Insomniac

Chapter Three

It's bizarre, isn't it?" Draco whispered to Pansy. They were on the stairs watching Narcissa weave her way into the kitchen. A moment later they heard a padding noise behind them as Kreacher came up the stairs muttering. "And he's certainly not any better," he added, jerking his thumb at the house-elf. Pansy pursed her lips.

"Does Professor Snape come over here often?" she asked.

"He's been here before, yes, but usually to talk to my father. They're old friends," he added somewhat proudly.

"Right," said Pansy. "Why do you think he's here now?"

"I suppose to talk to Mum," Draco mused.

"Kiddies, what are you doing on the stairs?" a voice behind them demanded. Bellatrix was standing a few steps above them twirling her wand in one hand like a baton, holding a bottle of sherry by the neck in the other, her bright blue knitting hovering a few feet behind her.

"Nothing," said Draco at the same time Pansy said, "Nothing, Mrs. Lestrange."

Bellatrix laughed. "Mrs. Lestrange. Honestly. Call me Bellatrix. Isn't that much prettier than Mrs. Lestrange? Mrs. Lestrange sounds like an ugly old hag. Isn't that right? Severus! Want some sherry?" she demanded, coming all the way down the stairs and down the hall to the kitchen, trailed by her knitting.

"No, thank you, Bellatrix," they heard Snape say.

"I can't imagine him drinking sherry anyway," Pansy whispered. Draco smiled.

"I wonder what they're talking about," he wondered a moment later.

"Oh, I suspect just things like How is your summer going and Do you think Mr. Malfoy will be home soon," Pansy said. Beside her Draco sighed a little. "I do think he'll be home soon," she informed him, though truthfully she had no idea. She had met Draco's father many times, but was thoroughly afraid of him, even more than she had been of Professor Snape during their entire first year. She knew Draco's father worked for You-Know-Who, and that he was in Azkaban because of his dealings with him.

"Yes, well," said Draco. Pansy looked up at him anxiously, but he didn't say anything else.

:::

Forty very long minutes later, Narcissa had sobered up some and Bellatrix was slightly more drunk. Even her knitting was becoming more sloppy. Snape had been able to extract from Narcissa's mind a vision of Harry - asleep? - upstairs in the Malfoys' attic. His first instinct had been to make some excuse to go up there, but logic got the better of that idea. He'd also heard Bellatrix saying to Narcissa Thursday night, in regards to the Dark Lord, and he knew that that was when they would bring Harry to him. Part of him was deeply unnerved by the fact that Bellatrix hadn't told him Harry was there, even though he knew there were more secrets among Death Eaters than there were common truths.

As he made to leave, Draco and Pansy came back into the kitchen. "Mum, we're going to Theodore Nott's house," Draco announced. Snape noticed that there was a strange sort of brightness in his eyes, a sharp contrast to the dark circles under them.

"All right," said Narcissa absently. "Are you going to Floo?"

"Yep," said Draco, and he made his way over to the fireplace. Pansy was looking at him rather warily. Draco was rubbing his fingers together and sniffing. Snape's eyebrows came together, but before he could think about it very much more, Draco had Flooed out to the Notts' (Theodore must be alone, he thought, as his father was also in Azkaban) and Pansy, after a brief wave to the rest of the room, Flooed out after him.

"I'll come and see you again soon, Narcissa," Snape said as he took a fistful of the shimmering green powder from the jar on the mantle.

"Yes, I suppose you will," said Bellatrix.

"Oh!" Narcissa said to Bellatrix as Snape was about to throw the Floo powder in, "we ought to go to Grimmauld Place today."

"We ought to indeed," Bellatrix agreed.

"What's at Grimmauld Place?" Snape asked, turning around in the fireplace.

"Oh, that was my cousin Sirius's house, I'm sure you knew that," Narcissa said. "All the old family heirlooms are there. As he's, well, not a bother anymore," (here Bellatrix snickered) "the Ministry's lifted all the wards on it. It's Bella's house now; I checked myself yesterday. The deed's been transferred to her name. We need to go over there to clear it out and see if we can find anything of value - there's some wonderful fifteenth-century silver there, I know, and my aunt and uncle had a wonderful collection of Dark Arts materials."

