Remus sat under the Whomping Willow, amber eyes looking out unseeing into the moonless night. His legs were folded to his chest but he had stopped rocking back and forth hours ago, and the only tear tracks on his pale face were dried. One hand convulsed on the ground, tearing up the grass and lining his palm with dirt. Somewhere in the distance another firecracker went off, another burst of light, another group of happy, cheering people. The sky was clear. A low, keening sound rose in his throat, but he did not cry. It took too much effort to cry. He had pulled so far into himself that he didn't even hear someone approach the tree, the long stride and rustle of silk robes. There was a pause, and then a voice startled him from his grief.
"Well, are you going to let me in or not?"
Remus growled. How dare he be bothered! Didn't they understand that he had lost everything? Couldn't they leave him alone, couldn't they leave him to chase the moon into the horizon and never return? Anger flashed briefly across his face, but despair overruled it and he settled despondently back against the tree, waiting to be left alone. He was always alone, in the end.
Then a stick stabbed the tree next to his head and even the Willow betrayed him – betrayal Sirius murderer dead all of them dead dead dead – by letting the intruder in, letting the smell of bergamot and cardamom and death invade Remus' isolation. "Stay away from me!" he all but shrieked, scrambling to his feet. His whole body shook as he screamed at the wizard sitting calmly below him. "You killed them! You killed them!"
Someone who had not watched Severus for so long would not have seen him flinch or known that the tightening around those thin lips meant the blow had struck a nerve. "I believe Black did that quite well on his own," came the brittle reply, and someone who had not spent years watching Severus would not have understood the guilt that laced those cruel words. Remus howled and leapt at him, wanting to hurt him, to make someone hurt the way that he hurt. Snape fought back only enough to assuage any guilt Remus might have felt, and by the time he tired himself out the thin lips were bloody and Snape's nose was probably broken. They were both lying next to the trunk, and Remus was panting and crying and suddenly exhausted. He had not slept – could not sleep – since . . .for days, and it had finally caught up to him. His arms gave out and Snape exhaled sharply as a full-grown werewolf collapsed onto his chest. Remus' senses were assaulted by cardamom and bergamot and lemon sherbets – Severus had been to see Albus, then – and he quickly rolled off and propped himself up against the tree.
"Why are you here?" His tone was bitter, and he did not look at the face he had bruised. And he hated the silence, hated that it was familiar and hated the cigarette Snape offered him. Hated the fact that he was too weak to refuse the comfort it offered, the rest.
Severus sat next to him, being careful not to touch him. Long, moon tainted fingers shook in a way that Remus recognized, and he wondered what comfort Snape was refusing. "My father was Quirinus Snape," he finally said, and Remus closed his eyes and inhaled. "He ran the department for the Disposal of Magical Creatures." Remus nearly dropped the cigarette. Shaking fingers brushed back dark hair that had been cut short, above the ears. "He didn't dispose of them." It was quiet for a little while, and Remus tried to soothe the ache in his soul with henbane and cardamom. He did not look at Severus, and he wondered if refusing himself that would make his fingers shake. "There were wards up around the manor in Cumberland. No one else lived nearby. There were hippogriffs and nogtails, quintapeds and nundus." Remus inhaled sharply, and had to fight the urge to see Severus' face. "There was a werewolf pack." He lost the battle, but black eyes were looking steadily away from him, right hand clamped tightly over his left arm and Remus' lip curled. He could smell death on Severus. "My father branded them." Severus' right hand tightened and Remus did not want to understand.
"I had an older brother," Severus said softly, and it did not connect and Remus knew it wasn't true because all of the books he had read – reading, while Sirius plotted with Voldemort to kill Wormtail and Lily and Jamie – had listed Severus as the only heir. "He was six years older than I was. His name was Cyriacus. Father killed him when he failed his OWLS, as an example to me." And Remus did not believe him, and Severus' pain could not compare to his and he did not care if it did. He had not asked for this. But he had, once, and Severus had promised to tell him.
"The winter I turned five was his first year at Hogwarts, away from home." Black eyes turned to regard wary amber. "It was also the winter you were bitten." And someone who had not watched Severus for so long would not have seen the guilt weighing down those bony shoulders. They would not have finally, finally realized that Severus had worn an identical expression years ago when he'd first asked Remus where he was turned. They sat in silence for awhile, watching each other, and Remus noticed that Severus' hands had stopped shaking.
