WARNING: This is a slash story, which means it contains male/male erotic content. If you're not of legal age or are offended by such material, please go find something else to read.

Title: No Choice of Poisons
By: cmshaw
Email: cmshaw@cmshaw.slashcity.tv
Rated: NC-17, not entirely consensually.
Category: Drama/Angst
Summary: Twelve years after the downfall of Lord Voldemort, two unhappy veterans meet again.
Disclaimer: Remus Lupin isn't mine. Severus Snape isn't mine. Harry Potter isn't mine. Thank goodness, because they never shut up -- even just visiting they're about to drive me crazy.
Note: Set during PoA, with a spoiler for GoF.
Gratitude: Many fervent thanks to Jen Faulkner for the beta.

September: Favors

Remus eyed the potion with distaste. He could tell from Severus' expression that it had a bad smell to humans -- assuming that wasn't Severus' editorial comment on his half-unpacked office, of course -- but it couldn't possibly reek the way it did to a werewolf's nose: there was wolfsbane in it. Still, he couldn't afford to run loose anywhere near this school full of children, so he reluctantly stretched out his hands to take the goblet from the Potions Master.

Severus lifted the potion out of his reach. Remus frowned. "What's the game?" he asked angrily. "I need to drink that now, before the moon rises."

Severus smirked. "Really, Lupin," he said, "aren't you going to thank me for brewing this delicate concoction for you?"

"Thank you," Remus said through gritted teeth.

"That wasn't quite what I had in mind," Severus said, and smiled.

"What, then?" The Headmaster would back him up if it came to trouble with Severus, but Remus needed that potion tonight. There was no time to go looking for Dumbledore to lay a complaint about his fellow professor, and from the way Severus was smiling he knew that.

The chilling smile widened, and Severus' eyes slid deliberately toward the spare cot set against the wall in the far corner of the office, then back to Remus' face. "Take off your robes," Severus suggested. Remus felt his face flush with anger, but Severus idly turned the goblet in his hand, the foul liquid within sloshing over the rim and running down over Severus' fingers. "Come now," he said, "a favor for a favor. You don't object, do you?"

Remus could hear his ears ringing as his pulse began to race: the moon was up over the horizon. He was out of time; he could avoid direct moonlight for a few hours, but without the potion in Severus' hand he would gradually lose his volition, eventually wanting nothing more than to throw open the windows and ravage across the moonlit night. "Fine," he snarled, "it's a deal," and he stalked forward, grabbed the goblet from the hand Severus mockingly extended, and threw the potion down his throat in one swallow. Choking and sputtering, he went down on one knee, dropping the goblet to the floor. As it had the last time, and every other time he had tried this method of control, the potion burned as it went down and exploded into a fiery pain -- this time, he was sure, Severus had made a mistake and poisoned him, killed the moon-triggered monster in him and killed him in the process. This time, as every other time, the pain receded and left him shaken but unpoisoned. Severus might be arrogant past bearing, but in this, Remus admitted, he knew what he was doing.

Over his head, Severus said, "You might want to drink it in small sips."

Remus coughed and shook his head. "Thanks for the timely advice," he said, and staggered back to his feet, ignoring the hand Severus offered.

"Now then," Severus said when Remus was standing again, "about our deal."

Remus stared at him, baring his teeth involuntarily. The temptation to attack first and blame his lycanthropy afterward was intense, but suicidal with Dumbledore running the school -- and without Severus, his place at the school would be lost anyway. He jerked his head toward the window in the far wall. "Draw the curtains," he growled. With all traces of the growing moonlight blocked, he knew he could hold human form for long enough to do what Severus wanted. His fingers fumbled open the clasps of his robe and he let the heavy black fabric slide down his body to pool at his feet. In preparation for the night he wore nothing else, and the rake of Severus' gaze down and back up his bare skin disgusted him.

