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He's rekindling my hearth fire. Leaning closer, can I be consoled, a prisoner in this grim old house?
He's brought embers from a Samhain blaze and a lit turnip lantern.
I won't join in celebrating the anniversary of the Marauders' disastrous end. But Remus insists on commemorating who we were years before and assumes I'll remember a full-moon Halloween.
I agree to share the meal of turnip mash Molly sent. Instead of bobbing for apples, we feed each other the way I fed him back when we were sixteen.
His hands were wrapped in bandages. To help me reach the memory, he's mentioned another not-fully happy detail: Pomfrey caught me in his hospital bed. And of course, the Dementors have left more: my remorse.
I should have been there for him at moonrise. I could have skipped the feast in the Great Hall without raising suspicion. When we three Animagi arrived after curfew, he'd already gnawed his paws.
He'd transformed in solitude and agonised worse than ever, because one month earlier the wolf had run free with us for the very first time. He'd craved that freedom. Or feared it?
Back then, he was the one who could not remember.