"We're almost there; everyone shut up." Rabastan put up a hand to silence the murmurings of the squad. He was officially in charge of this raid and wanted to make sure his new promotion was marked with a success.

Now that the war had ended, some of the battle groups had been reformed and re-structured. There was less need for anything resembling a standing army and what battle squads remained were the replacement of the old Auror department. Given that most of the High Officers now occupied mostly administrative and civilian posts within the New Order, promoted into high Ministry positions, the older, more experienced fighters of the more elite and trusted battle squads were promoted to Captains of the re-organized squadrons.

Most of the old fighters were happy to go home and continue their lives as they were before the war. Some people grumbled that of course it would be the half-bloods who ran from service first, but most people did not mind. Most of the Pureblood core that had engaged in the fighting was eager to stay together and there was still fighting to be done. The Order members had scattered after the Ministry overthrow and the destruction of the Potter and Longbottom families. The latter had caused quite a disturbance, as both Frank and Alice were Purebloods, but they would never yield and their son had to be killed for good measure as well, to make sure the prophecy did not come to pass. The overthrow of the Ministry had been the last straw – there was nowhere for the Order members left to hide. The Ministry operation had been Antonin's brainchild, his pride and joy, which had paid off for him in the end. After the war was won, the Minister for Magic as a position in and of itself had been removed. The Dark Lord, naturally, occupied the New Order variant of this office. Under him was the First Minister, who managed all the civilian affairs of the Wizarding community and effectively performed the administrative tasks of the old Minister for Magic. This position had gone to Lucius Malfoy. Equivalent to the Fist Minister in rank was the office of the Commander General who was overarching commander of the Department of Security and Intelligence, the MLE and the remaining Battle Squads, which were rounding up what remained of the Order. Antonin's success in the Ministry overthrow was the deciding reason, it was said, for the Lord's decision to give the post to him.

The Battle Squads were comprised of seven members each. The Young Guard had been kept together, except for the Tallis boys who had been put in charge of other squads, and Rabastan Lestrange had been installed as their Captain.

"Are we to call you 'sir' now?" Jack Avery had asked half-jokingly and half-spitefully when the order came down.

"You may call me what you wish, as long as you do as I say," Rabastan had muttered. He was pleased, but he did not want to find himself alienated from his friends. The war had taken enough of a toll on them all. The gaping emptiness where Regulus should have been, for example.

Now they went out a couple of times a week, whenever intelligence had good information for them, to try and eliminate the last of the active resistance. Most of them liked that they could stay active. Evan had proposed that he should find the old life of balls, brunches and dinner parties to be terribly boring. The only person who seemed to not enjoy any of this was Severus. Snape would have much rather transferred to Igor's laboratory as an apprentice. The new facilities were well funded and the opportunities for experimentation and research were endless. However, Dolohov was in charge of transfers in and out of the Battle Squads and they had never gotten along very well, despite the fact that Severus had trained and fought under the man since he was fourteen.

Tonight was another one of the raids. They had received information of the potential location of an Order safehouse. If they found Order members there, they were to kill them; if not – conduct a search, then burn the place. Ahead, the wooded landscape they had been moving through for some time had begun to thicken, then thin again. "I think I see a clearing," Avery muttered, nodding ahead. "Hard to say in the dark though."

"Wilkes, Mulciber, on broom and scout ahead." Their flyers took off and Rabastan turned to the rest. "Stay in rank. Don't form a perimeter until I tell you to. Rosier, Avery – you'll take the back. Crouch, Snape – you'll be the links, one per side. I'll lead the break-in if we need to. Mulciber and Wilkes will have my back."

"Standard procedure in other words," Evan smirked.

"Shut up, Evan," Rabastan threw back, sharply but not too maliciously.

"There'll be heavy wards," Severus pointed out. "Probably alarms. Who's supposed to be here anyway?"

"Intelligence wasn't clear on that. Vance, McDonald. Maybe Black?"

Severus sneered. "I'd love that."

"Hey, Rab?" Mulciber's voice came through the enchanted mirror locket as though from miles away, but it was audible. Rabastan held it out in front of himself so that everyone could hear better. "We've definitely got something here."

"Something?"

"It's like a cabin. Looks like there are wards but no anti-apparition barriers. The place is just sort of there. There's…I can't tell if that's a real light or a spell-absorption ward of some sort. Looks like a large Lumos if you ask me."

