Sev apparated to the alley behind Spinner's End. The lights of the town reflected off the snow, making the normally dark alley strangely bright. He looked about nervously, wondering if the house was being watched. If Wormtail had noticed a change in him, perhaps others had as well. He ducked quickly through the back garden gate and behind the wards.
Remus was at the kitchen table, asleep, his head on his folded arms. The overhead light was bright overhead. A cup of cold tea sat before him. He stirred when he heard Sev come in, raised his head, and his face broke into a smile.
Sev moved quickly until he had Remus' face between his hands, bending to kiss him, half sitting on his lap, his knee pressing between Remus' legs, desire and relief flooding through him so strongly he feared he might swoon. Remus was kissing him back with breathy, hard kisses, laughing between them with relief. Sev put his hand to Remus' belly and pressed in anxiously.
"Baby all right?" he asked.
"Fine," said Remus.
Sev's hand drifted lower, to where Remus wore an old pair of Sev's jeans, below the bump, unbuttoned and tied with string to hold them up.
"I.....I can't do them up any more," said Remus, looking suddenly self conscious. "Not the usual way."
Sev laughed. "We'll have to get you.... maternity trousers.......or something."
"Or something, yes," Remus agreed.
"A big tenty smock," said Sev.
"No," said Remus.
"Pink, I think, said Sev. "With ducks."
"Definitely no," said Remus.
"Maybe a bow?"
"Stop," said Remus, swatting at him and laughing. "Hungry?"
"Yes," said Sev. "I am. I've been looking forward to this meal all night. But you're distracting me from finishing taking off your jeans. It'd hardly be any effort."
"Not here, " said Remus. "Harry and Hermione are asleep in the parlour. And you look like you could do with some food."
"Food first, then sex?"
"All right," said Remus, smiling at him.
"An interesting arrangement," said Sev.
"It's called being in a relationship."
"Is that was this is?" asked Sev lightly.
But Remus was looking at him seriously, suddenly, not a trace of a smile on his face. "Yes," he said, and kissed him on the forehead. "That's what this is."
Sev found himself looking into those dead serious amber eyes and found he couldn't look away. He was suddenly aware of his breathing, and saw the rise and fall of Remus' chest in the quiet room. He felt a tugging at his heart, the familiar combination of hope and fear that had been his daily companions of late. "I like it," said Sev before he could think better of it. His arms went around Remus and their mouths met in a tender kiss, and then he wasn't afraid any more. "Let's eat," he said.
The meal, in fact, smelled delicious and Sev was starving. When Remus opened the oven the appetizing smell wafted out overpoweringly. He dished up two plates and they both tucked in. "I couldn't eat much before," Remus told Sev. "I was too worried."
While they ate, Sev told Remus of all that had happened. "That Kabbalistic sell was amazing," he said. "I've never felt anything like it. It was smokier, earthier, than normal magic."
'
"How did you manage to conjure the golem?" Remus wanted to know.
"I don't know," confessed Sev. "I just.....followed the magic. Images just came to me. All these old injustices, outrages, and then, he was there, the golem, in my mind. I just....molded him, out of the flames. The magic led me."
"In dire need, save me, infinite spirit" said Remus, repeating the translation of the spell they had uttered together earlier that evening. "Power of the ancients in my bones, fire in my breath. Righteousness is my strength."
"Yashar hayah koach." Sev recited the ending of the spell softly. "Well, it worked. Thank Merlin and Morgana. How did Potter and Granger do? Did they come to blows with Draco?"
"Nearly," said Remus. "But not quite. I finally convinced them I'm not a Death Eater, and got them to eat something. You might want to make yourself scarce around them for a while, though. I haven't really gotten them to trust you yet."
"That....isn't necessary Lupin."
"Well, I think it is. But they'll need a little more time, unfortunately."
"Where's Weasley? Why isn't he with them?"
"Run off, apparently. They said he got discouraged and left."
"I see," said Sev.
He rose, and waved the dishes into the sink with his wand. He grabbed Remus by the hand. "Come to bed," he said.
"Bath first," said Remus. "You're covered in soot."
"All right," Sev agreed. "Bath first."
*********
The upstairs bathroom was tiled in the same ugly green as the washroom downstairs, but it was bigger - big enough for an old fashioned claw foot tub at any rate, though it wasn't exactly spacious. Remus very matter of factly stripped Sev out of his filthy, blackened robes and made him get in the tub. There was a nightlight by the sink that gave a low light that reflected off the green tiles pleasantly, giving the illusion, almost, of being under water.
