Fest Fic: The comfort of monsters

[smirkingcat]

Title: The comfort of monsters
Author/Artist: coriaria
Rating: PG
Prompt: Prompt Any3 How do you live with yourself, when you know you are a monster?" by crazyparakiss
Pairing: No pairing, could be Lupin/ Snape pre-slash if you squint your eyes and look at it on the right angle
Era: PoA
Word Count for fic 4500
Content/Warning(s): Highlight to read*none I think *
Summary: Snape comes to gloat at Lupin’s departure from Hogwarts.
Author's Note: Thanks to my very prompt and helpful beta, DarthKrande, for helping me get this story into shape.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.



He’d done it so many times, the motions were automatic. Fold the clothing, summon the scattered toiletries, sort the papers, box up the books, making sure his copy of the The Monster Book of Monsters was separated from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by a couple of particularly menacing Dark Arts guides, limp around the room picking things up and putting things down for no particular reason until everything was tidied away into a couple of suitcases and one sturdy trunk. It didn’t look like much to have accumulated in more than three decades, but his was a life spent on the move. He’d done this before, he would do it again, and it was the same every time. He’d be fine, he always was. Remus Lupin was a survivor, and always got by somehow.

Then the ache in his leg suddenly turned into an agonising cramp, and he sank to the floor of his room. Who was he kidding? He’d watched Harry walking away, Marauders’ Map tucked securely in his pocket, and had known that this departure would be the hardest in years. Here, at Hogwarts, things had been different. For a start, he’d finally been allowed to spend time with Harry, something he’d been denied ever since the boy had been dumped with the unwilling Dursleys. Then there was the general comfort of living at Hogwarts. The abundant food and well-appointed rooms were more than he was used to in his transient lifestyle. Although he was comfortable in his own company, Lupin had enjoyed the companionship of the staff at Hogwarts. He loved the teaching too, the challenge of connecting with the students and igniting their enthusiasm, the satisfaction when he saw the understanding on their faces. Then there was the Wolfsbane potion, as well as the best selection of healing and painkilling potions he’d ever had access to when recovering from his monthly transformation. It bothered him not one bit that they came from the hand of the caustic potions master. Lupin had a thick skin, and he found Severus Snape’s attempts to rile him more amusing than upsetting.

“Still here, Lupin? I thought you’d have run off with your tail between your legs before now.”

Lupin lifted his head to look Snape in the eye. He’d heard him, of course, but had decided to wait until the man actually said something before acknowledging his presence.

“Just packing, Severus. I’ll be gone by noon.”

“And you find sitting in the middle of your bedroom floor conducive to packing?”

“Well, my leg decided to cramp up. I’ll have myself sorted in a minute or two.”

Lupin looked up at Snape with a patient smile. He suspected that Snape was enjoying the opportunity to look down on him, since Lupin was a good five inches taller when he wasn’t sprawled awkwardly on the floor.

“You nearly killed me for the second time last night. Are you happy?”

“Not particularly, Severus, no. And I’m very sorry about that, not that I expect that makes any difference to you.”

“Stunningly perceptive, Lupin,” Snape replied, sneering at the man on the floor with undisguised loathing. “How do you live with yourself, when you know you are a monster?”

The venom in Snape’s voice startled Lupin slightly, not that he let it show. He was used to the sarcasm and insults, but this was something more.

“Well, Severus,” he replied in a mild tone, “I suppose I don’t really see myself as a monster. One night a month, of course, I am, but the rest of the time, I’m just as human as anyone else.”

“But on that one night a month, you are an abomination, a beast, a vile monster. I don’t know how you live with yourself.”

“You can look at it that way if you like, Severus, but I prefer to judge myself by my actions as a man, since that’s what I have control over.”

“And you are proud of your actions as a man last night, Lupin?”

Snape spoke his name as if the syllables had an unpleasant taste.

