LMoM#29 (1 of 2, 'Try to stay blind to the hope and fear outside')
Title: (1993 - 'Try to stay blind to the hope and fear outside')'' Author: psyfic Rating: hard R Pairing: Remus/Severus, Severus/Regulus Kink(s): dream sex Challenge: Lusty Month of May 2009 Word count: 3,685
Author's note: If you are reading this for the first time, please go to the first entry and start reading there. Otherwise, this saga may not make any sense at all. Thanks!
Note: I wrote this particular entry whilst dealing with a migraine and very little sleep, so pray excuse its frailties as I deal with my own.
30 Jul 1993
Journal of Severus Snape. The meeting was the usual folderol. I'd no idea why Albus requested my presence, aside from to regale us with the news we had already read in the Prophet regarding Black's escape.
The security measures the Ministry was insisting on were of concern, but nothing related to the dungeons since there was no possible egress there to the grounds, being mostly hemmed in by the lake or, in the case of a very few areas, possessing a steep drop from cliff-side. I was beginning to wonder when he would get to the business requiring my presence.
'Lastly, we have a new DADA instructor. Most of you know him, and he will require a bit of assistance from some of us at certain times.' Albus looked to me and I sat straighter. 'Severus, your services, in particular, will be required.'
'Whatever I can do, Headmaster, I am at your disposal.'
'Excellent. Our new DADA instructor is Remus Lupin.'
RJL here.
Sometimes I wonder why I bother to keep a journal still. All this time and yet, sometimes it seems these pages are my only real friends, the only ones that know me.
I've not had anyone who truly knew me since I was a boy, and yet, sometimes I wonder if I ever knew them at all.
Looking at the paper this morning, courtesy of the Headmaster, who has been kind enough to supply me day-old issues of the staff room copy from the school to 'catch me up on events' as he put it, I wonder this most of all.
Sirius Black's face has adorned the front cover since his extraordinary escape from Azkaban.
I scarcely recognise the madman on the page, laughing maniacally even as the guards subdue him. He looks nothing like the boy I once knew.
That he cold-bloodedly set up Lily and James to be murdered... that he was a Death Eater or the next best thing to one... how could I ever have been his friend?
Death Eaters and their sympathisers hated werewolves and all 'near-human' creatures, as we are called.
Death Eaters and their sympathisers despised Muggle-borns and Half-bloods and believed in blood purity.
Sirius had never shown a sign of caring about any of that. Then again, the parting of the ways began end of sixth year, when James finally won Lily's hand and Sirius lost his closest mate. Whilst I had once counted him as a friend, he and James were more like brothers, almost inseparably close and Lily's presence threw a bit of a wrench into their relationship.
He palled around with P & me, but it wasn't the same. We weren't so game for a prank. I was a prefect and P had become quite good at gobstones and began to play for our house team and hang about with the rest of the house players in his spare time. So from four we dwindled to two and I always felt I was a bit too serious for his comfort level.
Sirius was not interested in studies. He did well enough to pass and he had no real need to work, as it turned out his father died before he could change his will and had left a vault to him. Prior to this, he'd had some inclination of trying his hand at being an Auror or even an Unspeakable, but once his future had been secured, it was as if he lost all ambition.
He tried to get me to agree to joining him after school, finding digs and living together and palling around, but I did not wish to be beholden, and I badly wanted to try my hand at actually earning a living.
More fool I. Yet, even as I'm grateful to not have been around to witness his descent into madness, I also feel beset by guilt at times. He was a friend and I abandoned him and he turned to a darkness I cannot understand, but might have been able to halt, or at least adjourn, before he ended up murdering Lily and James.
It's been a hard-scrabble existence at best. Lonely, but also invaluable. I've learnt I can survive, if not thrive.
Being a werewolf has, ironically, served me well in that I do not get sick and I'm very strong. When nothing else avails, I can almost always find manual labour amongst the Muggles. There are always businesses that require rock-hauling or brush clearance or digging. Often you can work for a few days or a week or two, get your wages (sometimes as cash) and move on. I'm careful to ensure my schedule does not conflict with the moon.
Still, not knowing where my next paycheck is coming from, or even how much it will be, has not allowed me to live a normal existence, to know the joys of owning a flat or saving to buy a house of my own.
