----

"Put your hands on me," I told him with a sudden burst of deliberate passion. His answer was a glance that seared me straight down to the skin.

And the universe stopped moving as he obeyed.

----

My name is Remus Lupin and I am a werewolf. One night in the month makes me into a monster. The rest of the nights I was simply "that quiet boy." I had been known as the shadow of Sirius Black, a sickly child, and a little duller than the rest of the class, particularly in Potions.

I was certainly not the first two. If I was the last, it's only because my talents don't lie in that area. I don't have a problem with that. In my years at Hogwarts, I'd learned to accept myself for who I was, and learned that people will love me in spite of who I am.

Of course, there are also people who will hate me because of who I am. And knowing in my waking memory the deeds I've done and the passion for blood I've felt when the moon turns me into a monster, I cannot blame them.

When he glanced at me with his heart in his eyes, I forgot the universe existed. I forgot that I was anything more than his highly regarded one. I forgot that my kind was hunted and hated. I forgot that we were from two different Houses. I forgot everything I should have remembered.

I forgot that he would hate me. I forgot that I might learn to hate him.

We hadn't dared to look at each other much outside of swift-cast glances in classes. We both knew that we each wanted...we each wanted, so much.

It was early seventh year, and flighty hormones were surging all over the place. Everyone was going steady with somebody. James Potter and Lily Evans were the newest couple. Sirius was dating his way through a string of girls, confining himself to no one. Peter'd found a little Hufflepuff that he spent his study hours with.

And I was just casting tentative glances at Severus Snape.

I was a fool.

It was nearly Christmas when I finally got to speak with him alone. I never spent Christmas at Hogwarts, but I would have to this year, as my father and mother were in South America. My first thought was "lucky them," but my second thought was "I wonder if he..."

Apparently he was. We caught each other alone in the dining hall one morning early and neither of us could stand not to speak to each other.

"Are you staying for Christmas?" he said, his voice oddly sweet. He appeared to be a different young man than the one I'd seen in classes, apparently.

"Yeah," I answered, turning my eyes away. "You?"

"Yes," he said. He looked rather pleased about it. "I've been begging to for ages."

"Why, don't you want to go home?" I asked, half really wondering about it, half just pleased to have an excuse to carry on the conversation.

"No!" he exclaimed, quite forcibly. "I'd be quite content to never go back to that musty castle and my equally musty parents."

I laughed. Up close, I could see that he'd used some kind of grease to get his hair to stay down. His hair was very, very dark, and quite shiny. The impression was that he had very little hair at all.

I grabbed the opportunity to swallow up every little detail about him that I could. Long lean form (I was sure he would be taller than me, even though we were the same height now), quite handsome, hooked nose that was rather incongrous in his otherwise pretty face, dark grey eyes.

"Why are you always sick?" he asked, rather suddenly.

I was caught off guard.

"I'm not," I said. "I just...seem to catch every bug that floats by, I guess..." I trailed off, not knowing quite what to say.

He just looked at me and I knew he could tell I was lying, but didn't press it.

"Would you like to..." it was his turn to trail off vaguely, "talk more later?"

Talk more later. A low heat spun through me.

"Yes! Yes," I said, trying not to appear eager.

"Three days, two o' clock, just outside here," he said, and turned away, just as James, Lily, and Sirius came in, all three yawning.

"Yes," I whispered. "Oh yes."

"What on earth were you doing up so early?" James asked, running up to me, the other two in tow. Severus had moved away, and I was not sure they had seen the two of us talking.

"Getting breakfast," I answered. I hadn't gotten breakfast, but I suddenly wasn't hungry. "Listen, I have to go," I said, and rushed out of the dining hall.

"What's going on with *him*?" I heard Sirius say behind me.

----

The next three days passed in a whirl of frenzy and I hardly had time to breathe before it was two o' clock. All my friends were gone for Christmas, I was the only one left in my room, or indeed, my entire House, except for two rather shy second-year girls, twins.

It was completely silent in the boys' dorm as I prepared to make my way downstairs. Severus and I had exchanged a glance that morning, and the salt, nothing more. We both knew and knew that the other knew, that was all there was to it.

He was waiting for me.

"What do you want to do?" he asked, rather nervously.

"I don't know, what do you want to do?"

"Talk with you," he said.

We could go back to my room for that.

"Come with me," I put out a hand.

Looking almost surprised, he took it.

The password would change at the beginning of the new year anyway. "Mushrooms!" I said, and led him inside. We walked together up the stairs, still holding hands.

In my empty room, we both felt a strange reluctance to let go of each other, so we sat down on my bed. And just stared, for what would have been an uncomfortably long time, if it had not been him.

"Why have you been looking at me during class?" he asked at last.

"For the same reason you've been looking at me," I said, and felt the blood rise to my cheeks. "At least, I hope so."

"Yes," he whispered. "I think we've both been wanting --"

And he leaned forward and kissed me. My arms came around him almost unconsciously, and I fell backward slowly against my pillows.

The kiss was long, slow, and gentle, a sweet exploration. Not hurried or fumbling at all, like most of my previous kisses had been.

And just after that, I said those desperate pretty words that were my undoing.

And he did put his hands on me. All over me.

That was all right, though, because mine were all over him. And in the confusion, clothes got magicked off, or ripped off. Somehow we got skin to skin.

We could have rushed then, had it over in a minute, and we would have both been the better off for it. Instead we lingered, long over slow kisses, far longer than anyone would expect two sixteen-year-olds to do.

We spent most of that Christmas vacation in bed, really. I'm sure the teachers wondered why we were always sneaking off together, but they were good enough not to mention it.

In early January I had my werewolf attack, and hadn't told Severus about it still. It just never came up as a topic for conversation -- either that or I was too frightened of losing him to admit it.

A couple of days after that, the students all came back.

Sirius suspected. And he had always hated Severus.

I don't know for sure what happened that night that the werewolf I was came far too close to killing Severus. I was not there. I do know that James saved him, and that after that, Severus, thinking I was in on it, hated us all.

It broke me. For a long time I would not even talk to Sirius. So when I heard that he was the betrayer of the Potters, all I could feel was a kind of coldness toward him and a conviction that he had done what he was accused of.

Over time, that feeling faded. By the time I found out his innocence, I had recovered much of my early liking for him.

But the rift between Severus and I could never be quite healed. He had grown bitter. He was convinced I had tried to make a fool of him, first by not telling him, then by goading Sirius to try to get him hurt.

I wouldn't have hurt him for the world. And forcing me to resign from teaching here -- well, if it makes him happy, I'll go gladly.

END