"Remus, you can really cook," Tziganne sounded surprised but very pleased.

Lupin smiled. The four of them were seated mid-way down the long, battered scullery table. Since Black's death, Lupin had confined himself to the kitchen and his room. He had not seen the dining room since the year before and he quickly pushed the thought of it out of his mind. Black had been in there that day, furious that the Order seemed oblivious to the danger Harry was in, Lupin could close his eyes and hear the heated words, feel the emotions running so close to the surface. He had returned to the house the day after Sirius's murder and had never entered that room again.

Snape and Tziganne were seated on one side with Lupin and Bera across from them. The tabletop was covered with dishes and serving platters, wine bottles and goblets. A vase of autumn-hued mums had been pushed towards one end and candles flickered down the length of the middle.

"It really was very good, Remus. Every dish perfect." Bera said quietly, grinning at him. "I feel wickedly sated."

Remus smiled back at her.

"If one is forced to satisfy one's hunger with the gastronomy of a rabbit, then I agree, Lupin, a better meal could not be imagined." Snape waved at the empty dishes on the table and pulled deeply at the dark wine in his glass.

"They say red meat will be the death of us, Severus," the werewolf stated with authority.

Snape merely snorted at this, "I heartily devour the flesh of animals. It feeds my brain." Bera grimaced, Lupin shook his head and Snape grinned ferally. "Name one intelligent herbivore and I may be swayed."

"I refuse to argue the merits of a vegetarian meal with you, Snape. Either accept the premise or continue along the path to clogged arteries and colon cancer."

"Egads, man. You are serious about this ruminant culinary habit. Never threaten a man with digestive track disease. Coronary failure, perhaps. That is precisely why I gave up smoking so many years ago. And that was an indulgence of which I was extremely fond." Snape leaned over the table for emphasis. "I adored smoking. But I will not suffer similar mortal fear mongering of nutriment. Food is meat; all else relegated to a side dish."

Lupin shrugged.

Tziganne elbowed Snape in the ribs. He looked at her sharply, she widened her eyes at him and he looked away. "I apologize, Remus," he mumbled.

The werewolf nodded.

"Good wine," Tziganne said cheerfully.

Bera was looking hard at Lupin. She nodded and raised her glass. "It is. To grapes and good friends."

The four of them clinked their goblets together.

"I am really curious," Bera began, "why you two have been together so long and haven't settled down and begun a family."

"Snape a father? I see him as Saturn, swallowing his babes whole, you know?" Lupin laughed.

"That is an amusing image, Lupin." Snape didn't sound amused.

"Oh, I think he would be a good father," Tziganne said quickly, "I don't think I would be a proper mother, though."

"Neither one of us is particularly motivated or interested, to state it clearly," Snape said. He looked at Bera intensely and she held his gaze, "Not all of us have pastoral childhood memories encouraging us towards similar creations in our adult lives. Some of us possess histories so dreadful that to even consider the idea of recreating or rewriting familial times is beyond one's endurance." He paused, "The better interviewee, Bera, would appear to be you. Why are you not settled into a tranquil domesticity? Dairy cows lowing in a Danish dawn, was it?"

She looked at him quietly for a few moments and then smiled, "Severus, you are so interesting to me. All sharp edges on the outside, and yet, there is a softness inside of you. I can clearly see why a particular kind of student would find you a fascinating love interest."

He scowled. Tziganne laughed softly.

"But your question is a fair one, and perhaps you are right to guess that I really ask it to shed a light on my own answers." Bera continued and Snape raised an approving eyebrow. "I am a helpless romantic. There I said it. I have spent years awaiting the arrival of my Prince, my Eros. To no avail. I think it's a career liability, being a scholar of fairy tales and mythologies." She finished off her wine and reached clumsily for the bottle, refilling her glass nearly to the rim and drank deeply again.

Lupin laughed softly. "Well, you certainly aren't alone. I think most people are more romantic than pragmatic."

"I am a prosaic pillar of pragmatism, Lupin. And that should guarantee me being an unlikely candidate for errant schoolgirl yearnings." Snape admonished under half-closed eyelids.

Tziganne nodded, the corners of her mouth turned downwards. "I would have to agree with that."