"Lie down," Severus said, pointing to the cot that was waiting below the window. Closing his eyes so that he would not have to watch Severus watch him walk across the room, he stumbled blindly onto the cot and laid down on his stomach, spreading his legs slightly in resignation. The cot shifted as Severus sat down beside his hip and laid a casually possessive hand on his back in a quick touch. Remus kept his eyes closed as Severus sat silent for a minute, and then the hand was back, spilling some warm liquid across his shoulder blades. A faint warm smell rose from it as Severus began massaging it into his back, Severus' thin, cold hands pressing forcefully into his muscles. Despite his distrust, he began to relax as Severus did no more than rub his back for long minutes. The potion that held the wolf at bay left him groggy and uncomfortable; the steady motion of Severus' hands was lulling him to sleep, and it felt good to lose even a little of the tension that built as the moon waxed each month.

The oiled hands, warmer now, moved lower, as he had known they would. Remus did his best to breathe evenly and slowly as Severus' fingers moved over his ass, then into it. It was unpleasant, not actually painful, but he did wish Severus would say something, anything at all. He remembered how, as schoolboys, he and his friends had laughed at the studious, sour-faced Slytherin boy; they had told each other jokingly that he needed to loosen up and live in the moment. This was not the remedy they had had in mind. In silence, Severus tossed his robe to the floor and climbed onto the cot over Remus. He sighed, still wordless, as his hands spread Remus open for the penetration.

This part was both less pleasant and more pleasant. Remus felt his body open and quiver, out of his control, in another reaction that surprised him every time he found a man willing to touch him. Sometimes it seemed that from one day to the next his body reformed around him and had to be mastered anew; Remus' schoolboy friends had much admired his way of living in the moment, not understanding that a werewolf had no other choice. This was probably not what they had had in mind for him, either, but of all of them, only he and Severus were left, and here they were.

Severus moved slowly over and inside of him, and Remus clenched his fingers into the coarse blanket that he had thrown over the cot earlier that evening. He wished that Severus would just use his body and leave, but whatever the other wizard was after, it seemed it was nothing so simple as Remus' body. Severus' hands slid up from Remus' hips and caressed his back in a cruel mockery of affection; Remus pressed his face into the musty blanket and felt Severus' hands stroke the nape of his neck soothingly.

Still wordless, Severus leaned harder into Remus and moved his hands to either side of Remus' shoulders to brace himself. Remus rocked his body in time, trying to keep some control, and turned his head to watch Severus' hands tighten into fists. His eyes trailed upward, and it took him a while to decipher the pale scar burned into Severus' forearm.

The skull and snake formed the dreaded Dark Mark of the Death Eaters, and as Severus' arm flexed with his motions the skull seemed to grin and wink at Remus, nodding as if to acknowledge all the terrible crimes the owner of this Mark had committed to earn it. Remus couldn't help but wonder if Sirius bore a matching brand. Sirius, Dumbledore's traitor as Severus was Voldemort's -- Sirius was on the move again, coming to Hogwarts where Remus and Severus waited for him.

James had been Sirius' best friend, and James was dead. Peter had been Sirius' lover, and he was dead too. And Remus, what had he mattered to the hero turned murderer? Nothing, it seemed; at least, less than he mattered to this murderer turned hero who used his body now. Let Severus have him, then.

Severus' arm lifted out of Remus' vision as he leaned back and picked up Remus' hips in his thin hands. Gratefully, Remus let his eyes close again, biting his lip against the phantom image of the Dark Mark that floated against his eyelids as if trumpeting a death. Severus moved again and the past washed away as Remus' body leapt inches off the small cot and crashed back onto it with a groan. Like the scent of a wolf bitch in heat, his body's pleasure rolled over him at last and left nothing but straining, snapping instinct to direct him.

When it receded again, Remus lay panting, still facedown on the cot under Severus. Every limb trembled with exhaustion, and he knew that moon or no moon he was not far from the wolf now. He observed Severus' climax with detachment, his body limp and heavy after its own release, and remained quiet as Severus sat up afterwards and hung his feet over the edge of the cot, breathing heavily. Over the smell of sweat and sex, the bland odor of the oil that Severus had used to massage his back earlier still hung in the air, oddly comforting. He listened as Severus stood and dressed himself, then sat back down beside him on the cot.

