Meals

5. Meals

When Remus and Snape were alone in the Potions master's rooms, the dark wizard picked up a pace from wall to wall. Steadily, silently, unnerving... Remus had to suppress the urge to grab the man's shoulders and force him to sit back down on a chair. Both of his friend's arms were firmly crossed over his stomach, his head was low, and he avoided eye contact.

Bound to him. Because of you. Hated it. Bound to him... The words went in endless circles, came back again and hurt more with each time around. Simultaneously, Remus couldn't stop thinking about the moment when Severus had pushed his hand under his shirt, had pressed his palm against his racing heart. For a shocked moment, Remus had thought Severus would rip out said heart, dig it out of his chest, and destroy it right in front of its owner's eyes. Had been even more shocked at the caress he received instead, the shuddering, relieved sigh that had emerged from his friend's dry, blue-ish looking lips.

"You are bound to me," Remus said helplessly, and Severus whirled round, stopped pacing the moment the werewolf said the words.

"Indeed. Funny, isn't it? Have a good laugh about it once you are out of my dungeons." The black eyes of the Potions master shot daggers in the werewolf's direction.

Remus sighed. "I have never laughed at you. Not since we were children, and I apologised for that long ago."

Snape just snorted. As he stood with his back to the werewolf he didn't see that his table had been magically set with dishes and bowls – apparently Dumbledore hadn't wanted to wait until Remus or the Potions master ordered dinner.

"Look, you should sit down." Remus said it as coolly as possible. "Let's just eat without having a go at each other."

Snape shook his head. He still hadn't turned round.

Remus got up, unwillingly, but nevertheless drawn to the tall, silent man like a moth is drawn to fire. "You need to eat," he said hoarsely. "You can't live on Strengthening Potion; it will make you sick in the long run. You..."

"I know," Snape replied. Surprisingly enough, he sounded tired, not aggressive. Slowly, he faced the werewolf, who stood only a hand's span away from him. "I am so damn hungry. Have been for days now and never could get anything down. But since you are here, the revulsion at the thought of food is gone. Just like that. As if it never had been there." Looking at his table he saw the steaming bowls of rice and meat and sweet fruit: his nostrils flared in appreciation of the tempting smells.

Before he knew what he was doing, Remus touched him. Just his hand on his friend's shirt-covered shoulder – it could have been a supporting gesture but for the tremble that claimed Remus's fingers.

Snape gasped and clutched his hand over the werewolf's, squeezed hard, and closed his eyes.

Remus stood frozen to the spot. If he had thought about it before, he would have guessed that Severus would push him away, might even draw his wand. But then he realised that his friend wouldn't have been able to do so. "This binding... that you need to be close to me... You have fought against it for a week?" he asked quietly.

Snape nodded.

"Then your urge to be near me must have built up constantly. It must have turned into pain by now – well, I can see it has. My touch... does it ease this pain?"

Another – unwilling – nod with still-closed eyes. The Potions master's grip was strong, but Remus felt muscles relax under his palm, could hear the slowing of Snape's heartbeat, and easily observed that at the moment, his friend didn't give a damn if he liked to be touched. He needed to be touched more than anything else.

I bet he would rather kill me, Remus thought, bitterly amused at the cruel irony of the situation. He depends on me once again, he hates me, and still, he needs me. Wonderful. Fucking wonderful.

Talking about what had happened had just become even more impossible than it had been before.

"Let's eat, Severus," Remus said and led his friend to the table, one hand on his shoulder. He was shocked how willingly the Potions master let it happen and how heavily he sat on the chair.

For many minutes, Snape just sat in silence, and then shrugged his shoulders, wiping the werewolf's hand away. Silently, slowly, he filled his plate. Even more slowly he began to eat as if he had forgotten how to bring a fork to his mouth. Throughout the meal he didn't say a word. When the dishes were gone, he didn't move.

Neither did Remus.

