Dean made to go after the other man, but was fatally distracted by the waste-paper baskets, which were trying to empty each other into the rubbish bag.

When he made it to the living room, Seamus was sitting cross-legged on the sofa with the diary in his lap and his wand poised over it. He looked up and gave a sweet, mischievous smile - causing Dean's reproof to fade unspoken from his lips. How could Seamus Finnigan, that smooth, confident and unbearably desirable man whom he'd "found" at Ron Weasley's wedding, be this impish character on the sofa, trying to break the lock on someone's diary? Dean was drawn across the living room floor by the sunlight gleaming on Seamus' soft, fair hair. There was a dust bunny - a remnant from all the cleaning - hiding in it. He lifted the hair in his fingers, it felt like spun flax.

Seamus' green eyes were no longer mischievous but sensual and clear as he raised them to Dean's. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Nothing." Dean's voice was subdued into a whisper.

They fell together, onto the sofa cushions. Dean couldn't remember the last time it had been so quiet with just Seamus. He felt the other man's arms round his back, and turned a little so that Seamus would have more room on the sofa. Seamus made no complaint but pressed a little more insistently against Dean. He reached up and ran his fingers through Seamus' hair, noting out of the corner of his eye that it caught sunlight like water. Seamus' mouth was as soft as rain.

The explosion between them lifted Seamus and Dean to new heights - clear off the sofa and over the coffee table.

"God in heaven!" Seamus shouted, sprawling on his rear.

"What the hell was that?" said Dean.

"The sofa's on fire!"

Dean reached for his wand, while Seamus, more practically, emptied a pail of mopping water onto the flames.

"Any damage?" Dean asked, using an extinguishing spell to smother the rest of the fire. "What the hell happened?"

"My wand." Seamus picked it up and inspected it anxiously. "...Looks intact. The upholstery!"

"I'll fix it."

"The diary!"

It was sitting in the centre of the singed patch on the sofa, smoking a little. Seamus lifted it off the wreckage, and the slender rune on the front cover seemed to glow for a moment with fire, but the effect faded quickly.

Dean, somewhat to his surprise, had performed a rather tricky re-upholstery spell on the sofa. "I haven't done that one for five years." he remarked, turning back to his partner. "Nifty, if I do say so myself."

Seamus was turning the pages of the little book. "We broke the lock." he said, softly.

The blank pages were filling rapidly with an orderly, upright script, the words running into sentences, racing over the yellowing paper. In a minute or two, the entire diary was full.

The two men looked doubtfully at each other. "How do you think - ?" Seamus asked.

"I don't know. It must have been your wand, giving off some spare energy or something."

"Rubbish!" Seamus said, at once. "I fixed it just yesterday. And let's not start comparing wands, eh?"

"Well then, maybe it was the kissing. Maybe the diary only unlocks itself with love."

"Love?!" Seamus' voice was incredulous. "You call that love?" he pointed to the still-smoking sofa as Dean began to smile. "Back home we'd call that the IRA."

"S'pose it's safe to sit. It's only smoke." Dean tested the sofa with a cautious finger. "Ouch."

"We have to read the diary to find out who it belongs to." said Seamus, retiring prudently to a small loveseat. "I know only women do that, and I know we're gay men..."

Dean shot him a mildly offended look under a raised eyebrow.

"But I'm also wildly curious."

"And shameless." Dean added, settling down beside him.

"Oh, but the other feller doesn't seem to have a problem with that." Seamus made room easily on the loveseat, resting his head comfortably against Dean's cheek.

"Me? I'm only in it for the sex."

A smile spread itself, slowly, like a stretching cat, over Seamus' handsome features.

"'That's what I told Remus.'" was all he said.

"What?"

"The diary, potato-head!" Seamus snorted. "It begins, 'That's what I told Remus.'"

"Damn funny way to start a journal. So it belongs to Sirius."

"No, no..." Seamus held the little book out of Dean's grasping hands. "We can't be absolutely sure of that. Look, there's more..."

"Seamus, for God's sake, it isn't decent. Give it here. We've got to post it back to Sirius!"

"I really don't think he'd mind."

"Seamus!"

The Irishman twisted against Dean's shoulder, and pulled both of them down suddenly onto the arm of the loveseat. "Dean."

