
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/20446.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Harry_Potter_-_Rowling
  Relationship:
      Remus_Lupin/Severus_Snape, Sirius_Black/Remus_Lupin
  Character:
      Severus_Snape, Remus_Lupin, Sirius_Black
  Additional Tags:
      Marauders'_Era
  Stats:
      Published: 2004-03-14 Words: 3871
****** This Is How ******
by seperis
Summary
     It's been a long time. Marauders-era fic.
Severus remembers when it's silent in Hogwarts and the nights grow longer in
winter, when there's nothing else to do and no one to do it with, students safe
in their beds and classrooms silent. When he closes his eyes or when he opens
them, when he wraps long fingers around the narrow neck of a bottle and thinks
of Black in a far away place, hiding from himself as surely as he hides from
the world.
Dumbledore's disappointed face and the slump of Lupin's shoulders beneath the
ragged traveling cloak. A wash of images and murmured voices and thoughts that
fill his mind, more inescapable than Voldemort, more powerful than magic, more
binding than a broken promise.
There's a caldron of wolfsbane that boils in the corner. Like clockwork, he
sends a bottle a month.
He wonders if Lupin ever gets them.
===============================================================================
This is how it starts.
Like this, beneath a tree that grew in one night, a prodigy, a wonder to behold
(never seen anything like it, Flitwick murmured as they circled it during
class, brilliant, prodigal, what can one expect from him, though?), grass the
color of a summer dream and the lithe body that stretched beneath, prosaic with
a frown of concentration and fingers scrabbling idly on the blanket like they'd
tear through by will alone.
They might at that, but Severus isn't stupid enough to say what he can't prove.
Hours since Black and Potter abandoned their fun to find better game, and it's
some comfort, beneath a Snape, beneath a Slytherin, to watch Evans turn her
back when Potter slips through, oblivious of the sighs of the girls who
surround him like flies to water. Bright, careless smile, wand in one lax hand,
and one hex would throw him in the water before them all.
But. That's beneath a Snape, too. Always to the face, always watch their eyes,
and always let them know who did it and why. Even when the why's nothing more
than just because. I. Can.
They're far from the water's edge now, though, and Snape watches pale lips form
words, the tremble of untouched power, moving, whispering for release. It's an
attraction in itself, this feeling, that art, leashed inside mere words and
beneath unquiet stillness.
Lupin fools them all with that surface that never moves, even when it does.
Severus knows how power feels, the ripening edge that begs for release.
"Picking up a few tips, are you?"
Lupin doesn't look up, and Snape wonders about that--ten feet and a bush
between them, but the feeling of being watched doesn't dissipate to logic.
"Bored, maybe."
A sharp look up, book forgotten across bony, bent knees--Lupin plods like Black
and Potter skim, like learning's more than a skill to master but something to
be consumed whole.
Circling the bush, they're in easy view of each other--third of four learning
the hard way by rote when his friends master at a glance, and Snape, who never
fit with anyone and never would, never wanted to.
A sounds of splashing draw their eyes away, to the water, to the boys who play
at war with wands raised and laughing, wet girls surrounding them. Black a
careless, elegant sprawl on the ground, soaked to the skin, flipping dark hair
back with a slim hand and grinning up at the hovering James. Evans walks away
with a toss of her head, and Potter scrambles to his feet to watch her leave.
Black watches Potter like Lupin's watching Black, and that's a secret that
Severus keeps close and smiles over often. There's little that can be hidden
when you know what to look for.
"What do you want?" Lupin only sounds tired--it's like this sometimes, when the
days seem to drag longer and Lupin's eyes fix on the sky at night like he wants
to be anywhere but here. Another secret to file away and keep close. Restless
beneath his skin, twitching fingers and a long, lean body vibrating with the
need to move. I'll find out, Severus wants to tell him. You can't hide from me
forever. I want to know.
"You're having problems with Transfigurations?" It's not his art, but he's seen
Lupin's work. Someone who can call down curses and hexes without effort
sweating through a teacup turned to turtle and the change from footstool to
pig. Mastering potions without effort, almost gifted at charms, but that room,
those spells, always just beyond his reach.
