𝙳𝙴𝙻𝙾𝙲𝙰𝙿𝙾𝙽𝚄𝙼 » 𝚂𝚂/𝚁𝙻

{𝐜𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝐭𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎 » 𝐰𝚒𝚐𝚐𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚎}

< 1 MONTH, 4 WEEKS >

"Filius," Snape urges, his marbled voice spilling through the room like oil, "I have developed need for a book on connective spells."

He passes his most recently-borrowed book back into Flitwick's hands. He is given another. The sky shakes. It begins to rain.

The vial has been placed in hiding in the farthest corner of his most truncated and sunless office shelf. It's a place not even Remus' eyes have ever catechized, covered by a thin black cloth and positioned behind other various bottles and dried bundles of plant leaves. It will not be found by any eyes other than his own, and nothing but his own knowledge will speak its name.

Severus has lost much of his absorption in preserving the memory of Lily. He still grieves her, of course, with such a profundity that he is sure it will never levant itself from his throat. But he's lost that possessiveness; segments of his sadness that which he no longer holds tight to his chest like a string to a needle. He misses her dearly — his only childhood friend; the one good thing he used to have — but what Remus has told him about making something your purpose when it's surely gone has struck him in a way that is irreversibly eye-opening, and this knowledge is something he cannot simply brew away, or at least won't let himself.

And yet he finds himself opening the vial again. He isn't sure why, but there's this force behind his hand that is not his own. Some larger purpose is driving his fingers as he drops some small segments of wiggentree into the glass container, speaking a reassuring statement of experimentation and disclosure. He must finish this potion to see what it does, even if its intention is one for which he no longer yearns.

Adding to his notes with his fountain pen, the old and rusted one from his mother, he jots down his newest constituent—

Wiggentree: for protection.

—and puts it all back on its shelf again.

And then he writes to Remus Lupin, because, damn the man, he wants to see him very much. More than he wants to see the memories he still keeps of Lily. More than he wants this potion and his happiness and his own life.

This is the power and influence that can be so easily immured by wolves, and this he cherishes with the passion of a surgeon to a scalpel, although this blade itself is made of wood and gold, heavy and comforting and warm in his very very cold hands.

The ocean-dark ink seeps into the earth-solid parchment. He doesn't register what he writes before he sends it away, but he knows it is an invitation, and that's all he must remember as he awaits the familiar footstep pattern of the one person he lives for that is still living himself. Wolves are wonderful to wait for. He is willing to wait for centuries.