Title: Philanthropy
Author: purplefluffycat
Characters/Pairings: Remus Lupin/Severus Snape
Rating: NC-17
Kinks/Themes Chosen: Dirty talk, aggressive partners.
Other Warnings: D/s dynamics, ceraunophilia.
Word Count: ~1800
Summary/Description: Memories haunt Remus in the year he returns to Hogwarts to teach. How terrible to be back in the old castle, on a night like this.

Author's Notes: This can operate as a standalone piece, but I imagined it as a counterpart to Charity (my DD piece for February 2012)





With heat and dampness, Summer was trying to suffocate. It was sticky-hot; lethargic hot - the lake turned to a putrid nest for mosquitoes and clouds squatting over the land like some great grey fungus. There had been no rain for weeks, and the earth was half-parched, half damply-rotten, dogs lying around with tongues lolling and orchards carpeted with rotten falls and thirsty wasps.

The air pressure made Remus' eyes hurt, and bequeathed a certain knifing pain at the temples. Worst of all, though, it made him remember; it made him dwell.

Beast. Abomination. Monster.

The words rang in his ears - from one source; from many. How terrible to be back in the old castle, on a night like this. The Shrieking Shack was just paces away, filled with so much pain and memory. There danced the imprints of his lost comrades, paler than ghosts - but welling up, now, in his mind, asking why he was old and threadbare and still bothering to be alive, when hope had passed decades ago. Why come back to this old place, where they had laid by the lake and waited for the storm; where he had been let out of control, had nearly killed...

-The moon was close, but not full, tonight; not quite.

Remus threw his shabby outer robes on the bed, and checked, for the umpteenth time, that all the windows were open. They were, and it didn't help at all. It was as if the heat was pressing inward through those portals, squalid tentacles of air making the bedclothes damp and the papers on his desk begin to decompose even before their ink was dry.

The pain in his head twinged once more, and his vision split, giving objects an odd, coloured edge amid the candlelight and making the world seem less real.

Less real, indeed, than the images that welled-up: no friends, lost friends, dead friends; rooms that locked from the outside; parents snarling, children terrified.

The scars on his body itched and tingled beneath his shirt, as if the animal inside was pawing to get out and guzzling up his better senses - as it did; as it would. He was desperate now, and could barely focus; he would surely go insane if left alone in the heated damp and wallow of the past.

It was then that Remus walked the dungeons.

He needed something; someone... someone who hated him and would put him in his place. Someone he almost killed - so he could be properly sorry. Sorry... sorry... so, so sorry for being this; for feeling more animal than human, on this twilit night when the air was thick and the next day's lunar tug made him already half-lose his mind.

Remus was barely aware that his feet had carried him, by the time he reached the door. He knew not to knock; the wards would tell their denizen all they needed to know.

Of course, Snape liked to make him wait. Two minutes passed, then five, and - finally, just as Remus was beginning to dread that there would be no succour tonight - the door crooked open, and he was met by fathomless eyes and thin lips caught in a sneer.

"A stray, I see," came the dark voice. "I suppose it wants to come in?"

Remus nodded gratefully, eyes closed and half-turned to the floor. Snape's quarters were dimly lit. The man himself, as ever, wore anonymous black.

Scurrying inside, Remus knew the drill: Snape did not wish to be touched, but he, Remus, was to disrobe completely.

"Go on, then," Snape drawled, "Animals do not wear clothes." Remus could have used a charm, but preferred to unbutton by hand. His rough robes prickled with the stick of sweat; although he was clean, it was impossible to feel fresh in this close heat... greasy fur; puppies in a hole.

He hoped, perhaps, that the dungeon floor would feel cool beneath his feet, but, if anything, the stones had absorbed the relentless warmth, reflecting it back through his soles.

When Remus was naked, every hair on his body pricked to attention and his gaze fell meekly downward. Snape began to circle; his robes whispered against the floor with boots in regular click.

"What a sad specimen we have, here," Snape began. "Pretending to be human - to walk among us. Greying, though, isn't it? An animal past its prime."

Remus felt a shiver of grateful shame at that. There was something cathartic - almost affirming - about hearing someone else say it.

"And how, exactly, has the creature found its way here? Who did you trick and cheat, mmm? For surely, no-one would choose to employ a beast, now, would they?"

Remus shook his head, and as he did so, the very same thought seemed to be freed from it - out into the dungeon air and away. Thank the gods. The words - their immediacy, their aggression - also made his blood heat; he could feel arousal building and he was becoming half-hard.

