Loose ends chapter 30 - Unrequited
Mar. 3rd, 2017 07:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coriariaSnape admits that he is in love with Lupin and doesn’t expect to be loved back. Angst, discussion of Lupin/ Tonks
This is a work of fan fiction. The world and all recognisable characters belong to J.K. Rowling and I make no claim or profit etc
Unrequited
Snape accepted Wormwood’s request for assistance with potion preparation with far more humility than Lupin expected. Lupin had hoped Snape would accept the job, but he had not expected the once-proud man to be so grateful. Snape turned up every morning, usually including weekends unless Wormwood took a day off, and put in several hours of tedious chopping, grinding and slicing without a word of complaint. He did require supervision, but Wormwood was adamant that Snape was a real help in the lab.
Over the following weeks, Lupin, Harry and Andromeda continued to visit him at his flat, dropping off food and checking that he wasn’t brewing Dreamless Sleep. The tentative friendship with Harry that had begun in the pantry with Mephistopheles continued to develop. When Snape found a memory of Lily, he stored it away to share with Harry later. Harry, for his part, turned up with treats for Moros and Mephistopheles. Sometimes he brought Grimmy, and convinced Snape to come for a walk. Andromeda brought meals that could be easily reheated and reminded Snape to eat. She tutted over the unwashed dishes on the bench and asked him unsubtly if he needed assistance remembering his domestic charms. Snape tolerated her attention with an occasional sneer or rolling of eyes. When Lupin visited, he spent more time with Moros than Snape, as half the time Snape let Lupin in the front door then retreated to his bedroom and refused to speak to him. If Snape stayed in the same room, he barely spoke except to make sarcastic or insulting comments.
Lupin faced Snape’s hostility with his usual calm, but Andromeda could see it was beginning to get to him.
Finally, she resolved to speak to Snape. Arriving with leftover curry from the previous night, she put off the moment by cleaning up his dishes and insisting that he bathed and changed the robes he had been wearing for days. She made him eat the curry and told him to write a note to Clarridge, to give the frustrated Moros something to do. Then she made them both a cup of tea. Eventually there was no more reason for her to put off the conversation, and she sat on the tatty sofa, feeling awkward.
“Severus, I need to talk to you.”
Snape looked across at her from the small table where he sat. The woman had been on edge since she’d arrived, and he knew something was bothering her.
“Come here please.”
Andromeda motioned to the space on the sofa beside her. Snape didn’t want to discuss whatever was on her mind, but somehow found himself walking across to her. He sat on the edge of the sofa, elbows on knees, avoiding her gaze.
“Severus, you can’t keep treating Remus like this. He’s worrying himself sick that he’s upset or hurt you in some way. I haven’t told him, but I’ll have to. It’s not fair.”
Snape was silent for a moment, before speaking.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do, Severus. Do you need me to spell it out?”
“I dislike him. He’s irritating. He makes a nuisance of himself.”
“Severus, that’s not true and you know it.”
Andromeda placed her hand on his shoulder. Snape didn’t know why he continued to deny what they both knew, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to admit it.
“I know how you really feel about him, Severus.”
Snape tensed. She was going to say it, and somehow that made things worse.
“You are in love with him, Severus, and for some reason that makes you want to drive him away.”
“For some reason?” Snape spat back at her. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“Not really, Severus, no. It seems like you don’t want him to know, but I don’t understand why you are trying to hurt him.”
“I’m not trying to hurt him.”
“Well, you are,” Andromeda said, her voice kinder than he deserved. “He may be good at hiding things, but he doesn’t like being insulted and snapped at any more than anyone else. He obviously likes and respects you, and having you act as if you hate him upsets him more than he lets on.”
Snape was silent. When she put it that way, it didn’t really make sense.
“I don’t want to upset him.”
“I know you don’t, dear.”
Andromeda was being sympathetic, and he hated that. He wished she would speak to him as he deserved, but she just kept on being understanding, just as Lupin did. It made no sense.
“He’s been so kind, helping me like this, and I… he…”
Andromeda’s hand moved from his shoulder and slipped across his back. He sighed and put his face in his hands.
“I really don’t understand, Severus.”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know either. I… I just don’t want him to know how I feel.”
“So you pretend to hate him instead?”
“I suppose… it’s just habit. I was just trying to be how I always was.”
“You’ve moved on from there though, both of you. I don’t think you can go back.”
