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Remus meets John for the first time over coffee in the Reference Office. They're celebrating Glynnis's retirement with pot luck, and he and John bump hands, reaching for the knife to cut into the strawberry shortcake. Both pause, startled, then Remus takes the knife from John and cuts him a slice.

"I don't believe we've met," he says, as he hands John the plate. "I'm Remus Lupin, the new English subject librarian."

"John Sheppard," says John. "I work upstairs in Children's." They stand in silence for a moment, then John asks, "Do you like it here at Northeastern?"

Remus pauses, then replies, "Yes. Yes, definitely. I do."

The funny part is, later on, in his office, Remus realises that he wasn't even lying.

***

The magical community in Boston is small, but after that Remus begins to wonder if he was misinformed about the size of the city itself because, though they don't speak again for weeks, he bumps into John all over the place. They nod to one another as they pass in the stacks where Remus is shelving or conducting research, as John passes by on his way to greet a class, or to a departmental meeting, or to snag the latest issue of The Horn Book Magazine from the periodicals reading room as soon as it comes in. They find themselves in the lunch room at the same time, sitting at opposite ends of the old green couch reading in silence. Remus notices that John drinks a lot of coffee, black, and that he takes his glasses off to read, and that he holds every book with the reverence many reserve for holy texts. John's sweaters remind him of Molly Weasley, and his hair, which never lies flat, of Harry Potter when he was a student, before the war.

Remus settles into his new life with ease as well, too used to starting over to do more than note the instances of cultural difference. He mostly sleeps through the night now, and wakes in the morning more rested than he has in decades, and makes himself tea the Muggle way. Remus does a lot of things the Muggle way - it feels more durable somehow. During the war, he learned the limits of magic. Now, he knows that it is a privilege, something that can be taken away, something that needs to be hidden and protected. As long as he can do things without magic, he will always get by. He knows people who were left stranded without magic, and never wants to be that vulnerable. He carries his wand with him everywhere he goes - it is as much a part of him as his cane - but he hardly ever uses it. He also keeps an extra twenty in his shoe - more than enough to get him home if he gets in trouble, alone in the city somewhere.

And he is often alone in the city, wandering after work. He tells himself that he is getting to know his new home, but he knows that really, he is both looking for places to hide, and running from himself, from the desperate wails of memory, from the silence of his solitude. He's doing better than he has in years. This, he can gauge by the depth of the wounds that he leaves on his skin at the full moon, by the time it takes them to heal. It all helps - the house, the money, the air that doesn't smell like death and pain. He really is doing better. He allows himself to think that his life may be more than survival, in time.

***

When it gets warm, Remus begins to take tea at Labyrinths, a quiet little coffee shop just off campus owned by a man named Jorge who talks with his hands and makes the best cup of tea Remus has tasted since coming to America. He is sitting in the sun, reading Pride and Prejudice one day after work when John sits down in the chair across from him.

"Hey stranger," he says, and Remus realizes this is the first time they have spoken since that morning in the Reference Office. John's voice is soft, nervous, as though he is uncertain whether or not he is welcome at the table. Remus tucks a bookmark between the pages of his book and smiles.

"Do you come here often?" John asks.

"I'm starting to," Remus says.

"I've been coming here since I was a student," John says. "Fifteen years. It hasn't changed at all."

Remus can't fathom what that would be like, to come to the same place for fifteen years. Seven, maybe, but fifteen seems like an eternity. He has been moving from place to place, from job to job his entire adult life. Even the Leaky Cauldron changed hands after the war and was converted into an Indian restaurant serving both wizards and Muggles. Remus ate there the last time he was in London, and the food was delicious, but he couldn't help but feel nostalgic for the pub.

Their conversation is awkward at first, but John has read Pride and Prejudice and they talk about the differences between the book and the movies for a few minutes, debate whether Colin Firth or Matthew MacFadyen makes a better Mr. Darcy before Remus brings up Bridget Jones and they're struggling not to laugh and spit hot liquid across the table. Remus proposes they watch the films together some time and really compare, and John doesn't say no. Remus thinks that John seems less guarded, off campus, and wonders why he is usually so closed off. But Remus knows about secrets and so he doesn't ask.

After that, Labyrinths becomes a routine. They meet there at lunchtime and sometimes after work. When Remus arrives before John, he gets his coffee and waits at a table for him, doing Sudoku in the newspaper or reading. It's strange and it kind of scares him, the way John makes him feel more alive than he usually does, the way he looks forward to their lunches and their walks, the way that not all his dreams are nightmares now, the way, in the days after the full moon when he needs to lean on John for support, it doesn't feel like weakness.