A hand under his chin forced Remus to sit up and look at Severus, who studied his face with narrowed eyes. Severus' thumb caressed his cheek lightly, and for a vertiginous moment Remus thought he might demand a kiss. Even Severus was not arrogant enough to trust his lips to a werewolf's teeth, it seemed; Severus' free hand twitched back the curtains over the cot instead. Moonlight burned his skin, and Remus felt his traitorous body melt and run into its new shape, bones twisting, muscles snapping, skin pulled and torn to cover the wolf in heavy fur. Severus watched him the entire time, one hand still cupping his muzzle. Remus pulled his head free and, tail drooping, turned three times on the cot to kick the blanket into a rough nest. He settled wearily down and laid his head on his paws.

Severus stepped back and picked the goblet up from the floor. Without a word, he turned and walked out of the room.

The door locked behind him.

October: Ghost

Remus was almost relieved by Severus' arrival with the potion, as it broke the intensity of Harry's questioning. Harry was a fey child, stranger than Remus had yet seen if the tales the other professors told were even half true, but he was as proud as a Slytherin, with a set to his jaw that made him look nothing at all like his father. The look that passed between Harry and Severus warned Remus away; he had no wish to step into the middle of that feud. Still, it had its uses, Remus admitted, as first Severus and then Harry backed away and left him alone while the moon was high.

November: Turnabout

The stench of the potion announced Severus' arrival before the knock at his door, and Remus rose to his feet, steadying himself against the edge of the desk. He had thought about calling one of his students in for a quick consultation, knowing Severus would say nothing, extract no promises, in front of another person, but he had not done it. To hide behind Harry as he had once hidden behind Harry's father -- no, those days were over. There was no point in running from confrontation, and besides, Severus Snape could be a persistent git when he wanted something. Remus was tired of tripping over Severus' sneer every time he turned around and unappreciative of games like the one Severus had played with the third-years in his Defense Against the Dark Arts class, so he opened the door with a flourish and invited Severus in.

Severus looked around the cluttered room with a satisfied glint in his eyes. "Facing me alone this time, I see," he said. Remus crossed his arms and waited. Severus smiled. "Do you understand our deal now?" Remus nodded shortly, and Severus set the steaming goblet on the desk between them.

With a bound, Remus was around the desk and on him, pinning him to the wall with an arm across his neck. He pressed his mouth against Severus' lips in a harsh kiss, and Severus froze in terror. Carefully, Remus nipped at his lower lip, then trailed his mouth down to set his teeth over the pulse point of Severus' neck, which was hammering frantically. Severus' skin tasted rank, and he smelled of almonds and formaldehyde.

Barely moving his jaw, Severus hissed, "I'll see you executed and have your hide for a rug, werewolf."

Remus laughed and pushed himself away. "How touching," he said, "you'd want something to remember me by." Severus' face was dead white except for two angry spots of color over his cheekbones, and he looked ready to execute Remus himself on the spot. Remus turned his back and picked up the goblet of potion, sipping from it with a grimace for the taste but grateful that it cleared the tang of death that had risen when his mouth watered against Severus' throat. He turned to face Severus again and saluted him with the potion, drinking a little more of it in toast. "This really is awful," he said ruefully.

"I suppose you think this amusing," Severus snarled, pushing himself away from the wall and wiping his neck carefully clean with a plain handkerchief. "But then, you always did have a penchant for tasteless pranks," he said viciously, "you and Sirius Black."

Despite himself, Remus jerked at Sirius' name. He gulped the rest of the potion too quickly and nearly dropped the goblet as it burned in his stomach. Slamming the goblet down onto the desk a little too hard, Remus yanked at the fastenings of his robes until they fell open. He threw the robes over the chair behind the desk and, naked, sat down on the edge of the cot under the windows. "Do you want to or not?" he challenged.

It appeared Severus wanted to; he toed off his shoes and began to disrobe. Remus, uninterested in seeing Severus naked, stared down at his bare knees, rubbing his thumb over an old scar on his left thigh. When he heard Severus approaching, he rolled over on the cot and smoothed the blanket under his hands. It smelled like an animal had been sleeping in it, which was true.