"But most importantly," Bellatrix interrupted with a large smile, "Kreacher's told us that it's the headquarters to the Order. They've cleared out, he says, but there must be some interesting finds."

"Let us hope so," Snape replied. Some of the Floo powder sprinkled from his fist to the floor, and Bellatrix began levitating it with her wand, watching it glitter in the light from the window.

"Yes," Narcissa agreed, putting one hand on Snape's arm, "Kreacher's been quite useful to us."

"So I've heard," said Snape, and with a sudden flash of green fire he vanished. Bellatrix took another sip of sherry, allowing the Floo powder to drift to the floor.

"Twitchy little man, isn't he?" she said with a grin.

"Bellatrix, you cannot eat him," Narcissa said severely. She pointed her wand at the teacups in the sink. "Scourgify." With a small clinking noise they began to wash themselves.

"Oh, but he looks so delicious," Bellatrix laughed. Narcissa sighed.

:::

"I'll be there as soon as I can," Bill Weasley's voice said, echoing faintly through the empty classroom in which Remus was sitting.

"Good," Remus replied. "I'll see you then." With a tap of his wand, the faint purple glow on the end of it faded. He'd been using his wand for over an hour in an attempt to reach everyone in the Order, and it had been slow going. Their reactions had had quite a range: Some of them were resigned, not surprised; some of them panicked (Molly Weasley among them); and some of them were simply infuriated. Remus found himself the target of more questions than he knew how to answer; Mad-Eye Moody, though he said he believed Remus had done what he could, still had a menacing edge to his voice that sent a nervous chill down Remus's spine. He instructed everyone he spoke to to be at Hogwarts as soon as possible, and Molly, please leave Ron, Hermione and Ginny at home. Molly had Flooed in only ten minutes later, in shrill, lioness-like pursuit of Remus, and it was only after he assured her that they had some idea of how they were going to rescue Harry that she calmed down enough to have a cup of tea. Minerva McGonagall was with her now; he imagined that the pair were pacing the Transfiguration corridor wringing their hands, as neither one of them was at her best in a crisis.

He was on his third cigarette by the time he finished notifying the Order; finding each member individually was time-consuming, and their questions had seemed endless. He sat for a few minutes in the empty classroom and smoked two more cigarettes in a row before getting up to find Dumbledore. Quitting smoking was at the bottom of the to-do list until Harry was found and Remus's heartbeat returned to a normal rhythm. The thought of quitting had been vaguely on his mind for nearly as long as he'd been smoking (which was a very long time) and he'd decided in May, for the third time that year, that he really needed to stop. And then the last ten days had happened; Remus found that now the simple act of smoking gave him at least one reason to get out of bed in the morning, no matter what a vice it was. Blackened lungs, he thought, were a fairly small price to pay.

Dumbledore had looked closely at Remus and suggested he go home for a while and get some rest, and to come back in a few hours' time. Remus wondered whether Dumbledore knew where Remus was still staying, but he Flooed over to Grimmauld Place with no intention whatsoever of resting. He knew the wards were being lifted, and that he was a squatter in the house and that it was no longer Unplottable, and that he needed to be looking for a new place to host the Order. Instead he sat at the top of the stairs resting his head against the wall, watching the dust sparkle in the dull light, smoking, hearing Sirius's voice in his head saying Moony, I'm bored, and Moony, I hate this place and Moony, today's James's birthday.

So it is, Remus had replied - this was May - He would have been thirty-six.

Moony, I feel old, Sirius had said. I feel old.

Sirius had spent much of that day shut up in his bedroom with a radio he'd charmed to play Pink Floyd. Remus had been downstairs in the kitchen, listening to the lyrics float down three flights to his ears, wondering if he ought to see how Sirius was faring. (When the music became too loud, it woke the portraits on the walls, and Remus would sigh and trudge up the stairs and struggle to close the hangings around Mrs. Black, and he would hear nothing over the sound of her shrieking and screaming but How I wish, how I wish you were here.)