***

With John, the words flow more smoothly than they have with anyone since Sirius, and as the weeks go by, they stay in Labyrinths later and later, chatting. One evening, they are still in the café at closing time, and Remus asks if he would like to go for a drink. It is a little frightening, a change from the routine they've settled into so easily, but Remus wants to push this a bit, wants to see how far he can go. He doesn't want to push things so far that John would say no or turn away, but far enough to bring John out of himself.

They go to Christina's, just down the street from Labyrinths, a pub - do they call them bars here? - favoured by Northeastern students, and the way John hesitates for a fraction of a second before ordering tells Remus that he drinks as seldom as Remus does. They sit in a booth in a back corner, nurse their pints and talk in low voices. Remus watches John's face, thrown in sharp relief by the light above their booth, letting his eyes linger longer than he should. But if John notices, he doesn't say anything at all.

Nothing changes after that night, but Remus still feels a bit dangerous, a bit reckless. Something is unfurling in his chest, and he is aware of moving towards an event - but whether it will be a beginning or an end, he cannot guess.

***

Each year in July, the library does a massive clean-up and shelf-read in anticipation of the coming semester. Every department in the library - Circulation, Reference, and even Children's Literature - is issued buckets of cleaning supplies and a shelf-list and sent out to dust, to scrub, to re-organize and take inventory. John has P - PN to look after, as well as his own department, and he sets to work on it right away to get it out of the way as soon as possible. It's dirty, physical work, and even though the building is air-conditioned and John rolls his sleeves up past his elbows, by the time he has done three shelves, he is flushed and his glasses are sliding down his nose.

He is re-shelving the history of the Romanian language when Remus comes around the corner, carrying an ice-cold glass of lemonade, which he hands to John.

"I thought you could use this," he whispers. "Hide it on your cart." The ice cubes clink against the glass. They're standing close together, between the stacks, and Remus can feel the heat radiating off John's body, can smell his sweat mingling with the dust.

John takes a sip of his lemonade. "It's good," he whispers back, "Thanks."

Remus smiles, then reaches out and pushes John's glasses back up on his nose. "I thought you could use it," he repeats, then turns away, so he doesn't hear how John's breath catches in his throat, or see how he blushes red.

"Thanks," John says again.

"Look," Remus says, turning back toward John, "I was wondering - if you're not busy - if you would like to go for dinner with me tonight."

But Wednesday is John's night with the Boston Adult Literacy Fund - he is busy - so he says no. Back in his office, Remus curses himself for reaching out. He craves contact, but knows he shouldn't, knows this only leaves him vulnerable. Alone in his office, he thinks of Sirius, thinks of Tonks, falling, falling. He knows that it is safer to be alone.

***

John knows the full moon is near because he dreams about flying. In a vessel that responds like a part of his own body, he soars through a clear black sky. His co-pilot, always the same man in these dreams, never stops talking, but John is occupied, flying with all his senses, and he barely hears him. He does a lazy loop-de-loop and then levels off. As the stars streak past his windscreen, he senses his father watching him. In the morning he wakes, as always, in a too-wide bed surrounded by books, but this morning he is smiling.

Instead of going straight to his office when he gets into work, John breaks his routine and heads down to Reference. Remus's door is open, and John pauses for a minute to watch him work. Remus is sitting at his computer, and although it is only September, his fingers are wrapped tightly around a mug of milky tea as though trying to drink its heat through the ceramic. John knocks lightly on the doorframe.

"Hey," he says, and when Remus says "Hey" back, his voice is softer, scratchier than usual.

"How are you?"

"Cold," Remus says, "Tired."

John pauses. "Look, here." He takes off his sweater and hands it to Remus. "Wear this. I don't need it. Not right now."
"No, I'm fine, really," Remus says, but there's something desperate, something sad in his voice, and John pushes the sweater into his arms all the same.

"Take it," John says. Mutely, Remus does.

The sweater is red, cable-knit, and if it's a bit loose on John, it's huge on Remus. It has holes in the elbows, and self-consciously, John pats his own elbows: "Sorry."

Remus smiles. "It's okay, really. Thank you, John. Thank you."

"Do you," John pauses, gathering his courage, "In the summer we talked about going for dinner, but we never did, in the end. I was wondering if you'd like to..."

"I'm sorry," says Remus, "I have another commitment. Thank you for the sweater." And as he clasps John's hand, John feels that he is shaking.