Severus sat down next to him and placed one hand on his shoulder, urging him onto his back. "Turn over," he ordered.

"No," Remus said, looking over his shoulder at Severus.

"No?" Severus echoed, disbelieving.

"No," Remus repeated. "I'd bite you."

"You wouldn't dare," snapped Severus.

Remus bared his teeth in a grin of sorts. "The moon will be up in a few hours," he said. "I'd bite anyone."

Severus looked down his long nose at him. "No self-control, werewolf?"

"I know my limits," Remus said easily. "Do you?"

Snarling, Severus pushed his shoulders down onto the cot. He took no extra time this night, slicking the oil into Remus' ass and climbing on top of him roughly. Remus' breath hissed between his teeth involuntarily at the initial pain; it helped clarify things, and he appreciated it. Severus was not whom he would have picked for a lover, but werewolves can't always be choosers, and an honest enmity was better than nothing at all.

Remus was very tired of having nothing at all. He had thought that he had grown accustomed to it over the years, but now the persistent rumors of Sirius Black were destroying that illusion. Darker things than werewolves were running loose again in England, and Severus might hate him, might fear him, but who better than a twice-damned wizard -- once for turning to the Dark Arts and again for turning away from them -- to understand him?

He pushed his hips up under Severus' hands and forced their bodies into a rhythm that would bring them both to completion quickly. Perhaps Severus had enjoyed their dangerous little games earlier, or perhaps he had as little self-control as he had accused Remus of having, but his efforts to slow down seemed half-hearted. Remus passed rapidly beyond the point where he cared about such things, and lunged mindlessly for the bodily pleasure offered; to bite, to rend, to rip and shred and shake into pieces: this was the werewolf rising in him to attack anything a human brought.

With wolfsbane burning in his bloodstream, Remus returned to himself pressed into the blanket by the weigh of Severus' body. Severus pushed himself away as soon as Remus stirred, to sit at the foot of the cot. Remus turned, braced himself on one shaky elbow, and spat to clear the taste of the blanket from his mouth.

"You would have bitten me," Severus said at that, his voice rough.

"Yes," said Remus.

Severus stood and hesitated by the cot a minute before striding across the room. He threw his robes about his shoulders and pulled on his shoes without looking back at the werewolf on the cot. He took the goblet that had held Remus' potion and walked out without a word.

Remus pushed back the curtain himself to let the moon in.

December: An Exchange of Gifts

"Merry Christmas," Severus said mockingly as he handed over the potion.

Remus snorted. "Thank you," he said, trying not to show just how foully it reeked as he raised to goblet to his mouth. Carefully he sipped and did not spit it back out. "Just what I always wanted."

Severus watched expressionlessly as Remus finished the potion slowly. Remus set the empty goblet down, resisted the urge to snap his teeth at Severus, and dug through the left-hand drawer of his desk, setting aside the second-years' parchment rolls on the differences between hexes and curses and pulling out a small box. "Here," he said, handing it to Severus, "I got you something too."

Wordlessly, Severus turned the plain box over in his hands, blatantly checking it for hexes before opening it. He held up the contents and said scornfully, "Cards?"

"Cards," Remus replied firmly. They were, in fact, a very nice set of Exploding Snap cards, ornamented with detailed drawings of common magical herbs and fruits. They had cost a good handful of Knuts, but a paying job was making him feel expansive. "You need to relax a little. Stop scowling so much."

He forebore to mention vulture-topped hats or red handbags, but Severus scowled at him anyway, shoving the cards carelessly into a pocket. Belatedly, it occurred to him that Severus might not have anyone who would care to play Exploding Snap with him.

"I'll stop by for a game after tomorrow, shall I?" he offered. "In the meantime," he said, stripping off his robe and walking naked to his cot, "let's have a bit of holiday cheer."

The moon was hidden behind drizzling clouds that night. After Severus left, Remus had plenty of time to lean on the windowsill and look out over the castle grounds, contemplating what sort of gift Severus might truly be meaning to give him on these nights.

