Night Vision

Night Vision


The forest was not Snape's natural element. Particularly not the Forbidden Forest late at night, lit only by the dubious glow of a crescent moon and the flickering flames in his companion's hand. He hated it. He hated having to duck under branches, hated how the barely-visible trees tangled his robes as he passed, how roots seemed to thrust themselves out of the ground to catch at his boots.

His companion moved with much more ease. Of course he did. Lupin belonged in the woods, especially at night. His feet were natural and silent on the forest floor, and the very trees seemed to give way to his movement. His patched robes blended into the trees, while Snape seemed to stand out in his stark black clothing. Lupin's lean body moved with a grace that seemed almost unreal. Snape found his movements compelling, and had to struggle to tear his eyes away.

"What are we looking for?" he asked, more to break the silence than anything else.

"Claw marks," Lupin said. "Check the trees. Albus said that what we're looking for probably has very long claws and teeth."

"Lovely," Snape muttered. Lupin did not reply.

Lovely indeed, traipsing around the Forbidden Forest at night with someone who - well, while not an enemy outright, was hardly a friend. Looking for something that apparently killed humans, in such a way that left them no more than featureless lumps of flayed and bloody flesh. Hogsmeade residents had appealed to the school for help, and Albus Dumbledore had decided that his staff could handle the matter. The result being that one Severus Snape and one Remus Lupin were wandering around outside. In a dark forest. With branches hitting them in the face. Looking for something that, no doubt, would be quite happy to eat them alive.

Severus Snape was hardly stupid. He knew what this was really about, and doubtless so did Lupin. Albus Dumbledore, in his infinite wisdom, had decided to send two fractious members of his staff on a mission together, in hopes that they would, by some miracle, learn to get along. Like two boys on a camping trip. As if they were mere arguing children, whose rivalry could be cooled through facing shared danger. Snape snorted. Albus did not know in the slightest what exactly he was trying to patch.

Of course, Snape wouldn't be the one to tell him.

He batted away another branch and swore as leaves tangled in his hair. "Why couldn't Hagrid sniff this creature out? He's the groundskeeper. He's even the Care of Magical Creatures teacher. This is more his job than ours. He'd probably ask Albus if he could keep it, please, it followed him home."

"True as that may be, he has no wand," Lupin said, "and therefore no magic with which to protect himself." Snape could almost see the faint smile on Lupin's face. "Now do be quiet, Severus. You might call the attention of some of the Forest's other residents."

Snape blew out an annoyed breath, knowing that he was being juvenile, and trudged onwards.

As it happened, he was the one who spotted the signs first. "There!" Two feet from the ground, claws had torn bark away to leave a raw pale slash along a young tree.

Lupin held his handful of flames closer. "Three claws," he said. "Same pattern as on the bodies. This should be the one."

Snape unstoppered a vial and sprinkled the contents on the claw marks, muttering a spell. The claw marks glowed, faintly luminescent, and then other prints along the forest floor glowed to life as well. "That way," he said unnecessarily.

Lupin extinguished his flames and set off, following the foxfire glow of the prints at their feet. Snape was right behind him, occasionally repeating the spell to reinforce it.

Lupin stopped abruptly and Snape narrowly missed running into him. "What -"

"Shh," Lupin said, and moved so that Snape could see. They stood at the entrance to a cave, black-upon-black in the night and hung about with vines. The glowing prints disappeared inside.

"I'll go see if it's at home. Stay here and back me up." Lupin began walking toward the cave.

Snape jolted forward, catching at Lupin's robes. "Wait," he blurted. "What if it hurts you - what if you can't handle -"

Lupin spared Snape one steady dark-eyed gaze and Snape let his handful of worn robes fall. Lupin moved on, face tranquil, wand arm relaxed at his side. Snape sagged back against a tree. Of course Lupin could handle it. Easy to forget, sometimes, that Lupin was more than the pathetic sickly man he appeared. Lupin was, after all, a werewolf, with all the inhuman strength and grace and invulnerability the name implied. Naturally he could take care of himself. The man didn't need to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts; he was himself an entire arsenal of Defense rolled into one.

Snape felt like an idiot and hated it. He felt superfluous, and hated that too. He covered it with a sneer, readied a few defensive spells of his own, and stood fast.

After what seemed like a very long time, Snape heard leaves rustling behind him. He whirled, wand out, and Lupin held up his hands in smiling surrender. Snape lowered his wand, fighting to keep from showing his relief. "What took you so long?" he said instead.

