Remus sipped slowly on his tea, focusing on the sensation of warmth as it seeped down his aching throat, spreading into his upset stomach. Harry babbled lightly in his play pen, grasping happily at the colorful mobile above him. Lily sipped her own tea, comfortable in the silent moment that proceeded what she knew would be a difficult conversation. A necessary one, but difficult all the same.

She knew if Remus had it his way the silence would be broken only for the sake of friendly chatter. Stories of Harry's latest developments, a solemn commiseration over the state of the war but not of their own parts in it. Lily wanted that, to simply be. She wanted as much as the battered, scarred man in front of her to deal only in platitudes and peace. Unfortunately, now was not the time to indulge that particular fantasy. Remus had made that much clear when he had called Lily from a muggle jail, more exhausted than she had ever heard him, requesting a bail out.

Of course she couldn't actually go herself and Remus had been very insistent that she not contact Sirius, Peter, or any of the others. Lily, much to her frustration, had been forced to ask her sister for help. She hated to give Petunia the smug satisfaction of thinking she associated herself with 'criminal degenerates', but Remus had sounded so desperate (pathetic even) that she sucked it up. On the condition that he come straight to her home upon release. He reluctantly agreed to her terms, though only after she assured him James would be at work all day, his final week before being remanded to the house indefinitely alongside her and Harry.

So there they were, sipping tea. It had been half an hour and Remus had not said a word. He wasn't going to make this easy for her, then.

"So why did you call me, anyway, since you knew I couldn't come?" asked Lily, starting with an easier question.

Remus shifted uncomfortably on the couch. His hands trembled, struggling to grip onto his cup. He wouldn't meet her eyes.

"You're muggle born. I would've had to explain the whole fuc-" he looked at Harry who was finally getting big enough that they wanted to clean up their language around him. "The whole bloody legal system to any of the others before they could even start to help. Not to mention you're the only one who owns a phone." A slight pause. "You're the only one I could stand to know."

"Okay," Lily responded, a little touched by his trust in her. "Okay, so now for the big question. Why were you there?"

The truth is, she knew full well why he was there. The officer had told Petunia when she went to bail him out, who had then gleefully passed on the gossip to her sister while Remus had showered off the filth of the jail cell ("Honestly, Lily, it would have broken our parents hearts to see you involved with the likes of him!") She also knew Remus had managed to avoid charges, thankfully, as the arresting officer had taken pity at the sight of his extensive scarring, assuming that whatever he'd been through to cause it probably warranted some kind of downward spiral.

She knew. She just needed to hear him admit it.

"Lily I… I don't know what you want from me."

"How about the truth?"

He let out a deep sigh and set down his tea, the cup clanking lightly on the surface of the coffee table.

"A police officer found some… illegal substances on my person. It really wasn't a big deal Lily. Just a stupid misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding? Remus, the reason they were so easily able to find those 'substances' is because you were passed out in a park in the middle of the day. With everything that's happening, do you even comprehend the kind of risk you face by allowing yourself to be that vulnerable?"

Were it anyone else, Remus would have taken those words as an accusation. There had been so much of that going round, after all. With Lily, though, he only felt her concern. She had so much to worry about already. He hated that she was now worried about him. All he'd wanted was to go for a walk. Get out for an hour. He'd just misjudged, taken more than he realized.

"I know. I know Lily, really, I do. It was a stupid mistake. A one time thing," he assured her, begging her to believe him.

She could always tell when he was lying. Maybe he should have called Marlene. She wouldn't have believed him either, but he might have felt less guilty.

"Is it though? You told me you're not drinking anymore, but if anything, you've just been getting more erratic. I'm not the only one who sees it, the others do too."

Remus' eyes darkened slightly. "None of them trust me," he said with a hint of bitterness.

"Don't be stupid, of course they do," Lily said, not entirely convincingly. "They just don't understand."

"And you do?"

"You said it yourself, I'm muggle born. Wizards, they don't talk about these things. Most of them don't understand. The others might not know much about those 'substances' but I know what opiates are and I've seen what addiction looks like."

She said the word 'addiction' without a hint of judgement. A simple, matter of fact statement spoken from a place of empathy that hit Remus like a slap in the face. He visibly flinched as he felt a wave of shame roll through his body. He thought about his father, the smell of whiskey. He heard Simon's voice echoing in his head, dripping with vitriol. Junkie.

For a moment Lily thought he was going to fight her. That he might be indignant, furious at the suggestion. Or even more likely, that he'd just get up and leave as if nothing was wrong. For a moment Remus thought so too. Then he did something she wasn't expecting. He cried.

At first, he didn't even realize he was doing it. It took a moment for his brain to catch up with his body. He felt warm tears streaming down his face. He heard his breath getting short, staggered. Then he felt Lily's arms around him and it all came crashing down.

