Friday evening was spent in what
might have been the most interminable staff meeting in the history of the
universe, at the end of which Amelia headed off in search of her cousin and
Remus decided to accompany Hagrid to the Three Broomsticks for a bit of a wind
down.

They spent a pleasant half hour
discussing the merits of a Dragon breeding program that had recently begun in Wales,
before Hagrid wandered off to talk with some friends at the bar and left Remus
alone with his drink. The pub was by this point packed with local witches and
wizards, so it wasn’t long before Remus’s thoughts were intruded upon by
another drinker.

“May I join you?” Severus
asked, with little enthusiasm. “Everywhere else is taken.”

Remus, less than thrilled himself,
nodded curtly and eyed up his drink; he could probably be out of there in
twenty minutes if he drank relatively quickly – though not quick enough to
appear impolite. Twenty minutes of silent brooding across from Severus
Snape didn’t really appeal… perhaps I
could down it… he thought, with little hope. Though he’d always been able
to keep up with James and Sirius, he tended to
end up in truly bizarre situations when he drank heavily.

Unbidden, memories of waking up
in a fountain after James’s stag party bubbled to the surface; he’d never been
able to remember the previous evening in full detail, but he was relatively
certain that singing on tables and doing some ridiculous rock dance with Sirius
had been involved. James, of course, was suitably attired in nothing but a tutu
and had taken great pleasure in scaring passers by – until they’d managed,
somehow, to pilot him back to the house that he and his bride-to-be had shared;
he vaguely remembered he and Sirius taking one look at Lily’s expression and
running like hell, leaving a drunken James and bewildered Peter to face her
wrath.

Peter
had woken up with a giant orange traffic cone on his head.

It had apparently been a very
good night.

He came reluctantly back to the
present; Snape was still staring moodily into his drink. Lupin glanced again at
his own drink before giving up and breaking the silence.

“I meant to thank you, by the
way, for that hangover cure at Christmas.”

Snape shrugged.

“It was nothing, I merely wished
to pelt you with snow that afternoon,” he sneered, though there was a twinkle
in his dark eyes. Remus smiled, despite himself; perhaps he was about to see
whatever it was that Amelia saw in the strange
Slytherin professor.

“Well, anyway, thanks,” he
paused. “…and thank you for taking care of Amelia
at Christmas, she really needed it.”

“Well she is my friend too, you
know.” Snape retorted angrily, stung.

“I know,” said Lupin quietly.
“That’s not what I meant.”

They regarded one another for a
moment, enmity bubbling just beneath the surface; then, abruptly, Severus
sagged a little.

“Look I really can’t be arsed to
argue tonight. Do you mind if we just forget all that Gryffindor – Slytherin
crap for a bit and just have a drink?” he asked, a little wearily.

Surprised, but not altogether
opposed to the idea Remus agreed and nodded to the bar-elf to bring them
another round.

“I think it must have been that
blasted meeting – sapped all our strength.”

Severus cracked
a smile.

“They do rather go on, don’t
they? You know I’ve often had bets with Pomona
on who’ll fall asleep first.”

Remus laughed, “I bet it’s
usually Binns.”

“True – we had to disqualify him
from the running, it was too easy!” Severus agreed, also
laughing.

They lapsed into a companionable
silence for a while as their third round of drinks arrived. It struck Remus
that he’d never heard Severus laugh before, except cruelly.

“Look Lupin, I really should
apologise for that stunt I pulled at the start of term – it was childish and
stupid. I am sorry.” It was apparently a night for firsts then.

Remus shook his head.

“No harm done. I suppose I should
apologise for the Boggart too – although I can’t be entirely held responsible
for Neville’s terror of you.”

Snape chuckled.

“He’s actually improving in
Potions, you know. Amelia talked me into
‘cutting him some slack,’ as she put it.”

“She seems to be doing us both
some good,” Remus smiled.

Severus agreed,
“She does. I haven’t seen you this happy since school…” he trailed off, not
wanting to bring up their uncomfortable past.

“I was rotten to you in school, Severus,
and I’m sorry for that,” Remus said sincerely.

Severus looked
at him for a moment before sighing.

“I wasn’t much better, once I
knew your secret. You weren’t as bad as the others though – and you did try to stop them – I was a little
grateful for that,” he admitted.

