."

Flitwick's smile deepened. "You? Scared him? Well, that's an unusual switch," he said with a twinkle in his eyes. "It's generally he who does the scaring around here. So what happened?"

Hannah looked down at her hands and swallowed. "I... well, I told him I love him. It just sort of...came out. But he was different after that. Much quieter. And he left right after dinner."

"Hm." Flitwick leaned back in his seat. "I see."

"It was stupid, wasn't it? I mean, I shouldn't have...I just couldn't help it."

"Well, if you couldn't help it, it seems to me that it was the right thing to do."

"But he..."

"Hannah, there is something you have to understand. When it comes to his abilities and knowledge, Severus is confident to the point of arrogance. When it comes to more personal areas of his life, I have seen flobberworms with more self-confidence. I've known the man for almost thirty years, you know, from the time he came to Hogwarts as a boy. I don't think anyone telling him they have warm feelings for him has been a very common occurrence. Let him stew on it for a day or two. He'll get used to the idea. Did he say anything back to you?"

She shook her head. "No. Just 'What was that for?'"

"Well, that's not the most romantic statement of the year, is it?" Flitwick said, his mouth screwed up in wry grin.

"No. Not exactly," Hannah answered dryly. "But I wasn't really expecting him to reciprocate."

Flitwick nodded. "May I ask you a question?"

"Sure." Hannah looked up at him.

"How serious are you about him?"

She sat up a little, taken aback. For a moment, she looked down at her hands, before raising her eyes again to meet Flitwick's. "Very serious," she said in a whisper. "I would not have told him otherwise."

He nodded, satisfied. "Good. I do know one thing - if you tell him something like that, you better mean it."

"Oh, I do," she said softly, and he could see her heart in her eyes.

"Well, then," he said, and found himself having to speak past a lump in his throat, "I am sure it will all work out fine."

.-.-.-.

Severus woke up the next morning not particularly well rested. Thoughts had kept running around his head, and it had taken his Occlumency skills to restore enough order to finally get some sleep. Even then, he had tossed and turned.

After his morning ablutions, he summoned Gwinny to obtain a cup of coffee. The house-elf, taking one look at his face, decided that mum was a good word for today, and other than "yes, Master Snape" kept her mouth shut.

He sipped the hot liquid with a frown line etched on his forehead. It would be another full day - time to brew Lupin's ruddy Wolfsbane again. He tilted the coffee cup up to drain the last dregs and grimaced. Not too bad, but Hannah's coffee was definitely better.

Leaving the cup on the table for the elves to take care of, he made his way to the workroom and started gathering and preparing his ingredients. This part of the process was near automatic for him after all the years he had brewed for the werewolf, and while his hands were busy, his thoughts went elsewhere.

So she fancied herself in love - but what was that built on? Some illusion of the noble, sacrificial war hero of Minerva's telling? She seemed to be blithely ignoring who he knew himself to be in favor of some phantom idea that she had in her head. Maybe it was the fact that he was a wizard that made her blind.

Nequam, for all her rancor, had summed it up quite well - he had neither station, personality, nor looks to recommend himself to a woman. So what was it, then?

She was looking at him through rose-colored - or was that wizard-colored? - glasses, but that sheen would not last as the days went by. Oh, it would be all right for a while, but when she would wake up to his face every morning, when she had to deal with his temper without the safety and distance of separate quarters, when she would not be able to gloss over what he had done and what he had been, when she was treated with the same disdain as he by society, it wouldn't be long and she would find herself trapped in a life with a man she could not even recognize.

He would have to talk to her, disabuse her of faulty notions and ideas. Bring her to her senses.

The hollow ache at that thought brought into focus the other direction his thoughts had taken yesterday. She talked of love. But where did he stand?

While he carefully ground the dried monkshood blossoms, he allowed the partitions of his mind to open and his thoughts and emotions to mingle. He had always been logical and methodical in his work, and the approach had served him well in other areas of his life. He saw no reason to abandon it now. Time to take stock, then. What was there? What did it add up to?

There was friendship. There had been no specific point he could remember where he had started to think 'I will have to tell Hannah about this' when something especially outrageous happened with one of the incompetent dunderheads in his class, but now that thought came frequently. He enjoyed the time they spent together, however little or much of it there was.

There was trust. The way she had behaved during the encounter with Pettigrew and during the trial left him in no doubt of her loyalty.

