Disclaimer: All hail J.K Rowling, who created Severus Snape.
Author's Notes: Harry Potter isn't my strongest fandom. If there are any
glaringly obvious problems, please review them.
He's not here.
How could Lupin do this to me? How could he leave me? Of course, I doubt that he would've left me if he had a say in the matter. That provides me some small comfort. I still ache every time I lay my head down on my pillow, half expecting to see him beside me. It took me so long to be able to sleep when he left. I cannot count the nights I spent sleepless, staring at the ceiling. Poppy recommended a potion for my insomnia, but potions reminded me of him. That hurt. When I did sleep, the nightmares were unbearable. I remember that in one I dreamt that I begged his forgiveness for me getting him fired, for causing him so much grief.
"You hated me, Severus," Remus said calmly. "You tried to get me expelled, executed, or sent to Azkaban. Do you remember that? You would not let bygones be bygones. You destroyed my happiness, tried to turn my best friend to the dementors. You were a Death Eater. How can you expect forgiveness?"
I awoke in a cold sweat, my hand groping for his absent one. Did he ever forgive me for our terrible school years? Did he understand why I had him fired? Did he fathom why I chose the path I did? I tried to hard to make it up to him. The Wolfsbane was a close as I ever came to a cure for lycanthropy, but to this day, I have not given up hope. How ironic that the greatest aspect of my life of my life was also the failure of my career.
I do not know how to act in my present situation. The students give me strange glances. They expect me to crack. McGonagall - Dumbledore's successor - seems ready to send an owl to St. Mungo's on a daily basis. The old git has assigned someone to monitor my eating and hygiene habits. She worries that I am obsessively trying to find a cure, and she is correct. How can I sleep or eat when I know that somehow I could have prevented the situation I find myself in now?
"Severus, perhaps you need a holiday," McGonagall said to me at the end of one staff meeting. "Take some time to escape from all of this."
I shook my head vehemently. "No, no - I am quite convinced that in a few weeks' time, I will have a potion that will counteract the effects of a full moon."
The look in her eyes was one of pity. I wanted to strangle her. "You cannot fight the laws of nature. You know that. Nothing will stop the cycle of the months."
"Then I shall destroy the moon," I growled and swept off.
I remember receiving an anonymous owl one morning at breakfast. The note read: "Why do you wear black?" I wrote back saying that I was in mourning. At lunch, the owl returned. "What do you mourn for?" "My life," was my reply.
My life. Not "our lives". Mine. Singular. Alone. Alone as I had never been before. Before he had lodged himself into my life, I had not known true companionship. It is quite ridiculous to think how Remus and I became lovers. After the war, McGonagall - the new Headmistress - hired him back as the DADA instructor. One night, I was lonely, and Lupin and I managed to get drunk. What were the details of that night? I woke up and he was asleep in my arms. Both of us were middle-aged men, tired of fighting, tired of being alone, tired of being passionate. We both wanted stability and someone to ease the burdens of surviving. It was a perfect match. Of course, I knew that, eventually, I would lose him. He would grow weary of my obsession with work, he would find someone else, or he would get a job in Romania. But that didn't matter. It would be tomorrow, or the day after, but never today.
God, Lupin, you could be insufferable. I suppose that all of us are, in our private lives. He refurbished my chambers, he forced me away from my experiments to eat, he made sure that the house elves had our laundry. He made me reply upon him, and he relied upon me. He destroyed my independence, and now I cannot reclaim it. I remember how often I cursed him, how often we would fight in those rough first months. And he would curse back, and perhaps throw a book across the room. But it always ended with me kissing him and his hands eagerly roaming over my unattractive body. In time, those fights ceased, and a quiet, more mature love set in.
I still have the ring you gave me. The illegal ring, I should say. We weren't allowed to marry. We could live together, share an account at Gringott's, hold hands in front of Ministry officials, and snog under the mistletoe in the Great Hall, but he was not allowed to be my legal husband. I remember our exchange of rings under the tolerant new moon, how he swore that he would always be with me, how I finally found the strength to say, "I love you."
Tell me, Remus, why was our happiness cut so short? I remembered that it was five years after our wedding when I first made the discovery about Wolfsbane. It was summer holiday, and we were spending time at our cottage in Devon. I remember coming in from the garden to the sight of my lover laid flat on the floor, breathing shallowly. I shook him, but he was slow to wake. I insisted on getting him to the Mithrandir Hospital the following morning.