If Severus hadn't been curious before, he would have been after the last
demonstration in class.
"Not so much that I'd need help from you." Lupin plays at the callousness of
Black, but not quite. Tempered inside by something that Severus can't quite
understand, that makes every cruelty something that can be seen written on
Lupin's skin. Like even to inflict pain, he has to pay for it first.
Severus remembers late spring like this and a thousand times he's watched.
Curious first, he wants to know. Lupin, slim and awkward when he shouldn't be,
shadowing Black and Potter, forgettable even more than Pettigrew, little
mushroom who hopped and clambered for attention, annoying and ceaseless,
something you wanted to swat. Ducking into half-shadows made by Potter, always
watching. Letting himself be pet by Black, eyes closed.
Safety's for the weak, Severus thinks, but he's not sure that's precisely what
Lupin is doing.
"It's not that hard," Severus says, and Lupin stiffens, lazy sprawl abandoned.
"I'd think, considering Potter and Black's proficiency--" Names like razors,
but the only blood they draw is metaphorical, and Lupin can't see that.
"I don't require help." The book snaps closed and is pushed aside. "If you'll
excuse me-" Lupin stands up, ungainly and awkward again, and it's too perfect
to be real. A glance at the water shows the afternoon's wore away, and Potter
and Black have disappeared.
"Abandoned?"
Those quiet nights, when Lupin and Black, Potter and Pettigrew sneak out and
into the woods--the ones that Lupin comes back from, flushed and awake, filled
with something bright, indefinable, when all his spells work and he glows like
something incandescent, and no one else sees, even the teachers.
It fades, like now, but Severus thinks it's almost time for it again.
"I have work to do." Lupin grabs his bag from the ground, stuffing the book
within, the glimpse of a wand. Severus doesn't know he'll do it until he does.
Lazy, even, so few defenses that Severus hasn't learned in five years how to
breach. "Expelliarmus."
Even his wand feels different, like him--cold and bright, fitting into his palm
with a slow burn, and Lupin takes an eternity to look up from the space in his
bag the wand once lay, forever to meet Severus' gaze. A frown that lines his
forehead, eyes wide. A singular glimpse into the future of the man he would
become in this life, when they've all left school on the paths chosen before
they even began.
It's almost sad, in a way that Severus won't appreciate for over a decade of
living his choice.
"What do you want?"
"You're never going to be one of them." It slips out without thought,
unforgivable when Severus chooses his words as carefully as he does his
ingredients. But sometimes, it's the worst accidents that score the best hits,
a stagger that doesn't go any farther than the skin, the widening of dark eyes
that flare amber-bright, like the sun at dusk. "You'll never be what he wants."
And why do you even try?
A tremored pause, and Lupin takes a slow step, awkwardness forgotten. Fast--so
fucking fast, he hadn't expected that, no spell on his lips, nothing but
surprise in his mind, and the touch--ah, that touch, a brush of long fingers
when he grasps the wand, the shock of touching something that's seeped in
magic, what is that, how did he do that, Slytherins know how dark magic tastes
when it's acid-good on the back of their tongues, when they cast it in dorm
beds and feel it rise around them. It tastes like this, like sex when it's
good, like power when you wield it.
Seeped into the skin and being of this slim, pale boy who holds the wand to his
chest and trembles like Severus knows his every secret when he's beginning to
think he doesn't know anything at all.
Staring at each other before Lupin takes a stumbling step back.
"You don't know anything. Leave me alone."
Severus lets him go.
===============================================================================
Another day, five days later perhaps, hollow-eyed but almost glowing, and for
once, he overshadows even Potter, energy cycling through him in palpable waves.
No one sees except those three--Black, Potter, Pettigrew--and Lupin talks fast,
expansive gestures that take in the room and everyone in it, loud and laughing
and careless.
That's power, the kind that Severus feels like heat, and it calls him more than
any magic any wand could create.