He ran his fingers softly over the dark beauty of Dean's face - the features that felt like a living sculpture. His eyes, Seamus decided, for the thousandth time in his life, he loved those warm brown eyes best. He even loved the expression of irritation and reproof in them - Dean's honest decency had saved him more than once. With a gentle, fluttering finger, he traced the outline of short, smoky eyelashes as he spoke. "I don't know what's wrong with me. It might be the wine. But I am curious, and I want to look in that book now that we opened it. I promise you, you can wipe my memory afterwards. Okay?"

Dean bit back an obvious retort. "You have no conscience, Finnigan."

"No. But I do have a very good-looking boyfriend instead. D'you think that counts?" Seamus asked, innocently. "And this little set of memoirs doesn't belong to Sirius."

"It doesn't?" Dean looked startled. "How'd you know?"

"Because it says, 'I cannot bear to see him with Sirius Black.'" Seamus replied, reading directly from the book.

~*~

That's what I told Remus. That I cannot bear to see him with Sirius Black. That only the fact of Remus' happiness prevents me from stabbing Black to death, performing something unforgivable on him, or simply poisoning him, which option would probably give me the greatest satisfaction.

I asked him, in the end, to choose between us. Not with the slavish sense of an animal, (which, in any case, I know is already pledged to Black) but rationally, with his mind clear and his heart open. "Think." I told him, indeed urged him. "Weigh Sirius Black and myself on equal scales. Ask yourself which of us does more for you, which of us gives you a better chance of happiness. Of content. Of a good life, even. If you have a mind, Remus Lupin, then use it, and make the best possible decision - for yourself."

Remus didn't say anything at first. But then he smiled a little and said, "Thank you for that, Severus."

I would've gotten angry, but it didn't seem worth it, somehow. Of course, after that clever speech, he did choose... and it wasn't me.

It's my eyes that hurt rather than my heart. What I feel is not pain, strangely enough, but tiredness, as though I have been running a long race and only just finished. I can't see to write clearly, though I have both of my bedroom lamps on. The lighting down here in the dungeon isn't very strong - I fear Filch might be shirking his duties again. Perhaps a complaint may become necessary.

I'll look into it tomorrow.

* Sept 12th 1996

Remus came, very decently of him, to see me today. He asked if I felt better, or perhaps worse, after his life-changing decision of a few days ago. I told him no. I had nothing to say to him, either.

I haven't seen Black about the castle recently, and Remus told me he had left yesterday to carry a letter for the Headmaster. "He'll be staying at the - recipient's house for a while, to help with a few things." he explained. "...I'll be joining him there later on."

I'm glad I didn't show any reaction in my face. I simply said, "How lucky for you." which didn't go down well with Remus.

"Severus, please." he said, sounding almost angry. "You did ask me to choose for myself."

"And you have, haven't you?" I had a cauldron of pickling liquid on the fire, and I had to keep stirring it to prevent it from thickening. "Don't think I begrudge you your free will."

"I don't." he replied - I couldn't see his face, he was standing behind me. "I think you begrudge me far more than just that."

"If I did," I retorted, calmly enough. "You wouldn't even be able to stand upright to tell me of it."

Remus turned away, that much I could sense, with my back to him. "Severus." he said, after a few minutes, and his voice was different, softer, and more familiar to my ears. "I may have chosen to stay with Sirius and I don't blame you for anything that you might feel as a result. In the end, I did choose with my mind, rationally. As much as I may have wanted to come to you, I don't think I can survive very long without Sirius, given the nature of our physical bond. Even if I were living with you, married to you, I would have required his... presence from time to time. Some problems might have arisen there." he said, dryly.

"I'm sure."

He continued more forcefully, stung, I think, by my remarks. "But I'm not going to deny, ever, that the time we spent together was..." he trailed off.

I stirred the pickling liquid. It smelled frothy and somewhat acidic.

"Was the most wonderful period in my life. I don't think I will ever know such peace again, not even with Sirius." he went on, quietly. And this time I felt him place his hands on my back - I felt him rest his head against my shoulderblades.

And like a fool I kept stirring the damned pickling liquid. Even after he went away, and I lost the sensation of his forehead, his palms, on the back of my robes, I kept stirring my cauldron, staring at the yellow liquid and wanting to climb into the pot and let it boil.

