Erstwhile Expectations
by
Rating: R
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Word Count: 4,558
Disclaimer: All the characters are Rowling's. All the smutty scenarios are mine.
Summary: Wartime. Sent on missions by their leaders, two men meet and old feelings come to the fore.
Warnings: highlight between brackets if you prefer story warnings: [contains: angst, frottage]
He traveled fast, pale face a mask as expressionless as the one he'd been wearing not long ago, when his master had sent him on his current bidding.
He did not stop to think, only to extend his augmented senses outward to ensure he was truly alone. When he was not, he would have reached his destination, so spoke his master and he believed him.
The grass was wet with dew and his socks and trousers were soaked through. It was cold, but he ignored this to make his way to where the glen he traversed opened onto a marsh, where he was to secure a part of his master's dark soul. Secure and retrieve it.
Of course, that was not what He'd said, but Severus Snape knew. It was his curse and his blessing, this knowing. It was what made his life both a heaven and a hell.
He'd known his mother's love as a boy. Not in any demonstrable way, but he could feel it. He simply knew.
He'd known his father's indifference. This had been amply demonstrated, but it needn't have been. He felt it and knew. Much as he'd known his classmates' disgust and curiousity and callousness and hostility, both Muggle and Wizard.
He'd never grown comfortable with so much knowing, so much feeling, even as he trusted it to keep him alive. One thing he'd learnt was what was given could be taken away. This knowing was a gift. So since his earliest days he had waited to see if it would go even as he wondered why he had been gifted in the first place.
* * * *
Remus Lupin stamped his feet and blew on his fingers. It was not quite freezing, but his old pea coat and corduroy trews were both the worse for wear and neither kept him warm enough. He'd been instructed to use no magic except for shelter, food or defence, and so he shivered and waited in the miserable cold.
Since he'd left Hogwarts, he'd rarely been warm enough. Spells only went so far, and if constantly maintained could be draining. He already had one condition that drained him; he did not need to add to it.
He wished now he had thought to bring the makings of a fire, not that he was sure anything could burn in the wet muck. The wood was all saturated. Even the gnarled dead oak whose great root he sat on was swollen with water.
Paradoxically, thirst bothered him, and he finally gave in to it and the cold and pulled out a thermos from his coat pocket and poured himself some tea. The steam from the liquid wreathed out in the night air. It was a nearly moonless night, and he found himself wondering as he sipped at his tea if he'd be expected to remain here through the next full moon.
Of course, a werewolf would definitely discourage the curious and the criminal. Only problem was, a werewolf would not care for either curious, criminal or the property he was, ostensibly, guarding.
He sighed now as he finished his tea and silently cursed Albus Dumbledore for sending him to join Fenrir Greyback's pack, even as he mourned the man's death.
The man had been a master strategist, a compassionate headmaster and a good friend. Popular wisdom said it was the last two that had enabled him to trust and befriend his own murderer. It was the first that made Lupin wonder exactly what had happened on that tower and if everything was as cut and dried as others believed it to be.
* * * *
Severus froze as he felt a glimmer of magical energy, of latent power. He was still far from the mouth of the glen where it opened to the marshes. Since the one Horcrux he'd been able to actually hold had not exuded anything he could sense until it had been unleashed and destroyed, it had to be whoever was currently guarding it.
Whoever was already there had a lot of dark magical energy.
* * * *
Remus was napping, leaning against the tree trunk, when he sensed a change in the air.
Instantly alert, he sat up and drew in a deep breath. He scented moss and peat, water and lily pads, faint hints of rot and scum, his own food and a few wild deer, possibly a bear in the distance. Then he heard and smelt it in the same moment. Footsteps and the tang of cold sweat, spicy and sharp and a bit cloying.
* * * *
Snape had slowed to a silent glide. The puddles he tread barely rippled in his wake.
