Fan Fiction ❯ Starfall, Moonset ❯ Remus Revisited ( Chapter 8 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

By: Irish

Starfall, Moonset

Chapter eight:

Remus Revisited

~*~*~*~*~

Aurthor's Note: For those of you who don't remember, the last chapter left off with Remus about to start his account of what had happened to him since the Potter's death. This is the reaccounting of that time.

~*~*~*~*~

“Remus.”

“No! No! Don't you dare say it Dumbledore, we did everything, everything, right! No!” Remus didn't even need to guess at why Dumbledore had appeared in his kitchen.

“Remus.”

“No! Please…sir…' His anguish was acute, his breath seized and stoppered in his lungs.

“Lily and James-“

“NO!”

“Have been killed. If you see Sirius-“

“No… Sirius? What happened to Sirius?” Remus seized Dumbledore by the front of his robes, hands fisted in the material, ready to lift him straight off the ground. “Where is Sirius!”

“Remus, I don't know. But, if he is still alive an act of treachery has been committed here. Your fellowship has been broken.” Dumbledore's face was gentle, and furious. Remus could practically smell his thoughts. `Bad apple, that boy was a bad apple, I should have seen it after what happened with Severus.' Because it was the undercurrent to his own thoughts, somewhere under a pain that threatened to unhinge his knees, was fury. Moony was out for blood.

He had released the headmaster then, and screamed for him to get out, before he went to his room-- their room— and stripped naked before pulling on the paramilitary clothes that he had from his dealings with the Irish Wizarding Republican Army. He laced his boots up with still hands.

By the time he got to the Potters', Sirius had come and had left his motorbike with Hagrid who had left with Harry. When he stepped into the rubble that had once been the Potter's handsome little cottage he was alone with two corpses. Sirius had been there, Remus could smell him on James's body; see the wet trails on Lily's cheeks. The bodies had been moved together and lay as if sleeping. James was missing an arm, but Lily was pristine in death. Moony growled from Remus's chest, his tawny head falling back as he howled, his anguish echoing over the moors.

He cleaned off the bodies of his friends, using water from a broken pipe that had turned the once-kitchen into a swamp. He changed Lily into her favorite clothes and hid the pallor of her lips with lip-gloss from a ruined vanity. James he changed into his Auror's robes, sliding his arm into where I should rest in his robes, and put his spare pair of glasses on his face, smoothing unruly black hair.

“You deserve a better funeral then I can provide my friends, but I won't let you be desecrated after death,” he whispered, before lifting Lily into his arms, carrying her, as he knew James had carried her, across the threshold as he brought her over the doorsill into the next life.

He had carried their bodies by hand, no one, not even magic, would he let take this last duty from him. He would let Peter pay his respects later, but the man would faint dead away if he saw the bodies, even shrouded. He struggled through the underbrush with James's body, barely able to manage weight, James having been nearly twenty pounds heavier than him. He laid James next to his wife on the high flat rock that had served as a secret make out spot for both couples during their Hogwarts years.

“And now, for a good Irish wake,” Remus laughed bitterly as he drew out a flask from his breast pocket and drunk deeply, before letting out another howl, almost loud enough to wake the dead, almost.

He sat Irish Shiva for the requisite twenty-four hours, screaming and singing, and drinking, reviling, celebrating their lives, their love, and waiting for the knutes to fall from their eyes when they woke, because they couldn't really be dead.

But they were.

He had found sheets among the ruins of their house, and had gathered them. He laid each out on them, tucking their wands; James's broken, in their hands. A dead snitch he slipped into James's left hand, one of Harry's stuffed animals into Lily's. Remus then rolled them in their shrouds, summoning three cords for each, one red, one black and one white, and bound up the heavy fragile weights that were the remnants of his fate-circle. His coven. His Fellowship.

He dug the graves half drunk, but the work sobered him. He almost wasn't able to climb back out when he was done, having buried them so deep, to keep them safe from wild creatures and darkness. Remus lay them to rest gently, his first sobs coming as he begin to shovel dirt over them, hiding their shrouded bodies, sending them back to the earth as their spirits soared to the heavens

Stones were piled over the mounds made by their bodies in the earth so no animal would desecrate them. On top of the stone caerns he strew wildflowers, watering them with tears barely felt. Remus made no markers for the graves; he needed none, and this secret he would keep. No one would betray them ever again. They would not trust him with Harry; they would not trust them with their Secret, but he could be the keeper of the dead, and this secret would be kept, if it meant his blood and life, and that of all his kin, this secret would be kept.