Around ten o'clock at night, the Potions master's head dropped to the surface of the table and he slept, for the first time in a week, deep and dreamless like a newborn child.

*****

Food and sleep brought Snape back to his feet in just a few days' time. For the first twenty-four hours, Lupin had stayed by his side, and every minute that had passed in the werewolf's company had reversed the aftereffects of the curse. Snape wasn't cold anymore, nor did his eyes hurt in bright daylight. He performed his daily tasks with renewed strength, and Hogwarts became itself more quickly again now that one of the most skilled wizards in Britain could put all of his mind and heart into rebuilding the school.

At meals he sat next to Lupin, every day at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He talked to Sybill, who sat on his other side, he occasionally commented on something Minerva or Albus had said.

He never shared one single word with the werewolf. He didn't even look in his direction. There could have been a wall next to him and he wouldn't have behaved differently.

Shortly before the new term began, nearly twelve weeks after the final battle, Snape seemed to be his old self again – snarky, snappy, with an exceptional dark humour and sarcastic comments on everything that piqued his interest. No one would have suspected that without the werewolf by his side he would dwindle like a flame in the storm, given the icy silence he radiated whenever someone as much as mentioned Lupin's name. No one knew that without the werewolf, the Potions master would be a permanent resident in St. Mungo's.

Snape knew that last bit for sure. He had experimented methodically with the amount of time he could be away from Lupin without ill effect, and after he had recovered – after he had ripped the werewolf's shirt apart in order to get in contact with his skin again – the Potions master had made it his personal quest to find the exact terms of his binding. Quickly it had become clear that physical contact was not necessary to keep him healthy, but equally quickly Snape had realised that being near Lupin once in twenty-four hours might be enough to stay on his feet, but not enough to feel good.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner – that turned out to be the ideal routine if he not only wanted to function but to live. Three meals a day, three meals with the werewolf sitting close enough to smell him, to feel the warmth his body radiated, to hear him breathe and observe what he ate and drank.

It was possible. Unpleasant, annoying, but possible.

Snape knew, of course, that for Lupin, it was sheer torture. Throughout the weeks, the werewolf had become paler on a daily basis, and it had nothing to do with his transformations during full moon for which Snape still provided the Wolfsbane. It had everything to do, though, with the fact that he couldn't leave Hogwarts, couldn't live his own life, and couldn't follow a path he had chosen for himself. Lupin had to stay at the school because of Snape and because the Headmaster had ordered him to do so.

Snape knew from lifelong experience that Lupin was not one who would disobey an order from Albus Dumbledore. Neither would he decline a necessary duty, however gruesome this duty might be.

Snape, sitting in his living room, laughed dryly. "Breaking the curse was gruesome; staying here, having to sit next to me regularly brings him to his knees. He must hate it even more than I anticipated."

A swig of port didn't wash the bitter taste out of his mouth. Given the circumstances, he felt exceptionally good. For the first time in two decades, he could get fully undressed at nighttime as he didn't have to fear a summoning anymore. Sleep brought relaxation, not nightmares, and the days were filled with nothing more exciting than decisions whether he would like to teach Slytherins and Gryffindors together, as always, or go for a new match like Slytherins and Hufflepuffs. Finally, he could live a quiet life.

If only Albus wouldn't keep asking when exactly he would be able to undo the binding. "Before Christmas, Severus, or after?" the Headmaster had demanded to know only this morning. He wouldn't take an "I don't know," for much longer.

Not that Snape didn't want to break the binding: the problem was that it was impossible to do so and that he didn't know how to tell this fact to the Headmaster and the werewolf.

Another swig of the port. The fire burned low, and it was pleasantly warm in his rooms. It was late, the day had brought no catastrophes, and, nicely tired after a hard day's work, he had the leisure to muse. To muse about the past, the present, and a future. To muse about the binding, even.

Who was he trying to fool? He thought about the binding constantly, as he was reminded of it three times a day.

