Practically Brothers

Status Quo

Lupin glanced over at Snape, on the other end of the sofa. In the mirror set up across from them, the little figures on the stage were being blocked as the audience began to stand, their clapping drowning out the music. Snape's eyes were glazed, and his face had an unfocused, amazed look. In short, pure rapture.

"Good music," Lupin said as he waved a hand in front of the mirror, severing its connection to one of London's West End Muggle theaters.

"Oh, yes, very good," Snape blinked, "Very good music."

"It's one of the disadvantages of the wizard community," Lupin said, as he sat back on the sofa. "We're too small to really support the arts. The Muggles have a much bigger population base to draw on, for both talent and wealth, so they can come up with something like this."

"I had no idea," Snape said, eyes still glazed. He blinked again, and his eyes focused a little. "The heroine was extremely stupid."

"Many of them are, unfortunately. Quite an attractive lady playing her, though. And what a voice." Lupin smiled, dreamily.

Snape took another swallow of butterbeer - between them, they'd gone through a number of bottles that night, and, while a single bottle wasn't very strong, Lupin was beginning to feel the cumulative effect. And neither of them were people who drank much normally; each, for different reasons, had a horror of losing control.

"The music was . . . amazing," Snape said. "There are more of these?"

"Hundreds," Lupin said, "Live performances, and movies - er, recorded performances." I could be creating a monster here. "Covent Garden is supposed to be doing Wagner next month. You are definitely a Wagner man."

"If you say so."

"Trust me." Lupin took a swallow from his own bottle. "I'll arrange to get a connection for one of the nights it's playing. If you're interested."

"Yes, please." Snape closed his eyes - he's trying to remember the music, Lupin thought. Without his usual scowl, he looks quite human.

Lupin stood up and stretched, then he picked up the dinner dishes on the table by the sofa, stacking them up in his arms, and carrying them into the kitchen. As he set them washing themselves in the sink, he looked up to see Snape, arms full of the empty butterbeer bottles that had been accumulating on the floor.

Lupin gave a laugh, and shook his head. Snape cocked his head in question, and Lupin said, "Just thinking, how terribly boring we are. Sitting around on a weekend, watching musicals and drinking butterbeer like a pair of old maids." He grinned wryly, "Of course, I suppose we ARE a pair of old maids. Old bachelors. Middle-aged bachelors, anyway."

"I've had far too much excitement in my life. Boring is better." Snape looked around the kitchen, but it all seemed in order. "I'm even beginning to like potions. Sometimes."

"Funny thing," Lupin said, as they went back to the living room sofa, "I never thought it would be potions, for you. I mean, you were always top student in potions, but I never felt you loved it. Not the way you loved . . . other subjects."

"Defense Against the Dark Arts," Snape said. "No, I never loved potions, I am simply very good at them."

"So, if it wasn't potions, and I know it was never teaching, at least, not at grade school level, what was it?" Lupin said. "I thought once that you might want to be an auror."

Snape nodded. "Yes, at one time."

"So what happened? You certainly have the brains, and the ability."

"I blew the practical for the Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L.s."

Lupin started to ask, then realization hit. "Oh, Merlin, no, that afternoon, after . . ."

"I did very well on the written part, that morning. And I actually didn't do too badly, performing the tasks," Snape said, "but I was still . . . upset, after what happened. I was judged to be mentally unstable. Unfit, I believe one comment said."

Lupin leaned back into the sofa, eyes up at the ceiling. "We did ruin your life, didn't we."

"I did a pretty good job of ruining it on my own. Perhaps they would have made the same determination, even if . . . that . . . hadn't happened. I remember all the talk about my unhealthy fascination with the dark arts."

Lupin grimaced. "The really sad thing is, we were all fascinated by the dark arts. You just didn't have the social awareness to hide it."

"I certainly went from one extreme to the other very quickly, from wanting to be an auror, to becoming a Death Eater. In just a matter of months."

Lupin considered. "But, you know, in a way, an auror is what you've become. When this is all over, if you wanted it, I bet they'd make you an official auror."

