The Patronus

A story set in the period between Snape's defection to the Order of the Phoenix and the end of the first war, starring characters who don't belong to me in situations that were never envisaged by their author. I have nearly finished writing this but I'm editing it a bit rather than posting as I go as the mistakes in some of my other stories drive me round the bend. Now I've said that I'll find it's full of typos. It's rate M because it's a little bit sweary here and there.

The Dementors were closing in, circling their prey as they sucked every positive thought from their minds. The two trapped in their deadly circle felt as though the very air in their lungs was turning to ice as any thought they treasured was slowly torn from them.

Remus raised his wand, and concentrated hard.

'Expecto patronum!' he cried, and the great silver wolf burst from the end of his wand. It prowled around, knocking back Dementors, but there were so very many of them and the Patronus could not hold them back for long.

'Severus,' he said breathlessly, 'just try!'

'I can't do it,' Snape said wretchedly.

'Try! Please!'

Severus raised his wand and said the words, but nary a puff of silver emerged and he groaned.

'I can't!'

Remus's wolf was fading and the Dementors were surging forward once more.

'Expecto patronum,' Remus repeated. The wolf brightened again and the Dementors were knocked back once more. 'We're going to have to run for it.'

Together they raced towards the Hogwarts boundary. Lungs burning, they hurtled past the trees scattered in their path, sensing rather than seeing or hearing the Dementors' pursuit.

At last, they were there, out of the valley. Snape took Remus's arm and turned on the spot, and instantly they were outside the Order's headquarters in darkest Dorset.

They stood there panting, Remus bent double and coughing.

'You ought to stop smoking,' Snape told him with a smug air.

Remus coughed in response.

Opening the door, they stepped into the silent hall.

'No one is here,' Severus said, and it was true. The house had a still air it never held when Order members were present.

'You need to learn to cast a Patronus,' Remus told him. 'There were too many Dementors to hold them back with just one.'

'You seem to imagine that I do not realise that,' Severus told him stiffly.

'I'm sorry,' Remus said instantly. He thought for a second and had an idea. 'Why don't I teach you?'

'You? Teach me?'

'Well, I can do them,' Remus said mildly, though Snape's tone had been cutting.

'You seem to be under the impression that I am incapable of mastering a fairly simple spell,' Snape said furiously.

'I didn't say that at all, and I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to offend you.'

'But you did,' snapped Snape. 'Though who could expect a werewolf to muster any sort of tact?'

'Tact?' Remus repeated thoughtfully.

'Why do you think I cannot conjure a Patronus, wolf?'

'I don't know… that's why I offered to help. There is absolutely no need,' Remus said evenly, 'to abuse me. I was trying to help you with a spell which could save your life.'

Cursing the patience of that bloody werewolf which always managed to make him feel like a child having a tantrum, Snape decided to give in. Being Snape, however, it was not overly gracefully.

'If you want to give up your free time trying to teach me a spell which I've told you I cannot perform, then you can,' he said.

Remus fought the urge to shout at him and won. In his twenty-three years, he had had a faster and more critical tuition in curbing his tongue than his peers.

'Perhaps we should start now?' he suggested. 'The house isn't this quiet very often.'

Snape made a noise which could be taken for agreement.

'Now, what would be best for you to practise on?' Remus pondered. 'I'll think on that, and perhaps come up with something for next time, and for now we can concentrate on the spell.'

He took out his wand and held it out in front of him.

'We'll say that wardrobe is a Dementor, eh? So, it's this movement – do you want to copy? – and the words expecto patronum. When you say them, move your wand like this -' he demonstrated. 'Expecto patronum!'

The wolf once more materialised from the end of his wand and prowled about the room as if disappointed that there were no Dementors to fight.

'So, do you want a go?'

Snape shrugged, and sulkily raised his wand.

'Expecto patronum.'

Nothing.

'I'm sorry, I forgot the most important part,' Remus said, shaking his head. 'It's the thought. You have to think of a time you were really happy.'

'I am well aware of that.'

'So wha - oh. Oh.'

'The penny drops,' Snape said sourly.

'Oh Severus,' Remus said, his face such a difficult mix of self-laceration and sympathy that Snape would have been amused at this struggle if he had not been so angry. 'I'm such an idiot, I'm so sorry.'

In his distress, he had laid a hand on Snape's arm, and it was shaken off impatiently.

'Don't 'oh Severus' me, werewolf.'

He stuck his wand violently in his pocket and stalked from the room.

Remus was left to feel remorseful. He knew that Severus had had an unhappy childhood – he wasn't sure how he knew, Snape was a close-mouthed young man, but he knew with a certainty that surprised him somewhat – but he had thought that perhaps at school…

'Perhaps what?' he said aloud. 'We were awful to him. People left him alone because of what we'd do to them.'

