I'll lay right down in my favorite place
Remus Lupin x Reader
2.9 K words
Rain dragged itself down the Hogwarts Express windows in crooked trails, turning the countryside outside into smudged fields and drowned trees. Every few minutes the train rattled hard enough for the compartment door to shiver in its frame. Somewhere farther down the corridor somebody was laughing too loudly. A girl shrieked. A trolley wheel squealed over the floorboards.
Inside the compartment, nobody spoke.
Regulus Black sat nearest the window with one leg crossed over the other, robes neat despite the journey, a book resting open against his knee. He had been reading the same page for at least ten minutes. You could tell from the way his eyes remained fixed too long without moving. Rainlight washed his face pale blue-grey.
Across from him, Severus Snape watched you from beneath heavy lids without pretending otherwise anymore.
You stared at the chocolate in your hand.
The wrapper had gone soft where your fingers kept turning it over and over. Honeydukes milk chocolate. Nothing special. A little melted from the warmth of your palm.
Remus used to buy them before you could ask.
Every time the trolley witch passed, he would lean across you to stop her with a tired sort of grin already forming on his face, digging through his pockets while muttering something sarcastic about extortionate prices. Then he would hand the chocolate over afterward with this strange embarrassment, as though kindness itself made him uncomfortable once anybody noticed it.
“Go on,” he had said once during fourth year when you refused to take it. “I’m not eating the bloody thing myself.”
You had kissed him behind a tapestry an hour later with chocolate still on your tongue.
The memory arrived so suddenly your stomach twisted.
You pressed your thumb harder against the wrapper.
Across from you, Severus shifted slightly.
He had barely spoken since boarding the train at King’s Cross. Neither had you. The silence between you usually felt easy enough. Sometimes preferable. Severus hated pointless chatter, and you often hated explaining yourself.
Still, something about him today felt wrong.
His stare lingered too long before dropping away. His jaw kept tightening at odd moments. Once or twice you had caught his fingers flexing against his sleeve as though resisting the urge to crush something.
Regulus finally turned a page.
The sound made you flinch harder than it should have.
A headache had been growing behind your eyes since London. It pulsed steadily with the rhythm of the train wheels, settling somewhere behind your forehead and refusing to leave. You shut your eyes for a moment.
Big Mistake.
The memories came easier when you stopped looking at the compartment.
Remus sprawled beside you beneath an oak tree near the forest edge with his sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms, skin marked with bruises he tried unsuccessfully to hide. His hand resting lazily over your ankle while he read aloud from a book neither of you cared about. The smell of damp earth after rain. His voice going rough with exhaustion halfway through sentences.
Then another.
Winter. Snow packed against the castle steps. Remus rubbing warmth back into your fingers because you had forgotten gloves again. His own hands freezing cold despite it.
Then another.
Your back against stone somewhere near the Astronomy Tower while he kissed you with frantic desperation that made no sense at the time. Like he already knew something was ending long before you did.
The compartment door slammed open somewhere farther down the carriage.
You startled hard enough for the chocolate to slip from your fingers onto your lap.
“Sorry,” somebody shouted distantly.
Regulus looked up at last before dropping back to his book.
Severus was still staring.
There was something deeply unpleasant about the expression on his face. Too intent. Too focused. His dark eyes seemed fixed somewhere beneath your skin rather than on you directly.
The headache worsened sharply.
You pressed your fingers against your temple.
Without warning another memory forced itself forward.
Spring term.
The corridor outside the hospital wing empty except for the two of you. Remus standing rigid while you demanded answers for the hundredth time.
“I’m sick of this,” you had snapped. “You vanish for days and come back looking half dead and expect me to smile politely whenever you refuse to explain anything.”
“I told you already, it’s complicated.”
“That’s not an explanation.”
His expression had changed then. Something wounded and angry at once.
“What exactly do you want from me?”
“The truth.”
Silence.
Then finally:
“I can’t.”
You remembered how cold your whole body had gone.
“Then maybe we stop doing this.”
Even afterward he had looked as though he expected you to take the words back for him.
You never did.
Your throat tightened painfully.
A tear slipped down before you noticed it.
The compartment became very still.
Regulus glanced away almost immediately, the reflex of somebody raised among proud people who treated visible emotion like a social disease. His eyes dropped back to his book though he was no longer reading a word of it.
Severus did not look away.
His fingers dug so hard into his own sleeve the knuckles turned pale.
Inside his skull your memories still echoed violently against one another.
Remus kissing you beneath trees.
Remus laughing against your throat.
Remus touching you with tenderness Severus had never once received from anybody in his entire life.
Something ugly unfurled low in his chest.
He should stop.
The thought arrived faintly, buried beneath jealousy and humiliation.
Legilimency felt easier on moving trains for some reason. Minds loosened themselves during travel. He had slipped inside yours almost absentmindedly at first while Regulus read nearby and rain battered the windows. Curiosity more than anything else.
Then he saw Lupin.
After that he could not seem to pull himself back out.
Every memory made him feel worse.
Lupin’s hands on your waist. Lupin smiling at you with that soft worn expression he carried around like a curse. Lupin receiving parts of you Severus had spent years circling carefully without ever touching.