Being bound... now that was harder than the Potions master had anticipated. Not the fact in itself but what it demanded of him. That he was dependent on someone else in such a crucial way; that his well-being was based on close contact with another human. Until recently, Snape had thought of himself as a solitary man who despised company and who would have never, not in a lifetime, considered a partnership or – just to think along this line – a marriage.

The binding was both, and neither. In a partnership one might miss the spouse, but certainly wouldn't get sick over the beloved's absence. In a marriage, physical contact was something both parties craved, not despised. This binding, though, only offered the bad parts and denied him the good ones.

Concerning a forced binding... Snape sighed. He craved the werewolf's company, there was no use denying it. Worse, he craved Lupin's touch, and that was certainly something he couldn't allow himself to give into. The reason he was so exceptionally rude to his colleague, to the man who had saved his life, was simple: if he weren't he would begin stalking the man, wouldn't be able to keep his hands off him, would – maybe – even ask Lupin to join him in his private rooms again.

Impossible, of course. This had been initiated by the Desipentia Curse, and due to unfortunate and more or less unique circumstances, Lupin hadn't been able to break the curse completely. Whenever Snape saw the werewolf, he could do nothing but try to keep his hands to himself, lest he rake it through those unruly, tempting brown locks.

Damn. And that Lupin was so very clearly unhappy here at Hogwarts didn't help, either. To Snape it was obvious that the werewolf would like to leave today rather than tomorrow. Only duty and the Headmaster's command held him at the school.

Snape drained the glass and got ready for bed. Since he had the time to do so, he very much enjoyed an evening bath, and he had even bothered to finally sort out his teeth with a few quite complicated spells. Now, after his evening toilet, he contently slipped into his bathtub, filled up to the rim with very hot, gently scented water. The bath would hopefully lull his mind away from the werewolf; equally hopefully, he wouldn't dream of the man again tonight.

"If only I could break that damn binding," Snape said to the clouded mirror above the sink. "But I can't. No one can."

*****

It was the day before the full moon, and as always, Lupin didn't appear for dinner. In the past months since the term had started, he had always stayed in his rooms during that time of the month. Now, a week before the autumn break, it was no different. Lupin would stay in his rooms during the night; he wouldn't come to breakfast, wouldn't as much as put his head out of his rooms before lunch.

The thought made Snape uneasy. Since the werewolf had touched him that one evening back in summer, since Snape had told him and the Headmaster about the binding, it seemed as if his need to be close to Lupin had increased. A full two days without so much as setting eyes on him was now absolutely impossible to contemplate, not to mention a whole week.

"Tomorrow midday, he'll be back," Snape told himself. Tonight he hadn't managed to go to the Great Hall, either. The thought of the table, the food, the students, simply everything had made him physically sick. "It's because I need that damn bastard," he murmured and emptied his third glass of Firewhiskey. "Not because I miss his presence."

Snape slept poorly that night, and when he woke the next morning, his mood was even more foul than usual. When he saw that the werewolf's place was as empty as expected, Snape decided to skip breakfast. Lunch, he told himself. He'll be back for lunch, he always is.

Potions classes were a nightmare for his students; it practically rained detention on every possible and impossible occasion. Snape was hungry, but eating seemed out of the question. He was tired, but sleep didn't come when he had two free hours between classes. Instead, he paced from wall to wall and wished time would rush.

At that moment, the Potions master hated the werewolf nearly as much as himself.

When the bells called everyone to the Great Hall for lunch, Snape could barely stop himself from running. Amongst the students, he went into the hall, his eyes searching for Lupin, his heart racing and then nearly stopping when he couldn't see him.

Couldn't find him. Could neither see nor hear him.

Couldn't sense him. Nowhere. Not anywhere in the room.

Lupin wasn't there and Snape, for a very brief moment, didn't know what to do. His initial reaction was to turn and storm upstairs to the werewolf's room, bang on his door, and drag him out if necessary. Naturally, that was impossible – students and colleagues alike would consider him crazy, if not dangerous, and he didn't want to raise any suspicions. So he went on and sat at his usual place, being very aware of the empty seat next to him.

