The drizzle began as the ferry was leaving port. Remus, coming from London and only wearing a light jacket, pulled it tighter around himself and hunkered down in the meager shelter provided by the pilothouse wall. He was tempted to use his wand to cast an impervious charm, but there were several muggles on board and it was a small boat. Resigning himself to a miserable trip, he was relieved when the half hour trip was over and they’d arrived at the village. The boat hadn’t properly docked, just lined up to one of the docks as Remus jumped off; none of the crew had looked happy when their captain said they had a passenger to take to “the village.” From everything Remus could find, the place didn’t even have a name. The boat sped quickly away after, leaving Remus hoping that there would be a boat on this side of the village leaving today, as he doubted the small settlement had a hotel.

The drizzle had increased to a steady downfall with a cold, biting wind that drove the rain sideways, making his hood useless. He trudged down the dock and along the beach, looking for whoever might be manager of the docks. There was a lot of action on the beach, seeming to be directed by a man holding a clipboard and shouting into the storm. He had a small umbrella, but seemed more concerned with keeping the papers he held dry than himself. The back of his hair was completely soaked, clinging to the back of his neck as he hunched over the clipboard. Remus approached slowly, trying in vain to pull the hood farther down on his face.

“Excuse me,” Remus hesitantly. The distracted man looked over at him.

“I’m sorry. Do you need something?”

“Well, yes. This may—”

“David, what about these spare nets?” a woman shouted from halfway across the beach, drawing the man's attention.

“Keep two of them in the boathouse, and throw the rest in the warehouse,” he shouted back, then turned to Remus. “My apologies. You were saying?”

“Yes, I’m looking for—”

The man caught sight of something over Remus' shoulder and held up a hand to halt him, sprinting off in the direction of three identical men, shouting something at them in an angry accent too thick for Remus to make out from a distance amidst the patter of rain hitting the sand.

He stood there awkwardly, waiting for the man to return and fearing that he wouldn’t. Eventually, however, he walked back, looking more irritated than he had before. "I don't mean to keep putting you off, but it is a busy time. Winter is almost here, and everyone is preparing for the season. I have no time anymore, but that's what I get for being manager of the docks," he said. “You're looking for…?” he prompted when Remus didn’t immediately speak.

“I’m looking for an old friend of mine,” he fibbed. “Is there anyone here who might be new to the village? I heard he might have come here.”

The man narrowed his eyes at him, as if judging his intent, then said, “Perhaps you mean the kid with the bagpipes, and his dad?”

“That’s the one. The father, I mean.” Remus said, hoping that it was the one, but slightly disheartened to hear that the man had a son. Familial attachments tended to make people more cautious about joining life-threatening organizations. “Where can I find him?”

“Well, they’re staying at Malcolm’s house since their cottage burned down.”

“And where is— sorry, did you say burned down?”

The man nodded, then waved to someone behind Remus. “Leave it for later! Go help Peter! Yeah, electrical fire.”

Remus was increasingly beginning to feel as if this might not have been a good time after all. Deciding not to be put off, he said, “Where is that?”

“Follow the stream until you get to the bridge. Cross over to the other side, and go south until a side path branches off to the left. Go that way. Malcolm’s house is a two-story with blue siding. If you get lost along the way, you can ask anybody. They’ll be able to help you.”

“Thank you, Mister…?”

“Docherty. David Docherty. And you are?”

“Thank you, Mister Docherty. I’m Remus Lupin.”

After shaking Docherty’s hand and walking away, Remus wondered whether he shouldn’t have used a false name, but supposed it didn’t really matter.

He followed the directions easily enough, ending up at a house similar to the description he'd been given, pausing in the road outside. There were lights on inside, but Remus hadn’t been expecting to speak in someone else’s home besides wherever the mysterious potential ally might live. The odds were, this was a muggle’s home, and it would be very difficult to get anything out of the following conversation if he could not be completely blunt.

The rain was cold, however, and Remus wanted to be inside. Unwilling to leave without at least attempting something, and desperately wanting out of the weather, he stepped resolutely onto the front porch and knocked on the door.

A minute later, it opened, a very familiar face staring at him.

"Lupin?"

"Severus!" Lupin exclaimed.

A scowl was beginning to form on his old classmate’s face. “What are you doing here?” he hissed.

Remus hesitated, then glanced at the storm behind him. “May I come in?”

Severus’s nostrils flared as he considered, before stepping back with poor grace and nodding towards the inside of the house with a jerky twitch of the head. Remus gratefully stepped inside, kicking off his wet shoes in the hallway and following Severus to a small but comfortable parlor.

