The first days of having Remus home with me went by uneventfully. Now being constantly in my presence, he had more and more lucid phases over the day. Sometimes they would last only for some minutes, sometimes for one or two hours. I had obtained a wheelchair for him, and I would spend as much time with him as possible, since apparently, this was what furthered his recovery more than anything else.

Since no one truly knew how much he remembered of his life, the Healers had ordered me not to tell him anything, but instead wait and see if his memory might come back by itself. They feared that being forcefully reminded might delay his slow recovery and even cause severe relapses, because he was not yet ready for the things he might hear.

During these days, he did not talk to me again, and even though I was a little disappointed, I did not truly expect him to do so. I would not push him if he did not feel ready. The main thing was that he felt safe with me, and it seemed that this was indeed the case, because even though his nightmares did not become less, he did not fight sleep any more, knowing that I would be there to comfort him.

It was two weeks after I had taken him home when he spoke to me. It was night, and I had been torn out of sleep by Remus jerking awake from a nightmare, screaming. After I had managed to calm him down, I had lit some candles, because he was lucid and had shaken his head when I had asked him if he wanted to go back to sleep. I was sitting in bed, holding him in my arms, when suddenly, his whisper broke the silence.

“A w-wolf… there’s a-always… a wolf in my dreams. Dying people. A-and… so m-much… blood.” He looked up at me, his cheeks still wet from the tears he had previously shed. “They’re… m-memories… aren’t they?”

It was hard to understand him, for his weariness and barely suppressed fear worsened his slur, and it took me some moments to realise what he had said. And how should I react? I could not possibly tell him about what had happened, but I could not lie to him, either.

“Yes, they are,” I finally replied truthfully. “But I cannot tell you anything about it. The Healers say that you need to remember on your own.”

For some seconds, Remus kept staring at me sadly, then looked down again. “I…don’t w-want to… remember. Nothing.” He spoke no more, but let himself be rocked to sleep by me, like in so many other nights that still were to come.

His words, although I did understand his feelings, had hurt me. Of course, this was irrational, for I knew that he only did not want to remember his past because of the pain his memories would cause him – yet I could not fully suppress a feeling of pain, of rejection even. This was scratching at a subject I had preferred to think about as little as possible since he had come home with me: his feelings for me. He seemed to feel very attached to me, but I could not possibly expect that he remembered he had once loved me. It would be asking too much of him. The question why, if he did not harbour special feelings for me, he responded positively only to me was one I tried not to think about. It would only have nourished false hope, and I did not want to do Remus injustice by being disappointed if my expectations proved to be unwarranted one day.

With hindsight, the next few months were a strange time, full of conflicting emotions: on the one hand, there was the happiness about having Remus home with me, about seeing him lucid more and more often, about every word he would say, every hour he would sleep peacefully next to me. He was improving very slowly, but steadily, and he even gained the weight back that he had lost before. Although he had difficulties with swallowing and would only ever be able to eat mashed food, and although he would probably never be able to hold a spoon again, it was easier to feed him in his now frequent lucid periods than having to slowly coax the unresponsive man into opening his mouth for every spoonful.

On the other hand, however, there were the constant nightmares, even though he seemed to cope with them better than before. There was the question of what on earth I should talk to him about, since our former lives, or anything that had to do with it, were a taboo issue. There was the always looming threat of what would happen should he recover so much that he would regain his memories. I had no idea how it would affect him, but the thought troubled me greatly, considering that he was only in his present state because these memories had been too much for him to bear.

And then there was Harry. We kept our routine of weekly visits – Remus had assured me that he did not mind him being at the house, as long as only no one would try to see him. He was still scared of other people’s presence, and although Harry completely accepted the situation and never complained, I could see how hard it was for him to know that his godfather was physically so near, and yet so far away from him – now even more so than before, because now, we could never know if he would not awake from his apathy at any second, and so it was too risky for Harry to visit him at all.

I do not know how I would have been able to cope with this had I been in his place, and his patience and silent hope made him, strange as it may sound, one of the people I respected most.

As it was, I had to struggle enough with my own unfulfilled hope, and after every of Harry’s visits, I felt exceedingly ungrateful: I had so much more than he had, and still, it was not enough.

It was in the beginning of March, only some days before Remus’s birthday, that once again I was granted an undeserved blessing. It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was sitting on the sofa, reading. A warm fire was flickering in the fireplace, for it was still cold outside, and I had settled Remus down beside me, a woollen blanket wrapped around his thin form. He was leaning against me, looking into the flames with unseeing eyes.

I said I had been reading, but to tell the truth, all I did was stare into space very much in the same way as Remus did, not truly seeing the letters on the page that had been open for certainly half an hour. Having Remus so near, feeling him rest in my arm, I once again could not help brooding over the situation, angry with myself for my inability to resign myself to the circumstances. When he had still been completely unresponsive to everyone, and also when he had recognised me but not yet spoken to me, the thought that I would probably never be loved by him again had not troubled me as much as it did now. I should have been happier now – now that so much had changed for the better. Instead, I felt worse. Does it lie in our human nature to wish for more, the more we are given?

“S-severus… You l-look… sad.” Remus’s quiet voice interrupted my thoughts, and I turned to him, surprised. How long had he been conscious and watching me?

“Don’t worry about me. I was just… thinking.”

“About what?”

What should I say? I could not tell him everything. There was this one question, however, that had never stopped ghosting through my mind.

“I was wondering… why you recognised me, of all people. Why you feel comfortable with me, and no one else. I was asking myself in what way I am different from others to you.”

He looked up at me thoughtfully for some moments, then lowered his gaze. He did not answer for some minutes.

