The Heart of Night

Heart of the Night

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Heal Yourself

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1 Night, part II

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"This won't heal properly," Madam Pomfrey said as she wiped off the dried blood from his wounds. "You'll have nasty scars from this, Severus."

"I know," Severus hissed, shifting a bit to get onto a more comfortable position on the bed he was sitting on. "I know werewolf bites never heal nor can be cleared." He glanced at Lupin, who was sitting on another bed, still trembling. "And if I hear any more crap about your guiltiness, I'll hex you out of your skin," he promised angrily. He had enough to deal with already. He didn't need a self-blaming werewolf added to his problems.

Another werewolf. He'd better get used to that thought.

Almost immediately after Madam Pomfrey had got the last of his lingering wounds healed, three Ministry officials walked in to the Infirmary, wearing plain black robes. Headmaster Dumbledore glanced inside the Infirmary through the door as if going to come in, but then seemed to think better of it, and disappeared from sight.

"Who are you?" asked the first of the officials. He threw a stern glance towards Madam Pomfrey, then at Lupin, and at last settled on watching Severus. "And who's the one who was bitten?"

"Severus here was bitten," Madam Pomfrey hasted to say. "I am Poppy Pomfrey, the mediwitch of the school."

"I am Remus Lupin," said Lupin, not taking his eyes from the floor. "A registered werewolf for thirty-two years. My registration number is 124705."

At this, the official raised his eyebrows with a sharp glance to the golden-haired man's direction, but didn't comment on that. "At first, I have some questions," he said instead, turning again towards Severus. "Name, age, and current position?"

"Severus Snape, thirty-six, the Potions Master of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he answered automatically.

"Good." The official wrote the information down. "Bit last night."

"Right." He nodded.

"Part of body you were bitten on?"

"Left arm."

"The person the bite was received from, if known?"

"Not known," Severus lied without batting an eyelid. Remus raised his eyes from the floor, watching him intently, a look of slight surprise on his face. The fool. What did he take Severus for?

"What did the werewolf look like? Did you manage to get any observations?"

"From what I gathered he was male, rather large, and dark brown - almost black," the Potions Master continued lying. He knew perfectly well that Lupin's wolf form was relatively small for a werewolf and light, golden brown. Just as well he knew that the Ministry had knowledge about that, too. He was determined to save the other werewolf from the consequences of Voldemort's evilness - partly because of the man himself, partly because he knew Potter would have freaked out if Lupin had been executed. Not to mention that he knew the Dark Lord would be delighted if he knew that he'd managed to turn Severus against his allies, and he would kill himself rather than give the bastard that satisfaction.

After a few questions more, the official nodded. "I think all the basic information is gathered. We'll add you into our registries."

"We need an official verification first," the second official reminded. "Madam Pomfrey, could you...?"

The mediwitch nodded, gathering her equipment. She drew some blood from Severus's right arm, putting it into a test-tube. Then Poppy added some purple liquid to the blood. It immediately began to change into a silvery colour.

"Lycanthropy - positive," she said with a very quiet voice, holding out the test tube to the officials to see.

"I see," the first official said. Then he turned his attention to Severus. "Mr. Snape, could you please expose your neck?"

Severus nodded in understanding. He had seen the tattoo in Lupin's neck sometimes when the other man had worn his hair on a ponytail in the Order meetings. He bent his head down, wiping the hair off his neck.

The one official that hadn't said a word stepped forward and placed the tip of his wand on Severus's neck. The Potions Master heard some quiet incantation and felt a cold shiver going through his spine. Then something burned his neck, and after a moment, the official removed his wand from his skin.

"Done," he reported to the first official, who seemed to be their boss.

"Okay. We will add your information to our registries immediately, Mr. Snape. Your registration number is 149236." He put the papers back to his case, then bowed slightly. "Goodbye, Mr. Snape." Then they left the room in just as tidy line as they had come in.