In truth, Sirius's dramatic and sudden return to his life hadn't been what either of them had hoped it would be. The shock and pain of the night Lily and James had been killed came back to him every time he saw Sirius, at first, and he was reminded over and over of how he had come to believe Sirius to be the Order's mole and that he had killed his two best friends before going mad. Hogwarts suddenly had seemed like a dream, and he found himself poring over old photographs and sinking into old memories, searching for clues that had to have been there all along.

He was so immersed in the memory of James's last birthday, the way Sirius had sighed and said I miss him, I miss all of them, I miss IT in that plaintive Azkaban voice, that he didn't hear the footsteps downstairs getting closer until another voice he knew all too well snapped, "What the hell are you doing here?"

He jumped. Snape was standing at the bottom of the stairs looking tired and annoyed.

"Oh - I was - Dumbledore told me to - "

"I don't care, we have to clear this place out. The wards have been lifted, Bellatrix and Narcissa are going to be coming sometime today."

"Oh," said Remus absently. Snape was going up the stairs.

"Is anything else here that belonged to the Order?" he was asking. He had to repeat himself, irritably, before Remus really heard him.

"Oh," he said. "Um, I think just my things. And Sirius's."

"Why are your things here?" Snape stopped at the top of the stairs. "Wait. You're not still living in this hole, are you?"

Remus nodded. Snape could almost see him physically melting into an abject puddle of self-pity and gloom.

"Why?" he demanded.

Remus looked up at him and put a cigarette in his mouth. "Because I live here," he said around it. His wand glowed momentarily as he lit it.

Snape stared at him for a moment. "Well, you can't anymore," he said shortly, continuing down the hall. "Where are all these things you said were here?"

"Upstairs," Remus called miserably. Snape stopped and turned around.

"That's a rather vague answer, Lupin," he said in annoyance.

"'M sorry," Remus sighed, and he hauled himself to his feet. "Come on. They're up here."

Remus led him to Sirius's bedroom, which was directly above the one Molly and Arthur Weasley had occupied during the summer, and across the hall from Remus's own. Snape's face took on a distinctly predatory glow when they came into the room.

"You don't touch anything," Remus said, glaring at him.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Snape replied icily, sitting down on the bed and looking around the room. It was sparsely furnished, with only a bed, a dresser, and a few books on a chair beside the bed. The Catcher in the Rye, Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, The Brothers Karamazov. He raised an eyebrow. Muggle literature.

For several minutes Remus, who found a large canvas bag under the bed, used summoning charms to empty the contents of the dresser into the bag. He was very aware of the fact that Snape was watching him do this. One thing that hadn't changed about Snape was his infuriating habit of staring at everyone. It didn't help that Remus knew how good he was at Legilimency; eye contact with this man was something he continually avoided, as he never knew if Snape was digging for future ammunition.

Sirius hadn't kept a lot in the dresser, and Remus was relieved when the task was complete; he managed to clean out the room without dwelling too much on what it was he was packing, and why, and trying not to wonder where he would be spending the night. And the next night. And - he closed his eyes tightly and opened them. Snape was still looking at him.

"All right, everything's clear," Remus said. "Including the hippogriff," he added, half to himself; Buckbeak had been flown up to Hogwarts only the day before, leaving the house even more barren. Remus didn't like hippogriffs very much, but even the sound of stamping hooves and crunching bones was a welcome distraction from the endless silence that had engulfed the house.

Snape held out the three books. "You forgot these," he said.

Remus glared at him and snatched the books away, shoving them into the bag. Snape got up. "So this was the famous Sirius Black's bedroom," he observed. Remus could tell he was preparing himself for a long and sarcastic soliloquy entitled How the Mighty Have Fallen.

"Yes, it was," Remus said shortly, and he went across the hall into his own room. Snape stayed in Sirius's room, staring around.

"Listen, you can go back to Hogwarts," Remus called as he emptied his own belongings into another large bag. Snape appeared in the doorway and leaned against the wall. He folded his arms.