He clenched his hands into tight fists and felt so guilty that his stomach churned. He could not imagine how full of hate Severus must have been to join Voldemort. He hated the feeling of responsibility he carried for that, that Snape had been damaged so much whilst he and his friends had escaped more or less unscathed. When Snape lashed out at him, sometimes he felt absurdly grateful as though he received some well-deserved punishment that only Severus Snape could mete out satisfactorily.

He hated the werewolf cracks to be sure, but then his lupine alter ego had once nearly torn Snape to shreds. He felt he was still paying reparations for that near miss. Sometimes he wondered if Snape realised that; whether he was only a bastard to make sure he, Remus, received his meet penalty. He wondered if Snape even knew how much he hurt him.

Sometimes, in his head, Remus would decide no, Severus doesn't know, and he would reiterate the reasons as to why he behaved the way he did. Then he would realise what he was doing, and wonder why, and get confused in his thoughts.

And so, alone in the room, Remus was making his usual excuses for Snape's touchiness. He was blaming himself for the lack of tact in pushing the Patronus issue and for all the things he and his friends had done before and he could no longer bear it.

Not stopping to think any more, he strode out into the hall, calling 'Severus!' as he searched the rooms. Snape did not answer, but eventually he found him in the upstairs library.

'Severus,' Remus said hesitantly. 'I'm sorry for being so stupid.'

'Why did you persist in pursuing a topic of conversation which was clearly uncongenial to me?' demanded Snape, not looking up from his work.

'Because I thought if Dementors ever came while you were on your own then you would get – hurt,' Remus said, a little pink.

'Oh, the werewolf's showing his concern. How touching,' sneered Snape, throwing a book down carelessly on a desk, and Remus flushed hot with misery.

'I just wanted to see you safe,' he said softly.

'You might want everyone else to think you're some sort of saint, but I know you're a monster, so you need not pretend to be anything else when you are with me!'

There was an awkward silence, Severus wondering if perhaps, this time, he had gone far enough to hurt Remus so much that he would fight back.

'Why does it bother you when I say I want you to be safe? We're on the same side; of course I want you to look after yourself!'

'Why do you persist in being so civil to me? I obviously want you to leave me alone. I hate the sight of you, and I don't want to hear any more. I want you to fuck off.'

Remus bit his tongue, bowed his head and left the room. He must have found some corner to hide in, because ten minutes later when some other Order members returned, Snape did not hear them greet Remus. He listened for a couple of minutes but then heard someone coming up the stairs so he closed the door and locked it with two casual swoops of his wand.

Later, the rest of the Order of the Phoenix noticed Remus's face and his distracted air, and they noted the absence of Snape. He was blamed for the werewolf's condition – many of them felt it quite likely that he had managed to upset Remus while out on the mission.

He was a popular individual, in a quiet sort of way, and he seemed so downcast that those who returned paid special attention to him, telling him the whereabouts of the other members not present, telling him jokes in the hope of making him laugh, asking him if he wanted cups of tea.

Sirius petted Remus too, a little, but he hated Snape and so could not hold his tongue for long.

'What's Snivellus been doing to you, then?' he asked, roughness concealing his concern.

And Remus, who told himself he did not wish to stir up discord amongst the Order, answered back 'Nothing.' What else could he say? Everyone knew how much Sirius loathed Snape, and he had proven many times he was capable of thoughtless acts.

Sirius tutted a bit, gave Remus a hug and a vigorous hair-ruffling and then talked about something else (his latest love affair, a motorbike-riding Healer with, apparently, a figure like an hourglass).

Remus relaxed into the conversation, barely paying it any attention, just nodding now and then. He was still thinking about Snape.

He had not realised just how far off his daydreams had taken him until he realised Sirius was poking him in the ribs.

'Hey!' he said indignantly.

'Hey nothing,' retorted Sirius. 'You've been sitting there with a soppy great grin on your face for at least ten minutes. What on earth are you thinking about?'

'Not a lot,' Remus said vaguely. 'I'm just tired. So what did I miss?'

'I'm more interested in what you were thinking about,' Sirius persisted.

'Well then, it would appear we're at a stalemate,' Remus told him. 'I wasn't thinking about anything.' An inopportune blush belied his words, and Sirius looked narrowly at him.

'Rest assured I'll find out if there's anything going on.'

Remus smiled resignedly. 'I'm sure you would, if there was anything.'

Remus's friends knew, and were resigned to, his terminal daydreaming. They had always teased him about it, asking him what on earth was so very fascinating, and Remus would always laugh and refuse to answer. It had been the trigger for his risibly appropriate nickname; one holiday, James's mother had described him so. She had regretted it bitterly when she had seen the look on Remus's face, but the boys, 13 and careless, had not seemed to notice.

Still, even Remus isn't usually that damned moony, Sirius reflected and resolved to keep an eye on his friend.

'Cup of tea and a cigarette by the river?' he proposed, and was rewarded by a beatific smile.