Entry tags:

event: anti-valentine's day 2013, fic, member: bonfoi, pairing: severus/lucius, pairing: severus/remus, rating: pg-13

Turning Away by bonfoi
Title: Turning Away
Author: bonfoi
Pairing: Severus Snape/Lucius Malfoy; Severus Snape/Remus Lupin; Severus Snape & Teddy Lupin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,439
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters and their worlds belong to their original writers and no copyright infringement or offense is intended. No money was made from this story.
Summary: After the war, after coming into an unexpected inheritance, Severus finds out he hadn't been loved for himself. Luckily, there's a chance to change that.
A/N: Many thanks to my beta, badgerlady. She always makes me a better storyteller, and she did it three times this AVD. This was also written for prompt number two: 2. Severus is embarrassed to bare it all because of a certain "condition" – Maybe Severus is a hermaphrodite. Or has a third nipple or man boobs. Or a terrible skin condition. Or he's REALLY hung. #centaurSeverusFTW. And there's a bit of prompt number five in here, even if it's unwritten: 5. Severus took a deep breath and closed his eyes, his heart breaking. ♥

Turning Away

"Have you seen that nose?"

"Oh, la! You know what they say about the size of a man's nose, don't you?"

Severus wrinkled the aforementioned nose and swept past the two witches gossiping at the corner. He surveyed Diagon Alley with a jaundiced eye, mentally sneering at the gawkers pointing at the renovations going on at Florian Fortescue's and the Quidditch-mad youngsters milling about in front of the window at Quality Quidditch Supplies, oohing and aahing over the latest broom exhibit.

"Severus?"

Severus finally did roll his eyes as he stopped in his tracks and the pivoted smartly on his heel to stare into the eyes of the man addressing him. "Lupin." Severus' lips curled as if he were sucking a lemon. "Allowed out in public, are you?"

"Da, is this Mistuh Snape, the hero?"

Severus let his neck unbend enough to look down around Lupin's knees and saw a small boy missing a tooth and smiling up at him. The boy's blue hair marked him as Lupin and Nymphadora's just as much as the elfin features and the easy smile. Severus nodded at the boy's bright look.

"My name is Severus Snape, young man. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?" He held out his hand.

The boy looked up at Lupin and received a nod. "Go on, Teddy, introduce yourself."

Teddy stepped forward and wrapped his small fingers around as much of Severus' hand as he could. "My name is Teodore Lupin, sir."

"Theodore…" Lupin gently chided his son. "He's decided that the T-H in his name isn't cool ."

Severus let his lips relax into a small smile as he shared a look with 'Teodore'. "I applaud your individuality, young Mr. Lupin." Severus nodded as Teddy gave a gurgle of laughter.

"Da, can Mistuh Snape come to tea wit' us?" Teddy wrapped one arm around Lupin's thigh and cast puppy-dog eyes up at his father while Severus looked at Lupin with a touch of interest.

"All right, little man." Lupin smiled down at his son and then shared that smile with Severus. "Severus, would you care to accompany us to the small café they've built down the way?" Lupin's eyes glinted merrily.

Severus surprised himself when the words slipped past his lips. "Yes, I think I would."

He felt something unfurl along his spine and shivered as he followed the Lupins.

~oOo~

The hour spent with the Lupins, son and father, was not a chore. In the privacy of his thoughts, Severus considered it something pleasant.

"I never would have thought you'd mix with a beast, Severus."

Severus huffed out a sigh and turned to the portrait addressing him. "Lucius, you may rest assured that there were Death Eaters far more beastly than Lupin." He continued unbuttoning his robes as Lucius ranted on.

"Be that as it may, Severus, you are a Slytherin and unique." Lucius' voice dropped into a more intimate register. "Will you show the beast how unique?"

Severus' fingers stilled for a few seconds and then he shrugged off his robes. He spoke to the wall and not the portrait behind him. "It was one hour, Lucius, one blessedly normal hour in twenty-odd years of enmity and misunderstanding. It doesn't mean anything."

~oOo~

Severus realized that one meeting with the Lupins meant more to him when he woke up after the full moon and his condition had manifested yet another symptom. The fluttering along his spine unfurled and waved behind him as if it were another entity entirely, twitching and curling without conscious thought.

"Bloody hell!" Severus growled. "What were the Princes thinking of?"

