Chapter Text
Severus stood in front of a very angry looking fifth year potions class, his head of house practically screaming at them. The gryffindors responsible for the present situation standing beside him.
Slughorn wiped his face in an effort to clean what was supposed to be an anti-paralysis potion, but actually resembled thick purplish mud. Underneath it the man was red as a tomato, his eyes bulging in his anger, only exacerbated by a slight paralyzing effect from the failed potion pulling at his face muscles. Severus had seen his professor irritated, annoyed even, but the head of slytherin usually made an effort to appear as an even tempered and approachable teacher. Right this moment Slughorn was fuming.
“It's the second week of the school year and you couldn't keep yourselves from being an embarrassment to Hogwarts! In this institution we make a great effort to give you kids an education of the highest quality and year by year you take it for granted! Always making a mess of my classroom and disturbing other students!”
Slughorn continued with his reprimand, gesturing at the splattered stone walls of the dungeon, the ruined workbench and the blown up cauldron. The students around them were either snickering or sending them death glares. Severus was dreading more the backslash from his own housemates, than any loss of points in itself.
It was not his fault alone, Potter and his gang of idiots had been especially annoying that day, even going so far as to mess with his brew, making it boil over and thicken like cement. Lily, who had been his lab partner since first year, tried to calm him down, even offering to help him start over so he could sumit his potion in time. Severus should have been the better person, he should have just taken a deep breath and moved on, but the moment he heard Black laughing his blood boiled, erasing any common sense Severus had ever possessed.
Without really thinking, he fired a stunning hex that hit Pettigrew square in the chest, sending him tumbling to the floor, starting a full on fight with Black and Potter. A badly aimed hex almost hit Lupin, who as usual had been keeping his distance, but the gryffindor managed to deflect it, hitting Severus’ cauldron making it explode, splashing everything around it, including their potions teacher.
“I am done with this constant rivalry between all of you! Every time you are in my class something ends up in flames.” Slughorn shouted, pointing at the five of them. “I'm taking fifty points for each of you and you will serve detention every single evening for a month or you will never set a foot in my class ever again!”
“But I- it's all their fault, they-” Severus tried to defend himself, but Slughorn interrupted with a harsh gesture of the hand.
“I don't care whose fault it is, Mr. Snape. As a member of the noble house of slytherin you should know better than to get into a pointless and petty confrontation! All of you will meet me at the dungeons after class and that is final!”
Severus made his way through the poorly lit corridors that led to the dungeons right after finishing his last class. He was in a bad mood since that morning and was not looking forward to starting a whole month of detention. He had even skipped a meal in case they would have to clean bathrooms or pickle viseras for Slughorn, Lily had scolded him about it, but Severus was determined not to throw up thanks to his weak stomach.
The four gryffindor dunderheads were already waiting at the door. Potter and Pettigrew were laughing at something Black had said, while Lupin looked at them with a small smile on his lips. Black turned around to face Severus when he heard him approaching, staring at him with his usual vitriol.
“Hope you're happy you greasy git, because of your shit aim we can't attend quidditch practice for a month.” Black said angrily.
“It's not my fault you idiots can't keep your stupid jokes outside the classroom, and if I remember correctly it was Lupin who managed to hit my cauldron.” He retorted with just as much distaste in his voice.
“You fired first, you slimy dickhead.” Black got his wand out, ready to start another fight, only stopping thanks to the arrival of Slughorn, a purring Miss Norris, slow moving and angry looking Mr. Filch holding a bucket full of cleaning supplies. Maybe his guess of scrubbing bathrooms was not entirely wrong.
“Potter, Black, Pettigrew, you'll be helping Mr. Filch with his chores. Lupin, Snape, you will assist me with class preparations.”
“Of course the slytherin gets the softer punishment.” Potter spat in a resentful manner, ignoring the fact that Lupin got the exact same task. At least he’ll be stuck with the least annoying of the boys.
“Oh believe me Mr. Potter it will be punishment enough, now, off you go. Lupin, Snape, follow me.” Slughorn opened the door to the potion’s lab, directing them to the back, where the ingredient storage was. Inside the room there was a barrel full of shiny black insects waiting to be processed.
“You will prepare these scarabs, I need you to separate the eyes, wings, and exoskeleton, discard the guts. They better be done by the time I'm back, and you better not damage any of it.” The potions master said, giving each boy a set of utensils and leaving them alone in the damp, smelly, room.
Each took a seat on either side of the workbench, Severus grabbed a small knife and began the task in silence, all in all it wasn't that bad, maybe he’ll reconsider that thought a week in, but so far it was fine. He was used to preparing his own ingredients from fresh every time he had the chance, as even a bit more care could improve the quality of something as simple as dried lavender.
After a couple moments of working in silence Lupin spoke to him, sounding actually apologetic. “I'm sorry, they shouldn't have messed with your work.”