As if Snape sensed that, he gave a harsh laugh. "Go on, then. Touch yourself. Animals do that, do they not?"

Remus complied, and gratefully began to stroke his length. He would not be permitted lubrication, but that was for the best - the edge of pain was just what he needed to make his relief seem more real. More real than regrets.

His hand worked faster, all beneath Snape's hard gaze - blood staining both his cock and his cheeks red with welcome mortification. His breath sped and gained a ragged edge; the night had made him so distracted, it was easy to get close...

"Stop." The direction was voiced barely above a whisper, but was made from cold steel. Gasping and beaded with pre-come, Remus left his cock alone. A mewling sound came from his throat that he did not quite recognise, but made Snape smirk: "Animals must learn to control themselves."

Somewhere distant, thunder growled. Remus could feel the skin of his starved stomach sagging; peppery white hairs across a pigeon-chest that rose and fell with denied arousal. Snape bathed him with cool disdain - in glorious contrast to the hot, wet mulch of the air and the suffocating press of his own thoughts.

The silence stretched between them. Remus felt the thump of his blood in every vein, but he knew he was required just to wait. Head meekly bent, he took pleasure in being punished. Yes, this is what I deserve. This is what I need. Thank you. Thank you.

Finally, Snape spoke once more: "On your knees, wolf."

The order was balm to his soul, and Remus complied with relief - closing his eyes as he sank to all fours with upturned arse, head suspended low beneath his shoulders. He heard the rustle of Snape's robes, felt the cold slick of oil cursorily splashed - and then Snape was pushing into him, blunt and hard, making his hole burn and his soul sing with the purifying pain of being taken.

There was no tenderness in Snape's strokes; the man seized his hips through efficiency, not intimacy, and gripped so hard there would surely be bruises. That was wonderful, too, thought Remus: a mark, any mark that came from a source other than the wolf. He could go back to his rooms and treasure it, a reminder that his flesh was human, after all...

When Snape's cock hit the spot within him that needed it most, Remus almost sobbed in gratitude. He was used, taken, hated... and yet, alive. Full and fucked; bristling forth with every cell into a new day; feeling things that were uniquely in the present and no amount of remorse could erase, however painfully he mooned. The welcome invasion spelled all of that and more, and helped to relieve the tug of the orb above him, if only a little.

As if it could hear Remus' thoughts, the weather then responded. Summer lightning slashed across the sky, and the rumble of thunder was close on its heels, mimicking Snape's low growl as he pounded.

With such speed and force, neither wizard would last long. A final push, and then Snape filled his ears with a guttural noise, and his arse with hot seed. Remus came noisily, besplattering the flagstones.

They took a moment to catch their breath, neither man looking at the other. Unsteadily, Remus rose, cherishing the dents in his knees, and relishing the sense of calm.

It was not to last, however.

"Now, out." Snape threw Remus' clothes toward him in a rough bundle and spelled open the door with a clang. Remus scurried into the corridor, the oak slamming behind him, and dressed in haste, lest he be seen.

He walked back to his rooms around the outside of the castle. The night was still, not a creature around, and, as he turned his face up to the heavens, he was met with the first drops of rain - cool and calm, cool and sane.

Remus walked for nearly an hour in the grounds, his tatty robes drenched but never overly cold. The ghosts settled in his mind back to their dust, and the angry masses receded into an orderly horde. The moon was bright, but he regarded it with clear, human eyes: not now, - and he whispered, unheard, to the dungeons, "Thank you."



*****


Slumped against the heavy door of his quarters, Severus listened to the werewolf's retreating steps; they never did speak a word after assignations such as these. That would spoil the charade, after all, he thought, and although it could not quite be described as 'pleasure' for either, it could perhaps be 'relief' for them both.
.
Lupin's relief is obvious, written on every line of his gaunt frame. For Severus, it is more nuanced - but he is more than happy to hide that; to play the sadistic bastard.

No-one needs to know that he understands; knows how it feels - to want to be taken and used and forgiven, himself, just as much... but he can give away his darkness no more easily than the wolf can be suppressed at full moon.

To receive... and to give.

Severus knows that there are marks and stains that do not fade, and hurts that do not heal. They can be covered, sidelined and ignored, but they do not leave the soul.

-And sometimes, when Nature cries out for it with all her maddening gales and storms and heat, these wounds become too much to bear alone. A person needs help.

At times like these, no-one knows that this is the closest Severus comes to philanthropy.