Remus found an old plastic bucket under the sink. Could it have been Sev's as a child? he wondered. He used it to sluice warm water over Sev's head. He shampooed the cinders and grime out of his hair, rinsed his head with the bucket, shampooed and rinsed again. He scrubbed his back, using a flannel to polish his skin until it shone. He let the blackened water out of the tub, refilled it and poured in some shampoo for bubble bath. Then he soaped Sev's feet and started rubbing them.
"Oh, Lupin," Sev moaned after a few minutes, "That's amazing ..........Don't.......Stop......"
Remus looked up from where he was focussed on working Sev's right foot , squeezing each toe, kneading hard at the heel, digging his fingers into the arch in a way that sent shivers of pleasure through Severus' whole body. Sev's voice had a strangled quality.
"What?" said Remus, looking at him with concern. "Sev, what is it?"
"It's just..... Don't stop all right?" That strangled sound to his voice. Remus finished the right foot and started on the left. By the time he was done Sev had tears running down his face.
"Lupin, get in," Sev said grabbing Remus by the front of his shirt and pulling him towards himself urgently, hungrily.
Remus took Sev's face between his hands and kissed away the tears "Sev..... I..... what's going on?"
"I.....I just got.....emotional." He tugged at Remus' shirt again. That urgency, that intensity. "Get undressed," he said. "Just....get in with me."
Remus leaned back on his heels and looked at Sev. Sev met his eyes, and they stared at each other for a long moment. "You're going to make me talk, aren't you?" Sev said at last.
"Mm hm," said Remus, smiling at him. He brushed a damp lock of hair off Sev's forehead.
"It isn't fair, you know," said Severus.
"It's good for you, though," said Remus.
"You've got the upper hand."
"For once," said Remus. "Talk."
Sev swallowed and stared at the green bathroom tile. What an ugly color it was, he thought. Remus sat there on his heels waiting patiently. The silence lengthened and stretched. "I just got emotional," said Sev again. "That's all."
"But why?"
"Why? I don't know why. It's just.....the Christmas tree, the food, the spell. That was brilliant, using a Kabbalistic spell and it.....it saved me.....us.....I never would have gotten Potter out of there without it. He would have died tonight and it would have all been over. And......no one's ever rubbed my feet like that before and.....it just felt really good, and I........got emotional," Sev finished, some what lamely.
Remus leaned over to kiss him then. Their lips met and Sev kept trying to pull him down into the water with him.
"Get in," he hissed.
"Okay," Remus said. "It's just that you keep saying things that make me want to fall in love with you."
"In.......love?"
"Yes."
"What about Black?"
"Sirius?"
"I thought you were still in love with him."
There was a long pause, as the two men looked at each other in the watery light."I.......I wasn't thinking about him," said Remus at last.
"Oh," said Sev, with feeling. "Shit. I blew that."
"No, it's all right," said Remus quickly.
"I'm an idiot. I should have kept my mouth shut."
"No, I....maybe he wouldn't mind."
"What?"
"I mean, I don't know," said Remus thoughtfully. "Maybe he's just rolling over in his grave, at the thought of the two of us together, but maybe....just maybe, he's just sitting up there on some cloud some where, looking down at us and laughing his head off."
"That's rather a disturbing image, Lupin."
Remus gave a snort of laughter at that, then said, "I mean, if it was the other way round, if it was me that had died, I wouldn't want him to just....stop living because I wasn't there. That would be.....almost worse than dying in a way, if the person you loved the most in the world, the person you loved more than yourself.....was destined to live a miserable life because you were gone. I mean, I wouldn't want that for him, and I don't think he would want it for me either."
Sev was looking at him, his dark eyes were wide and deep and focussed.
"I don't want to be in love with a ghost for the rest of my life," said Remus.
"No," said Sev. "Neither do I." And just like that the spectre of Lily was in the room.
"We're both haunted," said Remus
"Yes," said Sev. "I know. Obviously. Maybe that's why we're falling for each other. Now get in this tub and let me fuck you all ready."
And Remus had to admit, if only to himself, that if Sev was falling for him, then he was falling for Sev as well. Much as it was against his better judgement, much as he hated the thought of once again having his heart and happiness in the hands of another person, he was falling for Sev.
He undressed slowly, removing his shirt and vest, the all ready unbuttoned jeans, his boxers, which he wore riding low now, under his belly. He stood naked in the small bathroom, the low light of the night light reflecting off the greenish tiles. The half moon of his belly curved outward, his cock, long and elegant sticking straight out beneath it.
