Fic: Love potions

[coriaria]

Title: Love potions
Characters: Remus Lupin/ Severus Snape, Teddy, occasional Harry and Andromeda.
Rating: G
Warnings: hurt/ comfort with a risk of tooth decay and type 2 diabetes.
Word count: 3400
Summary: The expression of love can take many forms. For some, it is grand gestures, for some, gentle touches, for others, it is words of endearment. And for some, it is brewed and bottled.
Disclaimer: this is a work of fan fiction. All recognisable characters belong to JK Rowling, apart from the reference to Dr. Seuss. I make no profit from this etc.


1.
A flash of blue caught his eye. The colour was bright and unnatural among the muted shades of the Forbidden Forest. At the setting of each full moon, Severus Snape was grateful for the colour of Teddy Lupin’s hair. It allowed Severus to find them.

Remus Lupin lay among the leaves, Teddy’s jacket over his shoulders. He was curled in a foetal position, which must have hurt his stiff joints. It was only after the transformation that he ever abused his body in such a way. Severus dropped a heavy blanket beside him.

“Hello, spawn.”

“Hello, Severus.”

Teddy stood, shivering in his jeans and t-shirt, and helped Severus down beside Remus. The werewolf wasn’t the only one whose body wouldn’t cooperate thesedays.

“How was he?”

“Bloody awful. Started a fight with two young centaurs. Firenze broke it up and got bitten for his pains. He wasn’t impressed. Dad’s going to have some nasty bruises.”

“I trust you stayed out of the way,” Severus snapped.

“Yes, mother.”

Teddy rolled his eyes, but there was no venom in his voice. He’d once tried to restrain Moony, and been hurt, although not seriously. Remus had not allowed his son to transform and join him at the full moon for six months.

Severus covered Remus with the blanket, tucking it around him then rolling him over so he was no longer lying on the damp ground. He stroked the grey hair off Remus’s face and watched the blue eyes open.

“You need to drink this,” Severus said, sliding his hand under Remus’s neck and lifting his head slightly. “I’ve made a few modifications to the recipe. I think it will help.”

“Experimenting on me again, are you, Severus?” the werewolf replied, a small smile playing across his lips.

2.
Severus had been making experimental potions for his father for as long as Teddy could remember. There would be a knock at the door and then the intimidating man would swoop into the room in a billow of black robes. Teddy would hide behind his father’s legs.

“I’ve been conducting some brewing experiments, Lupin,” the man would say. “I believe that this may help with the pain after the transformation. I’ve adjusted the levels of willow-bark tincture.”

Sometimes it would be the pain. Sometimes the nausea. Sometimes the irritability or anxiety before. Always there was the Wolfsbane, swallowed with a shudder, but followed by a gentle smile.

“Severus, thank you, I appreciate your kindness.”

Severus would give a snort and change the subject.

“Lupin, your spawn has pink hair,” or “Lupin, what has your spawn done to his nose?”

He would seldom accept Remus’s offer of tea, instead pacing the room or, very occasionally, sitting stiffly on the edge of the sofa.

With a child’s candour, Teddy acknowledged what neither man was entirely prepared to.

“Daddy, Daddy,” Teddy would call as his father arrived to pick him him up from nursery school.

“What is it Teddy?”

“I made you a speriment.”

He would thrust some item towards his father, a picture, a decoration made from macaroni and string, a lump of dough. The teachers would look confused and Remus would explain.

“In our family, “experiment” is a word we sometimes use to mean “gift”.”

3.
Severus held the vial to Remus’s lips and watched as he swallowed the potion. He remained watching as he lowered Remus’s head again and as Remus closed his eyes. Teddy was watching closely too. Since Remus was no longer taking the Wolfsbane potion, the nausea was much reduced, but there was still no guarantee that he would keep the potion down.

After a minute, Severus broke the silence.

“Do you think you can sit up now, Remus?”

Remus opened his eyes again and attempted a rather unconvincing “yes”. Severus slid an arm under his shoulders and lifted him so that he was sitting upright. The werewolf winced but didn’t make a sound.

“Alright?”

“Hurts.”

Severus pushed back the blanket to reveal a vicious-looking bruise on Remus’s shoulder.

“I think that was from the fight with the centaurs,” Teddy said.

“I’m sorry,” Remus whispered. “Will you… tell Firenze.”

“Later, when we’ve got you cleaned up,” Severus replied. “He’ll calm down anyway. He does get worked up, but he knows you can’t help it.”

Remus rested his head on Severus’s shoulder, and Severus stroked the back of his neck, eyes staring off into the distance.