“Not particularly, Severus, no,” Lupin replied with a sigh. “That will be on my conscience for some time to come. I showed very poor judgement in forgetting the date and running off in pursuit of Peter without remembering about the Wolfsbane. I endangered Harry, Hermione and Ron, and you for the second time, as you mentioned. I allowed Peter to escape, which means there is now no evidence that Sirius is innocent, and he remains on the run. Sirius nearly died trying to stop me hurting the children, and you. And on top of all that, I believed him guilty of unspeakable crimes for twelve years, and now I realise he was innocent.”

Lupin’s voice maintained its almost unnatural calm.

“So no, Severus, I’m not proud of my actions. It’s clear that I cannot remain at Hogwarts having shown such appalling judgement. But I still don’t believe that makes me a monster.”

“You know it was me who revealed your secret? Aren’t you angry?”

“I suspected, I wasn’t certain. Thank you for being honest with me.”

Snape gave a snort, unconvinced.

“You should be angry.”

“Should I? It may make things a little more difficult for me in future, finding accommodation and employment when more people know. But it’s not as if people haven’t worked it out before. And, as I said, I couldn’t have stayed at Hogwarts anyway.”

“That’s how you keep a clear conscience, isn’t it?” Snape spat. “You go around pretending to be mild and nice and pleasant, and everyone thinks you’re so harmless. But I’ve seen the truth, Lupin. You’re a foul beast.”

“My conscience is far from clear, Severus. I’ve made a fair few mistakes over my life. Not least the way I tolerated my friends picking on you when we were at school. However, it seems that you are unprepared to accept any effort I’ve made to apologise or make amends, which means I’ll just have to live with that one. I have, however, managed to repair some of my other mistakes. And I like to think that the good things I do go some way to balancing things out.”

“You are stubbornly obtuse, Lupin. You just don’t get it, do you? You are a monster. I don’t know how you live with yourself.”

The werewolf shifted his position slightly on the floor, watching Snape carefully. There was something in his posture, in the uncomfortable way his right hand gripped his left forearm, in the way he seemed to tremble with barely contained emotion. Something was the matter with Snape, and he’d come to Lupin, even if his method of asking for help was a little… unhelpful.

“What is it, Severus? What is it that’s bothering you?”

“It’s you that is bothering me, monster,” Snape snarled in response. “How do you live with yourself?”

Snape’s voice cracked and the trembling became more pronounced. Lupin hauled himself to his feet, long strides rapidly closing the distance between the two men. He placed his hand over Snape’s where it clutched at his arm.

“Severus? What’s wrong?”

Snape averted his eyes, and continued to shake. Lupin kept one hand on the arm and slipped the other around Snape’s shoulders, directing him to a chair. He summoned a second chair, and sat down beside Snape.

“Would you like a cup of tea, Severus?”

“That’s your solution, is it, Lupin?” Snape hissed. “Not everything can be fixed with tea. Or chocolate.”

“I do have chocolate as well.”

Lupin pulled the chocolate from his pocket and offered it to Snape, who looked away.

“Not an encounter with the dementors then, Severus? You do look like something’s spooked you. I realise… well, that seeing me last night must have been traumatic. Especially given that it wasn’t the first time.”

Snape looked down at his left arm, which he still clutched, and shook his head. Lupin suddenly felt a deep chill inside him.

“Severus,” he said, in a very gentle voice, “I didn’t bite you last night, did I?”

Snape looked up, complete surprise on his face.

“What?” he said, the vitriol gone from his voice. “No, no, I… no.”

He shook his head. Then he released the grip around his arm and began to undo the buttons at his cuff, fumbling in haste. He pushed up his sleeve to reveal a faded tattoo in the shape of a skull and snake. Lupin drew his breath in sharply. The potions master had finally shocked Lupin into a reaction. For all the rumours he had heard, seeing it seared into the flesh was still horrifying.

“How do you live with yourself,” Snape said, his voice soft and sad, “when you know you are a monster?”