"His blood is poisoned," said the doctor when I pressed him for answers following Remus' examination. "It appears to be long-term residue. Tell me, is he taking medicine for anything?"
Shakily, I told him about the Wolfsbane Potion. I listed the ingredients. The doctor nodded grimly.
"It's the potion. It's killing him."
"If he stops taking it?"
The doctor shrugged. "It will give you another year, if he's lucky. He's ingested so much of the mixture that it would be impossible to remove it without killing him. Even if he were to survive the poisoning, I'm afraid that he would shortly die. His genetic structure was not meant to accommodate such drastic physical changes once a month. In youth, the body may take many beatings. Mr. Lupin is not young. His bones will not hold up forever. Eventually, the pain and exhaustion will cause his brain to shut down. The potion has only been adding to the effects."
I sat in stunned silence. I'm sure that Voldemort's ghost was laughing. Snape, the reformed Death Eater, had killed yet again.
How pale he looked when I came to his bedside and took his clammy hand in mine. He looked so fragile, so ill, as he always did following a full moon. There were lines on his forehead and gentle wrinkles that creased his liquid amber eyes.
"We've got to get you home," I whispered softly.
He shut his eyes. "How much longer do I have?"
There was a lump in my throat. "A year," I choked on the words. "At the most."
He swallowed. "I figured as much," he said, an ironic grin teasing his lips. A young, female doctor came in, helped Lupin up, and dressed him in his normal clothes as if I was not even present. She set him in a magically floating chair, nodded to be briskly, and walked us out of the facility. A horseless carriage was waiting for us, and with firm instructions to get plenty of care and rest, we set off back home. I believe that I took Remus' diagnosis more to heart than he did; I was angry and in denial that he would be taken away from me. Remus seemed too tired to care.
We arrived back at the cottage in the late afternoon. After I tucked Remus under our plush, verdant green comforter, I sat own to draft a letter to Minerva McGonagall:
Minerva -
Neither Remus nor I shall be returning to the faculty in the fall. Remus has been diagnosed with blood poisoning from the Wolfsbane Potion, and it is impossible to detoxify his system without killing him. Furthermore, the effects of his lycanthropy seem to have taken their toll. The doctors say that he has one year left. I am taking a leave of absence to remain with him at our house in Devon. I will keep you informed of his condition. You know how to reach me. S. Snape
The words mocked me. Remus. Dying. One year was being optimistic. I wanted to weep. We would never celebrate our fifteenth anniversary. I would have to watch him diminish by the day, until that fateful climax when I would discover his cold, lifeless body.
"I'm not dead yet," Remus said reproachfully the next morning as we ate breakfast in silence. I blinked. "Well, I'm not," he said, sipping at his cinnamon tea. "Severus, we both knew this was bound to happen. Werewolves don't lead long loves - "
"I cut off what time we have left," I interrupted. "I poisoned you, Remus. I've been killing you for nearly ten years."
He snorted. "Rubbish."
"I sent an owl to McGonagall," I said, staring at my hands. "I told her that we will not be joining her this year at Hogwarts."
"Forcing me to retire?" Lupin asked, smiling tiredly. "Darling, there must be a hex on you that requires you to keep me away from that school."
"How can you joke about at a time like this?" I snapped. "Remus, you are dying. You have one year if Fate decides to be kind. One year is only three hundred and sixty-five days."
"Precisely why I must laugh," he retorted hotly. "Carpe diem, Severus. Seize the moment, because it may be your last." His voice softened. "You don't have to plan my funeral yet, love."
Words eluded me. I did what I do best in these types of situations: change the subject. "Look, we can live here until. until situations change. I can do independent research, and you can relax and read Muggle romance novels to your heart's desire."
Remus nodded. "And who knows," he said with a small twinkle in his eye, "Perhaps you'll find a cure in these next few months." All I could do was glare.
Later, I did my research on the behavior patterns of those living with terminal illness. A few hours later, I put down the book - written by Muggles, of course - and confronted Lupin, who was amusing himself with frivolous reading material.
"How can you take everything so calmly?" I demanded. "You should be angry or in denial."
Remus put down his book and shrugged, staring directly into my eyes. "I've had my whole life to think about it. I remember that when I was seven, my mother took me to see a MediWizard. He told me that I would've live to see my fortieth birthday. Once I realized what this meant - and we were well into our fourth year at Hogwarts by that time - I grew angry. The years following graduation were the denial phase. I'm at the acceptance point of the illness." He paused a moment. "I see that you're angry."