"It's a large cave, but it's definitely the place. Your Tracing Potion's lit up the inside of that cave completely. But the resident doesn't seem to be home."

"We'll just have to wait for it," Snape sighed. "Ungrateful little wretch. It could at least have the decency to be home so that we could kill it and get back to bed."

Lupin laughed softly, taking up guard position besides Snape. "You're showing more of a sense of humor, Severus. Don't tell me you're actually happy to be out here."

Snape realized that this was indeed the case. He remembered having fantasies of situations exactly like this, involving the two of them alone in a remote place, and felt a sudden surge of irritation. "Hardly," he said coldly. "I would rather be anywhere but here with you."

Lupin paused for a moment. "I'm sorry for that. Severus, if you want to talk about it -"

"What is there to say?"

Silence seeped between them again. "If that's the way you want it," Lupin said at length, his voice soft and neutral.

The words were so obviously meant to calm him that they had the opposite effect. "You know nothing about what I want."

"And I still won't, if you don't tell me," Lupin said with a patient reasonableness that made Snape want to hit him.

Instead, he turned away, eyes blindly searching the shadows, and lashed back with words. "Were you glad to hear that he'd escaped from Azkaban?"

From Lupin's direction came a sharp intake of breath, and Snape knew that he'd struck home. He smiled sourly into the night. "So you've been hoping your lover would come back to you after all. Tell me, do you still want him?"

When Lupin spoke, his voice was very quiet. "Sirius wasn't the person I thought he was."

The victory was bitter, but it was all he had. "You didn't answer my question."

"You're not entitled to an answer. Please concentrate on the task at hand, Severus." Lupin's voice was infuriatingly calm. Snape glared helplessly into the night.

There was no warning. Teeth flashed, sudden and white. Snape gasped and threw himself backwards, but not quickly enough to evade the claws that tore into his side and smashed him into the nearest tree.

When his vision cleared and the forest swam into focus around him, he managed to get to his feet. He did his best to ignore the searing pain from his right side. Lupin and a dark furry mass were a shifting blur of silhouettes, their fighting punctuated by low growls and tearing sounds. Snape raised his wand, helpless in the dark. "Lumos," he whispered.

The beast howled as the forest lit up around them, incandescent artificial daylight. It seemed all claws and teeth glinting in the light, and there was far too much blood spattered about the clearing. Snape pointed his wand, waiting for a clear shot. "Stupefy!"

The furry mass flew to one side and landed hard. Lupin staggered upright, gasping and bleeding from several places. He took a few steps, winced, and fell heavily to one knee.

Snape darted forward, helping him up. "Are you all right?"

"Get back," Lupin panted. He shoved a shoulder into Snape's chest, knocking them both clear of the beast's next lunge.

"Its back and legs are armored under the fur," Lupin said hoarsely as they scrambled to their feet. "I'll expose its belly. You have a Dissolving Potion, right?" Without waiting for an answer, he flung himself at the beast again.

Snape groped after vials, hating how his hands were trembling. "Lupin - Remus -"

Lupin hissed as talons raked his chest, slipping easily through flesh to hit bone. He caught the beast's front legs and shoved them apart with preternatural strength, ducking under the teeth. "Now, Severus!"

Snape flung the vial left-handed, letting it shatter against the beast's stomach. Lupin fell to the ground, rolling away and leaving a horrific smear of blood on the forest floor.

The beast howled as it separated into smaller and smaller pieces, finally ending up as a pile of dust on the ground. Snape didn't bother to watch, running over to kneel by Lupin. "God, don't move, you're hurt, you're --"

"Don't worry," Lupin breathed, trying to sit up. "Severus, you're bleeding. You should see to yourself. I'm fine."

"The hell you are! Lie down, you idiot." Snape pushed Lupin down and tore frantically at his robes, ripping them away to expose ghost-pale skin, wet and shining with blood. Then his eyes widened, and the healing spells died on his lips. The bone-deep gashes were sealing before his eyes, leaving only a network of fading red lines.

"Don't you remember anything from Defense Against the Dark Arts?" Lupin asked with a sardonic smile. "Werewolves can only be harmed by silver."

"Oh," Snape said inadequately, feeling stupid with the rags of Lupin's robes in his hands and the ebbing warmth of adrenaline in his veins.

"On the other hand..." Lupin sat up, seemingly uncaring of the fact that his robes were nothing but a ragged pool around his waist and that his chest was exposed to the night. The eerie glow of the Lumos spell slid over the planes of his torso, highlighted the tracks of myriad faint scars, and dipped into the angles of his ribs. His skin was a ghostly pale delicacy and Snape wondered what it would feel like on his fingertips. Dangerous ground. He began to turn away.