He looked up at Lupin with pleading eyes.

“Oh, Severus.”

Lupin gave a long sigh.

“When did you…you know?”

“I was seventeen,” Snape replied in small voice, one that reminded Lupin of the troubled young man he’d attended school with.

“Why?”

Snape gave a shrug.

“I went along with my friends. I knew it would appall my mother’s family. I liked the feeling of belonging, of being wanted. I’d never felt like that before. And I hated my father, and in my stupid, adolescent mind I applied that to all muggles.”

There was disgust in Snape’s tone. Self-disgust, Lupin realised. That was why he had come to Lupin, had ranted about being a monster. He wasn’t referring to the werewolf. He was referring to himself.

“What happened, Severus? You could hardly have hidden this from Dumbledore, and he wouldn’t allow a Death Eater to teach at Hogwarts.”

“I… I heard a part the prophecy. You know the one. I told… You-Know-Who. And he realised that Harry Potter was one of those it could apply to. He… he fixated on Harry, wanted to kill him. And his parents… Lily.”

Snape let out a shuddering sigh, and leaned forward, holding his head in his hands. Lupin placed a hand on his back.

“And then what, Severus?”

“Then I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. Or… well… I knew it long before then, my appetite for torture and murder ran out rather quickly, and after that I was just going along because I didn’t know how to escape. Passing on a vague prophecy from someone as unreliable as Trelawney seemed like a relatively harmless way to participate, to pretend I was still the good little Death Eater. I was that stupid.”

Snape was gripping his left forearm with his right hand again. This time, his nails were digging in to the flesh. When Lupin feared he’d draw blood, he placed his hand over Snape’s and prised his fingers away.

“Don’t do that to yourself, Severus.”

Snape looked at his arm in surprise, unaware of what he was doing. Lupin kept hold of his right hand while his left gently rubbed Snape’s back.

“When I realised what I’d done in passing on the prophecy, then I knew I had to put things right. Or… try to. I went to Dumbledore. Begged him to save them. I admit, I thought mostly of Lily and her baby, not James. I loathed James. But he didn’t deserve to die for being an arrogant, bullying git.”

Lupin sat in silence, and his hand paused on Snape’s back. It made sense, up to a point. He knew that Lily and Snape had fallen out, but they had once been close. And he couldn’t argue with Snape’s reasoning about James. But he found it hard to imagine Snape being concerned for Harry. He’d certainly seen no sign of that.

“He said he’d protect them. But he asked me to do something in return. He wanted me to go back to You-Know-Who as a spy. I would go on… go on as I had been, only I would inform Dumbledore of everything. I… I wanted to die, instead. I wanted to kill myself. But he asked me to do it for Lily, so I said yes. For all the good it did.”

Snape let out his breath, and his body sagged. Lupin released his right hand and wrapped both arms around the trembling potions master, drawing him into a hug. He really didn’t know what to do, but Snape had sought him out, and far too often he’d looked the other way while Snape had suffered. This time, he had a chance to do the right thing.

They sat that way for some time. Snape had seemed surprised at Lupin’s gesture, but then tentatively reached out his arms to hug Lupin back. He rested his head on Lupin’s shoulder, and slowly his tense body relaxed, just a little. Lupin held him tightly, and felt as the shivering in his body slowly subsided.

Finally, Snape made to draw away, and Lupin released him. Snape looked at Lupin through a curtain of lank, black hair.

“I… I’m sorry, Lupin. I know that’s pathetic of me.”

“You’re not pathetic, Severus.”

Snape gave a small snort and suddenly stood up, pulling away from the werewolf, beginning to pace.

“You know the position’s cursed, don’t you?”

“Cursed? What position? I don’t understand you Severus.”

“The Defence position. V… You-Know-Who cursed it. Nobody lasts more than a year before something horrible happens. You’ve heard what happened to your predecessors?”

