Because the muse was so damn insistant

Seen on the wall of a coffee shop:
“When we drink coffee, ideas march like the army”
I know absolutely nothing about Balzac, but I have to love him for that quotation alone.

Also:

Cross posted to hp_humor:
Title: Strictus Snipe and a Cure for Writers’ Block
Rating: PG
Pairing: Remus/Severus
Summary: Romance, intrigue, and distinctly bad prose are unleashed on Hogwarts when the identity of the mysterious Gertrude Perkins is finally revealed.
Notes: Gertrude Perkins is of course stolen from Blackadder Series Three (“Ink and Incapacity”, to be precise). I have paraphrased shamelessly from Douglas Adams at one point.




Strictus Snipe and a Cure for Writers’ Block

“So. Romulus Vulpin. We meet again.”

“Indeed we do, Strictus Snipe.”

In a sudden reckless passionate movement, he leaned forward and planted a kiss on the other man’s impossibly luscious mouth.

“Are you glad to see me?” he demanded when they finally pulled apart, each aching inwardly at the sudden loss of the other’s warm lips.

Strictus stared at him, his expression of outrage melting to adoration. “Of course. But after you made that attempt on my life –”

“That was all a misunderstanding! It’s always been you, Strictus!”
“Truly?”

“Truly. Now let me kiss you again.”

They resumed their ecstatic duel of tongues, their bodies melding together like two conjoined atoms in a spectacular chemical reaction. Strictus gave a soft moan, his head flung back. Romulus felt suddenly weak at the knees. He pulled the other man close and ran an exploring hand over his

“Damn,” said Remus Lupin, irritably throwing down his quill. “This really isn’t working.”

*

“And what, precisely, do we have here?”

The two girls quailed guiltily.

“Nothing,” one of them – Parvati Patil – attempted bravely.

“Really?” said Snape disdainfully. An objective observer might have wondered that his voice did not collapse under the weight of its own sarcasm. “This –” here he gestured to the paperback lying on the desk, “– this is nothing, is it?”

“It’s a book,” Lavender Brown said meekly.

“So I perceive, Miss Brown. And perhaps I had better see what it is about this particular book that you find so much more interesting than your potions class. Hand it over.”

Reluctantly Lavender complied, all the while staring at the floor as if willing it to swallow her up. (Or perhaps alternatively – had she been capable of such logic – willing it to swallow Snape up instead.)

Snape allowed himself a small sneer – a warm-up sneer, a sneer that was flexing its muscles and sipping a sports drink and preparing to grow into a larger, more strenuous sneer altogether – before turning the book over to examine it.

“ “Passion in the Potions Laboratory”,” he read slowly. “How very appropriate. Let’s see what the synopsis says: “When ethereal blonde Selenity Firestarr comes to work as assistant to the brilliant and brooding potions’ developer Strictus Snipe, the sparks fly! But will these two volatile ingredients provoke an explosion of passion or potion? A passionate tale of love against the odds!” ” He paused briefly, as if too overcome to speak immediately. “Well.”

This time the entire class flinched in sympathy. The two culprits looked as if contemplating immediate suicide.

“This is most interesting, isn’t it?” Snape said.

Hermione Granger raised a hand.

“That was a rhetorical question,” Snape snapped without looking at her. “Ten points from Gryffindor for being excessively literal!”

Hermione lowered her hand, looking put out.

“I am confiscating this…abomination,” Snape continued, returning his glare to the two Gryffindors, “and I will be speaking to Professor McGonagall personally about your rather dubious choice in reading matter. In the mean time, ten points apiece from Gryffindor for such an appalling lack of taste.”

He picked the paperback up between finger and thumb and flung it onto his desk with a look of disgust, as if he had been forced to handle something particularly unpleasant.

“And if any of you feel inclined to bring light fiction into my classroom in the future,” he continued, turning to address the entire class, “I would prefer it not to be of such appalling quality, not to have a rose-scented, luminous pink dust jacket, and not to have issued forth from the quill of someone calling herself Gertrude Perkins. Do I make myself quite clear?”

The students nodded wordlessly.

“Well then.” He smiled briefly, the smile of an artiste who has completed a work to his satisfaction. “Let’s return to the properties of deadly nightshade, shall we?”

*

“Damn,” Remus said again. It didn’t help. He was halfway through his latest novel, Temptation amongst Teachers, and he had already run into difficulties.