"No," he said, "if Bellatrix and Narcissa arrive I can tell them I found you here keening and wailing over Black's old toys. If they come and you're here alone, you likely wouldn't have a prayer."

Remus glared at him and bit down a retort. Wordlessly he continued Summoning his belongings out of drawers and cupboards.

Snape observed the entire proceedings as though he were going to give Remus a mark, and a few minutes later he followed as Remus levitated the two bags ahead of them down the stairs to the kitchen. While Snape talked to Dumbledore using the Order's wand connection, Remus began clearing out the kitchen. He came out of the pantry holding a bag of potatoes and an armful of cans to see Snape standing up and muttering to himself.

"Oh, very effective blood protection charm, sir," he was saying sarcastically, eyeing his wand ominously. "Potter seems perfectly safe to me."

"What did Dumbledore say?" Remus asked, setting the food down on the table.

"He said, first, that you're to come back to Hogwarts and stay there for now - " Remus began to protest, but Snape ignored him - "second, that he believes Potter to be as safe as he can be for now, and third, that Alastor Moody is already there and they've been working on finding some sort of plan for getting Potter back." He sounded as though all of this was dreadfully tiresome news.

"I'm not going to stay at Hogwarts as a charity case," Remus said indignantly.

"Why on earth not? Nothing stopped you before," said Snape viciously. "Why aren't you cleaning this out with magic?" He waved his wand and said "Accio!" and instantly the contents of the pantry came soaring over to the table. "You make things so difficult, Lupin. Really."

"Shut up," Remus snapped. Snape raised an eyebrow. "I was actually going through the food, to see what was still good, and what we should throw away."

"Hm," said Snape. Remus glared at him, but he didn't look back.

There was a lengthy silence in which Remus opened the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen to make sure everything had been cleared out. They were almost ready to leave when he said, "What did you find out at the Malfoys'?"

"Potter's there," Snape replied from inside the pantry.

"He is?" Remus exclaimed, dropping a can of peas onto the table in surprise. "What happened? What did they tell you?"

"They didn't tell me anything," said Snape somewhat sourly, coming out of the pantry and dropping into a chair at the table. "Bellatrix is there, first off."

"Yeah - you mentioned her," said Remus, inwardly wondering how he hadn't said anything at all about Snape's mentions of Bellatrix.

"Apparently Bellatrix was the one who snatched him from under your nose, and - "

"She did not snatch - " Remus began, starting forward.

"And she took him to the Malfoys'," Snape continued as though Remus hadn't said a word. "I expect they're all having a fine time together." He looked as if the idea of Harry being at the Malfoys' was, instead of heralding what could be the end of the Wizarding World they were both working so hard to protect, merely very amusing.

"I cannot believe you," Remus exclaimed, and he wanted to shout How dare you! and You know NOTHING! and Sometimes I think you deserved it, you know.

Snape looked up, crossing his arms. "What?" he drawled.

There was a long silence. Remus took a long, deep breath.

"Potter is at the Malfoys', he is Stunned and in their attic under an Invisibility cloak, and he will be taken to the Dark Lord on Thursday," Snape informed him.

:::

The Order was assembled at five-thirty that evening, after Remus had been subjected to an hour of grilling from Alastor Moody. Remus had told his story three times in whole, but no one was satisfied, and it was only when Minerva McGonagall remarked to Dumbledore that Remus looked very tired that the questioning stopped and Remus was allowed a cup of tea and a cigarette.

"I've arranged for you to stay in Gryffindor Tower," McGonagall said, sitting down beside Remus in a corner of Dumbledore's study. Moody and Dumbledore were conjuring rows of wooden chairs for when the Order would be Flooing in. "Your things, and Sirius's, are already there."

"Thank you," said Remus hollowly. He didn't think he could bear to tell her that Gryffindor Tower was the last place in which he wanted, or would be able, to sleep.

