Loose ends chapter 24 - Forgiveness
Snape and Lupin can forgive eachother for the events of the past, but find it harder to forgive themselves. Angsty, discussion of canon events but no specific warnings. PG.
This is a work of fan fiction. The world and all recognisable characters belong to J.K. Rowling and I make no claim or profit etc
Forgiveness
“Severus, do you remember Wormwood Fox?”
The next morning, Lupin had continued his mission to find Snape’s happy memories. Finally, he had found the reason to invite Wormwood Fox. Snape frowned in concentration.
“No, who was he?”
“You don’t remember Wormwood? He was one of your students.”
“I had a lot of students,” Snape sighed.
“Not like Wormwood.”
“He must have been one of the better ones,” Snape said softly. “I remember the ones who are in my bad memories. The rest are all just mixed up in the mess of my mind. They might turn up occasionally but I have no idea who they are.”
Lupin paused, wanting to discuss Wormwood, but also wondering about what was going on with Snape’s mind.
“Do you know why you remember the bad memories so much clearer than the good ones?” he asked finally, realising that there were few occasions where Snape appeared willing to discuss his memory.
Snape gave another sigh and looked down at his hands.
“I assume you know this as you must have had some shields yourself - but the standard occlumency shields are rather… obvious. In the mind they look like walls, or boxes, or vaults… something literal. And obvious shields are just an invitation to a really skilled leglimens. Truly effective shields don’t look like shields. So I had all the standard layers of wall, and then behind them, all my most… traumatic memories. My parents, the marauders and… so on. Anyone who got through assumed that those memories were what I was hiding. But those memories were crafted into a wall themselves, concealing the real secret, my loyalty, the fact that I was a spy. That wall was so strong that it was never breached, until… the end.”
Snape felt himself begin to tremble as memories of that time began to appear. They were still disjointed and confused, and he still didn’t understand why or how he had survived. He felt Lupin’s hand on his arm, and anchored himself to the warmth.
Lupin sat silently, watching Snape as he spoke almost to himself. He wondered whether Snape had ever revealed this to anyone before. Snape gave a sad sigh and looked up at Lupin.
“I think that’s why those memories are so powerful now. My shields have shattered and been scattered over my mind. The shield memories are like… it’s hard to explain, but it’s like they are stronger than normal memories. Or maybe it’s like the mind is an ocean and the shield memories float much better than the other memories so they keep coming to the surface.”
“What about Sevvy, when you get stuck? Is that the same thing?”
“No, that’s…different. It’s a memory I used for emotional control. I used it to calm myself. When I needed to escape from things around me, when I needed to get myself under control, not panic, show nothing. I had a few of them, but that’s the one that I used the most. It was… safest.
“What’s the memory, Severus? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Snape sighed.
“No, it’s fine. Nothing dramatic. Just feeding the stray cat that used to hang around in our garden. I used to feed it every day, and it would occasionally let me pat it. But that day, it actually climbed into my lap and fell asleep. I sat there for hours. I just felt so calm.”
Snape gave a slight smile at the memory.
“It was before I met Lily, I didn’t have any friends. Except the cat. It was scared, scared of people. And I won its trust. That meant a lot.”
Snape paused, his eyes distant.
“That memory helped me a lot. I felt trusted. And so when I was with the death eaters, afraid of being found out, that memory… it allowed me to… it’s hard to explain. When I thought of that memory, I believe I conveyed a man who was… trustworthy. Because the cat trusted me… that probably sounds insane…”
“No, I think… I think that makes sense to me,” Lupin responded. “Was that Faustus? Your cat at Hogwarts?”
“You remember my cat’s name?” Snape asked, sounding a little surprised.
Lupin shrugged.
“Yes, that was Faustus. I just called him kitty until I went to Hogwarts, then I thought I needed a better name. It seemed to fit for a cat foolish enough to attach himself to someone like me.”
Lupin nodded. The traditional black witch’s cat had been popular with girls, but not boys. So it was considered a girly animal to have at school and it was another excuse for the marauders to harass Snape. Lupin felt a lot worse realising just how much the animal had meant.
“I’m sorry, Severus,” Lupin said sadly.