“I have heard rumours, yes.”

“You’re just a pawn, Lupin. He’ll be friendly to your face, but that’s all you are to him. A pawn. You come in, teach Harry a few tricks, tell him a few stories about his parents, and then you’re done with. You’re lucky what’s happened wasn’t worse. Had you injured anyone other than Black last night, you’d have been executed.”

Lupin’s face was grim. He acknowledged the truth in Snape’s words without speaking.

“Why do you want the job, then?” he said finally.

“Isn’t that obvious, Lupin?”

The werewolf looked into Snape’s eyes, seeing them, as he rarely did, open and unguarded. And desperately tired.

“Oh, Severus.”

Lupin stood and walked across to Snape, putting an arm around his shoulder again. Snape had once again begun to scratch unconsciously at the Dark Mark on his arm.

“I just want it to be over,” Snape said softly.

“You’re just a pawn too, aren’t you?”

Snape shook his head against Lupin’s shoulder.

“Not a pawn, no. I’m too valuable to just discard like that. I’m a rook at least, maybe even his queen, that would be… ironic. He’ll keep me around until the time is right, but he won’t hesitate to sacrifice me when it suits his purposes. Even Harry, when the time comes, he’ll even sacrifice Harry. He’s spent years patiently crafting the poor boy into his perfect weapon, and when he’s ready, that will be it. I just… I just can’t stand it anymore. I want it to be over.”

Lupin gently led Snape back to the chair and sat him down, still with an arm around him. He tried to find some words of comfort or reassurance, but what could he say? He could hardly tell the man everything would be alright, when quite clearly it wouldn’t be. In the end, he just sat there and breathed slowly and calmly, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. He considered it quite likely that Snape would come to his senses and hex him for laying a hand on him.

Finally, Snape seemed to realise what he was doing, and with whom. He pulled away abruptly, and stalked across the room as if he was trying to get as far away from Lupin as possible, arms folded across his chest and face set in a sneer. However he didn’t actually leave the room, which told Lupin he was still asking for help.

“You’re unfathomable, Lupin, and I can’t determine whether you’re some sort of saint or simply stupid. I treat you like thestral dung, I cost you your job, and you’re still being nice to me.”

“You didn’t cost me my job, Severus. That was down to my own actions. And I only had a job here in the first place because you made the Wolfsbane potion. Dumbledore would not have had me back here had I not been under control. Who knows, maybe I’m trying to out-Slytherin you, and am being nice in the hope that you’ll continue to make it for me?”

Snape looked at him with a strange expression. It took a moment for Lupin to realise that the expression was relief. That was the sort of thing that Snape would believe. In his world, nothing was given without the expectation of return. Lupin felt his heart sink.

“I’m sorry, Severus. I shouldn’t have said that. I meant it in jest, but I can see it wasn’t funny.”

Snape was confused now, he saw. Lupin suspected he really was about to run from the room.

“Severus, please listen to me. I’m not trying to trick you or manipulate you. This is just how I try to be, as much as possible. You ask how I live with myself? Well, this is it. This is how I keep myself from feeling like a monster.”

Snape’s expression was guarded again, but interested. Almost imperceptibly, Snape was leaning forward, watching the werewolf, listening to his words, trying to make sense of him.

“I see the way people recoil from me, Severus. They call me a monster, they try to drive me out, they abuse and attack me, sometimes physically. The more I can respond calmly and rationally, the more I can remind myself that they are driven by their fear and ignorance, or are just bigots, the less I feel like an animal and the more I feel like a man. The more often I can greet hatred and fear with kindness, the stronger I feel.

“I’ve made mistakes, Severus. When I was younger, I would do anything to be accepted. I came to my senses, eventually, and realised that liking myself was more important than being liked by others. Since then, I’ve tried to do the right thing. To be honest, it hasn’t always worked out so well. I stood up to James, Sirius and Peter, and I was never as close to them again. As a result, they didn’t trust me enough to be their secret keeper.”