"And, Remus, I thought I should let you know that Albus prefers people to not smoke in his office," McGonagall added gently. Remus tried not to sigh.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, putting it out on the ashtray he'd Transfigured from a spare saucer. With a tap of his wand the cigarette vanished and the ashtray turned back into a saucer. "I'm trying to quit, you know," he added with a half-smile.

"It's a hard thing to do," she conceded. She patted his knee. "Well, please have something to eat before the meeting starts. You look exhausted."

"I am," he murmured, but she had already stood and didn't hear him.

The meeting lasted three hours, which was in Remus's opinion about three times as long as was necessary. Molly Weasley was evidently still quite angry with him, and to Remus's dismay he found that several other people rather agreed with her. It wasn't that they overtly said they blamed him, but - and he didn't think it was his paranoia - they behaved somewhat coolly toward him all night. He closed his eyes and listened as theory after theory was brought out and examined and searched and poked and prodded. Every now and then people would argue, and someone would say We need to do what's best for Harry here, and someone else would say That's what we're all trying to do. Dumbledore and Moody assigned different people to different tasks, and they talked endlessly about the moments in which Harry had been taken, and they asked Snape question after question about what he had seen at the Malfoys'. Some members were adamant that they needed to storm Malfoy Manor now, but the others insisted that they needed to move forward very cautiously so as to keep Harry safe. It was tiresome, and Remus found it difficult to concentrate.

Eventually, sometime during the third hour, he was aware that someone was repeating his name.

"Remus," said Dumbledore, for what was obviously not even the third or fourth time. "I asked you what you saw in the car as it was driving away."

"I told you, nothing," Remus said. "I think the person driving it was still under an Invisibility cloak, or Disillusioned. I didn't see anyone."

"That's not our central concern," Snape put in impatiently. Remus glared at him. It was clear that Snape was very happy to be so important right now, especially with Remus so shamed. "I saw myself that Potter was Stunned and that Bellatrix Lestrange took him." While he did not add from right under Lupin's nose, he gave Remus a significant, and very malicious, look.

"Were you able to see what kind of condition Harry was in?" Dumbledore asked. Remus was annoyed: Both Dumbledore and Moody has asked him this, more than once, and his answer of a flat No was clearly unsatisfying to them.

"No," Remus said emphatically. "I told you, no. I could see nothing."

"Very well," Dumbledore sighed, and Remus closed his eyes again, listening as the Order picked up the tired debate again. He knew he was not presenting himself in the best way that he could, but right now the only thoughts occurring to him had to do with the flat he'd lived in when he'd left Hogwarts two years ago - a tiny series of rooms in York, with a little cast-iron stove and a very comfortable bed. His only memories of York that year were of sleeping, and sleeping, and sleeping. He could not think of Harry, even though he wanted to. He had failed Harry utterly, not for the first time, and all he wanted right now were a cigarette and a long, dreamless night.

:::

By the time Moody and Dumbledore were through questioning him about his morning at the Malfoys', it was past midnight and Snape was tired. He'd been tired all day, of course, but despite his fatigue he knew lying down to actually sleep would be a fruitless endeavor. One of the several things the Order feared could happen this summer had occurred within the first thirty-six hours, and he was sitting in Dumbledore's office watching the Headmaster exchange glances with Moody and ask, again, "What did Bellatrix tell you?"

"She told me very little," he said, again. "She didn't tell me anything about any plot regarding Potter, which worries me, and she didn't tell me anything about what she and Pettigrew were doing, and I have the distinct impression that Kreacher may have given them some information that could compromise my position."

Dumbledore and Moody exchanged another glance and Snape sighed audibly. "Headmaster, I have told you everything I know at least three times. I fail to see the point in repeating myself further."

"Very well, Severus," said Dumbledore. "I think it would be best if you returned to Malfoy Manor in the morning to find out whatever else you can. Alastor is going there now to watch and make sure no one leaves the house. We've got a detector on their Floo already."

Snape raised his eyebrows as he watched Moody stump across the room to the Invisibility Cloak Remus had worn that morning. He was quite sure the detector on the Malfoys' Floo was illegal, and he was equally sure it was just a matter of time before the Malfoys realized they were being followed. He sometimes wondered if Dumbledore underestimated the Malfoys. Dumbledore was a skilled wizard with unrivaled power, but while Snape owed him much, he believed that there were others far more cunning.

