Too Good to be True

Stretched on the bed at nr.12, Grimmauld Place, Remus Lupin stared at the strip of ceiling that remained visible through the half-closed curtains. A crack he couldn't remember having seen before ran across the plastering, a thin, ragged line beginning and ending outside his narrow field of vision.

Yet another crack. It must have come into existence the moment his own heart had cracked again in the Ministry of Magic, Remus told himself. So little that lasted - neither friendship, nor love, nor even the satisfaction of doing something he was good at. He loved children, though he could never have any of his own, yet even the joy of teaching and tutoring them had been ripped from him. How much more cracks would his heart be able to take before it would finally fall apart like an overused earthenware mug?

Tomorrow night the moon would be full for the first time since the Veil. No Padfoot. Nevermore Padfoot. Moony had been without him for twelve years and survived, but feeling such loss again was more dreadful, the way torture is a more terrible threat to those who have experienced it before.

He told himself that Sirius had died because he had come to his godson's rescue. He told himself that Sirius had been desperately unhappy being involuntarily confined in the house he had fled as a teenager, a Gryffindor boy in a Slytherin household. It did not help. He told himself that Sirius had been a hunted man, and that falling through the Veil was infinitely much better than getting caught and receiving the Dementor's kiss. He told himself that Sirius was haunted beyond redress by his memories of Azkaban, and by his knowledge that his actions had led to the death of James and Lily Potter. He told himself that Sirius was at peace now, delivered from all the evils that had haunted him and threatened to destroy him.

It did not help much.

It was unfair. It should have been Sirius who rescued James' and Lily's son. (Harry, poor Harry, who had lost three parents now. The Boy Who Lived but who was not allowed a life. Remus cringed and concentrated on Sirius again.) Sirius had deserved to be vindicated. Sirius should have had the chance to heal. Life had owed him that much.

But life seldom kept its promises. And he, Remus Lupin, had been powerless. Worse - he had survived again. And the worst thing was, that part of him was relieved he did not longer have to deal with all the misery that had poured out of Sirius during the last year. Relieved to be free of the pain he felt whenever he looked at those sorry remains of strength, beauty and resilience. It was a dark sentiment, he thought. The sentiment of a werewolf, and he loathed himself for it.

What if I don't take the Wolfsbane potion this moon?

he thought. He could ask the other members of the Order who were at Grimmauld Place to lock him up in one of the cellars; the doors were thick and the windows small, with heavy bars. He would not be able to escape. In his frenzy he would hurt himself, gnaw at his own limbs, bite to the bone maybe, like he used to do before the other three Marauders had learned to become Animagi and their presence dampened his bloodthirsty ferocity.

It would be bad, afterwards, but physical agony was what he wanted.

When he had reached this conclusion, he was disturbed by someone rapping viciously on the door to his room. It was not until he heard the snarling voice say 'Lupin! Open this door or you'll be sorry yet!' that he decided to drop the wards after all.

The door opened. With a conscious effort, Remus reached up to pull aside the bed-curtains a little further. In the middle of the room he saw the rigid form of Severus Snape, the goblet with a vial of dark green glass in his right hand and a goblet in his left.

'Mrs Weasley told me you were here,' he said with his usual sneer. He put the goblet on the table in the middle of the room, poured the contents of the vial into it and tapped it twice with his wand. Wisps of smoke curled towards the ceiling and evaporated. 'Your medicine, Lupin.' He pocketed the vial. 'Take it, so I can return to my dungeons to attend to important matters.'

Remus made himself sit up. 'Thank you, Severus. Please put it on my bedside table. I'll drink it presently.'

'I want to see you drink it. You have been known to... forget it.'

So he had - once, two years ago, towards the end of his teaching year at Hogwarts. Undoubtedly, Snape would continue to rub it in until one of them was dead, and possibly even after. Remus stared at the Potions Master.

The Potions Master stared back. His lips tightened, and his right hand disappeared beneath his black robes.

'There's no need to draw your wand,' Remus told him. 'I'm not threatening you.'

Snape's hand remained where it was. 'There was a time when you would have slaughtered me.'