All of the feelings he'd been working so hard to bury came flooding to the surface. All the pain, in his body, his mind, his soul. The constant pain that never fully went away. In that moment he felt all of it, in every fiber of his being.

At most it lasted five minutes, but to Remus it felt like an eternity. Eventually he began to register the gentle stroking of Lily's hands through his hair. It was something Sirius did too. Something he hadn't done in a long time. He focused on the sensation. On the warmth of her body. The pressure of her arm across his chest. He managed to calm himself enough to regain some level of composure.

They stayed like that for a long while before Harry let out a small whine and Remus finally, gently, shrugged her off. She moved back to her seat across from him and reached over to fuss with Harry's toys until he was ready to speak.

Remus ran a sleeve under his eyes and sniffed a few more times. He drew in a long, ragged breath.

"I'm sorry-"

"Don't be, love."

Remus just nodded. He wanted to talk. He'd been keeping so many secrets for so long. He wanted to just tell her everything, but he had no idea what to say. Thankfully, she seemed to understand.

"How long has this been going on?"

"I don't know. That's a complicated question."

"How so?" Lily asked, a little confused.

Remus thought for a moment. How could he explain it to her? Did he even really know the answer to that question? He figured he owed it to her to at least try to be honest. Maybe he owed it to himself, too.

"Well, it didn't really happen all at once. I could tell you the first time I got drunk, the first time I got high. I don't think I could tell you the exact moment it became a… a problem. All I know is that at some point, it just stopped being a choice. It's gotten so far out of control but no matter how hard I try, I just can't stop myself. I don't- fuck- I don't want to be doing this Lily," Remus felt himself getting choked up again, all thoughts of appropriate language forgotten. "I don't want to be like this."

"Hey, it's okay Remi. I know," she reassured.

She gave him a moment to collect himself. She didn't want to push too hard, but in truth, she didn't fully understand. She knew about addiction; she'd seen it before. She'd heard Severus' stories about his father when they were kids. Heard stories from her parents. She wouldn't tell Remus, but she'd been doing as much reading as she could in anticipation of this moment (aided by Marlene's willingness to raid the Oxford libraries and bring her resources.) Still, she'd never been through it herself, and she knew if she wanted to help him, she had to understand.

She decided to change tack. Start with something quantifiable, get an idea of the facts of the situation.

"What are you taking, exactly? How much, how often?"

Remus wrung his hands nervously. He'd been trying very hard over the past few months not to think about just how much his using had escalated.

"A few things. Coke, but not all the time. Some different kinds of pills. I really haven't been drinking so that's something, though I guess you might not call replacing alcohol with hard drugs a significant victory" he said with an awkward laugh. "I guess you already know about…"

"The opiates?" supplied Lily. That was the word the police had used apparently, no further clarification.

"Yeah. That's probably the main thing."

The silence grew tense, both of them knowing the next question with neither of them really ready to answer it.

"What, specifically, does that mean Remus?"

Once again, he would not meet her eyes.

"At first just some pills. Prescription stuff. But that's expensive, harder to get. Mostly now it's…" He knew she wasn't going to let the question go until she heard him say the words. "Mostly now it's heroin."

Lily closed her eyes tight, processing the information. How had things gotten so bad? How could they have all failed their friend this badly? Remus felt a new level of humiliation at the pained look on his best friend's face.

"I'm so fucking sorry Lily. I know how that sounds, but it's not as bad as you're thinking. It's a big, scary word, that's all," he said unconvincingly.

"Are you- have you been using needles?"

"No! No, Lily, never. I swear I've never done that."

She stared him down for a few moments, contemplating making him roll up his sleeves to prove it. Eventually, she decided he was telling the truth. She breathed a small sigh of relief. He'd come close, in the packs, but he'd never quite been desperate enough to cross that line. He saw the kind of damage it did.

"What then?"

"Smoking, mostly."

"Every day?" She gestured to his shaking hands. "You can't stop without getting sick now, right?"

Remus hung his head, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets.

"I could, for a while. It wasn't all the time, and I'd go a week or two without anything and be fine. Recently though, the past couple months, it's been a few times a day. It takes more and more just to feel normal. I haven't tried to stop for a while, so I don't know how long I can go before it starts getting bad."

Okay, so she had the facts. It wasn't as bad as she feared it could be, but not great. She'd need to do more reading, but if it had only been a couple months since he started getting withdrawal symptoms then it might not be too severe. He'd get sick, but he'd maybe even been through worse with his transformations. This was manageable. Assuming he agreed to quit at all, that is. There was one thing though that was weighing heavily on her mind.

"What about your missions?"