Was he the “mysterious potential ally” that Remus had been so hopeful to find? Severus had disappeared from all Order contact after the trial. They had feared the worst. As relieved as Remus was to find him here, apparently unharmed, he also had a million questions. There were so many things he wanted to ask, and they must have short circuited his brain, because the first one that popped out was, “You have a son?”

Severus’ face took on a deliberately blank look. Having expected something along the lines of “you’re a blithering idiot, of course not”, or perhaps a more succinct “no,” Remus was only left more confused.

A boy skipped into the room. “Dad, who is—” he stopped abruptly when he saw Remus standing there, open-mouthed.

“Ha-” Remus began, his voice barely a croak, before having to stop. It had to be Harry standing there, but he looked… different. Healthier. Happier, maybe. Finally, he asked, “Harry?”

Harry nodded, offering him a small smile that was tinged with a kind of sadness.

The three of them stood there, staring at each other for a long, tense moment. Remus was looking between Severus and Harry, wondering what was going on. Harry was looking to Severus for answers, while Severus himself was glaring at Remus.

“Maybe we should sit down?” Harry finally suggested when it became apparent that neither adult was going to make the first move.

“Perhaps we should,” Severus ground out, not taking his eyes off of Remus.

“Excellent,” Remus said, following Harry’s lead and sitting on the couch while keeping one eye on Severus. Something is going on here.

It’s a good thing that Malcolm and Amy are out. Harry glanced at Snape again. His glaring had finally subsided into a stoic, closed-off look that Harry hadn’t seen in a while. It scared him more than anything else about Remus’ arrival; in any other situation, he would have been glad to see his old DADA teacher. Whatever scene followed, it definitely wasn’t something the village should be witnessing.

“What are you doing here?” Snape hissed. “The homeowners are out; you may speak freely and, I hope, quickly.”

“I wasn’t expecting to find you,” Remus said. “After you fought off those werewolves, word got around that this village was protected. I proposed to the Order that we find this person and approach them about joining the fight against Voldemort.”

“You told the Order? Brilliant, Lupin. That is the worst possible thing you could have done.”

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked.

“In case you have somehow forgotten, we took refuge here after your trial because the Order may be compromised!” Snape snapped.

Harry lowered his chin slightly. A few months ago, he would have resentfully withdrawn at that tone from Snape. Those days, however, were long gone. “Yes, I remember,” he said levelly. “But the Order doesn’t know it’s us that’s come here.”

Remus looked at him curiously. He was probably surprised to see the change in his and Snape’s rapport. Harry kept his eyes on Snape, however, watching the gears turning in his head.

“It does not matter,” Snape finally said. “This location is no longer secure. We will have to leave.”

Remus spoke up. “Have you two been hiding here since the trial, then?”

“Yeah,” Harry said when Snape didn’t respond. “Like, since right after. It’s been months.”

“Completely out of contact?” Remus asked.

“I do not believe that is a concern of yours,” Snape said.

Harry sighed and slumped in his chair, resting his chin on his hand as the two started bickering.

“I’m merely trying to gauge the situation. You’ve been posing as father and son?”

“Yes,” Snape said, a challenging note to his voice. Remus chose not to follow that topic further.

“I heard about a fire. Was that really an electrical fire, or did something else happen?”

“My, you do keep up on the local gossip,” Snape sneered. “It was electrical.”

“That’s good,” Remus said. “Well, not really, but better than an attack of some sort. How did you keep the Ministry from following Harry’s trace?”

“We lived as muggles, Lupin. Harry used no magic, and I only did when he was far enough away that it would not matter.” His sneer turned to a sardonic smile. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

“Far enough away? You let him out of your sight?”

“He’s right here, you know,” Harry said, finally getting irritated. “Professor Lupin, how much do you know about what happened?”

“Remus, Harry. All that Dumbledore told us was that you’d been taken to an undisclosed safe location, where you would remain in hiding until the situation improved. Sirius, in particular, demanded to know why you weren’t kept at Headquarters. Dumbledore told us that it was, in essence, none of our business, and went on to order us all not to attempt to search for you.” He turned to Snape. “You said the Order was compromised?”

Snape looked sour at having said more than he meant to. In tones of deepest reluctance, he said, “The Headmaster believes there may be a spy amongst your midst. He instructed me to take the boy and hide. Until now,” with a glare, “no one knew where we are, including Dumbledore himself.”

“A spy? Why does he think that?”