“I didn’t always though, and I
should know better than most what that felt like.”

They were quiet for a time as
they sipped their drinks; Remus realised fuzzily that he was on his fifth pint
of cider. Severus didn’t appear to be doing much better as he
attempted to focus on his drinking companion; Rosmerta serves good
cider, Remus thought blearily.

“It was all Potter’s fault you
know,” he began, gesticulating with his cider. Remus wondered vaguely where
this was going.

“If he hadn’t so obviously fancied
Lily then I wouldn’t have started him an’ Black
off so frequently.” He was beginning to slur.

Remus blinked at the drink in
front of him and tried to force his brain to take in what he’d just heard Severus
admit.

“You were in love with Lily!”
he stated, suddenly understanding the years of unnecessary grief between Snape
and the Marauders.

“Yes.” Said Snape unhappily, “and
as soon as you lot turned up she had eyes only for the four of you.” He
finished his drink and started on the next.

“You did call her a Mudblood,”
Remus offered, conversationally.

“I know, but I didn’t mean it, not really. I was angry.”

Remus nodded, thinking back to Lily;
he’d never been able to continue being angry with her for long.

“I loved her too,” he said,
reaching for another cider. Snape looked up.

“What, really?”

“Yeah,” said Remus, shifting
uncomfortably in his chair. “But she was always James’s
girl. You can’t steal your best friend’s girl…” No matter how much you might
want to… or how much she might encourage you. He finished, privately. He
thought back to a simpler time spent sharing apples in the grounds at sunset
and blushed a little.

To their mutual surprise, Severus
began to laugh, drunkenly.

“Look at ush,” he said
unsteadily, “hopelele- holep-.” He stopped and concentrated: “hopelesh!” he
finished triumphantly.

“Completely,” Remus agreed,
nodding vigorously.

“It was her eyes I think… sho
green,” Severus continued mournfully.

“And her smile.”

“Her hair!”

“The way it changed in different
lights!” Remus realised that he was nodding again and stopped.

They continued in this vein for
some time before Hagrid returned to the table.

0o0o0o0

Hermione, sat reading with Amelia
in her cousin’s rooms, glanced out of the window at midnight to see what she would later describe as the
funniest thing she could ever remember. She dropped her book with a thunk and
pressed both hands against the cold window pane, as if to check she was still
sane. Amelia, hearing the noise of leather on
wood, joined her and together they watched the scene below, mouths open in
disbelief.

In the snow on the castle
grounds, three figures were weaving back and forth, singing loudly. As they
watched, the one shaped like a Hagrid started to belt out the Scottish national
anthem before being shushed in an over-dramatic manner by the two smaller
figures. The Hagrid-shape waved them off and headed unsteadily towards his
cottage, listing dangerously.

Snape and Lupin, because the
starlight was clearly illuminating their features now, continued along the path
below, supporting one another and singing what appeared to be a bawdy goblin
ballad before the Snape-shaped shadow slid off Lupin’s shoulders and into the
snow, where Lupin, confused by the shift in weight, quickly joined him. Snape
began to whoop in delight as he made a snow angel – he even stood and gave it a
smiling face with vampire teeth – until Lupin jumped to his feet and yelled.

“TAG! YOU’RE IT!” and pelted off
beneath an archway and out of sight, Snape hot on his heels. Lupin had somehow
managed to find a traffic cone in Hogsmeade and was dragging it behind him
happily.

The two cousins stared at one
another for a moment in astonishment before they both collapsed, clutching
their stomachs, neither one able to breath for laughing.

0o0o0o0

It was a sore and sheepish Severus
who arrived in Amelia’s rooms after lunch the following
afternoon. He grimaced at Hermione in greeting, who was forced to hide her red
faced grin behind a particularly large Arithmancy tome she was using to
complete her coursework. Amelia completely
trounced him at chess before he would even admit to his hangover, which
apparently his potions hadn’t been able to clear. About the same time Remus
wandered in, looking equally shattered; he flopped down into a corner and
picked up a book, glaring at its pages. It was a full minute before he realised
he was trying to read it upside down.

Hermione, who had been doing
quite well up to this point now had to run to the library so as not to laugh at
her professors to their faces. Amelia rose and
followed her cousin, not even bothering to hide her grin.

