Parting Ways
by Morgan D.

Very few people on earth knew what it was really like to live long periods of time near Dementors. Those who had been sentenced to a short stay in Azkaban would have been put in cells closer to the island's shore, receiving only brief visits from the abominable joy-sucking creatures — and that was usually enough to scar those poor souls for life. The longer the sentence, the closer to the island's centre would be their cell; thus the smaller their chances of getting out of there with enough of their minds to report the experience to others.

On that account, lots of unverifiable speculations were made by scholars and lay people about what truly happened to the spirit of a person under the Dementors' influence. There was a very popular hypothesis suggesting that since a Dementor induced the mind to relive its worst memories over and over, the spirit would be frozen in time, never ageing, never maturing, never learning. The idea was that, in order to learn, one would need external stimulus, practical experiences, touching the flame to understand that it burns; a mind locked in itself would have none of that, would be unable to learn anything beyond the lessons of the past. This conjecture was usually symbolised by the hypothetical image of a sixty-year-old man that, were he able to keep his sanity after fifty years in Azkaban, would ask for candy-floss and companions to play hide-and-seek after being freed. A decidedly moot point, considering fifty weeks in Azkaban were enough for most people to forget how to talk, and the few that survived fifty months of that treatment seemed to be barely aware that they still existed.

Until Sirius Black, that is. Thanks to him, Remus Lupin had an empirical answer for that question.

No, Dementors didn't freeze the spirit in time. Even in such an extreme case of introversion of the mind, there was still growing and learning.

Remus remembered twenty-one-year-old Sirius far too well to be mistaken. The star-named young man had been, in the years between his leaving Hogwarts and the death of the Potters, more patient and considerate of other people's feelings than he had been as a kid, no doubt about it. But under no circumstances would he have withstood what Remus and Harry were making him go through now with such commendable composure.

For a good half-hour, Sirius had put up with a teenager and a fully grown man weeping on his shoulders and holding on to him as if for dear life, and a cat crawling under his tee shirt and purring on his belly. And Sirius had asked no questions. He had instead murmured senseless soothing sounds to the three of them, trying to get them to calm down. Only when the sobbing had receded did he start hinting that it would be really nice if, at some point, as long as it wasn't much of an inconvenience, they could inform him of why he was been treated like some kind of teddy bear or security blanket. And even after getting no answer of any kind, still Sirius had remained there, letting Remus, Harry and Crookshanks cuddle up to him for another half-hour before actually demanding to be told what the hell was going on.

In all honesty, Remus couldn't even say he would have been this patient himself.

He tried to answer Sirius, he really did. Since he felt his first tears escaping to dampen his friend's collar he had been trying to regain at least a bit of control, trying to remind himself that a man his age and with as much grey hair as he had did not look remotely attractive when bawling like a toddler. However, the bursting emotions inside him weren't any easier to contain than the wolf's persona in a full moon night without the Wolfsbane potion.

In fact, he felt as if the wolf were awake inside him somehow, pushing him against Padfoot, yearning for the unique scent of his packmate, for the warmth only his presence could convey. The wolf wanted to run and play, wanted to cuddle and sleep, wanted to roar and punish Padfoot for leaving... And the wolf didn't care one bit if Remus would later feel dead embarrassed about this undignified outburst.

Sirius was getting desperate now. "Can you at least tell me if someone died?"

"No!" Harry's shout was muffled by the fabric of Sirius' shirt. "No one died! No one!"

"Okay..." The longhaired man still looked uncertain, though. "That's a start. No one died. Good." He nodded to himself and kept quiet for a moment. But of course, that wasn't enough to satisfy him. "Then why are you guys so miserable?"

"We're not," said Remus, gently disengaging from their embrace. "We're not miserable at all. Quite the contrary."

"The contrary? I see." Sirius looked down at the sniffing Harry, at the purring bulge on his belly, and at the werewolf drying his eyes on his sleeve. "On second thought, I don't. Explanations, Moony. Now!"

"We're just... very... very, very... very..." Remus had to stop and laugh. There would never be enough 'verys' in that sentence. "Very happy. Because..." He trailed off, blinking against insistent tears.

"Yes...?" Sirius urged, exasperated.

"Well, because... Try not to let this go to your head, Padfoot, but... Harry and I..."

A disgruntled mew vibrated under Sirius' shirt.

"...and Crookshanks," Remus amended quickly. "We have realised that... there might be a world out there without you and... well... we're just very... very happy... that we don't have to live in it after all."

Still with his face buried on Sirius' shoulder, Harry nodded vehemently. It didn't seem like the kid would let go of his godfather anytime soon.

Sirius eyed one and the other as if they had both grown an extra head.

"It's been a long day," said Remus, leaning back on the couch. "One that encompassed a few lifetimes, I must say. Give us a minute..."

"I've already given you a hundred!" complained Sirius.

"...and we'll fill you in on what you've missed since you... Well. We'll fill you in on everything, all right?"

Crookshanks found its way out from under Sirius' shirt and curled up between the man and his godson, opening his mouth for a big, big yawn, and forcing Harry to shift on the seat to make space for him.

The boy rubbed his eyes and nose, and looked up into Sirius' face. "Are you okay?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. Are you... feeling all right?"

"Sure," Sirius shrugged. "A bit wet maybe," he added, brushing his thumb on his godson's damp cheek. "Are you all right?"

Harry bit his lip, repressing what would probably have been an ear-to-ear smile. "Never better."

"Did I miss some sort of... epiphany?"

Remus laughed at that. "You could say that... What is the last thing you remember?"

"Ah..." Sirius bit his lower lip. "This is going to be embarrassing. I think it was when you and your parents arrived in Évora."

Harry and Remus exchanged a dumbfounded look. "What?"

"Hey, sorry!" Sirius winced. "I had too much to eat at lunch, all right? Besides, I've heard that story at least three times already."

"What story?" Harry frowned.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "The story about Moony's first trip to Portugal. Come on, I can't have been asleep for so long that he got to tell you that many stories..."

"When did he tell me that story?" asked Harry, bewildered.

"When did I go to Portugal?" added Remus, even more confused.

"Oh, don't do that!" Sirius moaned.

"Do what?"

"That let's-see-if-you-were-paying-attention quiz thing. You know I wasn't paying attention, I dozed off, I wasn't listening to a word you said, and I already apologised."

"But..."

"If you want me to prove that I still remember the story from the last time I heard it, fine!" Sirius huffed, pulling his hair back in annoyance. "You were seven. Your parents were putting every Knut and every ounce of energy they possessed into looking for a cure for lycanthropy, and they heard about this witch in a wizarding village near Évora that claimed to have developed a combination of potions and Temperament Charms that inhibited some of the symptoms."

"Évora?" Remus found himself gaping at his friend, trying to figure out which of them had gone insane.

But Sirius misunderstood that look of perplexity. "Or was it near Faro? I could have sworn it was Évora. Anyway, your dad went first, met the witch, learned about her studies, thought it was promising, but she hadn't done any actual experiments on werewolves yet; the project hadn't got to that point. So he got her promise that she would contact him when it did, and came home. About eight months later, she did contact your parents, and they took you there."

"Padfoot, listen to me..."

"What?"

Remus held his friend's arm, gently but firmly. "That never happened."

"That never happened?"

"No."

"Then where did you get the pictures?"

"What pictures?"

Sirius pointed to the coffee table, where a photo album lay open. "Those pictures."

Remus leaned over to examine the two large square pages on top, careful not to touch them. Four pictures, a bit discoloured and torn at the sides, were glued to each page, all showing a little brown-haired kid looking excitedly at oak landscapes, medieval villages and Roman ruins, pointing at things and turning to the adult beside him with a questioning look. Sometimes it would be a short woman with curly dark hair holding the little boy's hand; sometimes it would be a lean, bearded man wearing spectacles. Remus did not recognise anything or anyone.

Taking a deep breath, he flipped one of the pages. More photos of the same three people, the architecture in the background varying a little. One picture showed only the man and the woman cuddling under the shade of a tree, but the frame kept wobbling as if the camera were in the hands of a drunk... or a young agitated boy? In another photo, the woman knelt down to close the upper button of the kid's collar, getting a sulky scowl from him, and Remus smiled at the memory of how his mother kept doing that, even on sunny days, always afraid he would catch a cold...

That one recollection, like the first drop of a storm, brought a deluge of memories that filled his mind in half a second. His reluctance to get near the Roman ruins, for fear that they would collapse on top of him... His mother's appalled face as they visited the Capela dos Ossos, a chapel fashioned from the skulls and bones of five thousand monks... His own pride when his father had judged him big enough to hold the camera...

The tall, strawberry-haired witch who lived in an underground house... The rooms filled with bookshelves, cauldrons and a countless number of tiny vials and enormous jars... The smell of ashes, the taste of rotten cheese... The pain, dear Merlin, the pain... And the hatred... The uncontrollable fury that made it hard to breathe...

The experiment had worked, but only to a certain extent. The association of charms and potions idealised by Airmid Nogueira — that was the witch's name — greatly diminished a werewolf's appetite for humans; it wouldn't attack them unless provoked. However, once the full moon was gone, its human counterpart would more than make up for it during the rest of the month, displaying implacable and near-to-irrational hostility against any person foolish enough to be around. Remus felt a lump in his throat as he remembered the way he had lashed against his parents. As a little human boy, he had been unable to actually hurt them, but still... They had had no alternative but to lock him all alone in one of the bedrooms of Ms Nogueira's house until the next full moon. And then his parents had taken him home, disappointed but already looking for other possibilities; that wasn't their first attempt to find a cure for their beloved son's ailment, neither would it be the last.

Remus sprawled his hand on one of the pages, feeling its texture against his skin. A rush of memories that hadn't been there a moment ago... That experience resembled the one he had had in the lake — each wave bringing along a surge of information to explain its scenario, how things had turned that way, and what future would be like in each particular timeline. But the images brought by the waves had been distant, intangible, whilst the album suggested something much more real. And while the waves had talked to him about multiple possibilities, the album seemed to be flatly telling him, This is how it happened. The Remus Lupin in these pictures is you, not any other. This is the truth.

And then, it clicked.

"Professor?" asked Harry, eyeing the album as if it were a dangerous animal. "What is that?"

"My past... rebuilt," Remus murmured. He flipped more pages, opening himself to the flood of new-born memories each photo brought him. It felt exhilarating, putting together a fascinating puzzle that would ultimately reveal his own self.

"Rebuilt? So we got there? To someplace else?"

"Where?" asked Sirius.

"I don't know!" Harry huffed. "He's been telling me the whole day that we had to go someplace else to have things rebuilt."

"And we did," Remus smiled. "Here we are."

"Argh, enough, you two!" Sirius roared, pulling out his wand with his left hand. "Tell me what's going on right now, or I'll hex you both!"

"The problem here, Padfoot," began Remus, "is that I don't have a clue where to start."

But Harry seemed to have an idea. "Sirius... Remember how I kept having dreams about Voldemort? And how they turned out to be things Voldemort was doing at the time?"

"Of course I remember."

"And how Dumbledore told Snape to give me Occlumency lessons..."

Sirius blinked. "Occul... what?!"

"Occlumency! But Snape stopped giving me the lessons, remember? You were furious!"

"Was I?"

"Yes! And I didn't mind because I hated the lessons, and I couldn't understand why all of you kept saying it was important for me to stop having the dreams; I thought they were useful, because they helped us save Mr Weasley. And then I had a dream about Voldemort torturing you, and I thought I could... I thought I could save you." The boy gulped, and his eyes glistened with more tears. "But then everything went wrong, and I trusted that blasted elf, and I was so stupid that I didn't remember the package you had given me..."

"What package?"

"The two-way mirror. I'm so sorry, Sirius, I was such a moron, I never opened the package, I didn't know what it was or how it worked..."

