Home | Members | Help | Submission Rules | Log In |
Recently Added | Categories | Titles | Completed Fics | Random Fic | Search | Top Fictions
SS/Canon > Slash

Non Omnis Moriar by Scaranda [Reviews - 0]

<<

Would you like to submit a review?


I let him leave us. He hadn’t fooled me though; this show of his hadn’t fooled either of us. I knew now what we had to do, just as I knew we could drag this out for days or even weeks of torture only to get to the same place. Once he’d shut the bedroom door I turned to Remus, trying to blot out a vision of him sitting on his bed with his arms clasped about his knees.

‘I need you to go to Hogwarts, Moony … I need you to steal some Blood Replenishing Potion.’

The wolfman gave me a look and just nodded. ‘I’m going to speak to Albus,’ he said. ‘Even if he refuses outright I need to know how to deal with … things, if they get out of hand.’

‘Damnit, you taught Defence Against the Dark Arts. There are no defences to this.’

‘You taught Potions for a day, Sirius,’ he snapped back. ‘Make the Blood Replenisher yourself.’

I almost laughed, but it was so fucking unfunny I couldn’t. Was it only a couple of days since I’d stood in Snape’s classroom? It seemed like forever ago. I toyed with the idea that had been forming in my mind when I was Padfoot; it had seemed so clear when I was a dog. I could see Lupin watching me, could see he knew I was trying to work something out.

‘When he took Lucius’s blood, were you able to reach him?’ I asked. ‘I mean, did he … fuck … I don’t know what I mean.’

‘You mean, could I have stopped him when I knew it was becoming too much?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I think so. In fact I think I did, but I also think that was because he’d asked me to. But if he’d been … I don’t know … attacking a victim, I doubt it.’ Lupin eyed me steadily. ‘What else are you thinking? I know there’s more.’

‘Something Albus said when I was trying to put the way I am into perspective.’ I tried to put what had been such clear thoughts to Padfoot into a man’s words. ‘Remus, I’m not sure that his bite would affect me. I’m not alive really. I’m just “not dead” anymore.’ I met his eye, knew he understood.

He sat for a long while in silence and I could see him trying it from different angles. ‘Okay,’ he said eventually. ‘I’ll get the potion. And once I’ve stolen it I’m going to talk to Albus. Is the owl around? I need to get a message to him so that I can get into Hogwarts without being seen. I don’t want to have to start explaining why I’m floating around and you and Snape aren’t.’

We both spun to the bedroom door. ‘NO,’ Severus snarled. He stood, clinging to the doorpost for support. ‘I could not control it. I cannot let you do this.’

I stood up and let him fall into my arms. ‘You’re in no fit state to stop me.’

*****

REMUS

I met Dumbledore in Hogsmeade and he brought me through a passage that even the mighty Marauders’ Map didn’t know about. I spent an hour with him telling him how we’d found Severus and how he was, all the time watching the pain grow in his eyes.

At last he spoke. ‘And you have come to tell me that Sirius wants to give him his blood?’

I nodded. ‘He seems to think he won’t be affected.’ I gave him my version of what I thought Sirius had tried to explain to me; it was third hand now: Padfoot, Sirius, me.

‘I cannot allow this,’ Dumbledore said wearily.

‘I think we knew you’d say that.’ I gave him a look, hoping to see something in his eyes. ‘You must have an idea though … if it could be done.’

I saw him glance towards a small pile of ancient looking texts; I knew he’d been scouring them for some sort of solution. ‘It has never been documented,’ he said. ‘And this case is so individual. There are all sorts of complications; the debt of life is but one of them. My answer is still the same, Remus. I cannot allow it.’

I stood up; it was enough. “I cannot allow it” had a different flavour to “I forbid it”.

I went to Harry next; it was difficult to get him alone and I didn’t want to be seen, but I got lucky when he came out of dinner alone and headed towards the Owlery.

‘I was going to try to send Hedwig to Sirius to see how you were getting on,’ he said.

‘You know where we are?’ I was shocked; I hadn’t thought Dumbledore would be so indiscrete, then again if I‘d thought that through I would have remembered Dumbledore didn’t know where we were.

‘No … but I guessed you were away for Snape.’ I watched Harry struggle with his emotions as I told him how things were and he surprised me again; he was worried for Snape not Sirius. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of reading, in the Restricted Section at night,’ he said.

He told me things he had found in a book called “Not Quite Undead”, and I listened with a tiny flame of hope glowing in my chest. We went together, under James’s Invisibility Cloak and stole the Blood Replenishing Potion from Madam Pomfrey’s stores. Neither of us thought to wonder why four large bottles of it were sitting in plain view at the front of her store cupboard where Dumbledore had left them for me to find.