"Wait," Lupin said. He reached out and slid Snape's robes off his shoulders. His hands were gentle and considerate, and Snape fought down the sudden surge of arousal. Not now, he snapped at himself. God, not now...

"Humans," Lupin was saying, "do not have that ... fortunate ... ability." The tip of his wand slid over Snape's ribs, knitting bone and sinew back together, encouraging skin to seal over. "Go easy on your side for the next few days, Severus."

"Thank you," Snape forced himself to say, drawing his robes back up.

Lupin stood slowly, belting the bloody remains of his robes around him. His expression was invisible in the shadows. "Of course," he said. "You would have done the same for me."

"You didn't need me to," Snape said almost bitterly.

"Does it really matter?" Lupin held out a hand to help him up.

Snape did not take it, levering himself up on his own and ignoring the way his newly-healed ribs protested. "Of course it does."

Lupin said nothing.

He continued to say nothing as they walked back along the path to the school, and the silence between them grated on Snape's nerves.

He broke it deliberately. "So did you love him, after all?"

Lupin did not play coy and ask who. Lupin was not the type of person to play such games. Lupin did not even break his stride when he said, "You're just like him."

Snape stumbled. "What?"

"Sirius was the sort of person that couldn't leave well enough alone." Lupin's voice was neutral, as if he were speaking of the weather, or the curriculum for the next day's classes. "He'd seize on every scrap of information and wring you for more. Even if it didn't concern him, even if he had no right to know. Especially if he had no right to know."

"No right?" The words tore from him before he could stop them. "How can you compare us? Do you even know how much I hate him?"

Lupin stopped walking, looking down at the branches under his feet. "He hadn't meant to cause your death, that time," he said quietly. "That much I know. He had been angry, and careless. Sirius... didn't tend to think things through."

The old anger rose, and Snape let it twist his words, sharpen his voice. "Oh, but do you know what made him angry? Did he ever tell you why he did it?"

Lupin tilted his head, considering. "The two of you never liked each other," he said at length. "It wasn't like what grew between you and James. That was rivalry. But between you and Sirius..."

"It was hate," Snape said. "I hated him. I hated him because he knew, he knew I wanted... and he..." He shook his head, catching his breath, trying to bring out words that had festered quietly inside him for years. "I was jealous," he admitted. "I hated him because..."

"I know," Lupin said softly. "Because he had me."

He felt as if someone had slammed a heavy textbook into his gut. His voice, when it emerged, was hatefully faint. "You knew?"

"You mustn't blame Sirius," Lupin said, his soft tenor seeming to come from far away. "Not for being in love with me. He may have chosen me... but I chose him as well."

"You knew," Snape repeated unsteadily. Not a textbook. A cast-iron cauldron. He couldn't breathe.

Lupin had the decency to look away. "Yes. I suspected, at any rate."

Snape felt his hands curling into fists.

"I won't say that I'm sorry," Lupin said, turning to meet Snape's eyes. "But Severus, I..."

Snape jerked backwards. "Don't pity me," he spat. "Don't you dare. Not for this."

Lupin's face was unreadable.

"I could - I could tell Albus," Snape said desperately, trying to regain control. He couldn't read Lupin's expression in the dim light, and resented that Lupin could probably see him clearly. "I could tell him how you've been keeping things from him. I could tell him all about your dirty little secrets, how you and your changeling friends broke rules, sneaked out at night... endangered students..."

"Why don't you?" Lupin asked. He sounded detached.

"Why don't I? Sometimes I wonder." Snape closed his eyes. "What would you do if I did?"

"I would admit to it, of course," Lupin said. "I would apologize for having put others of the school in danger. I would also point out that we were young and foolish, and that we are older and wiser now. And that although there would be little point in censure now, I would be happy to make what amends I can." He began walking back towards the school. "It's getting late, Severus. I would like to get some sleep before morning classes start."