"No," Snape looked at the wall. "I am a spy and a traitor. No one ever trusts a traitor, even if he's working for their side. And spies are always despised." He shook his head, "I will never be seen as anything but a Death Eater."

"Dumbledore would speak for you. When this is all over--"

"When this is all over," Snape said, "if I'm still alive . . . I think I will have had enough of the dark arts to last me the rest of my life. Dealing with Him has removed any glamour and fascination they ever held for me." He sighed. "I shall stay with potions. I won't teach them, my unfortunate students and I will be free of each other. But there are other things I can do."

"Pity you don't like teaching. The students do learn a lot about potions from you, even now, when you terrify them. You have so much knowledge. And you can be patient, at least with potions--"

"I can control potions," Snape said, "I cannot control people. I have no patience with people."

"You certainly make sure that they won't have any patience with you. You do your best to keep them at a distance."

Snape froze and flicked his head so that his greasy, black hair fell in a curtain across his face. Hiding. I've made him feel defensive, Lupin thought.

And something mischievous inside him made him say, "You know, Poppy Pomfrey could fix you up in ten minutes. I bet she's been itching to."

Snape stared at him, from behind his curtain of hair.

Lupin went on. "Your teeth. And your hair."

Snape narrowed his eyes. But I've come this far, Lupin thought, and I want to know.

"I thought it might be part of the whole Dark Wizard look," Lupin said. "But Lucius Malfoy doesn't make himself look deliberately ugly. So, I wonder, is it more part of keeping people away from you?"

Snape was quiet.

Lupin was just about to say, "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked," when Snape said, softly, "It's both." He shrugged. "It's not as if I'd turn into a raving beauty if I had anything fixed." He turned back to Lupin, and spread his lips wide in a sick grin, showing his snag, yellow teeth. "And I've been this way for so long, it would cause questions if I changed suddenly. It might make people suspicious."

Lupin nodded. Of course, you looked like this as a boy, too, and you didn't have anything fixed then. Did you have reasons then to keep people at a distance from you? From your mouth, Severus? But I wouldn't dare ask that. And who knows, he was always so deep in his studies, he could have been completely oblivious to the world outside, and how he was perceived. He was oblivious about so much else.

"So, something else to see about, when this is all over," Lupin said lightly.

"When this is all over," Snape said, coldly, "I expect to be dead, or a very old man. I don't live for 'when this is all over.'"

"What do you live for? You-Know-Who's end? That can't be enough to sustain you."

Snape was silent. He leaned his head back onto the sofa. "Perhaps I will live for . . . Wagner, you said?"

"Wagner, yes."

"Wagner, then. And moonlit beaches. And that damned red ball."

Well, he's dodged that question. Or maybe he hasn't, Lupin thought, maybe he means it. "What, not the frisbee?" he said.

"Oh, the cursed frisbee, how could I forget?"

"You're getting better with it."

Snape turned and glared at him. "I am completely ridiculous."

Lupin shrugged. "You throw it well enough for me to catch." Then he smiled, "Although I do admit, frisbees and red balls don't exactly go with long, black robes. Have you thought about wearing some different clothes?" Especially on the beach.

"No."

Okay, won't go there, thought Lupin. Granted, the thought of Snape in beachwear was a bit much.

"You've never learned how to be laughed at, Severus," Lupin said, "It would make life a lot easier for you if you could."

"I told you before, Lupin, I'm a dark wizard. We don't have a sense of humor. That's why laughter is second in power only to love when fighting evil. We cannot bear being laughed at."

"You're not a dark wizard."

"Oh gods, Lupin, it's in my genes. I was born looking like all the villains in the children's fairy tales. I don't dare grow a moustache, or I'd be constantly twisting the ends of it. Probably muttering about my fiendish, evil plots."

"See, you do have a sense of humor."

