Unforseen Complications

They had been in Snape's rooms longer than either boy had realized. When they entered the halls they were deserted and the few small windows that dotted the dungeon walls told them it was already dark outside. "Um. . ." Harry shuffled his feet a bit and nibbled his lower lip, once again unconciously playing with Draco's fingers. "Do you wanna come with me?"

"Eventually." Draco smirked, "Although I don't think that this is the place for it."

Harry turned red again. "I. . . uh. . . I meant did you want to . . ."

Draco smiled at Harry's efforts and was once again reminded of what a total and complete sap he was becoming over the dark haired boy. Well as long as Harry didn't realize that Draco was being firmly wrapped around his little finger, he supposed no harm would come of it. "Well, it is always amusing to see Weasley's brain short out."

Harry snickered and then caught himself, "Weren't you supposed to be nice to them?"

"That 'was' nice. I could have said-"

"Okay! I believe you!" Harry cut him off and giggled when Draco kissed him for it.

"There you go giggling again Potter." The blond pointed out as they climbed the stairs to the tower. "You are such a girl."

Harry smacked his arm playfully, "Well I hope I get to be the boy sometimes."

"I look hideous in dresses."

Harry paused midstep and stared at his new boyfreind incredulously, "You say that as if you know."

Draco shrugged and then smirked again, "I dare say though, that red is my color."

Harry tried not to choak on his laughter, "Is it? Do you think it's a sign?"

"Well you do look brilliant in green." The Slytherin just managed not to blush when Harry turned to stare at him.

"You really have been watching me."

"Of course. I told you I have."

"I guess it didn't really sink in until just now."

Draco nodded in understanding and then looked up at the portrait they'd stopped in front of. "This is it?"

"Yeah. Any second thoughts?"

"No."

Harry nodded and took a deep breath. "Then lets go."

Draco grabbed his arm. "Wait."

Then green eyed boy turned back to face his new boyfriend and searched his face, "Draco?"

"What if they don't like me."

Harry's face didn't move, then his lips twitched a bit, and his eyes crinkled up at the corners, and then, as if a floodgate had been opened, he began laughing so hard that he ended up slumped on the floor.

Draco looked down at him in distaste.

"I. . . I'm sorry D. . . Draco. . . but really! 'Wh. . . what if they. . . they don't l. . . like me!'." He kept laughing until tears slipped from the corners of his eyes.

"I missed something." He observed and knelt beside Harry on the stone floor, "Would you care to explain why my, albeit out of character, bit of insecurity, is so very amusing?"

"It. . . hehe. . . it's a muggle thing." Harry smiled, trying to control himself. A giggle escaped anyway.

"You're giggling again."

"Can't help it." Harry giggled and Draco captured his lips for a strong moment before letting go. "You kissed me again."

"Can't help it." He leaned forward again and smiled into the kiss when Harry wrapped his arms around his shoulders. They were so busy that neither one noticed the sound of the portrait opening until. . .

"Oh my GOD! Ug! My eyes feel dirty! Can a person wash their eyeballs?! Hermione! Help me wash my eyeballs!"

Harry and Draco looked up to the open entrance and Ron's retreating form, then at each other.

"That might have gone better." The Slytherin noted and helped Harry to his feet.

Harry was staring at Hermione, who was trying to keep Ron from going upstairs to shampoo his pupils. "Harry?"

"Uh. . . surprise?"

She glarred and Draco hid behind Harry.

Harry looked over his shoulder and grinned, "Coward."

"Yes I am, thank you very much."

When Ron grabbed Hermione's wand and advanced, they both decided bravery was overrated. Luckily there was a convenient couch to hide behind. "Draco if we die, I just want to say this has been the nicest hour of my life."

"Harry, if we die, I'm haunting your dead ass! This is all your fault! 'Can we tell my freinds first? Come on Draco'"

"You sound just like me."

"Really? I've been working on it." Draco blinked, "Wait! Stop that! I'm mad at you!"

Ron and Hermione just stared at the couch in shock. The red head handed Hemione's wand back to her without moving his gaze from the cushions hiding the bantering couple. She took the wand in the same way. Neither were quite able to get over their shock.

"Uh. . . Draco?"

"What?!"

"We aren't dead."

". . ."