Not being able to work during the full moon, and sometimes for some days after, has also not been conducive to earning a living.
It is ironic that I'll be returning to Hogwarts. I see it almost every moon. I still Apparate near the Shack on those evenings. I leave my clothes and wand in a bundle behind the house, under the porch there, and then avail myself of the Forbidden Forest. There are areas there that reek of wild magic and this calls to my kind. Many a morning after I have found myself waking with other werewolves around me, glad to be human again, ashamed of our nudity, particularly if the other is of the opposite sex or a child. We quickly cover ourselves with hands if nothing else and go our separate ways.
I'll still be running there for full moons, but now I'll be living there as well, in that great stone building steeped in ancient magic.
It is ironic that I'll be teaching alongside a man who probably came to know Sirius as a Death Eater. I wish I had the courage to ask, but Snape's never spoken to me since the end of our fifth year. He's never even more than glanced in my direction and his reaction has always been such a look of disgust, an emotion I can easily scent and which causes my stomach to clench, that I avoided him entirely our last two years at school.
Now I'll have to work with him. Merlin help us both.
26 August 1993
Journal of Severus Snape.
The only good to come of Lupin's presence is it required my overseeing his potion on a daily basis, which meant the use of my lab at the school and Albus's permission to live in the castle for that time.
I prefer to spend as little time as possible at Spinner's End. I still think of it as my parent's home, despite their being gone now. My father had succumbed to a lung infection in my seventh year. My mother had passed five years later, struck by a lorry on her way back from grocery-shopping, laden with goods. It was but two weeks after my 23rd birthday and the day of her funeral the rain fell red from the sky, like watery blood.
The Muggles claimed it was dust from the Sahara, but I felt it apropos and fitting to my mood at the time. Perhaps it was magic. I have often reflected on that day. To my knowledge, it never happened again.
Why my thoughts persist in this direction today is, perhaps, due to my mind needing distraction.
I will soon be delivering the first of his four required doses of Wolfsbane this month.
Naturally, he offered to come fetch it, but I have no desire to have that creature in my quarters. It is bad enough Albus informed me I will be seated next to him at the high table. I will have to see him in the staff room, at least during meetings. I can avoid the room the rest of the time and work in my own office. I hope he will never have cause to come to my office.
RJL here.
This is going to be a long year. Snape brought my first batch of Wolfsbane potion and waited for me to drink it, insisting he wanted the goblet back as it is the only one that holds the requisite amount for my four monthly doses.
'I'll be glad to wash it and return it lat--'
'Do drink it and quickly, Lupin,' he sneered, making my name sound like a bad taste in his mouth. 'It loses effectiveness as it cools.'
The potion was still steaming and I knew it would burn. I would heal within an hour or two, thanks to being a werewolf, but it would be uncomfortable. I was sure he knew it.
His black eyes watched me without sign of emotion.
I drank it without looking away from him, or indicating in any way that I was in pain, although I couldn't stop from making a face at the taste.
'That is ghastly.'
'It protects everyone from something just as ghastly,' he assured me with a cold, thin-lipped smile.
I did not look forward to the next few days.
2 September 1993
Journal of Severus Snape.
It was full moon last night. Even knowing he was taking Wolfsbane did not give me peace of mind.
I had dreams of running through the Forbidden Forest, running through the trees, trying to hide from the creatures of the dark.
I could hear them behind me, and I tried to find a place to hide, but there was nothing, just trees and fallen rotting logs.
'Severus.'
I turned and a masked figure in a hood stood before me and I jolted awake.
It's been a dozen years since I've seen a Death Eater.
26 September 1993
Journal of Severus Snape.
It is merely because I must see him today. The dream means nothing.
It is also that I have not shared release with anyone for many years. Not that I require it. I can find satisfaction alone quite well and do as needed.
It is different when one has a partner, though. Even if one feels quite ridiculous in the aftermath, the act itself is more exciting, more stimulating, than when alone. The climax is stronger and the sense of satiation lasts longer.
That is all. The dream means nothing.
RJL here.
The taste of the Wolfsbane seems to correspond with the amount of bitterness and vile suspicion Snape heaps on me as he brings me my dose.
Aside from at meals, where he completely ignores me, we do not speak except when he brings me my Wolfsbane.
