He could not bear to stay at Grimmauld place. Apparating to the only other place he could think of, a tiny moorland shack where he stayed from time to time across the years, Lupin lay down, body aching in a thousand places, and slipped into an exhausted sleep.

The visitor pushed open the door to the house and walked silently towards the ragged figure. It watched the breath trickle slowly out of Lupin's lungs, through his lips, which were still pressed tightly together, even in sleep. The endless rhythm; lungs and mouth fighting to hold the air, only to lose it again.

The moon's wan light played across the room. The trees outside, branches tossing in the wind, sent shadows skittering into corners.

The leaves caressed the sleeping Lupin. His pale eyelids forming a patchwork canvas of ever shifting shapes. Twigs and branches adding their own lines to an already lined face.

And yet, thought the visitor, he's still so beautiful.

Lupin dreamed. Even in the darkness of exhaustion his mind refused to be still. Lupin dreamed of a figure, all shadowy black, crouching on the edge of his vision. No matter which way he turned his head the figure would never appear, nor disappear. It was just there, like some brooding gargoyle that refused to budge from the edge of his corneas.

At one point the location of his dream changed to mirror the tiny shack where he lay asleep. Patterns of leaves driven wild by the wind spun across the walls and floor like creatures running mad. The figure was there. Weaker than before but still there, hidden among the flurry of light and dark. Once, just once, Lupin saw the shadows draw close together in some kind of form, before flickering away. After that, there was only sleep.

In the grey of the morning Lupin rose stiffly from the couch, long fingers automatically spreading out the creases in his robes. They too were grey. His colour of choice. Indistinct. Inoffensive. Incalculable.

He filled small basin with a pitcher of freezing cold water and splashed his face. It was one of his favourite things, that morning ritual. The reaction of skin and icy water; it made the mind sharp. James and Sirius had always teased him about his unmanly attention to cleanliness, but it was easily countered with a sly reference to their need for extra cleanliness following Quidditch training (something Lily had always agreed with him on.) Please don't think of him; please don't think of any of them, Lupin warned himself, teeth grinding together painfully.

Lupin pressed his hands either side of the bowl and let the water drip off his eyelashes. Very slowly a drip of water would trace its way down from his hairline then reluctantly let go, a substitute for the tears he was unable to shed.

His gaze fell further into the bowl. The drops radiated out in tiny ripples that slammed into the bowls edge, then headed back into the centre once more. Lupin's eyes began to sting, a combination of too little sleep and the cold water. Just before his eyelids met, in an attempt to squeeze out the sting, an image flashed across the ripples. Eyes wide open Lupin sent the bowl flying with a violent swipe of his left hand. Back pressed against the wall he watched, horrified, as the water grew into a damp stain on the worn wooden floor.

And there was the image for the third time. Etched dark at his feet. The shape of the night shadows, the shape in the ripples of the basin. A great black dog.

Lupin grabbed his wand and papers and left the house, grey robes flying out behind him like a storm.