He liked her. She didn't grate on his nerves. She could be quiet when he wanted to be quiet. She wasn't afraid of him, or intimidated, and she seemed to have duck's-back-syndrome, at least most of the time, when it came to his moods and tempers.

There was physical attraction. The touches, the kisses, the embraces were nice, but they were not enough any more. Each time he held her, he became painfully more aware that it had been a long time since he had been with a woman. No, he wouldn't turn down what would be his if she became his...

His wife. His stomach lurched again and the even motion of the pestle halted as he actually put the vague idea into concrete terms.

So what did it add up to?

Enough, he thought bitterly, as he measured out the Luna-moth wings. Enough that if he had not grown up in a house where he had had a front row view of what the choking ache of a failed marriage can do to a woman, he would have been willing to take the chance and hope the illusion would last at least for a year or two of comparative happiness.

Did it deserve the word she had called it? He wasn't sure. His ideas of love were hazy at best, observed from a distance. He certainly hadn't fallen prey to the hearts-and-butterflies feelings - he snorted in disdain - that seemed to have possessed other people who had proclaimed themselves in love. But he had gotten used to her presence in his life over the last few months, used to someone to whom it mattered how his day had been, used to quiet evenings next to her, used to feeling wanted and needed, used to discussing ideas with her, used to her touch. He simply could not stomach the idea of losing that. Maybe he would not have to. Maybe the friendship could be salvaged. But his mother was right, he owed her a debt, even if she would have been appalled at the idea. Letting her walk unprepared into something that would surely be a mistake would be a fine way of repaying her.

For a moment, the picture of her telling him about her 'rule' came back to his mind. How once it got serious, she had needed to tell him the truth about who she was. Well, now it was his turn. And in her words - gads, he didn't want to.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

A fewer hours later, and he stood in front of Lupin's office.

"Come!" he heard the werewolf, and he took a deep breath and then opened the door.

Lupin was standing in front of a cage containing a Finnish frost fairy, holding a chunk of goat cheese, obviously trying to get the creature to eat.

"They like to live in flurries, Lupin; no wonder it's gone off its feed if you keep it alone. You need at least a pair - a fact that should not exactly come as news to you?" He put the goblet down on the desk and stepped over to the cage.

"I know that, Severus. I inherited this one from a friend after its mate died. Thought I would show it to the students, and then release it," Lupin replied in controlled tones. He dropped the cheese through the bars of the cage and straightened up.

Severus pointed at the goblet. "Bottoms up, Lupin; I don't have all day."

As the werewolf picked up the cup, Snape wandered around the room and stopped in front of a large covered tank that took up most of the north-east corner of the room. He peered inside. "I don't believe it. You actually managed to procure a Feyr, then, did you?" His voice sounded incredulous. He tapped on the glass, watching as the ragged-toothed mouth of the creature snapped at him and tentacles writhed in vain towards the offending noise.

"So it appears." Lupin answered shortly, taking another gulp of the potion.

"Well, well. Wonders never cease."

Remus looked over at the Potions master. He had been waiting for a good time to talk to Severus, but with Severus such a time did not seem to exist. How did that saying go? No time like the present? He took a deep breath. "Severus, may I ask you a question?"

Snape's eyes narrowed. "You may ask whatever you want. Whether I answer or not is my choice, isn't it?"

"Fair enough." Lupin sat down on the edge of his desk. "I was just wondering if there is any way to negotiate an end of hostilities? You must be as tired of this as I am."

The Potions master's expression grew rigid. "Again - you can always just tell me to stop bringing you the Wolfsbane, if my presence offends you so much."

Remus sighed wearily. Of course the potion gave him leverage. And he really couldn't blame him for using it. "I know how much time it takes out of your schedule to brew it for me, and I have told you time and time again that I am grateful. Very grateful. But I wish..." He ran a hand over his face. "Look, we are both adults. Couldn't we at least try to bury the hatchet and get along?" He smiled a smile that he hoped was open and disarming. He wasn't quite sure if he succeeded

Severus turned back to the Feyr tank. "Not everyone who looks like an adult behaves like one," he said sharply, his lip curling.

"I know that there is bad history. You have reason to be angry at me. But that was literally decades ago. I would really..."

"If there were any evidence that you had changed since then, Lupin, you might have a point," Snape said scathingly.