“Sorry for almost hitting you.” Severus surprised himself with the answer, but he supposed the gryffindor wasn't actually part of the fight, and quickly added. “Why are you even with them? You are a good student unlike Potter and you are not a destructive fool like Black, not that it is a hard thing to accomplish.”
“They’re my friends, they accept me no matter what… not many people in my life have done that.” Lupin said with a shrug, yellow eyes sad.
Severus understood the feeling, he himself only had Lily as a friend. He didn't want to admit it, but he would probably stick by her side even if the girl became an idiot like Black overnight. Severus decided to end the conversation then and there, no need to get sad over a stupid, overly loyal gryffindor. “Let's just finish this quickly and go.”
He intended to get the chore done while ignoring Lupin unless talking was strictly necessary, but only after a couple of minutes he had to look up from his work when he heard frustrated mumbles coming from the gryffindor, who seemed to be having some trouble separating the insects properly. For what Severus could see the other boy’s skill with the knife was shabby at best and he kept damaging the wings repeatedly or almost stabbing his own hand when the blade slipped on the hard exoskeleton.
Severus let out an annoyed sigh and motioned Lupin to move closer. “Here, let me show you how to use your tools before you end up losing a finger.” He said, practically snatching a knife from his hand and proceeded to demonstrate how to extract the eyes, wings and properly scrape the insides without destroying the rest.
“Thank you.” Lupin replied with a small smile.
Severus had to stop himself from frowning in confusion at the pleasant actitud and genuine gratefulness of the boy. Not really knowing how to react to the strange sensation of having one of the gryffindors act with civility around him. So he just opted for responding with the same bitterness he usually did. “I refuse to let you damage the already subpar ingredients this school provides just because you have no skill.” Instead of the offended reply or rude retort he expected from the gryffindor, Lupin only gave Severus an amused look and got back to work.
After a couple of hours Slughorn was back. The man was most definitely still annoyed with them to some degree, but he appeared to be pleased with their work, so he let them go with a reminder to come back tomorrow and not to be late.
They politely said their goodbyes and each went their separate ways. Well, at least the detentions will be quiet if not enjoyable at all
As their detention went on Remus came to realize Snape wasn’t all that bad. He just didn't care too much about what other people thought of him and had a serious lack of tact. The combination of which made him sound like a rude arsehole at first, but he was a hard worker and a surprisingly good, if not nice, teacher.
He constantly helped Remus with whatever gross ingredient preparation they were assigned by Slughorn, from teaching him the proper use of different tools to how to mitigate the horrible smell of guts so they could work without vomiting, but never admitted to being kind or accepted his gratitude, opting to make some rude comment about the gryffindor’s incompetence and his refusal to deal with it for the duration of their detention, which amused Remus to no end. He clearly was nicer than he looked, so why keep up the appearance?
As the end of the month approached, Remus found he didn't actually want these moments of quiet work to stop. He wanted to get to know Snape better, besides, the slytherin’s help had translated into a serious improvement on his brewing skills. Remus supposed it could be a two birds with one stone sort of situation.
Friday night and the end of their last detention with Slughorn had arrived much quicker that Severus originally expected. The tasks they had been given throughout the month were not exactly pleasant, but he had to admit Lupin wasn't bad company.
They were just finished with their last assignment, cleaning the last remains of dark, slimy algae from their tools when the gryffindor decided to break the silence. “I've been thinking.” He announced.
“An amazing feat for a gryffindor indeed.” Severus quickly interrupted with a smirk.
“Can you tutor me on potions? You are a much better teacher than Slughorn.” Lupin continued, ignoring his jab.
Severus eyed him suspiciously “Why would you want my help? Surely there must be some other lion willing to help you.”
“I...well, I just like the way you explain things, it's easy to follow, and I could help you with care of magical creatures in return, let's be honest, you are pants at it.”
Severus was about to decline the boy’s offer when his memory replayed an incident occurred on a lesson of last year where a particularly territorial Bowtruckle had attacked him, resulting on several scratches on his face and the loss of a good chunk of hair, along with the ridicule of being bested in a fight by such a small and “friendly” creature, even Lily had found it humorous.
He had only decided to take the class because most magical creatures had some sort of useful part he could harvest if he knew how to handle them, but he had not taken into account the fact that he was not great with animals in the first place. He had mostly passed the class on his theoretical knowledge and help from Lily on group practices, but now that they were on fifth year the creatures they were to start handling only xxx and a few xxxx class creatures Severus was in real danger of losing a finger or two if he didn't get better at the practical part of the subject.
Severus tried to suppress a shiver at the embarrassing memory. “Alright, I suppose we can benefit mutually from this. We'll meet on friday afternoons, but the moment I see you aren't taking it seriously we are done.” He said in his best no nonsense voice.
“That's fair, thank you Severus.” Lupin said to him with a friendly smile.
The casual use of his given name surprised him, an even bigger surprise was that he actually didn't mind. He actually liked how it felt to be called that way by someone other than his best friend. “Whatever Remus, I’ll see you next week.” He was sure to regret this decision in the future.