Rabastan scrunched up his forehead, thinking. "Don't come back. Stay there and create a preliminary anti-apparition field. Something easy to break but that will pass."

"Got it."

Rabastan turned to the rest of them. "Going in. Quickly."

Severus gripped his wand a little tighter, threw a look at Barty and slipped through the trees with the others. They moved silently through the night, the movement of their cloaks against the grass and bushes making the slightest of rustling sounds, which blended with the noise of the leaves being blown about by the night wind.

Severus hoped the Order members were there. He especially hoped Sirius was there. It would be such a perfect opportunity to destroy Black. After all, if it weren't for Black, so many things in his life could have been different. He would have never said those hurtful things to Lily and he could have brought her around to see things his way, for example. Then she wouldn't be dead. There were many things that Severus blamed Sirius for.

Some ten feet away they were stopped by the first ward. The breaking process was fast, but there were layers and layers of wards, spread out in a perimeter far wider than they had expected. Evan and Avery began to circle to the back but by the time they got around, the occupants of the cabin had managed to get out the back. They couldn't apparate because Wilkes and Mulciber were holding the anti-apparition field in place, so they ran. Cowards the lot of them.

Severus followed the rest of his squad in pursuit. It was hard to see in the pitch black dark of the woods and sometimes the curses came out of nowhere. He couldn't say for sure how many Order members there were, but at least four. Severus found himself dodging behind tree trunks in order to avoid the hexes sent back at them. The bloody thing had turned into a skirmish. Most likely, Mulciber and Wilkes had cut the escape route off by air. Severus tried to calculate how big of a perimeter might have been established, but did not have enough to go on. His cloak repeatedly tangled in the bushes, caught on low branches and made some of his movements awkward.

"Where are they?"

"There, just there! After them!" Rabastan waved them forward. Severus lunged from behind the tree he was using for cover. He saw the streak of light and tried to jump to avoid it but his cloak was stuck on some thorns and he tripped forward, the hex catching him in the foot. It stung and he fell face-forward, hitting his head on a root. The world swam, the voices of his comrades seemed to echo and bounce around in his skull. He groaned and turned over, tried to sit up and failed twice, before managing to push up onto his knees.

By then, the surrounding area was dark and quiet. Sometimes, distant shouts floated from far away – somewhere the skirmish was continuing. Severus tried to focus, steadying himself as he stood. His head hurt where he had hit it and—

The rustling behind him made Severus jump. He spun, almost fell over, and pointed his wand in the direction of the sound. "Oi! Who's there?" Silence. Frowning, he pushed forward through the low hanging branches. He did not dare light a Lumos but in the dark it was hard to tell between a pile of rocks and a body.

"It's me, Severus. Lumos."

In the sudden blue halo of a Lumos, Severus could make out the familiar outlines of a face. The grey eyes and ginger hair, hollow cheeks and soft lips of Remus Lupin.

"Remus," Severus breathed out, taken aback. Sometimes he forgot that Remus was in the Order. Sometimes he thought about it every day. But today had not been one of those days. "We didn't…you weren't…supposed to be here."

Remus' smile was aloof. "You thought Sirius would be here, I know."

Severus almost sneered. "He's not?"

"No."

"Where is he?"

Remus rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't tell you even if I knew. But I don't know. He's been in transition between safehouses for a few days and I don't know where he's ended up. If you don't believe me you can Legi—"

"Shut up!" Severus still had his wand trained on Remus but his mind was racing. What was he supposed to do? He could kill the boy, he could take him prisoner…or he could let him go. The latter was treason, but Severus knew that song all too well to shy away from it now. Remus, astoundingly, did as told. He was still staring into Severus' face, but his eyes were foggy and unfocused despite his efforts. Blood in his hair and on his neck, trickling down the side of his face. "You're hurt. Is that why you won't fight me?"

"That too."

"I may have never found you if you hadn't lit your wand."

Remus rolled his eyes again. "Perhaps. But I wanted to know."

"What?"

"How you're getting on. This New Order of yours, is it all that you had imagined?"