There was no way Remus was going to point out it wasn't his fault Sirius had sent Snape to the Shrieking Shack, more than twenty years ago. To him, that part of the past was as dead as- 'And I would have been put down,' he retorted. 'Yet here we are, both of us. We are still alive Get over it.'

Snape bared his teeth in a vicious sneer. 'I. Want. My goblet back. Werewolf! Drink. It. NOW.'

At that point, Remus realised his plan had a flaw. Snape would never leave until he had seen him swallow the bitter draught. So, unless he wanted to create a major upheaval, Remus could not refuse to drink in the presence of the man who disliked Lupin, loathed and feared the werewolf, and hated the fact that he had to brew the Wolfsbane potion for him. Very well,' he said at last. 'You know you won't have to use the Imperius curse to make me drink it, so you can take your hand out of there.' He could smell the other man's unease.

Severus Snape vainly tried to kill him with a look, and his right hand remained where it was. He held out the goblet at arm's length, by the stem, so as to avoid direct contact with the werewolf's hand. Paw, Remus thought. That's how he sees it, ever since the Shrieking Shack incident. He can't see the man, only the beast. He suppressed a sigh, and taking the goblet and raising it to his lips he emptied it quickly, prepared for the nausea and the impulse to regurgitate what had to be the foulest tasting liquid in the wizarding world.

To his utter surprise, the potion didn't even taste half as bad as polyjuice. In fact, it was almost palatable.

This can't be right

, Remus Lupin thought. This is too good to be true.

'The goblet,' said Snape.

'Severus,' Remus began hesitantly, ignoring the command, 'are you certain...'

'... that I want the goblet back? Of course I am,' Snape said softly. 'Lupin, I know your brains are still addled after the sudden, be it not untimely demise of the love of your life.' His voice rose. 'Yet even you ought to be able to remember something I said a mere minute before!'

Snape's words were exactly what Remus needed to overcome his hesitation. 'Are you certain,' he repeated, 'that you didn't make a mistake? Your potion seems to have lost the beastly taste required to remind me of my... condition.'

'Use your brains. I do not make mistakes.' There was an unpleasant glint in Snape's hard, dark eyes. 'But do pray, Lupin, that anger and disgust will not cause my hand to shake, next time I add some vital ingredient to a highly qualified brew that none but me are able to make. The consequences could be dire to all involved. It could jeopardise the Order.'

'You are far too responsible to lapse so badly, Severus.' Remus found his smile back. 'Thank you once more for seeing to my needs.' He handed the goblet back to a livid Snape, whose pallid complexion was enlivened by two burning spots in the vicinity of his cheekbones. The next moment, with a swirl of his robes, he stalked out of the room.

Remus' smile disappeared as well, to be replaced by a frown. The Wolfsbane potion had tasted different, no matter what its maker claimed. Dismissing the thought that the potion had been tampered with - if that had been his intention, Snape would have seen to it that the taste didn't change - he reached the conclusion that the Hogwarts Potions Master had made an error, but was too damned proud to admit it. And knowing there was no way Remus Lupin would take the risk of sitting down quietly and waiting to see what would happen, Snape had left - just like that.

The responsibility would be his, and his alone. But had it ever been otherwise? And it was not as if this was unwelcome - he had considered refusing the potion anyway, had he? That it was less of a choice now to let the others lock him away shouldn't make a difference. And if he turned out to be harmless - well, maybe he would be less willing to hurt himself, next time the moon was full.

Remus Lupin sighed. Outside, the summer sun was low in the western sky. He would descend to the kitchen and see if dinner was ready.

***

'In the cellar?' Molly Weasley had cried, and he had not known if it was fear, or pity he heard in her voice, or both. Others, especially Tonks, had doubted the necessity of such a precaution. But Mad-Eye Moody, only too willing to distrust the former Death Eater Snape and the world in general, had thought it a good idea. It would not do to take risks. 'It will probably be just this once,' he had grunted, and Remus had agreed. Just this once.

