Lycan-therapy

Chapter 4

After informing Lupin of the progress, or lack of, I am making in our one to one Boggart Confrontation sessions, Van Dalek launches into the topic for today: "I want to talk about de Marauders." Van Dalek settles back into his arm chair and peers over his wiry spectacles at us. "It has been brought to my attention that der are perhaps some lingering feelings of resentment that Severus is harbouring.

"So, Remus," the werewolf shifts uncomfortably beside me, "tell me a little about deez friends of yours."

"James Potter, father of the celebrated Harry Potter, was a sadistic bastard so vain he would have put Narcissus to shame. Sirius Black, his best friend, was a pretty boy homicidal maniac who would fuck Lupin on occasion, leaving him under the impression they were in some sort of a meaningful relationship; he was jailed in Azkaban for crimes that would later turn out to be the work of Peter Pettigrew: an overweight, vertically challenged waste of space whose greatest accomplishment was being solely responsible for the resurrection of the Dark Lord," I answer smoothly for him. Lupin sighs.

Van Dalek swiftly notes all this down before eyeing me critically, "Obviously, you did not get along, Severus. Why, in your opinion, was dat? What happened to cause dis feud between you? What reasons had they for disliking you?"

"As I recall," I say loftily, "Black once made the enlightening observation that 'it was more the fact I existed' than anything else."

Van Dalek doesn't seem to deem this remark worthy of a written notation. "Would you agree dat House rivalry perhaps played some part?" Having attended Hogwarts himself as a Ravenclaw, Van Dalek would be well aware of the great Slytherin-Gryffindor divide.

"I would agree it helped to fuel our mutual dislike, yes."

Here, Lupin interjects mildly: "Sirius knew the family name Snape to be synonymous with the words 'Dark Arts' and 'Grindelwald' and 'Unforgivables'. And Severus didn't exactly make any effort to assuage the rumours."

"For such a stoic pillar of virtue who claimed to be against racial prejudice of any kind, he was terribly hypocritical."

"At least Sirius never swore allegiance to the Death Eaters," Lupin counters in defence of his dead boyfriend. The feeble jibe barely touches me.

"No that was left for Pettigrew wasn't it?"

Lupin swallows any further comment he was about to make and turns to Van Dalek, "In truth Doctor, it started on the first day of school, before the Sorting could even take place-"

"Shut it, werewolf," I hiss at him. My glowering has little effect however, as he continues regardless of my mounting wrath.

"Sirius made him cry on the school train." Lupin announces triumphantly, a shadow of a smirk at the corners of his mouth.

I want to skin him like a shrivelfig...

I watch Van Dalek's brow crease as he inevitably endeavours to picture me as a blubbering eleven year old.

"Severus said something to wind Sirius up so Sirius threatened to throw Severus' wand out of the train compartment's window. He taunted you about it 'til the day he died, didn't he?" Hence the nickname. In my defence, it was not Black's intimidation that had distressed me so, but rather the knowledge that the punishment I would receive from my parents, for losing my wand on the first day of term, would be by no means lenient.

"There were- other- incidents..." Lupin drifts off, the beginnings of shame tugging at his famously compassionate Gryffindor heartstrings.

I interject before Lupin can go into descriptions of any other potentially embarrassing episodes: "Sirius Black was a vicious bully- he deserved every year he spent in Azkaban and more besides. He should have been convicted of murder at the age of fifteen but oh no, not Dumbledore's Golden Boy," I spit the Headmaster's name with a new level of bitterness.

Lupin massages his temples, "Sirius never meant for the prank to go that far..."

"Sirius Black knew exactly what he was doing; he was fifteen years old, old enough to be held responsible for his own actions. He attempted to take my life. Why does that not penetrate your thick skull?" I tap my head a little too zealously for emphasis and feel the beginnings of a migraine come on.