Snape sat without responding. He wanted to run from the room, but for some reason he stayed.
“Would it really be so bad if Remus knew, Severus?”
Snape finally turned his head to look at her through his hair.
“What will he think of me? He’s been so kind to me, and then I… I… he would be disgusted.”
“Severus, he wouldn’t be disgusted. He might not feel the same way as you, but… I don’t think it would upset him. He’d be concerned about you, I think.”
Snape sighed. He felt Andromeda’s arm around him and felt inexplicably safe. It was the way he had felt at the farmhouse, before he’d noticed the way Andromeda was watching him, and realised that she knew. He’d tried to hide it, to use his old occlumency tricks from his spying days, but he realised that ability was gone. He didn’t know if it would ever come back.
“It’s okay,” he said suddenly. “I’ll be okay. I’m used to this.”
“What do you mean, Severus?”
“Not being loved back. I’m used to it. I’ve never fallen in love with a man who has returned my feelings.”
“Oh.”
Andromeda looked at the back of Snape’s head, the way the black hair hung over his face like a screen from the world. His shoulders were hunched and he seemed rather lost.
“You know, when I told him I was crooked, he was so good about it. I ended up telling him far more than I intended, the worst things about myself.”
“He knows? I didn’t realise.”
“I told him a long time ago. I didn’t mean to, but… you know how he is, don’t you? You end up saying things to him…”
Andromeda knew. She nodded and made vague noises of agreement.
“I thought he’d… Actually, I don’t know what I thought. I don’t know what I expected. But I didn’t expect he would offer to hug me. I felt like the most disgusting, vile, filthy thing in the world, and he hugged me. I still remember it as one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.”
Snape paused, looking down at his hands.
“I’d rather be in love with someone like that, even if they’re not crooked and would never be interested in me, than love someone who would just hurt and use me for their own entertainment.”
Snape began to pick at the fabric of his robe, and Andromeda suspected he was speaking from experience.
“You know, I don’t think it’s entirely correct to say Remus would never be interested in you. I don’t think he returns your feelings, but it wouldn’t be entirely… out of the question.”
Snape looked up at her, narrowing his eyes.
“You know that in his younger days he was quite…” Andromeda wasn’t quite sure what to say. “During the first war he was…”
Andromeda didn’t finish her sentence, simply ending it with a sigh.
“We didn’t socialise much during the first war,” Snape replied, in a slightly defensive tone. “What with me joining the Death Eaters and him the Order of the Phoenix. Opportunities were limited.”
“Ah,” replied Andromeda. “I did wonder if the rumours got to you. Remus was rather desperate for attention and acceptance in those days.”
“I had noticed. He was the least likely school bully you could imagine, and yet picked on me because it earned him the favour of the other marauders. Still, I can’t judge, since I did far worse for the same reason.”
Andromeda looked at him closely. There it was again. There were moments when she realised that the two really were quite alike. Both accustomed to masking their true natures, both wary and guarded, both outcasts, but also both highly intelligent, both good men, desperate for acceptance and love, but seldom receiving it.
“During the first war Remus was rather…” she searched for a polite euphemism, but failed to come up with anything. “Promiscuous. With women and men. Anyone who would have him, really, I’m afraid. So I don’t know that he’s entirely… I suppose the opposite of crooked. Straight?”
“Doesn’t mean he isn’t though. You said yourself it was desperation.”
“True. But I’d have to say he’s fairly open minded. He married my daughter, and much as I loved her, I know most men found her… difficult to take.”
She recalled Dora, beautiful in a new dress to attend a family wedding, full of sneering, sophisticated purebloods. On the dance floor, her daughter had stumbled into the groom, laughed loudly and inelegantly and then given herself a large, bovine nose, with a ring through it for good measure. “Bull in a china shop, Dad always says,” she’d added, in case people didn’t get the joke. The girl had not been swamped with dance partners.
“You must have been delighted with him as a son-in-law.”
Andromeda hesitated. Sometimes she really couldn’t entirely tell when he was being sarcastic. His voice lacked the venom of the old days.
“Not at first, no. It was far from my intention when I encouraged her to talk to him. It didn’t cross my mind.”
Snape looked up, more comfortable as the conversation shifted onto safer ground, at least for him. Andromeda was looking across the room.
“He was my friend. He was closer in age to me than Dora. I knew him from the first war, I… I looked after him when… he sometimes ended up in a bad state.”