Black, with a slim hand on his thigh beneath the robe, leaning close enough to
whisper, and the musical, wild laugh that follows when Lupin leans close, a
hair beyond appropriate, to reach for a bowl of peas. The brush of soft brown
hair against Sirius' face when he pulls away, and the heat that springs alive
between them like that.
Severus, three tables and a world away, thinks Lupin could light up the sky
tonight if he tried.
===============================================================================
Another week. It wanes, it always does, and there must be a pattern, but
Severus can't quite find it. Lupin, bright at the table, brilliant in class.
Fading by hour and hour into invisibility, like the moon above them, and
there's something in that which plays in his mind just before sleep, but he
never remembers when he wakes.
Something about a Gryffindor who wields dark magic like it's his birthright,
and it's more than once that the Defense Against Dark Arts teacher has watched
like Severus does. Narrowed eyes and tight lips, reports to Dumbledore,
perhaps, wondering if they're breeding a dark magician in the most beloved of
all the Houses of Hogwarts.
That fades too, though, and it's that time again, circle to the beginning, but
it's not under a tree, it's on the roof and Lupin's walking off the night like
he's running from time itself.
"What are you doing here?" It's snapped, seconds before Lupin should know he's
here, seconds before any wizard could. A sharp, graceless turn and skid,
staring at him from behind dark eyes, tight mouth, coiled energy with no outlet
but this.
"Are you following me?"
Severus won't lower himself to stating the obvious. "Where do you go?"
Lupin perhaps didn't expect truth, and Severus files that away for later use.
Truth is a weapon like any other.
"I--don't go anywhere." And Gryffindors have yet to learn how to lie. "I don't
know what you're talking about."
Lupin turns again, another wild pace of barely controlled limbs, nothing here
of grace, raw and unfocused. Classes with him today had been studies in
incompetence.
Vulnerable, without Potter and Black to hide him, to hide behind. Stripped to
skin, bone, and plain robes. Even from here, Severus can feel it. Power. It's
addictive, and he wants to touch. Just once, feel that strumming in his blood
like the first time, the only time.
"You're lying. I'll find out, you know." He will. There's little he doesn't
know, less that he doesn't care to. Information is just another kind of weapon.
"Fuck off!"
There. Like that. Shimmer in the air around them, something huge, like a charge
in the air just before the biggest storms, electrical, like the second before
adding the final ingredient. Potential.
Lupin's close enough to breathe--like the forest, the smells of the earth, like
he's been rolling on the ground for hours wet and dirty, no Gryffindor's ever
felt like this, no Slytherin would know what it was if they felt it. So close
that the charge wraps around them both, and Severus' voice begins to murmur
something--a charm, a hex, something, draw him out, and the ozone-taste of air
on his tongue, it's what calls him, this, Lupin's like this all over, soaked
into his skin, and Severus touches because he can't help himself.
Self-control is a memory when he gets skin.
And Lupin. Doesn't. Move.
"You feel--" Like everything we do in the dungeons that you never know about,
any of you, but it's never been like this. Pale imitations of this reality when
they take out their wands and forbidden books, pass on centuries of all the
knowledge of every wizard who ever touched the dark side and came away with a
taste for it. Power. Lupin's so filled with it. Living, breathing, so fucking
dangerous, like those spells Malfoy calls up effortlessly in their chambers,
blood magic's only a pale imitation of this. What they're all searching for
those endless nights. God, he should have been Slytherin. The things we'd do
with you, do to you, what you'd ask to do to us, you don't know, Lupin, but
we'd want you more than anyone else could ever dream.
"Don't." But Lupin's breathless, and Severus pulls impatiently at the robe.
More of that, a flare of cold heat with every touch. Smooth skin, so fine after
coarse wool, chemical-roughened fingers instantly addicted. No scars, even when
he pulls more cloth away, no one could be this perfect.
How could Black touch this and ever stop?
"Stop." The robe's puddled at his feet and Lupin's grasp on his wrist hurts,
he'll have to go to the hospital wing and get this fixed tonight and he doesn't
care. Strained muscles screaming, but he has another hand, has a mouth, can use
both, and Lupin makes a low sound that can't be human (file that away for
later), and the hand on his wrist loosens, sliding up his arm. "You--what is
that--"
These flares of pure sensation. Like magic feels when you cast it. Lupin can
feel it, too.