Remus, who had woken up in the Astronomy
Tower clutching an entirely
implausible traffic cone and not wearing very much glanced up at Severus,
who shared a gloomy shrug.

“Do you think they saw us then?” Remus
asked.

Severus, who had
had a similar awakening in an entirely improbable position atop the statue of a
hunchback in the Charms corridor, nodded unhappily. “Something tells me that Amelia
won’t let us live this one down.”

As Hermione and Amelia
had encountered Poppy and Pomona en
route to the Library, he was not wrong.

0o0o0o0

Ravenclaw played Slytherin that
very week. Slytherin won, though narrowly. This, according to the Weasley
twins, Amelia’s regular quidditch informants,
was a good thing for Gryffindor, who could take second if they also beat
Ravenclaw at the end of February.

Severus, of
course, scoffed at the possibility of Gryffindor beating Slytherin; Amelia
and Remus were almost certain that a large part of his reasons for vocalising
this conviction was to irritate the crap out of Minerva, who
had been winding him up about Sybill of late. Severus wasn’t
letting this get the better of him this term; since their drunken escapade
(about which neither man would elaborate) he and Remus had become firm friends,
which had effectively provided him with a second bolt-hole.

Lupin’s first transformation of
the year was spent in the company of both Amelia and Severus, who played a
furious chess match before settling down for what Severus teasingly referred to
as ‘story-time’. By the end of the week they’d made their way through all three
of the ‘Space Captain Smith’
series and had decided to move on to Sherri
S Tepper’s
‘The Margarets’. Severus expressed mild surprise at enjoying
science fiction so much as he usually preferred crime fiction.

Hermione remained a frequent
visitor as her friends, of whom Amelia was
beginning to despair, still hadn’t forgiven her. She was clearly showing the
strain of her insane workload and could often be found behind an enormous pile
of textbooks in either Amelia’s rooms, the
Library, or – she suspected – the Gryffindor Common Room. The three teachers,
recognising their younger selves in the girl, began to take turns in proof-reading
assignments, suggesting resources and giving advice – though they were careful
to never offer help in their own subjects.

Severus had, to
his own astonishment, begun to look forward to these impromptu study sessions
and come to the conclusion that this, bizarre as it was, was the closest thing
he’d ever had to a family. He was greatly touched by their including him,
though of course, he’d never admit it.

Amelia
used these study sessions to pick up bits she’d missed from mainstream
schooling; at their next meeting, Minerva was impressed by her
progress.

“As you appear to be getting on
ok, are there any additional projects that you would like to look at?” she
asked, over a cup of tea.

“Well, I remember Hermione
telling me about Animagi last term, and I was wondering about giving it a go –
you seemed the ideal person to ask about it.”

Minerva, always happy to help
those interested in her subject and more than a little curious as to how
quickly the younger witch would be able to develop her skill, was eager to try.
Following a lengthy discussion about procedure and a brief lecture on hard
work, Amelia was loaded down with appropriate
literature while Minerva wrote to the Ministry to apply for a
practice license.

0o0o0o0

For Lupin, Amelia’s
interest in Animagi was another reason to continue falling for her, and he
enlisted the aid of a grumbling but highly amused Severus to
figure out a Valentines gift for her. The pair, with the help of an overly
enthusiastic Pomona, managed to
produce a miniature perpetual garden, complete with vegetable patch, waterfall,
flowerbeds and a tiny clacking windmill. Filius helped them work charms that
would allow the owner, with guests, to enter the garden to tend it and for a
bit of rest and relaxation.

Amelia,
naturally enough, was delighted with what she dubbed her ‘pocket allotment’ and
took the earliest opportunity to build a tiny snowman in the middle of the
garden. For her part, Amelia had knitted Remus a warm jumper as his was
becoming rather worn, inside which he discovered a bar of Honeydukes’ finest
chocolate and an anthology of selected ancient manuscripts for which Amelia had
spent several days scouring the shelves of Flourish and Blotts. Enjoying their
gifts together, they both felt that they were possibly the luckiest people on
earth.