He used no magic, only his own hard-won grace and keen eyesight, made keener by the augmentation potion he'd ingested after leaving the Dark Lord's presence.
He could see the mouth of the glen now, scent the brackish water ahead.
* * * *
Lupin waited on the opposite side of the dead oak.
Snape was coming. He knew that smell well, remembered it from as far back as their school days and carried the vivid recollection of it from the time he'd been a werewolf and had scented him not as another human being, but as prey. The memories were fragmented and hazy, but his senses were sharp and he recalled sense-memory the same way a Muggle could recall a favourite food.
Severus Snape was coming.
* * * *
When he saw the dead oak by the mouth of the glen, he was not so foolish as to assume the site was abandoned. He could sense the presence of another, someone not quite human.
Nothing else disturbed the dark and forbidding place, neither fish nor fowl. It seemed the very sort of place the Dark Lord would hide something he wished to remain undisturbed.
Snape's step was silent and sure as he moved closer, eyes scanning the area, wand held at the ready.
* * * *
Lupin's hairs stood on end. His mouth was dry, his heart beating so loudly he was sure Snape would hear it. His eyes were narrowed and he almost felt he could see him through the bole of the tree, but knew this was just his imagination set loose. He gripped his wand more tightly, clenched his fingers on a gnarl of bark and forced himself to step to one side and meet the man who'd killed Albus Dumbledore.
* * * *
Snape drew in a sibilant breath as the dark shadow resolved itself from behind the tree into a familiar shape, familiar hair, even as the man's scent reached him. No, not man. Werewolf.
"Lupin."
His voice was admirably calm, almost conversational. His heart was beating so loud he was sure the werewolf could hear it. He swallowed in his suddenly dry mouth, teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached.
"Snape."
Both held their wands at the ready, and each knew the other would not back down.
"Why are you here?"
"Greyback sent me. I'm guarding this godforsaken place. I take it Voldemort sent you."
Snape's face twitched, but he nodded.
Lupin relaxed, not quite putting his wand arm down.
"So then."
Snape said nothing, watching Lupin's every movement. He considered the Dark Lord's instructions.
* * * *
"You will find a guardian already there. He is to die, for only your eyes will I allow any further."
"How should I kill him, my lord?"
"However you please, dear Severus. Your devotion is pleasing to me. That is why you are being sent. After you kill the guardian, traverse the marsh. There is a dead oak by the water's edge. It contains something precious to me, my servant. Bring it to me. Your reward will be great."
* * * *
"Your instructions were to guard the mouth of the glen," he now said. Had the werewolf found the Dark Lord's item? He could do nothing until he knew more.
Lupin frowned. "Yes. That is what I am doing."
Snape's gaze narrowed. "By hiding behind a dead tree?"
Lupin scowled. "Why were you sent? To make sure I'm doing my 'job'?"
To his surprise, Snape bestowed on him a thin, vicious smile.
"To torment you, of course.
"Of course." Lupin sighed. "I can smell it, you know."
"What?"
"I can smell your fear. Your... curiousity. You fear me? It's not full moon. You have no reason to fear me. Unless, of course, you're afraid I'll take revenge on you for Albus."
Snape neither confirmed nor denied this. "Are you going to?"
Lupin put his wand down slightly, still holding it at the ready. "That would be the easy thing to do. No. I think I'll take the harder road."
Snape watched him uneasily as he moved toward the tree again and sat, hand still holding his wand at the ready. Those warm eyes regarded him almost fondly.
"Why did you do it?"
Snape's cheek muscle twitched. "Isn't it obvious?"
"Not to me. Not to any of the Order really, Severus, so you might as well come clean. Were you fooling us all along? Or were you only fooling yourself?"
"You know nothing."
"That is what you doubtless like to tell yourself. For Merlin's sake - Severus -- he loved you like a son. We all know that."
"Be silent, Lupin." Snape strove to keep his voice cold and unfeeling.