Severus rubbed absent-mindedly his neck. He didn't feel anything special under his fingers, but he knew that the magical tattoo was there, and would be. A wolf's head, silver with black lining. Cannot be removed. If placed on a child, will grow along with them. Immutable in every meaning of the word.

He was marked for life now.

"I'm sorry, Severus." Lupin, of course. The brunet sat beside him on the bed, placing a hand on his arm in concern. "I'm so sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about," he muttered. "I've said this already, Lupin, and I will say it again until you get it to your stony head: This is not your fault. There was nothing you could have done. The only one to be blamed for this is Voldemort." His Slytherin mind screamed against it all, told that it was Lupin's fault, that he should yell and rage at Lupin and turn him in to the Ministry.

But he couldn't. He simply couldn't, because that was exactly what Voldemort would have wanted him to do.

Just like he'd expected, it didn't take long from the Headmaster to show up when the officials had left. "Ah, Albus," he said as the ancient wizard appeared to the room, watching both him and Lupin concernedly. "Do you already have a new Potions Professor in mind?"

"What do you mean?" asked Albus, trying to look confused. Damn the man, he knew perfectly well what Severus meant.

"I can't possibly continue in my teaching position," the Slytherin said dryly. "If you don't fire me, I'll leave myself. There's no way a known werewolf could teach the students."

"You can't leave, Severus," Albus said, crumbling his eyebrows. "You know very well we need a Potions Master to teach Potions, and all the others are already occupied. We can get somebody good enough for a substitute for the times of full moon. Remus could very well teach back then, remember?"

"I won't stay," Severus said stubbornly. He couldn't. After practically forcing Lupin to leave, every hint of his pride would be gone if someone found out he was a werewolf himself, and teaching. Not to mention that it was dangerous to the students, even with the Wolfsbane Potion, and no matter how badly they probably thought about him, he didn't want to endanger them.

Then a sudden thought hit his head. "I won't stay," he repeated, "unless..."

"Unless what?" Albus asked, a little twinkle in his eyes. An old bumbling fool, that he was. Severus didn't understand why he had to say it at all, seeing that Albus clearly knew it already. He said it nevertheless.

"Unless you give Lupin the DADA position," he finished his sentence, locking his eyes at the Headmaster. He ignored Lupin's surprised breath, concentrating only at the man in front of him. "I know that you don't have a teacher for next year."

"Well... I think that can be arranged," the old wizard smiled. "So you will stay?"

"If Lupin teaches DADA, I will." Then he thought of something else as well. "I need someone to remove all silver equipment from the Potions classroom. And a substitute for those lessons the students are supposed to handle silver on."

"Will happen," Albus said, nodding thoughtfully. He got on his feet. "I'll go and see that everything runs smoothly." Then he said a quick goodbye and left. On the door he still looked over his shoulder, saying. "And Remus... Don't blame yourself." Then he was gone.

"See?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "If even he says it wasn't your fault, then it isn't."

"Thank you," Lupin said quietly. "Thank you. The Headmaster of course keeps sure that I have a job in the Order, but I don't think I'd have got my position here back without your request."

"Doesn't matter," he shrugged. "We're in the same boat now, after all. I think we'd better get used to cooperate." Then he smirked. "Besides, I was the reason you got fired in the first place. Can you imagine what everyone would think if I was against your hiring because you're a werewolf and then continued teaching, being one myself?"

Lupin chuckled. "A lot of mess, I suppose."

He rolled his eyes. "A hell of headlines. I can see it in my mind - 'Werewolf professors fighting to be the alpha wolf of Hogwarts!'"

Lupin snickered cheerfully. "Exactly," he said with a smile. "Something insufferable."

Severus felt satisfied. He had got enough of the gloomy Lupin. He was doing his best to stay calm himself, for elseway he'd have lost his sanity. If he could get Lupin cheer up at least a bit, maybe he could cope with this at least for some time.

But how long that time would be, he didn't know. He honestly didn't know.