Severus, greatly
entertained by their endearing relationship – though careful to retain his
customary sneer around them – provided something of an out of character Potions
lesson for all his year groups. When Hermione delightedly filled Amelia
and Remus in on it they congratulated him on his excellent pranking prowess,
Remus remarking that he was unsurprised that Severus had
managed to give the Marauders such an effective run for their money.

The class began like this: each
pair of students were required to complete a potion suitable for their level
from a list by the cauldron. The cauldrons which Severus had
prepared would reward successful partners with lurid pink bat-shaped chocolates
(provided by Poppy), while those unfortunate enough to fail were glued together
for the rest of the day (courtesy of Filius). Hermione had been delighted to
report that she and a very relieved Neville had successfully completed their
potion, while Harry and Ron
were still wandering the corridors somewhere because they’d been unable to get
through the portrait-hole into the Gryffindor Common Room while still glued
together.

Severus had
received a brief dressing down from Dumbledore at the next staff meeting,
followed by a round of applause from the staff while the headmaster pretended
not to hear and twinkled at them from his armchair.

The staff were therefore greatly
entertained for the better part of the week by running into increasingly
desperate pairs of students trying a myriad of different spells to get unstuck;
the teachers were gleefully maintaining a wall of uncooperativeness when asked for
help.

Amelia
was walking between classes when a beaming Neville approached her and asked her
to thank her cousin from saving him from the glue. As they stood talking, Crabbe
and Goyle had stumbled past grumbling under their breath, trying to get
unstuck.

“Well, they’re in a sticky
situation,” Amelia had said, unable to stop
herself, and Neville had had to fake a coughing fit to hide his guffaws.

Lupin was still chuckling at this
image as he headed to Harry’s next anti-Dementor
lesson.

The boy seemed increasingly
frustrated with his progress, despite Remus’s assurances that he was doing well
for his level.

“You’re expecting too much of
yourself,” he’d said sternly, in their fourth week of practice. “For a thirteen-year-old
wizard, even an indistinct Patronus is a huge achievement. You aren’t passing
out any more, are you?”

“I thought a Patronus would –
charge the Dementors down or something,” said Harry
dispiritedly. “Make them disappear –”

“The true Patronus does do that,”
said Lupin. But you’ve achieved a great deal in a very short space of time. If
the Dementors put in an appearance at your next Quidditch match, you will be
able to keep them at bay long enough to get back to the ground.”

“You said it’s harder if there
are loads of them,” Harry complained.

“I have complete confidence in
you,” he said, smiling. “Here – you’ve earned a drink. Something from the Three
Broomsticks, you won’t have tried it before –”

He pulled two bottles out of his
briefcase.

“Butterbeer!” exclaimed Harry.
“Yeah I like that stuff!”

Lupin raised an eyebrow;
apparently Harry had inherited James’s
talent for trouble anyway… perhaps it was genetic.

“Oh – Ron
and Hermione brought me some back from Hogsmeade,” Harry
continued quickly. It was obvious to Remus that he was lying (he looked just
like James did every time he’d been caught out) but what kind of Marauder would
he be if he prevented James Potter’s son from the odd illicit adventure?

“I see,” he said. “Well – let’s
drink to a Gryffindor victory against Ravenclaw! Not that I’m supposed to take
sides, as a teacher…” he added hastily.

Harry
grinned at him. They drank the Butterbeer in silence, until Harry
asked an unpleasant question.

“What’s under a Dementor’s hood?”

Remus lowered his bottle
thoughtfully.

“Hmmm… well the only people who
really know are in no condition to tell us. You see, the Dementor only lowers
its hood to use its last and worst weapon.”

“What’s that?”

“They call it the Dementor’s
kiss,” he continued, with a slightly twisted smile. “It’s what Dementors do to
those they wish to destroy utterly. I suppose there must be some kind of mouth
under there, because they clamp their jaws upon the mouth of the victim and –
suck out his soul.”

Harry
accidentally spat out a bit of Butterbeer. Still shockable, then, Remus
thought.

“What – they kill -?”

“Oh, no,” said Lupin. “Much worse
than that. You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and
heart are still working. But you’ll have no sense of self anymore, no memory,
no anything. There’s no chance at all of recovery. You’ll just – exist. As an
empty shell. And your soul is gone forever… lost.”