Sirius shook his head, changing the grip on his wand so his fingers could also grasp Harry's shoulder. "What do you mean, you didn't know how it worked? I taught you how to use it when I gave it to you."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did. That part I remember very well. The day before you went to Hogwarts after summer holidays, I showed you the pair of mirrors, told you how James and I got them, and we tested them to make sure they still worked."

"No. No, you only gave it to me after Christmas holidays."

"How did we manage to talk on Hallowe'en, then?"

It was Harry's turn to look lost now. "Hallowe'en?"

"Don't you remember? You were upset... and well, so was I; it was the anniversary of your parents' death. We ended up talking the whole night through..."

"...and Professor Flitwick took points from Gryffindor the next morning because I kept dozing off in class," the boy murmured, his facing blanching abruptly. "But... but that never happened! Did it?" he asked Remus.

"What do you think, Harry?" Remus had his own answer, but longed for some sort of exterior confirmation that there was more to it than wishful thinking. The boy's babbling about lessons with Snape had reminded him of something... images from a dream, they seemed... something about a fire-call from Harry... a conversation about James and Snape's rivalry in their school days and the natural foolishness of fifteen-year-olds... and yes, something about Snape refusing to teach Harry? But the more Remus tried to remember, the faster those memories slipped from his grasp.

Conversely, he had no problem remembering the day after last Hallowe'en, when he had seen an unusually peaceful Sirius waking up at two in the afternoon from completely untroubled sleep, explaining his good mood with a witty, "Had quite a deep tête-à-tête with Harry last night. We have so much in common, it was like talking to a mirror... No, wait. I was talking to a mirror!"

Crookshanks rolled on his side, rubbing his back against the fabric of Sirius' jeans. Harry captured the cat's tail between his fingers, stroking it softly. His emerald eyes, however, reflected the turmoil in his mind.

"You told me to keep the mirror a secret," said the boy slowly. "You said you wished I wouldn't show it to anyone, not even Ron or Hermione, unless it became... 'imperative', that was the word you used... unless it became imperative that they knew. But you also said that only I could be the judge of that, and... we talked about friends... and trust." He took a deep breath and looked up at the two men. "I remember it all so clearly, I could even quote parts of our conversation word for word. But... what about all the other stuff?"

"What other stuff?" asked Sirius.

Remus was beginning to think that maybe telling Sirius the whole story wasn't such a good idea after all. How would he take it? Did it even matter now, if their pasts had been thoroughly rebuilt? On the other hand, Remus had promised him the truth just a few minutes before, and now Sirius was too intrigued by their strange behaviour to let it go without a good explanation. If they didn't tell him the truth, they would have to come up with a convincing lie, right there and then, with no time for planning or rehearsal.

Before Remus could make a decision, Harry did. "Sirius... Two weeks ago, we were in the Department of Mysteries, in the Ministry of Magic. I went there... with my friends, I think. And Voldemort was there. No, wait, that was later... There were only Death Eaters there at first, lots of them. And then you showed up, with some others from the Order. You came to save me, you see? You had to duel with that woman... what was her name? She hit you with some spell, and you fell through an archway... You died."

Maybe it was Harry's less-than-dramatic way of telling the tale, but the fact was that Sirius didn't look very impressed. "I died?"

"Yes."

Sirius let out a long sigh, and a faint smile appeared on his face. He pulled Harry closer and dropped a kiss on his forehead. "Just a nasty nightmare, Harry. That's all."

"It was not a nightmare, Sirius! It happened! I was there, and he was there!" The boy pointed at Remus. "We both saw when you died..."

"But I'm here, aren't I? Do I look dead to you?"

"No, but..."

"You probably fell asleep in the middle of Remus' story too," Sirius laughed. "I told you to go easy on the Yorkshire pudding."

"I had just as much as you had," Harry sulked.

"Yorkshire pudding?" Remus eyed the boy curiously. "You remember eating Yorkshire pudding? Today?"

"Well, yeah, Sirius made it for lunch... No, wait. We didn't.... We only had hot chocolate at the Dursleys, then those green apples..." Harry's brows were knitted together behind his glasses. "You know, I'm getting really confused here."

"At least I'm not the only one," Sirius muttered.

"I remember eating Sirius' yorkie too," Remus realised. "Bit overcooked, lacking that soft squidginess a proper yorkie should have..."

Sirius gave his friend an indignant glare. "I come all this way to cook for you and you have the nerve to criticise me? And please don't say you ate my 'yorkies'! It makes me picture you devouring a litter of Yorkshire Terrier puppies."

"I was here last night," Remus murmured, his eyes turning to an uncurtained window through which, from where he was sitting, he could see nothing but trees. "I Changed in the sealed shed my parents built two miles away from here, deep into the woods..."

"Yeah," Sirius groaned. "Alone."

"You couldn't be here," said Remus, partly to acknowledge the memory, partly to reassure his friend. "I know you'd have come, if you could. Anyway, it wasn't so bad, I had the Wolfsbane Potion." His muscles were sore from the Change itself, but there weren't any wounds from bites or claws.

Then again, he would be feeling a lot worse if Sirius and Harry hadn't been there in the morning to help him back to the house. Sirius had checked for fractured or dislocated bones — not this time, thank Merlin! —, fed him some relaxation potion and helped him with the anti-cramp ointments, while Harry made breakfast. Remus hadn't greeted them very cheerfully though, despite their obvious good intentions; in fact, he remembered being really angry with Sirius for coming and, even worse, bringing Harry along... Until the boy intervened and stated, in a way that had much reminded him of James, "It was my idea, and I couldn't convince Sirius to agree with it until we came up with a safe itinerary to get here. So give us both a little credit, all right? We are not completely stupid."

Therefore, in a mix of guilt, gratitude, embarrassment and some lingering concern, Remus had gone to sleep, waking up just in time for lunch. Judging from the mess in the kitchen, the not completely stupid duo had spent the entire morning cooking and having lots of fun with it, but Remus could hardly complain. The food was edible and mostly tasty, and his visitors had taken upon themselves the task of cleaning up. In fact, they had even forbidden him to do anything more stressful than pointing to where plates, pans and glasses were supposed to be stored.

And afterwards, they had sat in the living room for hours of idle chattering, their brains unable to come up with anything important to say as their blood circulation was busy with digestion. A very siesta-like moment that somehow ended up with Harry uncovering an old photo album in one of the bookshelves, Remus telling stories about his childhood and Sirius dozing off on the couch.

"But how did you get here?" asked Remus, eyeing Crookshanks suspiciously.

"I was about to ask that myself," said Sirius, pulling the cat to his lap. "When did he arrive? He wasn't here before I fell asleep, was he?"

No, Crookshanks hadn't been there. He hadn't come with Sirius and Harry that morning, and he hadn't been there with Remus either. None of those new memories included him, and none explained the cat's presence there.

Crookshanks raised his oddly shaped face to look at the three humans staring inquisitively at him, his yellow eyes blinking lazily, his mouth opening for a rather uninformative yawn.

"He appeared in my trunk this morning..." Harry started, but trailed off as a scowl of confusion took over his face. "No, that was on the same day of the hot chocolate, and we're talking about Yorkshire-pudding today, not hot-chocolate today, right?"

Sirius let his head fall back against the pillow, growling at the ceiling. "And just how many todays has there been?"

"Two," said Harry promptly. Then, with a suspicious gaze at Lupin, he added, "At least."

Remus smiled back. Apparently, the boy was finally catching up.

"What did you guys do, jump through parallel dimensions?" asked Sirius.

That sent Remus into a laughing fit.

"He said it, not me," Harry told Remus grouchily. "Then again, we were there and now we're here, so I reckon you were right, they're not parallel at all."

"Uh-oh..." Sirius murmured. "You are talking about jumping dimensions..."

"Harry calls them dimensions," said Remus. "I think of them as multiple fates. Or waves."

"Waves?"

"Long story."

"No kidding..."

"Where have you learned about parallel dimensions anyway?" Harry asked his godfather.

"From a Muggle television show... I don't suppose you've heard of it, it was cancelled way before you were even born, and it wasn't even a British production... It was called Star Trek."

"You watched Star Trek?!"

"Oh, you know it? It wasn't bad, once you got past the silly settings and the whole magic-that-isn't-magic thing..."

Now that Sirius mentioned it, Remus could remember a somewhat heated argument at some night gathering at Sirius' apartment, right after the airing of a re-run episode. Fragments of the discussion came to him now... Sirius' politically-inspired defence ("It's about universal themes, like tolerance and prejudice!"), Peter's aesthetic critique ("It's all so ugly and unconvincing!"), James' shameless drooling ("That Uhura is really, really hot!"), Lily's exasperated retorts ("The whole thing is scientifically inaccurate!"), and his friends' unanimous annoyance at Remus as he wouldn't stick to one side of the issue, being able to see everyone's point of view.

"So... you've come from another dimension?" Sirius asked them, a broad grin on his face. "I've got to hand it to you, Moony, this has to be the most elaborate prank you've ever pulled."

"I'm afraid this isn't a prank, my friend."

"Multiple dimensions, Moony? Of course this is a prank!"

Seeing the growing agitation in Sirius' eyes, Remus remained silent.

Harry, on the other hand, was too young to be that wise. "We're telling the truth, Sirius. Honestly! Do you really think we'd invent something like that?"

"But that's precisely it, isn't it?" Sirius riposted. "You won't see Remus charming my hair to glow in the dark, and you know why? Because Remus and I go back way too long, he knows I'm not likely to fall for simple tricks, and more to the point, he knows it wouldn't be fun to see me fall for a simple trick. He just has to come up with something so complex and extraordinary that I'll be convinced that it's just too fantastic not to be real. Something that'll leave me so completely baffled that even common stones will gain life to laugh at the ludicrous expression on my face."

"But..."

"Hey, it's okay, Harry! It was a really nice try, quite ingenious, actually. The non-parallel bit was really clever; not only did it make the thing much more confusing, but it would have made it really hard for me to catch any contradiction. I mean, if you had gone for a more classical we-are-from-a-parallel-dimension charade, all I'd have to do was catch you recalling something from this dimension, and you'd be busted. But no, you came with that there-have-been-many-todays bit, so you could recall everything that did happen today plus all the stuff you invented while I was asleep. Very clever."

"We didn't..."

"I just don't get where Crookshanks fits in this story," Sirius went on, nodding at the cat. "Did I ruin the prank before we got to his part?"

"It wasn't a..."

"On second thought, don't tell me. Maybe you guys can recycle it and use it some other time. I'd hate to see a good joke go to waste, even if it's on me."

"But there's no..."

"I do think you two overdid the crying, though. What did you use, a Lacrivagitus Potion? Maybe you added too many Catopleba eyelids to it, the effects took too long to fade. But I'm flattered that you think my death would cause that many tears." Sirius laughed. "Unless the idea was telling me later that you liked that Sirius from the other dimension so much better and that's why you were crying. Was that the punch line?"

Harry shook his head in dismay. "No, no, no, that wasn't it at all!"

"Well, at least you got to enjoy that moment of glory. You scared the hell out of me with all that sobbing, I did think something horrible had happened, so horrible that you just wouldn't tell me, and believe me, I started imagining the most horrendous possibilities. I know that, with my nasty background, I really don't have the right to complain, but I wouldn't mind if you never pulled another one like that on me ever again."

"Sirius..."

"Maybe we should add that to our ground rules? No pranks with the potential to scare ten years off my life." Sirius turned to Remus with a disapproving frown. "I'm surprised that you'd do something like this. You've always been the one saying that a good prankster should still be sensitive to other people's feelings, never playing with their weakest points or inner demons... And then you give me my godson in desperate tears?" His tone was getting increasingly angrier. "Come on, Remus, you can't tell me you didn't know how that would make me feel! What were you thinking? Were you thinking at all? I just can't believe you would..."

As Sirius' indignation finally faded into silence, Remus held his friend's hand, fighting down the tears that threatened to return. He didn't shy away though, letting Sirius read his face at will.