He kept it to this day. No one knew where those rock mounds were. Harry had never been told of them. The only ones who knew there had even been bodies were those few who had seen the scene. Himself, Hagrid, Sirius, Dumbledore. Not even Dumbledore knew of the well-tended mounds, deep in the woods, the mounds that Moony sometimes visited on the full moon, and howled his sorrow. He had wanted to burry the pieces of peter they had found out there as well, but the man's death had been too public, one more hero dead in service to the light, and the public wanted his funeral. The Potters… the man and woman who had been the friends and family of the one who remained, were all but forgotten in the name of their son. Even if a werewolf couldn't be trusted to anything else, he could keep the dead.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Remus, I would keep you on here…” Dumbledore watched him across the no-mans-land of his desk, his endless blue eyes full of sorrow. Remus supposed the headmaster was grieving too, a man looking at his last living son.

“Keep me on like Hagrid? Out of pity?” Remus sighed. “No Sir. No…even if you could invent a position for me… I can't stay here. It hurts.” Remus's voice was dead and hollow in his own ears.

“Remus… lad…” But Dumbledore said no more. There was nothing left to say.

“Thank you, headmaster. You… have done more then anyone… Thank you.” Remus stood slowly, dreamily, and glided from Dumbledore's office, down the winding stairs and into the hallway.

“Remus.”

Remus paused, and turned slowly. “Good afternoon Severus,” his voice had never been so cordial. So absent. “I am not sure I've ever heard you call me by my given name before.”

“Remus…” Severus, a man who had never been kind a day in his life (and in hindsight Remus wondered if this wasn't because he had never known a day of kindness in his life) was reaching out to him. “This… must be hard for you.”

“I'm sorry Severus. I was very cruel to you when we were boys. When I should have been nice. I know we made your life hell. I am sorry. I've treated you badly.”

“Are you leaving?” Snape's voice was quiet, with out the bitter edge that Remus had always heard in it.

“I can't stay here. You're a good man… I think… under all those spikes meant to keep people away… and under all that grease,” Remus's lips quirked up faintly, and Snape's echoed.

“Be careful… Loony Lupin,” A shimmer of light slid down one pale cheek. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named maybe gone… but there is still a world of danger out there.” His hand came up, and rested on Remus's shoulder, and Remus realized that they have never touched before; never once in the decade they had known each other. Remus managed to lift his hand, a hand that felt like drift wood, and rested it on Severus's shoulder.

They stood like that, only for a moment, a moment that hadn't changed the millions of moments before it, and wouldn't ease the million moments after it, but for those three breaths, they were brothers, veterans, of the same war.

“May the road rise to meet you, the wind be at your back, and the sun on your face.” Remus stepped away then, and turned. He felt Severus's fathomless eyes on him, as the only sound was the soles of his boots on the stone floor.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Buddhist believed that the holiest thing a man could do was sell all his possessions but a begging bowl, shave his head, and live on the generosity of others. That might fly in Tibet, but Remus was starting to realize that in London that might not be the case. He had sold the Potter's house, the one before Godric's Hollow, the one he and Sirius had shared with them, and put the money in the Potter's bank vault for Harry.

He had then sold almost everything he and Sirius had once owned. Anything that could bring money. The rest, he had stored in the basement of the shrieking shack. He hadn't been able to part with the bedstead that had been a Lupin family heirloom, anything from their school days, his photos, some other keepsakes and mementos, everything else had brought him enough to pay off the last of the debt his parents left him. That done, with two sets of clothes to his name, he had packed a knapsack, picked up his staff, and started walking.

McGonagall had sent him a very angry owl that had found him on the shore of Ireland (he had apparated the English channel), a very angry letter with ink blurred in small circular drops that smelled like the ocean. She called him nine kinds of crazy, leaving like he had, not word. They would have helped him, she said, they would have found him work, she would have loaned him what he needed. How could he leave? How was he going to get on in the world, without two knutes to rub together? What about his Lycanthropy, had he thought of that? What if he hurt himself worse than he could tend on his own? Then what? Had he even thought about anyone else?