“You look tired, Severus,” Teddy said. “How much sleep did you get?”

“More than you, spawn.”

“Fair enough. Shall we head back?”

Teddy pulled out his wand. Severus nodded.

“I suppose you’ll insist on apparating all three of us?”

“I’d like us to arrive home with all our limbs, Severus, so yes.”

Severus gave Teddy a glare that would have made a seventh-year Gryffindor tremble. Teddy, however, was by now completely immune. He reached out, wrapping his left arm around his father's shoulders and his right, with wand, around Severus. Just before they disapparated, he heard Severus mutter under his breath.

“Overdramatic boy, it was just my eyebrows.”

4.
His father had been huddled on the bathroom floor, shivering but with his face damp with sweat. Every now and again, he would lean over the toilet bowl and begin dry retching. He was long past anything coming up.

When Teddy heard the knock at the door, he ran downstairs. He was scared and didn’t know what to do. But the man would know, the man who brought the experiments. Teddy knew it was him at the door, because everything about the man was tense, his posture, his movements, his voice, even the way he knocked.

Severus had stood at the bathroom door and looked down at Remus as he rested both elbows on the toilet seat and his head in his hands.

“Lupin, you appear unwell.”

His father hadn’t replied, which only made Teddy more anxious.

“Daddy was sick,” he said. “Lots.”

“Lupin? Do you know what the matter is?”

Severus crouched on the floor beside Remus, touching a hand to his forehead, prodding at his face, pulling his lower eyelids down.

“The last few full moons… it’s been worse after. I don’t know why.”

“It may be aconite poisoning,” Severus said, his voice sounding as if he was speaking to a classroom. “There’s evidence that with long-term use of Wolfsbane the body can become sensitised. It’s a fine balance between suppressing the wolf and poisoning the human. I may be able to adjust the recipe. I will do some experiments.”

Severus had helped Remus to bed before giving him a potion to settle his stomach.

“Thank you, Severus, you’re very kind.”

Teddy had jumped up onto the bed beside his father. He grabbed Severus’s arm and tugged it.

“Daddy was sick. Is he going to be sick again?”

Severus looked startled at the contact.

“Er… I don’t think so. But perhaps no bouncing, just to be on the safe side.”

Teddy nodded, then jumped off the bed and began noisily racing a car across the floor. He’d spent the night of the transformation staying with Harry at Grimmaud Place. He loved Harry, but hated the house, and as a result he didn’t get much sleep. It made him unsettled and overactive.

“Severus, if you don’t mind… Teddy needs to settle. A story would really help him.”

“A story?”

“A book, Severus.”

“You are asking me to read to your spawn, Lupin?”

“Yes please, Severus.”

Remus picked up a blue and red book from the bedside table. Teddy grabbed it and passed it expectantly to Severus, who opened the book.

“The sun did not shine–“

“You have to sit down,” Teddy said.

Severus sat.

“It was too wet to play…”

Teddy began to climb into Severus’s lap. He wasn’t like Remus, or his Nana or even Harry. He was bony and sat very stiffly – it felt more like scrambling up a climbing frame at the playground. But his voice was warm and rich, and he was reading Teddy’s favourite story. Teddy was asleep before the cat had even fallen from the ball.

“Severus, look,” Remus whispered. “Look at Teddy.”

Severus looked down at the sleeping boy, whose head had slumped against the black-robed chest and whose hair now hung over his face in greasy black strands.

5.
Teddy, Severus and Remus landed with a lurch on the bedroom floor of their cottage. Remus had his eyes closed, and was breathing heavily and shivering, and both Teddy and Severus watched him closely until he opened his eyes. He gave a half smile.

“Sorry. I’m alright now,” he said.

Teddy stood and offered his hand to help Severus, who took it without meeting his eye. He took out his wand and cast a warming charm over his father, before pointing the wand to lift him.

“I can stand,” Remus said quickly.

Teddy and Severus glanced at each other. Severus rolled his eyes, but Teddy suspected that he was relieved. There had been too many mornings where Remus had been too weak to stand, and had to be carried to bed. It seemed, though, that the new combination of potions that Severus had been brewing for before the transformation was doing its job.

“Let me help you, Dad.”

Teddy crouched beside his father and helped support him.

They slipped into a well-practiced routine. Teddy prepared a bath then headed down to make tea. Severus helped Remus into the bath, making a mental inventory of the bruises, scratches and wounds as he did so. Then out of the bath, dried off, into pyjama pants and wrapped in a warm dressing gown, Remus shuffled to the bedroom, with Severus’s arm around his waist. Teddy reappeared in the room with tea and toast on a tray.

