Title: Journey

Disclaimer: Everything that's part of the Harry Potter world belongs to J. K. Rowling.

Pairing: SS/RL, implied one-sided SS/LP, implied one-sided RL/NT, implied AD/GG

Author Notes: Another horrible week ^^ some fluff for you :). But sometimes I believe that you guys like to see Sev suffer ;).

Resevius: Five times? Wow XD, as many times as I have reread it. Glad that you enjoyed it so much ... This one's really about Sev accepting that he cannot tell Remus about Albus. Next one's Sectumsempra :). I scared you! Sorry ;).

Kiraling: Sev will find out who the man is :). Greyback is horrible but Sev has him under control for now. And you are right about Remus, sadly. Poor thing.

SadisticCarrotcake: There'll be another few Albus-Sev moments, hope you'll like those too :) I like the same things about those scenes.

NatheRiver: Thank you :) that's some compliment. And I'm glad because there'll be much more.

More

"Do you know where I'd like to go?"

It was a mild evening in early May and Severus had dared a trip to Remus's house to take a walk through the forest with him, having secretly told three house-elves to clean Remus's horribly neglected living space. And while Remus showed him one place or another that meant something emotional to him or pulled him on some secret path, Severus felt rather nice, rather like a normal man, held by the hand. In such moments he was usually very quiet and listened to Remus rather than say something and spoil the mood. Remus sensed that and talked much more than usual, apparently glad that Severus liked to listen, and indeed, there was nothing more pleasant to listen to than Remus's voice, no matter what it said. And still Severus liked the fact that Remus always had something worthwhile to say. And despite himself, Severus liked to listen to Remus telling him about his parents and how his childhood had been wonderful even though he had been bitten young. And he wondered if he would have turned out differently had his own father given him an equally nice childhood. He was sure he would have. But there was no use thinking about what could have been, he was satisfied with what was right now, in the twilight with Remus. Though he thought he preferred dawn.

"Excuse me?" said Severus, looking into Remus's expectant face. He tried to remember what they had been talking about before that unexpected question … the brook that they were following, the one behind Remus's house, and how Remus and his father had looked at the creatures inside and been bitten by angry Bowtruckles, and enjoyed his mother's cookies.

"There are a few places I'd like to go," said Remus. "Places I've never been before."

"For example?"

"Japan," smiled Remus, still looking expectantly at Severus.

"Any reason?" asked Severus, wondering what he was expected to do. Perhaps tuck Remus under his arm and perform an impossible Apparition to Japan. For Remus he would try. "Or is it just because it is the other side of the world?"

"Oh, I would like to see a real Japanese Kappa," said Remus with his eyes glowing and Severus remembered he was a teacher out of passion and always excited about the actual world, not pictures in science books. "Oh, and maybe a Tanuki or a Baku!"

Severus felt a little less informed than he would have liked to seem when he nodded at Remus. "That is what you want to see in Japan? Not Mount Fuji or the sacred woods?"

"I would definitely like to see the tree spirits," agreed Remus. "My father told me about his own trips to Japan … he always said he would take me one day. And to the Niagara Falls, and the Sahara … of course those were just empty words. You can't travel with a werewolf that easily, even if your name is Lupin."

"Was he actually as arrogant as you make him sound?" asked Severus, thinking that that arrogance might have been what Remus had liked in his idiot friends at Hogwarts.

"Well, he was … impressive and funny, to a boy I mean," chuckled Remus, looking up at the sky to the first star that could be seen. "But I suppose he thought very highly of himself and his opinion and he let other people feel that. Not that he wasn't skilled and clever. I saw the first star, that means I may make a wish."

"What?" asked Severus perplexed at the sudden change of topic.

"That's what my father told me," explained Remus, pointing at the sky. "Do I have to wish for you to come with me to Japan or will you volunteer?"

And then Severus knew what that expectant look meant. He looked up at the star and thought that an appropriate wish would probably be that they would still be able to take a trip to Japan. "I don't know," said Severus quietly.

"Come on, Severus," cooed Remus, "there will surely be potions ingredients you would like to harvest yourself instead of buying them here, dried up and second rate."