“What? What are you on about?”
“I’m sorry for the way we harassed you over Faustus.”
Snape looked at Lupin. A faint sneer appeared on his face.
“You really are quite absurd. You’ve been apologising for more than fifteen years for the actions you did as a teenager. I get it. You were insecure, you wanted to fit in with your friends, you didn’t have the courage to stand up to them even though you knew it was wrong, you deeply regret your actions, and so on and so on. Fine, you’re sorry, get over it.”
Lupin hung his head. He felt like apologising for the apology, but realised that wouldn’t help. Then Snape continued in a more gentle voice.
“I’m hardly in a position to judge you Lupin. Why do you think I became a death eater? I did far worse than you did for the acceptance of my friends. Albus still found it in him to forgive me. And I assume you did too - even Harry, despite my contribution to the death of his parents - or I can’t imagine you’d have brought me into your home to care for me.”
Lupin looked up, stared Snape directly in the eye. To his surprise, he saw nothing but sincerity.
“I’ve forgiven you Lupin, I forgave you long ago for all that. Can you please accept it and move on?”
Lupin smiled that magical smile, and Snape felt another surge of warmth.
“Thank you, Severus, that means a lot.”
“I…I realise that I may have given you the impression that I… that I’m an unforgiving person. That I still bore a grudge. But I don’t.” Snape paused, looking away briefly. “And I’m sorry for the things I did to you at school. My retaliation… and so on. You were rather the easiest target of the marauders. I’m sorry.”
“I can hardly blame you for that.”
“It’s not about whether you blame me,” Snape said, a tight tone creeping into his voice. “The question is whether you have forgiven me.”
“Of course, Severus, of course I forgive you.”
Snape sighed.
“I’m sorry I got you fired from Hogwarts too. That was… mean and petty of me. You were actually the best teacher we had in the role for years. And I’m sorry for setting that essay. I… I never particularly wanted the job, you know, especially with the curse on it. That was… part of Dumbledore’s picture, I had to resent him, I had to have that emotion in me to be a believable traitor.”
Lupin looked across at Snape. Every now and again, he got a further insight into the depths of Dumbledore’s manipulations. He had thought, during the first war, that had seen the darkest depths of what Dumbledore had been willing to ask from others. He thought there could have been little more damaging or degrading than the task he had been given. And then he had watched the drawn-out suffering of Harry and Snape, spending their entire lifetimes being crafted into weapons, and he knew there was far worse than his own suffering.
“Well, I’m sorry about the boggart, that was rather mean and petty too.”
“But effective. Neville rather improved after that. He wasn’t quite so timid.”
Lupin nodded. It was a generous concession from Snape.
“And I’m told that it was actually rather funny. That, had it happened to any other staff member, they would have appreciated the joke, would have laughed along with the others.”
“But you weren’t any other staff member, Severus,” Lupin said softly in reply. “And I knew that.”
“Still, Lupin, I have forgiven you.”
“And of course I’ve forgiven you about the job. I could never have stayed, after that. Not after forgetting to take the Wolfsbane potion and endangering children. And the consequences of that - Peter could have been captured, Sirius free, maybe still alive, if it wasn’t for me… I won’t forgive myself for that.”
Lupin hung his head sadly, while Snape watched. It was rare to see Lupin talk so openly about the past, rarer still for him to reveal how he felt about it.
“That’s it, isn’t it,” Snape said quietly, his voice suddenly sounding tired. “Forgiving eachother has never really been the problem. The question has always been whether we can forgive ourselves.”
Lupin looked up, a vulnerability in his eyes that caused Snape’s stomach to constrict. It almost made him afraid, seeing the man who had been so strong for him looking so lost, so hurt. He reached across and placed his hand gently on Lupin’s arm. Then both men looked away again.
They sat there for a long time, side by side, neither with any more to say. It was unclear who was comforting whom.
Finally, Lupin spoke again.
“So, Wormwood Fox. You don’t remember him, but he remembers you, very well. He’s been writing to me every couple of days asking if he can visit you. I admit, I’ve been putting him off, as you didn’t seem ready. But… do you think you might allow a visit now?”