Remus folded that letter and tucked it in the wooden box with his most precious treasures. That letter was followed by another, and then three successive howlers. Her voice got shriller with each red envelope that disintegrated in his hands. In fact, the days he spent on the western coast of Ireland brought him more mail then he got most years at Hogwarts. Molly Weasley, Arthur Weasley, Moody, Madame Pomfery, Peter's mother… He carefully folded each and added them to the pile, soon having more parchment then food.

He spent three years homeless. He saw a lot of the world; in fact, it hadn't been so bad, working odd jobs, never staying long enough for anyone to figure out what he was. He had to work hard to stay alive, hard enough that there was no room for pain, for grief. His hair had grown out, falling down past his shoulders by the time he returned to England. He spent a week in a park in London, but after being rolled twice, he went back to his native Northern Ireland, and rejoined the Irish Republican Wizarding Army. He spent another three years with them as a field mediwizard. They hadn't cared that he was a Werewolf, or that he was gay.

He had a few brief liaisons in those years, a few Irishmen who joyed his bed, but there hadn't really been any joy in it. Tenderness sometimes, need, desperation more often. And sometimes… sometimes he heard the Sea. Not the roll and crash of the west coast of Ireland, as he had in his first days alone. This was a different coast, a harsher one, where waves didn't break, they shattered. And sometimes, he heard sobbing, or screaming… and sometimes, when he lifted his nose to the wind… he smelled the fur of a large black dog.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Where is the circuit breaker for the house Mrs. Dursley?”

“Under the stairs, this way,” the prim long necked woman clipped over the hardwood floor of Number Four Privet Drive. Remus wondered what kind of a woman could wear heels all day, in her own house. She opened the door to the crawl space. “On the wall in here Mr-- ” She paused, making it obvious she was having to read the name on his blue work shirt. “O'Seanaughsey.” She made his alias sound like a dirty word. It had been his mother's maiden name.

“Thank you, Mrs. Dursley,” he stuck his head into the crawl space, grateful she had not recognized him, as he had been a groomsman at Lily and James's wedding, but, of course, twenty pounds lighter, with facial hair and a ponytail, he supposed he wasn't very recognizable.

“I'll stay out of your way.”

`Rene O'Seanaughsey' jumped, almost hitting his head on the slanted ceiling as his heart missed a beat, then started again, hard enough he thought it would break against his ribs. James! No, Harry, Harry Potter.

“I'm sorry, I hope I am not disturbing you,” Remus a.k.a. Rene said and managed a smile, which he hoped was friendly but detached, as he opened the door to the circuit breaker over the little boy's cot. Remus wasn't positive, but he thought the boy was eight.

“You're not. I'm trying to hide from my cousin Dudley,” the boy pushed his glasses up in his nose, in a motion so agonizingly familiar `Rene' had to turn back to the switches on the wall quickly, lest his tears become noticeable.

“Is that so? Why is that?”

“Because he will punch me in the arm,” the little boy said matter of factly. `Rene' kept his eyes on the box as he drew out a screwdriver with a rubber handle and started to work.

“That doesn't sound very nice.”

“Its not. What's your name?”

“Re-“ he paused and cleared his throat. “Rene O'Seanaughsey.”

“My aunt doesn't like the Irish.”

`Rene' paused and bent down close to the boy, whispering, as he met Lily's eyes through round glasses. “Well you know what?”

“What?”

“I don't like your aunt.” Remus winked and smiled slightly.

Harry laughed quietly, covering his mouth, as though laughter wasn't allowed. `Rene' returned to his work. The small boy sat cross-legged on his cot, watching `Rene' unabashedly.

“I've never seen a man with long hair before… only girls.”

“Ever seen a girl with a beard?” `Rene' felt his lips twitch upward slowly. Gods, but he wanted to scoop up that little boy, hold him against his chest, and run as far and as fast as he could, to take him away from the emotional nightmare he must be living here… And to rescue himself from his own. Harry laughed again, quiet, muffled, taboo.

“No. But isn't Rene a girl name?”

“Not if you're French.” Remus blinked as the red and black electrical switches before him blurred and ran like water on a window.

“But you're Irish.”

“And French. Rene was my father's name, O'Seanaughsey my mothers maiden name.” `Rene' answered with perfect honesty, doubting an eight year old would think to ask why his surname was the same as his mother's.

“You have parents?” Again, small fingers pushing glasses back into place, an echo of his father.