Snape stared at him, and gave his evil smile. "You think I was joking. I'll try to find a picture of my father to show you. If there's one that wasn't torn to shreds. Or better yet--" He pulled his hair back in his hand, so that it lay slicked tightly against his skull. He looked Lupin full in the face, and smiled so that his ugly teeth showed. "Now, imagine a thin goatee."

Lupin stared. "You look just like Ming the Merciless. Or Drogo the Destroyer from the old 'Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle' comics."

Snape let his hair out and shook it, so that it fell around his face again. "Lovely thing to have staring at you out of the mirror while growing up, I can assure you." He frowned. "When I don't shave, it grows in an exact goatee shape, too."

I can't laugh, Lupin thought, but it is funny. Poor fellow.

"So you see, I am hopeless," Snape said, leaning back on the sofa.

"Oh, I don't know," Lupin stretched and smiled. "In just a few months, I've got you going to the beach and throwing a frisbee. Who knows what you'll be doing after a few years." He smiled thoughtfully. "Could have you in a Hawaiian shirt and blue jeans."

"In what?"

"All right, the Hawaiian shirt is a bit of a stretch. But not the blue jeans."

"You mean, like those . . . trousers you're wearing now?"

"Yes," Lupin grinned.

"I'd feel completely exposed."

"They're warmer than robes. Robes get awfully drafty in the winter."

"No."

"You wouldn't look like Ming the Merciless, anymore. Believe me."

"I could achieve the same effect by wearing a polka dot clown suit, and I am not going to do that, either."

Lupin laughed. Snape glared at him.

"There now," Lupin said, still grinning, "you see. That was a definite sense of humor. And at your own expense, too."

"I am delighted you're so amused."

"And this gives me another goal in life," Lupin's grin was reaching his ears now. "Number one, the downfall of You-Know-Who. Number two, get Severus into a pair of jeans. Jeans, trainers and a t-shirt. A t-shirt that isn't black."

"How nice to see you are able to keep your priorities straight."

Lupin laughed again. But then he took a deep breath, and sighed. "All right, I'll stop. I know you can't change now, and I understand why. I shouldn't make fun of something that could mean life and death for you." He sighed again. "So this is the status quo for now." He looked at Snape. "But when this is all over . . ."

"When this is all over," Snape echoed. "You say that as if you're certain we will win."

"I have to be certain. Either we win, or I expect to be dead."

"Or it could be a repeat of fifteen years ago. Where one side or the other has a victory, but not a decisive one, and we are forced into hiding, or waiting, again."

"That's not what the prophecy says."

"The prophecy isn't clear. It says that one or the other will die. That is not a guarantee of victory."

"What will you do, if You-Know-Who wins?"

Snape looked away. After a moment, he said, "I don't know. If He says that I must take my place openly with the Death Eaters, then . . ." He paused. "If there's a known resistance that I can pretend to be spying on, then perhaps I can keep on."

"There will be a resistance."

"Because otherwise, He will expect me to join in their actions. I could not do that." He looked pale. "You have no idea, what He plans, for the Muggles, for the half bloods . . ."

"That's why we must win," Lupin said, quietly.

"Oh, of course we'll win," Snape said, sardonically, "We have the great Harry Potter, who will save us all. The gods forbid we inferior mortals would ever be able to save ourselves."

"Harry's not happy with the idea, either."

"Oh, isn't he? I'd take it on in a heartbeat." Snape folded his arms around him. "But heroic acts and prophecies are not for the likes of me. Not foul, vile Severus Snape."

"Whatever Harry has to do, that only he can do," Lupin said quietly, "he won't be able to do alone. We are all needed. You, probably more than anyone."

"Oh, Harry would be very happy to dispense with me altogether."

"Harry is still very young. And a lot has happened to him, he doesn't understand."

"Oh, he understands. He blames me completely for Black's death. You should see the looks he gives me in class, these days."

"I'm sure you don't give him cause to do anything else."

Snape gave his ugly smile. "Harry will survive one nasty teacher."

Lupin took a deep breath. "No, Severus, I don't think he will."

Snape turned to look at him.

