Kay_ aka_Ari (kayakaari) wrote in severus_sighs, @ 2010-02-03 19:54:00 |
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Title: Love Everlasting
Author: Ari
Pairing: Severus/ Remus
Rating: M
Word Count: 2525
Warnings: None for now but death later (not main pairing).
Summary: After Remus convinces Lily to set him up with Severus, they begin a secret affair; but secrets breed lies and lies breed distrust. Fatal mistakes, other lovers, 2 wars and decades later, will their love be everlasting? Part 1: 1975-'81; Part 2: '93-'09
A/N: From here on the story is more Snupin centric.
~~~
Interval
Severus Snape surveyed his classroom. Today was the 10th anniversary of his teaching career. In three hours he would have been a resident master here at Hogwarts School for ten entire years. A decade of his life wasted. He did not care to think why this was so. To him, it was enough simply that it was.
His eyes glazed over as he regarded the scroll in front of him. As always the teachers had returned early to prepare for the new school year. He was currently working on the upcoming year's curriculum. In two weeks the children would return. In two weeks he would here. Harry Potter, the embodiment of Severus' failed life.
In one small eleven year old package, this boy held the power to destroy him. Would he look like Lily, Severus wondered. He closed his eyes tightly- as though it could protect him from the pain caused by the vivid images of Lily which danced behind his eyelids, flittering around playfully in his memories as Lily once had. Albus had told him that the child had her eyes when he was a babe. Those eyes... Lily’s eyes… He shuddered to think of those eyes on him once more. He had never been able to resist those eyes. He would have to be careful not to be taken advantage of by a mere student, even if he was Lily’s child.
Would the child be like Lily? Would he have the power to make Severus feel the way she always had; like he was special, like he was worth it? Would the child share his and Lily's love of Potions? Their love of reading, of learning?
Severus felt himself shudder again. Except for the tears he shed that night almost a decade ago, he had mostly suppressed his feelings about what had happened all those years ago. He only relived them in vivid nightmares.
Albus had known and offered him the use if the pensieve but mostly Severus preferred to suffer the nightmares. He felt in some small way like they were his punishment, a well deserved one along with the torment of teaching children a basic curriculum.
Here at Hogwarts there were many limits and restrictions to the personal research he was permitted to do. He had to teach all of the students and not just the clever or interested ones. He had to teach the most basic of potions and within such an inflexible and unyielding boundary that at times he felt suffocated.
True, he made his own fun along the way. He terrorized the Hufflepuffs- he was never a fan of such weakness anyway, he found it contemptible. He bullied the Gryffindors. He would never admit it but he liked the challenge they presented as much as he enjoyed that they dared not do what their body language so clearly showed they desired. He had enjoyed having power over human emotions- he himself was a master of self control- and provoking the emotional Lions and Badgers each satisfied him in their own way.
To a man with such intellect and talent as he, who had been destined for great things, to claim superiority over children wasn't much but it was all he had and he almost craved the validation, no matter how minor.
It was for this very reason that he favoured his Slytherins. Here were people like him who understood and appreciated his cunning. Their adoration fed into his fragile ego, a slim bandage over his wounded pride.
Still he knew their adoration only went so far. It was hard for a Slytherin to maintain respect for someone so talented yet who remained limited to teaching a basic curriculum. They could not know why he remained chained to the school, his considerable talents restrained and wasted. They never outwardly disrespected him but they treated him only as a teacher and nothing more.
He longed for the days when he was a feared and respected Death Eater with almost unrestrained powers and freedom to do as he pleased. To research and to experiment, to invent and amaze- that was his destiny. That should have been his destiny.
It was why he clung to the Malfoys as he had. In Lucius' company he felt connected to his briefly glorious past. Lucius knew and respected his powers and talents. With Lucius he could still have intellectual conversations about the Dark Arts, nothing was too dark or forbidden.
But now he would soon face a reminder of the less than glorious part of his past. Would the child be able to see beyond his shackles and respect his greatness or would Lily's Eyes regard him with contemptuous scorn or worse, pity. Would this child remind him of his happy times with his best friend or would seeing Lily's Eyes remind him of what he had lost?