* Sept 18th

Remus left today for Sirius Black's hiding place. His mission might take months to complete, so it is likely that I will not meet him again for a long time. I presume it will be better this way. I have to get used to living alone again.

I had to throw out all the pickling liquid from last week, as it had become unusable from being boiled too long. This is irritating - I had needed it for a class on preservation potions (Year Four, New Syllabus 2A) and now I will have to make up a fresh cauldron, possibly incurring needless expense and certainly wasting a whole afternoon of my time. Another grudge to hold against Remus Lupin...

* Sept 19th.

Remus is killing me. He knows that I heal best when left in anger. Yet he left me with kind, mocking words, and worse, with bitter memories. "The only peace I've ever known, Severus!" cried the miserable little animal. "Most wonderful time in my life!" and then "Goodbye, I'm off to marry Sirius anyway."

I had made him a traveling-cauldron of wolfsbane to take along for this month. Now I wish I'd put an exfoliant curse in it, so that all the bastard's hair falls out when he transforms.

I should share these thoughts with my students one of these days.

* Sept 24th

I am running a high temperature and have been confined to my chambers this weekend. Pomfrey assures me that it is a virus which has been making its way through the school all week. I must have caught it from one of the fourth year students - I shouldn't be surprised if it was that idiot Longbottom.

Again, this is highly irritating and inconvenient. I had planned on carrying out a few more experiments for the Headmaster on truth serums. I have already noticed one or two interesting anomalies in the results for my previous research and there is much scope, in fact a desperate need, for further experimentation, especially at this time. I also - who does not in this benighted institution - have several score homework essays to mark before Monday.

My fever was unexpected. I had not noticed it coming on, and I usually sense any changes in my health almost before they occur. Perhaps this time I was too preoccupied with my work. I had managed to conduct an estimable number of new experiments before the fever struck. The Headmaster, of course, suggested that I might have been overdoing it. I could almost swear Filch has been shirking again - the light seems to be fading. I can barely write.

* Sept 26th

I dreamed of Remus Lupin all through my illness. The most terrible nightmares and the sweetest memories were all intermixed, leaving me exhausted every time I came round.

It is true, I will admit it now: they were the most wonderful days of my life. There.

The most persistent dream was a memory of the first night, the night I caught Remus. I'd been sitting in that run-down cottage for three weeks without anything more than a second-hand sighting of him to show for it. I still remember feeling angry that I'd gone so far as to buy the place just because it was in the vicinity of Remus' last appearance. And it was drizzling. I turned on a lamp, opened my utterly boring book to the last page I'd read (Definitive Taxonomy of Eastern European Herbs - highly recommendable).

It was quite late before I heard the faint knocking at the door, and even then I wasn't sure what it was. Because I wanted to leave everything open for Remus, to make it easier for him to come if he wanted, I had refrained from putting a ward on the cottage. The knocking thus could have come from anybody - and it was a deserted spot in a rural area. Exactly what Remus wanted, of course. So I armed myself with wand, and cautiously opened the door.

My first thought on seeing the sprawled, dark shape on the steps was that it was a Lethifold. But these only attack when one is fully asleep. When I turned it over with a foot, my second thought was that it was in fact a vampire, hollow-cheeked, emaciated and quite ghastly. But it tried to cover its face when it saw me, and whimpered and turned away, so it was Remus after all.

In retrospect, there are no words to describe the sensation of finding something so utterly precious. Of gathering it into your arms, and bringing it in from the wet and dark and cold. Of making everything warm and welcoming for it - even yourself. I only remembered stoking the fire and laying Remus on some blankets in front of it. He kept his eyes rigidly open, aware of but indifferent to the fact that it was I who was undressing him and wiping him down, and drying him with a towel. I who wrapped him up in warm clothes - my own robes, my newest - and I who bandaged and healed the cuts, bruises and sores on his body. I was gentle with him, and I don't think it hurt him.

I actually made hot broth without burning the cauldron. I laid his head on my knee, and fed it into him in spoonsful. I cleaned him when he threw it up. I tried again.

In my dream, I could vividly recollect the mixture of relief, tenderness and sheer awe I felt when I put him to bed. I sat up with him, ensuring he was well covered and wrapped up, and I fell asleep lying on top of the blankets, curled beside him with my head pillowed next to his.