"Fuck," Sirius murmured after a while. "It wasn't a prank, was it?"

Remus merely shook his head, no.

"Okay."

It was impossible to tell what was going through Sirius' mind now. He gazed down at Crookshanks, but the cat turned his tail to him and leapt to the floor, starting a leisurely exploration of the living room. So he looked up at his godson, whose face was red and congested, and patted the frame of the boy's glasses with his wand, murmuring a spell under his breath: the lenses were now dry and clean.

Harry slid down on the couch, resting his head against Sirius' arm. They remained in silence for several minutes.

"So... in that other... fate?" said Sirius at last.

Harry shrugged. "Fate, wave, dimension, yeah."

"I died."

"...yes."

"Avada Kedavra?"

"No, you... fell through an archway."

"What do you mean? Did I hit my head, break my neck, crack my spine?"

"Uh, no, you just... vanished. It was a magical archway..."

"That kills people that cross it?"

"When the archway is in that particular place, yes."

"And I fell through the thing?"

Harry nodded.

Sirius glanced at Remus, as if asking for more confirmation.

The werewolf squeezed his hand tighter.

"Sounds pathetic," Sirius muttered.

Harry said something Remus didn't catch; in fact, the werewolf wasn't even sure it had been words and not a strangled sob coming out of the boy's mouth.

Remus considered retelling the events that had led to Sirius' death as a more heroic tale than Harry's short version had been, emphasising his commitment to protect his godson and willingness to take any risks necessary... But just like Harry, he was starting to forget many details of what had happened in the Department of Mysteries — he remembered defending Harry and some other boy from a blond-haired Death Eater... it couldn't have been Lucius Malfoy, could it?... anyway, he remembered little of the battle itself. Furthermore, no matter how one told the story, it had been a really pathetic death.

"I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about that," said Sirius. "I don't remember any of it."

"Nothing at all?"

"Nothing. Not a hint of a distant memory."

"Then... I dare say, Padfoot, that you're supposed to feel like a very alive man who has eaten too much Yorkshire pudding at lunch."

Sirius seemed to ponder that for a moment. "I can do that. I think." He stared gloomily ahead for yet another long minute, then broke the silence with a snigger. "But you must admit it is hard to hear that another version of you is dead somewhere else and resist the temptation of dwelling on it."

"I suppose it is," Remus conceded, joining in the laughing. He would be freaking out monumentally, if he were in Sirius' shoes. Maybe the years in Azkaban had made Sirius much more shockproof than average wizards.

Or maybe Sirius had always been like that — a thought that caused another invasion of new memories into Remus' mind. A private conversation with Peter in the Potters' kitchen almost sixteen years before... Peter's nervous smirk... "Sirius... well... he's..."

And Remus had agreed wholeheartedly, knowing that he owed his very friendship with Sirius to the peculiar perspective of the world that Sirius had always had, even as a kid. Perhaps the notion of being dead in another dimension simply lacked the ability to properly upset someone who thought of wrestling a werewolf as fun.

"What about us?" asked Harry. "Are we here for good?"

Remus frowned. "What do you mean?"

"All that's happened... For example, my Firebolt... in that pool of vinegar... Remember?"

Sirius gave Harry a partly hurt, partly scandalised look. "Vinegar?"

"Is that where you best remember seeing your Firebolt for the last time?" Remus countered.

"No. I'm pretty sure it's in my school trunk, in my bedroom at the Dursleys." The boy eyed Remus with a lopsided grin. "You told me it would be perfect the next time I'd fly it. That's what you meant, isn't it? It's like those things never happened, even if we still remember them."

"Things need not have happened to be true," Remus whispered, gazing down at his own arm, where he still remembered the feel of Firenze's bandages and the crimson mark that salesman had stamped near his elbow — both gone now. He looked up to find a very confused Harry staring at him, and grinned. "Never mind. As far as this fate is concerned, you're right. Those things never happened."

A lazy mew attracted Remus' attention to a chair on the other side of the room, on which Crookshanks was now grooming himself. The werewolf kept his eyes firmly on him, trying to open his mind to any memories that would explain how the cat had ended up in his house that afternoon.

The effort won him nothing but a mild headache.

"Sirius... Did we spend Christmas together?" asked Harry suddenly.

"Sure we did."

"In Grimmauld Place?"

"Good heavens, no! Last place I'd ever want to be on Christmas, except for Azkaban."

"Then where...?"

"The Weasleys'. Molly wouldn't have it any other way. She seemed to think that, without her supervision, I'd mistake you for the turkey and roast you with the potatoes."

Remus patted Sirius' knee in sympathy. Apparently, some things hadn't changed.

"And... did we get to spend time together then?" asked Harry.

"We played Quidditch," Sirius smiled with uncurbed pride. "You, me, Bill and Ginny against Charlie, Ron and the twins. We smashed them to pieces, the poor fellows."

Harry's face lit with self-satisfaction. Clearly, the new memories slipping into his mind now were the kind to be cherished forever. "Fred said you were the scariest Beater he's ever seen..."

"I'm the scariest Beater that's ever lived," said Sirius, as if stating a simple fact of life. "But I'm old and rusty now. You should have seen me when I was in school."

That evoked in Remus the image of a very young Sirius Black spinning madly on his broom — a dazzling SparkTyphoon 73 —, practising alone with six, eight or even ten Bludgers at the same time while an equally young Remus watched from the stands, gnawing his fingernails...

"And your Christmas present to me... Was it books?" inquired Harry. "The Practical Defensive Magic collection?"

The longhaired man nodded. "From me and Moony."

"And did I thank you two for it?"

"Repeatedly," Sirius assured him.

"Good," Harry sighed, resting his head against his godfather's shoulder once again, visibly more at peace with whatever had been bothering him about that subject.

Another long silence fell upon them, but this time Remus relished the comfortable feeling of being home, of having Sirius back at his side, of having Harry there with them... The pack had been restored. The wolf was happy.

"You know, I wouldn't mind if you told me a little more about your story," said Sirius after a while. "Such as where you found a... transdimensional portal or whatever you used to cross from... wherever you were to here. Sounds like a big, exciting adventure."

"I don't know if 'exciting' would be the word I'd use," Harry countered. "More like 'confusing' and... 'freaky'."

"All the better," Sirius smirked. "Freaky stories are my favourites."

"Harry will tell you everything then," said Remus, standing up.

"Me? But I didn't understand half of it!" Harry told the werewolf. "Really, you should do it."

"I'd be glad to, but I have yet another important mission to fulfil."

"What mission?"

"Tea," Remus announced solemnly.

Sirius nodded his approval. "Good call, Moony. We are in desperate need of tea here." To his still reluctant godson, he added, "You just do your best, okay? The best part of freaky stories is taking the stuff that doesn't really make much sense and filling in the blanks."

Harry seemed like he wanted to argue that point, so Remus quickly left the room, leaving him little choice. On his way to the kitchen, however, he paused and turned to listen to the beginning of Harry's tale.

"Well, we cast a Pentagram sortilege to form the portal. But we didn't come straight here, we had to pick you up first. So we cast the sortilege to take us where you were, which was where we all came from, because you were dead, at least for us you were, and dead people supposedly return to where they started, and for some reason that place is a wardrobe in the centre of a paper maze. Anyway, we had to prepare the Pentagram to take us there, and for that we needed some elements that were things I had come across in my five years at Hogwarts. Most of them were still in Hogwarts, so that's where we went. Well, not before going to Godric's Hollow... we had to make sure the Order of the Phoenix wasn't following us, you know."

The boy was possibly the worst storyteller Remus had ever heard. Sirius didn't seem to mind, though; he was sitting sideways on the couch, facing his godson, his full attention focused on his face and words. If he was making any sense of that jumbled story, Remus couldn't tell. And once again the werewolf wondered if Harry's inability to reproduce the dramatic aspects of their adventure wasn't a blessing in disguise.

Assured that Sirius would probably be left too confused to freak out, Remus walked down the corridor that led to the kitchen, slowly, looking at everything around him, letting the little details sink in. The smeared wallpaper on the top of the right wall, caused by a leak he had been meaning to fix for weeks now. The dent on one of the floorboards, where he had dropped an iron cauldron a couple of years before. Another dent, deeper and uglier, drawn in the wood when a lava-worm chose that spot to die and decompose, spreading its acidic body fluids, a couple of decades before. A door showing signs of having been treated for termites a few too many times — Remus knew it would lead him to a small toilet. Then the rough picture of a rural landscape showing a cornfield swaying slightly with the breeze, painted and offered as a wedding present by a well-meaning but not too talented friend of Remus' mother. Another door, this one a cabinet for non-perishable food and potion ingredients.

And finally, the kitchen. Decently spacious and clean, but notably under-furnished. Few cupboards, condemning many pots, pans and plates to live piled up on a counter beside the large sink. The stone fireplace whose mantel was covered with mugs, small bottles and a cubic box of Floo Power. A small round table surrounded by two mismatching chairs and a four-legged stool. As Remus gazed at it all, more images and sounds found their way into his mind, telling him about the lunch with Sirius and Harry earlier, and about other meals he had shared with his parents, with friends, with no one but his solitude. The marble floor, horribly chipped and stained by the years, where his mother had taught him to play domino, where his blood had dripped and pooled on so many painful mornings. Mercifully, all those memories came to him bit by bit, as if careful not to overwhelm him.

He looked out the window and smiled at the many shades of vivid green of the summer vegetation spreading over the entire landscape. His house was near the top of a hillock covered with oaks, chestnut-tress, beeches, evergreens and magical garde-fées; their lovely perfumes penetrated his being with the gentleness of a soothing mother. The kitchen window and backdoor opened to one of the few areas of low grass and scarce bushes, allowing the sight of the valley below, where a lagoon of murky waters attracted birds, roe deer and larger, more exotic animals.

Such as a rather familiar Hippogriff.

Remus had half a second to wonder how Buckbeak had ended up there before the proper memory installed itself in his mind, reminding him that Sirius had brought him along the previous summer, when he had come with the news of Lord Voldemort's return. The Hippogriff, sentenced to be executed by the Ministry, had been kept there ever since; Dumbledore had suggested they kept him in the Blacks' monumental house in Grimmauld Place, but Sirius would not hear of it. Just as he wouldn't hear of staying in the house himself.

A soft chuckle escaped Remus' mouth. Sirius had not spent a year locked up in his parents' house, lonely and depressed, not in this fate. He had refused to sit back and play housewife while the Death Eaters prepared their triumphal comeback, and left the day after Harry went to Hogwarts for the beginning of his fifth year. And in the first days of February...

A loud shriek startled Remus out of his thoughts and he grabbed his wand, looking for the source of the commotion. Buckbeak had risen on his hind legs, flapping his wings menacingly at a black-clad figure whose back was slightly curved in a bow. The Hippogriff did not attack, but didn't respond to the greeting either. The person, apparently unimpressed by the magnificent animal's posture, turned around and started toward the house.

Buckbeak wasn't pleased. With another challenging neigh-screech, he ran after the intruder, his large beak aiming for the head. That convinced the person — a man, Remus could see now — that he should get out of the Hippogriff's sight as fast as his legs could carry him.

Remus opened the backdoor, but made no other effort to help the man. Buckbeak showed no signs of taking off, and his mismatching legs made him a poor runner on the ground. Knowing him as well as Remus did — and the werewolf now realised he did know him that well —, he could tell the animal was annoyed but not at the point of charging for real.

Besides, Remus had already recognised the intruder dashing uphill to meet him, and he didn't feel very generous toward him right now.

The man rushed inside at full throttle and banged the door closed. "What flimsy substance is your brain made of, Lupin, letting a Hippogriff run loose like that? That thing should be in shackles! It shouldn't even be alive, if I am correct and that is the same animal that attacked Draco Malfoy three years ago. But I suppose I shouldn't have expected any less from you, should I? Where else would you feel comfortable if not surrounded by murderous beasts?"