"Are you sure that's safe, sir?" he asked carefully.

"Quite," Dumbledore replied. Snape was already familiar with the note of finality in his voice.

He felt half-asleep already by the time he closed the door to his rooms in the dungeons, but it wasn't a half-asleep that would actually allow him the luxury of real sleep. Thinking about this for a minute, he reckoned that the last time he'd had a decent night's sleep had been sometime in March, and before that it had been well before Christmas. And now, with Potter stolen and Dumbledore sure the Malfoys wouldn't do too much harm, he knew he wouldn't sleep well until at least fall term without employing one of the several sleeping potions he knew how to make.

That wasn't something he did often, having somewhat overdone it during his first few years teaching at Hogwarts (the first time in his life without the threat of death or worse-than-death over his head, and still he could not sleep) but the last several years had been trying ones. He'd grown accustomed to being tired, could function on two solid nights' sleeplessness, and could teach a class effectively even through a blinding headache.

Hardly thinking now, he went down the hall toward his office, passing a house-elf who squeaked when she saw him and ducked quickly behind a tapestry of a grazing unicorn. He opened the door, and as the torches came on he stopped short. Sirius Black was standing there, all of sixteen, staring at him.

For two full years after James had been killed he would see him standing there, always late at night when he wasn't sleeping. James would never do anything but stand and look at him, but it had been thoroughly unsettling. He'd never told anyone, and by the time he was twenty-four he only saw James on nights when he was truly exhausted, or resentful, or out of his mind.

"I suppose this means you're really gone," Snape said. They stared at one another for a few moments, and when Snape looked away Sirius vanished.

He stood there for a moment regaining his focus, and then he began to gather ingredients from his store cupboard - nothing too complicated, but a sleeping potion powerful enough that the students weren't allowed to make it. There was always a student every few years who learned, though, just like there were the students who learned to make love potions and slimming potions and to create chemicals over a cauldron that brought them such searing ecstasy it took a trip or two to St. Mungo's to clear out their minds. They were getting to be that age, now; for so many it started with sixth year, and seventh year turned out to be a waste of time and space.

They was the term he'd started using, five or six years ago now, for the students in Draco Malfoy's year. He'd stared without blinking at the class list for several minutes the year they were all due to start: Harry Potter, and Neville Longbottom, and Theodore Nott, and Vincent Crabbe, and Gregory Goyle, and Draco Malfoy - all in one class. True to his suspicions, each year with them was every bit as agonizing as he'd anticipated. By and large these children were doppelgangers of their fathers. Longbottom was an exception, though, as was Draco: Frank Longbottom had been just as Gryffindor-annoying as Neville but perhaps not as stupid; Draco Malfoy, of course, was no Lucius.

He was waiting for the valerian root and asphodel to brew when his mind settled on Sirius again. When Remus had told him what happened, he stood in shocked silence for a moment and then left the room. It still didn't seem real. He'd grown accustomed to a life without him during the twelve years Sirius had been in Azkaban, but once he'd got over the shock of his reappearance three years ago, he realized things weren't as different as he thought they might be. Still, it was strange to think that he would never have to see Sirius again, ever, though a small, logical part of him knew that this didn't change very many things. He was physically gone, yes, but he was never really going to leave.

Sleeping potions were deceitful things, he thought, returning some of his attention to his cauldron (the rest was sorting through his last memories of Sirius, and saying Never again). A sleeping potion would guarantee him one night's unconsciousness, one night free from restless dreams of small, dark rooms and endless oceans - but he hated that real, honest rest was so hard to find. He felt sometimes as though he had been awake for years.

When Snape left his office twenty minutes later the hallway was empty of house-elves and silent apart from the portrait of Copernicus muttering to himself. Sirius Black, however, was standing in Snape's room, staring toward the door.

