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“Shut it, Severus, I don't want to hear it. Close the door and sit down. You know the rules; you lost fair and square.”
Severus shot Rolanda his most vicious glare, and let the chair make an almighty screech along the floor as he pulled it out from the table, settling into it, arms crossed, with a huff.
“What do you know about fair,” he muttered under his breath, still grumpy he'd actually lost and not at all looking forward to whatever she had planned. Besides, who would've guessed Diggory could actually manage to find the snitch when Potter was on the field?
He counted the chairs around the table and leveled Rolanda with an unimpressed look. “There's too many chairs,” he said, in the vain hope she'd somehow simply miscounted.
“There's not,” she said smugly. “No complaining. Minnie is bringing that Scotch you like and I overheard Aurora talking with Poppy about covering for you tonight with your snakes, so you have no excuse to leave early.”
Before he could answer, the door swung open, and the rest of the party flowed through the door: Poppy, Minerva, and finally—
“No,” he hissed, standing up sharply, his chair letting out another loud screech as he spoke furiously under his breath to Rolanda. “Absolutely not.”
“Sit down, Severus,” Rolanda said, rolling her eyes. “You can be civil for one night.”
“I cannot,” he insisted, even as Minerva and Poppy pulled out their chairs and started pouring drinks: wine for Poppy and Rolanda, Scotch for Minerva and Severus and—
“No, no. I'm going,” he said, still refusing to make eye contact or even acknowledge who the last attendee was, that he was even in the room. It was bad enough Albus was making Severus brew for him all year, but this? Making nice all night? It was too much to ask.
“Sit down,” Rolanda repeated, more firmly this time. “Both of you.”
The moment hung, the utter silence drawing out until finally the wolf broke, letting himself into his seat with all grace and calm, as though he didn't even mind it.
With a final, long glare at Rolanda, he took his seat back, the last one at the table now. He tried not to let it bother him that it just so happened to be next to the wolf’s. He drained the cup Minerva poured for him and crossed his arms tight over his chest.
This night was going to be a disaster, he just knew it.
***
Two hours later, Severus thought maybe enduring Rolanda’s wrath would have been worth it.
In all honesty, he wasn't quite sure what the worst she could do would even entail. She wouldn't ban him from making future bets; he knew from watching her with Argus and Rubeus that she’d simply count it as a doubling down on his previous should he fail to pay up. She couldn't censor him personally in any way, much less professionally, which meant the worst she could ask for were probably a couple of dubiously legal potions if she was truly upset with him, which she was not.
He definitely should've just sucked it up and left. Anything would've been better than an entire night full of listening to the wolf say things like:
“Never have I ever given a detention under false pretenses,” as though they didn't all — every one of the professors on the staff, current and past — do everything in their power to pretend they didn't know their students were necking whenever they were found locked in a closet. All the real professors did, at least.
Or, “never have I ever served a detention under false pretenses,” as though the wolf wasn't cherry picking the hell out of his memories of his own Hogwarts years, having taken the blame for his friends and let them take the blame for him in turn at least a dozen times to Severus’ memory.
“Never have I ever had an affair with a current professor,” was a blatant lie, plain and simple, of the sort the wolf never would have hesitated to call Severus himself out on, but could apparently justify for himself. And if he focused on how angry the lie made him, then he didn’t have to think about how much the lie hurt.
It was during the next hour that Severus grew more suspicious, as the wolf declared with apparent sincerity that he had never done an alarmingly long list of lewd acts that Severus himself had been around to witness, seemingly baffled at the mere idea of sex with a wizard.
But the worst, by far, was his “never have I ever gone on a Hogsmeade date,” which even Minerva could recall as being false. Even if she wasn't aware of the precise nature of the fight at the time when it broke out, early in their seventh year and the ugliest by far between Severus and the Marauders, she should certainly remember the three months of detentions she’d assigned each of them in response to it.
Severus remembered it more the moment he knew he was finally, truly broken up with the wolf.
“You're lying,” he hissed, getting right up in the wolf’s face, daring him to say again that they'd never actually dated at all. “Even Minerva can tell you're lying out your arse you absolute prick,” he continued. “If we must be here, playing this bloody farce of a game, the least you could do is not lie.”
“I'm not?” the wolf said, clutching at his head pathetically. “I mean, I would know… I didn't…”
“You're lying,” Severus said again, letting his chair screech back again. “Just admit it. You coward.”
“I… What?” he asked, clutching at his head again. “I wouldn't. There's no way that I—”
“That you what? Would've dated a wizard? Or just that it was me?”
“I… Sev?” he asked, so soft, like he hadn't since that day in Hogsmeade.
“Well? Are you finally going to abmit it, then?”
He held his breath, and he could tell the other professors were watching avidly too. He hated this, hated the audience, hated that a confrontation had been provoked at all, but what was done was done, and he couldn't change what was in the past.
Only a wizard who was truly desperate or utterly mad messed with time.
“Oh, Sev,” the wolf said, even softer than before. “We went to Cuppolino’s didn't we? In Hogsmeade? It was supposed to be just the start, our first date, but…”
“But what, Remus,” Poppy asked quietly.
“I remember my friends found us,” he said. “They were so mad… I don't remember what happened next, but after, everything was different. We never spoke again, did we? It was almost as though…”
“A memory charm?” Minerva asked Poppy.
“Perhaps,” Poppy replied. “Do you remember anything else? Remus? Severus?”
“No,” Severus replied sharply.
“No…” Remus said, much softer. “I don't think so. Oh, Severus,” he said, reaching out a hand.
Before he could reach him, Severus backed out of reach.
“No,” Severus said, holding onto his mental control as tightly as he could. “No. I need to… think. Away from here. Alone. Good night,” he said.
Severus fled, his mind spinning with possibilities.
Was it true? Had one of Remus’ friends sabotaged them so badly? Was it out of hatred or fear or even jealousy, or was it something else entirely? He didn't know, and at this point it ached to think that he may never know.
But as he fled back to his rooms, he held onto the tender hope that maybe there could be something real between them once again.