He was not accustomed to writers’ block. In his lengthy career as a novelist he had rarely experienced it, turning out book after book with a regularity which delighted his publisher and his public alike. Because they were popular reads, these books of Remus’: racy, bodice-ripping affairs, each one about the size of a house brick and averaging nine point six sex scenes per chapter. Remus – under the pseudonym of Gertrude Perkins – was well known and loved across wizarding Britain, and had profited well from his success.

He was not precisely proud of his literary career, however. On the contrary, the fact that he was a romance novelist was a secret he guarded even more closely than he the secret of his being a werewolf – for next to a romance novelist a werewolf poses a relatively small threat to society, and is indeed comparatively harmless. Remus published the odd scholarly article from time to time, in an effort to appease his conscience, but the feeling of shame remained.
The occupation had been forced on him in the bad old days, when food and money had been scarce, and he had had no choice but to prostitute his intelligence to obtain the necessities of life (chocolate, comforting cardigans, and his subscription to Vogue). And even now, when he was reinstated at Hogwarts, with a fair-to-middling salary and all the stodgy food he could eat, Remus found the habit of writing rather hard to break. The money was simply too good to refuse.

But there was another, more important reason he had not given up the writing:

Strictus Snipe.

His greatest creation. The reason the books sold as they did. The readers had fallen in love with him.
And so, it was becoming slowly apparent, had Remus.

It was his own fault, really. After all, the character was designed to be adored by all and sundry. He was the kind of man who women wanted to be like and men simply wanted. Strictus was tall and slender, clad always in black, his expression alternating between brooding and sneering. He was highly intelligent, able to read Latin, make jokes in Ancient Greek, develop new potions and spells and quote from muggle and magical authors alike. He was also a gifted fencer, profoundly talented at chess, and a virtuoso violin player. His voice was intensely seductive, his manners reserved but with a certain courtly grace that never failed to charm. All animate beings (and some inanimate ones) adored him on sight, helpless in the face of his enormous charisma. Beneath his cynical façade beat the heart of an impassioned lover; under his appearance of detachment dwelt the soul of a poet. He had not one but several dark and tormented pasts, and was constantly on the look out for the love of a good man (or woman) to heal the scars of his traumatic history.

He was in short the hero, the character around which all Remus’ books centred. And the number of books he had featured in was a testament to his popularity:

There was Sex in the Shack, where Strictus and his old enemy Canis Noir enjoyed a brief romantic encounter between pages of witty badinage. There was Lust in the Library, where Strictus formed an attachment to his feisty colleague Athene McDonald. There was Desire in Detention, where Strictus and his rebellious student Harvey Kettler shared a secret liaison fraught with danger and passion. There was Remus’ personal favourite, Ménage a trois at the Manor, where Strictus had a fling with the icy aristocrat Tantalus Malfop. There was Affair with an Aristocrat, in which Strictus began an affair with Tantalus Malfop’s beautiful wife, Daffodil. There was Passion in the Potions Laboratory, where Strictus had won the heart of his beautiful assistant, the mysterious Selenity Firestarr. And there was Remus’ most recently published work, Liaison at the Lair, in which Strictus shared a touching romance with the evil wizard, Lord Vol-au-vent.

Each one had been written without difficulty, each one was a bestseller, and each one had earned Remus a very impressive amount of money. And so naturally enough Remus had expected no problems with Temptation amongst Teachers. Each novel had the same plot, after all – a plot Remus had reduced to a brief, ten-point formula, which he kept pinned above his desk for easy reference:

1. Strictus meets love interest. Some kind of misunderstanding/contrived incident leads to sex
2. They meet under different circumstances and have a fight fraught with sexual tension
3. Various people tell them to get together
4. Miscellaneous other people have miscellaneous sex to pass the time
5. Strictus and love interest have a meaningful conversation (OPTIONAL)
6. Some kind of dramatic event brings Strictus and love interest together
7. Sex scene
8. Sex scene
9. Sex scene
10. Happy ending

So if the problem with his new book wasn’t the plot, then it had to be the love interest, Remus decided.

It didn’t surprise him. He had had his doubts about the character of Romulus Vulpin from the start: all he ever seemed to do was eat chocolate and advise other people whilst nodding wisely and offering cups of tea at well-timed intervals. And his dress sense was abysmal – all those tweeds and cardigans, it was as if he only shopped at Oxfam or something. Remus simply couldn’t empathise with the man at all.

