The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part Two

LXI: 23 June, 1994

Severus Snape was not in a good mood. He'd spent the morning overseeing the Potions O.W.L. for the Fifth Year students - a group which included the Weasley twins. 

The only person in the castle that had a right to be more frustrated than Severus Snape at that moment was Argus Filch, who would be mopping up the floor of the Great Hall for eons as a result.

 Even Albus Dumbledore had been impressed by the gaping hole that Fred and George had managed to create when Fred had tried some of the potion they were making (which was not a part of the assigned work) and had thrown up great buckets full of bright, vibrant orange fluid that ate away at the stone floor. He'd then promptly passed out and been rushed to Madam Pomfrey, George running after Flitwick, who was levitating his twin down the corridor, shouting something about ten-ton tongues and that he reckoned they'd put a bit too much powdered nasturtium to the pot.

Now all Snape wanted to do was go to his private quarters and relax and read, but instead the moment he stepped into his adjoined office he was hit by the minty scent of the aconite bubbling in the wolfsbane on his brewing desk and he groaned.

"Of course," he muttered.

It was the full moon, which meant he had to bring Remus Lupin his last dose of the wolfsbane potion. Snape was tempted to just blow it off. Let him gnaw his own legs off for all he, Severus, gave a damn!

He couldn't do that.

Despite the fact that he hated Remus Lupin and nothing would enthrall him more than to see Lupin suffer, he also knew it wasn't an option to neglect the potion. Dumbledore would have his head, for one, and for two, there was no telling what might happen with a monster like that unleashed in the castle.

It might be just the sort of slip that Sirius Black was lurking about waiting for. After all, it wouldn't be the first time that Sirius Black had wanted to use Lupin as a weapon. And what better way to pass off the blame of Harry's demise to another than by giving Harry over to a bloodthirsty werewolf?

He didn't know what had made Sirius give up Lily and James to Voldemort - if it was stupidity, carelessness, or some other calculated idiocy, he didn't know - but it was Sirius Black's fault that Lily Evans was dead, Severus knew that much. And although Harry Potter irritated Severus to no end - he was just so much like his father at that age, he had no hope of doing anything but despising the boy - he didn't want to be the reason why the last bit of Lily Evans in this world was gone... and so he would do whatever it took to protect Harry.

Including trudging up four flights of stairs with the stupid Wolfsbane Potion in a steaming goblet and giving it to that good-for-nothing lay-about, Remus Lupin.

He stood in the corridor outside the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor's office and knocked on the door with his knuckles, holding the tray with the goblet and staring vacantly down the corridor. 

"Is Professor Lupin in? Sir?"

Snape looked 'round then down at the boy. The voice belonged to a second year Ravenclaw walked up, clutching the Year Two DADA textbook and looking timid. It was an extremely nervous student who never quite seemed to dare to speak up when he was in class and when he did it was always with an incorrect answer. How that blundering little fool was a member of the house that valued knowledge and wit above all else was positively beyond Severus Snape. 

Severus's voice was sharp, "No, he's deathly ill and you just might catch it if you stay standing there in this corridor for even one moment longer. Now go to your dormitory or I will see to it that you have detentions for the entire first week of the fall term to look forward to!"

The student's eyes widened and he scattered off as quickly as his legs would carry him.

Severus Snape turned back to the door and knocked again. "Lupin, I swear to you, I will not hesitate to hex down this door if you do not answer..."

He gave the door an extra-hard knock and to his surprise it swung open, having not been properly locked or even, apparently, pulled completely tight shut.

His brows furrowed and he stepped into the room, carrying the goblet and the tray but then laying them down on a shelf next to the door and walking slowly in.

The room was silent, but had all the makings of someone having been there in the room with company. There were drinks on the table by the fire place, which was still burning brightly, in two differently-patterned teacups. He recognized Remus's brown aconite-patterned cups, but directly beside it was a black-and-white-and-hot-pink monstrosity of a cup...

He snarled and drew his wand.

There was only one person he could think of whose teacup would be such a garish, over the top pattern - only one that Snape knew of that could possibly be flamboyant enough to produce something like that...

His eyes travelled over the room... Yes, this was actually quite telling... very romantic setting - the fire and the drinks... and wasn't this very night their anniversary, too, Remus and Sirius's? He had heard Remus thinking about the significance of the day of the 24th many times over the past ten months.

His eyes flickered to the door to Lupin's private quarters and he started toward the stairs to go and catch them out - certainly they would be there, certainly, and where would either of them go, or do, or say to deny their transgressions if Snape caught them there? - but he stepped on something on the floor and he looked down.

It was that bloody old bit of blank parchment.

Except it was not blank.