Meanwhile you sat beside Severus freely. Trusted him freely. Confided in him. Fell asleep beside him in the library once during fifth year with your head against his shoulder while he remained frozen for nearly an hour afterward because moving felt unbearable.
And still you had chosen Lupin.
Lupin, of all people.
A Marauder.
Severus’s mouth flattened.
You wiped quickly beneath your eye, embarrassed more than heartbroken.
“It’s only my head,” you muttered, avoiding both boys entirely. “I haven’t slept properly.”
Regulus made a soft noise of acknowledgement.
Severus said nothing.
He knew you were lying.
Or half lying.
The distinction barely mattered anymore.
Another flash struck him unwillingly through the fragile connection still left open between your minds.
Remus beside the Black Lake saying your name against your lips.
Severus recoiled internally as though burned.
The compartment door slid open before he could stop himself from reacting.
James Potter leaned halfway inside first, rainwater darkening the shoulders of his robes. Sirius appeared beside him almost immediately, one arm braced casually against the doorway. Peter hovered somewhere behind them out in the corridor.
The atmosphere shifted at once.
You felt it happen physically.
Sirius’s eyes found you first.
Then Severus.
His smile arrived slowly.
“Well,” he said. “This looks cheerful.”
James snorted.
“Christ, Snape, you look like somebody’s died.”
Severus went completely motionless.
Regulus lowered his book with visible reluctance. “What do you want?”
“Nothing from you,” Sirius replied easily. His gaze remained fixed on Severus. “Just surprised to find our favourite company gathered together before term’s even started.”
James leaned farther into the compartment. Warm-faced from laughter somewhere else, glasses crooked slightly down his nose. There was always something unbearable about how approachable he looked while being cruel.
Then his eyes landed on the tear still visible against your cheek.
His grin faded a fraction.
“Oh,” he said. “Trouble in paradise?”
You wiped beneath your eye at once, angry at yourself for letting any of them see it. The headache behind your forehead pulsed so hard it made your vision blur around the edges for a moment.
“Piss off,” Severus said flatly.
James blinked once, almost amused by the speed of it.
“Easy there, Snivellus.”
Sirius smirked immediately, leaning harder against the compartment doorway. “Touchy today.”
Rain hammered the train windows. Water slid in silver streams across the glass behind Regulus, turning the fields outside into shifting grey smears. The corridor beyond the compartment remained crowded with students wandering between friends before arrival, though people had begun slowing near the doorway now. Curious glances kept flicking inside before darting away again.
Regulus finally shut his book.
The sound cracked through the compartment sharply enough that even Sirius looked over.
“For God’s sake,” Regulus muttered.
He stood abruptly, stepping past Severus before either James or Sirius could react properly. Years of Black family breeding sat stiffly inside his posture whether he liked it or not.
James held his hands up faintly. “Alright, no need to—”
Regulus slid the compartment door shut directly in Sirius’s face.
The glass rattled from the force of it.
For half a second Sirius only stared through the window, stunned clean out of his grin.
Then James burst out laughing somewhere beyond the door.
“Brilliant,” he said.
Sirius mouthed something obscene through the glass.
Regulus ignored him entirely and pulled the curtain sharply across the compartment window for good measure, blocking them both from view. Their blurred silhouettes lingered another few seconds outside before disappearing farther down the corridor.
Exhausted silence settled immediately afterward.
Regulus returned to his seat without another word. The book rested closed across his lap now. He did not bother reopening it.
You watched him for a moment.
There were dark circles beneath his eyes already despite term not even starting yet. His summer at Grimmauld Place must have been awful. Worse than usual perhaps. He looked drained in the particular way wealthy pureblood boys often did by sixteen, all polished manners stretched thin over chronic unhappiness.
He leaned back against the seat and stared blankly toward the rain-streaked window. The train rocked gently beneath all of you. Your fingers tightened unconsciously around the chocolate.
Across from you, Severus was still looking.
The tension inside the compartment had changed shape after the others left. Less loud. More suffocating.
You became aware suddenly of your own breathing.
The damp hem of your skirt against your knees. The ache behind your eyes. The horrible embarrassment still crawling beneath your skin from crying in front of people you despised.
Severus’s mouth flattened slightly.
“You know,” he said at last, “if you hadn’t gone out with Lupin in the first place, they probably wouldn’t spend every waking hour trying to humiliate you.”
The words sat there bluntly.
Regulus’s eyes flicked upward briefly before settling back toward the rain-streaked window.
You stared at Severus in disbelief.
“Oh, brilliant.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. That’s the stupidest thing you’ve said all day.”
His expression darkened immediately. “You think Black and Potter would care half as much if you hadn’t attached yourself to one of their friends?”
“They already hated me.”
“Not like this.”
The train rattled violently over uneven tracks. Your shoulder knocked against the compartment wall.
Severus kept going.
“You made yourself entertaining to them. They enjoy watching this because you handed them the bloody material.”
You felt anger flare fast enough to cut straight through the headache.
“And what difference does it make to you anyway?” you snapped. “They were already making your life miserable every other day before I kissed anybody.”