But Remus’ editor (a goblin named Carl) had seemed inexplicably keen on having Romulus in the story, and Remus never liked to cross Carl. What the goblin lacked in height he made up for in firearms and highly-trained assassins wielding wands and large planks of wood, and after a most disagreeable incident some twelve years ago, Remus was determined never to upset him again.

He sighed, and stood up to find himself some more coffee.

He had to put an end to it, he decided, when he had poured himself a cup of coffee and collapsed into his favourite easy chair. This had to be the last book. Being Gertrude Perkins was undignified. It was inappropriate. It was wrong. It was dangerous.

But it was also incredibly good fun.

And then there was Strictus to consider. Could Remus really force himself to let Strictus go? He was so incredibly charming, so profoundly mysterious, so amazingly seductive, so dazzlingly attractive, so innately…

“Snape!” Remus exclaimed with a jump, looking up sharply to see his colleague standing in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”

“You left your door unlocked,” Snape remarked blandly.

“Was there something you wanted?”

“Your register. Albus sent me to retrieve it, for some unfathomable reason.”

Remus frowned in puzzlement. “Did he say why he wanted it?”

“I did ask, but he just started rambling on about socks and destiny and plot devices, so I thought it best just leave him to his insanity.”

“Oh. Well, the register’s there on the desk. Help yourself.”

Remus set his coffee mug down on top of a pile of books, and watched as Snape moved moodily over to the desk.

The desk at which Remus had just been working.

The desk which he had not yet tidied up.

The desk on which the manuscript of Gertrude Perkins’ latest novel was resting, free from any obscuring charm, concealing enchantment, or disguising spell.

Ah.

Remus started in horrified recollection, and sprung out of his armchair.

“Hang on, Severus, I’ll find it myself - !”

But it was too late.

“What’s this? </i>“Temptation amongst Teachers”</i>…?”

Snape began to flick through the pages of parchment.

“Severus, I can explain –!” Remus grimaced inwardly. The books were clearly starting to contaminate his everyday language.

“Well, well, well…Isn’t this just fascinating…”

Remus winced. “I was…proof-reading it. Yes. I was just looking after it for a friend. It’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

Snape was smiling. Short of seeing the water in the Hogwarts’ lake turn to blood, Remus could thing of no surer omen of disaster.

“You’re Gertrude Perkins, aren’t you?” Snape demanded gleefully, browsing through the parchment with a look of utter delight.

Remus sank back into his chair with a sigh of defeat. “I needed the money.”

“And so you decided to stoop to this level in order to save your worthless hide.”

“I am a werewolf. I had no money. I was starving. What other profession was open to me?”

Snape gave a cough which sounded remarkably like “Prostitution!” and turned his attention back to the pages of Temptation Amongst Teachers. To Remus’ surprise he reached for a quill and began methodically to cross out words and make alterations.

“Severus?” Remus said, after three minutes’ dazed silence. “Are you … marking my manuscript?”

Snape looked up from the desk with a smirk. “Well, it was about time someone corrected your dismal prose style, Lupin. Or should that be Miss Perkins? I’ve had students bringing these pathetic excuses for literature into my class for weeks on end, and frankly it doesn’t surprise me that you’re responsible. This amount of split infinitives could only be the work of someone of your peerless iniquity.”

“What are you going to do?” Remus asked, his throat suddenly dry.

Snape laid down the quill, and folded the manuscript into four quarters before tucking it away in his robes.

Then he moved slowly, deliberately over to where Remus was sitting, and leaned over the chair so that their faces were only inches apart.

“Wait and see,” he said softly.

A brief smirk, and he was gone.

Remus took another sip of coffee and began to feel distinctly alarmed.

*

It happened at breakfast the next day.

Remus supposed afterwards he should have realized what was to come. And yet he hadn’t. He had sat down to breakfast the next morning (slightly later than usual) feeling worried, but with no premonition of immediate disaster.

“You’re a little late this morning,” Minerva had commented with a smile when he sat down. “Did you over-sleep?”

“Sorry,” Remus floundered dazedly, “I’m…”

“Toast,” interjected Snape, from the other side of the table.

“I beg your pardon?” Remus said, starting slightly.

“Would you care for some toast, Remus?”

He was calling him Remus. All was surely lost.

“No thank you, Severus.”

There was a brief pause in conversation, occasioned by the arrival of the porridge. Hogwarts porridge was a substance like no other – a thick, sinister concoction which was rumoured to have swallowed a particularly small first year alive several years ago. It was impossible to eat the stuff without a great deal of concentration, and it put talk out of the question for some minutes.

