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rivendellroseHere it is, finally. Sadly, this isn't the fireworks one... I think that one might have miscarried. *pouts* I'll keep futzing with it, but it doesn't want to work properly.
Title: "Be of Good Cheer"
Rating: PG, I'd think.
Pairing: Remus and Severus friendliness.
Written for the "Be Nice to Snape" challenge.
Dedication: For Kari, who was kind enough to look it over a few days ago and help me figure out how to finish the darned thing.
X-posted to Lupin-Snape, and Nice to Snape.
Severus Snape had never been a cheerful man. In fact, there were many who would claim that he was possibly the sourest, most ill-tempered man who’d ever walked the halls of Hogwarts. It was possible that these people would be exaggerating… but not by a lot. And yet no one, least of all Remus Lupin, would have guessed that the snide potions master would greet the end of the war against Voldemort, a victory brought in large part by his own sacrifices, with such bitter equanimity. One would expect that such a fortunate change would give him at leat some satisfaction, if not the outright joy the rest of his colleagues had met it with. And yet he remained as foul-tempered as ever.
At first, it had seemed that perhaps only time was required. The sort of suffering that had been inflicted on the potions master did not, after all, disappear over night. And so the Order had waited, patiently refraining from comment when Snape declined invitations to celebrations… and then to other parties, as well, as time went on. He simply wasn’t up to being sociable yet, they told themselves. He’d always been a bit of a loner – but he would eventually wake up to the new life that was open to him now. And so time went by, until fully three years had passed since the final defeat of Voldemort.
And then, with still no change visible in the sour demeanor of his black-haired colleague, at least one person began to worry. And when this person worried, his first instinct was to speak to the object of his concern.
“Are you alright, Severus? Is there anything you’d… like to talk about?”
The object of the werewolf’s concern turned. The glittering obsidian eyes that returned Remus Lupin’s golden gaze did not resemble at all the gaze of someone ready to open up for comfort and friendly sharing.
“Go hump someone else’s leg, Lupin – I’m busy.”
On second thought, perhaps first instincts really weren’t the way to go with Severus Snape, Lupin considered, having beaten a politely apologetic retreat. Something a bit more devious might be required… but for the last living Marauder, at least that was something familiar.
~ * ~
“Would someone care to explain this?”
The eyes of each professor at the head table turned to face Severus Snape, who was pointing accusingly at a bright hand-drawn card next to his table setting. McGonagall peered over his shoulder to read the bold, red and blue writing. “’Just a note to say you’re being thought of with happiness. Enjoy your day,’” she read. “I shouldn’t think that would need much explanation, Severus; it seems someone wants you to enjoy your day.”
Snape scoffed. “I find it highly unlikely that anyone would waste ink for such an insipidly useless message, Minerva.”
“Some people like that sort of thing, Severus.”
Tilting his head to give the werewolf an incredulous look, Snape picked the card up between two fingers as though afraid it might poison him, and allowed it to flutter down on top of Lupin’s eggs. “Enjoy,” he sneered.
Undaunted, Lupin set the card beside his plate and dug into his breakfast, already plotting the next step in his campaign.
~ * ~
“Are you quite sure about that, Remus?”
Lupin shifted a bit under McGonagall’s measuring expression, feeling quite strongly as though he was once again nothing more than a sixteen year-old prefect trying to explain how his friends had ended up stuck on the roof of the Astronomy tower… carrying four pairs of girls knickers, and a bottle of cooking sherry nicked from the kitchens. “Er. Yes, I am, actually, Minerva.”
“He won’t thank you for it, you know.”
“I know he won’t.” Certainly, after the incident with the chocolate cake, he was not under any delusions about Severus’ feelings about the little surprises that had been turning up.
“Well, so long as you know, then. I’m just saying that I can’t imagine it will do much good,” McGonagall commented, taking a note in her day-planner.
“I don’t really expect it to, immediately,” Lupin admitted. “It’s just that it’s become a bit of an obsession, now that I’ve begun, and I can’t seem to stop until it works.”
“Hmph. Very well, then. You know, if you truly want to accomplish something, all you have to do is get the Headmaster involved. Merlin knows Albus has a talent with this sort of thing.”