"C'mere Lupin," said Sev throatily, reaching out to him.
Remus stepped into the tub and straddled Sev but then he was just kissing his face and smiling down at him.
"Why are you smiling at me like that Lupin?"
"I don't know," said Remus. "I'm happy. You're making me happy."
"You're being foolish. There's no point in being happy. We most likely aren't going to survive this war. Either of us."
"I know that. But I can't help it. I'm a werewolf with a broken heart. I never expected to feel any kind of happiness again. And.......Oh," Remus stopped whatever he was about to say and took Sev's hand and put it on his rounded belly.
"What?" said Sev.
"Wait a minute....There.....Did you feel it?"
But Sev had felt it, the ghost of a limb, kicking out at him through the firm skin of Remus' belly. It was....the strangest thing.
"The baby!" he whispered and he felt a foolish, happy grin spread over his own features. "He's.....moving!" He kept his hand on Remus' bump and the baby kicked again. "Hello baby," he couldn't help saying. "Merry Christmas."
Remus bent to kiss him then, soft and tender, and Sev also felt that sensation of happiness licking at his senses so that every movement either of them made felt infused with it, like some strange wine in his veins, like some strange spell in his bones, as their kisses turned deeper and more sensual, as the heat grew between them, calling them both with it's power and urgency "It's like sex, but it's like more than sex," thought Sev, with wonder as Remus slicked his hard, hard cock with soap and pushed himself onto it, taking him deeper and deeper inside, and they made love in the warm water in the shadowy greenish light reflected off the ugly tiles of the bathroom.
********
In the sitting room at Spinner's End, Harry and Hermione lay, wrapped in bedrolls, in front of the glowing embers of the fire. They listened to the sound of the back door opening and closing, the murmur of voices, the clink of cutlery, the occasional low laugh. At last the two men climbed the stairs, together, and they heard water running in the pipes, but no more voices.
"How.......could he?" Harry said at last.
"What?" said Hermione.
"Be.......friends.......with Snape?"
"Boyfriends, Draco said."
Harry rounded on her angrily. "And you believe.... what that......." Harry struggled for the right words to convey his feelings about Draco, "......evil ferret said?"
Hermione shrugged and looked at the flames.
"You do believe it!" Harry hissed at her angrily.
"It......kind of seems like it's true," she said quietly. "They kissed. They acted like a couple. They went up to bed together just now."
"How could he go from Sirius to.....Snape?" Harry said. "It's just.....too weird."
"It does seem strange," Hermione agreed. "I think he's....very lonely."
"I could never be that lonely," said Harry fervently. "At least Sirius knew enough to.....hate Snape. Lupin must have been one of them.....all along."
"What?"
"A Death Eater."
"No," said Hermione firmly. "He can't be. We know him! He was your father's friend! Sirius loved him! He can't have been!"
"Sirius has been wrong about people before," said Harry. "He trusted Wormtail and look what happened then!"
"But we know Professor Lupin!" Hermione insisted. "We know that he's good!"
"I don't know what to believe any more, Hermione! Do you?" said Harry angrily. "Ron up and left us! Dumbledore gave us all these vague instructions and clues, but no real information! Look where that's got us! I don't even know how we got out of there alive tonight! And now there's all these terrible rumours about him!"
"Those are just rumors!" said Hermione.
"Maybe", said Harry. "Maybe not."
"I don't believe them," said Hermione, staunchly.
"And then we find Lupin here, holed up with....Malfoy....and.......and Snape!" The outrage Harry felt about this arrangement came through in his voice. "How can we know he hasn't been a Death Eater all along? You know that Lupin's reputation has been called into question before! At the time my parents were killed a lot of people thought he was a spy! Well, maybe they were right! Maybe we've been fools to trust him!"
"Maybe," said Hermione slowly."But what if Professor Lupin was telling the truth?"
"The truth about what?"
"That Snape and Dumbledore were always working together. That Snape had to kill Dumbledore, that he asked him to do it!"
"I don't believe it!"
"Someone got us out of there tonight," Hermione said thoughtfully. "Away from Voldemort. He was going to kill us. Someone conjured that fire golem and told it to bring us here."
"To Snape's house."
"Yes."
"The question is," said Harry. "Are we really any better off?"
They both stared into the embers. "I wish Ron was here," said Harry.
"Me too," said Hermione.