A curious look had crossed Andromeda’s face. Snape couldn’t fathom what it meant.
“He did… he was asked to do some difficult things in those days. He understands you more than you know, Severus.”
A part of Snape was curious, but it was back towards things he didn’t want to discuss.
“Why did you encourage her to talk to him.”
“She faced a lot of prejudice as an auror. Just because they let her in, they weren’t going to let her feel welcome or make life easy. When she trained, there were still relatively few women, and she was the first metamorphmagus to be accepted. They didn’t have much choice, she topped nearly every test they threw at her. Kingsley was good to her, but then he understood, he faced a lot of prejudice himself. But apart from Kingsley and maybe Alastor, she wasn’t treated well at all. For several years nothing seemed to bother her, then… she’d just had enough I suppose. It wore her down, and she wasn’t coping well. It started to affect her work, her magic, her… abilities. I suggested she talk to Remus about it. I knew he’d understand her better than most.”
“I was under the impression that the… difficulties she was experiencing were more… over Lupin. That she was… I don’t know, like some lovesick schoolgirl. It did seem rather unlike her.”
“Well, someone jumped to that conclusion, Molly maybe, and she didn’t correct it. She found it easier, I think. Kingsley and Alastor treated her better than most, but if it got back to them that she wasn’t coping because of how things were at work… It was best they didn’t know exactly why she was struggling, why she was spending so much time with Remus. Rather ironic that she did end up falling in love with him, long after everyone else thought she was. He still took some convincing, though, or that’s the impression I got from her. I thought it would be a disaster of a relationship, but there was no telling her, and in the end she was right I think.”
“She was very determined.” Snape said. “Something came back to me about her as a student a few weeks ago. She spoke to me in her OWLS year, and told me she wanted to get in to the aurors’ college. Asked me what she needed to do. I was… sceptical. Told her she’d need to get an O in potions for both her OWLS and NEWTS as well as Defence and two other subjects for them to even consider her. Not that those marks were a requirement, but as a girl and a Metamorphmagus she’d have to be outstanding. Given that she’d been stunningly average in her academic performance up until that point… well, I didn’t consider it likely.”
“She was having too much fun, I think. Every report said she was intelligent but didn’t apply herself.”
“But then she did. The very next week she waited after class to ask me some quite sensible questions about an essay I’d set. The week after that she came and asked me for help with Defence against the Dark Arts. I can’t remember the teacher that year, but I’m sure it was some idiot since Lupin was the best we had in about ten years. Within a month she was top of both Defence and Potions. Much to the disgust of the Ravenclaws.”
“When she put her mind to it, she was truly brilliant, wasn’t she?”
Andromeda gave a sad smile and Snape was reminded that the loss of a child was supposed to be the most awful of griefs. He had remembered too that Andromeda lost her husband less than two months before losing her daughter.
“I’m sorry for bringing up painful memories, Andromeda.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t apologise, Severus. I love to talk about her, especially with people who saw parts of her life that I didn’t. And the one I’d love to talk to the most… won’t.”
“Lupin?”
She nodded.
“He listens to me when I talk. He’s always so kind and patient. But he doesn’t talk about his own feelings. It’s as if we are discussing about someone he barely knew. It’s hard to tell, but I know he still hurts. He blames himself. He said once that if he had been there… It’s hardly his fault that he wasn’t at the final battle, since he was locked up in the Institute, desperately ill. But he’s never been quite logical about that sort of thing.”
“I noticed he doesn’t talk about her.”
“No. Just bottles it all up inside I suspect. But Dora… well, I think that’s the thing that made me change my mind about the two of them. She went to him because she needed someone who could listen to her, and understand her, but also help her see another way to look at things. He was that person, without a doubt. But it hadn’t crossed my mind that he needed someone who could help him see his own life in a different way as well. He helped her find a way to deal with the prejudice calmly, without letting herself get sucked in by the anger and frustration. And she helped him to see that he had a right to expect what others expected from their lives, to be loved, to have a family.”
Andromeda’s face bore an unexpected smile. It was a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“I would never have chosen for her to be with someone like him, no matter how much I liked him. It was always going to make her life harder, being with him, someone living on the margins, earning money doing Merlin knows what. And although he’s so clever and so strong in many ways, he’s still very insecure in others. But then I realised… they made each other happy. When I saw that, I realised they were right together. For all his flaws, he’s a good man, as you’ve pointed out.”