I cannot help it, but the beast in me cowers, cringes, hurts from his scorn and disdain.
Some part of me still wishes for its erstwhile companion, its mate, to return. To give me succour and affection.
I don't remember the last time anyone touched me, aside from the round of handshakes I received at the first staff meeting.
I haven't been with anyone since two years ago, when I woke after one full moon to find myself in a young woman's arms. She was naked, like me, and it was quite clear we had been coupling during our time as beasts. It was her moon time, no doubt what had attracted me and I was aghast. She was scarcely of age, but she clung to me and cried and I held her and soon we were coupling again as man and woman.
I did not care that she was young. I did not care that menstrual blood was smeared between us nor that it smeared on my length as I entered her. I only cared that she was willing and to assuage her pain and my own.
I'd only ever had a woman once before. If I had one during my moon time, with another werewolf, I did not know. She was the only one I'd ever woken with.
There had been a few times I'd woken with men, where we knew when we woke that I had subdued and assaulted them in beast form. The men had been old or frail in some way which translated into wolf terms as being of lesser status, required to give in to a stronger, younger and more capable male.
In ancient werewolf tradition, if such could be said to exist, we maintained our silence and swallowed our shame. My own for having turned rapist in the night and theirs for having become unwilling and unwitting victims, yet fully aware on waking of what had happened.
Being a werewolf is not for the weak of heart. If one is weak of heart when one is changed, one will surely die.
28 September 1993
Journal of Severus Snape.
Regulus Black has been dead longer even than Lily.
In my dreams it is as if they were never gone.
I am never surprised to see them, to walk with them, talk with them.
Lily has visited me often in my dreams.
Never as when I was an adolescent. Never in dreams of kissing and coupling.
She has held me, though, as I weep. I can feel her arms around me and I am young again, and naive and foolish, but it is all right because she is, as well, and we are both together, and never stopped being friends.
I miss my friend. I miss her with every fibre of my being.
Reg I do not miss so much as feel grateful toward.
Without him, I would not have achieved my Mastery. Without Reg I would not be where I am today.
I wonder at times what possessed him to betray the Dark Lord and run away.
I know he learnt something, he hinted to me the last time I ever saw him. He learnt something dire and he intended to do something about it.
'I'll tell you more when I can.'
Which turned out to be never. I never saw him again.
By that time, we were merely Death Eater compatriots. We had stopped being lovers when I left school.
The term itself is a misnomer. We were not lovers in any real sense. There was no love in what we did. We sought each other's company for release. It was quick, easy, convenient. It was not love.
Still, there is no other word.
In my dreams I do fuck him as he does me, but it is with the grace of a mechanical device. I could as well be thrusting into a charmed knothole which accepts me and pushes against me as I seek my release.
He says nothing, does not cry out or call my name. He never did when we were coupling. He would say 'Fuck' or 'Good' or 'Yes,' but it was with the same enthusiasm of a Quidditch coach encouraging a player.
When I come, waking up as I spurt my seed along my nightshirt and dampen my bedsheets, it is like when I came then.
It is a release, and welcome in its own way, but it is not wholly satisfying. It is merely satisfactory.
RJL here.
Woke from incredible dream of Severus.
It was like when we were young.
He was thrusting against me, pushing his prick against my hip and making that pleading whine he used to make by my ear.
I was just as hard and pushing back, rubbing myself on his stomach.
'Why did you do it? Why did you leave me?'
I gasped and began to come all over his belly.
He cried out and spasmed against me, spurting semen in an impressive fountain, striping me from belly to chin.
I held him, pressed our torsos together and smeared the spunk between us until it was indistinguishable, my scent from his own, intermingled as I had so once adored.
'I didn't, Severus. I never left you. I never wanted to.'
Then I woke, fighting tears, because the moon will rise tonight and I will be the beast again. The beast Severus loathed. The beast that nearly killed him.
Journal of Severus Snape. The moon was full tonight.
I watched from the Astronomy Tower, smoking a fragrant French cigarette gifted to me by the Malfoys, and sipping from the flask Minerva gave me for my first Christmas on staff and which I'd filled with an exceptional brandy.
I could see movement in the forest.
There are occasional howls in the night and they made my hair stand on end.
I remembered back to that one night, the night at the Shack. The night Black conspired with Potter to kill me and with Lupin to frighten me off.