As the time grew closer to his anniversary, he found the weight of his losses and crimes overwhelming, suffocating… nearly unbearable.
Abandoning his scroll, he poured himself a necessary fortifying drink. 'To Ten years!' He toasted the empty room before consuming his drink and retiring to bed.
***
Sitting at the teachers' table awaiting the arrival of the first years and most importantly Lily's son, was the greatest test Severus' self control had borne in a decade.
He found himself infinitely grateful that he had remained a practising Occlumens over the years. It was the only thing that saved him as a nightmare, worse than any punishment he could have devised for himself, appeared.
James Potter's reincarnation approached the hat for sorting. This version was thinner and shorter but his confident swagger as the room cheered its adoration made it clear just whose child this was.
Struggling to keep his composure in ways he had seldom struggled since he was a student, he watched with increasingly furious scorn as the bloody child's lips moved slightly- he was talking to the hat! Severus could not hear any words but it did not matter- it was the sheer cheek, the arrogance of it all that galled him.
'Gryffindor!' The infernal felt called and the arrogant child gloated, swaggering to that house's table.
Severus' knuckles stretched painfully white as he gripped the cutlery. This could not be happening! What reality was this? He looked around the room for confidence- the Hufflepuffs cowered as always, the Slytherins smirked, the Ravenclaws were wary and the Gryffindors tensed in hostility. His sense of self a little comforted, he covertly observed the boy, willing him to look his way.
But the child would not look. He sat there at the Gryffindor table, chatting away already with the comfortable poise and confidence his father always possessed. Like father, like son, he clearly adored the attention!
As the Headmaster finished his final speech of the night, Severus sneered. The whispers about Harry Potter continued at the teachers table and he heard comments float from the students. Two decades on it was like a bad case of déjà vu.
Once again he would be sidelined to a Potter. No, he decided, no, certainly not this time around. This time he had the upper hand and by Merlin he would not be made to feel inferior to James Potter. Never again!
***
Severus’s hands shook as he prepared himself a tumbler of Firewhiskey. He was not a heavy drinker- in fact his alcohol was primarily for entertaining guests; he preferred to be in total control of his senses and reflexes, most of the time.
However today was special. It had been his first class with Harry Potter and it had not gone well. He knew that he had been extra unreasonable towards the boy but he was so frustrated that he knew that if he could do it again, he’d probably do the same. The child looked so much like his father! He was also it seemed, as disrespectful towards the delicate Art of Potions as his father. He had known nothing about Potions. Imagine not knowing what a bezoar was! He and Lily had known. ‘Yes but you were the only ones in Slughorn’s class who had known’ a voice reminded him. Where Lily’s voice of reason had once haunted his youth, silenced by his cruel words and an unfortunate series of events that ended their friendship, Albus Dumbledore’s had been with him for much of the last decade. Now, for the first time ever, Remus Lupin’s voice had taken up residence. He had tried not to think about Lupin and, with the exception of a few full moons a year, he’d been successful. He couldn’t imagine why Lupin was now his conscience, or rather, he tried not to imagine why because it only reminded him of Lupin’s friendship with Potter. Swallowing the contents of his glass, he refilled it and went to stand in front of his fireplace.
Staring into the fire he recalled the events of that lesson. Potter had been every bit as insolent as his father. ‘And as brave and self-possessed as his mother’ the voice taunted. He’d looked like his father. ‘But looked at you with his mother’s eyes.’
“NO!” Severus shouted aloud. “No, he is nothing like Lily! Nothing like her! Who gave him the right to use her eyes?! Those eyes in that face is a dishonour! How dare he! How dare Potter!”
He stomped angrily to his personal potions supply cupboard and silenced Remus’ voice with a Sleeping Draught. He would hear no reason. He did not care that he could not blame the child for his genetic make up. It wasn’t fair and he would make it fair. He could not change the way Potter looked- Albus would be furious- and he could do nothing about his paternity, but by Merlin he would extract the Potter out of Lily’s child come what may!
***
“Good evening, Professor Lupin!” the young cheerful young woman greeted as he passed.
“Giselle,” he greeted with a nod and a weary smile.