Severus smirked at him for the attempt to present him with a reason other than being with Remus and wading through bogs with him just to catch him when he stumbled. But those were good reasons to Severus. "Why haven't you gone to Japan yourself?" asked Severus, never travelling himself, but suspecting that Remus would have had enough time and interest to travel to all kinds of countries.

It wasn't a question that made Remus very happy, though. "Do you have any idea how expensive it is to set up a Portkey to other countries? Or to travel by Global-Floo? I am no good Apparator, either, so …" He trailed off, waving his hand vaguely before his face grew unusually bitter. "Besides, it isn't easy to get the permission to travel as a werewolf. My father asked a few favours from friends in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to take me along to France and Italy and Sweden. But it is rather humiliating to fill out those forms, being treated like an animal, you usually need a reference." He looked grim for a moment until his face cleared and he gave Severus an apologetic look. "Which doesn't mean that you have to pay for me or come along as my guardian … if you don't want to."

Severus snorted. "Maybe," he said and saw Remus's face falling just slightly. Severus reached into his robes, finding this a good opportunity to force his present on Remus, and pulled out a haphazardly wrapped package to hold it out to him. The werewolf gave him a surprised look, eyeing the package insecurely. "Well, take it!"

Remus took the package from him and unwrapped it carefully, much more carefully than the shop assistant had wrapped it. "Oh, that's …" said Remus, running his hand over the soft fabric of the new set of robes with an embarrassed smile. "That's really … but where are the robes I was wearing when I came back from the pack?"

Severus raised an eyebrow and felt indignant that Remus didn't seem delighted at all. "You mean the rags that were hanging off your body?" he grumbled. "I had the house-elves get rid of those. These are new, I trust you will find them adequate replacement."

Remus looked back at the robes and folded them so he could carry them pressed against his chest. "Of course, I'm sorry, I'm grateful," he said and walked on, brushing his arm against Severus's. "But I will not be able to wear them."

"If you don't like them, I can buy you others," said Severus irritably.

"I like them," replied Remus mildly as his house came back into view. "But when I start wearing them they will soon look like all the others. I will want to wear them every day."

"That is what I bought them for," retorted Severus a little more loudly than he had wanted. "Why can't you accept a present? Why is it wrong of me to buy you a set of handsome robes because I can't bear you wearing rags? Other than those you called friends in the past, I actually care!"

Remus stopped in the shadow of a large oak tree and Severus thought he had upset him again. "Forgive me," said Remus, as usual apologising when Severus thought he was supposed to, "you are right. I am very grateful. Independence is irrelevant now. I am going to wear them, maybe they'll make me handsome."

Severus heard a bittersweet smile in his voice and turned Remus's face into the light to find it on his lips. "Don't be silly," he said quietly, running his thumb over Remus's cheek, "you are not the one who needs a set of robes to make him handsome."

Remus smiled and kissed the corner of Severus's mouth. "Thank you," he repeated, moving on to the house.

Severus looked at his silhouette in the darkness. He could make out his smile. And he knew that Remus only smiled at him like this. Nobody else knew how it really looked when Remus smiled, they only saw that false quirking of the lips that Remus used to hide how he truly felt. Because he was lost when he wasn't with Severus, like Severus was lost without Remus – only that neither of them had known that before meeting each other again. Or rather before falling apart. Nobody else understood them, comprehended their pain. And Severus remembered vaguely that, before Remus, he had not known how to feel content. Over the years he had forgotten what it felt like to enjoy, to be happy. He doubted that Remus had never felt content either, though, Remus had been able to find pleasure in his books, in all kinds of creatures he could discover, in sweets when he got his hands on them, surely even in his jobs as long as they had been interesting. He had not had the burden of guilt and shame on his shoulders that had dulled those pleasures for Severus and made his everyday life grey with room only for cruelties and glee and loathing of everybody who didn't understand. Remus's level of bitterness wasn't high.

And Severus's seemed to be shrinking even while his train of thought was running that way, stopping at the station of Remus's abashed chuckle when he found his house clean, freed of all dust and ready to be lived in again. "What have I done to deserve all this Severus?" asked Remus, closing the door behind them. "I've only been causing you trouble, haven't I?"