This is what I've come to believe. Lupin would not seek to kill, but to frighten. He does not have the killer instinct, even being a deadly animal once a month. As a man, he remained as I first dubbed him, Meek. Meek as milk.
Black, however... he has already proved himself a killer and the seeds of his darkness lay in that incident so long ago.
No doubt he heard tall tales from Lupin that he was being 'molested' by his least favourite person. Even though he was just as culpable for our activities, he lay the blame entirely at my feet. He probably told them I seduced him.
Knowing their natures, it was all it took for them to plan a scheme whereby I could be eliminated. Of course they told Lupin they were just going to scare me. It's possible they even believed it themselves, but it backfired.
Fortunately, or else I would not be here now, able to make Lupin his monthly medicine, enabling him to retain control in beast form.
This is what was said about the potion's effect, although I had never witnessed it myself.
I wondered where he went. Did he sleep in the Shack, for old times sake? Did he stay in the castle? Was he manacled or at least warded so he would not wander?
I finished my cigarette and headed back to my quarters, catching various miscreants along the way and sending them back to their common rooms less points deducted to their respective houses.
My own wandering snakelets I chastised and chivvied along. They get enough vitriol, ill-humour and disdain from other houses and the populace at large. They need no more from I.
29 September 1993
Journal of Severus Snape.
It is the way he looks at me when I bring him the Wolfsbane.
He is not insolent, in fact he is almost pathetically grateful.
He is not snide or sarcastic. In point of fact, he is polite nearly to a fault.
His eyes, however, roam over me and leave me feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
Often I have to look away first, which I find unconscionable.
In the dream, I had to look away from the look he was giving me.
It was beseeching, bewitching. He wanted me. I could sense the need.
I handed him the goblet and he took it and set it aside and stepped up to me.
'Severus.'
That only. I was hard and aching and he knew it, he knew I desired him, and he knew I felt humbled.
It angered me and I rose to strike him, but he did not seek to defend himself.
He bent and he was naked, as was I, and I could not hide my desire.
'Severus please...'
I pushed him further down and I thrust inside him and as he cried out and trembled beneath me, I woke up trembling in my bed, soiling my nightshirt.
RJL here.
Snape was particularly snappish today as he delivered my potion.
What was odd was I could smell his need quite strongly. Was he going to meet with someone? A paramour?
The thought he had someone was a sad one, which troubled me.
I know he would no more be interested in me now than in discarded rubbish, and yet part of me longed for him, for his touch, for the touch of my mate, my companion.
When he left me, I could not help but weep.
1 October 1993
RJL here.
The Wolfsbane is like a bloody miracle. If only it had existed when I attended school. Things would have been so different.
I could have merely gone to Slughorn, or perhaps, Pomfrey, for my doses. I could have gone behind my curtains and used a silencing spell and changed in privacy and slept through the night. It's possible no one would ever have known, except for the Headmaster, my Head of House and Slughorn and Pomfrey.
I imagined that for a moment. The only night to hide would have been the full moon itself. The only deception in keeping the identity of my medicine from anyone save those who knew. Waking the morning after with my full faculties and no injuries.
I still can't believe it when I wake and am perfectly fine. It's like a bloody miracle.
No matter what vile words he uses or how much he loathes me, I will forever be grateful to Snape for giving me this amazing time.
It's almost better than sex.
Journal of Severus Snape.
Damnable dreams.
This time of my school days and of being the Half-blood broom.
I am the Half-Blood Prince. What a ridiculous moniker and what misplaced pride.
Yet it enabled me to survive and that is what matters. Survival.
In Slytherin, being rich or of high rank does not matter so much as your instincts to survive. The one who survives is accorded respect, regardless of strength or intelligence, wealth or breeding.
With that self-made moniker I steeled myself for the struggle of survival.
Because of that I stand today, an instructor at a prestigious school, respected by my peers, sought after for my skills.
Those who tried to harm me, to eliminate me, are either dead, in hiding or beholden to me.
The one who would have taken my life bows his head to me four days a month as I provide what only I have the ability to give.
So it does not matter that he pays me in my dreams, with the purse of his body.
It does not matter that he counts out each thrust with the sound of my name.
It does not matter that the coin is measured in pearly seed.