"And what about me, Severus? Was my life not at risk too? Had the authorities found out I would have been executed for sure; do you not think I hated Sirius with a passion when I found out what he'd done the next day? I refused to speak to him for months after that. But I found it in my heart to forgive him-"

"And do you suggest that I do the same? There was never any excuse for your nasty, spiteful little games." My voice is dangerously soft.

Lupin breaks eye contact to stare at the picture of Kneazles dressed up in 18^th century frocks at a tea party hung behind my head, "And I've apologised to you countless times; we were children back then, we made mistakes, we hurt you and we're sorry."

This enrages me by gargantuan proportions. "Black and Potter are dead, don't speak for them- they were never sorry! And don't think for one second," spittle shoots from my mouth in my fury, "that I'm being selfish or stubborn in not accepting your apologies; how can you possibly expect me to forgive seven years of your taunts and hexings and beatings? You might only have been children, but so was I!"

Lupin shrinks back into the sofa, scratching his upper lip with a fingernail. Van Dalek takes the opportunity to pose me a question, "Dey were often violent towards you?" I nod stiffly, "How did you cope with dat, Severus?"

"I retaliated of course," I reply sharply, "but I was always out numbered."

"You had no friends to support you?" The Doctor prods.

"No," I treat him to one of my most derisive sneers, "I was the greasy little loner who nobody wanted to play with; tragic, I know."

Van Dalek scribbles down 'uses sarcasm as a defence mechanism'.

Bastard.

"Did you envy them their closeness, Severus?"

"Why should I? In all honesty, Doctor, I would rather have lived my life in complete solitude than to have been befriended by Sirius Black and James Potter."

"Dey were de leaders of dis little gang den?"

"Yes, and taking in charity cases was a favourite pastime of theirs," I remark, looking pointedly at Lupin. "It helped to make them appear more noble;" I adopt a falsetto voice, "see how sweet James Potter is, he lets poor little Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew follow him round and reflect his greatness, so generous, so kind-"

"I was not a pity project to them, Severus," Lupin cuts in. I have noticed his extra attempts today to restrain himself from losing control. When he speaks it is with measured tonality: "We were friends. I know that term means little to you but-"

"Oh please, Lupin, you're delusional! They used you for their own benefit- you did their homework, you tended their illegally-begotten wounds, you held their books while they educated anyone Slytherin in the dubious supremacy of Gryffindor House. Why do you think Pettigrew betrayed them? He got sick of being recognised as the fat little tag-along."

"Might I interject?" Van Dalek makes another well timed break in. "Severus, am I right in assuming dat Remus and dis Pettigrew played little part in tormenting you?"

"Pettigrew provided the applauses while the other two hexed me; Lupin was always conveniently looking in the opposite direction."

"Why den are you still so outwardly hostile towards Remus?"

I sigh and offer, "I thought you called it displacement."

"So you admit den, dat you are projecting your hatred of them onto Remus?"

"And Harry," Lupin adds softly.

Van Dalek turns his head to frown at Lupin quizzically, "Harry Potter?"

"He bears the brunt of all your old hatred for James and I for Sirius."

Van Dalek is now scribbling with a fever 'intimidates students, esp. HP to reassure himself they cannot hurt him'.

"How did you feel when Sirius Black died?" he asks me.

"Ecstatic."

"Do you think of him often?"

"I often think of him languishing in the fiery bowels of hell," I offer helpfully.

"How often? Once a day? Twice, perhaps?"

"I am not fixated by him, if that is what you are implying."

"Severus, I would like to try something with you." Van Dalek rises to rummage through a bookcase on which he finds a small discoloured scroll. Unravelling it, he announces: "I am going to say a few words to you and you are going to say de first word dat enters your mind. Ready?"