Lupin gave a long, slow sigh.

“But I couldn’t have predicted that. I live with myself knowing that I did the right thing, I did my best, and…”

Leaving the sentence unfinished, Lupin shrugged and gave a questioning look.

“That’s what you did too, isn’t it Severus? You did the right thing in going to Dumbledore. You can’t carry it all on yourself that his plan to protect them failed.”

Snape looked at the floor and shook his head.

“I failed her. And I can’t get past the feeling that I’m going to fail her son as well.”

“Severus…”

Lupin stood up and walked over to Snape again.

“You care about Harry, don’t you? You certainly act like you don’t, you act like you hate him. But you don’t, do you?”

Snape shook his head again, still looking at the floor.

“If you care about him, why do you treat him the way you do?”

“It’s my job. I’m the Villain. Apparently, Potter has a “tendency to the dark”. It would be disastrous for Dumbledore’s plans if he… if Potter… or for that matter his understudy, Longbottom… well, if they were to go over to You-Know-Who.”

“Surely nobody could imagine Neville has any “tendency to the dark”?

Snape gave Lupin a glare.

“What about Pettigrew? Nobody saw that coming.”

Lupin had no response to that.

“Potter and Longbottom are to be taught that dark wizards are Bad, the Enemy, so they doesn’t get drawn to the… You-Know-Who when he returns. They hate me, and when it’s revealed that I’m a Death Eater, they’ll know which side to be on. Or something like that. Apparently.”

“I see,” Lupin said, a hard edge in his voice.

“It’s not my plan.”

“Surely there are better ways? Why not sort them into Hufflepuff, which has never produced a dark wizard? And surely leaving Harry in the care of abusive muggles is rather… at variance with the objective. I would have thought that putting him with the Dursleys to suffer a childhood of mistreatment and neglect would make him more likely to join a band of muggle-hating dark wizards.”

“Why would anyone imagine that?” Snape snapped back. “It’s not like that ever happened before.”

The bitterness was back in Snape’s voice, and Lupin saw his face shut down. Snape’s eyes had taken on a distant, empty expression. Lupin realised that he’d inadvertently opened a deep, old wound which had never healed.

“Severus?”

He held out his hand, realising that even touching him in this fragile stage might be a mistake. Snape wrapped his arms more tightly around his body and turned away.

“Severus?” Lupin repeated.

Snape began to tremble and breathe heavily.

“Severus, please.”

Lupin held out both arms, and suddenly Snape was there, clinging to him.

Lupin realised in shock that the man’s brittle façade had finally shattered, and that Snape was weeping in his arms. He held the shorter man tight against him, almost as if he would fall. For a while he just stood, Snape’s forehead against his shoulder, feeling the movement as his back rose and fell with each gasping sob.

As he felt Snape get himself more under control, Lupin summoned the chairs, then sat both himself and Snape down. He rocked slightly, sharing the primal motion of comfort with the still-crying man in his arms. They sat there, together, until Snape was calm and released the grip he’d had on Lupin’s shirt. Finally, Snape pushed away from Lupin and began to compose himself, wiping his face and blowing his nose on the handkerchief that Lupin conjured, pushing his hair back, setting his expression to the familiar faint sneer.

“Well,” he said, in a thoughtful tone, “that was humiliating.”

Lupin couldn’t help it. He smiled. Snape’s scowl became deeper.

“I’m sorry, Severus, it’s just… your response…”

Snape wrapped his arms around himself, but didn’t stand.

“I’m not laughing at you, Severus, you just, well… the way you spoke was rather…”

Endearing, that was the word on Lupin’s lips. But he stopped himself. He suddenly realised that while he brushed off Snape’s sneers and insults without a second thought, the reverse was not true. His words carried a great power to hurt Snape.

“You’re unique, Severus. I don’t know anyone else who would respond quite in the way you did, that’s all.”