Severus sighed. "It is not as though you needed to do anything special to deserve this," he said, and indeed it wasn't anything Remus had done recently. He rather felt the need to present himself in the light he wanted Remus to see him in, that he needed Remus to see him in. This was what he had wanted to do for Remus, just like that, because he had felt like it. He didn't want Remus to be surprised. He wanted him to say something like "finally you admit that you want to give me presents and care for me, I knew all along", and the fact that Remus said nothing of the sort made him feel even more urgent about doing it. He didn't want the only thing that Remus remembered when thinking about him to be that it had been just his belief that Severus cared about him, he wanted him to remember concrete examples of this care, he wanted it to be easier to win Remus back as soon as he had fallen for the hoax that Severus was a faithful Death Eater still. Remus would surely place love over moral in this particular case if he could only believe that, in terms of their relationship, Severus had not been lying.

Remus gave him a curious look, then his face was overcome by pleased surprise and Severus thought that it was the lack of self-esteem that made him take Severus's actions with surprise. He expected to be treated with affection but never even once would he dare expect to be cared for or given presents. Severus swallowed a snap he had meant to direct at Remus for his silly attitude. The werewolf jogged up the stairs to put his new robes into the wardrobe and Severus heard his hurried steps come back even faster.

"Why aren't you sitting?" asked Remus with an amused grin. "You don't have to wait for my permission." And he approached Severus and kissed him gently, brushing his lips against Severus's and running his hands over his back. "Why don't you make yourself comfortable while I make a cup of tea?"

Severus gave a nod and Remus left him to sit down on the sofa that he had never seen so tidy and with so much room to sit on. Somehow he wished the house-elves had left some of Remus's characteristic untidiness. But then he spotted something on the coffee table, a piece of parchment, similar to what he had seen before, just cleaner, more detailed, almost like an artist's drawing. It was, most probably, a successor of what Remus called the Marauder's Map. There was Remus's house, very nicely drawn, with the forest around the garden and the Tentacula actually moving, everything was depicted in every detail and with every tiny little object in the right place, each door open in the right angle and every piece of furniture with its proper ornaments. Then Severus's eyes found Remus in the kitchen and he was no mere dot but his name was written in a flourishing hand and it labeled Remus's face, mild and soft. Then it moved and Severus knew Remus was returning to the living room.

"Oh, I've been looking for that," he said happily, setting the tea down on the table beside the map. "I wondered where it had disappeared to."

Severus raised an eyebrow at him. "Maybe you should tidy up more often instead of just piling everything up."

Remus grinned and encircled Severus's arm with both of his. "I suppose you are right."

Severus looked at his own name and the extraordinarily handsome, unflawed face it labeled, and thought he had never been depicted more inaccurately. "What is this?" he asked and reached for it. "Another map? Oh." He stopped as he picked the map up, for it had wiped itself blank immediately at his touch. "I still can't read it," he grumbled as Remus took the map out of his hands and it returned to its former state.

"Well, the Marauder's Map is not perfect, it has to be wiped blank by the user," said Remus, holding the new map up to Severus, "so when I made this, I made improvements. I think that it is clearly visible that I was more interested in quality here. I think I had so much time that I became obsessed with detail and beauty."

"Indeed," agreed Severus, "but I only see the ground floor, the garden and the edge of the forest."

"It always shows the most relevant area," explained Remus and tapped the edge of the map where there were four words written underneath each other: ground floor, first floor, cellar, forest. Remus's wand touched the word 'forest' and the map changed, the house shrank to a little square and there was a circle of forest which Severus took as the guarding incantations that were protecting Remus's site. Severus thought that he actually saw deer and foxes wandering through the forest and smirked at Remus's ridiculous sense of accuracy. "You can take closer looks at something or other when you just tap the area you're interested in." Remus tapped the word ground floor again and then the living room and indeed it grew larger and filled the whole map. "And another thing," he continued and tapped Severus's name on the map. Severus started when he was suddenly looking back at himself, just that he was a drawing, and a coloured one, red and orange and purple clouds whirling around his head quite becomingly. And his black eyes were a very dark shade of blue.

"Now, that is …" said Severus, cocking his head to one side, the map-Severus following suit, "fascinating."