"Hello, Severus," said Remus, undisturbed. "I was about to make tea. Would you like some?"

"Where have you been? I thought you would have the matter solved after talking to Firenze. Instead, you kidnap Potter, play hide-and-seek with the Order, vanish with the boy to Merlin-knows-where..."

"I don't have Earl Grey, I'm afraid." Remus opened the cupboard where he now remembered having stored his teabag boxes and cans of leaves. "Assam, perhaps? Lapsang Souchong? I have an excellent Jasmine Green here..."

"I waited at headquarters the whole day, expecting your return," complained Severus, deeply aggravated. "An entire day in that dead mansion, full of Weasley brats stomping around and yelling at each other as if they owned the world. I was so incredibly bored I was considering the option of striking up conversation with the portrait of Eidothea Black... And all of a sudden..."

Remus halted his search for appropriate tea, but did not turn. "What?"

"The brats were gone. The furniture was different. The whole structure flickered, for lack of a better word. And this... thought comes to me, out of nowhere, as furtive as the command of the Imperius Curse. 'What am I doing here?' I asked myself. 'Lupin hasn't lived here since last August! He is probably back at his own home... in France!'"

France? Remus blinked. Well, of course, France. "I was born in this house. This land has belonged to my family for generations."

"France, Lupin?" Severus made it sound like an incomprehensible whim of Remus', and a personal insult to him.

"Yes, France. My mother is English, if it makes you feel any better. And by the way, you keep pronouncing my name wrong. It's not 'LOOpin', it's 'lyPAHN'."

"You own land, Lupin?" asked Severus, not bothering to correct his pronunciation.

"My family does."

Nonetheless, the other's incredulity was understandable, seeing the battered state of the house's furniture and its owner's clothes. The explanation for that bloomed quickly in the corner of Remus' mind: a complex deal between Benoît Lupin and the Ministère des Affaires Magiques back in 1887.

"This is a national reserve of magical fauna, the last in the Western Europe to shelter Duergs and Bêtes-de-Gévaudan," he told Severus, finally turning to give him a lopsided grin. "Which means Hippogriffs are supposed to run free in these lands. It's humans who need to be watched closely and restrained to certain areas when they visit."

"That beast has been influenced by the company it keeps," Severus spat. "I did greet it properly."

"He's very perceptive. He might have sensed that you do not bow sincerely to anyone. I remember you telling me something about how you would rather not stick to one master alone...?"

At that, Severus adopted a more collected stance. Pulling up the best-looking chair, he sat at the kitchen table. "So... we meet again, and we still remember."

"For now, at least," Remus pointed out, gazing at the walls around them. "I know all the things I've just told you about my family and this place are new; I had another home before I talked to Firenze, but I can't for the life of me remember where it was or what my family was like. I still have increasingly blurry memories of living with Sirius in Grimmauld Place for the last year, and clear, brand-new memories that contradict those and should imply that none of that really happened." He gave Severus a curious look, "What about you?"

"I have vague recollections of giving Potter private lessons of... something to do with mind-reading?... And I have this vibrant memory of having an argument with Black two days ago, which I know not to be possible."

"And Sirius doesn't remember anything about... well, about anything, really," Remus shrugged, filling the kettle with water. "It's like he has never lived any other life besides this new one."

Severus' nails scratched the tablecloth. "Black is alive, then."

Hearing the tone of contempt, Remus repressed a smirk. "Wait until you see him. Who knows? Maybe then you'll remember that in this life you've been best friends forever." That would very literally be the end of the world as they knew it...

"Where did you find him?"

"In a wardrobe."

"A wardrobe?"

"Yes. That's where we go when we die. Poetic, isn't it?"

"All the dead people of the world inside a wardrobe?"

Remus shook his head. "Only those Harry has met."

"Potter?" Snape scowled. "Is he the centre of the universe?"

"I'm afraid so, Severus," the other grinned.

"I hardly think this is the appropriate time for jokes, Lupin."

"What makes you think I'm joking?"

Severus shook his head, dismissing the point. "Quit the banter. Tell me what happened."

"Harry is in the living room right now, telling Sirius the whole story. You could go there and listen as well," Remus suggested, deadpan.

"Thank you, but I'm not interested in an adventurous Gryffindor epic about how brave, resourceful Harry Potter single-handedly saved the world again. I want the actual facts."

"So do I, Severus."

The potions master gave him a hostile look. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean we trade information. I'll tell you what happened since you sent me to the Shrieking Shack to meet Firenze, right after you tell me why you did it."

"My reasons don't concern you."

"On the contrary, they greatly concern me. You used me, Severus. I'm entitled to know what for."

"Entitled? You're not entitled to anything, werewolf."

Remus just stared at Severus, looking straight into those black, piercing eyes. Taking offence from the comment wouldn't help him find out anything about Severus' part in that story. Besides, there had been far too many insults, both in this new fate and in the previous one. This one hardly made a dent in Remus' self-esteem.

Severus opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by an incensed voice approaching from the corridor. "Remus, what the hell is this story about Snape poisoning you?"

Remus winced. Bad, bad timing.

When the owner of the voice stepped into the kitchen, followed closely by Harry, Severus was again on his feet, meeting the newcomer with nothing but naked anger showing on his face. And when Sirius spotted the subject of his complaint standing right there, his expression went through such a harsh transformation — eyes burning, gnashing teeth showing, lips split in a threatening scowl — that for a second Remus thought his friend was turning into his Animagus form.

So much for those two having suddenly become best friends.

"What is he doing here?" Sirius snarled.

"He was just about to answer your previous question, actually," said Remus.

"I did not poison anyone," Severus spat.

"You drugged him with potions that made him forget all about Sirius!" Harry accused.

"Headmaster Dumbledore decided that he should be given a beatitude serum in the first months after Black's death; Molly Weasley was in charge of feeding the potion to him."

"But you made the potion," guessed Harry.

Severus shrugged. "So I did. I also made the antidote, and fed Lupin with it. So you should be thanking me instead of making false charges."

"LOO-pin?" Sirius repeated, anger dissolving into puzzlement.

Remus grinned. The potions master chose to ignore them.

"Er... wait a second," said Harry slowly, as if only now realising something odd. "You remember that Sirius died... That means you are our Snape, right?"

The wording got both Severus and Sirius giving the boy bewildered looks.

Harry's cheeks flushed a bright pink. "What I meant is... I thought only those who went through the portal would remember what happened in the other dimension. That's how it usually is in the TV shows..."

"Well, apparently that's not how it is in our case," said Remus. "So why don't we all sit down, talk calmly, and find out what happened? Harry, please, the teacups?" He chose the tea easily: camomile. Probably too soft for Severus' and Sirius' taste, but hot tempers were the last thing they needed at that point.

He tapped the kettle with his wand to boil the water, and put the teabags in the teapot. Meanwhile, after some hesitation, Harry set mismatching cups and saucers for four on the table, making a point of leaving the ugliest, most chipped cup for Severus. He moved awkwardly between the two men who still stood facing each other in a duel of glares.

When the tea was ready, Remus sat on the stool by the table and poured the steaming liquid in the cups before wrapping the pot with an old woollen tea cosy. "Please, have a seat, Severus. We're ready to hear your story now."

"You think I owe you explanations, Lupin?"

"I think you want information that will only be given to you after you share what you know with us," Remus countered. "But if you'd rather stand there glowering at us, by all means, do so."

Severus took so long to react that Remus started fearing he would choose the latter. But eventually the potions master retook his previous seat. "Very well. For about a decade now, I have studied the Pteridium centaurium."

"The what?" Harry frowned.

"Bracken," said Sirius, conjuring a chair to sit beside Remus. "Rather large fronds, wide-creeping rootstock, dense thickets. Weird thing about that species is that they only grow where there are Centaurs around. If the Centaurs leave, the plants die in a matter of hours."

"Why?"

"Nobody knows. The Centaurs won't tell or co-operate with anyone trying to figure it out." Sirius turned to Severus with frank curiosity. "Did you have better luck?"

"Not on that particular subject, no," Severus admitted reluctantly. "But that wasn't the focus of my research. My main interest were the properties of that species' sporophore..."

"Er...?" Harry looked around at the adults, waiting for someone to translate it for him.

Severus rolled his eyes. "A bracken frond has many little leaves", he told Harry, as if talking to an infant. "Under each leaf of this particular bracken, there is a little yellowish ball. That ball is called a sporophore. Inside, there are a lot of fine grains called spores. The spores..."

"I know what spores are," Harry grunted, seating on the only remaining chair — tragically, between Sirius and Severus. "What's so interesting about the... spo-ro-phore of that bracket?"

"They're toxic for humans and many animals," said Sirius. "Not for Centaurs, though."

Or werewolves, Remus thought to himself, remembering the saffron-coloured beads Firenze had tossed in the lake waters. "Hallucinogens."

Severus nodded. "That seems to be the use the Centaurs make of it."

Sirius leaned back in his chair, balancing it on its rear legs. "Severus, Severus... Isn't mescaline enough for you any more? Do you need a stronger poison?"

"This might come as a surprise to you, Black, but there are wizards who find better use in potions than vain entertainment," Severus hissed. "Centaurs are skilled clairvoyants; sometimes they use the sporophore of the Pteridium centaurium when they seek certain kinds of vision. What if we could produce a potion that gave wizards the same ability?"

"I'm not a Seer," Sirius grimaced. "But if I had to guess, I'd say everyone would want to taste that concoction of yours. So you'd be giving wizards a nice motivation to try and enslave the Centaurs, since you can't have the plant without them."

"Firstly, we don't know why the plant dies if there aren't Centaurs around; maybe that can be circumvented. Secondly, there's no reason to assume this potion would be harmful to the relationship between wizards and Centaurs; it might even be a great benefit if we begin to understand the way they see things."

"Maybe, might and if being the operative words..."

"Thirdly, should we stop discovery because society might not be ready for it?" asked Severus. "Should we stop progress based on the possibility of an undesirable outcome? Perhaps you think Skele-Gro should never have been developed because it might encourage daredevils to engage in dangerous activities, trusting the potion to put them back together. Never mind if your dear godson would be walking around with a boneless arm without it."

Remus saw Sirius open his mouth for a riposte and reached out to hold the arms of both contenders. "Pardon, gentlemen, but we're greatly digressing from our main subject here. Sirius, please let him tell his story."

Sirius growled something under his breath, staring at the ceiling.

"Thank you, Sirius. Now, Severus, back to the sporophores...?"

The potions master yanked his arm from under Remus', disgusted by the other's touch. "As I was saying... I have been studying them for a long time. I've brewed several combinations, trying to make it edible for humans without relinquishing its hallucinogenic properties. Finally, in June 1991, my efforts were crowned. I had my first successful version of what I call the Summum Conspectus Serum."

Sirius leaned a little toward Harry to whisper — loudly — in his ear, "That's pompous Latin for 'bracken juice'."

Harry bit back a chuckle. Remus kicked his friend's ankle under the table.

"It was still mildly toxic; I haven't quite found a way around that," Severus admitted. "Nonetheless, it granted me a most disturbing vision."

Remus nodded, encouraging the other to continue. Finally, he would know which wave Severus had seen.

"I saw people. Thousands of them." Severus' face contorted in a vexed scowl. "Talking about me."

Not at all what Remus was expecting. "About you? Why?"

"They're a crowd of indolent rumourmongers with no lives of their own, that is why!" Severus snapped. "At first they restrained their curiosity to issues regarding my teaching methods and my relationship with students, co-workers and others... But as I perfected the Serum, their voices became clearer and their questions more prying. In one of my expeditions into the Forbidden Forest to pluck more Pteridium leaves, I managed to find Firenze alone, and I inquired him about it."

"What did he say?"