Lupin quailed a bit. “I think I’m not quite that desperate just yet. I’ll continue on my own for a while, and see if I can make any progress.”
He wasn’t sure, but he had an impression, as he left, that he heard McGonagall snort and mutter, “Good idea.”
~ * ~
Lupin knew even before he entered the great hall the next morning that McGonagall had done as he’d asked her – the sharp, low sound of Snape’s voice carried through the oak door.
”What is the meaning of this?”
Shaking his head, Lupin pushed open the door. Sure enough, the austere, straight-backed wooden chair at potion master’s place at the head table had been replaced by a comfortable and rather splendid-looking plush armchair of polished dark wood and green velvet. “Is there a problem?” Lupin asked, his voice mild and expression innocent.
Snape’s lip curled into a snarl. “Are you blind as well as idiotic, Lupin? This is not my chair!”
“No, I see that. It looks a good deal more comfortable than your chair, though,” Lupin pointed out, pressing thoughtfully at the cushions. “Quite a bit more, actually.”
”That,” Snape spat, “is not the point.”
“Perhaps someone thought you would be more comfortable in this chair, Severus, my boy.” Dumbledore smiled, every inch the benign grandfather-figure. “Perhaps I should take their hint and order similar chairs for all the staff – I know my old bones, at least, would quite appreciate a softer seat.”
“I am not yet so old that I need cushions to keep me from breaking bones,” Snape snarled.
The rest of the staff averted their eyes – Snape’s tone was not the sort that encouraged commentary. Finally, with a soft scoffing, McGonagall stepped forward and returned the chair to its former appearance, under Snape’s suspicious and calculating eye. “There, Severus. I certainly hope that whatever foolish person keeps doing you favours will soon see that you don’t appreciate them. Perhaps they’ll move on to a more grateful recipient.”
On the other side of Snape, Lupin shook his head, already thinking again. This was turning out to be a great deal more difficult than he’d imagined, but his target’s reticence, and the thrill of a challenge, was only making him more determined to finally wring some expression of happiness from the other man.
~ * ~
“Lupin. Might I have a word?”
Lupin stopped in the hallway, turning back toward Snape’s office. “Yes, Severus?”
The potions master closed his eyes for a moment with a pained expression, as if merely speaking to his colleague was enough to inspire a migraine. “Have you possibly noticed any of the students plotting mischief? More than usual, I mean.”
“No… why do you ask? Has Filch been finding dungbombs in the lower corridors again?”
Snape snorted and pointed an accusing finger into his classroom. There, covering almost all of the front work-table at which he usually demonstrated the techniques necessary to complex potions, laid an immense pile of roses, each a different colour.
“Goodness,” Lupin remarked. “That certainly is a lovely variety, isn’t it?” He’d hardly expected Sprout to go to such lengths, but apparently that good-natured smile she’d given him had veiled more determination than he’d expected. Or perhaps she was just an incurable romantic, thinking she had been enlisted to help in some sort of amusing courtship ploy.
“That is hardly the sort of commentary I was looking for, Lupin. Do you have any idea why they might be there?”
Lupin shrugged. “No, Severus, I’m sorry. Perhaps someone simply thought you’d like some flowers to brighten your chambers.”
“No one on the staff has seen my quarters, Lupin, and I certainly hope you’re not suggesting that a student might have been in them.”
Blinking, Lupin shook his head. “No, of course not. Er… perhaps you have a secret admirer, then?”
Giving him a look normally reserved for the most dim-witted of students, Snape snorted and swept back into his classroom, slamming the door behind him, and leaving a saddened Remus to look after him, his head bowed once again in thought.
~ * ~
“Settle down, class, settle down… Thank you. Today we’ll be starting on vampires, and I think you’ll find… I’m sorry, my sense of smell is a bit overactive near the full moon, but… I smell roses.” Remus smiled indulgently at his fifth years. “Bit early for St Valentine’s day, don’t you all think?”
One of the girls raised her hand. “Professor Snape made us make Clear Remembrance Drafts today, Professor. We had to chop rose petals for it – that’s why we smell of them.”
“Ah.” Lupin gave a tight smile. “I see. Well. Let’s move on, shall we.”