"I am not!"
"Ah, denial, then."
I grimaced. "You're hopeless," I muttered and stalked off to the kitchen to make some tea.
Remus pretended to take his dilemma lightly, but I saw the tears on his cheeks during the nights. He was in pain, and I was helpless to aid him. Over the weeks, matters grew worse, until I was unable to keep him out of sight and hearing for fear of him collapsing unattended. If I went outside, I always made sure to prop him up on a comfortable lounge chair with plenty of pillows and blankets. He seemed quite content to sit in the sun and read or sleep. I fought the desire to plant lilacs and black roses. Instead, I set my mind to revising the Wolfsbane Potion. I hesitated to give Lupin the Potion for the next full moon.
"The damage has been done," he replied calmly. "Sev, give me the damn potion. I won't have a heart attack."
And so I continued to poison my lover. I always held my breath during his transformations, always held him when he became human again. He began to get violently ill. His stomach would hold no more than broth, and his skin took on an ashen coloring. It had been three months since that fateful incident at the hospital when I realized that one year was an overestimation. Remus lost an inch a day in his battle against himself, and I could do nothing but watch him slip through my fingers.
At last, Yuletide came, but I felt none of its good cheer. Remus had lost too much weight and was having difficulty even holding down thin soup.
"I love you," I murmured to him on December 25th as I brought him his morning tea. I had begun lacing his food with painkillers in a vain attempt to provide him with some relief. "I can't remember the last time I told you that."
"Last night," he replied, accepting his tea with shaky hands. "Merry Yule to you too, Sev."
I cleared my throat. "I have something for you," I whispered, producing a slip of parchment from my robes. Remus set the tea down upon the nightstand and elegantly took the paper.
"You didn't," he breathed, glancing up at me. "How."
I smirked. "Some officials at the Ministry of Marital Matters decided to legalize homosexual marriage," I said. "Last month, in fact. Decided that since Potter's been shagging Malfoy, they might as well turn their backs on tradition. We've had the ceremony and the rings, but we were missing the certificate." I leaned down and planted a kiss on Remus' chapped lips. "Merry Yule to you as well."
"So now we're on the roster of married wizards," mused Lupin. "Sirius is turning in his grave."
I made a face. "Don't mention him," I said. "Please. This is us."
One of his hands twined with mine. "I love you, Severus Snape," he said fondly.
We spent the day in bed, talking about the last seven years. Both of us knew the end was near, but that issue was carefully skirted. I desperately wanted these precious moments to last, moments when Remus was conscious and at peace, but the night bloomed too quickly. My husband fell into a slumber, and it was not long before I joined him.
The next morning, he did not wake. His breathing was slow and steady, but no amount of crooning or pleading could get him to return to me. Shaking, I sent our owl to the Mithrandir Hospital, too frightened to Apparate with Remus in that state. Within the hour, a team had arrived to carry my love off. I accompanied him in the horseless carriage, too stunned to cry. One year had been reduced to a matter of five months. I followed the team into the intensive care unit and sat in silence as "the werewolf" was analyzed.
"Mr. Snape," one of the doctors finally said to me, after I had been banished to the waiting room. "Mr. Lupin is in a deep coma, and in all probably circumstances, will not be returning to a conscious state. He will not survive beyond the next full moon. His body is exhausted. I'm most terribly sorry."
"Set up a cot for me in his room," I said dully. "I refuse to leave his side."
I was grateful that the doctors complied with my request. Remus did not even make it to the full moon. He died one week later, his life fleeing his body as I held his hand. I did not cry as the cleanup crew wrapped his body in white linen and asked me about posthumous arrangements. In this numbed state of being, I had his body sent to the Greenwood Mortuary, the house of death closest to the cemetery that held the bodies of Sirius Black and James Potter. I could not bring myself to follow the body on its journey; instead, I retired home and wrote short messages to Remus' friends - those that still lived - to tell them the news and final rest arrangements.
Lupin's funeral was on a cold, bleak, Sunday, when the snow on the ground was no more than black slush. My teeth chattering, I rallied myself to read his eulogy. I spoke of his childhood, of the curse of lycanthropy, and how he believed in love and forgiveness. Even to myself, the words seemed hollow and empty. Nothing could capture the essence of Remus. After the coffin had been lowered into the welcoming earth, Minerva McGonagall gave me an appraising look.
