Work Text:
The Department of Magical Law Enforcement’s Administrative Oversight division was, by all objective measures, a purgatory designed by someone who believed suffering built character. The walls were beige, the enchanted lights flickered at a migraine‑inducing frequency, and the paperwork multiplied like a cursed fungus every time Remus Lupin blinked.
Remus had survived a war. He had survived the werewolf registry. He had survived Weasley family dinners. He had thought himself unbreakable.
He was wrong.
Because for three months, he had been assigned to share a medium‑sized office with Sirius Black and Severus Snape.
The Ministry called it a “reintegration and cooperation initiative.”
Remus called it “a slow, administrative death.”
To his mild surprise, Severus was actually trying. He arrived early, filled out forms with grim precision, and radiated a quiet, simmering hatred for everything around him. He worked in silence, quill scratching like a tiny, furious creature.
Sirius, meanwhile, had appointed himself Professional Snape Observer.
He didn’t work so much as hover. He watched Severus with the intensity of a man convinced he was uncovering a conspiracy involving at least three continents and one cursed stapler.
Remus sat between them, the human equivalent of a blast shield, and felt himself aging in real time.
One
“Take note,” Sirius muttered.
Remus didn’t look up. He didn’t need to. Severus was at the Muggle‑compatible computer, typing with aggressive precision, glaring at the monitor like it had insulted his mother.
“He is doing something,” Sirius insisted.
“He is doing his job,” Remus said.
“Suspiciously.”
Remus glanced at Sirius’s desk. The stack of untouched forms leaned like a condemned tower.
“And once again, you are doing nothing.”
Sirius gasped. “He’s clouded your judgment. Classic misdirection. He’s probably sending coded messages to a coven.”
Severus didn’t turn around. “Black, if you spent half as much time working as you do inventing my extracurricular activities, you might meet a quota.”
“Aha!” Sirius pointed. “Deflection. Textbook guilty behaviour.”
Remus put his head in his hands.
Two
The photocopier groaned like a dying creature.
“He’s looking at me again,” Sirius whispered.
Remus didn’t look up. “He’s looking at the copier.”
“That’s what he wants you to think.”
Remus sighed and finally glanced over. Severus was indeed staring at the copier, which was currently making a noise like gravel in a blender.
“He’s using the reflection,” Sirius hissed. “Peripheral surveillance. He’s assessing my posture.”
“A posture assessment,” Remus repeated flatly.
“He’s planning something.”
Severus yanked a jammed parchment from the machine and turned. His eyes met Sirius’s for half a second.
“Stop staring at me,” Severus said.
Sirius smirked. “See? He admits it.”
Remus wondered if the Department of Mysteries accepted transfers of people who were still technically alive.
Three
“You’re looking at him again,” Remus said.
“I am observing,” Sirius corrected, chin in hand, eyes locked on Severus.
Severus was eating a sandwich. That was all.
“Sirius, he is eating lunch.”
“A tuna sandwich,” Sirius said darkly.
“So?”
“He hates tuna.”
Remus blinked. “How do you know that?”
“I pay attention.”
Severus paused mid‑bite, looked at Sirius, then took another slow, deliberate bite.
Sirius inhaled sharply. “See! That is something. He is trying to trick us.” He clicked his fingers, "he can not be trusted."
Remus closed his eyes.
Four
Their field mission to the damp northern village had gone surprisingly well — mostly because Severus was efficient and Sirius was too busy “flanking suspects” to cause trouble. They returned to the office, exhausted, and smelling like something that had died twice.
A hospitality witch brought in a tray of tea. A rare kindness.
Sirius stiffened. “Do not drink that.”
Remus, mid‑sip, paused. “It’s tea.”
“Tea he gave you.”
Remus blinked. “Someone else made it.”
“Exactly. A diversion. Classic tactic.”
Severus didn’t even look up from cleaning his boots. “Lupin, please inform Black that I am not attempting to poison you with Earl Grey.”
To prove his point, Severus reached over, took Remus’s cup, and drank from it — eyes locked on Sirius the entire time.
Sirius hissed. “See? He’s too calm. That’s never good.”
Remus pushed the tea away. Poisoned or not, he’d lost the will to drink anything.
Five
The next week was a blur. Remus had barely sat down when Sirius appeared in the doorway, soaked and indignant.
“I know what he’s doing.”
“Snape,” Said Remus automatically.
“He’s trying to steal you.”
Remus stared. “Sirius, Severus barely tolerates my existence.”
