A Stranger To Me

One year to the day later, Severus returns.

He sweeps into the Great Hall dressed in the same black robes and travelling cloak he departed in, takes his usual seat at the staff table, wordlessly butters a piece of toast and eats it without remark to anyone.

The students have fallen silent, halting their own breakfasts to watch every mouthful with rapt attention. Sybill, having known his return was nigh is nodding serenely. Dumbledore is gaping. Hagrid is weeping. Filius is pale. Minerva is backing away, aghast.

Remus stares for a long time and frowns at the man in the seat next to him, then goes back to eating his eggs. Remus finds there really is nothing like a boiled egg to start the day.

The toast is finished. The assembled look towards Dumbledore expectantly.

"Severus?" The old Headmaster shudders inwardly as he is fixed with an empty gaze; he had forgotten those eyes were quite so devoid of anything. "Could I have a word, in private?"

The Hall collectively holds its breath. Except for Remus; Remus is sipping his tea.

"Of course, Headmaster."

Snape follows the old wizard out of the Hall through the door behind the staff table. When the rest of those present have given up waiting, they disperse, exchanging dark looks.

-x-

Remus returns to his quarters. It is late Saturday morning and a mild spring breeze is wafting through an open window, airing his rooms. As he is wont to do on a Saturday morning, Remus settles himself in his armchair and takes up the Daily Prophet.

A half hour later, He enters. They watch each other; neither speaks, neither moves, until the ticking clock on the mantelpiece seems deafeningly loud. Remus lowers his eyes to his paper. "You don't fool me, you know," he says at last.

The darker man only continues to stare at him.

"I know you're not him." Remus can tell it's not Severus. This man doesn't even look that much like him. His eyes aren't right. He's too short. His nose looks different. "Where did you get his robes?"

"Dumbledore already tested me for Polyjuice," the man pretending to be Severus says. Remus thinks he hears a note of triumph.

So Dumbledore had noticed too. Remus rises with the intention of finding the Headmaster. "Where are you going?" the man asks. He doesn't even sound like Severus- he sounds scared, probably scared that Remus will succeed in proving he's an impostor, a fake.

"Away from you."

-x-

"It's not him."

"Remus, I know this is hard for you-"

"You know it's not him."

The headmaster averts his eyes sheepishly.

"I won't deny I had my doubts-"

"It's a metamorphmagus, or a cleverly transfigured-"

"I have tried every revealing charm known to wizardkind and none have detected anything untoward."

"Legilimancy! Did you try that? It would be impossible for anyone, occlumens or not, to emulate someone's memories."

Dumbledore looks awkward once more. "Precisely, which is how I can assure you this is Severus." But the old Headmaster's words fail even to convince himself, Remus can sense the disquiet radiating off him and he hates Dumbledore for it.

Remus shakes his head in distrust and whispers, "Why do you want to replace him? You can't replace him, he's gone." His jaw is held rigid.

Dumbledore places a hand on Remus' arm, "Child-"

Remus pulls away and dashes out of the Headmaster's office.

-x-

The man is still there when Remus re-enters his chambers late that evening. The House Elves have fetched Severus' possessions out of storage and they are now reinstalled around the rooms on their rightful shelves, in cupboards, in the wardrobe, on the desk. This other man is sitting in the chair Severus used to sit in, reading one of Severus' books. He is drinking from a bottle of Butterbeer.

Severus used to hate Butterbeer.

Remus eyes him darkly, too weary to question it. He heads for the bedroom and undresses methodically. As he settles beneath the sheets, the other man comes in and prepares for bed, his back turned to Remus.

Remus can think of nothing to say and so he says nothing when the other man gets into bed beside him. He doesn't know what to think or how to act, he doesn't even think he knows who he is about to sleep next to but Remus is too tired to contend with his own waxing and waning doubts.

They lie together in silence until the night has swallowed them in darkness. Neither sleeps, neither stirs, the night stretches on until at some time, floating on the brink between wakefulness and dreaming, Remus whispers, "Where have you been?"