“Are we having a Yule ball this term?” Flitwick asked at last, when the porridge had finally disappeared.

Eyebrows were raised, heads were shaken, and expressions of puzzlement abounded.

“Why in Merlin’s name would we have a Yule ball?” Vector demanded. “It isn’t the Triwizard Tournament this year. It would make no sense whatsoever!”

“I know that, it’s just…Well, I’ve just bought these really lovely dress robes, and now that there isn’t a Yule ball I won’t have anywhere to wear them, and the wife was so looking forward to it, what with there being a war on and all …”

“The Yule Ball only happens when there’s a Triwizard Tournament,’ pointed out Minerva. “You can’t just go around having one just because you feel like it.”

“We could have a Valentines Ball instead,” suggested Dumbledore. “I know it’s unprecedented, but it would be good for morale. Keep everyone’s spirits up and what not. Besides, if we held it in February it would give us longer to plan it.”

There were nods and smiles from around the table. All present seemed to consider the idea an excellent one. With the exception of Snape, of course, who gave an ostentatiously wide yawn and poured himself another cup of tea.

“What do you think, Severus?” asked Dumbledore mischievously. “Does the idea of chaperoning another ball appeal to you?”

Snape set down his cup of tea with a soft clink. “I think it’s an excellent idea.”

The teachers exchanged astounded looks. Remus slumped into his seat with a sudden feeling of dread.

“…You do?” said Dumbledore incredulously, regarding the uncharacteristically smiling Snape with a look of puzzlement.

“I certainly do. And I suggest that Lupin here be in charge of organizing the event. This is his forte, after all.”

“What?”

“Well, romance.” (Snape looked faintly sickened by the word.) “What with all those books he writes, and – oh. Oh dear me. I’m so terribly sorry. Did you not want me to mention anything, Remus?”

“Books?” Minerva McGonagall asked interestedly. “I had no idea you were a man of letters, Remus. I’m surprised you never said anything before.”

“Well,” Remus began awkwardly. “They’re under a nom de plume.”

“Which is?”

“I’d prefer not to say.”

“Oh, come on, Lupin, there’s no need for modesty,” Snape said with a smile. “I’m quite honoured to be teaching alongside none other than the illustrious Gertrude Perkins.”

There was a pause, which lasted for some time.

“Gertrude Perkins?” Minerva said at last. She looked rather unwell.

“You wrote … those books?” Poppy Pomfrey demanded incredulously.

Remus nodded weakly, his eyes on the table. “I’ll pack my bags immediately, Albus.”

“What do you mean?” Dumbledore said with a smile. “You surely don’t think I’m going to fire you, do you?”

“Well…aren’t you?”

“Good gracious, Remus, of course I intend to do no such thing. Granted your books are a little… racy (or at least so I hear, not having actually read a single one of them myself and not knowing what any of them are called, especially not Liaison at the Lair, which certainly isn’t my favourite), but what you do in your free time is not my affair. Besides, if I went around sacking every member of staff who’d ever penned a risqué romance novel, I’d hardly have a competent professor left at Hogwarts!”

(Here Flitwick and McGonagall looked distinctly shifty).

“Are you sure?” Remus asked tentatively. “Because I would hate to cause you any difficulties…”

“Nonsense, Remus. Now pass the coffee, I think there’s time for one more cup before classes, don’t you?”

And slowly, haltingly, normal conversation resumed.

“I’m sorry to have disappointed you,” Remus muttered to Severus as he rose to leave some minutes later.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You must be terribly put out that I haven’t been sacked over this.”

Snape smiled. “On the contrary, I couldn’t be more pleased.”

Remus stared at him aghast. “What?”

“You’ll see,” said Snape with a smirk. (Surely it couldn’t be normal, thought Remus irrelevantly, the way Snape smirked at everyone all the time. Perhaps he had something wrong with his facial muscles? Or was he simply trying to smile without disclosing his teeth?)

Even as these thoughts were flitting aimlessly through Remus’ mind, Severus had turned in a flurry of robes and stalked off without a backwards glance, slicing through the crowds of chattering students like a meat cleaver through butter.

Poser, thought Remus irritably. Billowing around like a big black…sheet. But he did not look away until Snape was finally lost from sight.

*

In a very short space of time Remus discovered what Snape had meant.