"You like it?" asked Remus in a very rare self-satisfied voice. "Actually it is supposed to show me who's around me, who's coming and why. The colours show me their intentions."

"And what does red mean?"

"What do you think it means?" said Remus, sitting down on the sofa to take his cup before the tea got cold. "You should know best what your intentions are."

"It always seemed to me that you know better," replied Severus, sitting down beside Remus who put the map back on the coffee table with a small chuckle. "This is very artful magic," continued Severus, sipping on his own tea. His body grew warm as the hot liquid poured deeper into it and the taste made him feel reminiscent. But somehow, Remus seemed a little put off. "What is it?"

"Well," said Remus slowly, "I was always an artist but never … powerful. Like you."

Severus raised a mocking eyebrow. "You would rather be called powerful than creative?"

"It would be more useful to be able to protect others than to create artful pieces of magic," Remus pointed out with some dissatisfaction. "I'd rather invent spells that are useful in battle than make trinkets like this one."

"There are more things you can teach the rest of us than you could learn from … someone like me," said Severus, looking at his reflection in the tea. The honey colour made him look so different. Much warmer. "If you ask me, you are powerful enough."

Remus smiled and refilled their cups. "A teacher always likes to hear that," he said, brushing Severus's hand affectionately. "And yet, you must admit, I'd have no chance against you, for instance … and I remember very well how Dolohov almost decapitated me."

"And I told you to stay away from him," replied Severus warningly, "and from all the others too, we are playing unfairly, Remus, we are ruthless. Of course you don't stand a chance."

"Even if you were playing fair," insisted Remus, ignoring Severus's advice stubbornly.

Severus looked at him, tracing the outline of his face with his eyes as he had used to do when he hadn't yet known it by heart, and let his fingers follow his gaze. Remus met his eyes and Severus could see some shadow of the admiration Remus had once confessed he felt for him. He tried not to feel smug. "You should not wish for the power of someone inventing Sectumsempra," said Severus quietly.

"And still you use it with great conviction and frequency," replied Remus mildly, stirring some sugar into his tea. Severus grumbled a little, finding no sensible retort to this except that the spell suited him but not Remus, but Remus knew as much, otherwise he would have used it already.

"I can heal the damage I deal, that is why I use it without thinking twice," said Severus defensively but Remus's hand was already on his thigh to calm him down. He had known that Severus would be upset about what he had said before Severus had even thought about it. A man who knew so much about others and so little about himself.

"Have you ever had that feeling in class … when a student who could follow you perfectly up to a certain point, suddenly reaches a dead end and can move no further in drinking in your knowledge?"

Remus looked up at him with a thoughtful frown. "Yes, of course I have," he said, turning towards Severus, probably expecting some interesting academic conversation. "It happens all the time. You cannot expect a student to be able to learn everything you have to teach them, only because it is your field of expertise, it is not automatically theirs. Especially in Potions, I'm sure."

Ah, yes, he had misunderstood. Severus shook his head. "I am not referring to Potions," he said quietly, "I am referring to you and me." Remus raised his eyebrows and the cup in his lap seemed completely forgotten. "When you started annoying me, I am sure you remember that time even though some years have passed, you also started teaching me lessons. I have tried to follow them all, but I'm afraid I have not been able to. And I know that you know that, because I shall never forget the disappointed look you gave me when we parted."

"If I did so, then it was an unconscious look," said Remus apologetically and Severus passed a hand over his face to hide his desperate smile.

"That is exactly what I mean," he said, slightly distracted by Remus's hand on his thigh. "This tremendous concern and carefulness. The need to do everything right, to hurt nobody and be liked by everybody, to abide by laws and rules – though that is very surprising indeed. You see only the best in everyone, you forgive in the blink of an eye and feel bad for punishing others. All things I could not learn, just like your passion for teaching."

Remus's fingers started drawing pleasant circles on Severus's thigh and Severus couldn't help shifting his leg to touch Remus's. "As far as I am concerned, you have learned my lessons to a satisfying extent. You had one year to think about everything and when we met again, you had learned what I could not teach you in the time we were together. I think you are only missing the very last lesson for me to be absolutely satisfied."

