Severus was running. He had paused long enough to dress and now he was running. The Whomping Willow was in sight and his mind was racing.

A child. He felt the change as he responded to Aradia's offer. Something indescribable and warm spread across his insides and he knew that he was now able to conceive and carry a child. He did not permit himself a single "Why me?" as he sprinted across the grass. He wanted to outrun the situation he now found himself in. He had been completely prepared to die for Dumbledore, had been expecting it for years, almost felt that it was required of him – but this? He didn't know what to think or feel or do? How was he supposed to do this?

"SEVERUS! WAIT!"

If it was possible to freeze whilst still running, that is what Severus did then. Who the fuck...

He felt himself grappled to the ground. He turned furiously, instinct taking over and grabbed him assailant by the throat, twisting him to the weaker position beneath him.

"Wait!" Remus Lupin weakly repeated.

Severus released him and sat back on his haunches as Lupin rubbed his neck and gained a more upright position himself.

"What?" he asked eventually - finding himself non-plussed for the second time in less than an hour.

Lupin stared at him.

"What the fuck are you doing?" he asked at length.

Severus Snape faltered for a moment and physically forced his old habits to restore themselves. He managed a weak sneer.

"What does that have to do with you werewolf?" he rasped.

Lupin shook his head in disbelief.

"I was there Severus." he stated bluntly, "I saw and heard everything. Harry left his invisibility cloak here when it came to the final battle, there wasn't time to retrieve it and I came back to get it. I needed to get out of the house." he offered lamely in explanation of why the cloak needed retrieving. "I saw you come out from the Whomping Willow and followed you, under the cloak." Lupin stopped speaking and waited for Snape to say something, to say anything. He had followed all the reports, and yes the titillating biographies in the Daily Prophet. He had read that Severus had been exonerated from blame. He had also read about everything (reported) that Severus had had to go through over the years. His eyes held no condemnation and although Severus wondered if there was pity there, it was not pity so much as deep sorrow and shame that lay in Remus Lupin's eyes. Other actions may have preceded more important events, but he had deliberately and also unwittingly added to all that Severus Snape had had to deal with over the years. He sat facing him on the wet grass, full of a compassion and understanding that Severus had never known, and "almost" refused to recognise.

Severus didn't respond. Remus saw him try to curl a sneer. Watched as his eyebrows tried to rise in contempt and fell again, failing. Severus was wrung out, emotionally flailing and totally lost in circumstances of his own forging. Remus leant forward and brushed his damp hair from his face – when did it start raining?

"Are you really going to do this?" Remus asked at last.

Severus met his eyes again and tried to speak, it was becoming increasingly difficult to function, but he would be damned if he would let Lupin see that.

"What else am I supposed to do?"

Remus cradled Severus' face in one hand and wrapped the other around his shoulder, pulling him into what he hoped was a consoling embrace. Severus shrugged it off.

"Accept his death?"

"How can I? I killed him!"

"That was his choice." Remus had hated Severus for what he had done, but he was long past those feelings. In the three months since Voldemort's demise he had had a lot of emotions to deal with. So many people had been lost, and so many close to him had been spared. Severus' apparent betrayal and Dumbledore's apparent murder had not been the all of it, but for Remus it had certainly been the worst of it. So when the truth about the situation had been revealed he had quite literally sighed with relief. Severus had been an arsehole to everyone he knew, but there were reasons and explanations. He had caused pain, but he had received pain – far more than any other living being in this war. Remus accepted what had happened.

Severus didn't. That was his right.

"I could have refused."

"Could you?"

"No"

"Then..."

"I CANNOT live with this. It is too much."

Remus felt the shudder that ran through his almost friend, once colleague, wished lover and was horrified by what it meant.

"You wanted to die, didn't you?"

"Yes"

"Why?"

Severus pulled away and sat flat on the wet grass, he didn't have the energy to just walk away anymore. He let another barrier fall, a choice. It was a choice; he could have refused to talk.

"What have I to live for? My death would do more good than my life, but I can't even get that right. Anyway, who would care?" Remus thought he could see the moonlight reflecting off tears on Severus' cheeks. One thing he never questioned was what the moonlight showed him. Unwelcome as he felt it might be, he reached up a hand and brushed away the tears.

"I would care!"

Severus didn't respond at all. He allowed Remus Lupin to pull him into the comforting embrace, why did he make that choice? Severus ran out of steam as he allowed himself to lean physically and emotionally on another person and lapsed into the unconsciousness that had been threatening him since his draining encounter with Aradia. Remus didn't consider the same question though. He was thinking that Severus had made a promise to a goddess. He had agreed to bear life, to become pregnant. Remus wasn't sure what to make of it all, but he knew that Severus would not break his word and some part of him knew that involving himself now would mean something.