"You've done well," she said shortly. I bowed my head. "Your post will be open for the next term, should you chose to accept it." "I shall consider it," I replied in leaden tones, trying to remember the sound of Remus' voice. I Disapparated home, moving through the dark, empty cottage and wishing death would claim me as well.
It was five days before I returned to my workshop, feverishly formulating new recipes for Wolfsbane. I sent those to the Department of Medicine, then began revising them again and again. Remus was lost, but perhaps I could save another.
How foolishly romantic, my Slytherin side hissed. Trying to help others. Wonderful guilt complex, Snape.
I set my jaw grimly. My life had a new purpose. Perhaps I could save my own soul by submerging myself in my work.
I wrote to Minerva the next day, telling her that I would be returning in the fall.
But tell me, Remus, how to play this part. I visit your grave with flowers; I talk to your tombstone as if you were actually listening. I have resorted to my habit of wearing all black; it hides the metaphorical blood more easily than any other color. Once I was a traitor, a murderer, a lover, then a nurse - but mourner is new. I try not to mention your name, I cringe when someone brings up Wolfsbane, and I did my best not to laugh maniacally when a werewolf boy was Sorted into Slytherin. I am tired of being alone, Remus. I am tired of life as a widower. I am sick to death of being a failure.
I sometimes wonder if I should dose myself with Wolfsbane, just to put myself through the same torture I forced you to undergo for all of those long years. That does not seem to be my path in life; I lack the strength to drink the vile concoction. Once a month, I am required to brew it for the boy - Michael Smith - and I shudder to imagine what will befall him in thirty years. Perhaps he will be fortunate to see the discovery of a miracle cure. Perhaps he will die in his lover's arms. Fate is indeed cruel. For now, my one fear is that time will make me forget how it felt to kiss Remus, what his voice sounded like. I have no wish to lose any memory involving him, good or bad.
I look at his tombstone. "Husband, lover, friend, teacher. He will be sorely missed." In a few years' time, I will be joining him in the cold earth. How odd my stone will look next to his. "Murderer, traitor, teacher, husband. He killed those dearest to him."
Forgive me, Remus, for I cannot forgive myself.
He's not here.
How could Lupin do this to me? How could he leave me? Of course, I doubt that he would've left me if he had a say in the matter. That provides me some small comfort. I still ache every time I lay my head down on my pillow, half expecting to see him beside me. It took me so long to be able to sleep when he left. I cannot count the nights I spent sleepless, staring at the ceiling. Poppy recommended a potion for my insomnia, but potions reminded me of him. That hurt. When I did sleep, the nightmares were unbearable. I remember that in one I dreamt that I begged his forgiveness for me getting him fired, for causing him so much grief.
"You hated me, Severus," Remus said calmly. "You tried to get me expelled, executed, or sent to Azkaban. Do you remember that? You would not let bygones be bygones. You destroyed my happiness, tried to turn my best friend to the dementors. You were a Death Eater. How can you expect forgiveness?"
I awoke in a cold sweat, my hand groping for his absent one. Did he ever forgive me for our terrible school years? Did he understand why I had him fired? Did he fathom why I chose the path I did? I tried to hard to make it up to him. The Wolfsbane was a close as I ever came to a cure for lycanthropy, but to this day, I have not given up hope. How ironic that the greatest aspect of my life of my life was also the failure of my career.
I do not know how to act in my present situation. The students give me strange glances. They expect me to crack. McGonagall - Dumbledore's successor - seems ready to send an owl to St. Mungo's on a daily basis. The old git has assigned someone to monitor my eating and hygiene habits. She worries that I am obsessively trying to find a cure, and she is correct. How can I sleep or eat when I know that somehow I could have prevented the situation I find myself in now?
"Severus, perhaps you need a holiday," McGonagall said to me at the end of one staff meeting. "Take some time to escape from all of this."
I shook my head vehemently. "No, no - I am quite convinced that in a few weeks' time, I will have a potion that will counteract the effects of a full moon."
The look in her eyes was one of pity. I wanted to strangle her. "You cannot fight the laws of nature. You know that. Nothing will stop the cycle of the months."
"Then I shall destroy the moon," I growled and swept off.