Lupin laughed again, louder this time, "I won't run the risk of betraying him and revealing his romantic underpinnings, then. Have it your way, Severus. Prosaic pillar… " he trailed off good humouredly.

Snape was watching Bera, "You do not attribute your marital status, or lack thereof, to that unrequited love and heartbreak of your youth?"

"No, I am not single today because of the lingering effects of my disastrous girlhood crush, Severus. Feel better?"

Snape's eyes narrowed. "I did not feel badly."

Bera nodded. "Whatever you say."

"You are coming dangerously close to angering me with your insinuation, though."

"Ooh, danger. I see." She finished her wine.

"I think you are getting drunk, Bera."

"Really, do you? You may be right." Bera twirled the empty wine glass between her thumb and fingers. "And I think you are feeling guilty, Severus. About that girl in the pub."

"I certainly am not."

"You are still thinking about it." She looked at him. "About her."

Snape's eyes were slits now, the corner of his lip lifting slightly. "What makes you believe that?"

"Intuition."

"Your intuition is grotesquely inaccurate."

"Is it?"

"Remus, do you have a room here you can spare us?" Tziganne asked.

Bera and Snape stared at one another across the table.

Remus jumped to his feet. "Absolutely. Let's get one made up. Bera, you'll need a room as well, I'm guessing." He was at the door of the kitchen, Tziganne behind him.

They disappeared into the dark hallway and could be heard climbing the stairs.

"What is it that you want to say to me, Bera? You seem anxious to impart some insight, misguided though it will obviously be. Or is it criticism?"

"Who are you fooling, Severus? Yourself? Tziganne? Surely you're flattered at the girl's interest? Tempted even? Intrigued? Curious?"

"Wrong on all counts."

Bera nodded.

"What are you on about, Bera?" Snape leaned forward and filled both of their glasses with the last of the wine. His voice was soft.

She seemed to study her drink, "I'm sorry, Severus. I guess something just broke loose in me. I can't stop thinking about that girl. What was her name?"

"Hermione. Shakespeare, no doubt. Hermione Granger." He sipped at his wine and watched her over its rim. "This is about you, your psychology. Kindly leave me out of it."

She nodded. "Hermione. Very pretty." She looked at him and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "You know what? You're right. I know exactly how that girl is feeling. Me, I know. And it's not good." She stared down at the scarred tabletop. "The question is why? Not in this case, you love Tziganne. But in a bigger way, what would be so wrong about that sort of relationship? Why must it be quashed like that? That felt personal, more cutting, than the average let down."

"The idea of the relationship is inappropriate and therefore the understanding of such should feel less personal. Two adults rejecting one another is personal. A teacher rejecting the advances of an immature interest is not about individuals but about what is morally acceptable and morally reprehensible."

"Don't you think that it's the more natural of situations? A girl on the edge of womanhood and a man arrived at maturity? Are we talking cultural mores here or something else?"

"I think we are talking about you seeking therapy as soon as you return home. Tomorrow afternoon even, if it can be arranged."

"You think you are above all this, don't you? Well, you are not. And this will somehow affect you."

"I highly doubt that. You were affected, no question, half your life ago. Time does not heal all non-fatal wounds, it would appear."

"Gods above, did you think it does?"

"It was a figure of speech, Bera. A pedestrian observation of human commonalities. No, I do not see Time as Healer." He drained his goblet. "Perhaps that would be best discussed with your Jungian, as well."

"I'm drunk."

"Yes."

"What is Remus's story?"

"Ah, is that what this is really about? Another man, another possible rejection?"

"That was bitterly rude."

"And you represent the penultimate of politeness."

"You realize that this is becoming the way we relate to each other? It always is reduced to this." She looked across at him.

"By Charon's passage, do not begin crying."

"It's the wine."

"I know."

"Remus will think I'm a fool."

"What he will think is that you have drunk too much of this wonderful cab. He is a gentleman, above all else."

She nodded and pushed her half-full glass away from her.

Severus stood, "I am going to bed."

Bera nodded.

He lingered by the door. "I am flattered."

He was gone.

Lupin returned alone. Bera was still sitting at the table, but her wand was out and he assumed that she had begun the fire which burnt brightly on the grate. He entered slowly.

"I've made you up a bed, Bera," his voice was quiet.

She looked up at him, surprised. She sucked in her lower lip and nodded.