Teddy set the tray down and folded back the covers on the neatly-made bed. The fact that the bed was neatly made, along with the tell-tale lack of yesterday’s clothes and last night’s pyjamas on the floor, was a pretty good clue that Severus hadn’t actually slept, at least in the bed.

He contemplated bringing it up, but then decided to say nothing unless his father noticed. Remus worried enough about Severus when he wasn’t there.

As Remus sipped his tea, Severus undid the dressing gown and pushed it back from Remus’s shoulders.

“I’ll put some salve on that,” Severus said, his eye on the puffy purple and red mess that was Remus’s right shoulder.

He picked up a small jar, undid the lid and began to apply the salve with a soft brush of fingers against the swollen joint. Teddy was little embarrassed. They weren’t openly affectionate, and he felt as if he was watching something very intimate. Severus’s fingers were wrinkled, bony and liver-spotted, and they were stained from potion ingredients, as they had been for as long as Teddy had known him. But they were strong and gentle, the nails neatly cut short so that he didn’t scratch Remus’s skin as he applied the salve.

Remus sipped a little tea and ate some of the toast while Severus worked another salve into his back. When he had eaten and drunk all he could, Severus helped him remove the dressing gown and he lay down while Severus tended to a bruise on his hip.

Teddy waited until Severus had finished before reminding him to drink his own tea and eat his own toast.

“You’re just like your father, you know that spawn?”

“Yes, I do believe you’ve mentioned that before.”

6.
They limped along with the Wolfsbane potion for another couple of years, with Severus constantly adjusting the dose and the recipe. Severus had taken to staying during the full moon in order to better observe the effects. Teddy had sulked for a while, since his father always refused to allow him to stay.

Remus’s use of Wolfsbane had come to an abrupt end the day Andromeda had brought Teddy back to find Remus gasping for breath and coughing up blood, with Severus frantic. It was the first time Teddy had seen Severus show any emotion, and it was terrifying, worse even than when his father had first started to get sick from the Wolfsbane. If Severus was afraid, then something must be very wrong.

Remus had been in St Mungo’s for a week. When he asked Severus about further modifications to the Wolfsbane, Severus had turned away and left the room without a word. Andromeda had been more direct.

“Under no circumstances will you take any more Wolfsbane, Remus. It’s not worth the risk.”

After that, Remus transformed in the cellar, alone, and Severus brewed him potions for the bruises, scratches and bite marks.

Some months after the Wolfsbane had been stopped, Severus turned up with a jar.

“It’s a muscle salve. You apply it to the affected area. It means you can have a higher dose of the pain relief without as many side effects.”

Remus had thanked him and begun to unbutton his pyjama top.

“Lupin, what on earth are you doing?”

“You said to apply to the affected area. It’s worst on my back.”

Remus looked expectantly at Severus.

“You expect me to… apply it?”

Severus looked horrified, and his normally pale face had gone scarlet. It made Teddy angry, that Severus suddenly didn’t want to help his father.

“I’ll do it,” he said, snatching the jar.

“Thank you, Teddy, that’s very helpful,” Remus said. “Severus, perhaps you could help him? Show him what to do? Would that be alright?”

Teddy had watched carefully as Severus dipped one finger into the jar and gingerly touched it to Remus’s back. He put his own finger into the jar and copied exactly. Severus sighed. He dipped his finger again, this time taking more salve and rubbing it across his fingertips. Then, starting at the shoulder, he began to rub the salve into Remus’s back with firm, fluid strokes. Teddy copied again, carefully watching the stained fingers with their cracked and broken nails as they slid across the skin. He matched the motion – shoulder to spine and then out, making circles on the scarred back.

Remus made a soft noise and Severus abruptly stopped.

“I’m sorry, did that hurt?”

“No, Severus, not at all. It’s… it’s really helping. It feels much better already.”

Teddy was pleased and glanced across at Severus, giving him a smile. Severus’s face was red again, but this time, at least, he gave a small smile back to Teddy.

Not long after that, Teddy noticed that Severus had begun to visit more, staying longer on his visits and often joining Remus and Teddy for breakfast. This seemed to shock people, especially his godfather, who’d spat coffee across the table when Teddy had innocently mentioned it. Harry had explained that that meant Severus was staying the night. Harry seemed rather alarmed, but Teddy was simply relieved. He knew now, finally, that he no longer had to look after his father on his own.