The sound of the cellar door being closed and locked had something definite, which he dismissed as a product of his hypersensitive imagination, so close to moonrise. The dark sky was cloudless: nothing to obscure the bane of his existence. Slowly, he began to undress. He folded his clothes meticulously and pushed them through the bars of the small cellar window to prevent the beast from tearing them to shreds, should it prove untamed. He couldn't afford to lose a single garment. Especially not Molly's home-knit jumper, the only garment he'd ever accepted as a present, because coming from her it wasn't charity. Being fussed over was acceptable.

Remus raised his wrists to his face, and despite the gloom his sharp eyes could discern the softly gleaming scars. It was years ago he had last faced the moon without the Wolfsbane potion, and the scars had grown less vivid. But he knew they would never disappear, and he wondered if there would be new ones, after tonight. He shivered a little; it was July, but no summer heat would ever penetrate into these dank depths of the ancient house of the Black family. The ancient, extinct house of Black.

He blinked, but it was no use; he still hadn't found a way to tempt his tears into flowing.

Suddenly, the cellar floor was flooded with light - and he went rigid, feeling the familiar pain tug at his sinews, bones and muscles. Remus Lupin crouched, and his human cries of agony slowly changed into something darker.

The grating noise of the door being unbarred and unlocked roused Remus from his post-transformation stupor. Pale daylight entered through the narrow window. He realised he was lying naked on the stone floor - and no Padfoot to keep him warm. He shivered, chilled to the bone.

The door opened slowly to reveal Molly Weasley, hesitating on the threshold. A dressing gown was draped across her left arm, while her right hand firmly clasped her wand, as if danger still lurked in the shadowy corners of the cellar. She looked tired, as if she hadn't had much sleep that night.

'You won't need your wand, Molly,' Remus croaked, realising he had a sore throat.

'Sorry,' she murmured, slipping it into the pocket of her apron with an almost furtive gesture. 'I forgot to put it away. It wasn't you.'

He assumed the door had been locked by more than bolts and keys alone. A sensible precaution; what right did he have to feel hurt?

'You were howling,' she went on, her tone apologising. 'Most of the night. We had to silence Mrs Black more than once.'

Had he been howling all the time? That would explain both his sore throat and Molly's weariness. But no, he was fooling himself: he knew she was speaking the truth; he remembered it only too well. The wolf doing what the man could not.

Suddenly, it occurred to him that he was still naked. With some effort he turned away from Molly, pulling up his knees. She chuckled. 'Remus, I have a husband and six sons - you haven't got anything I haven't seen before.' The next moment, he heard her gasp. 'You didn't bite or scratch yourself! There's no blood. So the potion worked, after all?'

He did not need to look at his wrists to know she was right. He had howled like the beast he had been that night but apparently the beast had not lusted for blood. That was strange - or was it? He closed his eyes, trying to clear his head.

Molly's footsteps came closer. 'But what am I thinking,' she cried, 'leaving you on the cold floor just like that! We'll have to get you upstairs, dear!' When Remus struggled to rise she bent down to help him up and into the dressing gown, ignoring his protests that he needed no assistance.

'We' turned out to be Molly herself and Mundungus Fletcher, who had come to Grimmauld Place to snatch a second breakfast. He told Remus they ought to have provided him with something to lie on, and he happened to know just the right thing, in case another emergency should occur, and no, it wasn't expensive, and easy to come by. Molly declined without even asking Remus if he'd wanted to lie on a stolen rug. From under the staircase to the first floor, Kreacher was glaring at them. Another dark creature, Remus thought. And they couldn't give him the sock.

Some time later, lying in the large bed, alone, Remus Lupin tried to align his thoughts. The Wolfsbane potion had worked well enough to keep him from mutilating himself, and the howling had been his own choice. But it had definitely not tasted like it used to do. I'm not going insane, he told himself. The potion had been different; there was no way Snape was going to convince him otherwise.

Must speak with Severus, next month,

he mused before drifting off to sleep.

***

In his dream, Snape appeared - Apparated? - in the same spot as before, with the same goblet in his hand. It has to be because I wanted to ask him about the content.

'Sit up, Lupin,' said Snape. 'You will not spill the results of my hard labour by attempting to ingest this while on your back.'

At least it seemed to be a fairly realistic dream; Snape was in character. 'Hard labour?' Remus murmured. 'I thought you loved concocting potions?' His throat still hurt a little.