“Well, not any more, they died, many years ago.” Remus replied around a lump in his throat. He had gone to great lengths to get into the Dursley's house, and he knew he had only a very few minutes with Harry, but every second was worth it.

“Mine too. Did you know yours?” Harry asked curiously.

It was going to kill him, standing here, talking to James's son, Lily's son, like a complete stranger, as if he hadn't changed a hundred of his diapers, or rocked him to sleep, or fed him. He swallowed hard, and fought back the urge to say `Yes, and yours too'. Instead...

“Yes, I did, my dad died when I was sixteen, my mom when I was twenty. I knew them very well, and loved them very much. Did you know yours?”

“No, they died when I was a baby, but I miss them too.”

Damn it why did the repair have to be so damned easy, he was almost done, and he wanted this conversation to last forever. He wasn't sure he could walk away from this boy. He closed his took box, and hunkered down in front of Harry, at eye level, he managed a smile.

“Harry… I'm going to tell you a secret.”

“My aunt says that if an adult asks you to keep a secret, you need to tell someone right away, because you shouldn't ever half to keep secrets for adults, especially if they hurt you.” Harry didn't seem afraid though.

“Well, you don't have to keep this secret, it is my secret, and I am giving it to you to do what you want, and I'm not going to hurt you, okay?” `Rene' said, holding perfectly still, his eyes never leaving Harry.

“Okay.”

“Good. Harry, there is magic, no matter what anyone tells you. Your parents did love you, more then anything in the world. And when you feel completely alone in the world… remember that there are people all around you who love you. Hiding in the shadows, watching from afar. You are loved and treasured, more than you can ever realize. Your heart kindles my heart,” He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and blew gently, working the first magic he had worked in years. A small heatless ball of flame slowly grew into existence, resting and dancing in his cupped palms. He guided it forward gently with a breath, letting go. The small glowing ball floated across the space between them, and Harry's small hand came up, and touched it. The flame spread gently around his hand, and traveled down his arm to his chest, where it glowed brightly over his heart a moment.

“You know magic!” Harry's voice was of breathless, wondrous excitement.

“Yes. Remember, you are never alone,” Remus whispered

The small dark head nodded, jaw slightly lax in astonishment. “And my heart kindles your heart…?”

“Yes, Harry, yes it does. I will see you again,” he stood slowly, and slipped from the crawl space under the stairs of number four privet drive. When he walked out to the electricians van a few minutes later, his hands shook. He drove less then three blocks before he pulled over, and put his face in his hands and sobbed.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Dear Remus,

I know you don't like charity, and I would not insult you by offering it. I, however, am in dire need of a Defense Against Dark Arts Professor. I know that you are overqualified for the position, but, as a favor to an old friend, I beg you to accept. The children at Hogwarts are in desperate need of a Professor with experience and passion for the job. You would, of course, be extended free room and board in addition to monetary compensation. I have also been informed by one Professor Snape, that he has perfected the Wolfsbane potion and has, grudgingly, agreed to medicate you thusly. The pay is not near what I would like to pay someone of your qualification, but I hope you consider my offer anyway.

Sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was a small café in Belfast. The kind of place that college students gather in every country, the kind of place where the lighting was bad, the coffee was good, and smoking or not, you inhaled enough tobacco to give you a real buzz. Remus sat with his back to the entrance, a window in front of him. He saw Severus enter, a familiar sneer reflected at Remus as he sat and held the hot mug with cold, chapped hands. Snape didn't recognize him. Remus wasn't surprised, it wasn't as though they had been close; and he wasn't sure his own mother would recognize him these days. His hair was still worn long, as it had been for many years now, but no one from Hogwarts had seen him since they day he had walked out twelve years ago. It was also significantly grayer. He knew his frame was more gaunt, and hunched. Finally he took pity on Snape, whose sneer was beginning to falter as he stood in the door longer and longer, starting to draw attention to himself. Remus turned in his booth.

“Severus,” he raised one hand briefly. Snape's eyes widened a moment, just a brief moment; it was so rare to get any expression other then contempt from his face.