*****

SIRIUS

He seemed a little better; maybe it was because it was just the two of us, one in trouble the other trying to find away out, as it had been behind the Veil … even if our roles had been reversed. He talked a bit, about how he thought he could survive, how he thought he could beat this; he wasn’t even kidding himself, far less me. I knew he only had two options and one of those was a non-runner as far as I was concerned. I knew we couldn’t afford to let him out of our sight now.

‘I’m going to tell you what is going to happen.’ I raised my hand, the way Dumbledore did to stave off objections. ‘Remus has gone to Hogwarts and when he comes back he’s going to have some stolen Blood Replenishing Potion with him.’ He looked away, but I just continued talking to the back of his head, ignoring the fact that his shoulders stiffened in denial. ‘I think …’ I trailed off and tried again; I needed to make this positive. ‘I believe that your bite will not affect me … in the same way it didn’t affect Lucius, but for different reasons.’

‘You know nothing about why I didn’t affect Lucius.’

His venom shocked me, but I overrode it. I had to keep going; I wanted him to at least have begun to come to terms with things before Remus got back. ‘Yes, I do. It’s partly because he’s the same as you. But I know that’s not all; I know what the most important factor is now … I know now, Severus.’ I waited until he looked up again; I wanted to see the truth of it in his eyes even although his words might try to deny it. ‘It’s a mix of things, isn’t it? It’s a mix of loyalty and the gift coming from him instead of being taken by you. It’s given and taken in love, isn’t it, instead of fear? I know it is.’

He surprised me; he held my eyes, searching for a moment for the words to try to refute it but he couldn’t find them. ‘Very good, Black … but my answer is the same. I cannot let you take that risk. But there is one thing you can do for me.’

‘What?’

‘Leave me here. I cannot bear to have you here.’

‘Not on the menu, sorry.’

‘I can’t stand you, you arrogant bastard; I don’t want you here. Don’t you understand that much?’ He stood up. ‘I fucking well hate you.’

I stood up as well. ‘If I leave you here I’ll send Lucius to you instead and tell everyone I see about the pathetic self-centred bastard you are, sitting here in your noble suffering, refusing to lower yourself to accept anyone’s help … and you’ll die knowing everyone knows about what you are … because Lucius will not want what’s left of his reputation soiled by you.’ I’d lost my temper. ‘And the Ministry will drag you kicking and screaming to a public fucking execution, or send you away to live in Ro-fucking-mania like an exhibit… how does that sound, Vampire?’

I would have thought it would have been impossible for him to pale any more, but he did, probably just to prove me wrong. He turned away just as I noticed Lupin standing in the doorway.

‘So, you’ve got that all sorted then, Sirius? Well done,’ he said. Lupin waited until Severus had shut the door of his bedroom. ‘Do I take it that he didn’t see things your way?’

‘I think his problem is that he just did. Did you get the potion?’

He handed me the bag with the four bottles of potion and brought me up to speed about Dumbledore and Harry. I felt proud of Harry. I also suspected we had Dumbledore’s unspoken blessing. So we had everyone who mattered on our side, everyone except Snape.

*****

SEVERUS

It had all become too much. I had to be alone. I had to make them understand that I could only cope in some way if I were alone … but I wasn’t coping, I was going downhill fast. I thanked Merlin when Lupin had come in; I had been so close, so close to just taking what I so desperately needed.

I sat on the bed, feeling like a prisoner in my own home; I almost laughed at that. Home? This wasn’t home; this was a transit point, a place to be on my way to something else, something much worse. I had to get away; perhaps I could wait until they slept and slip out, maybe if I could somehow get to Lucius … but what then, what if he refused me as Black said … what then? I doubted that suicide was even an option open to me; I suspected that death would only bring me that fatal step closer to being what I really was … truly one of the undead.

I hadn’t realised they were watching me; I had been so wrapped up in myself that I hadn’t even heard the door open. It was Lupin who crossed the short space to me, the werewolf. ‘We do it now, Severus. We do it now and put this back into the box it belongs,’ he said as he sat on the bed. ‘We did it before, you and I; I know what to do. I know how long and how to stop you. Harry has read it all up in the Restricted Section as well, he thinks it can be done … he sent you this.’

Potter? That jolted me. Lupin handed a the slim book, “Not Quite Undead.” The boy had attached a scrap of parchment to an inside page which was headed ‘The Ultimate Gift of Love’ . “Please let us do this. We owe it to you almost as much as you owe it to yourself. Harry.” Maybe it was the knowledge that Lupin’s courage was all but failing him, that Sirius stood alone in the door with that look on his face, that look begging me to let him repay his debts, or maybe it was Potter’s message, but it was too much … I had debts to pay too.

