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Remus had been drowsily grading papers when Snape came in with his dose of Wolfsbane potion. As the door shut loudly behind the hook nosed potions master, Remus snapped to attention, preparing to apologize instinctually, but he halted when he saw how his visitor looked.
“Severus… Are you quite alright?”
Actually, Severus was sure he had never felt worse. There was a clammy sweat across his waxy brow, and deep within his sinuses was an itch that forebode of a display that he wasn’t eager to have in front of one of his childhood tormentors.
“Perfectly fide,” he said stuffily, beginning to move across the room. He made it nearly to Remus’s desk, potion in hand, before he suddenly whirled, set down the goblet of Wolfsbane on a nearby desk, and bent over with his large nose in his hands.
“Heh… heh… heISHIEW! HA’TSCHOO!!””
Snape tried to straighten and turn to Lupin, already angrily reaching for a handkerchief, but he turned away from him again, his nose twitching so badly that Remus could see it even from where he sat.
“Huh-tsh! Ehhhh… Eh-TSCHEW! HE’CKSHIEW!”
Remus began to stand from his desk, concern wrinkling his brow, but Snape furiously waved him away, bending over again for one final wet “HEhh...ATSCHIEW!”
“God bless you.”
Remus was up now, and across the room, draping his arm around the shoulder of his old enemy to steady him. Severus angrily shoved it off, and scrubbed at his oversized nose. Remus bit at his lower lip, hesitating before reaching into his robe and offering a tattered handkerchief. The ill man gave a disparaging laugh, presumably about how woebegone the offering was, but broke into a coughing fit, and Remus gently took his shoulders again and guided him to his own desk.
They both sat in silence for a moment, allowing Severus to catch his breath before he dryly groused “I didn’t bring that potion all the way over here for my health.”
“Oh! Oh.” Remus jumped up and went to retrieve the goblet, draining it before he returned to Severus.
“Thank you for this. I really appreciate it. I really do.” At that point Remus paused politely, seeing Severus’s nostrils flare and knowing that he had something more pressing at that moment to deal with than what Remus was about to say.
Snape gazed out into space, his nostrils flaring furiously and his eyes glazed.
“Hae’ekkSHIEWW!” Snape buried himself in Lupin’s patched hankie, his face bright red. Remus winced. This had to be horrible for him, losing control like this in front of someone who he hated so deeply.
Remus waited until he was sure that Severus was done before continuing.
“God bless you. But, really, I could’ve just dropped by and gotten it myself. With you in this state… you should be in bed, if not with Poppy. Really, Severus. You could’ve collapsed on the way over here!” Almost without realizing he was doing it, Remus reached out to feel Serverus’s forehead. He had only just started to feel the dry heat there before Severus ducked away, his nose as angrily red as his eyes.
“I certainly don’t need a lecture from you on the subject. I’ll be going now, if you could let go of me.” Severus rose unsteadily from the chair with a great sniffle, grabbing on to the table for support. Remus got up with him, his eyes wide with worry.
“Severus…”
Snape spared a glance down at him (they had never been this close before, and in the abstract Snape had been aware that Lupin was small, but it was different like this, with Remus coming up to his chin and his small frame being swallowed up by his own shadow).
“Please let me help you back to your quarters. I swear, I won’t say a word, I’ll never mention it again. I just… I can’t in good conscience let you walk alone through the castle like this.”
Severus stood motionless for a moment, clearly trying to put together a scathing retort, but distracted by the tickle in his nose, which wiggled as though it was its own living entity. He held it off for as long as he could, but eventually he turned from Remus with a “URshHH!”.
“Bless you,” Remus said softly. “Please, Severus.”
Snape decided to allow it, decided to permit Lupin to slip his slender arm beneath his own and help him to his chamber. And if, in the midst of a particularly wet sneeze Snape misted him, Lupin decided that he need to didn’t acknowledge it.
—
“Huh-tschiew!”
Severus looked up from his chair in the teacher’s lounge to see Remus, a handkerchief over his nose, looking surprised at himself and bright red with embarrassment. Severus opened his mouth, his eyebrows raised, but shut it again as Remus pinched his nose shut.
“Hh’itschGNXX! Ht’kshhX!”
They were alone in the teacher’s lounge, and Severus told himself that was the only reason that he asked.
“Are you feeling alright, Lupin?”
Remus gave a sheepish smile, rubbing at his nose with his hankie in a way that made him look much younger, more like the teenager that Severus had known all that time ago.
“Fine, fine. Sorry. It’s just a bit of the moon hanging on, you kno- hih-tschiew!” Remus blinked, his eyes the slightest bit glazed. “Sorry. Excuse me.”
They both knew perfectly well that it wasn’t the moon hanging on, that Remus had caught Severus’s cold and it looked a million times worse on his haggard frame. Snape fought to keep his face clear of concern. He returned his eyes to his book, pretending casualty when he said “If you need to stop by, I have a personal stash of Pepper-Up in my office.”
He didn’t need to look up to know that Remus was smiling when he gave a stuffed up thank you. Just like Remus didn’t need a note to know who the freshly laundered handkerchiefs on his desk were from later that day.