:::

When the meeting ended and Remus was able to escape all the Order's glances his way and talk of who would do what in the morning, he didn't go to Gryffindor Tower. Instead he took a route to the library that included as many hidden passageways and secret stairwells as he could think of: behind the tapestry of one of the goblin rebellions (he didn't know which one), through the hidden door he had to ask nicely to open, up the half-real staircase that ended by the dumbwaiter that could take him directly to the Medieval History section of the library.

He tumbled out of the rattling dumbwaiter - that was always a precarious venture, every time he tried it - and brushed himself off, looking around. The library was dark and deserted and smelled like dust and pages. He closed his eyes and inhaled.

If Remus was to be honest with himself, the library was the only part of Hogwarts that he really liked. The rooms he'd lived in when he'd taught, those had been nice but they had never felt like his. The rest of the castle - its very sounds and smells, even - reminded him endlessly of all the things he'd never really had. Minerva McGonagall was senseless to think he'd spend a night in Gryffindor Tower.

Remus wandered down a row of large books - one of them was reading itself aloud, an account of the Children's Crusade - and came out into the center of the library, where there was a podium that held a huge, leather-bound volume of Hogwarts: A History opened to the pages about the Quidditch Debacle of 1465, in which the entire Ravenclaw team found themselves suddenly adrift in the Indian Ocean thanks to a particularly vindictive Slytherin jinx. Remus idly read the account for a few minutes and got all the way to the Longest Quidditch Game in Hogwarts History, which had lasted a full seven weeks, when the door opened and closed with an audible creak. Remus spun around but saw nothing.

"Who's there?" he asked. "Lumos," he added, and his wand glowed. He shone the light around tables and shelves, but heard only a small shuffling noise.

"It is nobody, sir!" came a high-pitched voice. A house-elf. Remus sighed in relief.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "Well, I'm sure you aren't nobody."

"I is just dusting the shelves for Headmaster Dumbledore, sir," the elf informed him cheerfully. There was a snap and the torches along the walls and the candles over his head flared. The elf padded into the center of the library, looking around the room as though trying to decide where to begin. Remus was sure there was a small band of house-elves on their way to join this one in a few minutes. He chewed his bottom lip, thinking.

"Listen, you wouldn't want to do me a favor, would you?" he asked the house-elf as she began marching toward the Restricted Section, fingers poised, ready to snap them to begin scouring. The elf stopped and looked at him.

"Does sir need something? Something to eat? I is getting sir a snack!" the house-elf exclaimed. Her entire face lit up as she began to list a very long menu of what Remus's "snack" was to be.

"No, no, I'm not very hungry," Remus said hurriedly, and this was the truth: The thought of food these last few days only made him feel more sick. In the back of his mind was the thought that the full moon was next week. "Listen, I was wondering if it would be all right if you skipped cleaning the library tonight."

"I is not following," said the house-elf suspiciously. "I is cleaning the library for Headmaster Dumbledore."

"It's all right, please, I can give you something else to do instead and I'm sure Dumbledore won't mind," Remus said. "Can you please go up to Gryffindor Tower and get me some things? And some blankets and such?"

"Would sir also like a pillow?" asked the house-elf eagerly. Remus smiled and nodded.

"Yes, please. In Gryffindor Tower somewhere there should be a large green canvas bag with the name R.J. Lupin etched into it. It will probably be in the common room. Could you please bring it here for me?"

After the house-elf asked Remus what color blankets and sheets he would like, and whether he wouldn't like a snack after all (Remus acquiesced and allowed the elf to bring him some hot cocoa and a cheese sandwich), she vanished from the library, leaving Remus alone again. He wandered to the back of the library, looking for any back corner he hadn't frequented when studying for his exams twenty years ago. He passed worn couches and shadowy nooks that seemed to whisper Remus, what'd you put for number twenty-seven? and Peter, I'm not quizzing you a fourth time, you know the answers. Ignoring them he came upon a long blue couch under a high stained-glass window. Bringing a copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (from the one-shelf Muggle Literature section, which was tucked into a small corner on the far side of the Restricted Section) with him he sat on the couch and waited. He didn't think anyone would mind terribly if he smoked.

