Drabble: The Potion
Characters: Snape, Lupin, Neville
Warnings: Mention of character death (not canon)
Disclaimer: Not mine
Drabble challenge was "It is a burden he should never have had to bear."
The round cheeks had been prematurely honed down into a square, strong face - but not strong enough. Blue-purple smudges showed like livid bruises underneath his eyes; new pink scars ran like lines of a map across his face. Thankfully, he slept, aided by a dreamless sleep potion. In spite of the potency of the brew, his eyes still moved rapidly beneath closed lids, and occasionally he flinched in his sleep, brow drawing tightly as if pained.
Lupin sat in a chair next to the boy's bed, brushed a gentle hand across his forehead, looking little better himself; his hair showed far more grey, his cheeks more gaunt than they had ever been. "How long do you think it will be before he sleeps without dreaming about it?"
Severus sat propped up in a bed across the room; he'd come out worse off physically, having lost an arm and an ear in an explosion, nearly losing his leg as well; he was now trying to painstakingly regrow the arm. His voice was gravelly and raw, an after-effect of inhaling smoke and soot - and screaming. "Some things - never leave your memory," he said. He let his eyes rest on the prone figure next to Lupin. "Betrayal. First loves. First loved one to die." He coughed, looked away. "First death - first kill."
The silence was palpable between them; Lupin broke it first, smoothing the sheets down. "No student should ever be forced to kill someone." He swallowed hard, continued hoarsely, "Much less a student, a friend. Much less - "
Snape's face twisted with understanding; eyes reflected memories too bitter to recall. He, too, had killed a trusted friend. "It was necessary. Potter had broken under the cruciatus - he was casting it on
students - and Longbottom knew all too well what that could do to a person."
"Necessary - yes. But it's still a burden he should never have had to bear. It should have been one of us."
A long silence passed, broken only by Neville's restlessness; Lupin soothed him back to stillness. "Irony, a werewolf soothing a hero," he said, bleakly. He slumped back in his chair, raked a shaking hand through his hair -
too long, but who'd had time for haircuts? and gazed at Severus. "Can you make the potion?"
"Can you give it to him?" Snape countered. "Knowing the consequences?"
Lupin prevaricated. "Could you?"
The potions master didn't look away. "Knowing what I know? Yes." The certainty was shadowed with unforgotten pain.
Neville flinched, flung one arm up, cried out in his sleep. Lupin soothed him again, until silence filled the infirmary once more. For a long time he sat holding Neville's hand, murmuring words of comfort, the ticking clock loud in the room.
"Shall I brew the potion?" Words, choices, smoky and hoarse and ambiguous.
Lupin inhaled, held it, exhaled, waited a heartbeat. Then, decided, looking again at Longbottom.
"Yes. Brew the potion, Severus. I will....give it to him."
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