Severus throws a hex and Remus doubles over in pain for a minute. Of course it's not. There is blood and death even now, even after the peace has been declared. It lacked Lily. It lacked Remus, at least Severus' world did. He hated admitting the latter and it made him want to hurt Lupin further, make him suffer for being so untouched by Severus' fate, his absence from Remus' world. The only person Remus seemed to need was Sirius. It had always been Sirius this and Sirius that, with a sprinkling of James mixed in. Severus had always just been…what? A charity case? A plaything for a curious, budding mind? The problem was that Severus had no desire to be either of those things.

"Hurting me won't help you, Sev."

"Don't call me that." Evan called him that, Lily had called him that. But they had a right. They loved him. Remus never did.

"You used to like it."

Yes, he had. Back at Hogwarts when Dumbledore had asked Severus to brew potions for Lupin around his time of month. Healing potions, generally. So in their sixth and seventh years, Severus would brew the potions and try to not get too emotionally involved, to not wince at some of the bruises and cuts that Remus sustained during his transformations. He tried to hate him like he hated Potter and Black.

But Remus had always been different. Had never judged or asked prying questions. For a teenage Severus, lost and alone as he had always imagined himself at that age, that was enough.

But the war had changed things. He couldn't say he was happier but Remus' grey eyes were not enough, his lack of judgment wasn't enough. If he learned something fighting alongside his comrades it was that silence is not enough, standing by can kill just as easily as an attempt to hurt. Partners have to always have each other's back. But that had never been him and Remus, could never be.

"I won't ask you to let me go, Severus. I know you won't." Remus bit his lip and his smile was feeble. Severus suddenly noticed that there was far more blood than he had initially realized. "It's all the same in the end, you know? You won't be happy with them, because no one can be happy with people who only have their own interests in mind—"

"Shut up, Lupin—"

"People who judge without even trying to see. Power and force – oh yes, that's quite fine, isn't it?" He laughed – a dark, humorless sound that gave Severus the chills. "Isn't that exactly what you always hated James and Sirius for? But never mind. I tried to get you to see, back at school, to not be like them so that you might realize…well it's too late isn't it?"

"You're blathering nonsense."

"Am I? Perhaps. I'm losing far too much blood; I'm sure you can tell. I hoped you might come back – after what happened with Lily. But you didn't."

Severus could feel that awful tightness in his chest. He'd always been lost, stuck between a rock and a hard place. If Remus had tried to offer a way out, Severus wished he could have made his intentions clearer. "You never said a thing," he managed to say, finally.

Remus' smile was once again faint, flickering. Dying. "Oh yes, because you were so good at listening. Merlin knows I'm not. If I had been, then I would never have fallen for someone like you. And you're so very like me."

"I'm not!" Severus felt helpless to do anything. He felt foolish and embarrassed at his own foolishness but deciding what to do was not going so well. And had Remus just said… "Bloody hell, Lupin, what do you want?"

"Nothing." Remus just looked at him. "Sev, I was always the one who did not want anything. Not really, privately, maybe, but we all have our dreams. But I liked you with your pots and potions and the peacefulness of the fifth floor hallway after dark. I disliked the war and the propaganda, the bustle and uselessness of all that flashy business my housemates and yours liked so much. Do you remember any of it? Seems quite long ago."

Severus felt as though every nerve in his body was on fire. If any of this was true – which he couldn't help but doubt – then why was he learning of it now? Now, when it was all too late. For Merlin's sake!

Voices behind him, coming closer. After a few moments he could make out Evan's voice and then Batry's. Remus was still looking at him with a pained and curious expression. Severus suddenly had a stray thought…that he could take Remus out of here. They could hide out, they could make plans…

They could not. It's too late now, isn't it? "You're a bloody fool, Lupin."

Severus flicked his wand and Remus slumped, unconscious. His wand tumbled to the ground and went dark. Another flick sent a mound of leaves cascading down to camouflage Remus' still form.

"Severus! Sev, are you here?" Evan's voice was now clear, close by.

Severus scrambled out of the bushes onto the path and lit his wand. "I'm here! I think I got knocked out. Is it over?"

He did not know if Remus would survive, if anyone would come looking for him, would find him. But Severus did not have the heart to kill the boy himself or to let him fall into the hands of the Dark Lord.

Remus' fate was out of his control now. Just like everything about Remus had always been. Too late to start over – if Lupin had uttered a single true thing, it was that.