“I’m sorry, Remus. I did not want to pry. I should have known you don’t want to talk about it.”

“N-no… I want to… t-tell you. I only… it t-takes some time t-to… to sort out m-my thoughts. It’s… exhausting.”

I felt ashamed at hearing this. Only a few months had gone by since Remus had spoken for the first time, and although he had improved during the last weeks, often answering when I asked him questions like what he wanted to eat or if he wanted me to read to him, I could not expect that he would be able to talk with me normally. He still was mentally absent for more than half of his waking time. Therefore, I now stayed silent, waiting for him to be ready.

“I… d-don’t really know how… to b-begin. It’s… difficult,” he finally said.

“What if you began with trying to explain how it is when you’re… not with me. When you’re absent. How was it before you recognised me?”

He hesitated for a moment. “Safe. It w-was… safe. And silent. N-no… no p-pain. There… s-sometimes there were… voices. They were distant… I d-didn’t understand what th-they said. A-and t-touch, sometimes.” A shiver ran through the body in my arms. “It… scared me.”

He had closed his eyes and pain was showing on his face. He might not remember what had happened, but the impressions of torture and anguish had stayed with him. I tightened my hold on him, asking myself if it had been a good idea to begin this conversation.

“You don’t have to tell me if it hurts you. Maybe it would be better if you didn’t.”

He shook his head, which was resting on my shoulder, then took a deep breath. “I couldn’t get… away f-far enough from it. I t-tried, but… it didn’t work. A-and then there was… another voice.” He had spoken slowly and in a pained tone, but now his voice became softer, peaceful. “It was d-different. I d-didn’t know why, but… it seemed t-to… call me, although I didn’t… understand the w-words. And there was… t-touch, together w-with that voice. It d-didn’t hurt, didn’t… scare me.”

A small smile curled his lips, his eyes still closed. “I… hadn’t known any more that… s-something like… that existed. It felt… b-beautiful.”

I had to smile myself. So, my efforts had not been in vain. He had heard me talk to him, had felt me touch him, even though he had not been able to show it.

“I began… to w-wait for it.. t-to want it to come. Because… although it was s-safe, it also w-was… lonely. Cold and… and dark. Th-that voice and touch… helped, m-made it warm. I… I n-needed them.”

He shifted slightly, and I felt him arch closer into my embrace, his shoulders now tense as though he were thinking of something unpleasant.

“But then they… didn’t come a-any more.”

He was talking about the three weeks I had spent in Romania, I knew it, but I did not know what to think about this. Should the young Healer have been right, after all? Had it been my fault that Remus had almost died?

”It… hurt. “

Sometimes, the smallest things have the greatest impact. I do not know what I would have given at this moment to be able to change what had happened. To spare Remus saying these two words – spare him all they conveyed.

“I waited, but… I – I couldn’t… it w-was cold, and… I was a-alone. I couldn’t b-be alone… any more. N-not after… knowing them. I n-needed them…” I could feel his hands shaking stronger than usual, and there were tears in his slow, slurred voice. “I… needed them.”

“I’m sorry, Remus,” I ground out, beginning to run my hand over his greyish hair. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left.”

He let me soothe him for some time, then sighed. “But you… came b-back. And you couldn’t… know.”

It was true, but still, I could not help feeling guilty. If only I had not forced Remus to go through this! Had he not been hurt enough already? At this moment, I had to admit to myself that partly, I had not wanted to believe the young Healer because it would have meant that I, albeit unintentionally, had caused Remus pain, had hurt the man I loved yet again.

“After that th-they called for m-me even… stronger. To… t-trust them, come to them. I d-didn’t know… what to do. I w-was scared. But in the end I… n-needed to f-follow them, even though it w-was… very difficult. A-and when I saw you…” he looked up at me and smiled, “I knew I d-didn’t have to b-be afraid. I knew that… I knew you. That you… w-wouldn’t hurt me.”

There was so much trust in his eyes as he said this, and I felt like a hypocrite. It was I who had almost caused his death, and it was I who had always rejected him, had rejected his love. It was I who had hurt him more than anyone else – aside from those who had tortured him.

“Remus, I…”

“N-no, wait!” he interrupted me. “I h-haven’t answered your… question yet.”

“What question?”

“W-why you’re different f-from others… to me.” Again, he smiled, but this time, it was insecure and faded quickly. “It’s b-because… I l-love you, Severus.”

He had whispered the last sentence so quietly that for a moment, I thought I must have misheard. Surely, he had said something else, and I only had interpreted his slurred words in the way I longed for so much. But one glance at him told me that I had been right. He had lowered his gaze and was biting his lip nervously, waiting for me to answer. I could see the blanket move where his hands were trembling under it in his lap.

“Remus…” I cupped his cheek and made him look at me again. He did not speak, but it was not necessary. His eyes were begging me to tell him what he needed to hear so much, and never before had I complied so readily to a demand, although I almost lacked the breath I needed to utter the words I had wanted to say for so long.

“I love you, too.”

His eyes lit up, and slowly, very slowly, he pulled one hand from under the blanket and raised it to my cheek, then leaned forward and kissed me.

I cannot explain how it was to feel his soft lips against my own, to know that this was real, after so long a time of me denying my emotions, only realising them when it had seemed it would be too late forever. But now we were here, together. Should I describe it in one sentence, I would say: It felt like healing.

When the kiss was over, Remus rested his head on my shoulder again, smiling softly. We did not speak for quite a while, and there was no need for doing so. Now we had all the time we needed. Through the windows we could see that darkness was slowly falling, the warm fire was crackling in the fireplace, and for once, everything was as it should be.