January: Bump in the Night

Remus accepted the potion that Severus held out with considerable relief. The Boggart that he was keeping under his desk for Harry's tutoring had been thumping in its cupboard for days now as the moon waxed. It was not quite enough like the moon to trigger a complete transformation, but at odd moments the thought would intrude that simply unlocking the cupboard and letting the Boggart out would make him feel better and more alive. A lifetime of knowing that the moon's curse never kept its promises helped very little, and he drank the potion rather too quickly; Severus had to help him up from the floor, and then backhand him reeling into the wall when he bared his teeth and lunged for the human's throat.

"Sorry," Remus said, shaking his head in a vain effort to clear it, "sorry, I've just been having a rough month."

"Well, that's all right then," Severus drawled. "It's not the werewolf's fault if some student is killed, he's been having a rough month."

"I haven't been threatening the students," Remus said, "just you. And you can take care of yourself." He meant it as a compliment.

"So I can," Severus said. Pinning Remus down on the cot, he proved it, and he pulled aside the curtains to admit the true moonlight as he left.

February: Anticipation

Remus finished the potion and set the goblet down with a sigh, swallowing to clear the horrid taste from his mouth. Severus picked up the goblet and stepped back. "I'm afraid I'm rather busy tonight," he said smoothly. "Call if you need any more of the Wolfsbane." With that, he turned and left.

Remus tossed aside his robes and pushed open the curtains, mildly surprised at how disappointed he felt.

March: Once More With Feeling

Remus accepted the goblet from Severus with a nod. Wrinkling his nose at the smell, he sipped from it and grimaced. Severus' wary eyes followed his every move, and Remus looked up with his teeth bared in a friendly grin. "Still nervous, Severus?" he asked mildly.

Severus snorted and gave him a disapproving look. "You are being quite agreeable about all this, Lupin," he said. "I find that hard to trust."

"There's no pleasing some people," Remus said. "And since you yourself are being agreeable -- relatively speaking, of course," he added, "-- I could ask a few questions of my own, you know. Such as: what is it that you really want of me?"

"I should think," Severus said coolly, "that that ought to be obvious by now."

"Come now," Remus said, "my dubious charms don't exactly justify the lengths to which you've gone."

The silence drew out, urging Remus to shatter it with words such as 'coercion' or 'blackmail', until Severus cleared his throat and ordered, "Finish your potion."

Remus took another tiny sip, then said, "Well?"

Severus said, "I hardly need to explain myself to you." Remus could hear nothing but irritation in his voice.

Curious, Remus asked, "Do you hate me?" He sat down at his desk and leaned back in the chair, crossing his ankles and looking up at Severus with a small smile.

"What?" Severus' mouth tightened in a frown.

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Do you?" He took another drink from the goblet in his hand and said musingly, "I daresay I have plenty of reasons to hate you -- I daresay that's mutual, actually -- but that seems like the easy way out." He finished off the potion and set the goblet down on the desk. Staring at his roughened hands, he said harshly, "I don't take the easy way." The easy way, for a werewolf, was withdrawal from the company of humans altogether, to live like an animal and kill until he was killed. The easy way was loneliness and despair.

Severus' voice intruded. "If you're expecting an outpouring of sentiment," he said dryly, "you're waiting in vain, werewolf."

Remus laughed, sadly. "Voldemort has scarred us all," he said softly. "We creep around trying so hard to recreate some half-imagined golden age, so terrified of anything that might be tainted by the Dark, that people like you and I are outcasts in the very community we saved. Aren't we, Severus?" He looked up in time to surprise a deep bitterness in the lines around Severus' eyes, one immediately covered by a more prosaic anger.

"What would you know of how normal wizards and witches live?" Severus snapped.

"I've had a few glimpses," Remus said.

"Ah yes," Severus said with a sneer, "with your dear friends Potter and Black. Paragons of wizardly perfection, no doubt."

"Don't."

Severus placed both hands on Remus' desk and leaned forward. "Well, James Potter is dead now," he hissed. "All his wizardly perfection couldn't save him from his friends, now could it? And where were you, Lupin, when poor little Pettigrew was torn limb from limb into tiny bloody pieces?"