"Would you care to be more explicit?" the werewolf asked patiently, but his eyes narrowed slightly.

"Your first year here, teaching - you knew Black was an Animagus, and you had every reason to believe that he was attempting to kill Potter, yet you deliberately concealed that fact from those of us who were actually trying to protect the boy. Protecting yourself instead of protecting Potter. Did you not think that information might have been an asset for us to know? Before he broke a student's leg?"

Remus had gone very quiet. "You are right. Absolutely right. I should have told you. But then, we all make mistakes. You, for example, would have fed an innocent man to the Dementors - and after he had offered to come with you quietly."

"You have no way of knowing, Lupin, if I would have followed through."

"No, I don't," Remus said in measured tones, "but I have never known you to be one for empty threats, Severus."

"You don't see a difference between threatening to execute someone I had all reason to believe was a mass murderer and endangering the life of students? First through gutless inaction, then through blatant irresponsibility? Leaving the castle on the night of a full moon without your full dose of Wolfsbane - what were you thinking, Lupin? As much as they despise me and adore you, you have certainly come much closer to killing some of our precious pupils than I have."

The muscles in Remus' jaw tightened. "Well, Severus, if I recall correctly, you knew that it was nighttime, a full moon, and that I didn't have my potion as well as I did, yet you left the Wolfsbane in my office instead of taking it with you when you came after me. Could it just possibly be that what you saw on the map drove everything else from your mind, the same way it did me?"

"Excuses, Lupin," Snape snarled. "You are the werewolf. I wasn't your keeper then. Don't try to pawn off responsibility on me."

"You're right." Remus, feeling terribly tired all of a sudden, cursed himself quietly. That sure hadn't come out as planned. "It is a stupid excuse, and of course it was entirely my responsibility. I'm sorry. There are so many things I regret, things that I am ashamed off." He walked a few steps towards the window. "That, I think, is part of the problem. When I said I don't like you, Severus, I am afraid that was entirely the truth. Simply being around you puts me on the defensive. You have a way of reminding me of those parts of me that I am most ashamed of, all those things I would rather forget or pretend didn't exist." He turned around suddenly and faced the Potions master. "And it stings worse because I know you are right. Mea culpa. I am guilty of everything you accuse me off."

Snape was looking at him warily, eyes narrowed, obviously not quite sure what to make of that.

Taking a deep breath, Remus continued. "I have made mistakes. So have you. You know that better than most. When I used to look at you, all I could see was the Slytherin who was our enemy, that mark on your arm, the way Pettigrew escaped because you would not listen, and how unfair you were with the students." He could see Severus start to bristle and open his mouth. He quickly held up his hand. "Let me finish."

Severus closed his mouth, leaned back against the wall, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"I've seen so much more of you over the last few years," Lupin continued. "I saw that if you gave your word to do something, it would get done, no matter what it cost you. I saw how you ran yourself ragged between teaching and Order duties. How you would have given your life for Harry even though you can't stand the boy. I saw you fight in the last battle, Severus. You were amazing." He picked up the goblet, and drained the last of the potion. For a moment, he was quiet. Then he looked up at the Potions master with a crooked grin. "You're about the last person on earth I would want for a roommate, but in a fight, there is no one I would rather have by my side. I would trust you with my life." He dropped his eyes, turning the goblet around in his hands as if studying the design before looking up at the Potions master again. "In other words, I found new respect for you. And I was hoping that you would be able to see that I gave all I had, as well. I have fought to the best of my ability over the last few years, and I know that in the way I have lived my life there are things that would make you think better of me, if you would only care to look."

For a moment they faced off, eyes locked, neither of them moving.

Pictures ran through Severus' head: Lupin, looking away while his friends hexed him. Lupin, his arms branded with Pettigrew's message. Lupin, in vain reading him the riot act about stopping Occlumency lessons. Lupin, the transformed werewolf at the end of the tunnel. Lupin, volunteering immediately to help out with his father's funeral. Lupin, firing off spell after spell during the last battle. Lupin's face, ragged with concern after the trial.

"Will you think about it?" the werewolf interrupted the procession of images.

Severus' nostrils narrowed. "Don't expect miracles, Lupin."

"I won't."

Severus nodded tightly. "Very well, then. If you are finished?" He held out his hand.

"Oh, of course." Lupin handed the goblet back self-consciously. "And thank you. Again."