7.
Teddy returned the tea cups and plates to the kitchen. He ate a couple of slices of toast himself, gulped a second cup of coffee, then with a few quick waves of his wand had the dishes clean and stacked.

He poked his head in the sitting room after leaving the kitchen and finally knew where Severus had spent the night. It appeared that a large stack of potion journals and several issues of the Daily Prophet had exploded over the floor. Scattered among the chaos were several cups with varying amounts of undrunk tea.

Severus’s domestic habits had caused more than one argument during Teddy’s teenage years. He found it difficult to understand why he was expected to tidy his room and do various other household chores while Severus did none. Especially when it was school holidays and Teddy thought he ought to have a break.

“He just leaves everything in a mess. I don’t see why I should have to do all these stupid chores while he does nothing.”

“You need to learn to look after yourself Teddy. You won’t learn that at Hogwarts, it’s something you need to learn at home, and tidying your room is a part of that. You will be glad one day.”

Teddy glared at his father. He was good at glaring. He had, after all, been trained by a master.

“And Severus never learned, is that it? Just because he spent his childhood prancing around with house elves following him everywhere and doing everything.”

Teddy had seen enough spoiled, Slytherin purebloods at school to make a confident guess at the likely background for their former Head of House.

“Don’t you ever,” Remus said, his voice quiet but tight with contained anger, “say anything like that to Severus, Teddy. Not ever.”

It had been only then that Teddy realised something he had never before noticed about Severus.

The signs of Remus’s family were everywhere. There was this piece of china, or that picture of his parents’ wedding, or this faded muggle photograph of Hope Lupin when she was a child, or that particularly uncomfortable chair which they all avoided, but Remus’s father always sat in when he came. Teddy didn’t much like his grandfather. He spent his visits extolling the virtues of Remus’s dead wife and hinting that it was time Remus thought of marrying again, all the while looking directly at Severus, who matched him scowl for scowl. Nonetheless, Remus still invited him back a couple of times a year.

There were things from Dora’s family too, including a large picture of her with her parents when she had graduated as an auror. Teddy had come to realise that sometimes things between Andromeda and his father were a little strained, but she was always a part of their life.

However in all the years he had known him, eight of those living in the same house, Teddy had never heard Severus mention his family. There were no pictures, no heirlooms, no visits, no owls with updates on family news.

“I won’t, Dad,” Teddy said softly in response. “And… I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. I… you… you look after him too, don’t you? He looks after you, you look after him.”

The anger in his father’s face had melted away. Remus smiled.

“Yes, Teddy, yes I do.”

Now his eyes had been opened to it, he saw the signs all the time. It wasn’t just that Remus cleaned up after him. It was in the gentle but firm reminders that Severus needed to come for dinner, bathe, change his clothes. It was in the hissed instructions on how to observe the social niceties when they went visiting or had guests. It was in the whispered words of reassurance when Severus’s face took on that appearance of sneering arrogance which Teddy had come to realise signified anxiety.

Teddy pointed his wand at the scattered journals, stacking them, as his father always did, in date order. Severus liked that – on the rare occasions he attempted to tidy things he spent hours ordering things perfectly. Teddy knew Remus wouldn’t be particularly bothered by the mess when he limped his way downstairs in a day or two – in twenty years living with Severus he’d seldom complained – but tidying up when his father was ill was still a way he could help them both.

Teddy retrieved three more half-drunk cups of tea as he did a quick round of Severus’s lab then headed up the stairs to the bedroom room once again. All was quiet now, apart from his father’s steady snoring.

Remus was on his back, chest rising and falling evenly, his face relaxed. Severus was on his side, curled in towards Remus. One arm was outside the covers, the hand resting on Remus’s chest. His face rested against Remus’s shoulder.

Teddy leaned over to his father, kissing his forehead.

“See you later, Dad. Love you.”

In response, Remus’s snoring seemed to halt a moment and he gave a couple of snorts before settling back into a steady rhythm.

Teddy glanced over at Severus. He had inflicted his hugs on the man when he was a child, even though hugging Severus was more like hugging a tree he was so stiff and unbending. But as he’d grown, their affection had been more in their words, in the relaxed banter between them or in the way Severus managed to look interested when Teddy told him of his latest romantic woes or ranted about the unfairness of the world and how he would make it better.

But Severus was sound asleep now, so it wouldn’t be awkward.

Teddy leaned across and kissed the pale cheek.

“Sleep well, Severus. Love you.”

He was just outside the door, nearing the top of the stairs, when he heard the faint words.

“Love you too, spawn.”


Written for the June Moonlight Madness mini-fest at Lupin_Snape.