I remember receiving an anonymous owl one morning at breakfast. The note read: "Why do you wear black?" I wrote back saying that I was in mourning. At lunch, the owl returned. "What do you mourn for?" "My life," was my reply.
My life. Not "our lives". Mine. Singular. Alone. Alone as I had never been before. Before he had lodged himself into my life, I had not known true companionship. It is quite ridiculous to think how Remus and I became lovers. After the war, McGonagall - the new Headmistress - hired him back as the DADA instructor. One night, I was lonely, and Lupin and I managed to get drunk. What were the details of that night? I woke up and he was asleep in my arms. Both of us were middle-aged men, tired of fighting, tired of being alone, tired of being passionate. We both wanted stability and someone to ease the burdens of surviving. It was a perfect match. Of course, I knew that, eventually, I would lose him. He would grow weary of my obsession with work, he would find someone else, or he would get a job in Romania. But that didn't matter. It would be tomorrow, or the day after, but never today.
God, Lupin, you could be insufferable. I suppose that all of us are, in our private lives. He refurbished my chambers, he forced me away from my experiments to eat, he made sure that the house elves had our laundry. He made me reply upon him, and he relied upon me. He destroyed my independence, and now I cannot reclaim it. I remember how often I cursed him, how often we would fight in those rough first months. And he would curse back, and perhaps throw a book across the room. But it always ended with me kissing him and his hands eagerly roaming over my unattractive body. In time, those fights ceased, and a quiet, more mature love set in.
I still have the ring you gave me. The illegal ring, I should say. We weren't allowed to marry. We could live together, share an account at Gringott's, hold hands in front of Ministry officials, and snog under the mistletoe in the Great Hall, but he was not allowed to be my legal husband. I remember our exchange of rings under the tolerant new moon, how he swore that he would always be with me, how I finally found the strength to say, "I love you."
Tell me, Remus, why was our happiness cut so short? I remembered that it was five years after our wedding when I first made the discovery about Wolfsbane. It was summer holiday, and we were spending time at our cottage in Devon. I remember coming in from the garden to the sight of my lover laid flat on the floor, breathing shallowly. I shook him, but he was slow to wake. I insisted on getting him to the Mithrandir Hospital the following morning.
"His blood is poisoned," said the doctor when I pressed him for answers following Remus' examination. "It appears to be long-term residue. Tell me, is he taking medicine for anything?"
Shakily, I told him about the Wolfsbane Potion. I listed the ingredients. The doctor nodded grimly.
"It's the potion. It's killing him."
"If he stops taking it?"
The doctor shrugged. "It will give you another year, if he's lucky. He's ingested so much of the mixture that it would be impossible to remove it without killing him. Even if he were to survive the poisoning, I'm afraid that he would shortly die. His genetic structure was not meant to accommodate such drastic physical changes once a month. In youth, the body may take many beatings. Mr. Lupin is not young. His bones will not hold up forever. Eventually, the pain and exhaustion will cause his brain to shut down. The potion has only been adding to the effects."
I sat in stunned silence. I'm sure that Voldemort's ghost was laughing. Snape, the reformed Death Eater, had killed yet again.
How pale he looked when I came to his bedside and took his clammy hand in mine. He looked so fragile, so ill, as he always did following a full moon. There were lines on his forehead and gentle wrinkles that creased his liquid amber eyes.
"We've got to get you home," I whispered softly.
He shut his eyes. "How much longer do I have?"
There was a lump in my throat. "A year," I choked on the words. "At the most."
He swallowed. "I figured as much," he said, an ironic grin teasing his lips. A young, female doctor came in, helped Lupin up, and dressed him in his normal clothes as if I was not even present. She set him in a magically floating chair, nodded to be briskly, and walked us out of the facility. A horseless carriage was waiting for us, and with firm instructions to get plenty of care and rest, we set off back home. I believe that I took Remus' diagnosis more to heart than he did; I was angry and in denial that he would be taken away from me. Remus seemed too tired to care.
We arrived back at the cottage in the late afternoon. After I tucked Remus under our plush, verdant green comforter, I sat own to draft a letter to Minerva McGonagall:
Minerva -
Neither Remus nor I shall be returning to the faculty in the fall. Remus has been diagnosed with blood poisoning from the Wolfsbane Potion, and it is impossible to detoxify his system without killing him. Furthermore, the effects of his lycanthropy seem to have taken their toll. The doctors say that he has one year left. I am taking a leave of absence to remain with him at our house in Devon. I will keep you informed of his condition. You know how to reach me. S. Snape
The words mocked me. Remus. Dying. One year was being optimistic. I wanted to weep. We would never celebrate our fifteenth anniversary. I would have to watch him diminish by the day, until that fateful climax when I would discover his cold, lifeless body.