"Away," his companion answers.

"I thought you were dead."

"No." His voice is dead, Remus thinks.

"Where have you been?" He asks again, quieter this time.

Perhaps he doesn't hear, or perhaps he does; either way, the darker man says nothing.

-x-

Remus comes back every evening to the same silence, the same grey piñata of questions hanging ominously over their heads with neither of them willing to break it. It has been over a fortnight since the darker wizard's appearance and Remus feels as though he is caught in limbo while he helplessly waits for something, anything, to happen. Every so often, Remus will spot a slip up by the impostor, some inconsistency that snags in his mind and obsesses him throughout the day.

At first, every one had hounded him with questions. Now they know not to bother, not since Remus, in a temper, called Poppy an interfering old hag and told her where to stick her concern when she enquired after the darker wizard.

Remus knows Dumbledore must have doubts as to this wizard's identity because the Headmaster has not reinstated him as Potions Master. With no pressing concerns, no outstanding responsibilities, the sallow skinned man has taken to lurking in alcoves and behind tapestries during classes.

He remains concealed when the students swarm out into the corridors and has yet to reprimand a student for dropping Dungbombs or throwing a fanged Frisbee. However, on the rare occasion his presence is noted, the students still do not dare to flout his perceived authority; it seems Severus' mysterious absence has only heightened his formidable image. The new First Years live in constant fear of his peculiar look-alike, having heard all sorts of wild stories and sinister warnings from the older students.

Even Severus' old eagle owl can sense there is something amiss about this wizard. Remus has continued to make use of the owl since Severus' disappearance and on delivering to him a reply, Remus is curious to see the owl, who has settled itself on its perch in their quarters, viciously peck at the darker wizard's fingers when he reaches to smooth its ruffled feathers. The owl hoots balefully and zooms out of the window into the night.

The dazed wizard cradles his bloodied fingers and stares at Remus as if waiting for him to notice the injuries. Remus raises an eyebrow and goes back to reading his letter.

"I'd bandage those, if I were you," he states, unsympathetic.

-x-

Remus hates the way the other man stalks him. He hates to catch sight of him out of the corner of his eye and think for a split second that he has just seen Severus; because Remus can't deny that they do somewhat similar, this man and Severus.

The other man follows Remus around the castle, its grounds, their private chambers, without respite. If Remus takes a trip down to the kitchens the impostor will tail him, suddenly needful of a slice of pumpkin pie or a dish of sticky toffee pudding or perhaps a wedge of treacle tart- Remus thinks that if he wants to act like Severus he should at least make the effort to eat food his predecessor didn't detest.

Should Remus desire a stroll by the lake, he knows not to be surprised if he looks back and sees the other wizard trailing him from a distance. One day Remus had stopped deliberately, silently daring his 'friend' to continue towards him; but the exasperating result was that the man ducked behind a nearby tree and waited for Remus to resume walking.

When Remus heads for the Great Hall at mealtimes, to the library, to bed, he has come to expect the other man to follow. Even Remus moving from the living room to the bedroom prompts the darker wizard to pursue, always under the pretext of searching for something obscure- one day, Remus snaps.

"What are you doing?" He had escaped to read the paper in peace, in private.

The fake turns his head to face Remus from where he is kneeling by a drawer, "Looking for something."

"Looking for what?"

A pause. "...Photographs."

"Severus didn't keep photographs." It had always been a minor point of contention between them, but then Remus had supposed that perhaps Severus didn't wish to be reminded of the past. "Why do you want photographs?"

"I wanted to look," he replies simply.

Remus sighs and ignores the man, who continues his futile search until Remus goes back into the living room and switches on the radio. Ten minutes later, his guest enters empty handed and the two sit in silence, listening to an interview with Iunia Shaddock: new manager of the Holyhead Harpies.