"What is that?" asked Severus, though he thought he knew the answer very well. And he had learned the lesson already. Remus just smiled and made no answer.

"Actually I always thought you resented me for giving you what you never asked for," said Remus softly, "causing you pain."

Severus took Remus's hand on his thigh firmly into his. "It hurt before you came," he said, finding the heartache a merciful exchange for the lonely bitterness, the guilty shame he had been feeling for many years. Looking back at the many nights he had spent craving Remus's presence, he thought that even this anguish had made him feel alive, was better than the empty shell his body had turned into when all emotion had vanished or been reduced to hatred and anger. He even remembered his own awkward start into their relationship as exciting and new and real. Yes, before Remus he had been lost. "You lessened the pain."

Remus squeezed his hand and, as usual, his words surpassed Severus's in meaningfulness. "And you erased mine," he said and Severus knew he did not intend to make him feel small but he did, for Severus knew his pain had been different but not weaker. "And I am grateful."

"It is hard to believe that," said Severus, realising a little too late that he was stopping Remus's kiss in its tracks. "I hurt you all the time."

"No," said Remus, shaking his head, leaning in until their lips almost touched, "you make everything worthwhile, after a life of merely carrying on, everything seems more vivid, more colourful, more intense." And he made his point by kissing Severus with his usual intensity, making Severus think that, were his face visible on Remus's map, it would glow red. The fact that, once, Severus had not even known that a kiss like that was possible made him wonder how many decades ago that might have been. And he feared the loss of it as intensely as Remus kissed him, embraced him, knew nothing of what Severus knew.

"I will repeat what I once asked: supposing the Order lost, supposing the resistance was defeated," he mumbled when Remus pulled back an inch to draw breath, clearly meaning to kiss him again, "would you allow me to ask for your life? After all, I would be a moron not to stay in my position in the inner circle … would you stay with me, if I could make him spare your life?"

He regretted his words when Remus pulled back to give him a sad look. "In a golden cage you mean?" he asked and Severus thought that 'golden cage' sounded better than 'certain death'. But not to Remus, Remus always did what was right, not what was convenient. "I don't believe that I would like to live like that. I would feel a traitor."

"It is no crime to think of oneself instead of dying in vain for the purpose," said Severus, scowling at Remus for being so stubborn about his ideals, for destroying some of his hopes that he might keep him close after Albus's death. "I will build you any cage you like, if you just stop feeling responsible for the wizarding world."

The smile came back to Remus's face but it was one of those smiles that told Severus that there would be no agreement on that point. "I appreciate it," he said, leaning back in, "I really do. But as far as I know, you are the one who feels responsible for the wizarding world, who places himself second for its safety. And I love you all the more for it."

Severus grumbled but his indignation was half-hearted. He enjoyed it when Remus said such things about him. Even if it wasn't absolutely accurate. "Admire me as much as you like, but I still think that you are being unhealthily selfless," he said softly. "Unlike me, you have no obligation to put yourself in mortal danger."

Remus's smile only widened and it seemed to Severus as though he was somewhat surer of Severus's feelings whenever he heard Severus speak like this. "I wonder if you have noticed that you've been talking much more than usual lately."

"Well, forgive me, if my voice is wearing out your ears," said Severus defiantly, making Remus chuckle heartily. "I thought it might please you to hear that I'd rather be laughed at by my fellows in the circle for asking for your life, than be without you again."

"It is not just that," replied Remus, his voice rich with pleasure, "but everything you've told me. I can only read that much in your eyes after all. It is reassuring to hear that it means so much to you. It is not just being lonely, is it? It is being without me, that worries you. I feel the same way. I could be in a crowded room, without you I would feel the loneliest man in the world."

"You sappy Gryffindor," mumbled Severus against Remus's lips. "It could only be you. There is no substitute. Everybody else just makes me miserable."

