He stayed outside under the tree every night for a week and Severus did not come. His friends started to grow suspicious, which at least kept them from harassing poor Peter about his new girl, and began to ask him why he showed up every morning with bags under his eyes and twigs in his hair. He shrugged, but did not stutter when he told them it was none of their business. Sirius did not push, and Remus knew why and wondered if their friendship would ever again be strong enough to endure a little tugging and teasing, ever stop feeling like something printed with 'Fragile This Side Up' across the top. The eighth night – quarter moon, grinning mercilessly at him, knowing he was bound to it as any slave was bound to their master – Severus came. Remus thought he saw the boy appear from nowhere just outside the gates, but dismissed the notion as ridiculous, and told his heart to stop beating so quickly.

Remus finished his first cigarette before either of them spoke, and pale green fire danced at Severus' fingertips as he lit the second one. The Willow danced around them and the flames cast the shadow of the branches over Severus' pale face. The dizziness was only from whatever Severus had given him, Remus told himself, and wondered if the wolf would spend the next full moon smelling cardamom and bergamot and blue smoke. He was halfway through his second cigarette before he found the courage to speak, to try to sort out what Severus had told him, what had been echoing in his mind ever since. "The trees I saw when I was . . .turned," he began, praying that Severus would hear him out, trying to say all of it before the other boy ran away. "They meant that someone had died?" He got a curt nod in response, and the surrounding temperature dropped by several degrees, but at least Severus was still there. And he was on the right track. "Someone you knew?" he speculated, trying to sound innocuous, approaching with his hands out to prove that he meant no harm.

Clearly, his maneuver had failed, because Severus was once more on his feet, tapping out a rhythm against the Willow's trunk that practically sparked with magic. Black eyes met amber under a jeering moon, and the Whomping Willow shuddered and grew still. There was a static in the air, a charge, and Remus felt the hair rise on his arms. Severus lifted his chin, jaw set in what might have been defiance, if his eyes hadn't been brimming with something else entirely. "Someone I killed," he bit out and once more vanished into the darkness. Remus hardly noticed when lightning arced across the sky, pulling the electricity from the air around him.