Snape was looking down now, hair hanging around his face. His body language said he was trying to distance himself, but he didn’t move away.

“I’m not accustomed to… producing histrionics in front of my colleagues.”

“I know, Severus. However I’m not your colleague any more. And I… I don’t know if this makes any difference, but I won’t say anything. I’m rather good at keeping secrets, you know?”

Snape nodded.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice very quiet.

“Severus, was there a reason you came to see me?”

Snape looked up through his hair.

“I… I’m not really sure.”

Lupin tilted his head slightly.

“You can’t remember? Or you never had any idea?”

Snape looked down again and shook his head.

“I think I just wanted to see you before you went. To see the human you. Maybe… I’d rather not have the last thing I saw of you be that monster.”

It hit Lupin like a punch to the stomach. The strange way the potions master used to look at him, the way he’d try to start arguments in the staff room, the way he’d seek Lupin out with some criticism of Lupin’s teaching or robes or general existence, the way he was always particularly nasty to the students in Lupin’s presence.

Attention-seeking, his mother had called it when he was a troubled child and threw tantrums in front of visitors.

The question was, exactly what sort of attention was Snape seeking from Lupin?

“I think… I think that makes sense to me, Severus.”

“Really? It hardly makes sense to me.”

Snape was hunched, head forward, muscles in his shoulders clenched tight. His right hand was gripping his left arm once again, and the slight shaking had returned.

Lupin reached out and placed a hand on his arm.

“You came to me for a reason, Severus. You want something from me, but I don’t know what that is. Please, can you tell me what it is you want?”

Snape looked up. The expression on his face was so vulnerable, but there was a spark of something in his eyes. Then he seemed to pull himself together, straightening his shoulders, lifting his head, pushing his hair out of his face.

“I very much doubt you’d be willing to give me what I want… but since I have already thoroughly humiliated myself before you… “

Snape suddenly moved himself forward, bringing his lips to Lupin’s. It was just a moment, and the werewolf froze. Snape pulled back.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… that was not welcome.”

Lupin frowned and was silent for far longer than was polite. He appeared about to speak when there was a scratching noise on the windowsill. He flicked his eyes over to see a large pale owl. It was clutching a red envelope in its claws, and it launched itself from the windowsill to drop the letter on the floor beside Lupin. Lupin cursed under his breath and pulled Snape out of the path of the explosion. The voices of both Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy began to hurl insults at Lupin, words like “vile beast”, “foul monster” and “filthy pervert” echoing around the room.

Snape flinched, but Lupin looked more amused as he reached for his wand and cast a shimmering shape around the letter. The insults stopped immediately.

Snape gave a nod of acknowledgement.

“Not bad, Lupin.”

The werewolf grinned at Snape.

“You don’t survive nearly three decades as a werewolf without knowing how to deal with a Howler,” he said. “But there will be more.”

Even as he spoke, two more owls arrived and discharged their red envelopes, and Snape could see a few more owls heading towards the window. There also appeared to be several owls heading towards the tower containing Dumbledore’s office.

“Lupin, I’m so sorry. I… I’m… this is my fault. I’m a stupid git.”

Lupin looked kindly at him.

“Undoubtedly,” he said, but his hand patted Snape on the arm.

“I do have to get moving, Severus. My presence here is only going to cause more problems.”

He turned and began gathering the last few possessions, his wand, his jacket, a rather tatty wallet, the half-eaten bar of chocolate Snape had rejected.

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know. I always find somewhere.”

“Will I be able to find you?”

“Only if I choose to make myself findable, Severus.”

The werewolf paused and raised his eyebrows.

“Please, Lupin. I…”

“Do you think that maybe you could manage to call me Remus? I think that after all these years…”

Snape hung his head and let out a slow sigh.

“Remus…please…”

Lupin stepped closer and placed his hand on Snape’s shoulder.

“If you send me an owl, Severus, it will get through.”