"Ireland," Remus said shortly.

"I suppose your good pal Black warned you to run--"

"Enough!" yelled Remus, standing so quickly that his chair toppled over backwards. "I am not in league with Sirius Black. The last thing I want is to let him into Hogwarts to hurt Potter's son. The last thing!"

"Ha!" said Severus contemptuously. He grabbed Remus' jaw in his hand and tilted Remus' face up, studying his eyes intently. From the curl in his lip, he didn't like what he saw.

Remus jerked his chin free. "What do you want, Severus?" he asked again.

"What every wizard wants," Severus said, "money, power, sex."

Remus ran his hands through his hair and essayed a smile, hoping to end this conversation. "Well," he began, "I haven't either of the first two...."

"You could, though," Severus said, his voice abruptly low and forceful. "I could arrange things."

Remus could feel his smile die. "No," he said, "I don't think you could." Severus narrowed his eyes dangerously. "I'm not a tame werewolf," Remus said gently. "I'm no one's pet."

Severus flung out a hand to encompass the office, with its shabby personal effects and second-hand books. "You prefer this?" he demanded.

Remus turned away. "No," he said, but his voice admitted nothing. He continued, "I've made my life, Severus. Leave it be." The cool metal clasps on his robes fell open under his fingers, and he let the heavy black fabric slide from his shoulders to the floor. Without looking at his guest, he walked around the desk and stretched out on his cot.

There was a rustle from the other side of the room. Severus approached, standing over the cot rather than sitting. "And if I don't wish to bed a werewolf tonight?" he asked.

"Then don't," Remus said into the blanket under his crossed arms. "I have no desire to force my partners," he added, mockingly, and looked up.

Without changing his disdainful expression, Severus sat on the edge of the cot and began oiling his hands. When Remus dropped his forehead back to the blanket, Severus placed his hands on Remus' back and stroked smoothly up the knotted muscles. He rubbed and kneaded until Remus was half asleep, drugged by the unusual luxury of touch as much as the moon in the night sky and the wolfsbane poisoning his blood. Like the potion, Severus crept into his veins in small sips, unsweetened; like the full moon, Severus brought out the rage in him and made it sweet. When Severus cast off his robes and moved to cover Remus' pliant body with his own, the werewolf stretched and moaned in a wantonness he had no care to hide.

They coupled slowly under the stiff curtains that held back the moon's light. The killing hunger rose in Remus, distant and unimportant through the numbing haze of the wolfsbane, less urgent than the itch he was currently scratching. Severus seemed a more skillful lover than before, or perhaps Remus was simply not holding himself back from his body's release as he once had. He almost regretted losing the final rush to climax to the wolf's instincts, and he lay afterward, feeling Severus finish, wishing for unnameable things.

Severus stroked his back for a while, running his fingers down Remus' spine as though he were patting a dog, and Remus told himself that he didn't mind without gathering the energy to wonder if that was true. Eventually he said, "The moon's getting high."

"So it is," Severus said, and took his hand away to stand up. He threw his robes around his shoulders and fastened them around his body as Remus watched, cheek pressed to the scratchy blanket. Severus pulled on his boots and hefted the goblet, still steaming from the potion Remus had drunk from it. He turned with his hand on the door and said, "I haven't yet decided whether or not to take the easy way."

By the time Remus twisted around and sat up to see what Severus' expression might have been, the door was closed and locked. Having nothing else to do, he threw back the curtains and opened his arms to the simpler physical pain of the moon.

April: One Small Mistake

Remus discovered later that Severus had brought up his potion and found the office empty, the werewolf gone hunting. The betrayer feared betrayal, and Remus, heady with the world turned upside down, forgot to fear the moon.

April: Epilogue

Remus folded his spare blanket and wedged it into his aging suitcase, then leaned over the map spread out on the desk to check, again, on Severus' position. The tiny spot of ink labelled Severus Snape was moving slowly back and forth in the Potions Master's quarters -- he was probably pacing across his rooms, as he had been all afternoon as Remus packed. There was a dot heading toward the Defense Against the Dark Arts Master's quarters; it was labeled Harry Potter and hurtling down the corridors with adolescent enthusiasm.