“Why would he want to see me, Lupin? Even if he was one of the better students, he wouldn’t…”
Snape’s voice tailed off, and he looked genuinely puzzled.
“You were his favourite teacher, Severus.”
“You are failing to convince me, Lupin. I doubt that I was anyone’s favourite teacher.”
“Well, he was probably the only one, Severus. But I don’t think there was any doubt. He was - and still is - remarkably talented at potion brewing. He made the potions you were treated with when you had the chest infection - remember that? The celandine serum? He makes Wolfsbane potion for me and for fifty nine other werewolves. He makes Postlune for sixty werewolves as well - he took Lucretia Temple’s rough notes and what she could remember from her aunt brewing it, and recreated it in a few months.”
The litany of potion-brewing challenges seemed to spark an interest, and Snape’s expression changed to curiosity.
“Wolfsbane for sixty werewolves every month? That’s… extraordinary.”
“He arrived at Hogwarts already a prodigy. His mother was a Purvis, so of course he knew potions already with that family, and even among them he was considered talented. But you were the one who taught him most, Severus. You let him experiment in the lab outside class hours, and spent many extra hours teaching him things that were never on the curriculum, just because he was interested.”
“Really? I let a student experiment in the lab? That seems… unwise.”
“Well, he’d injured several students with his brewing experiments in the Ravenclaw common room. I’m told you offered on the grounds that it would bring potion brewing into disrepute if he killed someone. But by all accounts you enjoyed teaching him. I certainly remember that you were very proud of his achievements when I was at the school.”
“A student of that ability, interesting that he should direct his talents into scaling up Wolfsbane brewing and reproducing werewolf recovery potions. Did he try and collect Black Forest earthworm slime by any chance?”
Lupin stared at Snape in surprise, his mouth slightly open.
“Uh… yes. He did. How… ?”
“It’s the most common way for potion brewers to end up as werewolves. The slime’s amazing stuff, but incredibly dangerous to collect. The Black Forest is crawling with werewolves at the full moon.”
Snape paused, a faint frown appearing between his eyebrows.
“And don’t ask me how I remember that, yet not such an apparently memorable student. I really have no idea.”
This is a work of fan fiction. The world and all recognisable characters belong to J.K. Rowling and I make no claim or profit etc
Forgiveness
“Severus, do you remember Wormwood Fox?”
The next morning, Lupin had continued his mission to find Snape’s happy memories. Finally, he had found the reason to invite Wormwood Fox. Snape frowned in concentration.
“No, who was he?”
“You don’t remember Wormwood? He was one of your students.”
“I had a lot of students,” Snape sighed.
“Not like Wormwood.”
“He must have been one of the better ones,” Snape said softly. “I remember the ones who are in my bad memories. The rest are all just mixed up in the mess of my mind. They might turn up occasionally but I have no idea who they are.”
Lupin paused, wanting to discuss Wormwood, but also wondering about what was going on with Snape’s mind.
“Do you know why you remember the bad memories so much clearer than the good ones?” he asked finally, realising that there were few occasions where Snape appeared willing to discuss his memory.
Snape gave another sigh and looked down at his hands.
“I assume you know this as you must have had some shields yourself - but the standard occlumency shields are rather… obvious. In the mind they look like walls, or boxes, or vaults… something literal. And obvious shields are just an invitation to a really skilled leglimens. Truly effective shields don’t look like shields. So I had all the standard layers of wall, and then behind them, all my most… traumatic memories. My parents, the marauders and… so on. Anyone who got through assumed that those memories were what I was hiding. But those memories were crafted into a wall themselves, concealing the real secret, my loyalty, the fact that I was a spy. That wall was so strong that it was never breached, until… the end.”
Snape felt himself begin to tremble as memories of that time began to appear. They were still disjointed and confused, and he still didn’t understand why or how he had survived. He felt Lupin’s hand on his arm, and anchored himself to the warmth.
Lupin sat silently, watching Snape as he spoke almost to himself. He wondered whether Snape had ever revealed this to anyone before. Snape gave a sad sigh and looked up at Lupin.