Lupin kept his voice quiet. "Everything that went wrong, last year, all came down to the rift between you and Harry. If you had been able to continue the Occlumency lessons - oh, I know why you couldn't," Lupin added quickly, as Snape moved to speak, "and they may not have helped in time, anyway. I know Harry wasn't working at them the way he should have. But if Harry had gone to you, that last day, to see about Sirius."

"No, Harry did not even think of going to me. He came up with that fool scheme of going through that vile woman's fireplace instead, and botched everything."

"If he didn't instinctively see you as an enemy, he would have thought to go you. Or he would have trusted you to handle the situation after he did tell you about it."

Snape looked at him fiercely.

Lupin sighed. "What's done is done. I'm not trying to place the blame on you, Severus, there's plenty to go around. Myself, included. I should have stepped in much earlier. And Merlin knows, Sirius drove the wedge between the two of you so much deeper than it already was, and I did not stop him."

Lupin looked down. "For a while there, it looked like you and Harry might actually talk to each other. Especially after he saw . . . what he saw." Lupin shook his head. "If only he had been older." He sighed. "We have got to do something about you and Harry. Or this will happen again."

Snape looked at him, then looked away. Lupin watched him. He's thinking, what's he thinking about?

"No," Snape said, quietly, without looking up. "We can't."

"Why not?" Lupin asked.

Snape still looked down. "I need Harry's hatred. And I need my hatred of him."

Lupin waited. Snape went on, "As long as He sees my own hatred for Harry, and as long as He knows that Harry hates me, He will trust me."

Lupin felt a chill inside.

"I am not trusted, entirely," Snape said. "The Dark Lord knows that I have worked against him, in the past. That I tried to stop Quirrell from getting the Philosopher's Stone. That I did not help Pettigrew, when he revealed himself to be alive, and one of the Dark Lord's followers. Or try to help you and Black when I had every reason to believe the two of you were His followers. The Dark Lord thinks this is because I am a coward, that I sided with Dumbledore because at the time I felt he was the stronger, and that the Dark Lord would never return. He thinks that I side with Him now because I think that now He is the stronger. And because he knows I hate Potter more than my own life, and thinks I will do anything to see him dead."

"One by one," Snape said, "I have lost my enemies. James. I thought I lost Black years ago. You," he looked thoughtful, "I'm not sure I ever hated you, except as an extension of them." He looked directly at Lupin, "I certainly do not hate you now. All I have left is Harry, and my hatred of him is all I have to feed to Him. Memories of dead men are not enough."

Lupin watched him. Snape's face was blank, and cold, there was nothing in his eyes.

"And it is so easy to hate him," Snape said. "Every time I look at him, the young hero, the shining prince, I am shown just how great the gulf is between us, how far in the pit I exist, how foul a creature I am. And that no matter how hard I try, how much higher I climb from where I am now, I will always be in the pit." He closed his eyes. "I learned, a long time ago, that no matter how hard I try to climb out, some one out in the sunlight will push me right back in." He gave his ugly smile. "That's how He got me, in the end, long ago. He said, those people are considered the Good ones, the ones who attack you and spit on you. They are not Good. There is no Good, or Evil, only Power. For a while, I believed that, for I saw no Good anywhere. And He was the only one who ever tried to help me, or cared about me, or so I thought." He smiled. "Of course, in the end, I wound up more powerless than ever."

Lupin started at Snape. "I'm so sorry, Severus."

"You say, 'I'm sorry' far too often."

"Sometimes, that's all I know to say."

Snape looked down again. "You said, a while back, that you were tired of being called 'poor Lupin.' And yet, I think I would give anything, if some of the others would look at me and say, 'poor Severus.' It wouldn't be enough, but it would be something." He looked at Lupin, "And don't you say it, because it wouldn't count, from you."

"All right, I won't then. And you wouldn't like it anyway."

"Wouldn't I? I told you, pity is the most I can hope for. And I get precious little of that."

"You certainly do everything possible to discourage it," Lupin said. "But no, pity is not what you want." He considered.