Slowly, a blond and a dark head peered over the back of the sofa. "I think we broke them." Harry whispered.

"HARRY JAMES POTTER!!!"

Harry covered his ears and flinched, "Nevermind. Hermione still works."

"Come with me." She grabbed Harry and Ron and Draco snatched up his boyfriends hand as they were dragged to Hermione's single room. "You two are sooo lucky that everyone else was asleep already! What were you thinking making out in the hall like that?!"

"Uh. . ." Harry smiled a bit, "We weren't really thinking. . ."

"That is glaringly obvious! Now what is going on? Did you inhale something of Snape's while you were serving detention? Ingest anything? Did something get on your skin?"

"Did you hit your head and lose your mind?!" Ron screamed.

"Ron. That isn't helping."

Harry held tight to Draco's hand and shrank back from his friends a bit. This was going to be a long night.


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Remus Lupin waited around a nearby corner. He wanted to talk to Harry, but the look that the boy had given him left him no illusions that the boy might want to see him. Snape had gotten to him somehow, that had to be it. Harry Potter had been giggling over Draco Malfoy for goodness sake! The werewolf only hoped that the silver tongued Slytherins hadn't talked Harry over to the other side.

Snuffles nipped at his calves, trying to get him to move toward the Gryffindor's common room. "Sorry. I have something I need to take care of. Why don't you go visit with Harry okay? I'll meet you back at our room."

The animangus gave him a calcuating look but then nodded and disapeared around the corner.

The dungeons were colder than he remembered them being. He stepped carefuilly, trying not to make a sound as he approached the potion master's chambers. It had been a game once, to see if he could sneak up on his lover. Now there was no joy when Severus didn't catch him before he touched the door. Those days were a lifetime ago. Joy was a lifetime ago. Snape had done something that he could never forgive him for. Then to say that he'd done it for them?! With his anger firmly in place again, Remus knocked on the wall beside the portrait.

There was no answer for a long time and when the portrait did finally slide open, Remus almost didn't recognise his once lover. Snape looked old and tired. The shadows played over the contours of his face as if it were their favorite playground. Those wonderful black eyes that used to sparkle with slightly malicious mirth over the world's folly, those eyes were flat now, angry and closed off. "Voldemort not treating you well?" He was shocked that such malicious things had come from his mouth!

"Welcome home." Snape's voice was flat. "What do you want?"

"What have you done to Harry?"

"What are you refering to?"

"He was protecting you! From Me! What did you say to him?"

"I didn't tell him anything, he watched my pensive."

"Conveniently left where a student could reach it and full of Dark Arts propiganda?"

"I haven't used the dark arts in this castle since you left."

"I feel honored, so you just used them for me."

"I would have done anything for you." He whispered, the words barely made it passed his lips.

Remus fell into his Slytherin's eyes and felt his heart breaking, "So why couldn't you stop?"

"I couldn't give you what you wanted with white magic. There was no spell that could. . ."

"I didn't want a spell. I just wanted us!"

"And a child."

"It was pillow talk Severus! You turned to the dark arts because you thought I would leave because I wanted a baby?! Merlin! How twisted are you?! I just came to warn you. Stay away from Harry. He doesn't need any more darkness in his life."

That was the last straw. Severus looked livid. Remus had never seen him look so angry! "James's Harry! Your precious Potter! I have done nothing to 'your' Harry! Keep your little piece of James and Lilly and get out of my life! Take your Harry just like you took ours and may you have the best of times!" With that the portrait slammed shut.

"SNAPE!"

"We are done here, Remus." Snape spoke through the closed door and Lupin stood there staring until finally he forced his legs to move. He got around the corner and collapsed against the wall, hands clentched in tight fists, body shaking in anger.

He couldn't stop trembling. //Dark Arts whore. Stubbourn bloody fool! Even after all this time he still says it was for us!// The sound of the portrait opening again cut off his jumbled thoughts and he held his breath as Snape walked passed him without noticing him in the shadows. //What is he up to?// The werewolf followed silently as the potions master left the school and stepped into the soft flurry of the first snow fall. Once upon a time the soft white ground and swirling flakes would have been romantic, but now all they did was make it harder to track the dark man. //Why would he leave so soon after talking to me? And to not see me there, he must have been distracted. He's up to something.//

The hunt led him to a huge stone wall and tall metal gates. Hogwart's Cemetary. //Huh?//

Slipping inside without a sound, he followed the soft sound of talking until he came across Snape. He hid behind a statue, but was unable to look away from the scene before him. Severus stood, staring at a headstone of a werewolf and child, a study of black amidst white and pink. There was an enchanted rose tree shadeing the grave and shedding it's petals into the wind, sending them dancing along with the first snow of the season, to surround the stoic figure before it. The snow had covered the ground and painted the stone and the potions master with a mantle of white. Snape's raven black hair whiped around in the wind as if it was trying to grasp hold of something lost and tears pooled in those deep black eyes.

