A/N: And now: the backstory. In ten years, which is a long time, I have finally managed to bring the story where I wanted it to go. Thank you to anyone who has been following this from the beginning (are there any such persistent readers?) and to everyone who has joined along the way. Much love, Isa.

Epilogue

Remus woke gradually, with what seemed like the worst hangover he had ever had. Above him, a young woman with bushy hair was talking to him and shining a light into his eyes from her wand-tip.

"Hermione Granger" he said, the memory coming back.

A signle tear of joy rolled down the young woman's cheek, a girl in her late teens actually, as she gripped his hands between her own.

"Professor! Yes, it's me. You're alright. I'll fetch you some water and the others will be here in a moment."

Remus remained lying where he was. He now took the time to observe his surroundings: he was in what seemed to be an old beer- or wine-cellar. There were candles floating overhead and to the left and right he saw a long row of sixty or so camp-beds. A few were empty, but the others had figures lying on them, which he could not make out clearly through the blue nursing-charm that encompassed them. Hermione must have cast the spells that would keep a body clean and fed while... He sat up too fast. His head swam and an aftershock of the worst pain, worse than transforming into the wolf, knifed through his insides. He was back. The Lovex reality was reality. He looked around. Where was Snape? A wash of emotion so powerful and so conflicting came over him that he fell back onto his ancient camp-bed, which creaked accordingly. He could remember lust. And overwhelming guilt. But the feelings, as well as the memories of the cold world, which seemed straight out of muggle-television, were growing more remote and unreal by the minute.

"Professor Lupin!"

Remus turned around. Harry Potter ran over to the bed followed by Ron Weasly, both wearing expressions of undiluted joy. He looked at them more closely as the came and grasped his hand and shoulder and told him how glad they were that he had made it back. They had left most of their boyishness behind them since he had last seen them at a meeting of the Order of The Phoenix. Both had lost a significant amount of weight and looked as though they hadn't seen sunlight in a long time.

"How long was I, er, out?" Remus asked.

"Only a month Professor. You were in the wild and we couldn't find you when it started." Ron said.

"We had to send Professor McGonagall to search for you after the first killings began." Harry added.

"You have to tell him everything from the start." Hermione said. "Honestly, he isn't the first to have woken and you don't seem to get any better at doing this even with practise." she finished huffily.

"The you tell him." Ron said, annoyed.

"Professor, you need to know what has happened: Voldemort cast a spell an month ago. It was powerful enough to put almost everyone in Great Britain and Coastal France in a sort of suspended state, like sleep, only without being able to wake up. We, Ron, Harry, Professor McGonagall, Kinglsey Shacklebolt, Fred and George and I were unaffected by pure luck because we were in the cave where Voldemort had hidden the locket of Salazar Slytherin trying to get rid of the Inferi to be able to use it as a safe hiding place for the Order. It turns out that it was one of the safest places, but not because we thought that it'd be the last place Voldemort would look. You see, it was not affected by his own spell. He probably protected it to use it as a hideaway himself."

She paused, giving Remus time to take in this information.

"Then where are we?" He said. "And you mentioned killings..."

Hermione shot an uneasy look at Ron and Harry.

"We're in Romania, professor" said Harry. "When everyone was hit by the spell we didn't notice straight away. It wasn't until we got back to Hogwarts that we found out something was wrong."

"Everyone was asleep and we couldn't wake them. It was the most bizarre thing I've seen in my life." Ron said.

"We had just enough time to leave before Voldemort came." Hermione said.

"By himself?" Remus asked.

"Well, yes, at first. Now there are a few more with him. Malfoy's mother was one of the first, then Avery I think. The Lestranges as well. Greyback had to be "put down" by them from what we heard because when he woke, he could not become human again." Hermione glanced at him.

"Voldemort and the Deatheaters went on a killing spree. They wiped out almost all the muggles in England, Wales and Ireland. But they left most of the wizarding community alone, still asleep." Harry said.

"They killed those who were known to be friendly with muggles though." Ron said.

"I'm sorry." Remus answered, knwoing what this meant for the head of the Weasly family.

"Don't be. We managed to get my Mum and Dad and the others out by portkey. It took time because we had to carry each person individually and make sure that their hands were touching the portkeys all the time. But we did it." Ron said.

"Portkeys? Is the ministry still functioning?" Remus asked, hopeful despite the dark new reality that was being described.

"No. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Professor McGonagall managed to set up a small network for us to use and it only connects with this cellar here in Romania. We are working on building a better one, but this sort of thing takes time and we aren't sure that we've found everyone yet." Harry said.