It didn't take John long to realise that Remus isn't well. Some days, he is especially pale, and leans more weight on his cane. Others, his hands shake so much that he spills his tea on his shirt as he raises his cup to his lips. Without really ever thinking about it, John began bringing Remus take-out in his office on those days, making him tea in the staffroom in the mornings and bringing it down to him. Today, Remus seems worse than usual, though, and as he works his way through his to-do list, John can't help but fret.

When he thinks about it, it scares him, caring for someone so obviously sick. He feels like he is stumbling around a cliff blindfolded, not knowing if, with his next step, he will topple. He sometimes just has to stop and breathe, telling himself that Remus won't die at the end of the month, or at the end of the year. Not caring would be safer, but Remus makes John feels strangely light, the way he feels in his flying dreams.

It's much too late for safety, and there's a kind of freedom in knowing that, in just letting go.

***

"Whatever you're selling, we don't want any," says the girl with bushy hair who answers John's knock. She is wearing a strange black robe and John wonders if she is on her way to a ceremony at one of the universities or if she simply has eccentric tastes. John may have had one too many cups of coffee, working up the nerve to come out to Remus's house, and he is buzzing with nervous energy. He supposes he might look like a salesman, dressed as he is in khakis and an argyle sweater, holding a huge steaming bag of food, bright-eyed from the caffeine and nervous, standing on the doorstep. Then again, he doesn't think he's ever known of an Indian restaurant to have men out selling its cuisine door-to-door.

Remus has been out of the office for nearly three weeks, and when John asked Penny in Reference where he was, she sighed and said, "He's been sick," as though Death had caught him in a butterfly net and was trying to decide whether to push a pin through him or cast him free. It was then that John decided that he had to seek Remus out, invade his privacy if he had to, and it is only through a combination of eavesdropping, bribery, and sheer manipulation that he was able to track down his address. John is pretty sure that Remus lives alone, and no one, he thinks, should have to be alone when they're sick.

He wasn't expecting the girl, and he isn't quite sure what to make of her. He wonders if she is Remus's daughter, or maybe his girlfriend. He is about to turn away when a hoarse voice calls, "Hermione, who is it?" "I don't know," and "John," Hermione and John say at the same time.

Remus appears in the corridor, hunched over, moving as though each step takes incredible effort, clutching a mug of tea. He is wearing pyjamas with John's red sweater over them and his face is pale.

"Come in, come in," he says. "This is unexpected. Unexpected, but not - unpleasant. Come in. Sorry about the mess, and - " he makes a gesture indicating his person. John looks at his hands and sees that they are wrapped in ragged bandages. Remus colours a bit. John doesn't ask. "Oh, I patched your sweater," Remus says. "I didn't think you'd mind. Come in, come in." "He can't come in," says Hermione, sternly, "You have things everywhere."

"I don't think John minds," says Remus in a mild tone.

"I mind," says Hermione. "You should mind."

John looks at Remus, who shrugs.

"I brought dinner," John says, "From Curry in a Hurry. Vindaloo if you're up for it. Tikka Masala if you're not. And lots of dhal. Oh, and season 2 of Battlestar Galactica. I thought, well, I thought you might be in need of company. But I see - " Remus smiles. "Hermione was on her way out."

"Well, take him into the parlour while I put things in order," Hermione says, and Remus shrugs again, but does what she says.

"Hermione was a student of mine," Remus says, once she's gone. "Brilliant, brilliant girl. She looks after me when I'm having one of my bad spells. But she worries too much. I'm not as frail as I look."

John thinks that Remus looks as frail as glass, like the crystal globe that his mother always kept on a shelf by the kitchen window where the light shone through it, making patterns on the wall. Each time they moved house, she wrapped it carefully in newsprint and tucked it in a box which she kept close to her, as if she could protect it from harm. He wasn't allowed to touch it - it might break - but once when he was nine, he climbed up onto the counter and ran his hands over its smooth surface. When he tapped it with his fingernail, it made the most delicate noise, like someone plucking a harp-string, and John had snatched his hand away, feeling big and clumsy. That's how Remus looks to him, like something beautiful and precious, too perfect for this world. Like his mother with her globe, John isn't convinced that it is possible to worry too much.

The room is small and draughty, but the rugs that overlap on the floor and the roaring fire make it warm and comfortable. The shelves are overflowing with books, and books are stacked along the walls, pouring off the coffee table, and surround a nest of blankets on the couch. John is surprised by some of the strange titles he sees, but he doesn't comment. He wonders if Five Things Merlin Had Horribly, Stupidly Wrong is in the Northeastern library and if it is, whether it circulates often.

John is looking at some photos on the mantelpiece and Remus is telling him about his friends when Hermione bursts into the room.