“Lupin,” the tall man glided across the uneven linoleum floor, his forehead glaring slightly in the bad lighting. Remus supposed some things never changed, like Snape's greasiness. He had never seen his once-nemesis in muggle clothing, never once. In fact, Snape was barely recognizable himself. He wore a pair of black muggle jeans; a black dress shirt buttoned to the top button and tucked in. His black hair was pulled back with a leather thong at the nape of his neck. He looked like a priest. Remus stood and offered his hand, which Snape shook briefly, before they both sat. “This place is revolting.”

“It's warm,” Remus shrugged, returning his mug to his hands, warming them. He hunched over the cup slightly, as if it were a mini heater.

“It's infected,” Snape brushed his hands together as if trying to rid them of something disgusting, probably Remus's touch.

His eyes roved over Lupin's form wondering what the hell had happened to him. Severus had known a very neat, put together Remus Lupin, a khaki and sweaters type of man. The type of person who was fastidiously clean. They called him Professor Lupin before he had even graduated from Hogwarts. This man… was not that man. This man had long hair, and a beard and mustache, though closely trimmed, this man wore a threadbare blue chambray shirt and a pair of multi pocketed pants that had probably had more darning then actual pant to them.

“The coffee is cheap.”

“Have you ordered?”

“Just the coffee,” Remus poured some more from the pot between them, and added sugar, stirring it like tea at the queen's palace, some habits never died.

“Not even you'd eat here, that says something,” Severus quirked a brow, glad that Remus still had some standards.

“Yeah, that I shop at the food shelf,” the werewolf shrugged as if to say `better then rats'. He took a sip of his coffee. Severus stared at him like he had sprouted a second set of ears, pointed and furry ones. Remus looked back down into his cup. Severus's voice was quieter when he spoke again; it was the closest he could get to gentler.

“Then why are you so adamantly refusing the headmasters offer of work? Did your brain finally start to leak out your ears?”

“I won't take charity,” Remus's eyes didn't leave his cup.

“Do you think Albus was lying when he said he was in dire need of a professor? We've been going through Defense teachers like Hagrid goes through dragon hide gloves, one a year.”

“Why are you here Severus?” Remus added some cream to his coffee, he wasn't particularly fond of cream, but it was a form of nutrition anyway.

“Because some one needs to pound some sense into you. This has gone on entirely too long. You have been throwing a tantrum for thirteen years and it is time it stopped.” Severus looked up when a muggle with more hair then brains stopped at their table.

“What can I get you handsome?”

Remus sputtered into his mug as the hot liquid threatened to come out his nose. James and Sirius would have laughed until they cried, Snape, handsome?

“Coffee,” he paused, looking over Remus then glancing down at the menu that he didn't dare touch. “And a muffin.” Severus wasn't hungry himself, but he doubted Remus would eat if he didn't.

“What kind, sugar?”

Remus kept his face in his coffee. Snape stiffened; he wasn't so socially inept that he appreciated this woman's attention. “I don't care.”

“We have blueberry, cranberry, chocolate-“

“Surprise me,” Snape said, his voice dripping with disdain. The woman finally took the hint, and disappeared.

“She'll spit in your coffee,” Remus muttered, having only just managed not to do the same into his own.

“She wouldn't dare,” Severus dismissed, nudging the menu closer to the edge of the table with a finger, not wanting to actually touch it.

“You don't know muggles very well do you?” Remus shook his head. “To rephrase my question, why are you in particular, here? I think if Dumbledore thought he could lecture me into submission he would have sent McGonagall.”

Severus didn't speak for a full minute, letting the chatter of the muggles around them fill the silence, it was he who looked down this time. This was one of the reasons he disliked Lupin, the man saw right through him, into the parts of himself that he held secret and sacred as easily as he saw through a window. “I volunteered.” He felt Remus's eyes on him and it was worse then a truth serum. “I asked. Dumbledore was going to leave off; but I asked if he would let me come and speak with you in person.”

“And what made you think that would convince me? Further more, why do you care?” At one time, Remus had been a listener. He would have sat and waited for Severus to speak, the silence working to make the man spill all the things he was trying to keep silent. Remus didn't used to be a pusher.

“I thought…” Severus sighed, relieved as a mug of coffee appeared in his hand like magic, the muggle waitress now breezing away. Snape had a feeling that if they needed the pot refilled it would be a long time in coming; and she probably had spit in his coffee. He fumbled briefly with the little plastic cup of cream, taking a moment to understand how the packaging worked. When he finally managed to open it, he dumped the whole thing in his coffee. The clinking of his spoon against the cup as he stirred the mixture was like mocking laughter. “You aren't going to quit until you've broken me down will you. That is why I hated you, damn it.” Snape hissed. “You had so much power over me you never had to even prove it. I always consoled myself that the reason Potter and Black tormented me so was to prove what men they were. You never even needed to do that. Damn you Lupin!”

