tampered | { completed }

{ completed }

When; 3am or thereabouts.
Rating; PG-13? IDK.
Characters; Severus Snape (

eduronox) and Remus Lupin (

lupusnonfacit)
Summary; For agonizing months, Severus Snape has taken painstaking care to make sure that future information does not damage the minds of the students or potential outcomes of their world. He is not so careful with the werewolf.
Log;

Severus Snape is waiting in his laboratory, cooled down at last from his rage-fueled outburst. It wasn't that he truly hated Regulus' stupid pet, but he was livid and agitated with Lupin's arrival, and socks and teacups had somehow set him off with no return.

He's still angry, but the emotion has tempered itself by now and twisted into sadism. He doesn't want to see the werewolf, but he can't help but wish to observe the reaction when he realizes. Horror and he'll laugh, satisfaction and he'll just feed off more burning hatred.

He watches the door, knowing that the wards will alert him to his visitor before any sound does.

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It isn't hard to find the place that he is supposed to be based on Severus's descriptions-- go looking for the wards and you'll find a wizard, simple enough and easy enough for a wizard of Lupin's level. He was nervous at first, anxious and worried that Severus had something up his big black sleeves, and, well, Severus clearly did have something up his sleeves, it was just whether or not it was going to kill Remus or something more important that is the real question.

Remus is still unnerved by the earlier conversation.

But he's still alive, so Severus doesn't mean to do anything particularly nasty to him (interesting as it is that the other man's become the apparent 'bully' these days, and Remus knows he deserves it), and he slides through the wards and the doors without knocking, searching for some sound of Snape's presence-- bubbling liquid, maybe, or a scribbling quill.

"Hallo? Severus? I was supposed to meet you. I brought you something as well."

No boiling cauldrons or scratching ink; even those black sleeves are absent. Severus is sitting at a desk toward the center of the room - the visible room, anyway. The real laboratory is behind the iron door looming at the back of the room. This is his office.

He imagines that he looks strange to the other man, and that thought is somewhat funny. He's older and he looks it, the mileage having taken quite a toll. He's thinner in an unhealthy way, his pallor is as unattractive as always, and the dark circles under his eyes never go away. He's got a white dress shirt with far too many buttons on and some manner of black vest over it - his sleeves are wrinkled, because even though he's out to scare the hell out of Lupin, he still doesn't let anyone see the Dark Mark. He rolled his sleeves back down when he knew he'd be having company.

"I do hope it's nothing olive-like," he says, his voice soft and mocking, dark eyes watching him carefully from afar. "That's a little much for even you."

He folds his arms around his chest and tucks his elbows in, feeling suddenly chilly here in Severus'...office, wearing just what he came into the city with, a white button-down and an argyle sweater and slacks and a wool bathrobe that looks over-large and over-old and over-ugly. He takes a second to offer the man a pointedly confused half-smile and shrug his shoulders, taking in the lines of Severus' face, which were even sharper than he remembered their being. The eyes are more sunken, as well, and the skin a little more papery.

"Ginger-biscuits, actually. Nine hells, Severus, you look like me."

It's a pathetic and wan excuse for a joke and he's certain that they both know it.

The smile Severus gives him in return is nothing but a slight movement at the corner of his lips - something false and somehow worse if he hadn't smiled at all.

"Oh, no... you're not quite here, yet."

His eyes travel over Lupin's attire, one eyebrow raising in mild disdain. Surely he could have found something in the square - one of the boys would have spotted him. He lets his thoughts go idly, but most of him is paying sharp attention without really looking to the other man's reactions. He knows, oh how he knows - that any moment now the state of him is going to sink into those animal subconscious tendencies, and very soon, he'll notice it: something is off.

Something about Severus Snape is just wrong. There is no rotting flesh or rigormortis or thirst for blood. But there is something wrong with him, because he is dead.

Remus' own lips tick at the corner in reaction to the fake expression Severus threw at him, and under normal circumstances the twitch would have turned into a full-blown self-depreciating kind of warm smile which may as well have been rolling over and baring his neck for all it implied, socially, about his relationship with others who knew him in general and Severus in specific.

His voice manages to be congenial, though, when he says "Not quite what?" and closes the space between the two of them quickly, holding the brown bag of flat tea biscuits out and dropping it on the table. His smile starts to peek out, and quickly fades.

Something is missing. Remus pinpoints it quickly, once he moves the disturbing quality, whatever it is, up from his preconscious mind. He'd been listening to check Severus' heartbeat, and, uniquely enough, he could find none.

He took two steps backward, slow and measured, and his eyes became wide with shrunken irises as his hand reached toward the pocket of his bathrobe.

"What are you?"

His reaction is perfect and Severus drinks it up because there's very little he likes better than disturbing the people he hates. Black eyes zero-in on Lupin's hand before trailing back up to his face, one eyebrow raised incredulously, as if to say, Really, Lupin? On my own territory?

Because that will so work. Really.