“I think that’s why those memories are so powerful now. My shields have shattered and been scattered over my mind. The shield memories are like… it’s hard to explain, but it’s like they are stronger than normal memories. Or maybe it’s like the mind is an ocean and the shield memories float much better than the other memories so they keep coming to the surface.”
“What about Sevvy, when you get stuck? Is that the same thing?”
“No, that’s…different. It’s a memory I used for emotional control. I used it to calm myself. When I needed to escape from things around me, when I needed to get myself under control, not panic, show nothing. I had a few of them, but that’s the one that I used the most. It was… safest.
“What’s the memory, Severus? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Snape sighed.
“No, it’s fine. Nothing dramatic. Just feeding the stray cat that used to hang around in our garden. I used to feed it every day, and it would occasionally let me pat it. But that day, it actually climbed into my lap and fell asleep. I sat there for hours. I just felt so calm.”
Snape gave a slight smile at the memory.
“It was before I met Lily, I didn’t have any friends. Except the cat. It was scared, scared of people. And I won its trust. That meant a lot.”
Snape paused, his eyes distant.
“That memory helped me a lot. I felt trusted. And so when I was with the death eaters, afraid of being found out, that memory… it allowed me to… it’s hard to explain. When I thought of that memory, I believe I conveyed a man who was… trustworthy. Because the cat trusted me… that probably sounds insane…”
“No, I think… I think that makes sense to me,” Lupin responded. “Was that Faustus? Your cat at Hogwarts?”
“You remember my cat’s name?” Snape asked, sounding a little surprised.
Lupin shrugged.
“Yes, that was Faustus. I just called him kitty until I went to Hogwarts, then I thought I needed a better name. It seemed to fit for a cat foolish enough to attach himself to someone like me.”
Lupin nodded. The traditional black witch’s cat had been popular with girls, but not boys. So it was considered a girly animal to have at school and it was another excuse for the marauders to harass Snape. Lupin felt a lot worse realising just how much the animal had meant.
“I’m sorry, Severus,” Lupin said sadly.
“What? What are you on about?”
“I’m sorry for the way we harassed you over Faustus.”
Snape looked at Lupin. A faint sneer appeared on his face.
“You really are quite absurd. You’ve been apologising for more than fifteen years for the actions you did as a teenager. I get it. You were insecure, you wanted to fit in with your friends, you didn’t have the courage to stand up to them even though you knew it was wrong, you deeply regret your actions, and so on and so on. Fine, you’re sorry, get over it.”
Lupin hung his head. He felt like apologising for the apology, but realised that wouldn’t help. Then Snape continued in a more gentle voice.
“I’m hardly in a position to judge you Lupin. Why do you think I became a death eater? I did far worse than you did for the acceptance of my friends. Albus still found it in him to forgive me. And I assume you did too - even Harry, despite my contribution to the death of his parents - or I can’t imagine you’d have brought me into your home to care for me.”
Lupin looked up, stared Snape directly in the eye. To his surprise, he saw nothing but sincerity.
“I’ve forgiven you Lupin, I forgave you long ago for all that. Can you please accept it and move on?”
Lupin smiled that magical smile, and Snape felt another surge of warmth.
“Thank you, Severus, that means a lot.”
“I…I realise that I may have given you the impression that I… that I’m an unforgiving person. That I still bore a grudge. But I don’t.” Snape paused, looking away briefly. “And I’m sorry for the things I did to you at school. My retaliation… and so on. You were rather the easiest target of the marauders. I’m sorry.”
“I can hardly blame you for that.”
“It’s not about whether you blame me,” Snape said, a tight tone creeping into his voice. “The question is whether you have forgiven me.”
“Of course, Severus, of course I forgive you.”
Snape sighed.
“I’m sorry I got you fired from Hogwarts too. That was… mean and petty of me. You were actually the best teacher we had in the role for years. And I’m sorry for setting that essay. I… I never particularly wanted the job, you know, especially with the curse on it. That was… part of Dumbledore’s picture, I had to resent him, I had to have that emotion in me to be a believable traitor.”