"Things should be fine now. The water's on for tea, if you'd like some. I have to go. I am so, so late," she says.

"Go, then," Remus replies, "Don't keep the ickle firsties waiting. Come on, John, let's see about tea." "You'll modify his memory, won't you?" Hermione says, reaching for a pot above the fireplace.

"I will - " Remus ushers John out of the room. "- do no such thing." There is a roar, and Remus pulls John to the kitchen by the elbow.

"What was that?" John asks.

"Magic," Remus says, then, "Chicken Vindaloo?"

***

"Commander Adama kind of reminds me of my father," John says. "I don't remember him that well, but I think that was what he was like. Stern and caring. He didn't let me get away with much."

Remus thinks that it's funny, how John never talks about himself without the filter of fiction, without a story, a character to stand in for him, a mask to hide behind. He speculates that John could write a book, an entire novel about a man who is all alone, and no one would know whether it was autobiography or fiction. Autofiction. Remus speculates, hopes, that he would be able to tell the difference.

He thinks he knows a lot about John now - more than anyone else does, at least. From a Discovery Channel special on the mechanics of midway rides, he knows that John will go to a fair just to ride the Ferris Wheel over and over again, that he likes rollercoasters, partly for their speed, but mostly for that feeling of free-fall you get when you tip over the edge after the first climb. From Cube, he knows John's passion for mathematics (and that John has terrible taste in movies), and from Pi, he knows why he dropped out of grad school. From Starship Troopers, he knows that John still regrets that he never learned to fly, and from Wings of Desire, he knows that John sometimes even dreams that he has wings. From Mother and Son, he knows that John misses his mother more than anyone.

"Would that make you Apollo, then?" Remus asks.

"Uh..." John pauses at this. "I'd like to be like Apollo," he says at last. "He's strong. Brave. Kind of fucked up though. I guess I'm kind of fucked up too."

Remus smiles. He is thinking "You are stronger and braver than you think," but he doesn't say so. It's two in the morning and, though he was falling asleep before from the teas Hermione makes him to help with the pain, Remus hasn't felt sleepy for hours. He feels as though he has fallen out of time, as though he could stay awake, watching television, drinking tea and laughing, laughing with John forever.

They're at opposite ends of the couch, sitting like they used to in the staff room at the library, John with his feet curled up under him, leaning against the armrest, Remus with his hands wrapped around a mug of tea, bundled in a pile of blankets. The coffee table is piled high with empty Styrofoam containers and an enormous chocolate bar, half-eaten, teeters on top. Remus shifts, swings his bad leg up onto the couch, then his good leg. "Let me know if I'm in your space," he says.

"You're not in my space," John says. He stretches his legs out, slipping his socked feet under the blanket. Suddenly, Remus is acutely aware of everything around him. The texture of the wool blanket, the give of the couch, the temperature of the air around them thrum in his senses. Remus has always had cold feet, but it has been worse since his injury. John's body heat under the blanket warms them and he is comfortable for the first time in a long time. Comfortable, then too warm. Suddenly, Remus is warm all over. He tries to watch the screen, but the show no longer holds his attention. He looks everywhere - at the photographs on the mantelpiece, at the books on the floor, but not at the television, and anywhere but at John.

"She's amazing," John says. Remus glances at the screen where Roslin is dying of her fast-growing breast cancer, then at John. John's guard is down and he looks more vulnerable than Remus has ever seen him before, more so even than the night they watched Mother and Son. John looks at Remus and catches him watching him "I'm not dying, John," Remus says.

John flushes and looks at his hands. He whispers, "I don't know what I'd do if you were."

At that moment, Remus feels a pull in his gut, a sort of hot, dizzy feeling that muddles his head and blurs his senses. He has never told a Muggle about his problem before but he finds that with John, leaving himself open doesn't hurt. Old wounds do sometimes heal over, he thinks, and as he looks at John, who is wringing his hands nervously in his lap, he realises that John would never intentionally hurt him. It's like stumbling around in a forest and then suddenly coming into a glade full of light. Remus wants to touch the brightness that is spilling into his life at last. He wants to kiss the sun.

Then, Remus reaches out across the space between them and grasps John's hand. A kiss, a touch, it doesn't matter. What matters is that John is real. "I'm not dying," he says, "I'm really not."

John touches his palm to Remus's, then interlaces their fingers.

Neither of them notices when on television Roslin wakes up radiant and healthy.

***

Before long, Remus is back at work. If he isn't well again, he is at least healthier, and if he occasionally falls asleep at his computer it is because Hermione puts too much valerian in his analgesic teas rather than because his reserves of strength are low. The weather is colder by the day, and though there is no snow yet, Remus comes to work bundled tightly in his old Gryffindor scarf, hoping to stave off the November cold that seeps into his bones. He would love November if he could find a way to keep warm.