Remus Lupin worked at Whiteknights Academy for the Gifted in Reading, Berkshire. He taught Wizarding Studies at the fee paying boarding and day school which paraded as an exclusive Muggle institution. In fact the school catered to children whose magic was not strong enough to warrant an invitation to Hogwarts but who had more magic than Squibs. Here students learned to control their magic in order to better blend in with Muggles and Wizards to lead relatively normal lives. The irony of such a misfit as he, teaching that subject, was not lost on him.
He was ‘offered’ the job by Drusilla Whitney, the schools’ Magical Creatures professor. He had been working part time in a Muggle store she frequented when she figured out his secret. The store’s owner had sought the advice of a member of the faculty of the exclusive academy. He was worried about his shady employee who was ‘a hard-worker, friendly enough though a bit of a loner with no past or address and a tendency to call in sick around the full moon’. She hadn’t so much offered the werewolf the job as blackmailed him into it.
Still, it was more than he had had for so many years now. He was not paid in galleons or pounds but his meals and accommodation were provided as payment in kind. He lived in a small flat above the boathouse on the lake near the school grounds. What little currency he did manage to acquire came in the form of tips from grateful parents or from pawning gifts they had given him. Drusilla had ordered him to keep away from students and staff alike and he had not made any friends. It was a lonely existence but he was safe from the forces of nature and fed better than he been since his teens although he didn’t look it because the agony of dozens of full moons had aged his tired body and soul.
Arriving in his rooms he sat on the nicest piece of furniture in his flat. The beautiful arm chair had been a gift from Kimberly, an American whose Muggle father had moved the family to London for his job. When she had not been accepted to Hogwarts, her mother had insisted that she be sent to Salem Witches Institute’s Nantucket campus, an all girls’ boarding school which catered to lesser witches like Kimberly. The luxurious armchair had been a personal addition to her dormitory and he often fell asleep in it as it was more comfortable than his bed.
Today was the tenth anniversary of the death of his friends. Ten years ago his former trusted friend, Sirius Black, had murdered James and Lily and the next day he had also killed Peter. He heart ached but he simply had no more tears. James and Lily would probably not be happy that he commemorated their lives by mourning them a decade on anyway.
Pulling a tattered copy of a compilation of R.L. Stevenson’s works from between the cushions, he found himself rethinking his original plans to sit in his rooms and wallow in self-pity. Bizarrely it was a memory of Severus that gave him a very Marauder-like idea. Professor R. J. Lupin was his Dr. Jekyll, it was time to discover his Mr. Hyde. He would make Prongs proud.
His marauding past had influenced him even here. At nights when students had retired to their rooms, he had wandered the grounds and neighbouring village. He knew every back alley and dark corner intimately. Tonight he would make use of that.
***
The residents of Whiteknights, Reading had mixed reviews of the year’s Halloween festivities. Last night had been memorable although perhaps a bit too memorable for some. It seemed as though a cemetery had lost its spirits. There had been numerous ghostly sightings as silvery mists had descended on groups of teens whispering silly comments, ‘Mr. Moony wishes you young Muggles a frightfully good night’, ‘Mr. Prongs wishes he was here to join in the festivities! Cheers!’, ‘Messieurs Moony and Prongs admire feisty red heads’ (the last said to a group of blonds bullying a ‘Ginge’). Teenagers, both the drunk and the high, reported numerous claims of poltergeists which unsurprisingly went ignored. They claimed that their drinks had disappeared from their hands, food floated above their heads and one thug’s brandished knife had turned into a pink feather. Most bizarrely were several reports of a tramp magically appearing with a large crack! shouting ‘I solemnly swear I am up to no good!’ before stealing bites of their food, taking a sip of their drinks or kissing cheeks and disappearing in another sharp crack shouting, ‘Mischief managed!’.
Professor Lupin stood with a slightly bemused look as he listened to the exciting tales recounted by his students. He smiled as they groaned loudly when he took the opportunity to test them on their knowledge of the magical spells and charms which the various pranks had resembled while reminding them of their responsibility to respect the Statute of Secrecy.
“He would mention the rules!” they whined, “Professor Lupin is nice but he’s no fun at all.”