"Or else what? You kill me, too? Explain that to your precious self-made dark lord -- how you killed someone sent to guard his Horcrux. Oh, yes," he smiled thinly now himself. "Yes, we know. Harry is searching them out. When Fenrir sent me here, I knew I wasn't guarding a meeting site."
Snape stepped closer, wand pointing at Lupin.
"Perhaps the Dark Lord is less concerned about his guardian than he is about his property."
Remus gazed at him calmly.
"Wise of him, given that his property -- or should I say properties -- have been fast changing hands."
Snape considered this, remembered his approach here and relaxed a fraction.
"This one hasn't. It remains."
"Plan to give it to him then? What does that net you, Severus? His gratitude? His undying love? Sexual favours?"
"Juvenile jokes ill become you, Lupin."
"Funny. I would have thought you'd say we Gryffindors were full of nothing but juvenile jokes."
"Enough. I have no wish to waste time."
Remus leaned back against the tree.
"Voldemort's in a hurry then? Why?"
Severus looked at him, hesitating. Why indeed? He should just do what he was instructed. Return and ... and what? Serve at the Dark Lord's right hand? That should be what he wanted, what he worked for.
"You honestly don't know, do you?"
Snape sneered.
"I suppose you do?"
"You'd be surprised what a portrait and some Pensieve memories can reveal."
Snape's cheek twitched, but he said nothing.
"So," Lupin said conversationally. "You don't want to know what Albus sai--"
"Shut up."
"Oh, now there's a witty comeback."
"You have nothing I want."
"I'd bet you honestly believe that, too." Lupin sighed. "This is perfectly ridiculous. It's cold and damp. We are obviously going to talk for a while. At a minimum, we should use warming spells and conjure up a tot of Ogden's Old Firewhisky."
Icy fear lanced through Snape and he snarled, "Lift your wand and die."
"I stand corrected. That's an even better comeback. Look Snape," Lupin put his wand down with careful deliberation. "There's no need for this. We've known each other since we were eleven years old."
"Time does not necessarily breed familiarity."
"True. Nor does it apparently heal all wounds, as there is something in our past that you cannot forgive me for. Well, that's fine, Severus, because you did something a few months ago that I can't forgive you for."
Snape froze, uncertain, and Lupin fought to keep from sighing yet again.
"Severus, please. I'm not going to hurt you or trick you. Honestly. I had no idea you would be the one sent, and frankly, I'm glad. I've been worried about you."
Snape sneered. "Right."
"Fine. Don't believe me."
Snape drew in a slow breath.
"If, as you say, I've done something you cannot forgive me for -- then why would you worry about me?"
"Call it a Gryffindor failing."
"Illogic?"
"No, I was thinking more about our trait of caring for others."
Snape snorted.
"The only person who ever cared for me was A--" he blanched and his face twitched as he suddenly shoved his wand to Lupin's throat. "You're trying to trick me."
Lupin swallowed, but spoke in a jovial tone. "Trust you, Severus, to take concern for chicanery."
"Why the devil would you be concerned about me... about Dumbledore's murderer?"
"I said I can't forgive you and I'm being honest. I'm also being honest when I say I'm going to try."
Snape frowned and Lupin continued.
"I have to, Severus. Albus trusted you. He didn't do that indiscriminately, although you might argue. He had a reason. He had a reason for everything he did, including trusting you."
"Is there a point to this soliloquy?"
"Only that I trust Albus Dumbledore to the death. He trusted you and I trust him."
Snape managed to sneer, but his fingers trembled slightly.
"Touching."
"Say what you like. I know what I know."
"Which isn't very much." Snape relaxed slightly.
"Well, I do have a secret. You may have to ferret it out of me."
"You've nothing I want."
"Not even a Horcrux?"
Snape eyed him sharply. "Stop playing games."
"Stop telling lies."
"When it's time, I'm going to enjoy killing you."
Lupin lifted a brow.