Snape looked at the woman in some surprise. There was a generosity in the way she spoke, a pleasure in her daughter’s happiness, as well as Lupin’s. As Snape sat beside her, still with the woman’s arm around his shoulders, he felt calmer than he had in some time. He’d been terrified when he realised Andromeda knew, terrified he’d be thrown out of the house, that she would despise him, that she would tell Lupin, and then he would despise him. But here she was, making him feel as if things would be okay.
“I do love him,” he said finally. “It crept up on me somehow. I… had a bit of a thing for him at school for a while. He was very kind to me when… others weren’t. But Sirius noticed, despite my efforts to cover it by being as horrible to him as possible. He… Sirius certainly cured me of that. For a while after… I was just terrified every time I saw him. Later on I… came to respect him, I suppose. At times we were almost friends, but….”
Snape fell silent.
“You should talk to him, Severus. We both know what kind of man Remus is. I honestly can’t tell how he feels about you, but however he does feel, he wouldn’t be unkind or think less of you. And you never know, he may return your feelings.”
Snape turned to Andromeda, forgetting for a moment to mask his surprise.
“But… wouldn’t it bother you, if he… if we… “
“You know, I don’t think it would. I did think about it, before I came to talk to you. What matters to me more than anything is Remus being happy. If he was happy with you, then yes, I would be happy for you.”
Snape was silent. For a moment, he felt calmer than he could remember feeling in years. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so accepted. But then reality intruded on his mind once again.
“It wouldn’t work though, not with me” he said softly. He sighed. He didn’t like the truth but he knew it.
“Lupin might have a tendency to rescue people, but that’s not what he needs in a lover. He needs an equal, someone as strong as he is, who can be there for him as well. I’m not that person, much as I wish I was.”
Andromeda looked across at Snape. It was a level of insight she didn’t expect of the man. He was quite right about Lupin. Andromeda and Harry cared for him physically, but mentally, he was the strong one. On occasion, he would let them comfort him after a nightmare or particularly bad day, but he never burdened them with his darkest feelings. Andromeda didn’t know what she would do if Lupin one day feel apart. She needed his strength, as did Harry. And so, Andromeda suspected, he suffered alone.
Snape was not the equal that Lupin needed, she knew that. At least not now. Once, she suspected, he had been. And maybe, especially with the awareness he had just shown, he had taken another step towards being that man again.
This is a work of fan fiction. The world and all recognisable characters belong to J.K. Rowling and I make no claim or profit etc
Unrequited
Snape accepted Wormwood’s request for assistance with potion preparation with far more humility than Lupin expected. Lupin had hoped Snape would accept the job, but he had not expected the once-proud man to be so grateful. Snape turned up every morning, usually including weekends unless Wormwood took a day off, and put in several hours of tedious chopping, grinding and slicing without a word of complaint. He did require supervision, but Wormwood was adamant that Snape was a real help in the lab.
Over the following weeks, Lupin, Harry and Andromeda continued to visit him at his flat, dropping off food and checking that he wasn’t brewing Dreamless Sleep. The tentative friendship with Harry that had begun in the pantry with Mephistopheles continued to develop. When Snape found a memory of Lily, he stored it away to share with Harry later. Harry, for his part, turned up with treats for Moros and Mephistopheles. Sometimes he brought Grimmy, and convinced Snape to come for a walk. Andromeda brought meals that could be easily reheated and reminded Snape to eat. She tutted over the unwashed dishes on the bench and asked him unsubtly if he needed assistance remembering his domestic charms. Snape tolerated her attention with an occasional sneer or rolling of eyes. When Lupin visited, he spent more time with Moros than Snape, as half the time Snape let Lupin in the front door then retreated to his bedroom and refused to speak to him. If Snape stayed in the same room, he barely spoke except to make sarcastic or insulting comments.
Lupin faced Snape’s hostility with his usual calm, but Andromeda could see it was beginning to get to him.
Finally, she resolved to speak to Snape. Arriving with leftover curry from the previous night, she put off the moment by cleaning up his dishes and insisting that he bathed and changed the robes he had been wearing for days. She made him eat the curry and told him to write a note to Clarridge, to give the frustrated Moros something to do. Then she made them both a cup of tea. Eventually there was no more reason for her to put off the conversation, and she sat on the tatty sofa, feeling awkward.
“Severus, I need to talk to you.”
Snape looked across at her from the small table where he sat. The woman had been on edge since she’d arrived, and he knew something was bothering her.