"My father demanded excellence," Severus continued, voice muted as it wove a story Remus was beginning to think he did not want to hear. He could not take any more grief or he would break. "He expected us to succeed at lessons without giving us wands." That explained the wandless flames, Remus supposed, and Severus' OWL scores. Another brush of fingers through dark hair. "He was . . .displeased by failure." Remus thought of his own father, large and Welsh and brimming with laughter and love and knew he could not understand. "My mother supported him, by her silence if by nothing else. I hated her, even more than I hated him." Severus' throat clenched as he swallowed, and he closed his eyes and whispered an apology Remus knew was directed toward him.
"I needed a wand." And it was not a justification or an excuse. Remus would not think of a small, dark boy in an isolated house surrounded by death breathing leopards and wild lycanthropes whose older brother would be dead in a few years because he failed a test. "I could do magic, but it wasn't focused –" and it was a wonder he could do magic at all, so young "– so I convinced my mother to go outside, that night." Severus shook his head in disbelief, though at his mother's stupidity or at the situation Remus didn't know. "I don't know how I brought down the wards – desperation, I suppose." He turned to look at Remus, and black eyes refused to plead for understanding. For forgiveness. "I didn't mean to bring down all the wards, just the ones protecting the manor." Severus inhaled, and finished in a rush. "She had always been cruel to the werewolves, and they took the time to kill her before leaving. All the creatures left, and father had to spend the night hunting them down."
Remus remembered playing hide and seek with his cousins, remembered wandering off into the woods to find the perfect hiding place and being distracted by a copse of brightly glowing trees and the faint screaming in the distance. He remembered the sound of animals running through the undergrowth, and the monsters lit by the trees and by the moon. He remembered pain and the sound of a gun – his uncle's – and then nothing until the hospital and the doctors who would not meet his eyes. He did not need to hear the rest of Severus' story; he already knew how it ended. "Did you get her wand?" he asked, telling himself he did not care.
"For a year," Severus responded evenly. "Then my father realized that I had been using it, and dealt with me accordingly." A pause. "I am lucky that he believed me more intelligent than Cyriacus." And Remus did not want to care. He wanted to be left alone with his grief and his loss – Jamie, Lily, Peter, and even the Sirius he had known, the cocky boy and not the traitor – and Severus could not understand. He swallowed, and focused on slender fingers clenched around a skeletal left arm.
"Did you know," he found himself saying without accusation, "Did you know that Sirius was the traitor?"
Bony shoulders tightened, and Severus looked so guilty that Remus thought the answer must be yes, even in the silence. "No," the dark haired man finally answered, voice sharp with what others would not have recognized as failure. But Remus knew this particular failure intimately – How could they not have seen that he would betray them? – and found himself watching Severus for the guilt tearing at his own chest.
"Do you have another cigarette?" Severus rolled him one, loosing his arm to snap out pale green fire, momentarily casting shadows on the ground. They smoked quietly for awhile, and Remus rested his head against the Willow and let the silence wash over him as his eyes wandered over Severus' face and back to where his left elbow would be, under the sleeve. And he thought of all the times Severus had appeared out of nowhere, seventh year, in the middle of the night, the bags under his eyes that had appeared shortly after Remus had nearly killed him. "I'm sorry," Remus said, bearing the guilt of Severus' curse even as Severus bore the guilt of his.
"Don't be," Severus commanded, and Remus wondered if the other man ever wanted to run after the moon and into the horizon because the pull under his skin was so strong. "It had nothing to do with you." Remus didn't believe him, was surprised that the other man was still sitting there. A few years ago he would have fled in a cloud of blue smoke, face tightly shuttered. Now he stopped trying to hide his left arm and emotionless black eyes met Remus' grief worn gaze.
"Will you tell me?" Remus asked, not quite pressing his fingers to the inside of the darker wizard's elbow, not sure what to do when the wild animal approached him. Someone who had not been obsessed with Severus would have thought their answer was in the way the pale face shut down and the eyes grew cool. But Severus did not run away when Remus touched him and Remus knew the answer.
"Yes." Severus winced at Remus' touch, and exhaled blue smoke as he sagged into the Willow's base. Remus saw new lines around the closed eyes, edging the dark lashes he had first noticed when he was apologizing to an unconscious boy for nearly mauling him, for trusting Sirius when he shouldn't have. And Severus wasn't beautiful, and his wan face didn't make Remus' soul hurt less and the silence wasn't familiar – wasn't comforting – and it was only the henbane soothing the ache in his chest. Tainted skin felt warm through Severus' robes, and probing black eyes met his: "Someday." Remus closed his eyes against the mental touch, and his fingers began to shake. Watching Severus was a hard habit to break.