"They were at the forefront of Wizarding power, Severus." Lucius preened in a pastoral scene, lounging on a blanket under an apple tree in bloom. "At least your ancestors parlayed with mammals, Snape." Lucius' face became covered in adamantine scales before smoothing back into the familiar Malfoy countenance. "Says something about the Princes and their regrettable emotional tendencies."

"Breeding with those lizards in Galapagos is not an excuse for your cold-blooded tendencies." Covered in an old set of teaching robes, Severus flexed his shoulders and buttocks, the former to ease the tension in his muscles, the latter to better control his damnable tail, the new addition stuck through a conjured hole at the back. "And you always enjoyed those scales, anyhow. I remember how effective they were at turning aside some of the more virulent curses of our fellow Death Eaters."

"At least a prehensile tail is useful in more ways than just defensive." Lucius lifted his head and stared at Severus' hidden body, the robes he wore hiding those flexing buttocks from his interested gaze. "And, you know what they say about a wizard with a tail, don't you?"

Severus rolled his eyes and shook his head. "No, do tell." The you prat was implied.

Lucius leaned up on his elbows, a lascivious cast to his painted features and a leer on his lips. "In centuries past, a wizard with a tail was esteemed as a sexual being, capable of casting the best sexual magicks, creating the most effective aphrodisiacs and love philtres." Lucius twisted to his side and palmed his groin. "They were the priests of Aphrodite, Venus, acolytes at the Oracle of Delphi, adepts in the temple of Amun Ra, even servitors in the Crystal Caves of Myrddin Emrys…" Lucius' eyes closed as he kneaded the bulge between his legs. "There were even some vestal virgin males adding their powers to the Roman mages who invaded our hallowed shores."

"Sex and power, that's all you think about when you see me, Lucius." The appendage moved through the air as if it knew it was being talked about. Severus crossed his arms over his chest and turned toward his former lover's portrait. "That was why you chose me, wasn't it? The possibility of this damned tail, of the Princes' hoarded power, that drew you to me instead of anything of value." Severus frowned at the lust writ large on Lucius' painted face.

"Well, Severus, it didn't hurt," the dead man said with a brittle laugh.

~oOo~

Severus looked at the empty frame Lucius was used to sitting within, the tattered, smoldering remnants lacking cohesion enough for his portrait to even slip into. Severus' tail flicked back and forth in agitation as he paced to and fro, his wand clenched in one hand and his teeth bared.

He'd known that Lucius always had an eye to power and not only beauty, but to be distilled down to a quirk of genetics, an aberration of physiognomy.... He growled as he paced, the wand in his hand bending with the force of his emotions. Suddenly, Severus stopped dead and spun toward the ruined frame.

"I am not a beast, nor am I the conduit to power you think me, Lucius Malfoy! I vow here and now that I will be more human, more loved, than you and any pureblood witch or wizard ever was." Power swirled around him, the sound of childish laughter and the howl of a wolf rising from nowhere to wrap him in armour. Severus felt something bright burn along his veins and smirked at the frame, at the feeling of rightness..,

The power of his ancestors' doings spun out from his skin to coalesce into a seething cloud in front of him. Severus put out his hand, wand held loosely, and pointed at it. "I will be more! I will be better!" Severus' voice grew stronger with each syllable that passed his lips. "I will become the power you never knew, Lucius Malfoy, and damned be your ambitions and our past." The cloud contracted toward a point and then exploded with the sound and fury of primeval Nature unleashed.

The picture frame was gone, blasted from the wall. Severus shook with reaction, swallowing and breathing heavily. He leaned against the table nearby, stunned at what he'd done. When a Patronus burst through his wall, he could only blink in wonder.

"Severus, you never told us your address," Remus Lupin's voice spoke from the Patronus' mouth. "Teddy—"

"Teodore, Da."

"Theo-dore," Lupin emphasised, "and I were wondering if you'd like to go on a ramble this Saturday? We live near Huntingdon and there's a lovely wood where we like to picnic—"

"Pic-i-nic, Mistuh Snape, really good food!" Teddy shouted.

"As you can tell, your presence is most joyful requested by the Family Lupin. Please say you'll come. Send an owl to King's Down Cottage, Huntingdonshire, and let us know."

Severus pushed away from the table with a smile, the reply already forming on his lips.

The End?