“Come here please.”
Andromeda motioned to the space on the sofa beside her. Snape didn’t want to discuss whatever was on her mind, but somehow found himself walking across to her. He sat on the edge of the sofa, elbows on knees, avoiding her gaze.
“Severus, you can’t keep treating Remus like this. He’s worrying himself sick that he’s upset or hurt you in some way. I haven’t told him, but I’ll have to. It’s not fair.”
Snape was silent for a moment, before speaking.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do, Severus. Do you need me to spell it out?”
“I dislike him. He’s irritating. He makes a nuisance of himself.”
“Severus, that’s not true and you know it.”
Andromeda placed her hand on his shoulder. Snape didn’t know why he continued to deny what they both knew, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to admit it.
“I know how you really feel about him, Severus.”
Snape tensed. She was going to say it, and somehow that made things worse.
“You are in love with him, Severus, and for some reason that makes you want to drive him away.”
“For some reason?” Snape spat back at her. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“Not really, Severus, no. It seems like you don’t want him to know, but I don’t understand why you are trying to hurt him.”
“I’m not trying to hurt him.”
“Well, you are,” Andromeda said, her voice kinder than he deserved. “He may be good at hiding things, but he doesn’t like being insulted and snapped at any more than anyone else. He obviously likes and respects you, and having you act as if you hate him upsets him more than he lets on.”
Snape was silent. When she put it that way, it didn’t really make sense.
“I don’t want to upset him.”
“I know you don’t, dear.”
Andromeda was being sympathetic, and he hated that. He wished she would speak to him as he deserved, but she just kept on being understanding, just as Lupin did. It made no sense.
“He’s been so kind, helping me like this, and I… he…”
Andromeda’s hand moved from his shoulder and slipped across his back. He sighed and put his face in his hands.
“I really don’t understand, Severus.”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know either. I… I just don’t want him to know how I feel.”
“So you pretend to hate him instead?”
“I suppose… it’s just habit. I was just trying to be how I always was.”
“You’ve moved on from there though, both of you. I don’t think you can go back.”
Snape sat without responding. He wanted to run from the room, but for some reason he stayed.
“Would it really be so bad if Remus knew, Severus?”
Snape finally turned his head to look at her through his hair.
“What will he think of me? He’s been so kind to me, and then I… I… he would be disgusted.”
“Severus, he wouldn’t be disgusted. He might not feel the same way as you, but… I don’t think it would upset him. He’d be concerned about you, I think.”
Snape sighed. He felt Andromeda’s arm around him and felt inexplicably safe. It was the way he had felt at the farmhouse, before he’d noticed the way Andromeda was watching him, and realised that she knew. He’d tried to hide it, to use his old occlumency tricks from his spying days, but he realised that ability was gone. He didn’t know if it would ever come back.
“It’s okay,” he said suddenly. “I’ll be okay. I’m used to this.”
“What do you mean, Severus?”
“Not being loved back. I’m used to it. I’ve never fallen in love with a man who has returned my feelings.”
“Oh.”
Andromeda looked at the back of Snape’s head, the way the black hair hung over his face like a screen from the world. His shoulders were hunched and he seemed rather lost.
“You know, when I told him I was crooked, he was so good about it. I ended up telling him far more than I intended, the worst things about myself.”
“He knows? I didn’t realise.”
“I told him a long time ago. I didn’t mean to, but… you know how he is, don’t you? You end up saying things to him…”
Andromeda knew. She nodded and made vague noises of agreement.
“I thought he’d… Actually, I don’t know what I thought. I don’t know what I expected. But I didn’t expect he would offer to hug me. I felt like the most disgusting, vile, filthy thing in the world, and he hugged me. I still remember it as one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.”
Snape paused, looking down at his hands.
“I’d rather be in love with someone like that, even if they’re not crooked and would never be interested in me, than love someone who would just hurt and use me for their own entertainment.”
Snape began to pick at the fabric of his robe, and Andromeda suspected he was speaking from experience.
“You know, I don’t think it’s entirely correct to say Remus would never be interested in you. I don’t think he returns your feelings, but it wouldn’t be entirely… out of the question.”
Snape looked up at her, narrowing his eyes.
“You know that in his younger days he was quite…” Andromeda wasn’t quite sure what to say. “During the first war he was…”
Andromeda didn’t finish her sentence, simply ending it with a sigh.