"What do you mean?" inquired Remus nervously.

"I mean, you just said that you've been using every day for months. I know you've been away doing whatever it is you do for the Order for at least some of that time."

"Yeah," he said, shifting uncomfortably at the accusation implicit in her observation. "It's… not as much of a problem as you might think." If anything it could be an asset at times. Nobody saw him as a threat. He was one of them.

"What does that even mean?" she asked, deeply troubled by the idea of these missions more than ever before. In what world could that not be a huge, glaring problem? The answer to that question was undoubtedly not good.

"I wish I could explain, Lil. You know I'd tell you all about it if I could, don't you? I want to, but Dumbledore insists- with the spy and all-"

"I know, love. It's okay."

She let it drop. She honestly hadn't expected to get this far. As much as she wanted to know, there was a reason Order business was kept secret.

"I think I might have fucked things up so badly I can't fix it anymore," Remus said quietly after a short silence.

"No, Remi, you haven't," she said, reaching out to stroke his shoulder. "You're sick. You can get better."

"The others don't think I'm sick, they think I'm a fuckup. They've started talking to me again but it's obvious they don't really want me around. Especially Sirius. Fucking hell, Lily, I don't even know if he still wants to be with me," he said with tears welling up once again. "Who can blame him? I'm a fucking mess. We're all fighting the same war, so why am I the only one who can't cope? No wonder nobody trusts me. Who the fuck would trust some lying junkie werewolf?"

Lily felt her heart break for her friend. She wanted to tell him that they all trusted him, but she knew she couldn't say that just because she wished it to be true.

"I trust you Remus. I trust you with my life. I trust you with James' life. I trust you with Harry's life. Look me in the eyes," she said, holding his gaze steadily. "I trust you."

He nodded, holding eye contact for longer than he'd been able to the entire conversation. His eyes were bloodshot. She was suddenly furious with her husband and their friends.

"You say we're all fighting the same war. I think that's a load of shit."

Remus looked taken aback at that.

"The others, Sirius, James, Peter, Marlene, even Dorcas as a half blood. None of them are fighting the same war as you and me Remus. Every one of them has made a choice. They chose to put themselves in danger, to fight this fight. To protect the people who are most at risk. You and me? We didn't have that choice. They could have made the choice to be safe, and I love them all for the fact that they would never have even considered it, but the point is they could," said Lily firmly.

Remus stared at her, turning the words over in his mind.

"I'm a mudblood, you're a werewolf. They want us dead. Voldemort and the Death Eaters, they want you and me and everyone like us wiped off the face of the earth. The others will never understand. Not really. They see you cracking under the pressure and don't understand how you can't just face it head on like they do because they don't see it. They're fighting for love and for what's right, and so are we! So are we. But we're also fighting for the right to exist. It's not the same war."

Lily took a deep breath, calming herself down. When she spoke again it was softer.

"I know what you face with your lycanthropy is something I'll never really understand. You've got it your whole life, from all sides. Even the people who are fighting against Voldemort would still gladly see you tossed from wizarding society soon as the war is won. Then you turn around to muggle society and they tell you you're not welcome for who you love. On top of that, you're sick and in pain and that alone, shit Remus no wonder you feel the need to medicate. I don't even know what to tell you. I don't know how to make it better. All I can say is I love you, and I see you, and I'd die for you the same way I know you would for me. Don't you ever feel, even for a moment, that you're weaker than them. That you're failing to rise to the same challenges. They're afraid. They love you; I know they do. No matter what happens, I know they'd still die for you, too. They're just afraid. Fear makes people stupid about anything they don't understand and love, you are fighting a war that they just do not understand."

Remus sat in stunned silence. All thoughts of tears were well forgotten. Few people had ever spoken to him so candidly about his condition. For the first time in a long time, he actually felt his self-loathing ease just a little bit.

Leave it to Lily to cut through the bullshit in a way nobody else could.

She reached over to the playpen and picked up Harry, who was beginning to fuss, repeating 'mama' over and over in a long babbling string of syllables. She sat him gently on her knee and bounced him up and down. She was staring at Harry lovingly when she spoke once more, this time in a sing-song, higher tone.

"Now, let's talk about getting clean and sober! That's right Harry, Uncle Remus is going to detox. Yes he is, yes he is."

Remus let out a loud laugh. He grinned at Lily and Harry. Lily looked up at him questioningly. Remus looked back for a beat before giving her a tentative nod of agreement.

Clean and sober. Only addicts needed to get clean and sober. He'd been terrified of the prospect that those words would ever need to apply to him. Even more afraid of what it would mean to give up the only thing that he felt had been keeping him afloat. In that moment he was just so very, very tired. Maybe clean and sober wouldn't be so bad. Maybe he could do that.