That, in fact, proved to be the beginning of those "wonderful" days of "peace" we both remember so fondly. Although we were both - to varying extents - also emotionally and mentally disturbed. Remus was still in shock from losing Black to Azkaban, and from losing their home, which had been burnt down by a mob soon after Black's imprisonment. His enforced vagrancy had also taken a severe physical toll, and for a whole week I fed him by hand.

On my part, I will admit that the need for Remus more or less overwhelmed me. I was lonely then - hated on both sides despite doing what I felt to be right - and I had watched from the sidelines as Remus took himself to Sirius Black, moved in with him and enjoyed all the intimacy and privilege which I longed for myself. Everything I had ever wanted to experience with Remus. There was also more than a suspicion of guilt over my own role in Black's condemnation, which was responsible for Remus' current plight.

For Remus, things were very different. He was not the supplicant, as I was, begging wordlessly (or at least as far as my pride would allow) for just one chance to be with him. Although Remus was now an outcast, he had not at first chosen to be - his role something like that of a fallen prince. Stripped of Sirius Black and all that Black meant to him, such as love, companionship, legal protection, and financial security. He knew that I loved him - and had loved him from school - and that I wanted (indeed needed) to care for him. His coming to me, allowing himself to be taken in, was his way of bowing to an unkind fate, and giving permission for me to enter his life and atone for whatever I had done to him.

The first week was spent in nearly complete - and satisfying - silence. I do not enjoy idle conversation, and Remus seemed almost to be in a trance. So we adjusted to each other's presence, without words, until it suited us to speak. There was only one bed - Remus occupied it, and I slept outside the coverlet, on top of the blankets. I looked after the cooking and cleaning, and looked after Remus.

In my dream, I recalled the slow process of our acclimatization to one another. The first time Remus managed to get out of bed he stood shakily by the window, holding onto the back of a chair. I wanted to hold him - but I refrained out of the knowledge that he would not like me to take this first minor accomplishment from him. Instead I stood in the shadow of the doorway, watching him silently. Remus was looking out the window, at the truly unpleasant weather (we had just had a violent summer storm) and at the inhospitable terrain he had been living in for the last few months. He was so thin I could see the veins in his hand as he pushed the curtain further back. He seemed to be trying to absorb the entire countryside through the window, from its vaguely-outlined purple and white mountaintops to the soft, gloomy menace of the woods close at hand. I do not purport to know what went through his mind, or what he was thinking about as he stood there, still weak with his illness and privation. Robbed of his lover. Abandoned by the social and legal network that should have protected him. All I know is that when Remus finally turned from the window, he was very tired... and he allowed me to come forward, and hold him as I helped him back to bed.

The first words he spoke to me - apart from short, thoroughly utilitarian phrases - were "I don't know why you are doing this Severus, but I doubt - appearances notwithstanding - that it's for my benefit."

I was cutting vegetables for the pot, and was so startled to hear him speak that I cut my thumb open involuntarily. Stung not just by the pain of this injury, but also by his words, I immediately opened my mouth to defend myself, but Remus forestalled me. "No, don't tell me anything about me - or you. I'm not sure I'd believe anything you said on that subject."

He was sitting up in bed, resting against the pillows. "I'm told you wouldn't even look at the application Sirius made to have his possessions transferred to my name before he was taken to Azkaban. You were the last person to see him before he was transported, and you didn't take the letters he had prepared for me, and for the tribunal. Is that true?"

I was forced to stop a moment to think. "No." I said. "He himself decided at the last moment not to send them to you."

Remus was looking at me with the clear, expressionless gaze of one who has relinquished trust and hope. He said, "That may be so. But that episode, out of all the others, is what convinces me that you have some motive-"

"Remus-"

"Other than your usual desire for possession, in taking me up and being nice to me this way." he continued.

Which of course, was nicely designed to needle me into fury. "Can I remind you, Lupin, that it was you who deigned to grace this cottage with your presence. That it was you who kept me dancing after you through half of Mongolia and all of Siberia for these last three months?" I asked him, through my teeth. "That in fact, I now own this miserable goat of a hovel because it's the only human habitation within ten miles of you?"