“We didn’t socialise much during the first war,” Snape replied, in a slightly defensive tone. “What with me joining the Death Eaters and him the Order of the Phoenix. Opportunities were limited.”
“Ah,” replied Andromeda. “I did wonder if the rumours got to you. Remus was rather desperate for attention and acceptance in those days.”
“I had noticed. He was the least likely school bully you could imagine, and yet picked on me because it earned him the favour of the other marauders. Still, I can’t judge, since I did far worse for the same reason.”
Andromeda looked at him closely. There it was again. There were moments when she realised that the two really were quite alike. Both accustomed to masking their true natures, both wary and guarded, both outcasts, but also both highly intelligent, both good men, desperate for acceptance and love, but seldom receiving it.
“During the first war Remus was rather…” she searched for a polite euphemism, but failed to come up with anything. “Promiscuous. With women and men. Anyone who would have him, really, I’m afraid. So I don’t know that he’s entirely… I suppose the opposite of crooked. Straight?”
“Doesn’t mean he isn’t though. You said yourself it was desperation.”
“True. But I’d have to say he’s fairly open minded. He married my daughter, and much as I loved her, I know most men found her… difficult to take.”
She recalled Dora, beautiful in a new dress to attend a family wedding, full of sneering, sophisticated purebloods. On the dance floor, her daughter had stumbled into the groom, laughed loudly and inelegantly and then given herself a large, bovine nose, with a ring through it for good measure. “Bull in a china shop, Dad always says,” she’d added, in case people didn’t get the joke. The girl had not been swamped with dance partners.
“You must have been delighted with him as a son-in-law.”
Andromeda hesitated. Sometimes she really couldn’t entirely tell when he was being sarcastic. His voice lacked the venom of the old days.
“Not at first, no. It was far from my intention when I encouraged her to talk to him. It didn’t cross my mind.”
Snape looked up, more comfortable as the conversation shifted onto safer ground, at least for him. Andromeda was looking across the room.
“He was my friend. He was closer in age to me than Dora. I knew him from the first war, I… I looked after him when… he sometimes ended up in a bad state.”
A curious look had crossed Andromeda’s face. Snape couldn’t fathom what it meant.
“He did… he was asked to do some difficult things in those days. He understands you more than you know, Severus.”
A part of Snape was curious, but it was back towards things he didn’t want to discuss.
“Why did you encourage her to talk to him.”
“She faced a lot of prejudice as an auror. Just because they let her in, they weren’t going to let her feel welcome or make life easy. When she trained, there were still relatively few women, and she was the first metamorphmagus to be accepted. They didn’t have much choice, she topped nearly every test they threw at her. Kingsley was good to her, but then he understood, he faced a lot of prejudice himself. But apart from Kingsley and maybe Alastor, she wasn’t treated well at all. For several years nothing seemed to bother her, then… she’d just had enough I suppose. It wore her down, and she wasn’t coping well. It started to affect her work, her magic, her… abilities. I suggested she talk to Remus about it. I knew he’d understand her better than most.”
“I was under the impression that the… difficulties she was experiencing were more… over Lupin. That she was… I don’t know, like some lovesick schoolgirl. It did seem rather unlike her.”
“Well, someone jumped to that conclusion, Molly maybe, and she didn’t correct it. She found it easier, I think. Kingsley and Alastor treated her better than most, but if it got back to them that she wasn’t coping because of how things were at work… It was best they didn’t know exactly why she was struggling, why she was spending so much time with Remus. Rather ironic that she did end up falling in love with him, long after everyone else thought she was. He still took some convincing, though, or that’s the impression I got from her. I thought it would be a disaster of a relationship, but there was no telling her, and in the end she was right I think.”
“She was very determined.” Snape said. “Something came back to me about her as a student a few weeks ago. She spoke to me in her OWLS year, and told me she wanted to get in to the aurors’ college. Asked me what she needed to do. I was… sceptical. Told her she’d need to get an O in potions for both her OWLS and NEWTS as well as Defence and two other subjects for them to even consider her. Not that those marks were a requirement, but as a girl and a Metamorphmagus she’d have to be outstanding. Given that she’d been stunningly average in her academic performance up until that point… well, I didn’t consider it likely.”
“She was having too much fun, I think. Every report said she was intelligent but didn’t apply herself.”
