r e a s o n a b l e . m e n

Reasonable Men
[by victoria p.]

Summary: "'If anyone's going to tell Snape, it will be me,' [Lupin] said firmly." Order of the Phoenix, page 672.

JJ Taylor reminded me of this story and I remember I wanted to talk about it back when I wrote it; specifically, I wanted to talk about why Remus takes the approach he takes, even though he knows it'll probably fail.

Remus watched as Snape strode out of the kitchen. Sirius was scowling, Molly pale; Shacklebolt looked thoughtful.

This is supposed to be post-Order meeting sometime shortly after Harry makes his fire-call to Sirius and Remus.

Sirius made as if to rise from his chair. "Remus--"

If Remus doesn't do it, Sirius will. Of course, it's entirely possible that Sirius and Snape would have brawled, and some good may have come of that. But I was constrained by canon. Stupid canon. The story can be read as completely pairing-neutral, but to me, Sirius and Remus are a couple here.

Remus nodded at Sirius's urgent tone, and followed Snape into the hall.

"Severus, may I have a word?" He kept his voice mild, cordial, even. On the one hand, it seemed the adult, polite thing to do. On the other, it irritated Snape to no end. Remus wasn't sure which was his actual motivation, but either way, it pleased him.

Passive-aggressive Remus at his best. I love the way he needles Snape in PoA without ever appearing to actually taunt him. I believe he takes no small measure of satisfaction from that.

"You may have as many words as you like, Lupin, so long as I don't have to listen to them."

And Snape being all snarky and British. *loves*

"I'm afraid they're meant for you, Severus."

Snape huffed, but stopped walking. "If you must. Be quick about it."

Well, then... "You need to resume Harry's Occlumency lessons."

Yeah, that's a brilliant approach, Lupin. That'll really work.

Remus was paying attention, so he could see the way Snape's hands tightened into fists for just a moment, the way his mouth opened before snapping shut into a grim line. Snape stared at him, but he'd faced worse in his time. He consciously kept his stance casual, his hands dangling loose at his sides.

1. Remus isn't scared of Snape. 2. Remus knows Snape is still scared of him. Hence his consciously remaining casual and unthreatening.

"Like hell I do." The words sounded as if they were torn from Snape's throat.

Bleh. Melodramatic sentence. Also awkward.

"Be reasonable, Severus. You know what it means to the Order. What it could mean for Harry--"

"Oh yes, the great Potter. We must always be thinking of poor Potter, never mind when he breaks the rules. He's the famous Harry Potter. Rules don't apply to him."

Remus should have stuck with the Order, with defeating Voldemort as his carrot.

He should know, after PoA, and then after the refresher Harry gives them, that Snape hates Harry, holds him responsible for James's behavior.

Which leads into Remus's big mistake.

"James saved your life. You owe--"

My feeling is that Remus can see how similar Snape is to Sirius, and an appeal to Sirius's sense of honor, of a debt owed, would have worked. Of course, Sirius believes himself to be irredeemably in James's debt for the big screw-up of switching to Peter as the secret-keeper.

Snape, otoh, chooses to believe that James only saved him out of failing courage (which shows how little Snape knows about James's brand of courage) and while *I* believe part of his drive to protect Harry is based on trying to repay that life-debt to James, there is no way in hell I believe Snape would let *Remus* see that.

Of course, I also believe that Snape became a spy for Dumbledore because he found out that Voldemort had targeted the Potters, and that he was attempting to protect them and repay his debt that way, without James ever really knowing about it. And then we add in my Snape-loved-Lily theory and we have a nice explanation for why, exactly, Snape turned and why Dumbledore trusts him.

Snape leaned toward him, just a fraction of an inch, and Remus forced himself not to take a step back from the murderous fury in his eyes.

"Do not ever presume to tell me what I owe, Lupin. I know exactly what is owed to whom."

And here we have Snape acknowledging the debt.

Remus wasn't certain if that was a yes or a no; he hadn't seen Snape so angry since the night of his reunion with Sirius in the Shrieking Shack.

"Then you'll do it?"

"No."

He bit back a growl of frustration. Apparently, an appeal to Snape's sense of honor had been the wrong way to go. He should have known better than to mention James. Snape was irrational on the subject.

Yes, he should have. But he made the mistake of thinking that Snape's loyalties were the same as his own. Which in the broader scheme of things, they are. On the personal level, not so much.

If he had stuck to "Dumbledore says" and "The Order needs," I think he may have gotten somewhere with Snape. But since I was constrained by canon, i.e., we know he failed (if he even approached Snape at all - he says he's going to, but we never see it. Dammit.). To me, this is a legitimate extrapolation of how that failure came about.

Sirius was going to kill him for screwing this up.

"Severus--" He tried again.

"I can see myself out." Snape swirled his cloak around him like a Muggle magician Remus had once seen in a nightclub, and then he was gone.

Because Snape is always swirling his cloak around in fic, so Remus and I are mocking that.

"Shit," Remus muttered. He closed his eyes and leaned against the door, hoping his failure wouldn't have any dire consequences.

end

*whimper*

Poor Remus. He has no fucking clue that he just signed Sirius's death certificate.

I think it's entirely possible, had Sirius had this conversation with Snape, that we'd have gotten Sirius telling Harry (as someone ought to have. Grrr.) why the Occlumency lessons were so important, instead of leaving the kid completely in the dark.

Stupid fucking idiots.

~*~

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