There was the whispering. The giggling. The semi-facetious requests for his autograph. The demands about when Gertrude Perkins’ latest book would be published. The lascivious comments made behind his back. The anonymous gifts of lacy underwear and cheap chocolates. And that was just the teachers.
The pupils were even worse: Harry kept staring at him as if he had gone insane. Hermione seemed scandalised. Ron looked constantly sickened. Lavender and Parvati, on the other hand, had taken to following him about wherever he went like two exceptionally well-groomed tracker dogs.

Remus took to hiding in his rooms, emerging only to teach classes and attend
staff meetings. His chocolate supply dwindled, he began to jump at small noises, and every morning the post brought letter after letter from adoring fans, delighted to have finally discovered his identity and bombarding him with requests for autographs, signed photographs and locks of his hair. After a week of such existence, Remus was a shadow of his former self, and a distinctly miserable shadow at that.

The book also began to suffer. Deprived of his manuscript (for he had yet to find the courage to ask Snape for it back) Remus found that inspiration continued to
elude him.

Even Strictus Snipe was no longer a comfort. Remus was beginning to find his constant smirking and excessive seductiveness profoundly irritating. His obsessively polysyllabic speech and habit of dressing solely in black had begun to remind Remus of something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, and it was intensely irritating. He began to wonder if perhaps he was finally getting tired of his favourite creation. His sympathies were now entirely with the unfortunate Romulus Vulpin, who had to sit around angsting about his unfortunate past whilst Strictus ponced around in billowy robes and drawled every word he spoke and generally behaved like a posturing prat.

Perhaps it really was time for him to quit, Remus reflected one miserable day, after a particularly miserable hour of scratching mindlessly away at the parchment.

“Why do you take delight in vexing me?” cried Romulus, his golden brown hair dishevelled by the wind, his shirt turning slowly transparent in the torrential rain. “Why do you constantly patronise me and keep me at a distance?”

“I keep you at a distance?” demanded Strictus, his night-black eyes flashing fire. “You are the one who attacked me, the one who always mocks me and thwarts my plans. I thought I had escaped you, and then you returned to torment me again! Why can you not let me be?”

Romulus turned away, his eyes filling with tears. “Because…because I love you, Severus. I love you! I loved you since the day we first met. In spite of everything, I have never been able to forget you. You annoy me and belittle me and upset me and I can’t put you out of my mind! You are the only one who can make me feel, without you there is nothing! THAT’S why I can’t leave you alone, you insufferable bastard!”

There was something very wrong with the last paragraph, Remus thought vaguely, scanning the lines of sloping writing rapidly, and it wasn’t just his prose style. There was something seriously out of place, it nagged at him and yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on it…

And then it hit him like a particularly unpleasant thunderbolt: Severus.

For a moment Remus stared at the paper in disbelief.

A slip of the quill, he told himself quickly, scribbling out the entire paragraph with guilty haste. It was just a slip of the quill. He wasn’t thinking, he was angry at Snape for betraying him, and so instead of Strictus he had put Severus. Nothing more than that.

He stood up, a feeling of utter revulsion flooding through him. He had been inside for too long. That was all it was. It wasn’t because the similarity had always been there had he chosen to see it, because the man whose exploits filled his novels had a twisted smile and fathomless dark eyes. It wasn’t because the two had been blended in his treacherous mind for so long without him realising it. It wasn’t because it meant anything at all.

He stared down at the desk, at the dreadful parchment:

I love you, Severus.

Damn.

*

“Remus?” Albus Dumbledore pushed open the door to Remus’ sitting room, looking concerned. “Are you quite alright?”

Remus looked up from his desk. “Quite alright, thank you, Albus. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well…the fact that you were banging your head against the table and moaning
softly under your breath seemed to indicate distress of some sort.”

“Um. No. I’m quite alright. It’s …er… a radical type of meditation I’m working on. Supposed to increase concentration.”

“Really? Any success?”

“Not as such. Would you like some tea?”

“No, thank you, Remus. I’ve just come to remind you to take your potion tonight. I thought that…given certain events, you might have forgotten the date.”

“Oh. Thank you. I had forgotten, actually. I’ll go straight away.”

“Excellent.”

Remus paused. “Albus?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you looking so happy?”

“Happy?”

“As if you know something,” said Remus suspiciously. “As if you’ve got some kind of Machiavellian Plan up your sleeve.”

“I? Have a Machiavellian Plan? Up my sleeve?” said Dumbledore, attempting to look guiltless and failing dismally. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Remus sighed, but – being a man of heroic patience – made no reply. Dumbledore smiled approvingly.

“That’s the spirit, dear boy. Now you hurry off and advance the plot.”

“Pardon?” said Remus sharply.