-x-

Most nights Remus finds himself lying awake, waiting for the other man to fall asleep, but his guest never does. Sometimes Remus sleeps in his office or on the sofa in the living room, but most nights he asserts his right to sleep in his own bed, angrily refusing himself to relinquish a hold over it. He thinks it strange that it should matter to the other man where he chooses to sleep, for whenever Remus cannot bring himself to share the bed that had been his and his lover's with another man, Remus has come to expect a confirmatory peep into the living room or quiet footsteps on the corridor outside his office that check for a shaft of candlelight beneath the door before withdrawing softly.

One night though, his mysterious companion doesn't come to bed and Remus finds himself wondering where the man has gone after a casual search of his quarters turns out to be fruitless. His curiosity takes Remus out of his rooms and through the corridors of Hogwarts. Remus finds himself wistfully wishing for the Marauders Map but realises he would not know what name to look for.

When Remus finds the man at four o'clock in the morning, he is drifting like a shadow through the labyrinthine dungeons; the irony upsets Remus and he flees, unnoticed by the spectral figure that continues to glide further into the enveloping darkness.

-x-

Remus can't stand seeing this man wearing Severus' robes. They look ridiculously large on him and hang shapelessly from his shoulders as a permanent reminder to Remus that the wizard wearing them is not their owner. Severus had been thin, but this man is skeletal; when he is angry, Remus thinks he could quite easily snap an arm or a leg in two, maybe three places, with his bare hands.

It bothers Remus to find the man has been using Severus' old razor, so much so that he surreptitiously replaces it with an identical one.

And it perplexes Remus, even amuses him, to see the man boiling pure water in Severus' favourite cauldron, as though he is playing at pretending to be Severus. When he thinks of this and thinks of the robes as props in a game of Dress Up, Remus isn't sure whether to feel infuriated or entertained.

But when he sees the man bending one of Severus' books back so that the spine creaks, Remus is unquestionably infuriated. Snatching it from the frightened wizard's hands, Remus shouts himself into silence. It was only what Severus would have done, Remus assures himself afterwards when the first prickles of remorse start to make him think he had overreacted. Severus had abhorred people who treated books with such negligence.

-x-

"Where's his wand?"

"Whose wand?"

"Severus' wand, where is it? What have you done with it?"

The man holds up the long rosewood baton in confusion.

"It used to be mahogany."

"Did it?"

Remus sneers at his bemused expression. "Don't you remember?" Remus asks acidly.

A pause, then a dejected "no."

Remus snorts derisively, "Why not?"

"I can't, I... my memory's not what it used to be," is his paltry excuse.

"But you're in the prime of your life, Severus," the name is drawn out with such hostility that the stranger visibly flinches. "You can't remember what wood your old wand was made from? Can you remember what its core was?"

"...Y-yes, I think so."

"It was dragon's heart string, wasn't it?"

"Yes," the man agrees without thinking.

"Well then you're lying, because it wasn't. It had a phoenix feather core, same as mine." Remus laughs coldly at the darker wizard's confusion. "It's funny how these little things slip your mind, isn't it?"

-x-

Remus walks into the bedroom.

"They made me dance like a puppet."

He stops, and stares at the other man who is standing at the foot of the bed, absentmindedly tracing with spidery fingers the carvings on the woodwork. Remus waits for him to say something more but is only met with silence. He watches the other wizard staring blankly at the floor for so long that Remus is convinced the man has finally lost his mind. Just as he is about to tell him as much-

"They used Imperius. It entertained the Dark Lord, made him laugh..." he drifts off. Remus begins to wonder whether the other wizard is even aware that Remus is in the room, but then those black eyes fix on him and the man says in a deadpan voice: "They... did things to me, while I was sleeping... I'd try to stay awake but..." a small shrug indicated that inevitably he didn't always succeed. Remus stood transfixed.

"They cast memory charms to make me forget afterwards but I knew what they'd done. They bragged about it, told me I'd enjoyed it...