"Something about Neptune and Scorpio," Severus sniffed. "Straight answers are really not a Centaur's forte. Even when I insisted and made sure he understood that I wasn't going to leave without actual information, all he did was answer me with more questions.

"But he did put me in the right direction, though. The people I saw do not belong to our reality. Firenze calls them the Observers."

"What do they observe?" asked Harry. "You?"

"All of us."

Harry looked around, nervously. "You mean... they know everything about us?"

"No," said Severus. "But that's their goal, their mission in life. To find out every single detail about our world."

Harry's face turned a bright shade of crimson and Remus, who had been a teenager once, knew the boy would be thinking about a million embarrassing circumstances he had hoped to keep a secret.

Sirius patted his godson's shoulder, his eyes firmly on Severus. "When will you get to the point when you had no other option but to include Remus in your schemes?"

"I met Firenze a handful of times after that," the potions master continued at his own pace. "Gradually, he let me into some of the mysteries concerning the Observers."

"Such as...?"

"For example, he let me know there is a way to confound them, mislead them."

"How?" Harry asked.

"By taking our reality, changing something — any little detail would be enough — and building a new reality."

Harry turned to Remus with an excited look. Enigmatic as it sounded, this was much more familiar territory for both of them.

Sirius, on the other hand, was just as lost as before. "Build a new reality? And just how do you accomplish that?"

Severus leered at him, his posture indicating that he was about to drop some rather harsh teasing about the other's ignorance... but what came out of his strained lips was, "I don't know."

"You don't?"

"In order to rebuild reality, we need access to the same plane the Observers are. The sporophores can be a path to that place, but that is the essential dilemma of the Pteridium centaurium. Its sporophores are toxic to humans because of its mighty effects on their neurons. By making the serum less toxic, I also make it less effective. The strongest version of my Summum Conspectus Serum was still not enough to give me more than a momentary view of the Observers."

"So you needed someone who wasn't entirely human," said Remus dryly.

"I needed someone whose brain could be influenced by the sporophores' toxins but not mortally so," Severus rectified. "Some creature rational enough to follow a plan. Predictable enough that I could trust to do the job." He glowered at Remus. "That made you the last name on my list, Lupin."

"But I ended up on top anyhow?"

"By sheer elimination."

"Wait a second," said Sirius. "How did you check the action of the toxins on the people on your list?"

Severus arched an eyebrow. "I did nothing illegal."

That was hardly reassuring, Remus mused. The British legislation concerning magical creatures was keen on protecting wizards from them, not the other way around.

"And you had Remus at your disposal for nine months while he was teaching there, didn't you?" Sirius snarled. "What did you poison him with under the pretext of improving the Wolfsbane Potion...?"

"Don't be absurd, Black! You think I would have risked weakening the effects of the Wolfsbane? If there is one thing you can't accuse me of is not taking your pet beast as a serious threat."

"But you did something," insisted Sirius.

Severus sipped his tea, untroubled.

"You say you didn't take any risks," said Remus. "However, I know you asked Firenze to show me the vision three years ago. And for that I'd have to go through the Change without the Wolfsbane, since the potion keeps my human mind awake during the full moon."

"Firenze and I merely discussed possibilities," said Severus, affronted. "Hypotheses. No actual plans were made."

"Because he said no," Remus grinned.

"He had his reservations and I had mine."

Remus rested his chin on his entwined fingers, staring at Severus. "I know Firenze didn't think I had much need of that knowledge back then. I suspect he felt I didn't have that much of a wish to rebuild at that point. I'm not sure I agree, but I understand. What about you, Severus? Did all your reservations concern safety against a human-slaughtering monster?"

Taken aback by his former teacher's choice of words for a self-description, Harry turned to him with an alarmed look.

Sirius didn't even blink. Remus found that both disturbing and endearing.

"You were not trustworthy, Lupin," said Severus. "No matter which form you wear. And of course, there were also the circumstances."

Remus eyed the other with veiled fascination. At one time, Severus Snape was providing him with the potion that greatly diminished the dangers of lycanthropy, doing those legal experiments without his consent or knowledge, trying to convince Dumbledore that he was too treacherous to be kept around, keeping a close eye on his movements in hopes of capturing Sirius, and according to Harry, coveting Remus' position as teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts. How many games had Severus been playing with him that year?

How many had he won with nobody noticing?

"Did you eventually change your mind?" Sirius asked Severus. "Or was it just the circumstances that changed?"

"Well, it seems that you are not an accomplished murderer after all. Pettigrew killed those people, not you. You tried to kill me once, but oh, that was just an innocent little prank, right? How very despicable of me to hold a grudge because of something as silly as having a hungry werewolf thrown at me!" Severus' voice dripped with sarcasm. "As for the Potters, apparently you're not guilty of betraying them, just of handing their safety over to the real traitor."

Sirius' jaw hardened, but he said nothing.

"Thus, it didn't really matter if Lupin decided on his own account that it wasn't necessary to inform anyone that you were an Animagus or that you knew many of the secret passages leading to Hogwarts," Severus continued. "And never mind that at the time he did think you were a servant of the Dark Lord. All's well that ends well, right? Besides, he really couldn't have told Dumbledore because, oh dear, what would the Headmaster think of him if he knew dear Prefect Lupin had not been a good boy at school? An understandable decision from one who clearly has his priorities straight." He looked Sirius right in the eye. "Tell me, Black, have you two ever given me any reason to change my mind?"

"That's not fair!" Harry protested.

"Isn't it? Are you sure, Potter? Because judging by their faces, I seem to have struck a nerve or two."

Or a thousand, Remus thought grimly. "So the circumstances changed."

"The Observers changed," Severus rectified. "Their curiosity has turned into sheer obsession. There is nothing they won't discuss: my family tree, my accent, my birthplace, my education, my private decisions, my likely future, my dreams, my love life, my food preferences, my musical preferences, my literary preferences, my office furniture, my house's architectural style, my favourite spot for spending the holidays, everything down to the number of buttons in my clothes and the colour of my unde..." Throwing a menacing glare at Sirius, he left the word unfinished.

Sirius caught it anyway. "Your underwear, Snivellus? A sight most people would like to forget and you found thousands of people willing to discuss it?"

"Don't you have any bones to bury or cats to chase someplace else, Black? Your presence has long gone past the stage of being tolerable."

"You said you saw the Observers?" asked Remus. "How do they look?"

"Humans, all of them. Young and old. I could hear their voices talking in countless languages, arguing, conjecturing, analysing, criticising, worshipping, slandering... But no matter what they say, all of them share one certainty. Every single one of them believes that in a few years, they will know everything there is to know about me. About all of us."

A shiver crept up Remus' spine. "Everything?"

"And they look forward to this. To the moment we will lie before them as an open book."

In the grave silence that followed, Remus couldn't help but marvel at how this unexpected statement had instantly put all four of them on the same side. Who could possibly want to have all their secrets revealed to a throng of strangers? There were exhibitionistic people in the world, that was certain, but even those cherished their right to expose what they wanted, when they wanted and where they wanted. Those Observers, on the other hand, seemed exempt from respecting other people's privacy. As if they lived in a different plane of existence, from where they could watch everything... like gods or...

Pieces of the puzzle started connecting in Remus' mind, so fast that he felt dizzy. He held his head between his hands, elbows on the table, eyes tightly closed.

"Remus?" That was Sirius' voice in his ear, probably his hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"I'm great," he chuckled. "I'm just so jealous of Severus that it hurts."

That managed to stun all three people at the table with him. "Is this another of your jokes, Lupin?" asked Severus, suspicious.

"Not at all. Your visions might have been brief, but you went far deeper than I did. All I saw was waves of multiple fates. You saw the powers behind them."

A chorus of perplexed "What?!" interjections.

"Then again, I believe Harry and I had the privilege of walking in their world," Remus sighed. "Unfortunately, I didn't quite realise that at the time."

"You mean, the maze?" asked Harry.

Remus shook his head. "The train station."

"But that was just King's Cross..."

"But not our King's Cross, was it?"

"How many King's Crosses are there?" Sirius frowned.

"Good question. I have no idea."

Severus rolled his eyes. "Lupin, do you have any intention of making sense at some point, or should I go home and wait until you're in the mood for it?"

"Harry and I cast a Pentagram sortilege to take us to our creator."

"You what?!"

Sirius choked on his tea. "The Creator? Capital C? Known by some as God Almighty?"

That threw Remus off for a moment. "I'm under the impression that the universal hierarchy is a bit more complex than that. Anyway, my vision showed me the elements we'd need to take us there, and off we went. It took us to this world that looked like ours, but..."

"It looked like the train station at King's Cross," Harry provided. "But the platforms were all different. There was no barrier between platforms nine and ten."

"Our hearts didn't beat there, no one could see us, and the people there could pass right through us," Remus added. "We didn't exist there, not really."

The boy nodded. "And magic didn't work. Except for the veil."

Severus' eyes widened. "The veil that was in the Department of Mysteries? You found it in that world?"

Remus saw Sirius turn to his godson to ask, "Is that the same veil you were telling me about?"

"Creatures in the creator's world, knocking on a metaphorical door..." Severus murmured to himself. "It should have taken you straight to the creator's chambers..."

"Something like that," Remus grinned. "We also could say it led us to the unveiled truth about our nature. Or that it guided us to the root of all metaphors and allegories. It's hard to say. The veil is nothing but a figure of speech after all. It's open to quite a number of interpretations."

The potions master snorted. "Are you actually saying you and Potter have met the creator?"

"And she's a really weird lady," Harry muttered.

"She? Our creator is a she?" Sirius laughed. "Perish the thought..."

"She appeared to us as a she," said Remus. "And that was after borrowing the shape of Dumbledore."

"An avatar, then?"

"That might be it, Sirius. A voice in my vision suggested I should call her Source, and she answered to it."

Severus pushed his teacup aside, resting his folded arms on the table. "What questions did you ask her, Lupin?"

Remus was taken aback. "Questions?"

"You said you have met our creator. Surely you seized the opportunity to ask relevant questions..."

Harry tried to come to his former teacher's help. "We were worried about getting Sirius back. There really wasn't that much time for chatting, you know."

"I see," Severus snarled. "How foolish of me to think that you would care in any way about the possibility of getting answers for questions that have tormented sentient beings for millennia, when you were all so busy trying to get one single... man... out of a closet."

Harry moved to get up, his mouth already open for what would probably be a furious comeback, but Sirius — what irony! — held him down to his chair, murmuring something to calm him down.

Remus felt a bit stupid. Yes, he had wasted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ask their creator about the meaning of life and stuff like that. On the other hand, the answers she had offered them about much more pragmatic questions had been so unhelpful that Remus doubted a deeper, more existentialist inquiry would have had better results. "It's hardly fair of you to complain, Severus, since Harry and I did nothing but stick to your own priorities."

"My priorities? What could possibly have given you the idea that resurrecting Black was my priority?"

"Oh, I know it wasn't," said Remus, looking at Severus straight in the eye. "You made a point of telling me that in our previous conversation. 'I'm not doing this for any of you,' you said. But rescuing him was the way to get to what you truly wanted: a new fate."

"Wow, that must have been hard to swallow," said Harry, not bothering to hide his devious glee. "You took so long to find someone to do the job, someone that could have the vision without your bracken juice and stay all right, then build a new dimension to confound the Observers. And then you have it all... only the thing that person picked and changed to rebuild from there just happened to be Sirius..."

The glare Severus gave him could have killed a Basilisk. "This might be a new reality, but you are still my student, Potter. You will address me accordingly. Inside or outside Hogwarts, I will have none of your impertinence."

"Then consider his impertinent tone and very pertinent words as my own," said Sirius. "Your beautiful plan has backfired on you, hasn't it? You had the pleasure of living in a dimension where you could dance in joy on my grave, and now..."

