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I’m Not Letting Go


“Let’s find a shitting spell. We’ll make the whole lot of them be vexed with cases of explosive diarrhea so that they’ve all shat themselves at the table in the Great Hall,” Sirius suggested.

Peter snickered.

They were walking through the tunnel beneath the whomping willow toward the Shrieking Shack, Peter running along behind them carrying a sack of food and drinks, and panting to keep up with the two energized, taller boys as they plotted Lily’s revenge.

“We could infest their common room with flobberworms,” Peter suggested, wanting to be included.

“They’d just step on them,” Sirius argued.

“Oh. Right,” Peter nodded. “Yeah, true.”

Sirius dragged his wand along the wall of the tunnel, frustrated.

“What’d they do to her again?” Peter asked.

“We don’t know, Peter,” James said, “But we’re reckoning it’s something similar to what they’ve done to Mary Macdonald by the way she was acting.”

“Ohhh,” Peter said. “That’s why we’re angry at them, I get it now.”

“God Peter, how can you be so stupid?” Sirius asked. “Seriously, how am I the one with terrible grades when you’re having trouble keeping up with who your own enemies are and why?”

“It’s just that we’re angry at them quite often for many different reasons that’s all,” Peter said.

Sirius said, “Let’s coat them in honey and dust them with kelp powder and guppies and levitate them over the Black Lake for the Giant Squid to snack upon.”

“And give the poor Squid indigestion?” James asked.

Peter said, “We could spellotape them to a rocket and send them to Mars.”

“Behold, how the first Martian war begins,” Sirius replied.

James sighed. They were nearly to the trap door. “It’s got to be perfect, whatever it is we do because I’m sure, the way our luck goes, we’ll end up in bleedin’ trouble for it while the arseholes run free. It’s got to be worth the hours and hours of detention Minnie will set us.”

“I’m still enjoying the idea of the shitting charm.”

James came to a stop below the trapdoor. “What time is it? Can we go up as humans or do we need to transform first? Anybody know?” He looked about between the other two.

“No idea,” Sirius replied.

“Haven’t got a watch,” Peter answered.

James sighed and climbed up the steps to the trap door and reached for the latch, unlocking it. He pushed it up ever so slightly, peering out through the crack. Thin strain of sunlight cut through the unsettled dust as it fluttered from the ceiling, sparkling in the rays as they lit up the deep gouges in the walls where his antlers had marked the wood and cut into the plaster the month before. “We’re okay, there’s still sunlight,” he said, and he pushed opened the door. “Remus?”

There came a groan from the couch and James pulled himself through the portrait hole, realizing that the lump he’d thought was just blankets on the couch was actually Remus Lupin, and he hurried over to find Remus had stretched as long and flat as he could, laying on his belly, trying to stretch out the knots in his spine, and he had tears pouring over his cheeks. “Oh bloody hell, Rey, are you alright?” And for the time being the discussion about the Slytherins escaped his mind. He patted himself down for his handkerchief, for getting he’d given it to Lily Evans, and quickly pulled his jumper sleeve over his hand and used the edge of it to wipe Remus’s face.

Sirius was tugging Peter through the hole in the floor. “Is he alright?” Peter asked.

James didn’t answer, just stared into Remus’s sad little face, “It’ll be alright, mate,” he said quietly. “It’ll be over soon.”

Finally through the hole, Peter put his bag of food down and he and Sirius came over to check on Remus, Sirius sort of hanging back a bit, looking over the other two boys’ shoulders. “I hate being a werewolf, I hate it,” Remus cried. “Make it stop. Please.”

James looked about at the other two, “Anyone have any ideas?”

“Make it stop,” Remus was repeating.

Sirius said, “Move.”

James moved.

“Where’s it hurt, Moony?” Sirius asked, sitting down as Peter scrambled out of the way.

“It all hurts, it all hurts,” Remus whimpered, “My back, oh Merlin my back…. It hurts so much, Sirius.”

“I’m here. It’s alright. Shhh…” And Sirius reached down and brushed the curls off Remus’s forehead, feeling the burning of his skin, and he said, “Somebody conjure get a cool, damp cloth.” Peter pulled his handkerchief out and James dampened it with the aquamenti charm and they wrung it out and gave it to Sirius as he held out his hand. He ran the cloth over Remus’s forehead and cheeks for a moment, then brought it to the back of his neck and laid it over the nape of his neck by his hairline. Sirius left the cloth there and gently pulled Remus’s jumpers over his head, taking them off until Remus lay on the couch bare chested and his scars shone bright against his flesh. Peter looked away, his stomach turning at the sight of them.

Sirius leaned close, “Moony, is it your upper or lower back that’s hurting most?” he asked quietly.

“My lower,” whimpered Remus, eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Please, Sirius, make it stop.”

“I will,” Sirius whispered, “I will, Moony. It’s okay.”

He blew warm air between his palms and rubbed them together, charging them with a bit of energy. Then he laid his palms on either side of Remus’s waist and slowly began to work the muscles with his hands, pressing and kneading in a pattern that he’d managed to perfect over two years of full moon nights since the first time he’d ever massaged the knots from Remus Lupin’s spine. And Remus’s panting slowly calmed, the whimpering quieting as some sort of relief pooled within him. “It’s okay, Moony, it’s okay,” whispered Sirius, and he slowly worked his way up Remus’s back, over the scars, over his shoulder blades and his arms, loosening the muscles as thoroughly as he could.