"They peeled the skin from my feet and kept working their way up my legs until I screamed myself hoarse. That was after they got bored of Crutiatus. They injected filthy Muggle drugs into my veins that made me see things, visions. The furniture came alive... and there was blood... it was worse than Dementors-"

"Why did they let you go?" Remus realises too late that the question was spoken more like an accusation and winces at the flicker of pain in the other man's eyes.

"It was Lucius Malfoy's suggestion. He thought death would be merciful. He was right; I wanted to die. They said no one would recognise me, not after they'd broken me. They told me no one would want anything to do with me, not now that I am of no use."

Remus contemplates this, searching for a hole in the explanation to prove it a lie.

"Why do you hate me?"

The whisper is almost inaudible and yet it makes Remus start. He looks at the hand tracing a fleur de lis in the wood.

He answers softly, "I don't hate you."

"What have I done?"

Remus shakes his head earnestly, a stab of guilt pressing on some invisible place inside him. "You haven't done anything."

The hand following the carvings moves faster and with more insistence, "You act as though I don't exist."

Remus doesn't have an answer for this. The hand slows, almost stopping but not completely. The fingertips press into grooves cut between leaves on a vine, then scrape with force across the wooden foliage.

"All the times I was being cursed," nails rasp against the surface, "beaten," scrape tracks along varnish, "taunted," scratch at a stain, "raped," fingers wrap around a bed post, squeezing until knuckles turn white, "humiliated," and release, falling to stroking the panelling once more with absentminded tenderness, "I kept thinking about you. I kept thinking that if I survived you wouldn't care that I was of no use to anyone. You wouldn't care-" his voice cracks.

Remus watches him standing there, his head bent forward and his shoulders shaking with sobs. Remus thinks his heart will break. No matter who this man is, Remus realises he's alone in the world and needs someone to hold him right now, and Remus does hold him, and kisses his hair and mutters incoherencies meant to soothe.

His cheeks are damp and Remus realises he is crying too.

This man isn't Severus; he can't be. Severus never used top reach for him so urgently, or kiss him so shyly. This man's fingers fumble over the buttons at Remus' neck and when his chest is bared, brush over Remus' skin with a new reverence.

As they undress each other, carelessly discarding robes, undershirts, underwear to be trampled underfoot, Remus notices the Dark Mark etched in the skin of the other man's forearm and realises he is about to make love to a Death Eater- a murderer, a torturer, a racist and a fascist. On Severus, the Mark was to Remus a badge of bravery, a burden he admired Severus for carrying with such resolve. On this man, it is the brand of an evildoer.

When Remus flinches, the other man grows uncomfortable and fresh tears well in black eyes. Remus wraps his arms around the man's slender waist and presses close, whispering apologies and a litany of hasty endearments.

If the torture this man described really happened, where are the scars? His body is unmarked except for the grotesque tattoo. Remus manages to push such thoughts from his mind for the present, and gently eases the other man down onto the bed, pressing butterfly kisses to cheeks, brow, jaw, larynx, a collarbone.

This man isn't Severus; Severus never used to whimper at Remus' ministrations, nor did he gaze up at Remus with such apprehension, or return a caress with such hesitancy, but as the kisses and touches and whispers become more and more feverish, more and more heated, and as Remus feels himself growing more and more aroused he finds her doesn't care anymore. He's missed this kind of intimacy too much.

This man isn't Severus; Severus never asked for anything, least of all for Remus to be gentle. And Severus never thanked him; no one had ever thanked him; for performing the natural courtesy of preparing his partner before Remus enters him.

This man isn't Severus, but Remus takes him anyway, with long slow strokes; and Remus holds his hand throughout.

When the other man comes, he is silent, allowing little more than a gasp to escape parted lips. His eyes are shut tight, and tousled strands of hair have fallen in his face and if Remus squints, he thinks that maybe he can pretend it is Severus tangled beneath him, Severus stroking a thumb absently across his palm.

And the strangest thing: when he lies down and buries his face in the hollow of his companion's neck, Remus thinks he can smell Severus on this man's skin.