Potions ingredients. Severus had made potions ingredients out of three dozen long-stemmed roses. This was truly going too far – it was time to get serious about this little exercise.
~ * ~
The next morning, breakfast at the head table was yet again disrupted – but this time by Snape’s studious attempts to ignore a flat package wrapped in shiny green paper and tied with a white bow. Everyone’s curiosity was piqued, but Snape refused to pay the little package the slightest attention, to the point of leaving it there, still untouched, by his goblet when he got up to leave for his first class.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, Severus?”
Snape turned, followed the headmaster’s pointed look at the gift, and gave a long sigh. “I have no interest in whatever further mockeries this practical joker is intent on subjecting me to, Headmaster.”
“Indeed. I was under the impression, Severus, that cards and flowers were generally held to be signs of friendship, if not outright affection.”
Still finishing his own breakfast, Lupin watched with intense interest as Snape stalked back to the table, wrenched the bow off the package, and practically savaged the paper as he shredded it off… a rather innocuous, leather-bound book. He turned it over, peering with resignation at the title. His expression softened slightly once he’d read it, though he now looked more perturbed than anything else.
“Well, Severus?”
“It’s a book on potions,” he snapped, seeming to remember, now, to look ill-tempered.
“Ah. Perhaps not quite so useless as you’d thought, hm?” Dumbledore suggested.
“I doubt it,” Snape sneered as he swept away. But, Remus noticed, he’d left still carrying the book.
~ * ~
“Severus? May I come in?”
“I would think that not receiving an answer to your knocking would be enough to tell you that company is not desired, Lupin.” Snape’s voice carried remarkably well through the heavy oak door to his chambers. Painfully so, to the werewolf who had leaned his ear close to the door to listen for a response from within.
Lupin winced, then shook his head – partly to clear it, and partly in frustration. “I only wanted to see if you were enjoying your book, Severus. It took quite a while to find one you wouldn’t already have.”
The door swung open, and if it weren’t for his rather impressive reflexes Remus surely would have fallen over as the object he was leaning on was suddenly relocated.
“So it was you.”
Bugger. “Er… that’s not what I said, Severus. I… well, I presume that whoever would have bought the book…”
Snape cut him off with a vicious snarl. “What do you want from me, Lupin? Or what is the book going to do? Shall I be waiting for bat wings to sprout from my shoulders, or boils to rise on my skin? Decided to continue in the grand tradition of your dearly departed old friends, have you? Just a bit of fun against Snivellus, for old time’s sake?”
“That’s not it at all.” Lupin stepped forward, rising to the challenge in the other man’s voice.
“Charity, then. Saint Remus taking pity on the former victim of his friends? If you want to clear your conscience, find another way of doing it,” Snape sneered.
“This has nothing to do with that, either. We’ve known each other since we were eleven years old, Severus, and we’ve been colleagues as adults for eight years, three of which you’ve spent in freedom. In all that time, I can hardly remember seeing you smile with actual pleasure, rather than some sort of… bitter satisfaction.”
“So this is all because my attitude displeases you?” Snape snorted. “You really are a fool, Lupin.”
“Perhaps.” Lupin shook his head. “Just humour me, Severus – did you at least find the book interesting?”
“Will you leave if I say I did?”
Lupin watched his old classmate closely. “Perhaps.”
Snape snorted. “On that slim chance, then, yes. I did. Now leave me alone.”
“Good, then.” Lupin smiled. “I’ll stop by tomorrow evening to see how you’re liking it, then.”
“I’ll have the tea with arsenic waiting,” Snape growled.
Lupin laughed and turned to leave. As he did, he noticed something rather odd – a single rose, so dark it was nearly black, rested in a thin-stemmed beaker on the potion master’s bookshelf. The corners of his lips quirked up, but he refrained from comment – a single word from him would certainly win that tiny red bud a place along with the others as potions ingredients. And now he’d know which colour was Severus’ favorite, for next time.
* end *
Title: "Be of Good Cheer"
Rating: PG, I'd think.
Pairing: Remus and Severus friendliness.
Written for the "Be Nice to Snape" challenge.
Dedication: For Kari, who was kind enough to look it over a few days ago and help me figure out how to finish the darned thing.
X-posted to Lupin-Snape, and Nice to Snape.
