"Do...can I help you? Clean up?" He almost didn't hear her, her voice was tiny and unsure. He blinked blankly for a second, trying to determine whether she actually spoke or not. Then, his face turned to meet hers, looking at her as if she had just made a 'dunderheaded' question. "I don't need your help, I am more than capable of doing this by myself, Miss Lupin." He always did this by himself. Albus could force him to work with the girl but he couldn't force him to take her on as a partner, an equal.

Her eyes flashed with anger. "You know, when someone offers their help, you can either accept or decline. No need to be a bastard about it." So, the girl does have somewhat of a spine, Severus thought. That was all the better, he didn't want to work with a girl who couldn't stand up for herself. He pursed his lips, giving her his signature glare- not that she was wrong. Maybe she'd leave then.

Of course, he had no such luck. She swerved past him and started cleaning off the counter, sweeping the potion ingredients away to the far edge. He watched parts of dry leaves, small crumbles, and specks of spilt poppy seeds brush off the corner of the counter and into her hands, which were small and delicate- not at all worn and blistered as his were. Her hands would fit nicely within his, although, why that thought ran through his head, he wasn't sure.

She strode to the trashcan, dumped the contents in, and promptly shuffled her hands in an upwards motion over the trash, effectively removing any excess. "You're welcome." And just like that, she was gone. To an empty room, he muttered, "Didn't need your help." With nothing left to do, he turned the light off and stored the potion safely away.

Severus shrugged out of his robes and into a muggle jumper, the colour of moss, and black trousers as soon as he reached his quarters. Inside these four walls, he was able to be...well, not himself, exactly, but less Professor Snape, bat-of-the-dungeons, and more Severus Snape, likes-to-wear-muggle-clothes-sometimes. It wasn't his fault that they were so much more comfortable.

He looked around as if to make sure he was alone (which was ridiculous, because of course he was, these were his private quarters), and pulled on the third book on the top bookshelf. The bookcase swung open, revealing an entryway that would take him to his laboratory. Yes, it was something straight from the television. Yes, he was proud of coming up with the idea of incorporating it in his room. Not only was it cool, but it was effective as well. No one alive would ever consider him, of all people, using muggle methods to hide anything.

The mechanisms of it were actually quite simple. While it was made up of muggle parts primarily, it was powered by magic, which was how it worked in Hogwarts. He was almost surprised no one else had thought about it but, then again, most people were dunderheads and had a hard time connecting their mouths to their brains.

He dismantled the wards on his lab, reassembled them once he was in, and retrieved his journal from the top of the bookshelf, where it was hidden. Not many could get to it without magic and it was too out in the open for him, so he wasn't concerned about anyone finding it, should they somehow get past his wards and find his secret passageway. If his defence mechanisms hadn't worked, he probably deserved it.

He brushed the dust off the black leather-bound book with pages of wide rule that were tearing at the edges. It didn't look like much anymore, but he had this journal since he was 14. It was his life's work and the most important thing he owned. He would die for this thing, even though, admittedly, that really wasn't saying much. The sentiment still stood.

He opened the book with as much care a mother would handle her newborn child with, to the bookmarked page and got started with his research.

He would be here for a while.

"Remus. What are you doing here?" She peered behind him, to see if he had any company, but he came alone. "Can't I see my own sister just for the hell of it?"

"Not when you're frowning like that." Remus never frowned, not around her. Well, unless it was that time of the month. She stepped aside so that he could come in. He swept into her room without a word, the troubled look on his face remained even as he sat down on her couch. It was an ugly old couch, made of a rich tawny brown coloured, scratchy cloth material with bright orange and faded yellow-ish green stripes, in a plaid arrangement. It didn't match the rest of the apartment either but it was a homecoming gift from her father and, most importantly, free. Besides, she was sentimental, and this couch held a lot of memories. "Remmy," she resorted to his childish name that was usually only saved for teasing, nowadays, "You're scaring me."

He looked at her blankly, his eyes glazed over. Muttering to himself, he grabbed his head in between his elbows, as if he were having a mental breakdown. "Remus?"

