Current mood:	accomplished
Entry tags:	fic: pg13

Halloween Themed Snupin Fic
Title: The Graveyard Dare
Author: theladyfeylene
Pairing: Remus/Severus
Wordcount: 2970
Rating: PG
Summary: On a dare, Remus agrees to spend the night in a cemetery haunted by a particularly nasty ghost.




Pumpkin insides that had been sitting out for too long always smelled of rot to Remus. He wiped his hands on the soft denim of his jeans, leaving behind faint orange stains that smelled of fall and soggy leaves. He could still smell the cloying scent of pumpkin guts but not as strongly now. He wiped his hands once more over the rounded knobs of his hips - prominent even through his jeans - and paused on the hard packed dirt road at the crest of a hill.

The sky - it had been blue when he set out, heraldic blue adorned with the lacy wisps of autumn clouds - was sinking into ianthine darkness, the first stars winking into vision above the horizon. It was cold, a mountain wind just beginning to pick up and trip and play along the dirt road. It gathered up dead leaves and the brittle bones of small sticks and sent them skittering and cart wheeling along beside Remus’ feet. He shivered in his sheepskin jacket, feeling frail and thin and frightened.

It was all Sirius’ fault. The other boy had taunted and wheedled and pleaded and dared, egged on by James and Peter. Surely, he had said, the Big Bad Wolf wasn’t afraid of a handful of vengeful spirits. Besides, ghosts couldn’t hurt a person. Not really. None ever had, anyway.

Remus could see the wrought iron gates of the cemetery at the bottom of the hill. The darkness had fallen over it like a shroud, and he could hear the creak of the gate as it was battered by the wind. He wrapped his arms around him - his hands still smelled of pumpkin innards. They’d been carving them when talk of ghosts and cemeteries and bloody murder had come up. Every place had its stories - muggle or wizarding - and its legends and ghost tales. Even Hogsmeade.

“It was a crime of passion,” Sirius had said, stretched out on his bed with his hands tucked behind his head. “He was rich and old and she was young and pretty and poor and her family sold her off to him. She found some shop boy or something and fell in love with him, and the husband killed her real nasty-like and burned off the lover’s tongue and cut off his hands and his… well, anything that got intimate with the wife. You get the picture. They say she’s still hanging around, looking for revenge on the old coot.”

Remus shivered in the dusky cool, half from the weather and half from the casual way with which Sirius had recounted events. Of course, no one knew if the story was true or not.

“They say,” James had added, carefully carving a grinning mouth into the ribbed side of the pumpkin, “that no one can spend a full night in the cemetery where she’s buried. It’s down beyond Hogsmeade, by the mountains. She comes out at night in October, screeching and wailing and taking out her anger on anyone she can find. No one’s stayed long enough to see her, though. I hear she‘s grotesque, too grotesque to bear looking at.”

Remus kept his eyes on the shadow of the swinging gate, his breath making white clouds in front of his nose. No one stayed to see her.

“I’m sure it’s not all that bad,” had been the words that sealed Remus’ fate. All eyes had swiveled on to him, Peter’s frightened, James’ amused and Sirius’ predatory.

“Why don’t you find out?”

And here he was, hugging himself tightly at the hill above the famed cemetery, the wind tugging at him as though to say ‘let’s go back, come on’. He wanted to go back. But really, what was there to be scared of? A ghost that wasn’t all that pretty to look at? Ghosts couldn’t hurt anyone. But he felt that shivering tingle of fear creep up his spine anyway. Maybe it was the naked trees, their branches crisscrossing over the sky like a latticework of bones. Maybe it was the chilly wind that pulled at his sleeves and nipped at his cheeks. Maybe it was the sliver of a moon that hung low in the sky, like a jack-o-lantern’s grin. Whatever it was, Remus’ blood was up and his stomach was cold.

The longer he stood upon the crest the darker the night became; the porphyrous hue spreading and dissolving into nighttime’s black. It was now or never - he could continue down the path into the accursed graveyard or he could stay as he was, frozen to the spot and spend the night in the middle of the old Hogsmeade road. He certainly couldn’t go back and face the laughter of his three friends.

Resolute and grim faced, Remus walked haltingly down the hill to the cemetery gate. It rattled and swung as the wind played with it, plastering it in dead leaves and brushing it with dust. The road beyond was overgrown with gnarled roots, broken and cracked and unwelcoming. The sharp slabs of tombstones cut through the darkness, pale and harsh and old. Remus felt his heart skip a beat, felt it leaping to patter skittishly at the base of his throat.

It’s just an old graveyard, he told himself. But his legs still shook as he passed through the wrought iron gate. Was it his imagination or did the wind pick up and turn colder as he entered the cemetery? He pulled his faded jacket more tightly about him and glanced around.