Severus Snape had never been a cheerful man. In fact, there were many who would claim that he was possibly the sourest, most ill-tempered man who’d ever walked the halls of Hogwarts. It was possible that these people would be exaggerating… but not by a lot. And yet no one, least of all Remus Lupin, would have guessed that the snide potions master would greet the end of the war against Voldemort, a victory brought in large part by his own sacrifices, with such bitter equanimity. One would expect that such a fortunate change would give him at leat some satisfaction, if not the outright joy the rest of his colleagues had met it with. And yet he remained as foul-tempered as ever.
At first, it had seemed that perhaps only time was required. The sort of suffering that had been inflicted on the potions master did not, after all, disappear over night. And so the Order had waited, patiently refraining from comment when Snape declined invitations to celebrations… and then to other parties, as well, as time went on. He simply wasn’t up to being sociable yet, they told themselves. He’d always been a bit of a loner – but he would eventually wake up to the new life that was open to him now. And so time went by, until fully three years had passed since the final defeat of Voldemort.
And then, with still no change visible in the sour demeanor of his black-haired colleague, at least one person began to worry. And when this person worried, his first instinct was to speak to the object of his concern.
“Are you alright, Severus? Is there anything you’d… like to talk about?”
The object of the werewolf’s concern turned. The glittering obsidian eyes that returned Remus Lupin’s golden gaze did not resemble at all the gaze of someone ready to open up for comfort and friendly sharing.
“Go hump someone else’s leg, Lupin – I’m busy.”
On second thought, perhaps first instincts really weren’t the way to go with Severus Snape, Lupin considered, having beaten a politely apologetic retreat. Something a bit more devious might be required… but for the last living Marauder, at least that was something familiar.
~ * ~
“Would someone care to explain this?”
The eyes of each professor at the head table turned to face Severus Snape, who was pointing accusingly at a bright hand-drawn card next to his table setting. McGonagall peered over his shoulder to read the bold, red and blue writing. “’Just a note to say you’re being thought of with happiness. Enjoy your day,’” she read. “I shouldn’t think that would need much explanation, Severus; it seems someone wants you to enjoy your day.”
Snape scoffed. “I find it highly unlikely that anyone would waste ink for such an insipidly useless message, Minerva.”
“Some people like that sort of thing, Severus.”
Tilting his head to give the werewolf an incredulous look, Snape picked the card up between two fingers as though afraid it might poison him, and allowed it to flutter down on top of Lupin’s eggs. “Enjoy,” he sneered.
Undaunted, Lupin set the card beside his plate and dug into his breakfast, already plotting the next step in his campaign.
~ * ~
“Are you quite sure about that, Remus?”
Lupin shifted a bit under McGonagall’s measuring expression, feeling quite strongly as though he was once again nothing more than a sixteen year-old prefect trying to explain how his friends had ended up stuck on the roof of the Astronomy tower… carrying four pairs of girls knickers, and a bottle of cooking sherry nicked from the kitchens. “Er. Yes, I am, actually, Minerva.”
“He won’t thank you for it, you know.”
“I know he won’t.” Certainly, after the incident with the chocolate cake, he was not under any delusions about Severus’ feelings about the little surprises that had been turning up.
“Well, so long as you know, then. I’m just saying that I can’t imagine it will do much good,” McGonagall commented, taking a note in her day-planner.
“I don’t really expect it to, immediately,” Lupin admitted. “It’s just that it’s become a bit of an obsession, now that I’ve begun, and I can’t seem to stop until it works.”
“Hmph. Very well, then. You know, if you truly want to accomplish something, all you have to do is get the Headmaster involved. Merlin knows Albus has a talent with this sort of thing.”
Lupin quailed a bit. “I think I’m not quite that desperate just yet. I’ll continue on my own for a while, and see if I can make any progress.”
He wasn’t sure, but he had an impression, as he left, that he heard McGonagall snort and mutter, “Good idea.”
~ * ~
Lupin knew even before he entered the great hall the next morning that McGonagall had done as he’d asked her – the sharp, low sound of Snape’s voice carried through the oak door.
”What is the meaning of this?”