"Everyday I ask myself why I didn't die instead." He was whispering hoarsly. "He's home. He said that I was twisted for using Dark Arts. Maybe you would have been twisted too, since you were the product of my dark craft. Potter. . ."

//What do you want with Harry? You Dark Bastard! Stay away from my Harry.//

"Potter volunteered to be a son to me. So that neither of us would be alone. He has been a constant reminder that some people's children can survive. A monument to my faliure to you and to Remus."

//What?//

"But he can take some of the greif away. Is it wrong of me to want peace after so very long?"

Remus watched the usually heartless man with shock on his face. Snape leaned in and pressed his slightly parted lips to those of the stone werewolf decorating the grave, while laying one pale hand over the stone child it held. the tears fell as the dark man kissed unyeilding marble. The moment was frozen, like a page taken from time's grip, until the wizard pulled back a bit to rest his forehead against that of the lifeless creature's.

"The family that I will never know." He whispered, "I would have loved you both with every breath inside of me. I still do." Then he pressed a last kiss to the stone and walked away, a bit unsteady in his step.

Lupin waited until he was sure the other man was gone, and then slipped from his hiding place to read the inscription on the stone. A gasp escaped him and he fell to his knees, tracing the words over and over, not wanting to know what they told him.

Harrison Remi Lupin-Snape. His child. Sev's child.

Take your Harry just like you took ours!

I did it for you. Well. . . for us.

I couldn't give you what you wanted with white magic

I'll tell you soon. I want to be possitive of it first. I don't want you to be dissapointed.

I would have done anything for you.

just like you took ours!

You took ours!

Ours!

"Our child." He gasped, tears falling down his cheeks just as they'd coursed over Severus' a moment before. "That was why. . . That was why."


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Hogwarts
1986

"Remus I have recently become aware of something you should know."

"Headmaster?"

"Please, sit down. Would you like tea? A lemon drop perhaps?"

Remus was getting nervous, Sev was waiting for him and he was going to be late if this wasn't over soon. "No thank you sir, could you please tell me what this is about?"

"Severus."

The werewolf shot to his feat and gasped, "What happened?! Is he okay?!"

"He has been using the dark arts, Remus."

The tall wizard fell back to his chair in shock, "What did you say?"

"Severus Snape has been using the Dark Arts. He is brewing something right here, in Hogwarts."

"But he left the Deatheaters. He came back to us. He came back for me Albus."

"I am sorry, but perhaps. . ."

"A spy." Golden eyes widened in shock, "He's a spy for He Who Must Not Be Named."

"The only thing we are sure of is that he has been creating dark potions."

Remus was beyond listening. His world was crumbling around him. "A Deatheater."

"I am sorry, Remus."

The trip to their rooms was made in a fog of disbeleif. He stepped into their small home and found Severus in the kitchen, smiling like he hadn't betrayed them all.

"Remus! Go ahead and shower, dinner is almost done."

It was a while before he could calm himself enough to growl, "Did you think I wouldn't find out? Dumbeldore knows what you've done. He told me. How dare you?!"

"I thought you'd be happy. I did it for you, well. . . for us." Severus grinned and Remus wanted nothing more than to make that grin stop. He would NOT let the Slytherin slither his way out of this one!

"Don't you dare say it's for me! This was never about me was it?! This is all about you and I'm sick and tired of trying! Weren't you satisfied with what we had? I know it wasn't much but we had each other! Just the two of us. Wasn't that good enough?"

"I did it for you." Snape moved forward but Remus couldn't bare the thought of that lying filth touching him. He pulled away and lashed out, next thing he knew, Sev was on the ground bleeding, and he was leaving.

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"Oh Merlin. What have I done."