The results after this pointless little exercise are as follows:

Van Dalek: Scroll: Me:

Wizard (Witch, Wand) Black

Death (Life) Lupin

Dog (Cat) Black

Moon (Sun) Lupin

Black (White, Night) Black

Short (Tall) Lupin

Tree (Bark, Leaves) Willow

Hate (Love) Black

Poor (Rich) Lupin

Van Dalek seems to relish telling me that not a single one of my responses were considered the norm by the WPA's (Wizarding Psychiatric Association) standards.

"Severus, I am going to suggest dat your mind, at times, can become rather single-tracked."

"How dare you."

"You are obsessed with Mister Black and Mister Lupin."

"I am not!" I am too outraged to formulate a more lyrical protest.

Lupin coughs and averts his eyes when I glare at him.

"You cannot distance yourself from deez painful memories dat you are obviously still traumatised by."

"I am not traumatised, I am bitter."

"Severus, if you will allow me I would like to try a short session of hypnotherapy with you."

I narrow my eyes at him; the imbecile expects me to submit my subconscious mind to him while I rest vulnerable on this bloody couch with a werewolf not two feet away? "Are you out of you mind?"

"In a trance state it may be easier for you to speak about deez painful memories. Hypnosis allows de patient to revisit such incidents and to come to terms with them more readily. It would involve a simple charm being placed-"

"Not only is such an idea abhorrent, it would be highly irresponsible if I were to allow such an invasion of my mind; I did not spend two years mastering occlumancy for the purpose of safeguarding top secret information about the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters to simply lay my mind open at the drop of a hat for complete strangers-" Van Dalek looks affronted "-to delve through at their leisure."

"Severus, would Albus Dumbledore entrust me with the task of treating de mind of someone such as yourself if he did not have complete faith in me?"

I roll my eyes; Dumbledore's friends are batty at best. When I think of the many crack pots and deceitful twits Dumbledore has professed to have complete trust in: Hagrid, Arabella Figg, Mundungus Fletcher, Gilderoy Lockhart, Moody; hell, he trusts me...

"Besides, Mister Lupin will be here to stop me taking advantage of you."

"How incredibly comforting."

Lupin offers helpfully, "Would it not be easier if I were to volunteer my recollections of the incidents?"

To my surprise, Van Dalek looks at him with something akin to distrust. It seems that my accounts of Lupin and his friends' adolescent escapades have not impressed him to say the least.

Sighing theatrically, I concede, "I'll do it." If only to prove once and for all what a detestable creature Remus Lupin really is.

-x-x-x-

Wasting no time, Van Dalek pulls out his gold pocket watch and chain. He directs his wand at the clock face and mutters "Hypnos Initium"; a beam of pale blue light is called forth from the wand's tip and magic ripples visibly over the watch's casing.

"Mister Lupin, it would be wise for you to look away momentarily." The werewolf promptly shields his eyes.

Van Dalek instructs me to relax and follow the movement of his watch with my eyes as he lets it swing back and forth in a pendulum motion. Slowly at first, the room begins to fade at the corners, the garish wallpaper melting into grey nothingness. My vision blurs and I feel myself sink from the inside into the cushions behind me and through them, through the floor, through the earth, slowly, purposefully, until eventually I feel myself settle in limbo between the abyss beyond and the room I have just left and yet am still fully conscious of existing around me. Lupin is breathing to the left of me, the carpet is solid under my feet and yet it is eons away.

I hear Van Dalek's voice as if it were muffled behind a curtain, "I want you to picture yourself as you were when you were much younger, Severus. And as you picture yourself, you feel you a teenager again. Your body is still that of a boy, you have yet to experience the trials of your adulthood. I want you to visualise yourself back at Hogwarts, Severus, when you were so much younger and I want you to remember a time when you were feeling particularly upset or particularly scared, can you do that for me, Severus?"

His voice has taken on a melodic quality; his sentences are waves rolling over each other, into each other, in a perpetual rhythmic undulation; whether this is the effect of the charm or the required technique I am unsure. I hear myself replying without thought or will or care, "Yes".

To Be Continued Very Soon...