The gravestones were old and many of them were cracked or leaning to the side. The whole place felt dead - more dead than those cemeteries that were well tended and welcoming. This was a dry, cold, solitary place. No wonder no one came down here or stayed overnight - who would want to? Remus shoved his hands deeply in his pockets and shifted, feeling cold. The darkness, the chill, the feeling of death and despair… the place reminded him of the things he’d read on Dementors.

There aren’t any Dementors here, he assured himself, peering into the darkness. Just some old ghosts and maybe some squirrels or owls or things. The Dementors are all in Azkaban.

But his imagination had already run away with him. Behind every gravestone, in the shadow of every tree branch he swore he saw the swirl of a black cloak. His stomach had settled into an icy ball inside of him, the fear of soul sucking creatures of darkness gripping him more strongly than the fear of any ghost. He backed against something solid and jumped, feeling brittle arms about him. He smelled the rot of new death suddenly and he stumbled over a gravestone as he pushed himself forward with little thought other than to flee. But it was only a tree, and the rot was only the remains of the pumpkin that he had wiped on his jeans.

Heart still racing, Remus perched on an old stone marker. The words were too faded for him to make out, and he swallowed against the writhing fear that threatened to overtake him. Why had he let Sirius talk him into this?

The wind had picked up now, turning over clods of dirt and shaking the naked tree limbs like skeleton dancers. The moon was high in the sky now, ghosting along behind the black lace of the high branches, sliding like a cloven will’o’wisp in the darkness.

And he was supposed to stay here all night? He may well be a werewolf, but he was also seventeen and very much human-shaped. He drew his knees up to his chin, hugging himself tightly. He could see the road outside the gate, and the twinkling lights of Hogsmeade over the hill. They looked warm and safe and very far away.

He could leave. He could transfigure his jacket into a cloak and spend the night nursing a drink in the Hog’s Head. But he wouldn’t be able to lie and say he spent the night - Sirius and James could see through him like glass. No, he had to stay here or face them.

The wind was shifting the leaves so they sounded like footfalls. Remus reminded himself that Dementors didn’t walk, they glided. Didn’t they? It was just the wind. But Remus could hear the crunch and shuffle of foot falls under the whisper of the wind. That icy finger of fear slid up his spine once more, more wet this time. He knew he should move - what if it was the ghost? He should just go back to his dorm and admit defeat, rather than stay here another moment. But his legs refused to move and his heart was thundering in his ears and out of the corner of his eye he saw the swirl of a black cloak…

The ground rushed up to meet him as Remus shoved himself off the tombstone, a flash of pale white and black tatters sweeping through his vision as he fell. Dementor! The word flashed in his mind and he tried to scream but it stuck in his throat with a sickly dry sound. He wheezed, his body tight and his back sore from his landing and his legs tangled around the gravestone. He skidded backwards, roots clawing at him and the moon overhead laughing at him and the wind urging him to move faster and he didn’t hear the footsteps anymore and he could see the edge of a tattered black cloak out of the corner of his eye and he was so cold and it was coming closer….

“Lupin? What in Merlin’s name are you doing out here? And what the hell is wrong with you, are you having a fit of some sort?”

It was no Dementor standing over Remus’ prone and tense form. It was Severus Snape, his pale skin made paler still by the moonlight and his tattered black cloak wrapped about him like a shroud. No Dementor, just a disgruntled Slytherin. Remus’ heart began to slow down and he just shook his head, aware of the sweat that had broken out on his forehead.

“I…fell,” he said lamely, his throat still dry and his words cracked.

“You fell,” Severus repeated, arms folded and expression disbelieving. In the moonlight he looked like some angry raven spirit, black and pointed and sleek and mean. “What are you doing here?”

Remus pushed himself up to a sitting position and caught his breath, not wanting to admit what he was doing. “What are you doing here?” he countered, wiping his damp brow.

“There’s a ghost down here that I visit with sometimes,” Severus said with a shrug. “And there are a handful of useful herbs that grow inside the gate. No one ever comes down here so I have my own personal stock. Now I answered your question, you answer mine.”

“A ghost?” Severus couldn’t possibly be talking about the spirit of the dead woman, the one said to be too hideous to look upon.

“That is what I said, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it’s just… you hear the stories…” Remus trailed off, looking embarrassed. Severus just stared at him, blankly.

“The stories.” Severus was back to repeating things. Remus just shrugged and stood on shaking legs, feeling less afraid now that he had a bit of company.

“Well, yeah. About the ghost that lives down here.” He hated to say more and sound like he was twelve again, but he couldn’t help but remember James’ words. Too grotesque to bear looking at.

“Her name is Grisandole. And I don’t think she’s going to be showing herself tonight - she doesn’t like strange people.”

Remus caught the heavy emphasis in Severus’ tone, and flushed again. “It… it was a dare,” he explained hastily. “I didn’t think there even really was a ghost, and you know how Sirius is…”

“I don’t care. You look frozen, Lupin, that coat isn’t doing you any good.”