Snape said, “Whether or not I knew, I certainly would not tell you.”

“Remus isn’t the spy!” Harry exclaimed.

“No,” Snape drawled. “Lupin doesn’t have the wit or courage to be a spy. His hapless exposure of our location to the Order, however, is reason enough not to trust him with any more important information.

Remus grimaced, but Harry wasn’t content to leave it at that. “That’s not fair. He didn’t know it was us. He just thought he was recruiting some random ally.”

“I see you are defending your favorite professor,” Snape said snidely. “Even that plan was foolhardy. I could have just as easily been a Death Eater using this village as an experiment base on the hapless muggles nearby. Remus could have been captured, killed, or compromised in a worst case scenario; far more likely, his mission would have been an abject failure.”

Harry stared at Snape in wonderment. It was like going back in time, seeing this version of him. This Snape wouldn’t have surprised him before the trial. But now? This Snape was nothing like his Snape. Defending my favorite professor? What was that all about?

“I’m not defending anyone,” he said quietly. “I just didn’t think you were being fair.” I had come to expect better of you. Was I wrong?

He and Snape stared at each other for a long moment, until Snape turned back to Lupin. “What of myself?”

“We didn’t know what had become of you. Your disappearance was reported in the paper. You’d been seen publicly a few times in the week after Harry went into hiding, so no one connected the two of you. Many feared you had been discovered as a spy and killed. A few thought you might have chosen the other side and completely left the light.”

“I suppose you were one of them?”

“No, I was not. No matter what you may think of me, Severus, I never assumed the worst of you.”

There was a tense moment of silence. Harry tried to figure out a question to ask in order to get the conversation moving again, but the only one he could think of was the one he least wanted to hear the answer to. Finally forced to speak by the overly loud stillness, he asked, “So what happens now?”

Both men stopped assessing one another and looked at him. Snape spoke first. “We leave.”

That was what he’d been afraid to hear, but the answer didn’t sting any less. “And go where?”

Snape side-eyed Remus. “Perhaps now is not the time to discuss that.”

Remus was not offended at this. Snape tilted his head slightly and narrowed his eyes a bit, his posture of deep conjecture. He sat like that for a moment before slowly sitting back in his chair and lacing his fingers together, staring blankly at a spot on the floor.

Harry knew to let his professor be when he got to thinking like that, so he turned to Remus, who seemed bemused at this shift in Snape’s behavior. “So, how’s the weather out there?”

“Nasty. I do hope there will be a boat home tonight, or I may have some very uncomfortable sleeping arrangements.”

If he was expecting an offer of refuge from Snape, he wasn’t going to get one. He did not look hopefully over, however, so Harry felt himself spared from the need to apologize. It wasn’t really their house anyways. “There will be. The ferry boat makes its last trip at six.” The clock on the wall read 2:41, and Remus relaxed slightly.

“Excellent.” He then smiled at Harry. His next sentence, while delivered with a cheerful tone, had an undercurrent of steel. “And you are well? Happy?” A half glance at Snape revealed his true meaning.

“Yes,” Harry said, trying to infuse all of the peace and contentment he’d found at the village and with Snape into his voice. “I am.”

That honest answer seemed to be enough for Remus, whose smile turned to a more genuine delight, along with a tinge of relief. “Good.”

Whether or not Snape noticed the byplay (although Harry guessed he had, as even when in deep thought, the man was constantly aware of his surroundings), he did not react.

“What about Hogwarts? What’s happening there?”

Remus’ smile fell. “It is not… ideal.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

Remus sighed. “The Ministry has placed a High Inquisitor at the school to monitor Dumbledore and the teachers.”

“Umbridge,” Harry recalled with distaste, before realizing that would reveal that he and Snape had an outside source of information. He glanced guiltily over, but Snape ignored him. He resisted the urge to sigh with relief. “And Ron and Hermione, and the others? They’re okay?”

“They’re as well as can be expected,” Remus said, which was not particularly reassuring.”

“I believe,” Snape spoke up slowly, “that I have an idea.”

Harry and Remus instantly turned to him with expectant looks. He raised his eyes from the floor to meet Harry’s gaze. “But you will need to trust me.”

The plan was finalized and Remus left long before Amy and Malcolm came home. They had, of course, heard about the stranger who wanted to speak with them. Snape gave them a vague response, acting troubled and distant according to the first part of their plan. Then again, Snape was a good actor, but Harry thought he could detect a note of genuine perturbation in his voice that echoed the pang in Harry’s own heart.

Things were about to change. Something had ended.