Remus sighed as each area loosened, as each set of muscles released, and he slowly seemed to melt into the couch, the tension in his body leaving, allowing him to relax.

James and Peter watched until Sirius had freed Remus of all the knots and helped him to sit up. “Better?” he asked gently.

Remus nodded and clung onto Sirius, resting his head against Sirius’s chest. Sirius rubbed his arm.

“I hate being a werewolf,” Remus whispered. “It ruins everything.”

Sirius put his chin on Remus’s head.

“I know,” Sirius whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t let go,” Remus begged. He didn’t care if it would hurt when Sirius finally did let go, didn’t care that it was a horrible idea to be held so close by someone he loved so much but could not be with. He didn’t care. He could hear Sirius’s heart beating in his chest and the rhythm of it, of knowing Sirius was right there was comforting.

“I’m not, Moony,” Sirius said, his voice thick in his throat. “I’m not letting go.”




Mulciber came into the fifth year dom room grinning broadly. Severus was sitting, alone, at one of the desks, studying his Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook. “I got that little mudblood,” Mulciber said, gleefully, “I got her.”

Severus’s heart stopped. “What?”

“That little mudblood you like, with the ginger hair… Lily Evans. I got her.” He grinned.

“What do you mean you got her?” Severus demanded, putting his book aside. He slid forward in his chair, his eyes boring into Mulciber, searching his mind for the images of what he’d done. And he saw Lily Evans falling to the floor - saw James Potter and Sirius Black picking her up. “You pushed her down? Right big man you are,” Severus sneered. But he was relieved, at least a little, because he’d been dreading hearing this sort of news from Mulciber… dreading it being more than just a shoving spell.

He really had meant to stop them that day.

“For now,” Mulciber chuckled. Severus didn’t mean to scowl quite as severely as he did, but his mouth turned of it’s own accord and Mulciber’s laugh doubled. “What? Are you jealous? Then perhaps next time you’ll move a bit quicker instead of dicking about and losing your chance to peg the filthy little thing.”

Severus stood up. “Why don’t you go after some other girl, Mulciber, obviously Lily Evans is well guarded.”

“That’s part of the fun. The hunt of it.” He grinned.

Severus’s throat tightened. “Look, I just don’t want --”

“You know you want her, you know you dream of it, of taking her and feeling her, of having her as your own. I’ve heard you say it in your sleep, Snape. You who’s pined after that little tease for all these years?” Mulciber raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not like that,” Severus replied.

“What else could it be like? It’s not as though you seek to marry the little mudblood!” Mulciber laughed at the notion of it, but Severus’s jaw stayed firm. Mulciber’s laughter subsided slowly from humor at the absurdity of wanting to marry a mudblood to amusement at the absurdity that it was true. He stared at Severus Snape, a grin crossing his mouth, “Ohhhh Severus. If the Dark Lord only knew the things I see written upon your face.”

“Shut your mouth, Mulciber, you know nothing.”

“You’re already a half-blood yourself, already walking on thin ice, aren’t you Severus?” Mulciber hissed. “Marrying a mudblood? Becoming a blood traitor? Mummy would be so disappointed. Then your mummy was a mudblood fucker too wasn’t she? Married that good for nothing scum ball that produced you...”

“Don’t talk about my mother,” Severus said through gritted teeth.

“Figures you’d follow in her good for nothing footsteps. Always wondered why the Dark Lord would let her back in after she’d soiled herself by letting the seed of muggle filth enter her. Your mother was a weak, filthy, good-for-nothing layabout, let her family live in that hole you calld a home, that hovel among the poorest of muggles, where only the destitute go.” Amused by the expression of anger and horror that churned like a storm over Severus Snape’s face, Mulciber continued on, his voice rising with excitement, “That’s where you’ll end up, you and your little mudblood. But not until I’ve finished with her, I’ll petrify her and use her until I’m good and finished. can’t wait - I’ll make her scream and beg for more and I’ll throw the scraps to you, what’s left of her once I’ve broken and --”

“SILENCIO! SECARE!” Severus interrupted, the words clogging in Mulciber’s thorat with the first spell and Severus lashed his wand with the second and a cut erupted over Mulciber’s mouth, splitting both his lips and onto his chin as though he’d been slashed with a knife. Severus Snape walked up to Mulciber and, despite being shorter and narrower, he grabbed onto the boy’s Slytherin tie, wrapped it tight about his fist and he glared into his eyes, the blood dripping over the boy’s chin and onto his oxford. “You will not speak of my mother or Lily Evans in that way ever again or I will see to it that you do not speak another word for the rest of your life. Are we clear?” His words were slow, calculated, cold and absolutely chilling.

Mulciber nodded.

“Good.” Severus released the tie.

“You know he will kill her when he finds out.” Mulciber whispered.

Severus stared at him, level, cold.

“The Dark Lord would kill her before he’d let you marry her. No skin off his back, just one more mudblood dead in the ground. Kill you, too. He don’t have patience for blood traitors,” Mulciber’s voice was a hiss.

Severus’s eyes betrayed the worry in his mind.

“Would it even be worth it, Snape? Even if you somehow managed to make the mudblood give a damn about you as anything but a friend?” Mulciber breathed, “Are your lives worth a few moments of being together? Are you willing to throw away all that you’ve worked so hard for, all that you could be, if you’d just let her go and became as dark as your potential could allow?”

Severus stormed out the door of the dormitory, slamming the door behind him.