It felt wrong, though. He hadn't been close to Lupin in over twenty-four hours, and Snape could feel his stomach turning to stone already. Accompanied by ice-cold hands, nervousness, and a slight feeling of nausea, he had to clench his teeth to stop himself swearing filthily at the werewolf's absence.

Then Snape felt Dumbledore's eyes on him and raised his head. The Headmaster looked at him questioningly; Snape could do nothing but to shake his head once. He didn't know where the werewolf was, and the brief interlude with Albus had only confirmed that Lupin hadn't told the Headmaster either that he would be absent longer than usual.

Shit.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Remus finally decided to take meals in his rooms," Snape heard Sybill suddenly say.

"What?" he snapped, and the Divination teacher pursed her lips at him.

"Well, consider the way you treat him – I would refuse to sit next to you if you were behaving that badly towards me!" The haughty, dreamlike manner she usually cultivated was totally absent for the moment.

For some reason, Minerva assisted Sybill's accusation. "She's right, Severus," McGonagall said. "Since the beginning of term you've behaved as if Remus were a ghost. You don't look at him, you don't talk to him – that's extreme, even for you. I'm surprised you can bring yourself to brew the Wolfsbane every month, given your obvious dislike."

"I have my reasons to treat him as I do," Snape bit out, trying to ignore the fact that just hearing the werewolf's name soothed his nerves. "Reasons which are none of your business. Until now, I have always fulfilled my duties. Lupin needs the Wolfsbane if he isn't to turn into a monster. Only I am capable of brewing it. So where is your problem, Minerva?"

Gods, his hands dug holes into to seat of his chair. Very soon, he would begin to shout, if he weren't careful.

Dumbledore suddenly said, "Severus, dear boy, do you have that potion for my headache ready? The one I asked you for yesterday evening?"

Snape frowned. Albus hadn't asked him for a headache potion, neither last night nor the night before. Besides, he had enough pain-killing potions on his shelf, so why...

"I would be grateful if you could get it for me," Dumbledore said mildly. "Or brew it, in case you haven't done it yet. Now, if you don't mind – you don't look particularly hungry, and truly, that headache is killing me."

Snape just managed to hinder his mouth from sagging open when he finally understood the Headmaster's intention – with his words he had given Snape the opportunity to leave and look for Lupin without anyone realising it.

His chair nearly fell over as the Potions master jumped up hastily. "Of course, Albus," he murmured, and just managed not to run out of the Great Hall.

*****

He did run upstairs, though, and broke into Lupin's rooms without hesitation. The werewolf's wards were strong enough to keep out the average student, but they were no match for Snape and he was inside in less than thirty seconds.

Cool, stale air greeted him. No candles burned, the fireplace was empty, the bed untouched. On the table stood a plate with uneaten sandwiches and the empty goblet which had contained the Wolfsbane. Clearly, Lupin had intended to eat before the transformation but had decided otherwise in the end.

Slowly, Snape turned around once to take in the sparsely decorated rooms. The bigger one contained a large couch, a table with a chair, some bookshelves. The bedroom held the bed and a wardrobe. Both rooms looked as if their inhabitant wished to be anywhere but in here.

Snape couldn't blame him.

But the question about the werewolf's whereabouts remained, so Snape cast a tracking spell which would allow him to see the movements Lupin had taken in the past fifteen hours. Every step would appear on the wooden planks, every...

But there weren't any footprints. Not from feet and not from paws, either.

"He left his rooms before he'd transformed into a wolf," Snape concluded. "In that case he must have gone to the Forbidden Forest before moonrise, transforming there rather than in here."

Where else? The Forbidden Forest was safe for a werewolf in his wolf form, and out there, between the ancient trees, Lupin would have felt less caged. Snape left Hogwarts with long strides, trying hard not to think about the hundred and more possibilities which could have prevented Lupin from coming home that morning.