The winter break is approaching. As the end of classes nears, students spend longer and longer in the library, and not a chair is free. The librarians are stricter than ever about silence but more lenient about coffee cups and snacks provided the students are using their own books and not compromising the Northeastern's. Both John and Remus have extra shifts at the Reference Desk, helping students find the information they need for crucial last minute papers. Circulation keeps the radio on all the time at a low volume and the jovial announcers speculate as to whether or not it will be a white Christmas and count down shopping days as the stores sell, sell, sell and consumers buy, buy, buy in a frenzy of holiday excess. On his way home from work one night, John passes a bookshop decorated with Christmas lights shaped like molecules, and when he wanders in to see if he can find a gift for Remus, he encounters the proprietor who, though he is a whirlwind in robot antlers, seems more like a Scrooge than a Santa. When John asks, he grumbles and says, "I lost a bet with Radek," and the unspoken Bah Humbug is so loud that John doesn't ask more. At Labyrinths, Jose is serving all sorts of specialty coffees and desserts, putting Starbucks to shame with his fruitcake and his cinnamon-clove lattes. Glynnis is in Florida writing romance novels and for the first time isn't there to bring in Christmas cookies so Penny makes a gingerbread house and puts it in the Reference Office, where no one can bring themselves to smash it and have a bite, so it collects dust. Someone puts the Nancy Pearl action figure in the chimney where she shushes imperiously from her perch.

The library Christmas party takes place in the Reference Office the day after exams finish, when reduced holiday hours begin. After hours, Penny brings in a hammer and Imogen empties a couple of bottles of rum into the punch bowl and before long, the Acquisitions librarians have pushed the tables and the shelving carts up against the walls and people are dancing in the middle of the room. Remus can't do "The Locomotion" because of his leg so he sits in a desk chair drinking tea and listens to Cavanaugh from Systems talk about his tropical fish. Everyone has been working flat out for weeks, so this entire evening feels like a sigh of relief, and if the Campus Security goon who comes by to check up on things notices that the punch is spiked, he doesn't mention it.

John is late. When he comes in, still bundled in his duffle coat, his cheeks red from the cold, the party is in full swing. The library director is wearing a Santa costume instead of his usual tidy suit and he makes his way through the crowd, passing out small gifts to his staff. John is hugged and kissed by a dozen drunken librarians before he makes his way over to where Remus is sitting, involved in a heated, though fairly one-sided discussion of the relative merits of various aquarium filtration systems.

"Hey," he says. "Care to dance?"

Remus looks at John, illuminated as he is by the bright light of the reference office, glowing from the temperature change, his hair glittering with moisture.

"Is it snowing?" he asks.

"Yes."

"Keep your coat on."

Remus pulls his own on quickly, not bothering to do it up in his excitement. He leads John through the crowd much faster than John had crossed it originally, ignoring the other librarians' "leaving already?" right out of the building onto the front steps. The snow is coming harder by the second, the gentle wind picking it up and whirling it about in graceful eddies that glitter under the street lamps.

"Someone was eager to get away from Cavanaugh," John says, but Remus doesn't hear him.

"It's beautiful," he says, "Just beautiful."

John can't help but grin at Remus's rapture. He looks around him and sees the familiar campus transformed into a wintry paradise illuminated by artificial light. He thinks that the glittering snow that catches in Remus's hair looks like stars. He wants to visit every one of those stars, to kiss each point of glittering light, to chart Remus's beauty like an astronomer mapping the heavens.

"I have something for you," he says, reaching into his pocket. "This is why I was late." In his hand, he holds a small glass paperweight, a globe, solid glass with the continents frosted on. It's heavy in Remus's hand as he inspects it.

"Wow. I get the world? You're giving me the world?"

John blushes. He knows it's corny, but he whispers, "Giving it back."

Remus can't hide his smile now. He takes his scarf from around his neck and loops it around John's. His hands are fisted in the thick wool as he says, "It doesn't look like much, but this scarf has been a lot of places with me. I want you to have it." Then, he pulls John close and kisses him ever so gently, tentatively on the lips. John is startled at first, but he responds, slipping his hands around Remus's waist and kissing back, taking the time to taste Remus's lips and feel the softness of his tongue.

"I've wanted to do this for a long time," John whispers

"Me too," says Remus, and he nuzzles John's neck.

And behind them, the library staff, who are just beginning to trickle out of the Reference Office as the party draws to a close, break into applause.

The End.