Nobody Cared

The Epilogue

18 Jan 1992, Saturday - Late Evening

Snape, sitting beside his son's bed, straightened as he heard the voice of the new, acting Headmaster behind him. "They're gone."

"Lupin?" asked Snape flatly, not comprehending what the man meant by his statement. Although Snape was trying to call Remus by his first name out of courtesy (they weren't friends!), when he was tired, he still slipped and called the Deputy Headmaster by his last name. There was no malice intended, though.

"The team from St. Mungo's are gone," clarified Remus as he Summoned a chair and sat down beside Snape. "They declared Albus' death as Natural Causes from old age. Nothing more. Albus' brother came to claim the body."

Snape frowned. "Aberforth? I thought he and Dumbledore had some sort of fallout when they were children."

Remus shrugged. He was so very tired. "I suppose old grudges don't matter when you're the last, surviving member of a family." Running his fingers exhaustedly through his hair, he mumbled, "Abe wants you at the funeral. No one else."

Snape, who was starting to drift off from sheer exhaustion, opened his eyes abruptly. "What? Me? Why?"

"Well, to be more precise, Abe said that you didn't have to attend the actual funeral itself, if you didn't want to, but he needed you to meet him at the cemetery because it would..." Remus closed his eyes, and pressed his fingers to the centre of his forehead as he tried to recall the exact words he had been told. "Because Abe said, 'it'll only be when my miserable brother is beneath the dirt that I'm free'." Snape glowered in question at the werewolf, but Remus had no answer for him.

For a very long moment both men were silent. Snape used that moment to observe his nearly, sort of, almost (not!) friend, Remus Lupin.

Remus had not, surprisingly, settled in at Hogwarts. Even with help from Snape the paperwork that he was left to deal with as Deputy Headmaster was still designated, by Snape at least, as a nightmare. If anything, Snape had decided that the worst of the essays he had ever had to read were more interesting than the mind-numbing nonsense that came through Lupin's office. Constant complaints from parents, endless Ministerial, Board of Governors, and even Wizengamot paperwork that had to be shunted to the Headmaster. Never-ending mess!

As the Head of Gryffindor House, Remus had taken better to that job than as Deputy Headmaster. Remus was very good with his Gryffindors, and Snape hated to admit it, but those students manners had shown an improvement. They were still short-tempered, and dove in before thinking, but Remus had managed to instill manners to the lot of them that included a respect for ALL the Houses, and the teachers.

What stuck out the most for Snape was that for all of the werewolf's good points (yes, the wizard had them!), he simply did not look comfortable at Hogwarts.

Remus had managed to add, with the increase to his income, a passable wardrobe that was not threadbare, and worn. The wizard unfortunately had no taste beyond those out of date tweeds he insisted upon wearing. At meals he was quieter even than Snape, which was really saying something since Snape never invited conversation. With Remus, none of the staff seemed to pay him much attention.

One day, simply irritated with the man's apathy, which had nothing to do with the Full Moon arriving, Snape had demanded to know what it was Remus wished he were doing.

The Deputy automatically Incendio'd a Howler that was trying to dodge his wand. "Well?" asked Snape again as he put down his quill. "It is obvious to anyone taking a second look that this...!" he indicated the day's mound of paperwork, "... is not what you wish to be doing. So what is it? What would the quiet wizard that house's a werewolf really like to do - when he grows up?"