"That is some compliment," chuckled Remus and his warm breath on Severus's lips was too much to bear without closing the gap and kissing the impossible werewolf and making him feel, perhaps, that Severus had already mastered the last lesson. He encircled his thin waist with his arms and Remus came so close, there was no telling them apart anymore, and it was a feeling that Severus cherished more than anything, this completion, this knowledge that Remus and he were an item, not to be separa–

Ah, Severus Snape, you utter fool. Albus didn't give you that picture to show that love conquers all but to make clear to you that it might never end, while you will definitely fall apart. He didn't want to encourage you and tell you Remus will return to you, he wanted to tell you he will never hate you but returning to you is something completely other. What did he say? Carry on? I want to see you carry on, you did beautifully last time, didn't you? You should kiss him every time as though it was the last, because it could very well be so.

But when he tried to act on these thoughts, Remus broke the kiss with an apologetic look and sat back, bringing a painful distance between them that Severus didn't quite want to accept, though all he did was keep his arms stretched out to the werewolf. "Our tea," said Remus quietly, pushing Severus's cup back into his hands. "Let's not waste it."

Severus watched him in great disappointment, thinking that that reason was no reason at all and that the tea could turn cold, if it meant they could be close. And indeed Remus's real explanation was already on its way, Severus could see it in the way he frowned. "There's something wrong, isn't there?" said Remus, glancing up at Severus with worried eyes that told Severus he had been seen through even while kissing. "Something severely wrong. I feel it. And I wish you told me about it."

Severus let his gaze wander away from Remus and it strayed through the room aimlessly, while his mind was trying to figure out what best to say. After all, Remus had listened to him saying nothing, more than enough times. Some part of the truth might be helpful. His eyes stilled and fixed on the dark window.

"A month ago," he said and immediately felt Remus hanging on his lips, "when nobody knew what had happened to you, if you were dead or injured or perfectly healthy … I don't think you believed me when I said that it was a sickening feeling, pure horror. Not to know if you'd ever come back."

There was a moment's silence before Remus discarded his cup and took Severus's hand. "And you are still thinking about that?" he asked in a voice so guilty that Severus wondered how responsible one could actually feel.

"No," said Severus, turning his face further away, "I was redeemed of those feelings when you returned, but … I think about it happening again. I find it an unsettling idea that you might never return to me, touch me again. Talk to me again."

"I will make sure you don't lose me," said Remus very close to Severus's ear, "if you make sure you don't leave me."

"I am not the one who has reason to leave," said Severus, not even trying to resist Remus's attempts to kiss his jaw and cheek. He was allowed to embrace Remus again and thought he must have said the right thing, though he felt uncomfortable with the fact that he had actually kept the most crucial part from Remus again. But maybe Remus would remember this very evening when he thought about leaving or staying.

"I have no more reason than you, even if you try to convince me of the contrary," said Remus kindly, "no one has ever made me feel better than you. You know it is not that I wish everyone to ignore or deny I'm a werewolf, actually I like the way you include my condition in your picture of me and like me because and in spite of it. I think that it was from your mouth that I first perceived the title 'werewolf' as some sort of endearment."

Severus raised his eyebrows at him and triggered another chuckle that had surely been lurking behind Remus's lips and for the first time in those three years he actually saw and felt just how much he had to give Remus. And how much he would take away, how deeply he would plunge him into confusion and pain. And it was even worse than knowing how severe his own pain would be, to know that Remus would soon doubt all this, question everything and believe himself a fool for believing in it. Severus was sure he would feel as lost as he himself had felt, finding out about Remus's lies in that fateful night in the Shrieking Shack, falling prey to a misconception like Remus would. There was nobody Severus wanted to impress, nobody whose opinion of him mattered, just Remus, and there was no way he could let him know that what he thought him to be was not a lie or a mask, that he was the only one who truly knew him.

So, kiss him as though it was the last time, hold him and make him feel what you feel, make it count and he might believe in you.

It was Remus who kissed him, and Remus who held him and Remus who didn't let him return home, whose lips felt so warm on Severus's, whose body felt so familiar under his and made his worries seem so unfounded as if he were fearing a fly might take over the Ministry of Magic. And in this house he could sleep without disturbance, without nightmares, Remus's hair brushing his face and his smell entrancing him and his hand in his. He couldn't imagine that this would ever disappear. Remus was not like Albus, and Severus was not like the mysterious man. They would not fall apart. He was absolutely sure, and he held him and kissed him and made it count, as if he had all the time in the world.