Shaking his head, Lupin pushed open the door. Sure enough, the austere, straight-backed wooden chair at potion master’s place at the head table had been replaced by a comfortable and rather splendid-looking plush armchair of polished dark wood and green velvet. “Is there a problem?” Lupin asked, his voice mild and expression innocent.
Snape’s lip curled into a snarl. “Are you blind as well as idiotic, Lupin? This is not my chair!”
“No, I see that. It looks a good deal more comfortable than your chair, though,” Lupin pointed out, pressing thoughtfully at the cushions. “Quite a bit more, actually.”
”That,” Snape spat, “is not the point.”
“Perhaps someone thought you would be more comfortable in this chair, Severus, my boy.” Dumbledore smiled, every inch the benign grandfather-figure. “Perhaps I should take their hint and order similar chairs for all the staff – I know my old bones, at least, would quite appreciate a softer seat.”
“I am not yet so old that I need cushions to keep me from breaking bones,” Snape snarled.
The rest of the staff averted their eyes – Snape’s tone was not the sort that encouraged commentary. Finally, with a soft scoffing, McGonagall stepped forward and returned the chair to its former appearance, under Snape’s suspicious and calculating eye. “There, Severus. I certainly hope that whatever foolish person keeps doing you favours will soon see that you don’t appreciate them. Perhaps they’ll move on to a more grateful recipient.”
On the other side of Snape, Lupin shook his head, already thinking again. This was turning out to be a great deal more difficult than he’d imagined, but his target’s reticence, and the thrill of a challenge, was only making him more determined to finally wring some expression of happiness from the other man.
~ * ~
“Lupin. Might I have a word?”
Lupin stopped in the hallway, turning back toward Snape’s office. “Yes, Severus?”
The potions master closed his eyes for a moment with a pained expression, as if merely speaking to his colleague was enough to inspire a migraine. “Have you possibly noticed any of the students plotting mischief? More than usual, I mean.”
“No… why do you ask? Has Filch been finding dungbombs in the lower corridors again?”
Snape snorted and pointed an accusing finger into his classroom. There, covering almost all of the front work-table at which he usually demonstrated the techniques necessary to complex potions, laid an immense pile of roses, each a different colour.
“Goodness,” Lupin remarked. “That certainly is a lovely variety, isn’t it?” He’d hardly expected Sprout to go to such lengths, but apparently that good-natured smile she’d given him had veiled more determination than he’d expected. Or perhaps she was just an incurable romantic, thinking she had been enlisted to help in some sort of amusing courtship ploy.
“That is hardly the sort of commentary I was looking for, Lupin. Do you have any idea why they might be there?”
Lupin shrugged. “No, Severus, I’m sorry. Perhaps someone simply thought you’d like some flowers to brighten your chambers.”
“No one on the staff has seen my quarters, Lupin, and I certainly hope you’re not suggesting that a student might have been in them.”
Blinking, Lupin shook his head. “No, of course not. Er… perhaps you have a secret admirer, then?”
Giving him a look normally reserved for the most dim-witted of students, Snape snorted and swept back into his classroom, slamming the door behind him, and leaving a saddened Remus to look after him, his head bowed once again in thought.
~ * ~
“Settle down, class, settle down… Thank you. Today we’ll be starting on vampires, and I think you’ll find… I’m sorry, my sense of smell is a bit overactive near the full moon, but… I smell roses.” Remus smiled indulgently at his fifth years. “Bit early for St Valentine’s day, don’t you all think?”
One of the girls raised her hand. “Professor Snape made us make Clear Remembrance Drafts today, Professor. We had to chop rose petals for it – that’s why we smell of them.”
“Ah.” Lupin gave a tight smile. “I see. Well. Let’s move on, shall we.”
Potions ingredients. Severus had made potions ingredients out of three dozen long-stemmed roses. This was truly going too far – it was time to get serious about this little exercise.
~ * ~
The next morning, breakfast at the head table was yet again disrupted – but this time by Snape’s studious attempts to ignore a flat package wrapped in shiny green paper and tied with a white bow. Everyone’s curiosity was piqued, but Snape refused to pay the little package the slightest attention, to the point of leaving it there, still untouched, by his goblet when he got up to leave for his first class.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, Severus?”
