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Fix My Moony


Remus was listing off the wonderful qualities and why each of the things he listed were reasons that he, Remus Lupin, was not good enough for - but so desperately wanted - Severus Snape. Sirius’s face was one laced with concern and a bit of anger as he watched Remus spout off dramatically, as though he were performing a Shakespearean play or something, right there in the center of the dormitory, his voice all funny and eyes unfocused.

“What the bloody hell’ve you done to him?” Sirius asked, glaring at James.

“Bloody hell, it’s love potion,” James said, his eyes wide. He turned to look at Sirius. “That’s how Snape’s been getting Lily Evans to fall in love with him. He’s been using love potion. This explains everything, Sirius.”

“You’ve just given Rey a bottle of Snape’s love potion?” Sirius’s voice shook, angry. “You’ve ruddy given him love potion for that greasy headed git?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!”

“Well you ruddy broke my Moony, Potter!” Sirius snapped, angry.

Defensive, James said, “The idiot drank a random bottle of liquid without waiting for me to say he could! This is only like… fifteen to twenty percent my fault, mate. It’s like seventy-three percent his own blast fault.”

“YOU’RE TERRIBLE AT MATH!” Sirius cried.

Sirius stared at Remus as he laid across his bed with a dreamy sigh, crossing his arms over him chest to hug himself, getting balm and blood from the cuts all over his shirt again, still talking to himself about Severus. Sirius looked back at James, “Fix it.”

“I dunno how!” James said.

“Well bloody hell, he can’t go about sighing and simpering over Severus Snape,” Sirius said, “It’s bad enough Evans is doing that, we don’t need Remus doing it, too! Not to mention, imagine the ruddy good time the stinking Slytherins would have with that? They already make fun of him, we don’t need them adding to it that he wankers off to the thought of one of them!”

James frowned, “I know that! Obviously we’ll need to fix it, but I dunno how.”

“We need to talk to one of the teachers, maybe Slughorn,” Sirius suggested.

“Slughorn is best mates with Severus Snape, we don’t need him going on about how ruddy brilliant Snape is for concocting this damn potion, I’m sure it’s an advanced potion or something… probably why we don’t know the antidote, probably several years ahead of our skillset.”

“Even ruddy this year is ahead of our skillset,” Sirius pointed out.

James laughed, “Yep. Hmm… Maybe McGonagall?”

“Or Professor Shacklebolt, you’re mates with him!” Sirius said.

“YEAH!” James said, “Excellent.” He looked at Remus. “The real question is how do we get him all the way down to Kingsley’s office with him going on like this?”

“Dunno. We don’t want anybody overhearing what he’s saying, that’ll go all over the school in minutes,” Sirius rubbed his chin, thinking. Then a thought occurred to him and he leaped over the bed, diving for the book he’d hidden under the far side - the Joker’s spellbook - and extricated it, flipping it open to the glossary until he’d found the spell he’d been looking for. “Here, look, maybe this could work?” he thrust the book at James.

James looked it over. It was a spell that caused a speaker to speak in opposites. “This might could do it,” James said, reading the description.

Sirius looked at the incantation and waved his wand toward Remus. “Falaroposto,” he said.

Remus, who had been in the midst of his dissertation on Severus’s absolute brilliance, suddenly was calling him positively stupid and James grinned. “Perfect. Good call, mate.”

They took him and guided Remus down the hall by his shoulders, James carrying the empty pumpkin juice bottle as they went, pulling Rey along through the corridors. Sirius pushed him on from behind and Remus streamed on and on about what an idiot Severus Snape was, and how he ought to be ashamed for how bloody horrible he looked. Students they passed glanced after them as they walked by, like a strange train with an anti-Severus Snape engine whistle. They reached the Defense Against the Dark Arts corridor just in time - the opposite spell was wearing off and having left the book in the dormitory, Sirius couldn’t recall the incantation to refresh it.

“He’s glorious! Like a beast of manflesh and muscle! That hair! Oh and those dark, blackish-brown eyes, like voids of the universe…” Remus was exclaiming when Kingsley Shacklebolt opened the door of his office.

“FIX MY MOONY!” Sirius declared, giving Remus a shove so that he stumbled forward a couple steps towards the Defense professor.

James stared up at Kingsley, as his eyes widened and travelled over the scene before him. “We’re, uh, experiencing a bit of a complication, as you see… and I was hoping you might help us, Kingsley?”

Kingsley stepped back and watched in silence as James and Sirius dragged Remus into the room, then closed the door behind them.

“If only he liked me! My life would be complete! I could be happy! Oh Sirius,” Remus clutched onto Sirius’s shirt, tightly balling a handful of it into his fist, “I want him so bad, I want to kiss him. I want to run my fingers through his hair!”

Sirius stared at Remus as though he’d just slapped him. “You’d be stuck like a bird in an oil spill, you idiot,” Sirius said sternly.

Remus looked highly offended. “YOU TAKE THAT BACK! YOU TAKE IT BACK NOW, YOU PRAT!” and he tried to shove Sirius, but the difference in their strengths became rapidly apparent as Remus’s push was utterly ineffective against Sirius’s chest.