Gryffindors don't know about so many things. The things Snape murmurs beneath
his breath, wand hot in his pocket when he pulls it out and presses it between
them, power flaring and Lupin--growls, low and dark, so dark--fingers in his
hair, pulling him close, and the kiss--
Electric, flow and ebb of air and nothing, but the goddamn world's got to be
feeling this.
"What are you--what are you doing?" Lupin sounds drugged, kneeling on the rough
stone, hands pressed into the stone like he could break through it, like if he
stops, they'll be back on Severus' skin. Cold air and night between them, and
Severus' mouth burns. He hadn't realized he'd lost his own robes "What did--
what did you do?"
Severus has no idea, but he's staring at those long fingers and wondering if
they can do it again.
===============================================================================
Six days later. Circle around to the end, or the beginning, when Lupin comes
back from wherever he doesn't go, and Severus wasn't looking for him, not this
time. It's almost painful to be this close and not be able to touch, an entire
hall between them, a ripple of feeling, when Severus woke every night feeling
it, hard beneath his pajamas, no idea what it is but it tastes like Lupin's
skin.
Acid, raw, bittersweet, need. He sometimes feels grass beneath his hands and
grasps at his blankets to ground himself, and he can smell the forest around
him in the dungeon every day Lupin is away.
His homework is suffering.
This time, though. Lupin, alone, as elegant as Black has ever been,
incandescent that night as he waves Potter and Black ahead and goes to the
library. Coiling exhaustion and energy in every step, like it's will alone that
moves him but will is all he'll ever need. Severus thinks of earlier, outside
the first floor bathroom that no one uses, Lupin pushing Black up against the
wall, the slow, endless kiss that made Black shiver, and Lupin stepping back,
sleepy-eyed and alive, like he never really seems to be except these times.
Black, one hand touching bruised lips, wide eyes, suddenly younger, less jaded,
less sure. This second where Lupin didn't seem to notice, then the second he
did.
All that light going out like a snuffed candle, and Black walking away.
It's five million fucking rows of books, but it shouldn't be a surprise where
he finds him. A teacher's note beside him and Lupin cross-legged on the floor,
a dusty black book in his lap. Fingers flicking down the page and turning fast,
mumbled words.
"I won't even ask." The book closes with a snap. Snape glances at the cover,
but the protections of the library doesn't let him read the words. "I'm not in
the mood tonight."
Severus leans into the bookcase. "I told you that he'll never want you like you
want him to."
The snarl's strangely appropriate on Lupin's face. "Fuck. Off."
"Did he finally toss you off?'
"Shut up." Not enough heat. Lupin must be wondering the same thing.
"I wouldn't." Keep him like a pet, perhaps. When Lupin looks up, Severus
smirks, watching the long fingers freeze.
"Wouldn't what?" He sounds--tired. Severus wants him back, the boy downstairs
who could light a universe, the one who no one seems to really see.
Slow, easy drop to his knees, watching Lupin watch him, wary and scared. "Toss
you off."
It's appropriate that they're doing this here--surrounded by all the fruits of
a thousand dark wizards and a thousand who fought them, Lupin shifting into a
boneless crouch, like he'll run or leap or maybe just howl--(howl? remember
that, don't forget)--but nothing like anything Severus says isn't interesting.
Isn't being weighed by that Gryffindor honor against the want that he's
emanating like heat. A slip of skin on his throat, revealed by the gap in his
robes, and Snape moves close enough to lean forward and taste.
Electric. Bitter. Chlorophyll and metal. Hands on his head that pull him up
before he's had near enough, and Lupin kisses him.
Familiar, like being wrapped in spells in the dungeons, God, if they had him,
the things they could do.... Drunk on his skin, the way he feels beneath
Severus' palms, slick and silky and hard. He's rolled on his back, robes kicked
aside, and Severus wraps his legs around lean hips and lets Lupin take--his
mouth, his body, it's rippling through them both, and he's never been so hard
in his life, grinding up to get those flares of energy off of him, hear
guttural sounds against his mouth, his jaw, his neck, and Severus digs his
nails in and holds on.