The second the words left your mouth you regretted them.
Regulus went very still. His face emptied carefully, gaze fixed somewhere over Severus’s shoulder while pretending he had heard nothing at all.
Severus looked as though you had struck him.
A pulse jumped sharply in his jaw.
You knew exactly why.
Because it was true.
Because there remained something humiliating in saying it aloud so plainly. Everybody at Hogwarts knew Potter and Black tormented him constantly. Hexes in corridors. Public mockery. Wandless tricks from across classrooms. Sirius treating cruelty like a performance whenever an audience gathered large enough.
And now you had thrown it directly into his face.
The compartment felt smaller suddenly.
Rain battered harder against the windows.
Severus looked away first.
Something ugly moved beneath his expression before flattening back into coldness. Pride always arrived quicker than injury with him. Covered it over before anybody else could touch it.
“You don’t understand anything,” he said quietly.
“No,” you shot back. “Neither do you.”
He laughed once under his breath. Bitter sound.
“You think this is entirely their fault?”
“Yes.”
“That’s convenient.”
Your headache throbbed harder.
“What exactly do you want me to say?” you demanded. “That I should’ve predicted Lupin would suddenly become Gryffindor public property the second he kissed me after class?”
The memory flashed through your head before you could stop it.
Late autumn sunlight through trees near the forest edge. Mud still damp beneath your shoes after rain. Remus grabbing your sleeve to stop you walking away after class. That exhausted look he always carried around his eyes softening for one stupid moment before he kissed you hard enough to make your stomach flip.
Severus’s fingers curled tightly against his sleeve.
Jealousy moved through him like poison.
He hated Lupin for touching you. Hated him for receiving versions of you Severus never had. Hated him more because Lupin had managed it without even trying very hard. Soft smiles. Tired eyes. Kindness rationed out carefully enough that people treasured every scrap.
Meanwhile Severus had spent years clawing for affection so desperately he ruined it the second it approached him.
After that, neither of you spoke.
The silence arrived heavily. Sour and exhausted.
Regulus remained slouched back against the seat beside the window, eyes half-lidded with the particular expression people developed after listening to arguments they never wanted involvement in from the beginning. Rainwater streaked down the glass behind him. Every few minutes the train groaned around another bend in the tracks.
You turned away first.
Your shoulder pressed against the compartment wall while you pulled the sleeves of your sweater further over your hands, trying uselessly to trap warmth inside the wool. The carriage felt freezing despite the crowded train and stale air. Cold always settled into your bones after crying. You hated that Severus knew that already.
Across from you, he stayed perfectly still, he wasn’t looking at you anymore.
Good.
The ache behind your eyes remained vicious though the tears themselves had finally stopped. Embarrassment still crawled unpleasantly beneath your skin whenever you remembered Potter’s face at the compartment door.
Trouble in paradise?
You shut your eyes briefly.
Paradise. Right.
Your thoughts drifted unwillingly back toward Regulus.
Or more accurately, toward the moment everything began rotting properly.
Late autumn. Care of Magical Creatures ending early because Kettleburn lost control of something large and furious near the paddock fences. Students spilling back toward the castle laughing while dusk settled blue over the grounds.
Remus catching your wrist near the forest path.
You remembered the smell of wet leaves. His hands cold from outside air. That exhausted expression softening for one rare moment before he kissed you and that was enough to stop any coherent thoughts entirely.
Then afterward, pulling back breathless and stupidly happy only to spot Regulus several yards away beneath the trees.
Still as death.
Watching.
You had never forgotten the exact feeling that tore through your stomach then.
The look on his face had not been mocking or amused. It was worse than that. He had simply looked uncomfortable, like somebody who had accidentally walked into a room carrying grief he wanted no part of.
You had cornered him two nights later outside the library.
“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”
Regulus had stared at you for a long moment beneath the corridor torchlight.
“Why would I?”
“You know why.”
He sighed through his nose then, tired already.
“Severus is going to be furious.”
“It isn’t his business.”
“Then why do you look like you’re about to faint?”
That had irritated you enough to snap back defensively.
“It was one kiss.”
Even remembering it made shame crawl hot beneath your throat.
One kiss.
Such an absurd lie.
Maybe Regulus knew it immediately. Maybe not. He never said.
Still, afterward the fear sat there constantly. Every time Severus looked at you too long. Every time Regulus entered the same room carrying that unreadable expression of his. Eventually the pressure became unbearable enough that you confessed yourself before anybody else could.
Except even then you had lied.
You told Severus it happened once. Spur of the moment. Stupid mistake.
You remembered how still he became while listening.
At the time you mistook that stillness for relief.
The train jolted suddenly beneath the tracks.
Beside you, Regulus shifted and pulled his robes tighter around himself before dropping his head back against the seat again. He looked half asleep now. Or maybe pretending to be.
Across from you Severus sat staring toward the compartment floor, jaw tense beneath the dim carriage light.
He had stopped pushing.
No more accusations. No more questions. No more slipping silently through your thoughts either.
Something about that absence unsettled you more than the intrusion itself almost had.
Perhaps because there was nothing left worth stealing after today.
Too much had already been dragged into the open.