After a long, uneasy period of time passed, he started to explain, "I, he, there's something I haven't told you, Lyra, I tried to but then- I thought maybe I should tell you but you worry and- oh, what do I- I shouldn't have-"

She held his hand, putting his endless babbling to rest, and took a seat next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. She felt his chest rising and falling, but it seemed to be gradually decreasing. He shrugged her off of him, maintaining a distance between them. She looked up at his solemn face with confusion. "Remus, what is it?" He was scaring her, this wasn't like him. Remus was an empathetic person but he wasn't very emotional himself, or if he was, he kept it hidden. "I won't be angry, I promise."

When he didn't respond, her hand raised on its own accord, to maybe act as a form of solace for him. "Don't."

"Re-"

"It's about Dad," he finally admitted.

"Wh-what about Dad?" A thousand possibilities ran through her head at that moment. Was he dead? Was he dying and had she never known it? Tears welled her eyes at the thought and soon, she was crying inconsolably. Regret was the only thing she was feeling, only that it was multiplied truckloads. The last time she saw him replayed in her head over and over again until she felt as if there was no more space left inside her for anything else.

Her last visit with her father hadn't ended on a good note. It was just that she was so disappointed in him and he refused to listen to her. Their conversation turned into a screaming match and she ended up storming out of his house, choosing to spend the rest of her night drinking.

But, she couldn't handle it if that was the last time she'd ever see him. Memories of her father growing up flooded her brain. She felt the loss harder than she did her mother. Hope Lupin was always a weak, sickish woman. Not in mental fortitude, but physically. Lyra had always known that her mother's time on this earth would be limited. It couldn't be any other way when her childhood consisted of her mother being on some medication or other, sometimes getting so bad that she had to be hospitalized for weeks on end, sometimes. It didn't mean that she didn't miss her at all, but she was prepared. Her dad, on the other hand, was a wizard, still relatively young for his age. He was supposed to get over his grief and move on eventually, living a long, happy life.

"Lyra, he's not dead."

Not dead. Not dead. She took only a second to gather herself and before she knew it she was grabbing her keys from off the kitchen counter and slamming the door shut. She heard Remus scrambling to chase after her but she had apparated away before he could catch up to her.

She landed by a bed of shrivelled flowers on a neglected lawn. She looked around, at what had become of the front yard that she grew up in. Those flowers used to be infused with life, their own type of magic. People would always appoint the Lupins' house as the best maintained, coming to her mother for advice on how to grow their own gardens. The grass used to be perfectly trimmed and green, just like the leaves of the finest fir tree. Now, it was dying and grew to unproportional heights.

It had died with her mother.

She felt another pang of disappointment in her father. If the outside of the house was like this, she couldn't imagine the inside to be any better. To her dismay, the front door was unlocked. Panic rose as she scoured the house for her father. She felt breathing to be too hard of a task. Then, relief hit her like a wrecking ball when she heard the light, uneven snoring from the guest room.

"Dad?" She shook him until he stirred. As he regained consciousness, his fingers massaged his eyes and his eyes squinted, trying to determine who was calling him. "It's me, Lyra." He turned on the bedside lamp, full rays of yellow illuminating this corner of the room. He sat up against the headboard, pulling the blanket up until his shoulders. It was cold here, she just realized.

"Lyra?" He sounded confused to see her. "I-is this a dream?" He didn't look well. His hair was more grey than it had been the last time she saw him, about 2 years ago, which would be normal had he been a muggle, but he was a wizard. New lines marked his forehead and his eyes were sunken, his jaw left unshaven. He looked terrible.

"No, Dad," she shook her head out of sadness for the condition her father was in, "It's me, in the flesh and blood."

"Lyra." His voice rasped like a sick man's would. Suddenly, he was suffocating her in a hug, but she was too far gone to care. She held on to the man who was once her hero, never feeling more thankful. Her voice sounded like tears when she asked, "Are you okay, Dad?"

"Why wouldn't I be, pumpkin?"

"Remus said-"

Suddenly harsh, his demeanour changed, "Remus should mind his own business." He pushed her off gently, his face looking gruff and...old, weary. "Dad, what happened to you?" Before he could respond, they heard the door downstairs opening and Remus's voice calling her name out. She wiped a tear off her cheek before hollering to him. She heard the stairs pound, sounding like he was taking the stairs two at a time. "Lyra? Oh, thank Merlin. You can't just disappear like that!"