Snape turned, followed the headmaster’s pointed look at the gift, and gave a long sigh. “I have no interest in whatever further mockeries this practical joker is intent on subjecting me to, Headmaster.”
“Indeed. I was under the impression, Severus, that cards and flowers were generally held to be signs of friendship, if not outright affection.”
Still finishing his own breakfast, Lupin watched with intense interest as Snape stalked back to the table, wrenched the bow off the package, and practically savaged the paper as he shredded it off… a rather innocuous, leather-bound book. He turned it over, peering with resignation at the title. His expression softened slightly once he’d read it, though he now looked more perturbed than anything else.
“Well, Severus?”
“It’s a book on potions,” he snapped, seeming to remember, now, to look ill-tempered.
“Ah. Perhaps not quite so useless as you’d thought, hm?” Dumbledore suggested.
“I doubt it,” Snape sneered as he swept away. But, Remus noticed, he’d left still carrying the book.
~ * ~
“Severus? May I come in?”
“I would think that not receiving an answer to your knocking would be enough to tell you that company is not desired, Lupin.” Snape’s voice carried remarkably well through the heavy oak door to his chambers. Painfully so, to the werewolf who had leaned his ear close to the door to listen for a response from within.
Lupin winced, then shook his head – partly to clear it, and partly in frustration. “I only wanted to see if you were enjoying your book, Severus. It took quite a while to find one you wouldn’t already have.”
The door swung open, and if it weren’t for his rather impressive reflexes Remus surely would have fallen over as the object he was leaning on was suddenly relocated.
“So it was you.”
Bugger. “Er… that’s not what I said, Severus. I… well, I presume that whoever would have bought the book…”
Snape cut him off with a vicious snarl. “What do you want from me, Lupin? Or what is the book going to do? Shall I be waiting for bat wings to sprout from my shoulders, or boils to rise on my skin? Decided to continue in the grand tradition of your dearly departed old friends, have you? Just a bit of fun against Snivellus, for old time’s sake?”
“That’s not it at all.” Lupin stepped forward, rising to the challenge in the other man’s voice.
“Charity, then. Saint Remus taking pity on the former victim of his friends? If you want to clear your conscience, find another way of doing it,” Snape sneered.
“This has nothing to do with that, either. We’ve known each other since we were eleven years old, Severus, and we’ve been colleagues as adults for eight years, three of which you’ve spent in freedom. In all that time, I can hardly remember seeing you smile with actual pleasure, rather than some sort of… bitter satisfaction.”
“So this is all because my attitude displeases you?” Snape snorted. “You really are a fool, Lupin.”
“Perhaps.” Lupin shook his head. “Just humour me, Severus – did you at least find the book interesting?”
“Will you leave if I say I did?”
Lupin watched his old classmate closely. “Perhaps.”
Snape snorted. “On that slim chance, then, yes. I did. Now leave me alone.”
“Good, then.” Lupin smiled. “I’ll stop by tomorrow evening to see how you’re liking it, then.”
“I’ll have the tea with arsenic waiting,” Snape growled.
Lupin laughed and turned to leave. As he did, he noticed something rather odd – a single rose, so dark it was nearly black, rested in a thin-stemmed beaker on the potion master’s bookshelf. The corners of his lips quirked up, but he refrained from comment – a single word from him would certainly win that tiny red bud a place along with the others as potions ingredients. And now he’d know which colour was Severus’ favorite, for next time.
* end *
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-27 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-27 05:03 pm (UTC)...*dies over your icon*
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Date: 2004-07-27 05:46 pm (UTC)I think the way you ended it was just perfect. Snape's gotta have a softer side. Even if it is tiny and buried under layers of unpleasantness. ;)
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Date: 2004-07-27 06:20 pm (UTC)Exactly. I will always believe that, even if it requires my plugging my ears and singing off-key so I can't hear whatever JKR says about him. *g*
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Date: 2004-07-27 06:53 pm (UTC)I know! I just can't help liking the Clintons. I taped Clinton's speech because I was at work last night, but I've heard it was fantastic.
hee, I squee more over Kerry and Edwards though, because Edwards is just so cute.
even if it requires my plugging my ears and singing off-key so I can't hear whatever JKR says about him.
hee! so true.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-28 07:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-28 08:24 am (UTC)