It was a terrible thing to happen
to anyone, he reflected. More like death than death…

His mind returned to something
he’d read in the paper over breakfast; he’d had to be careful that no one had
caught his expression in the Great Hall.

“It’s the fate that awaits Sirius
Black. It was in the Daily Prophet this morning. The Ministry have given
the Dementors permission to perform it if they find him.” When they find him,
he thought bitterly. Sirius might well have been one hell of a Marauder, but
almost the entire cohort of Azkaban Dementors were on his tail.

He studied Harry
carefully: he had taken the news sombrely at breakfast and was curious as to
how Harry might react; the boy seemed to know a
great deal more about Sirius than he really should.

“He deserves it,” he said
suddenly, surprising Lupin. Perhaps he did know about Sirius’s crimes.

“You think so?” said Lupin
lightly. “Do you really think anyone deserves that?”

“Yes,” said Harry
defiantly. “For… for some things…”

Lupin watched him carefully once
more, certain that he had indeed inherited James’s
talent for trouble and used it expertly to assess the threat against him. He
was suddenly very proud to know this boy, despite some of his more childish
tendencies; Lily would never have raised her son
to think that way about anyone. He watched him finish his Butterbeer
thoughtfully and wished him a good night before heading back to his own rooms
to mark, privately wishing he’d had one of his own childhood possessions to
keep an eye on his friends’ son.

0o0o0o0

It was much later in the evening
when he encountered a thoroughly distressed Hermione sobbing in the Library. Amelia
was watching over a detention with Fred and George
Weasley and would therefore have her hands
full until the small hours, so he invited her up to his office for a mug of
tea.

Hermione sat timidly in front of
Lupin’s desk behind her steaming mug, staring at the tank at the back of the
room (currently full of Manx house pixies) and deeply embarrassed that she’d
been caught crying by a teacher, albeit a friendly one, for the second time
this year.

“Harry
got his Firebolt back,” she started, eyes still on the Pixies as if looking at
her Professor would be too much to ask. The pixies had settled in for a
relaxing evening. Being domesticated, they had built themselves what resembled
a dollhouse. One of the younger ones had his face against the glass of the tank
and was regarding Hermione with great interest.

“That’s good,” Remus said,
relieved that Harry was once again relatively
safe. “Isn’t it?” he asked, reviewing her expression. Like Severus,
tearful women weren’t really his forte.

“Yes,” said Hermione dully, “he
even came over to apologise.”

Another of the pixies, she
noticed, had his feet up and was reading what looked like a tiny newspaper.
Absently he knocked out his pipe on the makeshift fireplace beside him.

“Then Ron
found Scabbers was gone. He found a bloodied sheet and some ginger hairs,” she
sniffed. “Now he’s convinced that Crookshanks – my cat – ate him.”

“Scabbers is?”

“Ron’s
rat. He’s being completely unreasonable.”

“Well Hermione, you know cats do
chase rats – it’s in their blood,” he offered, delicately.

“I know that!” she snapped, then
went pale. “Sorry Professor – I – I –”

Remus waved her off.

“It’s fine, go on.”

“But the sheet he showed me
didn’t have nearly enough blood on it – cats play with their food. He won’t
even agree to help me look for him.”

“People can be very attached to
their pets Hermione.”

“I know – and I know I’d be upset
if something happened to Crookshanks. I’d just hoped that with the Firebolt
back they might have started talking to me again.”

Remus looked at her then and saw
himself staring back, twenty years younger and very much alone.

“Well, until they do – and they
will –” he assured her, “you could always help me with the pixies.”

“I could?” Hermione looked to be
perking up at the possibility of a new project.

“I don’t want to add to your work
load, but these pixies get fed up if they’re left on their own for too long. If
you do your work in here you can keep each other company. They understand
English and bring luck to those who treat them with kindness.”

Hermione looked from the tank to
her Professor, her usual good cheer returning.

“How long for?”

“Only for a couple of weeks I’m
afraid, then they go back home.

Hermione looked delighted. She
addressed the tank:

“Would you like that?”

The mother pixie, who was wearing
a big, floral apron nodded happily; her son, face still pressed to the glass,
gave her a big thumbs up.

Remus watched the exchange
happily.

“Right, well since that’s sorted,
I think it’s well past both our bedtimes.”