"I didn't mean to worry you, I just...I thought something bad happened to Dad and I was frustrated with you for not telling me." Her anger was gone by the time Remus sat crisscrossed on the mattress by the foot of the bed, a little away from the two. His eyes darted between the two, unsure how to proceed. She looked at her brother and father suspicious of why their relationship seemed to be somewhat estranged. "Dad, what's going on? You're scaring me."

Remus started to tell her, but her Dad stopped him, "Don't you dare!"

"She deserves to know, Dad."

"She doesn't need to know! It's my life, and-"

"Your life? I know you might find it convenient to pretend you don't have two children, but you do, and Lyra loves you. This would break her!"

Before her father could respond, she cried out, "It's my life! I'm not a little girl anymore! Tell me, and I'll decide whether I should know or not! Please!"

"He's dying," Remus snarled, "He's fucking-"

"Remus!"

"-dying, and he was just keen on letting us go on and about our lives without knowing."

"This can't be true. Is this true, Dad? It's not true, right?" His not being able to meet her face told her enough. Horror shattered her heart. Her Dad was dying and she might have never known. "Dad…"

Remus continued harshly, "He has cancer, liver cancer-" he chuckled darkly, "Can you spare a guess as to how he got it?" It clicked in place for Lyra, like the feeling of connecting two puzzle pieces that you had trouble finding, except without any of the satisfaction.

The alcohol. It came from the alcohol.

The man had consumed so much of it that he was dying now. She didn't know whether to cry or scream at him, so she just settled for being unresponsive. "Lyra, I'm so sorry," Remus said, realising that he should have used more tact. "I didn't mean-"

"It's curable, right?" There was no response. "Right?" This couldn't be happening. It was a terrible dream, she told herself. She'd wake up any moment now and her father wouldn't be dying. "I can't-" Lyra got up, running down the stairs with a mission. Remus chased after her but her father stayed put. "Lyra, what are you doing?"

"Let go of me!" She shook off his hand that was grabbing her arm and opened the liquor cabinet in the kitchen. She grabbed two bottles at a time, twisted open the caps and poured them down the drain, then threw the empty bottle in the trash, hearing the shatter of the glass with satisfaction. She repeated the process until the cabinet was completely devoid and the trash full of broken glass, kind of reflecting how she felt on the inside right now.

She stumbled backwards and slumped against the little strip of wall by the trashcan. Across the room, Remus was hovering at the door with shock, not moving closer or away. "He won't thank you for that."

"I don't care. It's killed him, Remus."

"There's still a chance-"

"You know as well as I that it's a slim chance. He's dying, Remmy." She waited for him to bring her to ease, to take her in his arms and hug her and let her know that everything would be alright, but he didn't. He just watched her, still at the doorway. He was only 10 feet away from her, give or take, but he felt miles away at that moment.

She'd never felt more alone.

Running away, that's what she was doing. She couldn't help it, really. It was second nature by now. After realizing that Remus wasn't going to comfort her, as he once might have, she got up, unlocked the door next to her and ran as if her life depended on it.

She knew she and her brother had their problems and that things between them weren't all okay as they pretended, but it had never been so evident until now. It was a bridge broken down the middle that she had no way of mending and nowhere to start to do so.

Which was why she was entering Grimmauld Place now. However distant and irreparable their relationship might be, Remus still loved her. She knew that. She needed space, to accept this as their new normal, but Remus didn't exactly believe in space. She didn't want to hear his apologies, which would come in abundance had she gone back to her apartment, where he'd be sure to find her. The possibility of her going to Grimmauld Place would never cross his mind.

She crept through the shadows, somehow lucky enough to not awaken Walburga's portrait. This was a different house in the nighttime. It was spooky- a perfect place to host a Halloween party. This was where the devil lived, no wonder Sirius hated it here so much. As she got closer, she heard something rustling.

Tense, and wand drawn, she approached the kitchen, her footsteps light and slow. A floorboard creaked from underneath her and she stopped in her tracks for a full minute before continuing her path. Her heart pounded so loud she was sure the intruder could hear it as she opened the door slowly. She took not two steps before a hand covered her mouth firmly, holding her against a warm body behind her. The tip of a wand threatened her temple. "Don't. Move."

She'd recognize that voice from anywhere. Severus Snape.