Snape followed. "Do you miss him?" he asked, needing to hurt and unable to stop. It was like probing at a wound, even though it was ragged-edged and bleeding, just to make sure that it still felt pain. "Do you miss having him take you, feeling him inside you? Did you do it even then, the two of you, rutting as animals in the woods? You're a wolf and he's a dog, not much difference there. I'm sure he'd be able to adapt; he never stopped at much before. Is that how you spent the werewolf energy? I used to hear the howls even through the school walls." He laughed, sharp and bitter. "Did you like it better that way? Maybe he would even let you take him, when you changed. He certainly wouldn't have as a human, no, not Sirius Black, he always needed to be in control. Is that why you won't tell Albus? Because secretly, you want him to come back, don't you, you want him to come to you in the night, to sneak into your bed and take you, to seize you and kiss you, just like he did in the school halls years ago where everyone could see --"

The stream of words was cut off abruptly by Lupin's hands at his throat. The werewolf had moved so fast that Snape hadn't even seen him coming. Lupin's slender fingers were strong and very threatening on his windpipe, and his eyes were dark and cold.

"Sirius was worth twelve of you," Lupin said in a low voice. "But he killed Lily and James. And for that I'll kill him, the moment I see him. No matter what he was to me." Lupin pulled him so close that Snape could feel the other man's breath on his face, and Lupin's next words were spoken in an intense whisper. "And none of it has anything to do with you."

One casual shove sent Snape staggering into bushes several feet away. Lupin turned his back.

When Snape regained his breath, he made his way back to Lupin's side. Silently, Lupin turned and walked back towards the school, Snape trailing behind.

Snape reviewed his words as they walked, and came to the conclusion that he had been at fault. Lupin may have had the ultimate bad taste to love Sirius Black, but Lupin hadn't been the one Snape had wanted to hurt. Of course, Snape was not the kind of person to apologize. So he shut his guilt and his self-hatred inside, letting the silence grow.

He watched Lupin's graceful stride instead, watched the shift of his body under his robes, greedy for every flash of pale skin as his shoulders and back showed through the tears in the fabric. He wondered what the slim body would be like, moving silken under his hands. Wondered if Lupin would moan softly when he was being taken, if he would make any sound at all. Wondered how that fine-featured face would look, taut with desire. Wondered, with a hopeless sort of desperation, whether it would ever look that way for him.

He hated himself for that, too.

"I'm sorry, Severus," Lupin said suddenly. His back was still turned to Snape, but his voice was mild. "I lost my temper. I shouldn't have pushed you."

Snape recognized the opening, and was grateful. "You're not the one who should be apologizing."

Lupin turned his head and met his gaze, and Snape knew that the implicit apology had been heard. For a moment he allowed himself to savor the feeling. There were so few people who actually heard what he was truly saying when he spoke.

Not mine, he reminded himself, and shut down the lingering warmth. Not ever mine, not now. He chose Sirius. And that name was shot through with years of hatred and the taste of bile, and Snape felt himself closing down again.

They returned to the school without further incident, without another word spoken between them. But Snape was acutely aware of Lupin's quiet understanding, bridging the gap between them all the way through the winding corridors into the staff wing, and he felt an abrupt jolt of separation when Lupin turned away down the hall towards his rooms.

It wasn't enough. The afterimage of Lupin's warmth seemed to follow him into his rooms and into his bed, hovering in the air, surrounding him. The werewolf's presence was as disconcertingly beautiful as woods turned silver by moonlight and it seemed to be everywhere, pressing against the walls, curling into the corners, dark and tempting and fiercely warm. Lupin's faint smile hovered behind Snape's eyelids and teased at his memory. In the silence of his mind, Lupin's soft voice whispered endearments, promises, entreaties... oh god Severus please... now...

Snape fought. He's a werewolf, he whispered to himself, bitter reminder. It's wrong. It's disgusting. He is disgusting. But this was too far from the actual truth and he had to turn to other truths, closer to the heart and more powerful, more painful, like the fact that he never loved you. You're nothing to him. You're pathetic. He chose Sirius Black, that bastard. He still wants Black, even after all these years but then it inevitably melded into the equally shameful just as I still want him, even after all these years and he had to start all over again.

He was too tired. He gave in eventually, as he always did, reaching into his robes, between his legs. He thrust his hips upward into his hands and let go... and Lupin was there, tight and slick and hot around him and almost painful in his perfection. His lashes were closed tightly over dark young-old eyes as he arched backwards, his body pliant and needy, moving in urgent rhythm. His mouth was open, moaning softly.

The moans turned into hitching gasps. Lupin cried out his name, and everything shuddered apart.

When Snape recovered his breath, he turned his face into the pillow. The cloth around his legs was turning cool and sticky, and he ignored it. Dawnlight was beginning to ghost along the treetops outside, and he ignored that too. He concentrated instead on imagining strong slender arms about his chest, and a soft voice whispering breathless endearments against his skin.

If this was all he was going to get, damn if he wouldn't savor it.