I must have hung my head, I cannot recall, but I felt Lupin touch me as he had in the forest across the water from Azkaban when we had visited Lucius, and I knew I could no longer resist. I felt him nod to Sirius, heard him cross the room and I looked at them at last. Ridiculous as it may seem, and in spite of what I could do to them, I had never felt so vulnerable in my life.

*****

SIRIUS

I sensed his acquiescence; Lupin had done that, with his quiet reasoning and that way he had of just tugging at the right heartstring. I felt no sense of shame at what I’d said to him; I knew he’d known they were only words, just a means of telling him how it was, just as I knew he did not hate me. The words we’d used as the weapons of our cold war over the last twenty-five years meant nothing now. He had sacrificed himself for me and now I would sacrifice myself for him; more than that, I would sacrifice myself to him, and I couldn’t wait any longer… I needed to do it now.

I watched as Remus stood up from his side and we changed places. I knew he would stay, just in case, even as I knew with a sudden and blinding certainty that we three were not alone here. I could sense Dumbledore’s presence, watching over us just as he had in the Department of Mysteries. I don’t know where he was, but I knew he was close at hand, and would stay there … to hold us up if any of us faltered.

There was nothing ceremonial about it, nothing beautiful, but nothing ugly either. Severus pulled me slowly to him as I sat; all the rigidity was gone from him and held me like a lover.

*****

REMUS

There was nothing of the horrified fascination which I’d felt when he’d taken Lucius, none of the stifled revulsion. I was struck only by the sense of relief that at least now we could move forward, to what destination I couldn’t tell, but anywhere was better than this place.

As he pushed Sirius’s hair away from his neck I watched the silent communion between them, and I knew then it would be all right; whatever happened and however bad it got, somehow it would be all right. I felt Dumbledore’s presence, somewhere; I don’t know where, but I knew he was nearby. As Severus put his mouth to Sirius’s neck I closed my eyes for an instant, the moment seemed so private, and began to count they way I had with Lucius. I didn’t have to stop him this time; he drew back of his own accord well within the outer limit of time I knew to allow him.

He didn’t turn round when he’d finished; he just pulled Sirius to him. For a moment I caught Sirius’s eyes; they had the same look of naked adoration in them that Malfoy’s had had only a few months ago. I left them for a moment and went into the other room to get the potion.

‘We’re okay now,’ I said quietly.

Dumbledore nodded, his blue eyes unreadable; he swept his cloak around himself and was gone.

I took the potion through to the bedroom. Severus sat beside Sirius with his arm around his shoulders and took the potion and the beaker from me. Unlike Lucius, Sirius was conscious and he drank the Blood Replenisher off quickly. I left them to it. I was surplus to requirements, the spare man. For a moment I regretted the full moon had passed; a night’s hunting would have been nice. I went to the far side of the little house and lay down on a old settee, suddenly realising how tired I was. I would sleep now; we were safe, they were safe, for now, and I had scented the same sexual tension that I had sensed that day in Azkaban. They certainly didn’t need me.

*****

SIRIUS

At the time it seemed so ridiculously inappropriate to have my first physical sexual stirrings in almost fifteen years when a vampire was drawing my life’s blood from me. But there it was, whatever he’d left me with had taken route one to my cock. I felt his hands run through my hair even as he drew away from me, felt the tiny sting where his fangs had pierced my flesh, felt his eyes questioning. I don’t know if my smile made it to my lips; it didn’t matter. I became aware of Lupin handing him the beaker with the potion. Somehow I didn’t think I needed it; in some obscure way I knew what he had taken had been superfluous to me anyway, but I drank it, just to top up the reservoir, just to keep them both happy.

Lupin left us and for a long few moments we watched one another. I couldn’t believe how much better he looked already; oh, the dark circles under his eyes were still there and he was still pale, he always was, but the fever had left his eyes and something else had replaced it. I don’t know what possessed me, but I needed him more than I’d needed anything in my life, and I could hardly contain the joy I felt that we were now inseparable and that forever didn’t seem like such a long time after all.

‘I love you, Severus. I probably shan’t say that again; I’m not a great one for sentimentality, so remember what I’m saying. I have always loved you and I know I always will.’

I knew he felt it too. Remus had told me what had happened after he’d taken Lucius’s blood and it had been the same this time; I bet none of Harry’s books had documented that little gem of information. I filed it away; perhaps I’d write a book of my own one day, “A Hound’s Guide to Keeping Your Vampire Happy”. I’d like to say it was smooth and subtle and that we took our pleasure in one another with ease … but it wasn’t; it was stumbling schoolboy stuff. I had no idea what turned him on, apart from my blood, even as he didn’t know anything about me. We learnt quickly though; passion and the need for sexual release are wonderful teachers.

