Chapter Text
“My God…”
Remus Lupin couldn’t hear his own whispered words against the maddening thumping of his heart.
When he had given into Harry and his friends’ cajoling, he had never imagined that the consequences would turn into this.
But you should have…
You should have known that something which he would fear will be something none of us could bear to face as well. You should have known better than to give in to childish one-upmanship.
His inner conscience berated him severely. And he knew he deserved it. Though he prided himself with the apparent notion that he was above childish squabbles and grudges but he couldn’t resist the temptation of seeing the most stoic person he has ever known lose his composure.
And some of it, he has to admit shamefully, was also out of spite.
Harry and the rest of his students were still children. They had no idea that kind of horrors which existed in the outside world. Horrors which only people like him and his colleagues have been forced to witness… and some of them even forced to commit themselves.
And like a juvenile idiot he had not thought once before tricking his colleague into facing a hidden bogart in front of all his students. Remus knew from experience that tricking Severus Snape was next to impossible - that man is a master of deceit and he catches the whiff of danger ten miles from it.
But fortunately… or rather unfortunately as he has come to realize presently Snape was rather distracted when he entered the classroom. The students were standing as per their houses (the Slytherins on one side and the Gryffindors on the other) and he seemed to have not taken notice of the audience at all, mechanically going towards the cupboard to retrieve the books they needed for the defence spells Dumbledore had asked both of them to help teach the third years.
Snape was helping him despite his reservations and Lupin knew he had Albus to thank for that one. Sometimes he did need a partner for preparing the simulations.
And instead of being thankful he had decided to hide a bloody boggart in the cupboard. Remus knew that Snape was a master Occlumens, so good that even Dumbledore couldn’t see into his mind if he doesn’t want it. So, it wouldn’t have worked had he had not been so distracted at the first place.
He had opened the cupboard as the students and Lupin stared in curiosity and anticipation.
What fear does the scary ice-cold Potion’s Master harboured?
And it had been the dumbest mistake Remus Lupin had ever remembered making.
The Boggart escaped the cupboard and Snape gasped staggering back slightly before images exploded in a blinding flash. The boggart wouldn’t stay still, locked in one person or creature. It changed forms so quickly and so variedly that it was making the Werewolf dizzy.
It had become Lily Evans, then Harry, then Draco, then Lucius Malfoy, Dumbledore, Minerva, Flitwick, Narcissa, Hermione, Ron, some of his students, his parents, people he didn’t recognize, the marauders and himself, Fenrir Greyback, the other death eaters and Remus felt his blood slowly turning to ice.
He had just put one boggart in there… so what the hell was happening.
He heard the students gasping and found his own legs falter seeing the next scene.
It seemed like the swift changing boggart had turned into a visual simulation of a scene. Something the DADA Professor had never seen or even heard happening.
The scene itself was so terrible had the werewolf felt bile rise up to his throat in repressed terror. There were a mass of people lying on the floor, all of them in various states of approaching death. Groaning, moaning, choking in their own blood, mutilated and torn, pale and ashen… dying and dead. He saw most of the order members, students and then… he heard Severus make a sound for the first time.
It was a horrible guttural moan, small as a whisper but had cut through the deafening silence of the room like a knife through butter.
It was Harry, lying in a grotesque tangle of limbs, face waxy and green eyes glazed and lifeless.
“No..oh no… no no no…. Harry…”
Suddenly the figure seemed to come back alive making Remus jump back along with Snape. The boggart Harry was looking up at his terrified Potion’s Professor and then he rasped.
“Y..you promised her… you promi..sed her…”
A whimper escaped Severus’s throat when Boggart Harry’s hand fell limp and the dimming life went out of his vacant eyes and Remus saw the real Harry Potter’s face turn completely white. Then Harry’s corpse suddenly turned into Lucius Malfoy, his blind hair matted with a loathsome crimson and his grey eyes stared up at Snape unseeingly. And swiftly changed into a blood soaked Narcissa Malfoy, and kept shifting violently between the two platinum blonde pureblood Slytherins.
“Snape.. you traitorous bastard… I tru..sted you..”
Lucius’s gruff voice had lost most of his baritone and turned like husk. Severus couldn’t open his jaw and then Narcissa looked up at him, tears streaming down her pale blood streaked face.
“He’s just a boy… Sev… please…. Draco….my…. Draco. You promised Sev… please…”
Remus heard a sob like sound come from behind yet he couldn’t turn away from the sight in front. Transfixed at everything… unable to comprehend anything, letting the horror story going on like a reel in front of them continue.
Severus looked like a ghost by then. Remus had never seen the Slytherin Head of House’s painfully inanimate face show any other emotion except bitter sarcasm, cynical hatred and gut deep fury but now housed such a desperate terrified expression.
And suddenly with a gasp, the boggart changed into Albus Dumbledore and Severus let out a particularly unnerving whine. The wizard had half his face disfigured clean off. A crystal blue eye hanging from a destroyed socket which turned its serene gaze onto his favourite protegee’s frozen face.
He extended a pale bony hand towards him and Snape fell to his knees, losing the struggling battle with his composure at last and several voices shrieked behind their clamped hands.
“Albus.. Albus… I.. you… no… God…”
“It’s alright my child.. you tried… you tried… ”
“No… please… God.. Merlin…no..”
Remus as he could tear his gaze away from the sight in front looked behind for a glance and saw Harry, Hermione and Ron trembling like leaves in a thunderstorm holding each other tightly, Draco Malfoy looking paler than Death leaning against Pansy Parkinson who had tears on her cheeks.
It seemed like his despair had seeped into the entire room and was strangling all of its other inhabitants.