"I'm not dead yet," Remus said reproachfully the next morning as we ate breakfast in silence. I blinked. "Well, I'm not," he said, sipping at his cinnamon tea. "Severus, we both knew this was bound to happen. Werewolves don't lead long loves - "
"I cut off what time we have left," I interrupted. "I poisoned you, Remus. I've been killing you for nearly ten years."
He snorted. "Rubbish."
"I sent an owl to McGonagall," I said, staring at my hands. "I told her that we will not be joining her this year at Hogwarts."
"Forcing me to retire?" Lupin asked, smiling tiredly. "Darling, there must be a hex on you that requires you to keep me away from that school."
"How can you joke about at a time like this?" I snapped. "Remus, you are dying. You have one year if Fate decides to be kind. One year is only three hundred and sixty-five days."
"Precisely why I must laugh," he retorted hotly. "Carpe diem, Severus. Seize the moment, because it may be your last." His voice softened. "You don't have to plan my funeral yet, love."
Words eluded me. I did what I do best in these types of situations: change the subject. "Look, we can live here until. until situations change. I can do independent research, and you can relax and read Muggle romance novels to your heart's desire."
Remus nodded. "And who knows," he said with a small twinkle in his eye, "Perhaps you'll find a cure in these next few months." All I could do was glare.
Later, I did my research on the behavior patterns of those living with terminal illness. A few hours later, I put down the book - written by Muggles, of course - and confronted Lupin, who was amusing himself with frivolous reading material.
"How can you take everything so calmly?" I demanded. "You should be angry or in denial."
Remus put down his book and shrugged, staring directly into my eyes. "I've had my whole life to think about it. I remember that when I was seven, my mother took me to see a MediWizard. He told me that I would've live to see my fortieth birthday. Once I realized what this meant - and we were well into our fourth year at Hogwarts by that time - I grew angry. The years following graduation were the denial phase. I'm at the acceptance point of the illness." He paused a moment. "I see that you're angry."
"I am not!"
"Ah, denial, then."
I grimaced. "You're hopeless," I muttered and stalked off to the kitchen to make some tea.
Remus pretended to take his dilemma lightly, but I saw the tears on his cheeks during the nights. He was in pain, and I was helpless to aid him. Over the weeks, matters grew worse, until I was unable to keep him out of sight and hearing for fear of him collapsing unattended. If I went outside, I always made sure to prop him up on a comfortable lounge chair with plenty of pillows and blankets. He seemed quite content to sit in the sun and read or sleep. I fought the desire to plant lilacs and black roses. Instead, I set my mind to revising the Wolfsbane Potion. I hesitated to give Lupin the Potion for the next full moon.
"The damage has been done," he replied calmly. "Sev, give me the damn potion. I won't have a heart attack."
And so I continued to poison my lover. I always held my breath during his transformations, always held him when he became human again. He began to get violently ill. His stomach would hold no more than broth, and his skin took on an ashen coloring. It had been three months since that fateful incident at the hospital when I realized that one year was an overestimation. Remus lost an inch a day in his battle against himself, and I could do nothing but watch him slip through my fingers.
At last, Yuletide came, but I felt none of its good cheer. Remus had lost too much weight and was having difficulty even holding down thin soup.
"I love you," I murmured to him on December 25th as I brought him his morning tea. I had begun lacing his food with painkillers in a vain attempt to provide him with some relief. "I can't remember the last time I told you that."
"Last night," he replied, accepting his tea with shaky hands. "Merry Yule to you too, Sev."
I cleared my throat. "I have something for you," I whispered, producing a slip of parchment from my robes. Remus set the tea down upon the nightstand and elegantly took the paper.
"You didn't," he breathed, glancing up at me. "How."
I smirked. "Some officials at the Ministry of Marital Matters decided to legalize homosexual marriage," I said. "Last month, in fact. Decided that since Potter's been shagging Malfoy, they might as well turn their backs on tradition. We've had the ceremony and the rings, but we were missing the certificate." I leaned down and planted a kiss on Remus' chapped lips. "Merry Yule to you as well."