But Dumbledore was humming the Great Escape theme tune and staring fixedly at his left shoe, and appeared not to have heard him.

*

“Snape!” Remus yelled five minutes later, as he stood outside the door to Snape’s quarters.

The door opened three inches, disclosing a pair of glittering dark eyes and a large nose. “What do you want?”

(“You,” Gertrude Perkins would have written, and then the encounter would have rapidly degenerated into a passionate yet tender sex scene, lasting four pages and using every possible synonym for “sensuous” at least once. Fortunately – or perhaps unfortunately, depending on your view – Remus managed to choke back the word before it left his mouth.)

“The wolfsbane potion,” he replied instead. “And my privacy back, but I suppose that’s out of the question thanks to your little “slip” earlier this week.”

Snape looked made a vain effort to look contrite. “A simple accident, Lupin, I assure you. I’m quite wretched to think how you must be suffering.”

“I just bet you are, you – you –” (don’t say attractive don’t say attractive don’t say attractive) “– you … evil man,” Remus finished feebly.

“I hope you know how much I’ve always admired your rapier wit, Lupin,” Snape remarked conversationally. “You should give classes in badinage and repartee – perhaps you’d even make enough money to quit your disreputable literary career.”

“Just give me my potion, before I turn into a wolf and rip you limb from scrawny limb,” Remus snapped, feeling unusually flustered. Fortunately Snape appeared not to have noticed, because he simply sighed and looked put-upon.

“Oh, very well. I suppose it would be inconvenient if you went on a murderous rampage and had to be put down.”

The door swung open, and Remus stepped cautiously inside. He had been in Snape’s office many times before, but the place never failed to fill him with a deep sense of depression and dread. The indeterminate disgusting things in jars were still on the walls, he noticed gloomily, and there were rather more cobwebs than he remembered. Perhaps Snape had put them there himself in a misguided attempt at interior decorating. There was a cauldron simmering in a corner, in which the wolfsbane was steaming quietly. The only personal touches were a dusty bookcase and a painting of a constantly-hopping sock, which Remus assumed correctly to be a gift from Dumbledore.

“The potion will take five minutes to be complete,” Snape said. “After which time you will drink it and go away.”

“Believe me, Severus, I have no inclination to linger here.” Remus paused, sniffing the air. “Tell me, does your office always smell like this, or is it just from brewing the wolfsbane?”

“You’re lucky I’m making this for you at all, given your latest –” Snape stopped short at the sound of a knock at the door. Wrenching it open he revealed Draco Malfoy standing outside, wearing a worried expression and holding a human skull. “What is it?” Snape demanded curtly.

Draco began to whisper something hurriedly to Snape. Remus caught the words “cricket” and “marmalade” and “thousand-year-old curse”, and wondered vaguely what on earth the Malfoy brat had got himself into this time.

“Very well,” Snape said at last. “Lupin,” he said, turning to Remus, “you will stay here and look after the potion. You will touch nothing. If I have not returned in five minutes you will take the potion off the heat, pour yourself a goblet full, and leave. You will touch nothing else at all. Do you understand me?”

Remus nodded. “I was just wondering, though,” he began hopefully, “do you think I could possibly –”

“Lupin, I have told you this a thousand times already,” snapped
Snape, “sugar makes the whole damn potion useless. You will drink it as it is and stop whining about it.” He turned to Draco: “Come on, we’d better close the portal before the giant slugs arrive.”

“Giant slugs?” asked Remus curiously, but the door had already slammed shut.

He began to wander up and down the office, surveying the jars. They did little to improve his mood, and he moved swiftly over to the bookcase. It was a popular maxim of Remus’ that you could tell a lot about a person’s mind from the state of their bookcase, and he could not suppress his curiosity to see what Severus Snape considered good reading matter.

The bookcase was tall and narrow, crammed with potions and dark arts texts, and…full of surprises apparently, Remus thought, picking up a battered copy of The Life of P. Tedious Caesar, Rome’s Most Forgettable Emperor only to have the dust jacket fall apart in his hands. Underneath the faded grey cover, a flash of strangely familiar lilac paper came into view.

Remus turned the book over in his hand: Desire in Detention, By Miss Gertrude Perkins.

He blinked.

Turning back to the bookcase, he began to inspect the other books, only for the phenomenon to repeat itself: The History of Very Dull Mushrooms was really Affair with an Aristocrat. One Hundred Boring Anecdotes about Trains was revealed to be Lust in the Library. Hogwarts, a History (the Extended Edition, Now With Even More Uninteresting Material!) turned out to be Liaison at the Lair. In the space of about five minutes, Remus had uncovered the entire set, the bright covers making a strange splash of colour in the otherwise drab office.

