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𝚇𝚇𝚇𝙸𝙸 >> 𝙰𝚁𝚃𝙵𝚄𝙻 𝙸𝚃 𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙶𝙴𝚁𝚂

< 3 MONTHS, 3 DAYS >

They dream together every night, entirely on accident, not a single exposition purposeful. They just keep showing up in the same place, dreaming the same things, lucid and free and as awake as they've ever been.

They sit across a space in an apportioned vision of Snape's office. They face one another in the green and yellow and blue that enwreathe the room, feeling as if neither are sleeping at all.

"It seems my spell has created a bond greater than our understanding," Severus remarks, "yet I have not found myself researching any more than what I've shared with you. I've lost interest in understanding it. I merely accept it now, whatever it is, however it is. It is not like I wish for it to be fixed; to become undone. I would dream with you forever, under any moon."

Remus is lost in thought. "Do you reckon this is what it's like to be dead?"

Severus looks him in the eye, which is bright and glowing, ethereal, above reality. "I stopped thinking about death when I saw too much of it."

Lupin smiles, becoming all that Severus sees. "I haven't stopped thinking about it since I faced it first."

The colors swirl, environ them, dissipate. Snape wakes up in his office, his head resting on a puddle of ink and a stack of ungraded papers.

He does not grade them. He decides that he won't.

His forehead is stained with ink. He wipes it off, leaving dark smudges behind. He doesn't care. His appearance doesn't affect him. It's astounding how seldom things matter to him anymore.

It seems there are two sides to him. Neither are mithered by the interests of the other, and neither aware of them. One is cold and stringent and sly, and it guards the other from being seen. The other, of course, lies beneath the first, and it is sad and romantic and spontaneous.

He is not sure which is truly in control today, but he's focused more on the second. His hidden self has markedly more to brood over. His outer self can help take care of it.

Being more recently unfeigned has been freeing to him, in a way. He's licensed himself to be and live and feel in a way he hasn't given into in many years in a row. He thinks back to yesterday evening with Lupin. He thinks of his love and his words and his body and his breath, and he understands that he wouldn't have it in his memory at all had he not been authentic once. Because his veritable self is the one which loves him. He only feels that love when he appoints it unbound.

Part of him warns himself, however; the more unfortified he becomes, the worse it'll be once he is again lacerated. When Remus moves away. When he's left alone to sit and watch the wall and grade papers and be harrowed by his own emptiness. If he gets too hurt, he may never let that part out of himself again. And he can't have that, can he not?

He wonders which part of him is the veridical one. They're both just as incumbent as the other; they've both been with him for just as long.

Darkly, his tormented eyes reach their gaze over to the corner of his desk, where a letter sits from Peritus on behalf of herself and the upcoming trial. Beneath it also sits one that Minerva received and placed there for him to look over, leaving his office without a word but with a passing glare of causticity. He reaches for the letters now, his fingers trailing through the stagnant dungeon air. The first is the one for McGonagall, which he doesn't hesitate to touch. He can feel the manipulation beneath his skin. He's familiar with the sensation of it under his thumb.

—

Dearest Minerva,

It is with a heavy heart that I make the move to inform you, as a friend, of my fears and doubts. I know you and sweet Albus deserve the truth, no matter how severe, for the sake of the children and for yourselves.