"Do you want to sit by the fire, then? Come here, come away from that mess." Lupin sat on the floor in front of the hearth, his back against a chair there. Bera stood, and leaning over the table, blew out each one of the candles, he watched her from lowered lids.

She joined him on the floor, folding her legs up elegantly underneath her. Her knee brushed against his and came to rest firmly there. He breathed in deeply and Bera looked up at him shyly. The light from the fireplace caught the bones of his face and dug deep shadows into the hollows of his cheeks, around his ears and down the long length of his neck.

She drank him in completely, intoxicated with his light brown eyes flecked with gold, the dark blonde hair, the sheer masculine power in his every movement, she recognized his exhaustion and knew that others saw it as something sloppy, unkempt, but her heart ached with her knowledge that it was his inner battles revealed. Her gaze traveled from the sloping biceps down to the gloriously thick forearms, covered with their downy hair, the large hands and fingers capped with clear nails grown straight and a bit long over the tips. But it was his face that her gaze kept returning to, sculpted cleanly, a man's face all broad planes and defined edges.

He was staring intently at her, a retiring question on his face. She closed her eyes and smiled. Then she leaned in to him, pressing her breasts against his arm and bringing her lips up to his ear, he bent towards her in response and brought a tentative hand up to her shoulder, a caress that pulled her even closer to him, her hand splaying across his thigh. With one light touch, the fingers of her other hand reached under the thick mane of hair falling over his neck and she whispered in his ear, "Remus Lupin, do you honour The Fates?"

He nodded and her lips brushed the upper curled edge of his ear and a shiver ran right down from the tip of her tongue to the sweet spot between her legs.

Lupin nearly gasped as his loins warmed at the feel of her lips against his flesh. His hand tightened around the curve of her shoulder, his fingertips brushing her back.

"Good, because I think they have a hand in this." She brought her voice to an even lower whisper, "I know what you are, Remus. I have dedicated much of my life's work to knowing what one as you can be, should be." She felt his back stiffen and she pulled away from him to bring her hand up to his face, fingers under his chin and gently tilt his face towards her. "Surely, this cannot be a coincidence."

His eyes were filled with fear and a terrible unknowing. Bera moved back, dropping her hands from his body, laying them, fingers entwined in her own lap. She looked into his face, willing herself to hold his gaze, silently pleading with him to return it. She reached up and cupped his face in her hands. She traced the corners of his mouth with her thumbs. Slowly he bent closer to her and his mouth found hers.

Upstairs, Snape and Tziganne made a familiar yet passionate love that carried them both into sleep. Snape laid on his back, spent, Tziganne beside him, on her belly, one arm over his chest, her fingers draped around his bicep. He felt himself falling backwards into a vertigo of dreams.

In the earliest hours of the dawn, the sunlight rubbed against the smeared windows, and deep in Snape's mind he found himself in the library at Hogwarts. He knew exactly where he was going and he strode forward with purpose. There she was, her back to him, at the farthest end of the room, sitting at the study table which faced out towards a window set deep in the wall, overlooking the lake, the green, and another vista far beyond that. Her head was bent to her work. As he approached her, he began to shed his clothing with precision and rapidity. Robes, frock coat, tailored shirt. These fell from his shoulders like water. He reached down to his waist and tugged the hem of the undershirt out from his pants and drew it up and over his head and dropped it from his hand. He unbuttoned the fly of his trousers as he finished closing the space between them. His hands reached down and grasped her shoulders and she sighed with a sound of pure contentment and he smiled. He bent over her and pulled her up and into his arms. She turned slowly and he looked down into her eyes. With both hands he cupped her face and brought his mouth down hard on hers. She pushed the chair out from between them and he felt the length of her body pressed against his. Her hands pushed his trousers down over his sharp hip bones and his erection sprang free. She stood before him naked. He gently began to bend her backwards onto the table and she brought both legs up and wrapped them tightly around him. With one thrust he was buried in her and he lowered her down to the table, his hands on either side of her shoulders. He watched her beautiful face and her eyes were open, looking up at him. "Hermione is a very pretty name, indeed," he whispered to her. And she smiled and closed her eyes, reaching up for him, she pulled him down to her and they were in the long grass by the lake and all was purity. He came deeply inside her.

And woke.