"Is that the best you can do, Severus? More lies?"
"You really think it's wise to insult a man, a Death Eater, holding a wand to your throat?"
"Go on then, Death Eater. I'm not holding my wand. I'm clearly irritating you. You've orders to do it. Go on and kill me."
"Don't think I won't."
"Oh, I don't think you're completely harmless, but I also don't think you'll kill me."
Snape stared at him and Lupin continued.
"You need me."
"Pardon?"
"You heard me. You need me. You, Severus Snape, need me, Remus Lupin."
"Why on Earth would I--"
"Simply because I'm not afraid of you, of your temper, your moods, your touch."
Snape shifted uneasily, still staring.
"I never have been. Why should I, after all? I'm a werewolf. I'm stronger, faster, with keener senses. Senses, I might add, that don't fade as a potion does."
Snape considered this and Lupin smiled.
"Yes, I can smell that augmentation potion. I remember things I smell, you know. I can still recall your scent that night... in the shack."
"Silencio!"
Lupin froze as the spell struck and Snape stepped quickly back. He could smell the relief on the man, even as he felt his atavistic fear. Snape had glanced quickly to the moon, he noted, and sadly sighed.
Nearly thirty years ago and it still bothered him to have so unnerved the man before him. Of course, he'd not yet been a man at the time; neither of them had.
He touched his wand carefully in his pocket and silently cast Finite Incantatum.
"Still don't like to hear the truth, I see," he said quietly.
The corner of Snape's lip lifted as he spoke.
"I see I should have disarmed you."
"Is that what you find me, Severus? Disarming?"
Snape scowled then as he stalked to a half-buried stump nearby and sat.
"You were right earlier. Try 'irritating.'"
Lupin said nothing in reply, but he hid a smile.
There was a long silence before Snape spoke again.
"So you know I was sent to kill you."
"Seeing as this is a hiding place for a Horcrux, and seeing as I know You Know Who would never allow any witnesses to this, it wasn't a particularly difficult deduction to make."
"I can't disobey him, Lupin."
"I wouldn't ask you to. That would endanger you, and I've a feeling Albus wanted you just where you are."
Fearful and angry black eyes met his.
"What would you have me do?"
"Whatever Albus asked of you."
Snape swallowed.
"Stop invoking his name."
Remus frowned.
"Isn't it enough you have one master whose name you can't say? Dumbledore would not have wanted you to--"
"You've no idea what he did or didn't ask of me! You were not there. Not privy to our discussions or his decisions. You will not say his name again."
"Very well."
Snape eyed him.
"I mean it."
Snape nodded, then sighed, looking troubled.
Lupin looked troubled, as well.
"I'm sorry if I've made things difficult for you. I didn't mean to."
* * ~ * *
"I'm sorry if I've made things difficult for you. I didn't mean to."
Severus remembered staring in disbelief at the bruised and bloodied boy in the cot beside his own in the Infirmary.
He didn't know it, but it was the same look he'd given Lupin when he'd first seen him as a werewolf.
Remus could smell his shock and fear then. Now he smelled mistrust and anger.
"Is that what you call a life debt? Difficult?"
"What? You don't owe me a life debt."
"No, I owe your friend Potter one. He insisted on one and the Headmaster felt it was wise... so I can't tell anyone what you are."
"James got you out?"
"Not to save me. He did it to save you and bloody Black."
Remus said nothing since he was sure Severus was correct. There was nothing else to say. His apology was clearly not going to be accepted.
* * ~ * *
"Hello, Severus."
Severus found himself staring in disbelief at the shabbily-dressed Remus sitting in the chair before the Headmaster's desk. What could his presence mean?
"Albus?"
"Severus, Remus here has agreed to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts for us this year."
The pain and the anger ensured his rapid response.
"How apropos. A dark creature teaching dark arts."
"Now Severus..."
"If you'll excuse me, I've duties to attend to."