At that moment the door to the office crashed open, and Snape hurried inside.

“I forgot to mention it, but whatever you do, Lupin, don’t go near the bookcase –”

He stopped short, taking in the pile of novels and Remus’ amused expression.

“Ah,” said Snape. Never in his life had Remus seen anyone look so thoroughly
discomfited.

“Well, well, well…” Remus quoted softly. “Isn’t this just fascinating…”

Snape sank into a nearby chair with a look of utter dejection.

“You’re going to make me suffer, aren’t you?”

Remus smiled, feeling more cheerful than he had for days. “Now why would I do that, Severus? Surely I should be flattered that someone as intelligent as yourself, someone with such high standing in Hogwarts, would be a admirer of my books? I’m surprised you didn’t ask me to autograph one of your copies…you do have such a large collection, after all.”

He paused, but Snape was apparently lost for words. A sight which many of Hogwarts’ inhabitants would have paid good money to behold, Remus thought dryly.

“And all of them hardback, too…these can’t have been cheap, Severus. You should have asked, I’d have sent you them free of charge…”

“You –” Snape managed to swallow the insult before it escaped his lips – it had clearly occurred to him that insulting Remus could only result in further misery.

“I had always thought you rather despised the idea of romance…still, I suppose it just goes to show how little you can really tell about someone from appearances, doesn’t it? Although considering how devoted you are to my work, your behaviour last week does look a tiny bit … hypocritical, wouldn’t you say?”

“Lupin.” Snape’s voice was full of defeat.

Remus looked at Snape. “Yes?” he asked sweetly.

“What do you intend to do?”

Remus smiled, moving closer to where Severus was sitting. He lent over Snape as Snape had leaned over him, so close that their noses were almost touching. He could hear Snape catch his breath, and felt a small, insidious thrill of delight.

“Wait and see,” he said softly. As Snape must have known he would. Which made it all the more satisfying.

And then, because he had the upper hand and because it rather suited Snape to look mortified and for various reasons he preferred not to explore in great detail at that moment, he leaned closer still and kissed the other man lightly on the mouth.

“Wha - ?” said Snape, entirely at a loss.

“Good night, Severus.”

“I didn’t do that to you!” Snape protested, getting his breath back with difficulty. “That was completely unfair!”

Remus took the goblet of wolfsbane, gave Snape a brief and maddening smile, and was gone, ducking round the door just in time to miss the bottle of ink which Snape flung – with more wrath than accuracy – at his head.

*

That went rather well, thought Remus, when he was back in the safety of his own rooms. In fact, he reflected cheerfully, the problem of Severus Snape was practically solved.

Then his eyes caught the crumpled manuscript still lying on the desk.

I love you

Not quite solved, however.

*

Remus rather admired the fact that Snape came down to breakfast the next morning as usual. He had half-expected the other man to stay away, guessing what Remus had in store for him. But then, that wasn’t really Severus’ way. Remus knew he would face this – as he had faced Voldemort, guilt, mortal peril, and the annual staff Christmas party – with his usual gloomy stoicism. He sat down at breakfast without a word to anyone, as was his wont. Remus smiled at him, but Snape was studiously avoiding his eyes. He was paler than usual, and looked slightly twitchy.
As well he might, thought Remus cheerfully. He allowed Severus one cup of tea without interruption, and then began his attack.

“By the way, Albus, I discovered a new fan, yesterday.”

“Really?” said Dumbledore with an indulgent smile. “How nice for you.”

“Yes. Someone right here in Hogwarts who’s been reading my books for years without ever knowing that it was I who wrote them.”

“Who is it?” asked Minerva interestedly. “A student?”

“No, not a student,” Remus replied smilingly. “A professor, one of our most highly-esteemed colleagues.”

“Well, who?” demanded Sinistra, taking a bite of toast. Snape’s pallor, Remus noticed interestedly, had suddenly intensified, and he was gripping his coffee mug as if he had a personal grudge against it.

“A man with the respect of students and teachers alike, who’s been a professor at Hogwarts for over a decade,” Remus continued dreamily.

“Cut out this shilly-shallying,” said Hooch impatiently. “Who is it?”