:::

After the house-elves had brought him blankets, possessions, pillow, and snack, Remus made himself a little bed on the couch. He stood and looked at it, slowly swallowing his cheese sandwich (these Hogwarts cheese sandwiches were unrivaled), and the thought occurred to him that this little nest was probably one of the saddest things he'd ever seen in his life. He scowled at it.

A walk, he thought, a walk and some dreamless sleep. He started down the corridor, still with his mug of cocoa.

The castle in the dark still made him nervous, though he'd spent many late nights wandering it, hunched under an Invisibility Cloak and treading on the back of James Potter's trainers. Later, during the year he'd taught, he had had to traverse different sections of it on alternating nights to ensure that all the students were in bed and that Sirius Black wasn't attempting to break in. He had kept a constant eye out for a large black dog. Even then, though he got used to the way the castle sighed and shivered in the middle of the night, he didn't like it.

Poppy Pomfrey's hospital wing, where all the medicinal potions were kept, was on the eighth floor of the castle, nearly as far from the library as one could go. It was quieter and darker there than the rest of the castle, and the candles that floated toward the ceiling were put out. Two small lights flickered at the far end of the room, flanking the door to Madam Pomfrey's office. Now this place was familiar: How many early mornings did he remember, coming to a full consciousness on one of these beds, with Madam Pomfrey bringing him pumpkin juice and asking him How was it this time, dear?

There were several huge, hulking cabinets along the wall near her office in which she kept most of her equipment and medicine. Remus knew they were locked, and he racked his brain trying to think of what the appropriate password would be.

"Alohamora," he said. Nothing.

"Gingko. Wormwood. Shrivelfig. Skele-Gro!" Nothing. Remus sighed and started listing all the potions ingredients and medicines he could think of. Still, nothing. He leaned his forehead against the cupboard hopelessly. The coolness of the wood felt nice against his skin; all the guilt he was trying not to think on was beginning to give him a pounding headache. He knew that if he were to be more useful tomorrow than he had been today, he needed to sleep. Unfortunately, the only thing he could see when he imagined himself in his sad little bed in the library was the murky moonlight as it filtered through the stained glass over his head. Even now, the smell of the hospital wing was filling his head with the sound of Would you like more pumpkin juice, or do you feel well enough to go down to breakfast? and Moony, we need to be more careful next month, we nearly lost you out there. He closed his eyes tightly and willed himself to think about Harry, remember Harry, but all he could hear was No, no one was hurt, James got there in time.

He left the hospital wing with his arms crossed tightly across his chest, leaving his mug on one of the bedside tables.

:::

Remus took it to be a good sign that there was a long stripe of light under Snape's door. Without giving himself time to convince himself that he would likely fall asleep on his own, he knocked on the door. He counted to ten and then knocked again, louder, a little foolhardy now that he was already in the dungeons and knocking. A count to fifteen, and he was about to knock again, and then the door opened a few inches and Snape was looking out at him through half-open eyes.

"What," he said.

"I hate to ask you," said Remus apologetically, "but I was wondering if you had any sleeping potions. I'm exhausted, but I - "

"I don't care, Lupin," Snape sighed, and he made to close the door but Remus put a hand on the knob.

"Seriously. Do you have anything? I'll pay you for it if you want, I have some money upstairs - "

"You don't have the money to take out a subscription to the Daily Prophet, Lupin, you couldn't possibly pay for a dreamless sleep draught." Snape paused and turned away from Remus and yawned widely. "However, I suppose you are fortunate enough to have come at a time when I am really too tired to listen to your pleading. Wait here." Snape closed the door in Remus's face. Remus could hear him walking through the room, opening and closing a door. His eyebrows came together. He wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Snape was just going to leave him standing there and go to bed. However, a minute later the door opened again and Snape handed him a glass half filled with a thin purple liquid.

"Don't eat any chocolate, don't shrink or enlarge anything, don't do any levitation charms," he said.

"Thank you," said Remus, looking down at the glass. Snape closed the door and before Remus could even walk away the light went out.

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