Severus unfolds his hands and picks up the ridiculous peace offering and inspecting the packaging with something in between disdain and flat curiosity. Idly, he speaks: "I'm surprised at you, Lupin. You know that Sirius Black's brother died when he was eighteen. You know that the dead walk as if alive here, having read the guide." He looks back at him, and there's a sharp, knife-like smile buried in his voice. "What did you think I meant by corpses?"

Remus' jaw works at Snape's expression, self-satisfied and a little amused, in an acidic, poisonous, very Slytherin sort of way, Remus thinks for a second, like a cobra in the room. His hand pulls away from the pocket where the handle of his wand is just sticking out above threadbare material, like it was snapped at or burned. His fingers shake a little with confusion and upset and his face is a horrible combination of pale and painfully red, because it's just days since the last full moon and now he feels distinguishedly guilty.

He blinks twice, wide eyes slowly lowering until his eyelids are heavy and pinched at the corners, a little angry, because he'd embarrassed Remus on purpose, like a bully, but mostly because he was angry on Severus' behalf. He didn't like the man, but he always had been good at implications.

"You were killed in a war, weren't you?" He offers no condolences. "You're not living anymore."

Severus has been abused and assaulted and bullied and tormented his entire life - by his father, by his schoolmates, by his peers, by Voldemort, and by Albus Dumbledore. There comes a point when all people - even people who started off life on a fair scale of mental health which this particular person did not - snap and lose it, going from victim to villain. Severus Snape has languished at that point for the majority of his adult life, and while he's improved significantly since Albus' death, recent events have left him a morally weak man.

And so, here they are. He feels no remorse, and no guilt, just sick pleasure. Everyone else he's pushed away and protected and argued with and shut down - but oh no, not this one. This one gets lured in and toyed with. How does it feel, monster? His thoughts are vicious and he relishes them.

"There now, starting to get quick on it," he says, voice barely above a whisper. "Yes, indeed. Hell breaks loose, as they say."

Another little smile, now, something more real. It's still not at all comforting. "You... don't know about the war."

Not a question. It's just dawned on Severus that present company is oblivious to demise of one Sirius Black.

At length, Remus blinks and begins to move again, stalking in a wide circle in a search for something solid to sit on, something that looked like Severus would let him sit on it. Because he was feeling unwell to begin with. The addition of the knowledge that Severus Snape is deceased is enough to drive him to dizziness. At the smile from Severus, Remus clears his throat and speaks in an apologetic, awkwardly deep and quiet voice.

"Do you mind if I just...sit down somewhere for a few minutes? It was obvious enough that something was going to happen soon, they had me staying at that ratty old mansion, but I had no idea-- you look older. You look dead. I didn't mean to offend you."

He rubs a hand slowly over his lips and lower face, trying to calm his breathing down from the jump it took when he began to suspect that the pulse-less thing in the room wasn't Severus. It sends a shake down Remus' spine as he begins to notice other small things which gnaw at his hindbrain and tell him to keep away from Snape like a scavenger away from some kind of diseased or mutilated corpse.

"Of course I look dead," he drawls, and gestures - yes, fine, sit, it's a chair, whatever - "I am dead."

He sends the biscuits off to be shelved somewhere with a flick of his wand. "You haven't offended me, I actually found it somewhat amusing. Though you've missed the more traditional undead discussion. Just last week the Muggles were all up in mystified awe over the differences between zombies and Inferi."

Severus watches him like a scientist watches a caged animal. It's interesting, a werewolf's reaction to a dead man. He's not a zombie or a vampire or an Inferi or anything they know of - the City's magic is one far beyond their tricks and diseases.

"Am I still interesting?"

"I don't know whether to offer you condolences or congratulations, Severus. How has death been working out for you?" He says, tone leveled and measured but still hoarse from hours screaming days ago, irritated now by the hard way he had been breathing when he was afraid. He isn't afraid anymore, at the very least, just feeling slightly far away as he digests the information. He can hear his own blood in his ears and feel it under the skin of his face still, from the rush of negative emotions, and he still can't hear or feel anything from Severus.

He takes a seat, folding himself into the chair boneless, like a pile of old and musty neglected laundry, because as soon as he touched the cushions he was exhausted and already feeling exposed in front of Snape. Now he's tired, but his jaw tightens and his nostrils flare as he speaks again.

"You always were. You know I never hated you. Don't get an inflated head."

The shaky re-build of his cheerful front amuses Snape, and he sits back in his hair, one hand raised, parts casual and calculated. He can let snipes and barbs go because he's endlessly confident, now: He has the upper hand. He's the one who knows the future, he's the one who knows the City. Lupin is very neatly at his mercy.

"You look like absolute hell," he says. "It's rare that calendars match up for people coming and going. I take it you're still recovering."

All science, now, all business - a flat tone and a flat look. It could be genuine, or he could be luring him into a false sense of apathetic security.