“But then she did. The very next week she waited after class to ask me some quite sensible questions about an essay I’d set. The week after that she came and asked me for help with Defence against the Dark Arts. I can’t remember the teacher that year, but I’m sure it was some idiot since Lupin was the best we had in about ten years. Within a month she was top of both Defence and Potions. Much to the disgust of the Ravenclaws.”
“When she put her mind to it, she was truly brilliant, wasn’t she?”
Andromeda gave a sad smile and Snape was reminded that the loss of a child was supposed to be the most awful of griefs. He had remembered too that Andromeda lost her husband less than two months before losing her daughter.
“I’m sorry for bringing up painful memories, Andromeda.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t apologise, Severus. I love to talk about her, especially with people who saw parts of her life that I didn’t. And the one I’d love to talk to the most… won’t.”
“Lupin?”
She nodded.
“He listens to me when I talk. He’s always so kind and patient. But he doesn’t talk about his own feelings. It’s as if we are discussing about someone he barely knew. It’s hard to tell, but I know he still hurts. He blames himself. He said once that if he had been there… It’s hardly his fault that he wasn’t at the final battle, since he was locked up in the Institute, desperately ill. But he’s never been quite logical about that sort of thing.”
“I noticed he doesn’t talk about her.”
“No. Just bottles it all up inside I suspect. But Dora… well, I think that’s the thing that made me change my mind about the two of them. She went to him because she needed someone who could listen to her, and understand her, but also help her see another way to look at things. He was that person, without a doubt. But it hadn’t crossed my mind that he needed someone who could help him see his own life in a different way as well. He helped her find a way to deal with the prejudice calmly, without letting herself get sucked in by the anger and frustration. And she helped him to see that he had a right to expect what others expected from their lives, to be loved, to have a family.”
Andromeda’s face bore an unexpected smile. It was a sad smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“I would never have chosen for her to be with someone like him, no matter how much I liked him. It was always going to make her life harder, being with him, someone living on the margins, earning money doing Merlin knows what. And although he’s so clever and so strong in many ways, he’s still very insecure in others. But then I realised… they made each other happy. When I saw that, I realised they were right together. For all his flaws, he’s a good man, as you’ve pointed out.”
Snape looked at the woman in some surprise. There was a generosity in the way she spoke, a pleasure in her daughter’s happiness, as well as Lupin’s. As Snape sat beside her, still with the woman’s arm around his shoulders, he felt calmer than he had in some time. He’d been terrified when he realised Andromeda knew, terrified he’d be thrown out of the house, that she would despise him, that she would tell Lupin, and then he would despise him. But here she was, making him feel as if things would be okay.
“I do love him,” he said finally. “It crept up on me somehow. I… had a bit of a thing for him at school for a while. He was very kind to me when… others weren’t. But Sirius noticed, despite my efforts to cover it by being as horrible to him as possible. He… Sirius certainly cured me of that. For a while after… I was just terrified every time I saw him. Later on I… came to respect him, I suppose. At times we were almost friends, but….”
Snape fell silent.
“You should talk to him, Severus. We both know what kind of man Remus is. I honestly can’t tell how he feels about you, but however he does feel, he wouldn’t be unkind or think less of you. And you never know, he may return your feelings.”
Snape turned to Andromeda, forgetting for a moment to mask his surprise.
“But… wouldn’t it bother you, if he… if we… “
“You know, I don’t think it would. I did think about it, before I came to talk to you. What matters to me more than anything is Remus being happy. If he was happy with you, then yes, I would be happy for you.”
Snape was silent. For a moment, he felt calmer than he could remember feeling in years. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so accepted. But then reality intruded on his mind once again.
“It wouldn’t work though, not with me” he said softly. He sighed. He didn’t like the truth but he knew it.
“Lupin might have a tendency to rescue people, but that’s not what he needs in a lover. He needs an equal, someone as strong as he is, who can be there for him as well. I’m not that person, much as I wish I was.”
Andromeda looked across at Snape. It was a level of insight she didn’t expect of the man. He was quite right about Lupin. Andromeda and Harry cared for him physically, but mentally, he was the strong one. On occasion, he would let them comfort him after a nightmare or particularly bad day, but he never burdened them with his darkest feelings. Andromeda didn’t know what she would do if Lupin one day feel apart. She needed his strength, as did Harry. And so, Andromeda suspected, he suffered alone.
Snape was not the equal that Lupin needed, she knew that. At least not now. Once, she suspected, he had been. And maybe, especially with the awareness he had just shown, he had taken another step towards being that man again.
