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bronze_ribbonsTitle: Stoppered
Author:![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-userinfo.gif)
bronze_ribbons
Rating: PG
Warnings: Angst.
Originally posted to LJ:lupin_snape, 18 September 2005.
Sequel: Just Like Strangers Here (part 1).
By the fourth day, Severus Snape knew that it didn't matter that he hadn't been eaten alive, because his own thoughts were going to be enough to finish him off. Every stolen glance at Lupin reading a book. Every too-casual glimpse of the other boy during classes and meals. Every recollection of a past encounter -- Lupin helping him up after a spill, Lupin bumping into him in an aisle of Flourish and Blotts, Lupin handing him a pair of gloves in a greenhouse. Every evening he'd spent with Lupin during Potter and Black's many detentions -- evenings that had consisted of nothing more than a series of too-short hours discussing spells and theories and artifacts -- and yet, those evenings had been enough, enough to sustain him and his fantasies, his hopes of yet more conversations and of barely recognizable possibilities beyond the walls of the castle. He recognized every article of clothing Lupin owned and which ones he favored; in his bed, in the shower, in the spaces between paying attention to the professors -- every chance he'd had, he'd pictured removing Lupin's robes, sliding his hands under Lupin's shirts, slowly pulling off Lupin's pants, and, and, and...
And now every single image of Lupin he had cherished had dissolved into a cloud of poison, one that enveloped his skin and squeezed his skull and polluted his tastebuds and infected his hearing and coated everything he touched with the sour, sticky dust of an undeserved yet inevitable failure. Never mind that it hadn't been up to him -- he hadn't chosen his family, he hadn't chosen this school, he hadn't chosen his house, he hadn't chosen to become the butt of -- oh, he hadn't been blessed with any choices to begin with, and if the headmaster had made anything clear four nights ago, it was that he would never be one of the blessed, and that was simply the way things were: he, Severus Snape, had been condemned before he was born, his existence merely a means by which the universe amused and cosseted its chosen.
Well. Then. The universe was going to have to work harder at it. On the fourth evening after the full moon, Severus Snape sat in the Room of Requirement, jabbed the tip of his wand against his temple, and extracted every shred of admiration and affection he had harbored for Remus Lupin, placing them not into a Pensieve but into an enormous bile-colored mortar, one the Room had provided.
He stared at the glowing, trembling tangle of strands for a long moment. So many of them -- so thick -- no wonder they had kept him warm the past three winters. He glanced at a loom in the corner of the room and briefly imagined threading the memories onto its frame -- pictured himself striding through the school in a cloak so bright as to dazzle everything and everyone who beheld its folds into an admiring daze. He pictured the cloak as a blanket across a broad, deep bed, his head pillowed on Remus Lupin's chest, Lupin's husky voice whispering loving --
No more. No longer. Severus Snape slammed his wand against the side of his head and yanked out the final strand. The loom dissolved into the shadows as he pounded and bruised and stabbed at the contents of the mortar until they formed a mess of midnight blue streaks and green-black smears and ghostly grey splotches. Hands moving instinctively amongst the room's cabinets and racks, he cast in tansy, rue, vinegar, mistletoe, and three different varieties of venom, and then spun in carnation petals and moonwort leaves and a pulverized white rose.
As they blended with the remnants of his memories of Lupin, the bowl dwindled underneath his hands, its sides shrinking as he beat and battered the mixture until it became a thin, even slurry, although its fumes continued to sting his eyes and scorch his palms. He decanted it into a small silver flask and sealed it with a curse laced with spit and fire.
He would never be warm again. He would never know love, and he would never share peace. He would never distill joy. Believing these things, Severus Snape slid the flask into the pocket of his robes and promised himself that one day he would deliver its contents to Remus Lupin, perhaps within a goblet of crimson-coloured wine or honey-sweet mead. That there would come a day when he could use it to show Lupin exactly what it meant to be consumed alive.
Author:
bronze_ribbonsRating: PG
Warnings: Angst.
Originally posted to LJ:lupin_snape, 18 September 2005.
Sequel: Just Like Strangers Here (part 1).
By the fourth day, Severus Snape knew that it didn't matter that he hadn't been eaten alive, because his own thoughts were going to be enough to finish him off. Every stolen glance at Lupin reading a book. Every too-casual glimpse of the other boy during classes and meals. Every recollection of a past encounter -- Lupin helping him up after a spill, Lupin bumping into him in an aisle of Flourish and Blotts, Lupin handing him a pair of gloves in a greenhouse. Every evening he'd spent with Lupin during Potter and Black's many detentions -- evenings that had consisted of nothing more than a series of too-short hours discussing spells and theories and artifacts -- and yet, those evenings had been enough, enough to sustain him and his fantasies, his hopes of yet more conversations and of barely recognizable possibilities beyond the walls of the castle. He recognized every article of clothing Lupin owned and which ones he favored; in his bed, in the shower, in the spaces between paying attention to the professors -- every chance he'd had, he'd pictured removing Lupin's robes, sliding his hands under Lupin's shirts, slowly pulling off Lupin's pants, and, and, and...
And now every single image of Lupin he had cherished had dissolved into a cloud of poison, one that enveloped his skin and squeezed his skull and polluted his tastebuds and infected his hearing and coated everything he touched with the sour, sticky dust of an undeserved yet inevitable failure. Never mind that it hadn't been up to him -- he hadn't chosen his family, he hadn't chosen this school, he hadn't chosen his house, he hadn't chosen to become the butt of -- oh, he hadn't been blessed with any choices to begin with, and if the headmaster had made anything clear four nights ago, it was that he would never be one of the blessed, and that was simply the way things were: he, Severus Snape, had been condemned before he was born, his existence merely a means by which the universe amused and cosseted its chosen.
Well. Then. The universe was going to have to work harder at it. On the fourth evening after the full moon, Severus Snape sat in the Room of Requirement, jabbed the tip of his wand against his temple, and extracted every shred of admiration and affection he had harbored for Remus Lupin, placing them not into a Pensieve but into an enormous bile-colored mortar, one the Room had provided.
He stared at the glowing, trembling tangle of strands for a long moment. So many of them -- so thick -- no wonder they had kept him warm the past three winters. He glanced at a loom in the corner of the room and briefly imagined threading the memories onto its frame -- pictured himself striding through the school in a cloak so bright as to dazzle everything and everyone who beheld its folds into an admiring daze. He pictured the cloak as a blanket across a broad, deep bed, his head pillowed on Remus Lupin's chest, Lupin's husky voice whispering loving --
No more. No longer. Severus Snape slammed his wand against the side of his head and yanked out the final strand. The loom dissolved into the shadows as he pounded and bruised and stabbed at the contents of the mortar until they formed a mess of midnight blue streaks and green-black smears and ghostly grey splotches. Hands moving instinctively amongst the room's cabinets and racks, he cast in tansy, rue, vinegar, mistletoe, and three different varieties of venom, and then spun in carnation petals and moonwort leaves and a pulverized white rose.
As they blended with the remnants of his memories of Lupin, the bowl dwindled underneath his hands, its sides shrinking as he beat and battered the mixture until it became a thin, even slurry, although its fumes continued to sting his eyes and scorch his palms. He decanted it into a small silver flask and sealed it with a curse laced with spit and fire.
He would never be warm again. He would never know love, and he would never share peace. He would never distill joy. Believing these things, Severus Snape slid the flask into the pocket of his robes and promised himself that one day he would deliver its contents to Remus Lupin, perhaps within a goblet of crimson-coloured wine or honey-sweet mead. That there would come a day when he could use it to show Lupin exactly what it meant to be consumed alive.
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