Lupin stood up. "I'm going to do something I have never done before," he said. "I've always known it was possible. And now, because of you, I think I can." He nodded over to the window. "It's only a half moon now."

Lupin pulled his shirt over his head. Snape stared. Lupin's skin was smooth and clear, all trace of the scars that had been there a few months earlier were gone now. Lupin stood still for a moment, then pulled off the rest of his clothes. For a heartbeat, he stood, a naked man in the middle of the room. Then he fell into a crouch on the floor, and the outline of his body shimmered, and within only a few seconds, he had changed from man to wolf. It was nothing like the changes Snape had seen before, this was easy, no resisting on Lupin's part.

The big wolf head rose from the ground, and looked at Snape with Lupin's eyes. The wolf mouth smiled, and the great tail thumped against the floor. Lupin stood up, tall enough on all fours so that his head was as high as Snape's. He walked over to where Snape sat, on the sofa, looking into his eyes the whole time, and then, very gently, laid his head on Snape's knee. Snape looked down at him, almost in wonder. He lifted one hand, and, hesitantly, laid it against Lupin's shaggy neck, just behind his ears. Lupin closed his eyes, and moved his head up against Snape's chest, leaning a little into it.

Snape breathed in the warm, animal smell, digging his fingers deep into the soft fur. I'm holding a werewolf's head, he thought, the monster is a monster no more. And then, with fierce satisfaction, I did this for him. THEY couldn't do it, only I could give him this. And another thought, but they could run with him, and you can't, you have to stand back, you cannot join him, you can only watch. But that's not what he wanted, he thought again, they would have helped him embrace his monster, but he wanted only to escape from it.

Just a few moments, then Snape pulled his hand away. He is not a dog, he's a man, it's easy to forget. Lupin opened his eyes, and smiled up at him. Then Lupin stepped back into the middle of the room. His form shimmered again, and Lupin the man stood where the wolf had been. He pulled on his clothes, quickly and easily, and sat back on the sofa.

"I don't feel like a monster, anymore," Lupin said. "I don't hate being a wolf, anymore. You don't make me feel ashamed of it, and I don't feel afraid of it." He looked down. "I know this doesn't help you, and I can't do anything about what you have to face, and how you have to live, every day." He shook his head, "I'm not saying this well." He thought for a moment, and said, "I guess, well, maybe you have worked a small miracle of your own."

Snape did not answer, but there was a softness in the way he sat on the sofa, a lessoning of that fierce, constant tension that was always in him.

"Neither of us wants to be what we are," Lupin said, "And yet, we have no choice. For me, there is the Wolfsbane potion. For you--" Lupin shook his head, "only the hope that there may be a time when you no longer have to be this way." He looked at Snape, and he smiled. "In the meantime, we can help each other be human at the full moon." He smiled a little wider. "Or any other time you wouldn't mind throwing a frisbee for me. Or listening to Wagner."

Snape's face twitched at the mention of the word "frisbee," but it was gone in a moment, and his face looked softer. He picked up a butterbeer bottle, opened the top, raised it, and said, "To the full moon, then."

"To the full moon," Lupin raised a bottle of his own, and they both drank.

"And to Wagner," Lupin said.

"To Wagner," Snape raised his own bottle again, "assuming Wagner lives up to your recommendation."

They drank.

"And to the frisbee," Lupin said.

"To the red ball," Snape said.

And they drank again.

Lupin studied his bottle. "I still have a bit more," he said.

"So do I."

"Well then, to the Order."

"To Dumbledore."

"To Hogwarts."

"To comrades dead and gone."

"To comrades alive and well. And comrades we have yet to meet."

They drank each time. Lupin hesitated, smiled a crooked smile, and said, "To Harry Potter."

Snape froze. Then frowned. Then looked Lupin straight in the eye, lifted his bottle, nodded, and drank. Lupin smiled and drank also.

"And to when this is all over," Snape said, only a hint of a sneer in his voice.

"To when this is all over," Lupin grinned back.

And each drained the last from his bottle.