“Too late,” Remus replied drolly. Damned he already was. “But you're wrong, or at least dishonest, of course it's forgivable because you're lying to yourself too. The reason you hate me is because I see the very insecure person inside the mocking disdain.”

“Fuck you!” Severus hissed, harsh and shrill, his eyes flying up for a moment to boor into Remus's before dropping again. “Fuck you,” he repeated, with out feeling. Remus, who had never once heard Snape curse, was a bit taken aback. Snape considered himself above such vulgarities.

“Only for money, and you might want to let me take a shower first,” Remus sighed, and sipped his coffee, regaining himself. It was easy to be drawn back into these boyish squabbles, these familiar things. It was true, he knew that with only words he could break Snape down to nothing, but as man who had once been a boy who tried to rescue worms in the road after a storm, he also knew he would never do it.

The waitress returned, practically dropping the pastry in front of Snape, along with his check. Snape glared at the muffin distrustfully and poked it gingerly with the tines of his fork. After taking a moment to polish his water spotted knife on his paper napkin, he cut the muffin in half, straight down the middle. He lifted one half delicately with his knife and fork, and set it before Remus. The stains on the knife suggested blueberries. “If I'm going to get sick from eating here, my misery will have company.”

Remus smiled ever so slightly, “Why Severus? Why are you being nice to me?”

“Don't let it go to your head Lupin, I'm just afraid you'll die right here across from me and then I will have to spend my evening explaining it to the muggle authorities. Its not charity, its self interest,” Snape was carefully folding down the half of paper still left around his muffin with his fork, as though if he touched it, it might bite him before he could bite it.

“Fair enough.” From anyone else Remus would have thought that was a load of tripe, but Severus would cut off his nose to spite his face… or more importantly, spite Remus. He broke off a chunk of the muffin and popped it in his mouth, managing not to crumb on himself. “So, why did you ask to come, when Dumbledore had written me off?”

“He hadn't written you off. His words were: `that boy hurts enough for any ten of us, let him be.' Personally, Lupin, I think you're wallowing. There are people who still need you, believe it or not. Your obligation to society didn't end with the Potters. If you're waiting to die, its going to be a very long wait, your life span… shall we say… is a bit enhanced.” Severus was turning his muffin into a production, like if the wind came out of the west it would explode.

“This isn't motivating me.”

“I am not your personal life coach.”

“I'm shocked.” Remus's half of the muffin was gone. Snape half suspected the man had just unhinged his jaw like a snake when he wasn't looking and swallowed it whole. Severus had known a lot of pain in his life… but the pain of starvation was as foreign to him as love, but he suspected that Remus hovered at the edge of it.

“There are a lot of people who are very worried about you. And what about Harry?”

“What about Harry?” Remus sipped his coffee nonchalantly. “I haven't been good enough for him for the last decade, what's changed?” He had been watching the boy from a distance on and off through out the lad's life, but only once had he mustered the courage and resolve to actually get close to him. Or rather the resolve not to kidnap him and head for the mountains of Tibet, or the Arabian dessert, of the jungles South America, anywhere to get away.

“That is none of my affair, that is between you and the headmaster,” Snape sniffed, his nose starting to rise skyward at the mention of the Potter boy.

“You have yet to convince me of anything accept that you're not going to let that muffin get within a foot of your mouth.” Remus said with a shake of his head.

“Listen, Lupin, I really don't want to get all touchy-feely with you. Just do is all a favor and come back and teach for the year. I know you want to, you're just playing hard to get,” Severus growled. “Not that you ever played hard to get for Black.”

The back and forth continued, as Remus carefully ate his half of the muffin, pocketing Severus's when he refused to eat it. Remus wasn't sure how, but in his own abrupt, rude way, Severus had managed to talk him into teaching a year at Hogwarts. At the same time, Remus was convinced that no one else would have been able to convince him to do it. There was a connection between himself and Severus, always had been, a certain understanding of two men who shared similar past experience. They were comrades, veterans of the same war. They may not be friends, but they were at last allies.