Howling Lesson

"What?" Severus tried to keep his voice down, but at least five heads turned to stare at him.

Remus threw a reassuring smile around before he, too, looked at Severus, who didn't seem to be bothered by the attention in the slightest. "You alright?"

"No, I'm not! He ... destroyed your ... your whole life, and you owe him for that?"

"Not my whole life. Parts of it. But -"

"Whatever! You live in constant fear of the moon, of other people's prejudice, of yourself, of -"

"Is that how you see me?"

"I didn't think I need to tell you, but: No. But that doesn't mean that -"

"So will you shut up for two seconds and let me explain?"

Severus crossed his arms pointedly and put on a deliberately silent expression. He nevertheless managed to include a glare, and Remus was pretty sure that the tantrum would only be delayed, not cancelled.

"Tobias is ... he has saved my life."

"Has he now?"

"Yes, he has." Remus ignored Severus' attempt on sarcasm. He knew the mechanism by now, glare and all. "You are right - being a werewolf is nothing you learn to live with in a hurry. You have to deal with the pain and the hate for the rest of your life. And most of the time you have to do it alone."

He paused and looked around the room.

"Thirty years ago it was worse. They didn't build Shrieking Shacks for you - they could send you to Azkaban only for being a werewolf. And if you bit someone they ... werewolves were classified Magical Creatures, so they could be - disposed of if considered dangerous. No human, no trial. I was six. I was playing and I ran away into the forest. I got lost, so I had to spend the night on my own. I wasn't even scared, I had been outside all time when I was a child. I remember falling asleep, and when I woke up ... everything felt different. But I had no idea what had happened - or why I was feeling like this. You just know that something hurt you because you remember the pain. And there are no physical signs to prove anything - no bruises, no scars, not a scratch, because your wounds have closed. Sometimes people simply went home after they were bitten without realising what had happened to them - what they had become. Or on the rare occasions when someone put two and two together, they ignored it, out of shock or embarassment. And after another month they ended up killing their families or friends or whoever they were with at the moment of the transformation."

Remus scanned the crowd again as if he was searching for something.

"If Tobias had left me behind like most of the werewolves used to do back then ... I could have killed my parents. Or someone else. But he took me home the next day. Explained everything and told them what they had to do. And he stayed with me during my first transformations."

"He better had. It was his bloody fault after all," Severus hissed through still clenched teeth.

"No it wasn't. It wasn't his fault he was bitten. And it wasn't his fault I got lost in the woods. But - it was his responsibility to look after me. I think that's a difference. Only few werewolves realise that. I only understood it years afterwards. You start to think of yourself as something horrible, a bad person, because other people think that, because if you had been good and decent you would never have been cursed like this. You don't realise at first that it's something that was done to you. My parents never forgave Tobias. But he was only sixteen himself and they didn't turn him in. Partly because they knew I needed his help, partly, I think, because they couldn't take a life out of revenge. You know what I mean?"

"Yes ... I do."

Remus stayed silent and Severus thought that he should say more. He gazed at him, but Remus shook his head with a faint smile.

"So this is the lamentable story of how Remus Jacob Lupin became a werewolf."

"Jacob? I didn't know that."

Remus laughed, and took up the offer, glad that there wouldn't be a tantrum after all. "Do you have a second nam-"

"No!"

Remus smirked. "Come on. I show you mine - you show me yours."

"I'm not telling. Just because you've done that lengthy lecture doesn't mean I have to join the revealing-your-past therapy session."

"Then I'll guess. Justus!"

"Oh, please!"

"Kurt!

...Knut?

Rockford? ...

FELIX!"

"It's ALISTAIR for God's sake. Satisfied?"

Remus shot him a puzzled look. "Alistair? Why didn't you want to tell? That's ... not a bad name."

"It's my father's name." Severus' face closed off completely and Maliva Packler chose this moment to enter the little stage on the far end of the room.

"Ladies and Gentleman!" she boomed, and everyone fell silent expectantly.

Remus wasn't exactly sad about the change of subject - and proceeded to feel guilty about that immediately. It wasn't like he didn't want to know about those things, on the contrary. But Severus had never spoken of his family before, and by the look of it, the mentioning of a mere name had brought as many unpleasent memories to him as Remus' own monologue had done for himself.

***

Packler had managed to make a remarkably short speech this time. She declared the buffet was now, despite several individuals' earlier attempts to nick the chocolate, officially opened and that everyone should please feel free to take his or her share of Wolfsbane Potion as well. After this the chatter returned with double intensity and Remus flopped tiredly on a chair. It would take an eternity before he would get his cup.