I woke up as the smell of breakfast wafted through the open bedroom door. I was alone in his bed. I took a few moments to try to find differences in myself, to try to imagine blood and to see if I had developed some lust for it over the past few hours, but I knew I hadn’t. I felt my neck, trying to find the little puncture wounds, but even they had faded to nothing. I could hear their voices coming in little snatches through the door, smelt the smoke from his cigarette. I got out of bed and opened the window wide; I slipped into my true form and jumped out into the morning sunshine.

I ran and ran and ran, just bounding over the beach like a pup, and up the cliff and back down again, working out the kinks and exploring myself. To say I wasn’t affected would be a lie, but I was affected in a way much deeper than I had suspected. My mind returned again and again to him as I roved over the long stretch of shingle and up the cliffs within a radius which always kept the cottage in view, always let me see where he was, always knowing no stranger was approaching, knowing that nothing was near to harm him. I knew at that moment that he had made me what I now was, and I exalted in my new role as I finally understood it.

*****

REMUS

Sirius was still asleep and I stopped throwing the covert looks at Severus the third time he scowled at me. To say he looked better today was about as great an understatement as I could make. The biggest change in him was that the panic, which had seemed to seize him, had subsided; not even that, it had disappeared. I had checked on them a couple of times through the night, once I’d felt I’d given them as much privacy as they required. My always-alert wits sensed no alarm from either of them; whatever we had done, allowed to happen, had been right … as we’d known it would be.

I’d sent an owl to Dumbledore, just a brief message to let him know that all seemed well, and then I sent one to Harry, after all, he was concerned too. On some deep level I knew that even though he wouldn’t understand what had happened here, he would approve it.

Snape seemed comfortable with staying here for another week, just to see how things settled down; he thought a week would let him know how he was going to control himself. He wasn’t a true vampire, not in the way the ones in fiction are dead; Severus Snape was very much alive. He didn’t care for the daytime, he didn’t go out in the sun, he lived in his dungeon and taught there too, he didn’t eat carrion; nobody would notice a thing … he’d always been the same. He was back in control of himself, and he’d been so near, I suspected, so near to taking the un-offered gift of blood that would have turned him down that alternate path.

‘Do you want me to go back to Hogwarts and leave the two of you?’ I asked.

‘No … I think it may be wise for you to stay around. Let us not take any more risks.’

I knew he meant that having another person around would let him feel if he viewed me as Lupin or dinner, a test case, so to speak. I wanted to be here anyway; the world would get along without me for another week.

Sirius ambled out of the bedroom about an hour after we’d first sat down.

‘I thought you were going to sleep all day,’ I remarked.

‘He wasn’t asleep,’ Snape remarked. ‘He was on the beach.’

‘The beach?’ I queried.

‘It’s a dog thing, I suspect.’ Snape lifted his eyebrow and turned to him. ‘Did you catch breakfast or did you intend to join us?’

‘You knew where I was?’ Sirius asked.

Snape seemed to look into the distance. ‘I have a rather uncomfortable feeling that I shall always know where you are.’ He gave Sirius an up and down look, a real Severus Snape look. ‘Do not think for one moment that I shall condone you lying across my classroom door, tripping people up while I am attempting to instil some knowledge into the un-teachable.’

I watched on as Sirius feigned disappointment, some part of me warming to their acceptance of the way things would be between them, interesting times ahead. I didn’t feel excluded; in some way I knew that a friendship so deep had been formed that it would transcend all of the gushy backslapping and declarations. It would be a bond which would allow us to be much as we always had been: hurling insults and abuse, they would fight with one another, he would scowl and lose his temper, Sirius would flare, and I would stand back taking sides with both of them and pretend it wasn’t happening … and it would all be just a game … perhaps it always had been.

*****

HARRY

I sent an exploding ink pellet across to the supercilious little tosspot, even as I tried valiantly to wipe some of the slime off my desk. I heard the classroom door open, paid it little attention, and heard the silence begin to drop as the familiar clip of his heels on the stone floor marched through the classroom.

He looked the same as he always did, or always had done before what had happened at the end of term. He let those black eyes do a sweep of the class, just one, not letting them rest any longer on me than anyone else. Perhaps he was just checking that no dragons lurked in the corners, then again perhaps not. Then he looked at the red ink seeping through Draco Malfoy’s white hair. He let his eyes rest on me again for a brief second.

‘Ten points off Gryffindor.’ He turned to the blackboard and summoned a piece of chalk. ‘And clear up that mess, Potter.’

I flared at the injustice. ‘What about him?’ I felt my temper rise as I pointed to the smirking Malfoy.

He turned slowly. ‘Perhaps I should make it twenty.’ He picked up a textbook. ‘Turn to page sixteen.’

THE END

Non Omnis Moriar by Scaranda [Reviews - 0]

<<

Disclaimers
Terms of Use
Credits

Copyright © 2003-2007 Sycophant Hex
All rights reserved