Lupin looked across at Snape. Every now and again, he got a further insight into the depths of Dumbledore’s manipulations. He had thought, during the first war, that had seen the darkest depths of what Dumbledore had been willing to ask from others. He thought there could have been little more damaging or degrading than the task he had been given. And then he had watched the drawn-out suffering of Harry and Snape, spending their entire lifetimes being crafted into weapons, and he knew there was far worse than his own suffering.
“Well, I’m sorry about the boggart, that was rather mean and petty too.”
“But effective. Neville rather improved after that. He wasn’t quite so timid.”
Lupin nodded. It was a generous concession from Snape.
“And I’m told that it was actually rather funny. That, had it happened to any other staff member, they would have appreciated the joke, would have laughed along with the others.”
“But you weren’t any other staff member, Severus,” Lupin said softly in reply. “And I knew that.”
“Still, Lupin, I have forgiven you.”
“And of course I’ve forgiven you about the job. I could never have stayed, after that. Not after forgetting to take the Wolfsbane potion and endangering children. And the consequences of that - Peter could have been captured, Sirius free, maybe still alive, if it wasn’t for me… I won’t forgive myself for that.”
Lupin hung his head sadly, while Snape watched. It was rare to see Lupin talk so openly about the past, rarer still for him to reveal how he felt about it.
“That’s it, isn’t it,” Snape said quietly, his voice suddenly sounding tired. “Forgiving eachother has never really been the problem. The question has always been whether we can forgive ourselves.”
Lupin looked up, a vulnerability in his eyes that caused Snape’s stomach to constrict. It almost made him afraid, seeing the man who had been so strong for him looking so lost, so hurt. He reached across and placed his hand gently on Lupin’s arm. Then both men looked away again.
They sat there for a long time, side by side, neither with any more to say. It was unclear who was comforting whom.
Finally, Lupin spoke again.
“So, Wormwood Fox. You don’t remember him, but he remembers you, very well. He’s been writing to me every couple of days asking if he can visit you. I admit, I’ve been putting him off, as you didn’t seem ready. But… do you think you might allow a visit now?”
“Why would he want to see me, Lupin? Even if he was one of the better students, he wouldn’t…”
Snape’s voice tailed off, and he looked genuinely puzzled.
“You were his favourite teacher, Severus.”
“You are failing to convince me, Lupin. I doubt that I was anyone’s favourite teacher.”
“Well, he was probably the only one, Severus. But I don’t think there was any doubt. He was - and still is - remarkably talented at potion brewing. He made the potions you were treated with when you had the chest infection - remember that? The celandine serum? He makes Wolfsbane potion for me and for fifty nine other werewolves. He makes Postlune for sixty werewolves as well - he took Lucretia Temple’s rough notes and what she could remember from her aunt brewing it, and recreated it in a few months.”
The litany of potion-brewing challenges seemed to spark an interest, and Snape’s expression changed to curiosity.
“Wolfsbane for sixty werewolves every month? That’s… extraordinary.”
“He arrived at Hogwarts already a prodigy. His mother was a Purvis, so of course he knew potions already with that family, and even among them he was considered talented. But you were the one who taught him most, Severus. You let him experiment in the lab outside class hours, and spent many extra hours teaching him things that were never on the curriculum, just because he was interested.”
“Really? I let a student experiment in the lab? That seems… unwise.”
“Well, he’d injured several students with his brewing experiments in the Ravenclaw common room. I’m told you offered on the grounds that it would bring potion brewing into disrepute if he killed someone. But by all accounts you enjoyed teaching him. I certainly remember that you were very proud of his achievements when I was at the school.”
“A student of that ability, interesting that he should direct his talents into scaling up Wolfsbane brewing and reproducing werewolf recovery potions. Did he try and collect Black Forest earthworm slime by any chance?”
Lupin stared at Snape in surprise, his mouth slightly open.
“Uh… yes. He did. How… ?”
“It’s the most common way for potion brewers to end up as werewolves. The slime’s amazing stuff, but incredibly dangerous to collect. The Black Forest is crawling with werewolves at the full moon.”
Snape paused, a faint frown appearing between his eyebrows.
“And don’t ask me how I remember that, yet not such an apparently memorable student. I really have no idea.”