"Another reason why Lupin was the last one I wanted to trust with this mission," Severus riposted. "I knew he wouldn't resist modelling the new reality in accordance to his petty, private wishes. Who cares about the greater good anyway? As long as he can frolic in the woods with his canine friend..."

"That coming from the guy who decided to build a new reality because he doesn't like having people discuss the colour of his underwear."

Severus eyed Sirius as if from the top of a tall moral pillar, and didn't dignify that with an answer.

And that mute reply, more than any of the potions master's words so far, clarified a lot for Remus, at the same time that it raised even more disturbing questions. Sirius' baiting — deliberately or not, Remus wasn't sure — prompted Severus to reveal what he was truly after... but that was not information Severus was willing to give away, not even if it meant having to silently put up with Sirius' merciless mockery and Harry's barely contained snickering. This seemed to chime with his urge to set the Observers astray before they could learn 'everything' about them, about him. Clearly, he had every intention to keep his motivations a secret from everyone, no matter in which plane of existence they dwelled.

All the questions Remus wanted to ask Severus now started with 'why'... but Severus had already given him his answer. "I do not wish to be defined." Wasn't that what he had said before sending Remus in that strange adventure? Only now the werewolf comprehended what a powerful statement that had been, and how deeply it went. The greater good? A personal agenda? Sinister motives? Altruistic ones? Who the hell was Severus Snape, after all? And which Severus Snape, anyway? Thanks to the multiplicity of waves, there would never be a true answer for that.

"Er... can I ask something?" said Harry, politeness returning to his manner now that he addressed Remus. "You and I wanted Sirius back, and we picked him to build a new dimension, right? And Snape..."

"Professor Snape, Harry," Remus corrected him in a soft but assertive tone.

The boy's jaw hardened, and glanced at his godfather in search of support. Sirius, however, was staring at the centre of the table, immobile.

Severus' hostile stance toward Remus didn't relent one bit, though. On the contrary, the man seemed actually insulted at the notion that he needed help commanding respect from a student.

"And Professor Snape," Harry went on through gritted teeth, "just wanted a new dimension to be built. Not this dimension, with Sirius, but some dimension. Because Firenze said that we could confound the Observers this way."

"You said you had a question, Potter," said Severus acidly. "So far you have only listed facts."

"My question is, how does building this reality make any difference when it comes to the Observers? How does it help to mislead them?"

Before Remus could try to answer, Severus let out a derisive chuckle. "The same way your insistence on calling attention to yourself often diverts you from your school duties, Potter. By being a distraction."

"As in, now the Observers have one more dimension to keep track of, and it's different from the first but not all that different, and the Observers might start mixing them up?"

"I'm very impressed, Potter. Putting two and two together... That might have been your greatest intellectual achievement so far."

"Watch it, Snivellus," Sirius hissed.

The level of animosity in the air was growing to suffocating proportions, but Remus was now too intrigued to play moderator. "Severus... Harry does have a point there. If the Observers get confused when they have to keep track of more than one fate... why did you need us to build yet another fate? Wouldn't all the others be more than enough to do the trick?"

Severus froze in place, his eyebrows knitted together as he looked suspiciously at Remus. "What others?"

It was Remus' turn to frown. "The other fates. Waves. Dimensions. Realities."

None of those terms managed to clear the perplexity on Severus' face.

A moment later, as he remembered Firenze's words at the lakeshore, it dawned on Remus why. "Severus Snape did not comprehend the whole array of ramifications... This is not for the human mind, my wolf friend..."

"You never saw the waves, did you, Severus?" Remus murmured.

"Waves? What waves?"

Maybe it was only fair... Remus hadn't seen the Observers, and Severus hadn't seen the fates. Both their visions had been partial and fragmented, and only together could the puzzle be solved. Unfortunately, Remus doubted Severus would see things that way.

"Lupin, what waves? What are you talking about?"

"That's what I was saying before, my own vision did not show me the Observer's world," Remus explained calmly. "I saw our world, many different versions of it. There was the version we knew, in which Sirius died after falling through the veil. But in another version he was okay, and he was... I think he was Harry's legal guardian, but they had problems and I served as some sort of mediator. In another Sirius and I were both taking care of Harry, but..." Remus glanced quickly at Sirius, his face burning at the memory of what Moony had seen in that particular scenario. "...but the dynamics of our relationship were somewhat different," he finished soberly. "There was a version in which both Sirius and I had died, and... uh... you and Harry got along very well in that one, Severus."

"What?!" Harry exclaimed. Severus' eyebrows rose almost to his hairline. And Sirius was giving him the oddest look.

"And there was even one in which we were all friends with a bunch of children and strange creatures that later I found out to be characters from a Japanese cartoon. I recognised them on the television when I went to pick up Harry at his aunt's house."

The potions master still had his eyes fixed on Remus, sceptical and disdainful. "Maybe Firenze overdid the pteridium's sporophores a little bit?"

Remus suppressed the urge to remind Severus of who was responsible for drugging him silly since Sirius' death. "You wanted to know what I saw. I'm telling you."

"All right," Severus sniffed. "Do go on then."

Remus shrugged. "That's mostly it. I saw that there were countless versions more, but didn't pay much attention to them. At any rate, Firenze told me that there are over a hundred thousand of them already."

Severus took that one hard. "Over a hundred thousand realities? Which already exist?"

"Yes."

"And Firenze told you that," the potions master hissed dangerously. "How very interesting that he neglected to mention it to me."

Remus had to agree with that. As Severus had said before, Centaurs weren't known for being direct. It was quite possible that, among all the cryptic commentary on the position of stars and planets, that very relevant bit of information passed unnoticed by Severus. On the other hand, Firenze himself had admitted that he had a personal interest in the fate Remus would help to create. "More than a hundred thousand waves... and just a few of them offer me anything. Maybe yours will be different. Maybe yours will remember me." It made sense... Then again, it was anybody's guess why Firenze thought this new fate would be more favourable to him than the others, or what kept him from going to Source's world himself and doing something about it.

Be that as it may, the livid expression on Severus' face made it clear that he wasn't leaning toward the 'honest miscommunication' theory. And for Firenze's sake, Remus wished every memory of that previous wave would be removed from their minds before Severus could return to Hogwarts. Or else, mighty creature or not, the Centaur would be in huge trouble.

"So, Moony..." The beginning of a lopsided grin curved Sirius' lips. "You're saying that Snape came up with this big scheme that, unfortunately for him, included rescuing me from the dead... and in the end he didn't get from it anything that he didn't already have?"

Remus didn't dare to answer. Instead, he sent Sirius a warning look, trying to convey the message that pissing Severus off at this point would not be a good idea.

But Sirius, being Sirius, just burst out laughing.

Which was a horrible, horrible thing for him to do, because his laughter, so loud and similar to a large dog's bark, always caused people around him to laugh too, at him, along with him. Insidiously contagious, it had Harry in a chortling fit in less than ten seconds.

Remus pressed his lips together, fighting for control of his own face. A battle he was doomed to lose.

Severus stood up very slowly, silently; his stance and the cut of his robes reminded Remus of a Hebridean Black dragon opening his wings just before pouncing on a prey. With no angry snarls, sarcastic rejoinders or violence threats, Severus discreetly slid his hand in a chest pocket.

"Sirius!" Remus called over his friend's laughing. "You do realise you owe Severus your life, don't you?"

The laughter suffered a rather sudden death.

Severus arched an eyebrow at Remus, his arm halting in mid-movement.

"I do not!" Sirius protested.

"If it hadn't been for him, Harry and I wouldn't have been able to bring you back," Remus insisted.

"Hey, you said it yourself, Moony. I'm just a man who had too much Yorkshire Pudding for lunch. I didn't die, some other Sirius died, so I owe this guy nothing."

"The Sirius you are and who had Yorkshire Pudding for lunch wouldn't exist if it weren't for Severus. So technically, you owe him everything."

Sirius stood up so fast that his chair fell aside. "You want me to thank him?"

"I'm saying it would be the right thing to do."

"I think I'd rather go with 'it's the intention that counts' and go on laughing at his horrendous face. He didn't do it for me."

"But he did it anyway."

"Out of the question, Remus!"

"Sirius... please, be reasonable."

Harry looked worriedly at the three men around him, slowly reaching for the wand he kept in his trouser pocket — apparently, the boy had caught onto the danger of the situation. Severus remained immobile, his eyes still sending murderous sparks at Remus — as if he were the one to blame! In fact, with both Sirius and Severus standing in his kitchen and looking down on him with such virulent contempt, Remus wondered if this scene would help Harry understand what he had said at the Dursleys' about antagonism between people that were very much alike...

Eventually, Sirius took a deep breath, rolled his eyes, and shrugged. "Fine. Thank you, Severus, for mistakenly believing that you couldn't get what you wanted without having me alive. Is that good enough for you, Moony?"

Remus glanced at Severus, waiting for his reaction.

"Don't worry, Black," the potions master growled. "That's not a mistake I am likely to make ever again." But when his hand came out of his pocket, it was empty.

Both men retook their seats, both still glaring daggers at Remus. Sirius leaned over to hiss in his friend's ear, "Maybe you should thank him for poisoning you with his experimental potions too?"

Reaching out for the teapot, Remus poured another cupful for Sirius — the best conciliatory gesture he could come up with at the circumstances.

Judging by the subtle softening of Sirius' expression, it had been eloquent enough.

"You said you saw at least two realities in which Black was dead, Lupin?" asked Severus.

"Among those I was paying attention to," Remus clarified, avoiding Sirius' gaze. "I'm sure there were many more."

"At least that's a comforting thought," Severus muttered. "Inspiring even."

"What are you so bitter about?" said Sirius. "You have what you wanted. You've always had what you wanted. Be happy, celebrate! So what if you spent three hours looking for your wand only to find out that you had it tucked behind your ear all along? Have a good laugh at yourself and move on."

"Thank you for that shiny pearl of wisdom, Black," Severus countered sarcastically. "After all, building a new reality is just as trivial a matter as looking for a lost wand, isn't it?"

"Building one new reality when there are over a hundred thousand of them already? Yes, it might very well be just as trivial," Sirius insisted.

"But... isn't that weird?" said Harry thoughtfully. "Over a hundred thousand different dimensions? That's a lot to keep track of. So why did Firenze tell Sna... uh, Professor Snape that he could confound the Observers by building a new dimension?"

"He lied," Severus muttered.

"Not necessarily," Remus suggested. "Maybe each new fate adds to their confusion. Or maybe the great differences between the fates are already a sign of their confusion. Severus, you keep referring to this wave as a 'new reality'. Firenze didn't use that term, did he?"

"No, he preferred a more poetic approach. He said I should 'drift into a new wave'."

"Ah. That makes more sense," Remus nodded. "You see, I don't think this is reality at all. I think this is a dream."

"A dream, Lupin? Whose dream?"

"Let's put together what we know so far, shall we? You said that in order to rebuild, one needed to be in the same plane the Observers are. And as you commented before, Harry and I met our creator when we entered the metaphorical door in our creator's world."

"So you're concluding that the Observers and our creator co-habit the same plane of existence," said Severus.

Remus nodded again. "And now we add to it a bit of information provided by Source. She mentioned that others have gone there to... 'borrow her stuff', as she put it, and apparently this is not at all unusual. The only thing she found disconcerting about our presence there was that, according to her, those others didn't send 'messengers'."

"I remember that," said Harry. "She said, 'the others just come and take whatever they want'."

"Those others... You think she was referring to the Observers?" Sirius asked Remus.

"That's ridiculous," said Severus. "Why would the Observers build new... all right, waves... if they make their job of observing us more confusing?"

The question threw Remus off. He did not have an answer for that.

"I kind of like the idea of the dream, though," Sirius commented with a contemplative grin. "Remus and Harry said they weren't real in the creator's world, remember? Well, they wouldn't be, would they? If we are our creator's dream."

"Er, wait a second," said Harry. "Professor Lupin said this is a dream."