Sirius looked up at Kingsley Shacklebolt, “For the love of hippogriff, you’ve got to fix him before I kill him, mate.”

Kingsley Shacklebolt pulled Remus back and held his shoulder, lifting up his wand, illuminating the tip, and looking into Remus’s eyes. “I’m assuming it’s amortentia?” Kingsley asked, which was a really good guess, since James hadn’t even told him what happened yet.

“Yeah, or some other love potion,” James said quickly. He explained about following Evans and Snape and the effect the drink had on her and how he’d stolen the bottle, planning to bring it to somebody to prove it was suspicious.

Kingsley looked very concerned with the whole story by the time James had finished explaining it. He clearly disapproved of Snape’s idea of getting a girlfriend. “Unfortunately, James, we’ll have to bring him down to see Horace, I don’t have the antidote.” He stood up, “And this is quite a powerful potion, so it does require the potion master’s expertise... It’s not something I can magic away for you.”

“I’ll say it’s powerful,” said Sirius, staring at Remus with concern, “Anything that can make him bloody love a git like Snape’s got to be about as powerful as bloody Dumbledore himself, I reckon.”

Kingsley nodded, “It’s a very strong infatuation such a potion creates - not something that should be played with…” He reached for Remus’s hands, “Alright, Mr. Lupin, let’s get you down to the dungeons…”

Remus asked, “The dungeons? Are we going to see Severus? You know, that’s where the Slytherin common room is. Only Peter can open the door, though. The prefect’s toilet there has a password. It’s Salazar. We saw Voldemort once there. In the mirror. He’s a good looking bloke. For a bad guy, I mean.”

Kingsley’s eyebrows raised. “He needs to see Slughorn immediately,” he said.

“Will you go with us, so Slughorn doesn’t think we’re just trying to start something new against the Slytherins?” Sirius requested, thinking of Dumbledore’s warning from before - when he’d said any strikes back against the Slytherins in the prank war would result in the re-evaluation of his feelings on them being expelled.

Kingsley agreed to go and not only that but he cast a spell over Remus so that, even though his mouth was moving, none of them could hear him as he went on and on about Severus Snape and his amazing hands. Sirius was nearly more thankful for the silence from Remus on the topic of how much he liked Snape as he was for the help that Kingsley was going to give them.

On through the castle they went, down to the dungeons. They were coming up to Slughorn’s office when Regulus and Barty Crouch came ‘round the bend from the Slytherin common room and Regulus’s eyes perked up and he elbowed Crouch. Surely, he was just about to start something when he spotted Kingsley and abruptly stopped whatever it was he’d been about to do. He scowled and shoved by his brother, making a point to step on his foot in passing.

Sirius glowered after him.

Kingsley led the way up the steps to the door of Slughorn’s office and rapped his knuckles on the wood. It took a moment for the door to open and when it did, Horace Slughorn stood there in a velveteen smoking jacket, his old face sort of wobbly as he looked over the people on his stoop. He looked curiously at the silently flapping jaw of Remus Lupin and raised an eyebrow. “May we come in?” Kingsley Shacklebolt requested and Slughorn stepped back to allow them all passage through.

After explaining Remus’s condition - and a very quick assessment and confirmation of the trouble that had befallen the boy - Slughorn took just a moment to mix together a goblet full of the antidote and handed it to Remus, “There we are, my boy,” he said, watching as Remus gulped it down eagerly. “That’ll do… that’ll do…”

As Remus came down from his Snape-induced-high, Kingsley Shacklebolt pulled Slughorn aside and said, in a low voice, “Horace. This potion was made by one of your students. Severus Snape. He’s apparently been using it on one of the Gryffindor girls, a young lady named Lily Evans. Did you know about this?”

Slughorn looked quite betrayed by the news, “Severus Snape! One of my most brilliant students - and Miss. Evans is, too…” He paused and shook his head, “I can’t believe he would’ve done such a thing…” he sighed, “There must be some sort of misunderstanding.”

“Not according to Potter,” Kingsley replied.

Slughorn frowned, looking quite disappointed.

“I’ll have to tell Albus, Horace,” Kingsley said.

Slughorn looked at Kingsley and shook his head, “Now wait just a moment, just a moment… I’ll talk to the boy and to Dumbledore. It’s my place, as his head of house.”

Kingsley Shacklebolt’s face was utterly unreadable as he stared at Slughorn firmly. “As long as it is taken care of.”

“Oh it will be, it will be… I assure you…” Slughorn nodded.




For the rest of the evening, once Remus was back to being himself, Sirius didn’t let up making fun of him for being doe-eyed and obsessed with Severus Snape. “Oh if only Severus loved me I’d have a perfect life, I’d be bloody fantastic all my life,” Sirius moaned and rolled over his bed covers that night. “You’d think you were a girl oogling over the Broomstick Boys or something, mate, it was a mess!”

Remus’s cheeks burned red.