"Dumbledore?" Remus asked, already half-knowing the answer. His former pupils looked down. It was Harry who said:

"He must have been Voldemort's first victim. He was at the Ministry when it happened and that's the first place Voldemort went. We only found this out later, but that's how we were able to recover so many people from Hogwarts before Voldemort went there."

"And the children?" Remus asked, starting to feel a prick of horror at the idea that it would have been impossible to retrieve all seven years worth of schoolchildren one by one by portkey.

"It was the summer holidays so they were with their families. Its september now, Professor." Hermione said kindly. "But many of them are still in their homes, in this state." she gestured towards the camp-beds.

"That's a relief." Remus breathed.

"Professor?" Ron asked tentatively.

"Hmm?" Remus answered, emerging from visions of unmoving families caught in whatever they had been doing when the spell hit them.

"The thing is" Ron continued "we don't understand why Voldemort is leaving them alive. What is he waiting for?"

"He's already started launching attacks on the wizarding communities and muggles in France and Sacandinavia. Without the Ministry of Magic to smooth things out, the general population has found out about us. That's why we had to come so far to a country where people have always confused wizards with the local Roma and Sinti communities. It's easier to blend in because the locals are so prejudiced to anything out of the ordinary, they just assume that we're a new group of what they consider to be gypsies." Hermione explained.

"We don't understand why Voldemort isn't just waking everyone up or killing them straight away. Even some of his Deatheaters are still under the spell." Harry said.

"Lucius and Draco Malfoy. And Rookwood." Remus sighed.

"Yes! As far as we know. How do you know Professor?" Hermione said.

"Because they're still in the dream-world. I saw them" he wanted to say 'today' but finished "recently. The odd thing is, they aren't the same as in this world." Remus added.

"Yes, we know. Professor Snape told us as much." Harry said. Remus sat up suddenly:

"Is he here?" he asked in such a loud voice that Ron and Hermione jumped. Laying a hand on Remus' shoulder Hermione said:

"He woke up a few minutes before you did. He told us that you would be following him and something about having figured out a test." She glanced at the others and went on:

"We had trouble understanding him because his voice was so odd. It was as if he had been strangled. He kept rubbing his throat with his hands and asked for a scarf. He then refused to say anything, other than that we had to wait for you to wake up. Professor, don't get up yet, you need to eat some solid food before trying to walk."

Remus ignored her and got up, reeling from faintness and collapsed on the floor. Harry and Ron helped him back onto the camp-bed and Hermione went to fetch some cabbage rolls -"Hermione's hired a Roma woman who seems to be a squib to cook for us"- and a cup of broth. Remus grimaced at the taste after biting into one, but felt the warmth of it soothe the imagined or real pain -he couldn't tell- in his stomach. After a while, he realised that the young adults must be waiting for him to say something.

"It's a test." he said. "Voldemort is testing the people who are asleep. Those that pass the test get to come back and the others have to live in a world completely devoid of any kind of magic. It's like an extreme version of the muggle world. Even we, Professor Snape and I, only discovered about this world... the real world by chance."

"So you both passed the test together, is that it?" Hermione asked? It took a while before Remus could answer that. He did so by simply nodding.

"How?" Ron asked. "If we know how to pass the test of the spell we can somehow get the message across to others so that they can..." he stopped in mid-sentence seeing the look on Remus' face.

"He can't say." Harry said, with a knowing look. "Professor, just know: whatever you had to do, it wasn't real." Remus gripped Harry's arm in thanks.

"Judging by the people who have woken up, everyone who has come back went through something horrible before waking up. You're the first to have called it a test, so I can only guess, knowing Voldemort, that the aim is to make the innocent among the wizarding community do something that would make them fear coming back and confirm the Deatheater's ability to do evil. Am I right, Professor?" Harry asked.

Remus nodded. He hadn't had time to think things through but this did seem like the logical and most likely conclusion. Harry gripped Remus' arm again and and looked at him enquiringly.

"I think I need some rest." Remus said. The others nodded and Hermione went to fetch a sleeping drought which sent Remus into the first real dreamless sleep since being under the spell.

He woke to movement. Someone had sat down on the side of his camp-bed. He slowly opened his eyes and saw that the candles had been dimmed for sleep. The quiet sounds of those sleepers in the room who were not in a magical state of unconsciousness filled his ears. He knew, before looking, who had come to see him. He moved over to make what little room he could on the camp-bed for his visitor, who obligingly got as close as he could to lying on the bed next to him. Remus breathed in the smell of hair-grease and old sweat, knowing himself to not smell much better and pictured the face of the young scientist before turning to look at the much older potions master. What was left, the ghost of a feeling of need and attraction faded almost instantly, replaced by a lifetime of ambivalence as he looked into the eyes of Severus Snape, who said:

"Thank you."

The End.