Teaching Harry had been hard, very hard, and Remus knew his objectivity had been limited at best. The boy was just different enough from James that the similarities caught him every time -- a familiar smile, a tone of voice on certain words, a surprising talent: all of these had kept Remus off balance all year. He almost expected to find himself thirteen again, some days. He kept catching himself looking over his shoulder for Padfoot and Wormtail.

Of course, that instinct had been truer than he had known.

Sirius was back. It frightened him, and sent shivers up his spine every time he thought it: Sirius was back. Back and gone again, of course, fleeing through the night sky on the hippogriff rescued by Harry's friends, exiled again thanks to Remus' curse, but Remus told himself sternly that that was not important. Surely there would be time for Sirius to talk with him later. In a way, it was easier that he was not here; it gave Remus time to rethink everything that had happened in the last twelve years, and everything that had happened in the last eight months.

He had confessed all to Dumbledore that morning. He had felt like a child again, swinging his legs in a comfortable chair in the Headmaster's office, reciting his student crimes and talking for what felt like hours about Sirius and the Animagus spell, Peter and the Fidelus charm. The only thing he had glossed over was his adult interaction with Severus, dancing around the ambiguous antagonism and sympathy that had developed as the year had progressed, completely ignoring the blackmail, sexual acts, and taste of Severus' skin beneath his lycanthropic teeth. When Dumbledore had gently told him that Severus had "accidentally" denounced him as a werewolf over breakfast, and told him about the students' reactions, Remus had bowed his head and covered his face with his hands to hold back semi-hysterical laughter. Severus had gotten him expelled at last.

The worst of it was deserving it, Remus thought, and found himself studying his old map again. No -- the worst of it was knowing that his fellow veteran, his rival turned reluctant compatriot, had picked this particular attack. It was a targeted message; it said that Severus thought that their recent months of growing understanding as adults had all been lies, one more tasteless, childish joke by Sirius at Severus' expense, with Remus nothing but a pawn between them. Remus closed his eyes and told himself that it was useless to cry over spilled milk. There was nothing that would make Severus believe a word he said right now, and what was Severus to him now that Sirius was back anyway?

Behind him, someone knocked on the open door. Composing himself, Remus turned and found a smile for Harry. The boy's loyalty was surprisingly touching, and Remus found himself tempted to sit down and bare his heart to Harry as he would have to James. Harry couldn't comfort him, of course, not the way James would have -- or perhaps he could. It might be that James' son would understand this sort of pain and loneliness better than James ever could have done; James had been the scion of a large and powerful family, and Harry was an orphan who had always made his own way. Harry might know as well as Remus did the lengths to which unrelenting hardship could drive a man, but in the end, he was still only thirteen, so Remus swallowed around the lump in his throat and gave Harry a fatherly nod of pride.

Besides, he told himself, Harry liked Severus no better than James ever had.

Then Dumbledore was there and Remus was saying his goodbyes, hurrying to be on his way before his composure crumbled. Harry took the map with him when he left; Remus walked deliberately down the hallways and staircases to the front door and out into the courtyard. He loaded his meager belongings onto the waiting carriage and stood for as long as he could, one hand on the carriage door as he looked up at Hogwarts, and drew out the moment in case one person had left his dungeon-level quarters and climbed the stairs to the front gates after Remus had relinquished the Marauder's Map.

Silently, Remus begged him to appear. Sirius might not be a traitor, but Peter was. Someone needed to be on guard. Sirius was hiding and Remus was expelled, which left only one of the old crowd with Dumbledore now: Severus, alone again. Remus wanted to explain, to warn, to do something to let Severus know that he had an ally still.

At last he admitted that Severus was taking the easy way out after all. There would be no confrontation and no chance to say any goodbyes. Severus had had the last word.

Remus pulled himself up into the carriage and settled back on the seat. The light streaming in the window was hard-edged sunlight, warming his aching muscles, but as he watched Hogwarts recede behind him, he thought that it felt a lot like cold cursed moonlight.