“That’s what he wants you to think! He’s forming a strategic alliance with you to isolate me.”
Somewhere down the hall, a shower turned on.
Sirius’s eyes narrowed. “I’m confronting him.”
“You’re bathing,” Remus corrected. “You smell like a bog.”
“I can do both.”
Remus doubted that.
Five minutes later, on his way to the loo, Remus passed the staff showers — and froze.
“You think I don’t see your plan?” Sirius’s voice echoed.
Severus sounded exhausted. “Black, I am naked. I am covered in soap. Leave.”
“Suspicious!”
Remus pinched the bridge of his nose. He should walk away. He didn’t.
“You keep looking at me,” Sirius accused.
“I avoid looking at you,” Severus snapped. “You are a loud, ambulatory inconvenience.”
“Emotional,” Sirius said triumphantly.
“Because you are in my shower!”
That was Remus’s cue to leave. He no longer needed the loo. He needed to bleach his mind.
Ten minutes later, Sirius burst into the office, dripping and wild‑eyed.
"I told you he could not be trusted."
Remus didn’t even look up.
“He kissed me with his mouth.” Sirius added, as if that explained everything.
Remus lowered his quill. “I’m sorry?”
Severus appeared behind him, damp and half‑buttoned. “He came into my shower and kissed me.”
“You don’t get to talk!” Sirius barked.
Remus inhaled. “Sirius. You kissed him?”
Sirius began pacing the small space.
“He made me!”
“How?”
“He said things!”
“I told you to leave,” Severus muttered.
“And then he kissed me back and made me feel things!”
Remus held up a hand. “No. No more. I refuse to have that image in my mind.”
“You’re missing the point!” Sirius insisted. “Snape, show him.”
Severus looked horrified. “Absolutely not.”
But Sirius was already moving. He grabbed Severus by the shirt and kissed him — right there, in the office, in front of Remus and a confused floating memo.
It was chaotic. It was messy. It was happening.
Severus, out of spite or momentum, kissed him back.
Remus dropped his quill.
Sirius pulled away, breathless. “See? That! That is what he did.”
Severus straightened his collar. “You assaulted me.”
“You kissed me back!” Sirius snapped.
“To make you stop.” Severus folded his arms, as though that settled the matter.
Sirius threw up his hands. “That’s not how stopping works!”
Remus stood abruptly. “No more kissing at work. If I see one more lip‑lock, I’m firing you both.”
They both looked offended.
Remus's Revenge
Three weeks later, Remus snapped.
It wasn’t dramatic. It was quiet. Sirius was ranting about potion‑store reorganization being “psychological warfare,” and Severus was tapping his quill with smug precision.
Remus stood.
“Inside,” he said, pointing to the corridor.
Sirius brightened. “An interrogation!”
“No.”
Two minutes later, he had shoved both men into an unused records room and locked the door.
“Remus!” Sirius shouted. “This is illegal!”
“Talk,” Remus said. “I don’t care how. You’re not coming out until you can exist in the same room without making me consider defenestration.”
“I refuse to speak to him!” Sirius yelled.
“I find the feeling mutual,” Severus added.
Remus walked away and ate a very slow sandwich outside.
When he returned, the silence behind the door was concerning.
He unlocked it.
Severus stepped out first, looking smug in a way Remus didn’t trust. Sirius followed, dazed and hair‑ruined.
Remus stared. “I’m afraid to ask.”
“Good,” Severus said.
“I still don’t trust him,” Sirius declared, while not letting go of Severus’s hand.
Severus looked unbearably pleased.
Remus smiled. For the first time in months.
Sirius glared. “Do not start.”
Remus didn’t. He simply made tea. Poisoned or not, he needed it.
+1
Two days later, Kingsley Shacklebolt stopped by.
He froze in the doorway.
Sirius and Severus sat at adjacent desks, pretending to work, very much not pretending not to look at each other.
Kingsley leaned toward Remus. “Does he always look at Snape like that?”
“Yes.”
“And Snape allows it?”
“Yes.”
Kingsley nodded slowly. “Right.”
Remus finally looked up. “Sirius hasn’t accused him of anything this month. No sleeper cells. No tuna conspiracies. That’s progress.”
Kingsley stared again. Sirius tapped his quill in Severus’s direction. Severus leaned slightly toward him, pretending not to smile.
“Right,” Kingsley repeated.
Remus returned to his forms. He had accepted his fate. He was the third wheel in the Ministry’s most dysfunctional romance.
But as long as the kissing stayed out of the office, he could live with it.
Almost.