"What do you say? Shall I get the potion for you and something to eat?" Severus said with unexpected joviality.

Remus frowned. "I say: huh?"

"You did hear about the chocolate? I remember you told me all about that. See, I'm learning."

"Y-es." Remus' frown deepened. This was so ... out of character.

"I'll be back in minute." And with that he took off to be swallowed by the crowd, leaving Remus open-mouthed. Well, wherever that had come from, he hoped there was more. But to be honest - he didn't think that Severus would be like this forever. He didn't even think it would last five minutes. And he wasn't sure he would like it that way.

After what seemed surprisingly less than eternity, Severus returned with two full plates and one smoking cup. One plate he had packed with chocolate of all kinds. The second one displayed some carefully arranged vegetables. Remus blinked.

"I had more chocolate but they snatched it from the plate on my way back. What is it that drives wolves mad like this?" He looked like he wanted to say more, but instead slumped against the wall, catching his breath.

Remus quickly took the things out of his hands and placed them on a table. "What's wrong?" And as if his question had given some secret cue, Severus clutched a hand to his forehead and over his eyes, letting out a painful sound.

"Severus!"

"It's Tobias and it's alright. It's nothing, just ... I felt funny for a moment."

"You sure acted funny." Remus removed Severus' hand from his eyes and held it for a moment until Severus pulled it back.

"There's no need to hold my hand like that, wolfboy," he snapped. "I'm fine." He rubbed his temples one more time, before he took the cup and shoved it under Remus' nose. "Take it before it stops smoking. I won't have queued for my own bloody potion for nothing."

Remus snatched the cup - and stopped it halfway to his mouth. He wondered if something important had just slipped his mind. He tried to remember what it had been, but was distracted by Severus watching him somewhat unsuspiciously out of the corner of his eye. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Really?" Remus said warily, taking up the cup once more, then stopping again. "That's not the usual colour, is it?"

"No. I've added a special ingredient to it."

Remus twitched - just a little - but it brought half a smirk on Severus' face.

"What did you do?"

Severus shrugged. "I added some flavour to it."

"What flavour?"

"Well, sugar doesn't work ..." He paused. "Chili."

"You did ... you added chili to ..." Remus jerked his head around. Almost everyone who'd drunk the potion was coughing heavily by now, their faces red, and some even had tears in their eyes. Most of them tried to keep a straight face but more than one person seemed utterly annoyed.

Remus turned back to Severus, who matched his shocked look with an evil grin. "What did you do that for?"

"I just prefer subtlety over drooling attention. And I have to buy myself a new mirror."

"You are crazy, you know that, right?"

"Don't you want to drink your potion?"

"I'll get you for this," Remus snarled. "Just you wait."

"Sure you will." Severus grinned on and watched him swallowing the potion in one gulp.

Remus' face started burning immediately and his mouth got twisted in the effort to fake a smile. "That wasn't so bad," he croaked after he finished coughing.

"Don't fuss around, it stops in a second. I know you can't take much."

And before Remus could cough out another retort, the burning in his throat ceased and was replaced by a slight numbness. He put the cup away and made a thoughtful face. "You know what? I think that was an improvement."

Severus' eyes narrowed. "Was it?"

"Yes. But, really, I would have thought that the resident Hogwarts Potions Master would have found a solution for that in much less time than - let me think - three years?"

Severus' voice became threateningly low. "Do you have any idea how complicated that potion is to make in the first place? It requires a lot more than the usual -" He stopped upon the wide smile that showed on Remus' face.

"You fall for it every time."

"And you just don't know when to stop."

"Oh, look who's talking."

"You better think about the next full moon before you -"

"What do you want to do? Add strawberry taste to the potion?"

"I have something in mind that will bring some real colour to your cheeks. And don't go running off to Black if -"

He froze. Of all the stupid things ... Remus looked away and Severus was glad he didn't have to see his face.

"It's okay. I keep forgetting too."

"I know ... you sometimes talk in your sleep." The words were out before he could stop them.

Remus darted around. "What? When?"

"Not very often."

"Why didn't you tell me?" he snapped.

"It's not that I've been spying on you," Severus replied sharply.

"It's just ... You could wake me up next time."

Severus sneered. "As if anything could. Believe me - I tried."

"So you did try? Why didn't you tell me then?"

"Because it wasn't ... "

"It wasn't what?"

"It wasn't important." He turned away, making clear that the discussion was finished.

***

End Notes:

I know this sounds RL/SB implied, but it wasn't meant to. They were friends. :-)