Severus groaned something under his breath, and Remus smiled when he realised why: without being told a word, Harry had pronounced 'Lupin' as a French name — or at least with as much French the boy was able to produce.

"I reckon I can see that, " Harry went on. "We see things, hear things, do things... and that's the stuff our dreams are made of. If the Observers see us, hear us, talk about us... I mean, what else would they dream about? But the place we were before..." His emerald eyes turned to Remus in confusion. "I thought you meant that this is a dream, and before was reality."

Remus shook his head. "No, Sirius is right. There was never reality. Before it was also a dream. Only it was someone else's dream."

"I said that?" Sirius frowned. "Wow."

"You did say that," Remus assured him. "Isn't that what the creator is? The first one who's ever dreamt of us?"

Snape folded his arms, scowling. "This bout of cheap poetry that seems to have infected the three of you will not help us solve this mystery. Lupin..." He insisted on the English pronunciation, with a daring tone. "It is your theory that the Observers are responsible for building new waves, is that it?"

"It's a speculation, not a theory."

"Wouldn't that mean that you need an Observer to build a wave?"

"I suppose so."

"How do you explain this wave, then?"

Remus shrugged. "I don't."

"Maybe that's what Source was talking about when she called us messengers," Harry suggested. "She said we were subverting things. I didn't understand a word then, but..."

"What are you babbling about, Potter?" said Severus. "I arranged Lupin's meeting with Firenze, I planned it all. If you were anyone's messengers, it was mine."

Harry gazed down at his teacup, which was still full. His finger traced the outline of the handle as he murmured, "Unless you were a messenger too."

The concept clearly didn't please Severus. "From whom?!"

"From one of the Observers, of course. The power behind this fate."

"The power...? Potter, no Observer has ever talked to me. I chose to..."

"There are no choices. Just fate. Lots and lots of fates."

Remus smiled proudly at the one who had been his favourite student.

Severus' reaction was not so positive, though. To judge by the increasing tension on his face, he had comprehended what Harry's words implied. "No one. Controls. Me."

There was so much certainty in Severus' voice that Remus had to wonder if somehow the potions master was special, immune to the powers that commanded fate. Who knew, maybe even the Observers had trouble figuring him out.

Harry opened his mouth to say something, but gave up. Instead, he drank his tea in silence.

"You know what? I think I've dwelled on it enough," Sirius huffed, pulling his hair back. "Frankly, I've never cared much for metaphysics. If there's a zillion Observers out there dreaming of me, I just hope those dreams are hot. Or wet. Or both." When he noticed the mortified look his godson was giving him, he amended, "I did not just say that."

To Remus' amazement, Severus missed the opportunity to send Sirius another wicked retort. He guessed the potions master must be really troubled by the conversation.

Finishing his tea, Sirius stood up. "It's getting late. We'll continue this mystifying discussion some other day, all right?"

"Is it so hard for you to pay attention, Black?" Severus snapped. "Our memories from the previous wave are fading. We might not remember it at all by tomorrow."

"Then it's quite pointless to discuss it now anyway," Sirius replied matter-of-factly, "if by tomorrow you won't even remember what the hell you were talking about here. Come on, Harry. Time to go home."

Harry practically jumped in his chair. "Home?"

"Yeah."

"You and I?"

"Yeah."

"Together?"

"Yeah!"

A dozen emotions seemed to be fighting for control of Harry's face now: surprise, hope, relief, suspicion, fear, happiness, confusion, shock... "You mean... number 12, Grimmauld Place?"

"No! Are you nuts? Number 4, Privet Drive, of course."

"What?!"

Sirius half-smiled, half-frowned at the boy. "I suppose that was different in that other dimension too? Well, you should remember it now, right? The settlement?"

The battle on Harry's face was over. Joy had won. "You're free."

"Since February," Sirius confirmed it. "I was denied your custody, though. So we worked out a settlement. I keep you at your aunt's, pay the rent, attend counselling, and the Ministry lets me take care of you."

"I remember," Harry murmured, his voice unstable, his eyes glistening.

And so remembered Remus. In fact, he had been one of the mediators in those months of bitter, harsh, and sometimes shifty negotiations to get all the people involved to agree. And he wasn't the only one at that table that could have said that. "You helped," he told Severus.

The potions master shook his head, as if trying to deny a pernicious accusation. "Why in Morgana's name would I have helped with that?"

Immensely amused, Remus shrugged. "I thought you didn't wish to be defined?"

That was when the werewolf learned that Severus' out-of-the-corner-of-the-eye glances could be just as viperous as his full-impact stares.

But Harry was too curious to care. "Why did you, anyway? Hm, sir?"

Remus could tell the precise instant Severus recalled his motivation back then: his jaw relaxed, his head rose with more confidence, and his black eyes glinted enigmatically.

"I had my reasons," Severus said succinctly, standing up.

"But..." Harry still tried.

The potions master wouldn't give him any chance, though. "I must leave now, see if at least Hogwarts remains where I left it." He was at the door by the end of the sentence.

"I thought you wanted us all to stay and talk some more," teased Sirius. "Didn't you just say that?"

Severus stopped, turned back, looked straight at Sirius... then shifted his attention to Remus. "How far does your Anti-Apparition ward go?"

"All the way down to the lagoon. Would you like me to walk you down the hill, in case Buckbeak is still around?"

"Do not concern yourself with me, Lupin." With that, he left the house.

Remus had to smile. Severus had used the French pronunciation this time, apparently unaware of having done so.

"What a charming personality," Harry muttered. "Has he always been like this?"

"Mostly, yes," said Remus, smirking at the new memories the boy's question had prompted. "Not so darkly impressive a sight when he was fourteen and wore bright green Quidditch robes, but just as captivating."

"You should have seen him in his baby-blue nightshirts when he was eleven, if you want non-impressive," Sirius snorted, making to the door as well. "I'd better make sure he doesn't meet Buckbeak on his way out. Harry, we leave when I come back. If you need to use the loo, do it now; we're not stopping until we're back in Little Whinging."

That left Remus and Harry alone in the kitchen, sitting at the table, playing distractedly with their teacups.

"This was a really weird day," said Harry at last.

"The weirdest, I dare say," Remus laughed. "But a good one, all things considered."

"You reckon we'll end up forgetting everything from, you know, before?"

"Your guess is just as good as mine, Harry."

"I'm not sure I want to forget," the boy sighed. "I mean... it was horrible to remember Sirius dying when he was dead and there was nothing I could do except regret all the stuff I... all the things I hadn't... You know. But now he is back. And not only that, it's also like he was never gone! And if he was never gone..."

"...you're afraid you won't remember to do the things you regretted not having done?"

Harry nodded, with downcast eyes.

Remus wished he could say something to reassure the boy that it wouldn't happen, but the fact was that he didn't know either. On the other hand... "I made you a promise today. I told you I was going to take you and your godfather to visit your parents' graves. Do you remember that?"

"Yes."

"Clearly?"

"Crystal." But then Harry hesitated. "Well, no. I remember the words. But if you ask me where we were, it's all a blur now."

"That doesn't matter. You still have my promise."

Harry raised his eyes and presented Remus with a small but grateful smile.

"Second door to the left," said Remus.

"What?"

"The toilet. It is getting late, and I want you safely back at your aunt's before sunset. You asked me to give you and Sirius credit because you had a safe itinerary to come here. Well, I won't think much of either of you if you don't have a safe itinerary back. And a safe itinerary should not include unnecessary stops."

Harry rolled his eyes and got to his feet. "If after all we've been through, something awful happens to either me or Sirius just because we stopped to piss, then I must say this fate's sense of humour isn't twisted; it's just really, really bad."

He complied, nonetheless.

Until Sirius returned and managed to convince Remus that Severus had Apparated away without any other incidents involving Hippogriffs or wizard pranksters, and until Remus had convinced Sirius to follow his own advice and empty his bladder of the three bottles of butterbeer and two cupfuls of tea he had drunk before the trip back to England, and until Sirius had properly admonished Remus for, one, addressing him as if he were a kid, and two, having washed the cups and saucers while no one was looking when he had been strictly forbidden to do any domestic chores that day, Harry had considerable time to search for Crookshanks.

"I don't understand, I can't find him anywhere," he moaned, looking helplessly around the living room.

"Don't worry, Harry, I'll make sure Hermione gets him back," Remus soothed him.

"It's too much trouble for you," Harry argued. "Sirius and I can stop at Hermione's on our way back."

"You will do no such thing! Stopping at Hermione's wasn't part of your safe itinerary, was it? I'll take care of sending Crookshanks home."

Harry still looked a bit concerned. "You're sure?"

"Positive." Then, turning to Sirius, Remus added, "You'd better take Harry straight home, Padfoot. No detours."

"Don't you worry, Moony. Well, I can't promise you anything about the detours; we've planned some precisely to guarantee his safety. I do promise you that we'll stick to the plan, no stops for entertainment or anything non-vital."

The werewolf arched an eyebrow. "I think I remember you telling me — stating flatly, actually — that entertainment is vital." A bitter conversation at the Blacks' house in Grimmauld Place, about a year before. Another crystal clear memory.

Sirius grimaced. "You're taking my words out of context. Context is important, haven't you heard?"

Remus chuckled and pulled the other into a tight hug, which was returned with fond enthusiasm.

On a sudden impulse, Remus kissed his friend's cheek. Sirius didn't seem surprised at that, and the gesture felt familiar, if not entirely ordinary. Harry gave them an odd look, as a male English teenager was bound to do; hopefully, he would blame his former teacher's nationality and not think too much of it. The truth, however, was that Remus had sensed the wolf's urge to lick its dearest packmate's face, and the kiss was the most reasonable compromise he could find.

"Take care, Moony," said Sirius. "Call if you need anything."

"I will." Ending the hug, Remus turned to Harry.

"Well... goodbye, Professor," said the boy, stretching his arm for a handshake.

Remus stared down at the proffered hand, caught in a strange sense of déjà-vu. He didn't take it. Instead he looked up into Harry's eyes, and found echoes of his own confusion there.

"This isn't right..." Harry withdrew the hand, smiled bashfully, and gave a timid step forward.

Remus went to his rescue and met him halfway, wrapping him in a warm embrace. "Thank you, Harry."

"No, thank you," the boy croaked.

Positively, it had been a weird, good day, all things considered.

Sirius was at the door, peering outside as he put on his biker jacket. "Hmm... Getting cloudy to the west. We might find a bit of rain on our way back." He handed Harry another jacket, and stepped outside.

Harry followed him, but halted as soon as he saw the enormous motorbike parked on the gravel path. "Whoa..."

Remus gritted his teeth, remembering. "You two came in that thing..."

"Yeah, I'm cooler than I thought," said Harry. He examined the jacket in his hands — made of black leather with red-padded shoulders with a golden diagonal zipper closing the front. "A lot cooler than I thought."

That stirred something in the back of Remus' mind. Something about clothes and colours...? "Ah! Of course!" Pulling out his wand, Remus pointed it at Sirius' back, drawing a tiny circle in the air. "Circuspinxi."

Red polka dots started erupting all over the back of Sirius' clothes.

Harry had to bite his hand not to chortle.

Sirius stopped and turned to them with a questioning look, and Remus saw with delight that the charm had worked just as he had intended it, re-colouring only the sections of fabric that Sirius couldn't see without a mirror. Hopefully, he'd only notice the dots by the time he got home and undressed...

If Harry didn't give his little prank away, of course.

"Harry, what's wrong?" asked Sirius. "You look a little purple..."

Remus braced himself, sure that the boy would burst into laughter and snitch on him.

Well, he did burst into laughter. "Have I mentioned I'm very, very happy that you're back?" he asked his godfather.

Sirius grinned, a bit embarrassed. "Come on, we should go." With a final wave to Remus, he got on his motorbike.

"Nice recover," Remus whispered to Harry.

