Eyes of The Wolf (Severus Snape, 5th year)
March 17th, 1975
Five beds away, the werewolf lay quite still. He was unconscious and would remain so for a while longer, Severus was sure, but he hesitated to go any nearer. The hospital wing was dark and Lupin’s breathing was a horrible sound, each hoarse puff of air a dagger that shot through Severus' chest and made him want to draw his legs up tighter. He scolded himself for it. There was no use acting a coward. Those boys would smell it on him. No, the werewolf would smell it.
Severus made a sudden jerking movement. Against his better judgement he stood, testing weight on his newly healed leg. Just a scrape, Pomfrey had assured him several hours ago when she healed and bound the broken flesh there, You probably cut it while running away. Not any fault of Remus, understand me? I know what a werewolf bite looks like.
Blasted Black. Blasted Potter and his irritating need to be the hero. Who knew where the pair of them were now…having a laugh at his misfortune up in Gryffindor Tower, no doubt. Severus had not seen James after he ran from the Willow, as fast as his injured leg could carry him, back to Dumbledore’s office. James had screamed at him to go there and for some reason Severus obeyed without question. Why? The command in his voice, maybe, or fear of those pale yellow eyes hanging in the dark in front of him had caused all reason to flee from his mind. In any case, Severus honestly didn’t have a clue whether James had escaped the werewolf at all. The thought of his bloody corpse lying beneath the Willow was at least a small comfort.
An hour afterwards, he’d found himself in the hospital wing between Pomfrey and Dumbledore, mumbling terrified explanations while the torn skin on his leg knit itself back together. By dawn both of them had gone—Dumbledore back to his office, Pomfrey to the Whomping Willow, frantic to collect the werewolf from his roost. Severus had watched from his corner through squinted eyes when she returned with him, limp and pale and bloodied, draped listlessly on a hovering stretcher. Severus had cowered, then.
But now he paced the center aisle between two rows of hospital beds, coming closer to the other boy’s with each pass, until finally he stood at the foot of Lupin’s bed and stared, unblinking, at the closed eyelids on his face as if expecting them to fly open, revealing those hungry yellow eyes.
But he did not wake up.
Severus heard his own voice break the silence of the hospital wing. “You’re a sorry sight, you know, Lupin.”
Remus was taller than him, but he looked very small now. Pomfrey had draped a thick white duvet over him that, along with the oversized hospital gown he wore, made him look frail and child-like.
“Werewolf,” Severus spat. Though he certainly didn’t look like a werewolf now, either. The heavy scarring on his chest was just visible under his collar. New cuts joined them, deep and ugly. Magical wounds made by a dark creature. Lupin did it to himself. The cuts would be irreversible by any normal magical means, then.
“I suppose you thought you could get along fine here, being what you are,” he told the sleeping boy. “As long as you kept your dirty little secret safe. Too bad you can’t count on your friends to do the same. I’m sure you feel terribly betrayed, don’t you?”
The werewolf’s chest heaved as he gave a shuddering breath, but he didn’t wake. Severus sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets, dropping into the chair just beside Lupin’s shoulder. “Or you will, once you find out what’s happened. You…won’t have remembered any of it, is that right?”
To think that the creature—the one who’d towered over him just hours ago—would have torn straight into him and not recalled a moment of it after. Remus would have woken, wiped Severus' blood off his lips, picked his flesh out of his teeth, and wondered who or what the taste belonged to. Severus shivered at the thought. What a miserable life to live.
“You’ll probably want to apologize. Lily says you do that quite a lot. But I hope you don’t. Because it’s not your...well, because I don’t care to hear it. Not from you. It’s your friend Black who ought to be groveling, not you.”
Severus glanced back at the door, half-expecting Sirius to burst through it at the mere mention of his name. It was getting light outside, which meant the three of them would come bounding through eventually.
He turned back to Remus. “I suppose those cuts hurt, don’t they—”
A door did open. He stood abruptly and rushed away from the bed, but it was only Madam Pomfrey exiting her office. Her heels clicked against the tiled floor as she bustled over urgently. “Is everything alright?”
“Fine. It’s fine.”
Pomfrey exhaled. She glanced over Lupin’s sleeping body and pressed her thin hand to his forehead. “And you, how’s your leg?”
“Fine,” he repeated.
“Good. I think you’re alright to head back to your common room. And Severus—“ She raised her voice, as he’d already been backing out of the room. “Don’t forget what the headmaster told you.“
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said bitterly. “I won’t say a word.”
Pomfrey’s expression softened. “He’s a good boy, Severus. He’s very good. If not for that wolf—“
“I know,” Severus said quietly.
“Run along, then.”
He bowed curtly and scampered out of the room. On his way down the stairs he passed James and Pettigrew—Sirius wasn’t with them—but he avoided their gaze and stormed onward without pausing to hear what the Potter boy had called after him. When he made it back to his common room and into bed, he did not sleep.
~ ~ ~
So as to avoid suspicion, Lupin returned to class the next day. Severus could not help but steal glimpses of him during Potions and noticed that the other boy did the same back to him. His eyes were wide and worried. Shell-shocked. Severus kept his distance.
And he wasn’t the only one. He noticed that Sirius had traded spots with a Hufflepuff so that he was as far as possible from Severus and half as far from Remus. Evidently, Remus did not mind. He looked quite faint—Severus even noted a spot of blood growing on the collar of his shirt.
When class ended, Lupin murmured something in Peter’s ear and staggered quickly out of the room before anyone else. Sirius watched him leave with a despondent expression, but he didn’t attempt to follow. They clearly weren’t on speaking terms. Good. Let him suffer for it, just a little.
Eyeing James, who’d taken on the task of cleaning up Lupin’s station, Severus slipped out too. He glanced up and down the hallway until he spotted his hunched figure disappearing around the corner.
“Hey,” he called, hurrying after him.
He caught up only because Lupin had slumped against a wall, studying Severus warily as he approached. He held up a hand in surrender. “Please—I’ll speak with you, explain anything you like—but please don’t do anything to me now. I can’t—”
“I’m not going to do anything,” Severus said.
The two boys watched each other, listening to the sound of their classmates now exiting the Potions classroom. James' voice was the loudest when he inquired as to where Lupin had scurried off too.
Severus struggled to find the words. What was he to say? I promise I won’t share your secret. No, Dumbledore made me swear it. No, you felt more pain than I did last night, so how can I hold you responsible? No, that Black boy is cruel and horrible, but you…you just…
Lupin swallowed. “Severus. I’m so—”
“I only wanted to say,” Severus breathed, glancing over his shoulder. “That there’s—there’s a spot of blood on your collar.”
Surprised, Lupin glanced down at his shirt. His fingers moved to shove the fabric down under his robes, but his eyes snapped quickly back to Severus as if he couldn’t risk looking away for longer than a moment.
“I noticed in class,” Severus said quietly. “Wouldn’t want anyone to—to ask questions, would you?”
Eyes still wide as saucers, Remus nodded.
“Moony! Moony, where’d you—hey.” James rounded the corner. When he saw Severus, his eyes narrowed, and he gestured violently towards the corridor behind him. “Run along, will you? He doesn’t owe you a word, Snivellus.”
He had the common sense not to reply. He turned and left them there. Cringing under their collective gaze, Severus thought to himself with no small amount of surprise that Lupin’s eyes did not at all resemble the wolf’s.