He turned on his heel to leave. Before he reached the door, he heard Lupin's quiet tones.
"I'm sorry if I've made things difficult, Severus."
* * ~ * *
"You've said those words to me before."
Lupin was silent for a moment. His tone was warm and kind when he spoke.
"I meant them. Then and now."
It was Snape's turn for silence. Both watched their breath frosting out into the night air.
When he spoke, it was with hesitation.
"What ... what did he say?"
Lupin did not dissemble.
"He said to take care of you."
Snape looked over to him, but Lupin remained looking out over the fen, a troubled expression on his face.
"Pardon?"
"He said we needed to take care of you."
"Watch out for me, you mean."
"No. He said the Order needed to take care of you."
"Was that all?"
Lupin nodded.
After a moment, Snape cleared his throat.
"I imagine there was some dissension as to what he could have meant."
"Yes, and still is, but only for some."
"Not for you."
"No."
The silence was shorter this time.
"Thank you for that."
Lupin looked at him now, smiling slightly.
"There is so much between us, Severus. Too much for me to honestly believe you are a heartless murderer."
"You don't know me very well then."
"I'm not talking about what you do as a Death Eater."
"Nor am I."
Lupin started.
"Severus..."
"There's not much time. He... he expected me to finish my assignment and return."
"Still planning to kill me?"
"Lupin," Snape growled slightly at the man's too-jovial tone.
Remus held up a placating hand.
"Sorry. It's just I'd rather face death with cheek than chagrin."
"Gryffindor."
"To my marrow. I won't deny it, although you do."
Snape glared at him.
"I'm a Slytherin."
"Yet none of us have the bravery to do what you're doing - what you've been doing since before You Know Who's last banishing."
"That is foolishness, not courage."
"Yes, well, I do feel every house has its share of foolishness, but I would disagree with your assessment."
"Then more fool you."
"And the Headmaster? Was he a fool, also?"
The stricken expression in those liquid black eyes made Remus flinch.
Snape's lips scarcely moved as he replied, "He was a Gryffindor."
"You loved him."
Snape's expression did not change and he did not deny Lupin's charge.
"He was the bravest man I know."
"He asked you, didn't he?"
Severus looked to him through the soft curtain of his hair. The expression in his eyes was haunted. Remus swallowed.
"And now you have to kill me."
It wasn't a question and for the first time, Snape flinched.
"Remus..."
"Killing someone you love is... unimaginable."
Snape's brow furrowed.
"I d--"
"Don't lie to me, Severus. Not now. I didn't know what it was when I was a boy. I knew there was something different about your scent in sixth year. I didn't figure it out until Lily and James got together the next year, but by then it was too late, wasn't it? I... the wolf in me had scared you off. And you couldn't forget... how could anyone forget the one they loved becoming a monster before their eyes?"
Those black eyes grew fierce with anger.
"Why didn't you say something before? Why did you lie to me? I saw you, with Pomfrey, going toward the willow."
"I know."
"Black taunted me. He said you weren't queer, and if I wanted to see for myself, I should go, go see what you were getting up to with her."
Lupin blanched. "He didn't."
Snape's nostrils flared and Remus reconsidered.
"He did. And you believed him?"
"What other explanation could there be? It was getting dark, she kept looking around to see if anyone had seen you... you were sneaking off the grounds, Remus, holding a woman's hand."
"So why did you go th--"
"I wanted to confront you! I... I don't know what I wanted to do."
"You thought I'd been having you on, with my notes, with my comments. You thought it was a joke."
"That was what you Gryffindors were best at. Jokes at my expense."
Remus sighed.
"I wasn't like James or Sirius. You knew that. That was why you even bothered giving me a second glance."
Snape fell silent. After a moment, he sighed, also.
"It scarcely matters now. I... I hear you've taken up with Andromeda's daughter, the young Auror."
Lupin snorted.