"God," Lupin whispers, shuddering, sucking hard on his pulse, but it's only
pain that's just too good to share, keeps his teeth locked on his lip and his
fingers curled into claws, rocking up, imagining this as skin on skin, nothing
to dull the pressure or the connection. He wants more.
"Yes." Voice raw, wanting more of this, Severus has done so much but has never
done this. Lupin holding himself up on one arm and messy, wet sucks across his
collarbone, thrusting against him through wool and cotton, too many clothes but
it's too good to matter. "More."
"We can't...." Shaking above him, coming apart, and he can feel it. A forest at
night, a hunt across a grassy stretch of land beneath the moonlight, the scent
of prey, the sound of water running close, Severus opens wide eyes on Lupin and
stops breathing.
"Remus--"
The world explodes in brilliant, cold white light that burns through to the
bone.
Nothing's ever been this good.
===============================================================================
"...and what?"
There's a lot of reasons Severus hates Black. Arrogant, condescending bastard,
all glitter-bright and too-smart, even for a Black. Generations of wizard
inbreeding have left their mark in all the right ways--talent, intelligence,
ruthless charm. Power. Blacks take what they want when they want it.
All except this one, who wants what he won't quite bring himself to take.
"I was busy." Lupin pushes past, unusual enough to make Black blink, and writes
something down on the notebook in one hand, charmed to adjust for the uneveness
of movement. "You were occupied, I thought?"
"This about Candace?"
Such a name, Candace-Candy, a bad joke. Sweet like candy and as bright as a
brick wall, but talented, yes.
"No, it's about finals. I have to get this--"
"Don't give me that. You weren't in your room last night."
Leaning into the north school wall, Severus watches them from behind a bush,
screened from any but the most skilled eyes. Black's hand on Lupin's shoulder
makes him frown, an easy intimacy that Lupin would allow from no one else. "I
was in the library."
Blacks are ruthless, but they're also patient. The hand doesn't move, but
softens, fingers curving to touch the skin revealed by the open collar of
Lupin's shirt. Possessive, the way he touches, like he knows he's welcome, like
he knows he's allowed. "I wanted to see you."
"Sorry." Lupin pulls away, but reluctantly, letting the touch linger. Snape can
taste the sweat on that skin. "Can we talk about this later--"
"I want to talk about it now." Blacks don't know the meaning of the word 'no',
however implied or obvious it might be.
Lupin sighs, pulling back farther, but turns to face him. The sun outlines him
in gold, some impossible cliche about beauty and strength, but it's the line of
his spine, the tilt of his head, the lighting of brown eyes to something
fierce. Filling with sunlight like he's been soaking it in all day.
"You're afraid of me." It's so low, so soft, so dark. So much more pain than
four simple words should hold, and Black isn't stupid, he's got to feel it too.
The hand returns and this time, Lupin doesn't wait to shrug it off.
"I'm not." A step closer, as good as touch, personal space a mystery. "I'm not
afraid."
"Last night--"
"You just surprised me." Long, elegant fingers on Lupin's face, and God, he
wants to believe so badly anyone could see it. "Just surprise, Lupin. You
aren't--like that usually."
"Like what?"
Black's stroking slows, hesitates. "I could feel it."
Lupin pulls back, too sharp, all wide eyes and clumsy like he always seems to
be when Black is near. "I don't--it's--"
"Surprised me is all." Black watches with an intensity that has no competition-
-no one focuses like he does, all that strength of will brought to bear, break
down resistance, shatter and ground it like dust, and Lupin wavers. "Just
didn't expect it. Come on. It was--different."
Lupin swallows, nodding slowly, and this time, when Black touches him, he
doesn't move away.
"It was an accident," Lupin whispers, and Black nods. "It won't happen again."
"Come on. Potter's probably wondering where we got to."
The possessive hand that brushes Lupin's back as he passes Black is only a coda
of something he thinks he always knew.
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