Remus paused for a moment, his smile widening, until he was sure of everyone’s attention. “Why, it’s … Filius, of course!” he exclaimed jovially, smiling benignly at Flitwick, who was dipping toast soldiers in his soft-boiled egg. “You’ve been reading them for years, haven’t you Flitwick?”

“Certainly have!” beamed Flitwick from the opposite end of the table. “Read a chapter every night before I go to bed! I think you’re very gifted, Remus. And my wife says exactly the same.”

“You’re too kind,” Remus rejoined modestly. “Care for some bacon, Severus?”

Snape started. “No, thank you,” he said stiffly.

“But I saved it for you especially…”

“No, thank you,” Snape repeated, staring at the table as if he had never
seen something so profoundly interesting before in the entire course of his life.

“Well, if you’re sure…” Remus began to pile bacon onto his place with a feeling of intense satisfaction.

“By the way, does anyone here know anything about enchanted objects?” asked Vector suddenly. “I’ve got a wireless in my office that someone’s cursed to play nothing but Wagner, and it’s driving me insane.”

A heated discussion swiftly broke out on the best way to tackle the problem, and Remus’ unsavoury career was for a time forgotten.

“What the hell are you playing at, Lupin?” Severus demanded quietly some ten minutes later, when the teachers began to leave the table to prepare for lessons (or in Dumbledore’s case, for a morning of playing monopoly with Fawkes and the sorting hat).

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Did you do it out of the stupidity of your heart, or is this an attempt to make me feel guilty? Because I assure you it won’t work.”

“Coals of fire, Severus,” Remus murmured in Severus’ ear. “And it’s working already.”

*

Despite his best efforts, Severus’ better nature occasionally broke through. It was a fact he was suitably ashamed of, and something he preferred to keep a dead secret if at all possible.

But then – he supposed moodily – Lupin had taken possession of so many of his secrets already that one more would probably not make much difference.

*

It was midnight a week later when Remus heard a knock at his door, and opened it to find a small package left outside.

He opened it curiously, only to discover his own manuscript of Temptation amongst Teachers, carefully annotated in Snape’s cramped script, and with a brief paragraph of advice scrawled on the back. Remus gave a sigh of absolute relief, because now the novel could be finished, and Carl would have no need to dispatch his assistants to fetch the book in person, for which Remus was sincerely grateful.

There was also a terse note in handwriting Remus recognised easily as Severus’:

Publish and be damned, then. I have done my best to correct your lamentable style, though I fear it may be beyond my power to remedy. Unlike you, I have never seen fit to perpetrate works of fiction, but I am told that alcohol is a useful remedy for writers’ block. I have a bottle of tolerable red wine in my office should you require further inspiration in the future.

Incidentally, I lied when I told you wolfsbane becomes useless when brought into contact with sugar. In fact, sugar has absolutely no effect on the potion at all. Just thought you should know.

“You…bastard,” Remus murmured softly, but his heart wasn’t in it. To his shame he found himself smiling reluctantly as he shut the door. He went straight to his desk, and began to write.

“Oh Romulus,” said Strictus passionately, his dazzling onyx orbs shining with love. “All this time I was concealing my burning desire for you, believing my love to be unrequited! I had no idea how you felt.”

“Neither had I,” replied the handsome professor softly.

“ Let us never be parted!”

“Never!”

The two soulmates clasped each other close in an irresistible burst of passion, their bodies knit together as closely as their souls. Both knew in that instant that they would live in joy and contentment ever after. For they had found their happy ending at last.

THE END

Perhaps, Remus thought suddenly, perhaps in real life heroes were not quite so exemplary. Perhaps you might now and then find one with a bit of an attitude problem, with an exterior that wasn’t quite as attractive as you might wish for and with a penchant for potion-brewing that would create explosions and bizarre smells at every hour of the day and night. Perhaps he would sometimes do things which were petty or cruel or downright stupid, and flatly refuse to apologise for any of them because he was incapable of admitting he had been wrong. But it would be alright because it was him, and you found that you didn’t mind such things as much as you ought.

And of course with a hero like that, your romance would progress gradually, by slow and awkward degrees, with no lengthy declarations or elaborate gifts, but with many mistakes and misunderstandings and false starts. The future would hold unforeseen difficulties, and there would be danger and loss and heartbreak and exam papers to mark, and there was always the possibility that things would go horribly, horribly wrong.

Safe in the knowledge that he was completely alone, Remus allowed himself a brief jig of exaltation, his patched robes flying out around him like extremely shabby sails.

Because, somehow, Happily Ever After didn’t seem so important any more.