*****

The grass was still crisp from last night's frost when Snape stepped out of the noon sunlight and into the shady greens of the wood. Quiet peace greeted him, and he understood very well why Lupin hadn't stayed inside. Maybe for the first time ever the Potions master admired the beauty of the Forbidden Forest. He heard the birds, smelled the last, late brambles and the autumn leaves, and sensed that soon it would be winter.

About an hour of searching, Snape found the werewolf's footprints. The tracking spell confirmed that they really had been made by Lupin, and only a few hours ago.

The fear that had pounded in the back of Snape's head since had seen the empty chair, the fear of finding the werewolf dead – killed by one of the Forest's monsters or killed by his own hand – subsided, but didn't disappear. When he followed the paw prints deeper into the woods, the Potions master allowed himself to hope that maybe the werewolf had injured himself, lay helpless in the midst of the Forbidden Forest and all he had to do was find him and drag him back to Hogwarts. A unicorn could easily wound a werewolf, a centaur, too, and... Ah. Here Lupin had turned back into his human form. His clothes must have been there, under the big fir tree. The paw prints vanished and were replaced by the impressions of naked feet. They glowed golden in the shadows, lightened by the tracking spell Snape used.

In the grass lay a shirt, a pair of socks, shoes: apparently Lupin had put his trousers on, but not the rest of his clothes. Question was, what had happened to stop him from doing so?

The footprints told Snape that Lupin had taken a step away from his clothes, had looked around, then headed back to his shirt.

Snape frowned. He had the strange feeling that he could very nearly see the werewolf's actions. "He transforms, dresses partly. Then he hears something and takes a look. Can't see a thing. He's probably still dizzy from the transformation. He decides that whatever he had heard was unimportant and..."

Snape's eyes fell onto a big old oak and he inhaled sharply at the sight of the pattern on the dark bark. It wasn't a pattern painted by age or the powers of nature; it was a pattern only a wand could cast. The problem was that Lupin never took his wand when he was about to turn into a werewolf – he wouldn't leave it abandoned by his clothes and couldn't carry it in his mouth, either. So it hadn't been Lupin who had marked the tree.

Someone else had been here early in the morning, shortly after moonset and just after the werewolf had transformed back into his human form. Someone who had hidden behind the trees, protected by spells so the fine nose of the wolf had been unable to detect the stranger. Then, this someone had cast a curse and...

No. That didn't make sense. If someone had cast a spell and missed Lupin, the werewolf would have either attacked with bare hands or simply run away. He had done neither; instead, Snape saw an indentation in the grass where he had fallen. Conclusion: the first spell had hit the werewolf and had either killed or immobilised him. As there was no corpse to be seen, it was unlikely that Lupin was dead.

"Who would be so crazy to leave proof of a crime?" Snape wondered and cast another spell, one that would highlight the pattern on the bark. The sun was getting low behind the trees, and it was cool in the shadows. A constant drum in his blood reminded Snape that he had to find the werewolf soon if he wanted to stay sane – and soon meant in the next few hours at the most.

Not many Death Eaters had survived the night of the final battle. A handful at best, and amongst them, Bellatrix Lestrange was definitely the most dangerous. Plus, she was completely insane. Insane enough to hunt a werewolf; insane enough to follow him into the Forbidden Forest.

The spell Snape had cast worked: the pattern on the oak became clearly visible. "Definitely Bellatrix," Snape said. Only she was arrogant enough to leave proof of what she had done written plainly into the bark of a tree: her initials, now glowing fiercely red.

Snape clenched his teeth and wished he could go after Bella and Lupin this instant. Instead, he headed back to Hogwarts, to the Headmaster's office, to report what he had found and to tell Dumbledore that he was going to find the werewolf. The Headmaster needed to know what Bellatrix had done in case he failed and that in this case, the mad witch might try to kidnap someone else.

A/N: Due to RL issues, I won't be able to post the next chapter before mid January. Sorry!