'But I do not like wasting my time on werewolves. Sit, Lupin.'

'Sit is what you say to a dog,' Remus said hoarsely. Though I'm convinced Padfoot would have been the last to obey you. Not that obedience had ever been Padfoot's forte. Remus flinched. 'All the same, I'll take this horizontally so as to avoid soiling the bed linens with your brew.' He made an effort to rise.

'I should think every inch of this bed would be soiled many times over,' Snape said venomously. He took a few steps towards Remus. 'Here. Take it.'

'Would you be so kind to put it on the bedside table?'

'Procrastinating again - one would almost think you like becoming a mindless, bloodthirsty beast.' Snape's eyes narrowed. 'Yes, I think that's what you want, deep in your heart - set the murderous wolf loose to kill. You and Black were well matched.' He held the cup under Remus' nose. 'Drink!'

'You know that neither Sirius nor I ever killed anyone, Severus. And I won't drink this,' said Remus, 'until I know what you've mixed into it to alter the taste, though I must admit it seems to work regardless.'

'At least you have the sense to ask about it now, instead of assuming I make mistakes,' Snape said, looking down his nose at the werewolf. 'I've been experimenting, what did you think?' But he did put the potion beside the bed.

This conversation was entirely too predictable. It occurred to him that maybe he wasn't dreaming after all, though his surroundings seemed blurred enough for a dream. Snape, on the other hand, seemed as real as he could be - which in itself was unreal enough now that Remus came to think of it. And he resented the man for disturbing his much-needed afternoon nap. He felt exhausted. Tired as after the roughest of transformations. Tired of everything. 'Trying to kill me slowly?' he said, unable to suppress a yawn.

'Naturally,' the Potions Master retorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm. 'The strongly improved taste is merely a cover for the more harmful elements. It's gratifying to find you so perceptive at last, Mr Lupin. Five points to Gryffindor.'

Remus picked up the goblet, noticing meanwhile that his wand was also on the bedside table. He took a sip. Still too good to be true, and he didn't feel the slightest inclination to throw up. 'I take it that you did remember to add enough silver, Severus?' he asked. 'To make it live up to the name of Wolf's Bane?'

'Are you attempting to insult my intelligence, Lupin?'

'Merely trying to make sure your mercy kill will not founder on some minor detail,' Remus took another sip, savouring the taste and thinking he could actually come to like it this way. 'I guess this is because of what happened at the Ministry? You realised my heart broke once again and decided to put me out of my misery?'

The other nodded - a bit jerkily, Remus noticed, and if that look was meant to be a glare it failed to live up to Snape's intentions. He emptied the goblet and put it back on the table, gazing at his wand and seeing Snape go rigid from the corner of his eye. 'You know, Severus,' he said mildly, 'I believed you, all those times you assured me that making it palatable was impossible without spoiling the effectivity of the potion.'

'When we attended Hogwarts, you were hardly better at potions than Longbottom is now.' Snape shrugged, a gesture that seemed almost magnanimous given his usual demeanour. 'I knew you'd never be able to give me the lie.' He straightened, and his tone became acrid again. 'So, Lupin, are you done interrogating me? I'd like to return to my dungeons.'

Did you ever leave them?

Remus wanted to ask. Instead, he nodded. 'I know. 'You have important matters to attend to, and it's not as if I could ever thank you enough for all your efforts on my behalf. You are really too good, Severus,' he added after a brief pause. 'Fifty points to Slytherin.'

Snape's jaw clenched, but he did not deign to reply. The next moment, he Disapparated.

Remus lay down on the bed, feeling light-headed, knowing he would doze off soon. Poor Severus - the instant Snape would show himself to be merciful would be the instant when the full moon would turn into a boggart, instead of the other way around.

He laughed softly, despite everything. One day, he thought, one day I shall ask him to concoct a potion that will kill a werewolf painlessly... a painkiller for a werewolf without a pack... no silver blade or bullet... just a slow potion... no more howling at the moon... but laughing at together with Sirius...

...but not as long as there are battles to be fought...

It was his last thought before he fell into an oblivion that most people would call merciful. Perhaps even Severus Snape, deep down in the dungeon of his own heart.

Finite incantatem