"I thought there was no fun in simple tricks between the two of you any more..."

"There is now that I know he's not expecting it."

"But now I have to ride all the way back to England looking at those dots on his back!"

"If my memory doesn't fail me, you were the one who suggested I should charm my robes orange, so I feel perfectly vindicated now."

"Sure, that you still remember..." Harry muttered. But his smile was broad and mirthful.

At his godfather's impatient call, the boy ran to climb on the back of the motorbike. The sound of the roaring engine brought a hundred memory fragments to Remus' mind — some sweet, some funny, some gloomy and bitter. When the machine jerked forward and Harry had to hold on to Sirius' jacket not to fall, Remus grinned, knowing exactly how that felt. When they took off and Harry let out an excited cry of triumph, the werewolf's heart rose to the skies with them.

Only when the motorbike was completely out of sight did Remus go back into the house, immediately starting the search for Crookshanks.

But the more he looked for Crookshanks, the more he found out about Remus Lupin. Every door he opened brought brand-new memories, every object he found taught him more about his new past, every hour that passed made it harder to remember how things had been in that other fate, the one he and Harry had left behind.

The experience was thrilling but also exhausting, and the Change the night before still took its toll. He found himself returning to the comfort of his old bed much earlier than he would have on a normal day, his head spinning with so much information.

As he gazed idly at the ceiling of his bedroom, he noticed that if he turned his head just a little bit to the left, the cracks on the stucco looked somewhat like the head of a smiling cat. Well, not exactly, it was a bit too square for a proper head... Maybe it was because he had been thinking of Crookshanks before? Hmm, but while had he been thinking of Hermione's pet cat?

Oh well, it didn't matter. If it was important, it would come back to him when he woke up.

In all honesty, Harry liked flying on a broom better. Quidditch brooms were considerably more manoeuvrable than Sirius' motorbike, the in-built Cushioning Charms made them more comfortable and, more to the point, Harry could ride them himself, whilst Sirius — the boy easily remembered now — was not very enthused by the idea of letting Harry take the handlebars. Too young, his godfather kept claiming. An argument the boy found indefensible, considering Sirius had been only a few months older when he built the bike and started flying it himself... But the guy wouldn't budge from his decision, and Harry had decided to wait until he was in fact older than Sirius had been then to start making his case more firmly.

Because, despite liking brooms better, he really, really wanted to ride the flying motorbike someday. In a straight line, she was much faster than his Firebolt, the roar of the engine made him feel like all his molecules were vibrating in excitement, and the fact that she was harder to control only meant she would be more thrilling a challenge. He closed his eyes, imagining himself holding the handlebars, nothing but clear sky ahead of him, nobody but himself on the bike...

...and he immediately opened his eyes again, wrapping his arms tightly around Sirius' waist, making sure he was still there. He did not want to imagine being alone again.

Sirius glanced backwards, then pulled his wand out to cast a quick spell; the noise of the engine subsided, and the wind, although still blowing fiercely against their faces, stopped thundering in their ears. "Want to talk?" he asked gently.

Harry felt his cheeks burning and loosened his grip on Sirius a little bit. Just a little bit. "It's okay. I'm fine."

"Promise?"

"Yeah."

"Cross your heart and hope to die?"

Harry cringed. "Er... Can we leave the second part out?"

Sirius let out a chuckle, taking one hand off the handlebar to pet the arm Harry had around his waist. "Sure, puppy."

Puppy. The affectionate and yet unbearably embarrassing nickname Sirius sometimes called him by — thankfully never in front of anybody else. Harry bit his lower lip, at one time happy and mortified as the new memories connected to that name slipped into his mind. "You reckon Snape will succeed in making a potion that will give wizards the Centaurs' ability to see the future?" he asked abruptly, eager to change the subject.

"I doubt that's what he's trying to accomplish."

"But he said..."

"Centaurs don't exactly see the future, Harry. Neither do Seers, as a matter of fact."

"What do you mean, they don't? You don't believe in Divination? But Firenze and Trelawney..."

"Oh, they see things," Sirius assured him. "Centaurs see the subtle patterns of the universe and have a deep understanding of its tides and changes. And Seers have the talent to momentarily tap into that knowledge somehow, and foresee the most likely developments in the short run. That's why I've always thought we should refer to it as Clairvoyance — clear seeing — instead of Divination."

"Uh... How is that different from seeing the future?"

Sirius thought about it for a moment. "Hmmm... Tell me if this makes sense to you. Imagine you see a Seeker on a Nimbus broom performing a Sloth Grip Roll forty meters above the ground and flying at full speed toward the hoops. Then you see an opposing Beater — a really skilled one — positioned between the hoops, only ten feet high. And then you see a Bludger flying toward that Beater. The Keeper is outside the scoring area, and the other players are all at the other side of the pitch. What do you think it's going to happen, Harry?"

"The Beater will hit the Bludger and knock down the Seeker," said Harry with certainty.

"How can you tell?"

"In the Sloth Grip position, the Seeker would have his back to the Beater. He'll never see him, or the Bludger, in time to dodge."

"Maybe he'll reverse the roll before he gets to the hoops," Sirius suggested.

"At full speed? Only if he's eager to crash against the hoops. Maybe with a Firebolt he could, but the Nimbus 2000 and 2001 aren't easy to reverse, and Hooch told me once that all the Nimbus series were like that. The roll leaves you a bit disoriented for a couple of seconds, so anyone with half a brain would wait to roll back past the hoops, and then it would be too late." Harry eyed his godfather suspiciously. "I think I know where you're going, but I'm not making a prediction. Just using logic."

"Exactly."

"But..."

"You reckon Hermione would have got to the same conclusion if I had asked her the same question?"

Harry's eyebrows knitted together. "I don't know."

"You said you were just using logic, and Hermione is a bright kid."

"She's the brightest, but... Ever heard of her talking about how in the World Cup Victor Krum did a 'Wonky Faint'?"

Sirius snickered. "Well, that's a move that would definitely disconcert the adversary..."

"Maybe we should have Hermione giving Quidditch tips to the other House teams," Harry laughed.

Sirius turned his head back to give Harry an amused look. "You'd have made a fine Slytherin, Harry."

The boy opened his mouth to protest, but the man's voice had not carried any sign of reproach or malice. On the contrary, Sirius sounded almost... proud.

"Oh my... You were in Slytherin!" Harry cried.

"Yes, yes... Didn't we have this conversation already?"

They had, months before, but only now did that particular memory find its niche in Harry's mind. "That's how you know Snape wore baby-blue nightshirts when he was eleven. You were his roommate."

"And you ask me why I don't think being a guest at the Dursleys' is that bad a deal..." Sirius sighed, bringing his eyes back to their path just in time to avoid entering a cloud. "Anyway. You were saying you don't reckon Hermione, despite all her intelligence, would be able to predict what would happen to our fictitious Seeker."

"Right."

"Because there are details about the situation she's not aware of, or doesn't understand."

"Right."

"But you do. And you don't need to be given more than a glimpse of the situation to tell what is going to happen."

"Well... yeah, I suppose."

"That's what Centaurs do, Harry. They've been studying Life for so long, and passed their knowledge along generations... and all that knowledge gives them the insight to guess what's likely to happen with some accuracy."

"So they might get it wrong sometimes?"

"Remember our fictitious Seeker?" asked Sirius. "I'm sorry to break it up to you, but he won't be hit by the Bludger after all."

"No?"

"No, because what you don't know — since I never mentioned it — was that this morning the Seeker's girlfriend found out the bloke is dating her best friend. She's furious, she's vindictive, and she doesn't care that much about Quidditch. So, unaware that the Bludger is about to do her job for her, she chooses that moment to hex her boyfriend from the stands."

"What kind of hex?"

"A Stinging Hex, right on his left buttock. The poor fellow yelps, loses concentration, lets go of his broom, falls on top of the Beater, and the two crash-land in a mess of limbs and broken bones. But the Bludger never hits any of them."

"Please tell me this was not a true story about my parents..." Harry moaned.

Sirius let out a loud chuckle. "Don't worry, it's not. Well, it is a true story, but I promise you, Jamie and Lily were not involved. I was the unfortunate Beater, though. "

"Ouch! Were you hurt?"

"Two ribs and one leg broken. Nothing serious. I was back in one piece in time for the next game. More importantly, did you get my point?"

"That Centaurs can't see everything, and some little detail they're not taking in consideration might screw up with their predictions? I suppose so. But what about Seers?"

"Seers are a big mystery, in the sense that nobody knows how those insights come to them. I mean, there are lots of theories out there. Some have been discredited when it was revealed that they were based on studies made on charlatans posing as Seers — lots and lots of them running around, I'm afraid. I'm far from being an authority on the subject; I ended up learning a lot about Centaurs in Hogwarts, not always through the ordinary channels, but I skipped Divination. Went with Muggle Studies instead. But as far as I know, a Seer's vision is just as inexact as the Centaurs', for the same reasons. They have a brief glimpse of something deep and huge, and make their own assumptions. It doesn't mean there aren't hidden elements the Seer failed to notice, or that one tiny little change won't affect the whole puzzle and take things to a completely different path. And the longer it takes for the prophecy to be fulfilled, the more unforeseen elements you'll have to mess your prediction up."

"But then... the prophecy in the sphere..."

"What prophecy?"

What prophecy, indeed? Harry had made the question thinking of a spun-glass ball that had got smashed in... where? There was something in it, something about Voldemort, and... and...

The boy pressed his fingers against his temples, willing the blurry images to focus. But it felt like trying to grasp the vague fragments of a dream in the morning light; striving seemed to result only in driving the memory farther away.

Sirius looked back at his godson. "Harry?"

"I don't know. I forgot."

"Something from the other wave?"

"Must be."

"Hope it was nothing you'll miss in this one."

"I don't think I will, no." Harry actually felt better now, lighter, although he couldn't really explain why.

"Good," said Sirius. After a moment, he added, "I wonder how much you'll miss."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know how things were where you came from, but you really didn't end up in the best of all possible worlds. There's a war upon us."

"That didn't change," Harry told him.

"Voldemort is back..."

"Yes."

"...and he wants you dead."

"More old news."

"He has the Dementors on his side now."

"Uh-huh..."

"The Ministry hasn't been exactly helpful..."

Harry frowned at that one. Hadn't that particular obstacle already been conquered?

"...and things will get much uglier yet if the forecasts are correct and Lucius Malfoy becomes the new Minister for Magic."

"Malfoy?!" Harry gasped.

"There's talk of decriminalising the Segregationist party, the Integralists are weakened and divided..."

"Er..."

"...and there's so much bottled anger against the Muggles in the wizarding population that I'm afraid one little spark will be enough to cause a massive explosion."

"Really?"

"Not to mention that Remus is a werewolf, your godfather is certifiable, and your parents..." He shook his head. "Snape is right."

Harry winced. "You know what? This wave is scary. You are saying that Snape is right?"

"Well, not to his face," Sirius scowled, as if the idea revolted him.

Still, it was disturbing. "What do you think he's right about?"

"You and Remus should have thought of the greater good. I don't mean to sound ungrateful... Really, I don't. But... since you and Remus got to pick a new reality — or a new dream — to live in, couldn't you have picked one where everything is all right and no one has to suffer?"

"Erm... I don't think we really got to pick this wave. Not the whole thing, anyway. We..." Feeling the sting of tears under his eyelids again, Harry leaned closer to his godfather, resting his chin on the man's shoulder. "We only got to pick the one thing we couldn't afford to be without."

He heard Sirius let out a huff of air — a sigh? a chuckle? a sob? Impossible to tell. "Sounds like a tremendously exorbitant effort, rebuilding the past just because of one half-crazed person..."

"Are you kidding? We have you here! Alive! Safe!" He smiled at the sky road ahead, not at all bothered by the sight of rainy clouds in their path. "Honestly, for some of us, that's what makes all the difference."

~ finis ~