The werewolf forced his reluctant feet to move just as the boggart finally took the form of their most hated and feared adversary. The students scrambled back gasping and shivering as if they themselves had forgotten that this was just an illusion; their Potion’s Professor’s terror lashing into all of their veins like a tidal wave as the fearsome form of Voldemort rose from Dumbledore’s ashes.
His magic is casting! Oh Merlin and Morganna! No..
No one could find a voice and Lupin finally found himself taking a few steps further to approach the distraught man kneeling on the ground trembling like never before.
“You thought you could fool me, you imbecile! I am the Dark Lord! And you are my slave.. a puny half blood, reviled, detested and disgusting death eater! I will squash you like an insect Snape! And the one’s you profess to protect…. I will tear them apart limb by limb in front of your eyes and you my dear servant can do nothing about it! And then I will rip out your guts, crush your bones and feed your eyes to Nagini…”
The glass windows had started to rattle with the force of Snape’s powerful magic. The very stones making Hogwarts Castle shook with his terror and grief and a mingled wrath. Remus then hurried.
“Severus! Severus snap out of it! Its a boggart! An illusion! A trick! God! Snape! Please.. ridikulus! What the.. ridikulus!”
Remus looked astounded as the boggart refused to submit, as if it had suddenly grown a resisting force against the counter spell. The werewolf felt his hands shaking furiously now, fear freezing his spine like ice and cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Snape had staggered up and was swaying dangerously, looking like he would faint.
“Severus! Stop it! What are you.. your magic! Your magic will shatter everything..Sev”
The students were all holding their heads with their hands almost sobbing in terror when a sudden roar from the doorway silenced everything.
“Ridikulus!!!”
Albus Dumbledore had never looked so frightening to either Lupin or his students. His spell took an instant effect and the castle settled down as the rattling subsided to the minimal, a blast of blinding warmth dispelled the bone chilling cold which had been palpable in the room and with a flurry of flowing robes he had reached the still quaking Potion’s Master.
“Severus… child. Calm down. It was not real.”
“Al…bus.. he.. he.. I… killed.. Harry… Min… Draco.. everyone ….couldn’t….save.. couldn’t save… it… you..”
There was something primarily horrifying about seeing the most fearless person you had known chatter like a terrified child and Remus could bet all the students would vouch that for him.
Suddenly Severus was in his arms and Dumbledore seemed to have buried him inside his white hair and lilac robes completely. The students watched in abject awe as their most fearsome Professor shook inside the headmaster’s strong arms, looking slighter and more fragile than anyone could have thought possible.
Dumbledore was muttering something soothing inside his greasy midnight black locks stroking them and his back with an uncharacteristic fatherly affection.
“Hush child.. do not let that monster best you. I know you will protect us Severus. No one could protect us better than you.. no one will save us better than you.. let us take a walk huh? That’s right… calm down..”
Slowly and steadily the quaking faded away as did the insanely mighty magic that had casted over the room still it stopped completely. Severus was still hiding inside the headmaster’s shoulder, limp and looking frighteningly dead.
And then Dumbledore spoke, the grief in his pale blue eyes morphing into a restrained anger and Remus Lupin saw his life flash in front of his eyes.
“I believe there must have been a very justified reason for this utter nonsense Remus? I would expect you no less than five in the afternoon in my office and I suggest you find something viable as an excuse by then.”
“I.. I am sorry… I didn’t..”
“Think? Of course you didn’t think…. nutter wolf!”
Severus finally voiced tiredly; the sound coming muffled from Dumbledore’s robes and he managed to upright himself allowing the old wizard to hold his bicep as support. He turned towards Lupin and the werewolf flinched at the haunted look he now sported, looking like he had suddenly aged a decade.
Something akin to shame and guilt burnt furiously inside his chest and Remus found himself taking a step in Severus’s direction.
“I am genuinely sorry Professor Snape. That was incredibly boorish and utterly dumb of me. I shouldn’t have done this.”
To his surprise Snape didn’t launch into his characteristic acerbic verbal lashing. But then, he didn’t look like he had any energy left to even walk properly let alone fight. But his next words shocked Remus more than anything.
Snape untangled himself very gently from Dumbledore’s firm hold and straightened his frame with considerable effort before brushing his coat in a cavalier manner. The indifference slowly slamming back up like a fortress over his broken countenance.
“Not as sorry as I am Lupin… not as sorry as I am….”
He whispered and the pain in his voice struck the astonished werewolf harder than any hex ever had. It seemed to slip between the bones of his rib cage and made a perfunctory slice over the skin of his heart.
Snape just walked out of the room in the same distracted manner as he had entered, if only looking more haggard than ever, dragging his feet more than required.
“Five o'clock at my office Remus.”
Albus reminded him sternly and the anger in his usually kind voice made him shift in discomfort yet his mind remained at the absent Potion’s master’s wake. Albus had turned towards the scared students huddled at the corner.
“None of this shall be repeated outside this classroom. Do I make myself clear all of you? Do not repeat anything you have seen to anyone. Not even your parents. Or else we all might fall in grave danger. If someone has any problem come to meet me at my office. I will instruct Poppy to give all of you calming draughts and dreamless sleep potions. Please behave as you have always done with Prof. Snape. Think nothing of this.. we all have our private fears.”
The students nodded and mumbled under their breaths, more than happy to never think about the horrors they have witnessed. They didn’t think they could repeat any of it to anyone without being violently sick anyways. Harry was staring at Dumbledore and found the old wizard regard him with a calculated gaze. Dumbledore nodded at him once and practically levitated outside the room.
He knew he had a lot to explain to Harry Potter this evening, but perhaps he could omit certain truths he didn’t need to hear at the present.
Right now, he had a Potion’s Master to find and force hot chocolate down his throat however much he struggles.