“I didn’t think it would be this cold.” Remus buttoned the coat up to his neck, feeling the cold more harshly now.

“Here.” Severus handed him a thermos and Remus sniffed it. Hot cocoa. Severus Snape was giving him hot cocoa. He nodded his thanks and took a sip, grateful for the warmth.

“I’m sorry I scared off your friend…” the werewolf went on. “Is she… I mean, they say she’s…”

“Disfigured?” Severus took back the thermos and made a seat of a gravestone. “Yes, she is. Half of her face is gone - burnt off - the other half is mangled and she’s missing both arms.”

Remus shuddered once, and then again under Severus’ withering gaze.

“Personally, I’m more moved to regret than revulsion at the fact that she was killed so brutally. And that the only people who come here come to recoil in horror from a woman who did nothing but fall in love and pay the ultimate price for it. But some people have no bit of compassion in them.”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Remus shamefully admitted. “I always thought it was just a story.” Not much of an excuse, but the only one he could offer. Stories were stories, even the ones that were supposed to be true. No one ever thought about when they’d really happened.

“Some stories are real, Lupin. You should go back.”

“Sirius will never let me live it down,” Remus said with a shrug.

“Still living under his thumb? Grow a spine Lupin and do what you want to do, not what you think Black wants you to do.”

“Shut up, Severus. I just don’t want to deal with him, that’s all. Besides, maybe I want to stay here.”

“The ghost isn’t coming. The only company you’ll have this evening is me.” Severus split his lips in a mirthless grin, his teeth gleaming in the moonlight.

“There’s worse company than you,” Remus said, simply, and pulled a bag of ginger biscuits out of his pocket. He offered them to Severus who took one, wordlessly. The wind had died down once more, no longer a wind but a breeze. Now, in the light of calmness, it ruffled the branches of the trees and made the dead leaves dance.

“You smell like rot,” Severus said.

“I was gutting a pumpkin,” Remus explained. They sat in silence for a while, watching the leaves and the tombstones and the stars. Severus was shivering now, and Remus moved to sit beside him, to share in what warmth the two of them had. Severus jerked away at first, his stiff body becoming rigid. But it was warmer this way, and gradually he relaxed. They moved to the ground, to shelter from the wind under a large gravestone. They ate the biscuits and drank the cocoa and there was no more talking between them. Remus couldn’t think of anything to say, and was afraid to break this fragile thing between them. He knew that to speak would shatter it like glass, and he was content where he was. Eventually, warm with cocoa, sleep overtook them both.

When he woke up, Severus’ head was on his shoulder and his own hand was on the other boy’s knee. The Slytherin boy was warm and small against Remus, an unfamiliar but not unwelcome weight. He smelled of cold and ice and herbs, and the faintest hints of ginger and cocoa. He sniffed Severus’ hair, not thinking, and rested his cheek there. It was nice, this waking up curled against a warm and breathing body. Even Severus’ warm and breathing body.

The cemetery was hardly frightening in the dim light of morning. It was just an old graveyard, the stones falling into ruin and the trees taking over. But it was someplace special now, special because of the boy that was resting against him as though they were lovers. There was more to Severus Snape, he decided, than had ever met the eye. He wanted to know more.

Remus shifted to become more comfortable - the tombstone was hard against his back and a root was digging into his bum - and Severus jerked awake, the warm moment splitting and splintering and breaking like sugar candy. The Slytherin wrenched himself away, cheeks flushed with either cold or embarrassment. Remus just smiled and began to speak.

“Don’t say anything,” Severus snapped. “I didn’t… you were… I fell asleep!”

“We both did,” Remus said, pushing himself up and stretching. There was frost on the ground, a dusting of it as fine and thin as powdered silver. The image made him cringe.

“I didn’t mean to,” Severus grumbled, straightening his cloak. He looked angry, not embarrassed. He was so strange, Remus thought. “Anyway, we have to get back before anyone notices we were out all night.”

Remus watched as Severus stalked off towards the gate - more black wading bird than crow now, with his stiff legged walk and his hunched shoulders - and followed behind with a grin. He wanted to hold the other boy's hand, or maybe even kiss him - which was a silly thought, because it was Severus Snape. But Remus wanted to all the same. He threw an arm around the vexed looking Slytherin, laughing at the indignant squawk of protest that met the physical interaction. Remus pulled Severus close and kissed him, softly and with chapped lips that still tasted of ginger and cocoa. Eventually, Severus kissed him back with interest.

They stayed in the cemetery a little bit longer, and no one noticed they had been gone. Except for Sirius and James and Peter, who were sorely disappointed to hear there was no ghost. Remus decided not to tell them what had really happened. He didn't want to scare them that badly.