Lionsnake Manor

Lionsnake Manor

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Post-Coital Reactions

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Lucius lay on his back on the wide bed, his long, sweaty hair clinging to his equally sweaty shoulders. He was lazily combing Remus's hair. The werewolf was lying with his head on Lucius's chest and, just like the blond, completely spent by now, as the antidote's effect on them started to wear out.

Lucius loved Remus. Of course he loved all his husbands, but right now, only Remus was there -- and only Remus would be there for the next few nights, as Remus could not stand anybody else in their bed right now, and he wouldn't even dream of leaving Remus alone. That would not do, not when he'd got the honour of being Remus's mate through the full moon that month. Most probably his other husbands wouldn't even have had anything to do with him if he'd abandoned Remus in such a situation and went to the others to seek more pleasure. Only that nobody could give him a greater pleasure than the one he got from Remus, just like nobody could replace Sirius, or Severus, or Harry, or Draco. They were all equally important to him -- all much more important to him than his own life.

But right now, his mind was full of only the thought of loving Remus.

However, suddenly, the werewolf stirred. Then he sat up with a jolt, seemingly having nothing like his usual post-coital sleepiness. Lucius raised a questioned eyebrow, at first in wonder, then in concern as he saw the grimace on his lycanthropic husband's face.

"The pre-full moon symptoms are hitting in," said Remus quietly. "It feels like my stomach was in fire!"

Lucius sighed in genuine concern. Then he leant forward, rising halfly from where he just lay, and pulled Remus in a comforting hug. He knew, they all knew, that the few days before and after any full moon were really difficult to Remus, and in many ways. Not only he had to settle on just one mate at time, but also his body went through some horrible things -- to "adjust", the specialists had said at St. Mungo's, to "recover". They'd said it could not be helped, and had claimed that to be true, even after Sirius had lost his undoubtedly short patience and attacked the nearest mediwitch, demanding her to heal Remus immediately. However, stomach cramps where one of the most frequent symptoms -- not to mention most painful, and most distracting. Whenever they hit, Remus could not concentrate on anything else but them. To be honest, Remus could do pretty little else but double over in pain.

"Try to stand it, love," Lucius murmured, stroking the werewolf's back in a soothing manner. "Just a few days more, and it will all be gone again."

"I know," whispered Remus through clenched teeth, his face now a mask of pain. "And I try, but -- but it just hurts. A lot. It hurts a lot."

Sighing deep, Lucius drew him into a comforting embrace. There was nothing else the mate of each month could do to help Remus but hold him close and talk sweetly to him. Remus couldn't take any painkillers, as mixing other potions with Wolfsbane could be dangerous. Until then he'd even skipped the Dark Plague antidote around the full moon, but just recently Severus had managed to prove that the two potions used together wouldn't have any too dangerous side-effects. Side-effects the mixed use might have, some even harmful, but nothing dangerous that wouldn't go away after the full moon.

So, Lucius now tried to comfort his husband. He wasn't really good at it -- Harry and Sirius, along with Remus, were the best comforters in their family, after all, they were Gryffindors -- but for Remus, he did his best. And seemingly that was enough, as Remus soon sat back up and leant against him, even though his arms were still wrapped around his stomach and he shivered every now and then as a new shock of pain hit him.

Lucius sat there, greatly enjoying the feel of Remus's naked back against his chest while murmuring comforting words -- a tiger cannot get rid of its stripes, and he'd always been fond of practically any physical contact, even if it didn't have any ulterior motives. Anyway, they both were now comfortable -- well, Remus was as comfortable as he could be in the current situation.

And thus, everything was good and well for a little while.

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Severus lay on his back on the big bed in the Master bedroom. Three of his soulmates lay beside him, all in different states of sleep. However, Severus was feeling rather brisk, like he always was after sex. In that aspect he was very different from all his husbands -- most of them fell asleep almost immediately after having sex, no matter what time of the day it was, and even though Lucius didn't do that, he was usually very unwilling to move an inch more than he absolutely had to. So, not wanting to face the consequences of waking any of them, Severus decided to use his extra energy on thinking.

He was still worried about what effects the Dark Plague antidote and the Wolfsbane Potion might have together. Both were his own creation, and he knew them like his own hands. He'd checked and cross-checked every ingredient in them that might affect something else before allowing Remus to use both at the same time. Those cross-effective ingredients did not form any potion or poison he knew -- and there weren't many that he didn't know -- other than one simple concoction that might cause him a headache, which was a familiar thing to Remus around the full moon anyway.

Still, he couldn't help but be worried. There were, after all, some potions that he indeed didn't know, as he'd never studied them more carefully. He knew the basics for everything, but the complex recipes and cross-referenced ingredient lists he should have known to be sure about the side-effects he did not know for everything. Usually he wouldn't have allowed the mixed use without being absolutely sure that there would be no surprises, but as he'd seen his husbands' growing concern about Remus possibly catching the Dark Plague around some full moon, he'd finally given a permission to using both potions at the same time.

Still, there were doubts in his mind. What if there was something he hadn't thought about? None of the potions he didn't know were harmful -- in Voldemort's service he'd learnt every poison, antidote and any harmful concoction available -- but there could be some surprising side-effects he'd rather avoid.

The Slytherin's sharp mind started to go through the potions he hadn't thought he'd need. Well, there were some rare ones for "female problems" -- the basic cures for those he of course knew -- that he'd never had any need for. Then there were some potions that had only an amusing effect, like turning their drinker's skin another colour -- foolish things, he'd never cared to look into those more carefully than he needed to recognize one before he'd be fooled into drinking them. And of course there were some simple potions that didn't belong to the student curriculum and he'd never bothered learning because of their easiness, and love potions -- all illegal and mostly ineffective -- and...

Suddenly he sat up with a startle. It could not be true, could it? Most probably it wouldn't be, he was worried for nothing -- but he had to check. He absolutely had to check.

Getting up from the bed, in too much hurry to even try to avoid shaking any of his husbands awake, Severus practically ran towards the door of the bedroom. He stopped for a moment to pull on his robe from the floor, even though he didn't bother with other clothes -- nobody but possibly his husbands would be there to see his nakedness so that didn't really matter, but the Manor could be really chilly sometimes -- and rushed to the corridor.

It took him mere minutes to reach his personal library. It was a small room, filled from floor to ceiling with books about potions, and potions only. The only larger collection of that kind of books in the whole country -- in most of Europe, even -- was in the Hogwarts school library. Pulling several books down from the shelves and spreading them to the desk in the middle of the room, Severus started to quickly glance through the recipes.

Halfway through the second book, he was beginning to slowly relax. Nothing seemed to be wrong. Some of the potions were near to the combination of cross-effective ingredients in the potions he was concerned about, but none were near enough to matter. So, there was seemingly no reason to panic like he'd done.

However, as his eyes darted down the next recipe, he suddenly froze. Then the book fell from his hands to the desk with a small thud as Severus himself fell backwards, in a dead faint.

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