Edited 2008-10-21 10:28 (UTC)

It's this that bothers Remus the most, the way Severus seems to have switched so flawlessly from being on the attack, in emotional striking distance, to being aloof and conversational. He'd done the same thing recently, when Remus had been at work at Hogwarts. It unnerves Remus deeply at the moment, the way it nearly seems like Severus is putting on that lovely public play-nice front he always had for Albus, except that that man isn't here.

He folds his arms over his knees, wrists crossed and all elbows, looking more than a little peakish. Trying desperately not to look peakish in Severus' general direction.

"Just my luck at work. It's for the better. No energy to deal with things like--" learning that you're cold as a coffin nail, or learning that Harry is so much older now, or Lily Evans "--what Ronald tells me about the environmental magic, or whatever it is, here. Is it dark, do you think?"

His knuckles are going pale, and his hands are shaking worse as he finally drops ameliorating hazel eyes on Severus' form. Aren't you going to offer him something warm to drink, Severus?

Severus is not entirely mentally stable. It isn't an excuse - it's not like he's ever sought treatment or done anything besides submerge himself in environmental accelerants. He thinks the way his mind functions is the right way, the clear-thinking, truthful way. It leaves him cored out and emotionless and frigid, but it's what he's good at. So he flits from emotion to emotion with all the ease of a butterfly's wings, a veritable artist in deception and manipulation. They are skills that were long put in the closet of his psyche when Lupin met him last, but now they're all dragged out into the forefront of his mind.

"It isn't anything," he says. "It's written into the fundamental building blocks of this entire reality. Like gravity."

Severus thinks Lupin looks utterly pathetic, and reflects that he managed to pick up biscuits but not something besides a ratty bath robe. Instead of offering anything, he asks, deadpan and a little annoyed: "You're not going to pass out on my floor, are you?"

He sits up at Severus' next statement, almost visibly pricking his ears, because Remus is an intellectual despite his general blue collar wizard appearance; appearance and comportment are two different things, after all. It means a few things, like that he'd done well in school and had always found Severus Snape kind of someone he would like to speak with and enjoyed, more than life itself, teaching. Whatever Severus has to say about this place he takes at face value and with great import.

At any rate, he sits up straighter and listens until Severus finishes, face at least returning to a normal color, which in his case is 'slightly nauseated.'

"That would be terribly rude of me, so no. Are you angry? Are you angry that you died and that you're here? What is it like to be that way?"

The sudden barrage of questions is decidedly not something that Severus penciled into his mental plans for their hellishly early morning meeting, and he doesn't mask the annoyed expression that flits across his face.

"I hardly think that's any of your damned business," he says, his tone veering back toward snappishness. "And while I am not thrilled, I am effectively retired, something I was not meant for in life, and would kindly appreciate being left at peace as much as possible."

Hint hint: Leave me alone, werewolf.

He picks up on the annoyance before the expression even meets Severus' face, knowing almost as soon as the words left his mouth that he would be met with, at best, irritation, and at worse offended rage. Remus, asking Severus about his personal thoughts and feelings? Early morning and pre-existing mental and physical exhaustion made him an idiot, clearly. He stands immediately, ramrod straight and stiff-jointed, because Severus has clearly delivered his only message, obviously meant to unhinge Remus (it does, deeply, but he was well enough at hiding the degree to which some things really hurt and had been for years). And now Severus is clearly telling him that he is no longer welcomed here.

"I'm sorry this happened to you. And I'm sorry things are so bleak. I should leave. I hope you enjoy the biscuits. I didn't buy them out of my own pocket of course, but I hope you do enjoy them."

The irritation remains, but something akin to light glows up into his eyes. It's not pleasant, but nothing with Severus Snape ever is. It's more of that sadism, though there's something even worse mixed in; his eternal self-loathing.

"You won't be sorry for very long," he murmurs, and his tone of voice suggests that maybe he hadn't meant to even say it out loud - though he doesn't correct himself, simply folds his hands, pale fingers lacing together once more. He doesn't get up to show him out, but he's certainly not stopping him.

"What did you--" Remus starts, barely audible in his scratchy voice, mostly his lips making the motions and mouthing it out, because he changes his mind quickly. He doesn't want to know, not right now, or maybe he doesn't honestly care to know what Severus meant. Because, after all, Severus is dead.

He clears his throat instead, and bows his head just slightly as a politeness before turning to leave the room and slip quietly back into the flat where Harry Potter and Lily Evans were no doubt sleeping, without being asked.

"I have to go get some rest, Severus, or I may catch something. Lord knows you don't want to see any more of me than necessary. I'll see myself out."

He digs his hands deep into his pockets and heads the way he came in without even a wave.

Edited 2008-10-21 11:47 (UTC)

Severus lets him go without further words, already lost in his thoughts. The door closes behind Lupin and the real wards slide into place - the werewolf can't turn back inside now, even if he wants to (which Severus very much doubts).

He sits at his desk, eyes somewhat blank, the death of Albus Dumbledore replaying in his mind.

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