"Hardly. She's taken with me, everyone thinks we'd make a lovely couple. I haven't had the heart to tell her just how bent I am."
Severus looked back at him.
"You've not told her."
"Not yet. She's... a fragile sort. Needs careful handling." Remus smiled. "I seem to attract that type for some reason."
Snape considered this, then stood. Remus watched him, still seated on the giant tree root, legs akimbo, hands on his knees. He took a step closer to him.
"I'm a Death Eater."
Remus nodded.
"I killed Albus Dumbledore."
He drew in a breath and nodded again. Snape looked at the fen, his voice was a soft murmur of sound.
"Remus... I don't want to kill you."
He eventually looked back and found Lupin regarding him, an indecipherable look on his face.
All he said, though, was: "Then don't."
Remus could smell the fear, the anguish, the desire... and felt his own body respond.
Severus took another hesitant step. Remus watched him, uncertain and aching with need.
Soon, Snape was stepping between Lupin's splayed knees. Then everything no longer mattered. The sound he made was buried in the pulse point of that warm neck, much as his hands were buried in his hair.
It was raw need and sorrow and lust and grief that made him tremble and press tighter still and his heavy, aching cock pushed against Lupin's and their gasps were swallowed by the heat of their mouths, slick tongues battling for dominance, for expression.
They moved this way together, the only sound gasping sobs and heavy breaths, the only sensation the warmth between them and the chill damp everywhere they did not touch. The air was thick with the scent of musk and heated arousal.
Remus tried to slip a hand between them, to touch him, but Snape pulled him into an even tighter embrace and he let go, holding onto the gasping man, levering his hips to press himself against that heated hardness.
Just that, a clenching of buttocks and pressing of hips, the mashing of lips and clasping of hands and arms, and no more, for long moments of desperate desire.
"All is fair in love and war" was a Muggle saying, Remus knew. He fully understood it at this moment, as he held a murderer and someone he had once nearly killed, in his arms. Still, he knew he had been in his heart far longer.
"Severus..."
It was a groan and the tensing of Snape's body, the slight jerk of his hips, that signaled his completion. Remus buried his face in that rough-skinned neck as he reached his own climax, feeling the viscous warmth flooding his smalls.
Severus caught his breath, sweaty locks of hair obscuring his face as he stared at Remus, who smiled as he stroked the hair back.
"You said the only person who ever cared for you was the Headmaster," he whispered. "That tells me you aren't on... His side."
"You could be right," Severus whispered back.
Remus leaned close and his lips brushed against that stubbled cheek as he spoke.
"And you were wrong. He wasn't the only one."
Severus drew in a startled breath and Remus smiled, pulling back to look at him.
Snape only realized Lupin's wand was pointing at him when it was too late.
"Obliviate."
* * * *
"What news do you bring, my servant?"
Severus bowed low, brushing his lips to Voldemort's feet before saying with regret, "I have failed, my lord, and I seek forgiveness."
The Dark Lord frowned.
"Rise, Severus. Explain."
He stood and reached into his robes, bringing out small, cunningly kerfed wooden box, which he held out. An inset of contrasting dark wood was on the cover in the shape of two interlocking R's.
Voldemort frowned, waved his wand at it, then took it in his hand.
"Why do you say you have failed, Severus?"
Snape looked up and then lowered his lids again.
"My lord, the guardian was not there. And this was wrapped around the box."
He handed Voldemort a folded section of parchment, then slipped back to his knees to await his reaction, clearly expecting his anger. He quickly assessed Severus's mind and found nothing but dismay and disappointment. Whatever had gone wrong, it was not his fault.
The Dark Lord frowned at his most devoted servant and looked to the note.
When he opened it, it read:
You Who Should Not Have Been Born,
Want Rowena's real box? Maybe you should have gotten here in time. Better luck next Horcrux.
All our love,
The Order Of the Phoenix
-FINIS-
Posted: 21 December 2006