"So now we're on the roster of married wizards," mused Lupin. "Sirius is turning in his grave."
I made a face. "Don't mention him," I said. "Please. This is us."
One of his hands twined with mine. "I love you, Severus Snape," he said fondly.
We spent the day in bed, talking about the last seven years. Both of us knew the end was near, but that issue was carefully skirted. I desperately wanted these precious moments to last, moments when Remus was conscious and at peace, but the night bloomed too quickly. My husband fell into a slumber, and it was not long before I joined him.
The next morning, he did not wake. His breathing was slow and steady, but no amount of crooning or pleading could get him to return to me. Shaking, I sent our owl to the Mithrandir Hospital, too frightened to Apparate with Remus in that state. Within the hour, a team had arrived to carry my love off. I accompanied him in the horseless carriage, too stunned to cry. One year had been reduced to a matter of five months. I followed the team into the intensive care unit and sat in silence as "the werewolf" was analyzed.
"Mr. Snape," one of the doctors finally said to me, after I had been banished to the waiting room. "Mr. Lupin is in a deep coma, and in all probably circumstances, will not be returning to a conscious state. He will not survive beyond the next full moon. His body is exhausted. I'm most terribly sorry."
"Set up a cot for me in his room," I said dully. "I refuse to leave his side."
I was grateful that the doctors complied with my request. Remus did not even make it to the full moon. He died one week later, his life fleeing his body as I held his hand. I did not cry as the cleanup crew wrapped his body in white linen and asked me about posthumous arrangements. In this numbed state of being, I had his body sent to the Greenwood Mortuary, the house of death closest to the cemetery that held the bodies of Sirius Black and James Potter. I could not bring myself to follow the body on its journey; instead, I retired home and wrote short messages to Remus' friends - those that still lived - to tell them the news and final rest arrangements.
Lupin's funeral was on a cold, bleak, Sunday, when the snow on the ground was no more than black slush. My teeth chattering, I rallied myself to read his eulogy. I spoke of his childhood, of the curse of lycanthropy, and how he believed in love and forgiveness. Even to myself, the words seemed hollow and empty. Nothing could capture the essence of Remus. After the coffin had been lowered into the welcoming earth, Minerva McGonagall gave me an appraising look.
"You've done well," she said shortly. I bowed my head. "Your post will be open for the next term, should you chose to accept it." "I shall consider it," I replied in leaden tones, trying to remember the sound of Remus' voice. I Disapparated home, moving through the dark, empty cottage and wishing death would claim me as well.
It was five days before I returned to my workshop, feverishly formulating new recipes for Wolfsbane. I sent those to the Department of Medicine, then began revising them again and again. Remus was lost, but perhaps I could save another.
How foolishly romantic, my Slytherin side hissed. Trying to help others. Wonderful guilt complex, Snape.
I set my jaw grimly. My life had a new purpose. Perhaps I could save my own soul by submerging myself in my work.
I wrote to Minerva the next day, telling her that I would be returning in the fall.
But tell me, Remus, how to play this part. I visit your grave with flowers; I talk to your tombstone as if you were actually listening. I have resorted to my habit of wearing all black; it hides the metaphorical blood more easily than any other color. Once I was a traitor, a murderer, a lover, then a nurse - but mourner is new. I try not to mention your name, I cringe when someone brings up Wolfsbane, and I did my best not to laugh maniacally when a werewolf boy was Sorted into Slytherin. I am tired of being alone, Remus. I am tired of life as a widower. I am sick to death of being a failure.
I sometimes wonder if I should dose myself with Wolfsbane, just to put myself through the same torture I forced you to undergo for all of those long years. That does not seem to be my path in life; I lack the strength to drink the vile concoction. Once a month, I am required to brew it for the boy - Michael Smith - and I shudder to imagine what will befall him in thirty years. Perhaps he will be fortunate to see the discovery of a miracle cure. Perhaps he will die in his lover's arms. Fate is indeed cruel. For now, my one fear is that time will make me forget how it felt to kiss Remus, what his voice sounded like. I have no wish to lose any memory involving him, good or bad.
I look at his tombstone. "Husband, lover, friend, teacher. He will be sorely missed." In a few years' time, I will be joining him in the cold earth. How odd my stone will look next to his. "Murderer, traitor, teacher, husband. He killed those dearest to him."
Forgive me, Remus, for I cannot forgive myself.