A/N: This was written a couple years ago and I haven't edited it since, so I'm reasonably sure my writing may be questionable, Anaia is a Mary Sue, Snape is probably OOC and all that jazz. Everything here that isn't J. K. Rowling's is mine, except the Mayhem Manual, which I believe I read about in a truly excellent fanfic called Blood Ties, definitely find and read it. My apologies for borrowing it as a plot device, if you are or know the author and she has a problem with that, please let me know and I'll take down the fic.

Otherwise, reviews are welcome.

A knock sounded on the door. Or rather, a bang, as though someone were pounding on it with clenched fists and all their might. The solid wood trembled, and as the roar of the snowstorm swelled outside, the banging intensified.

"Merlin's beard," Snape muttered, and flicked his wand. The door didn't move, but all at once a wet, bedraggled, and very cold Remus Lupin was standing in his living room.

"Thank you," the werewolf said, and dried himself magically. "Why the devil is it snowing in July?" He sat down on the couch. "Do you like this absurd weather?"

"It's not July here." Snape twirled his wand and plucked two glasses of elf-made wine from midair. "Here, since you are evidently not going to leave."

"Thanks." Lupin sipped at the wine and closed his eyes, no doubt enjoying the quiet comfort of Snape's humble abode. He looked incredibly different; the tiredness was gone, and the grey from his hair. No wild-eyed, shabbily dressed man sat on the couch. No, the Remus Lupin currently taking advantage of Snape's unprecedented hospitality was clad in fine robes, relaxed, serene, and twenty-five.

"You were saying?" Snape prompted, turning the page of his book. Mother's milk, why was he reading about Quidditch? As the thought crossed his mind, the text smoothly shifted to something referencing manticores. Well, it would do.

"I've come with a suggestion," Lupin said, and when that didn't seem to have the desired effect, he added, "From the Powers That Be."

Snape lowered the book. One look into that young, guileless face told him Lupin wasn't joking. He shut the tome. "Continue."

"There's trouble," Lupin said simply.

"He's dead."

"Yes. But he's not the only Dark wizard in existence that could possibly cause a spot of bother."

Snape arched an eyebrow. "How big a spot?"

"Big enough."

"And its name?"

Lupin spoke two words, and Snape's blood ran cold – or it pretended to, anyway. He could never be sure what was real and what wasn't in this place. Not that it mattered. After all, dead was dead.

"What do they want us to do?" Snape asked eventually.

"Not us," Lupin said. "You. I'd be no use."

Snape refrained from asking why. "All right. Me, then. What do they want me to do?"

Lupin spoke two more words.

Snape closed his eyes. "You cannot be serious."

"Do I look like I'm having you on?"

Outside, the snowstorm had attained epic proportions. The wind gave an inhuman howl, and Snape glanced around his cosy den. That was what it was, really, more an animal's place of refuge than a standard home. But it was peace, and it was comfort, and wasn't he entitled to those things after all he'd been through?

"And why wouldn't you be of any use?" he asked.

"She wouldn't listen to me."

"She?"

"Yes, she. Born at the new moon to left-handed parents, one Dark and the other mad, possessed of a stupendously magical mansion –"

"No." Snape was shaking his head. "She was the bane of my existence."

"She was the only thing that ever mattered to you besides Albus and the woman you could never have," Lupin said softly. "You saved each other's lives, as I recall, and –"

"And then never spoke to each other again," Snape finished. "Yes, I quite remember."

No. He could not. To give up everything he had here, to tear himself from somewhere he could see the emerald sparkle of –

"When?" he asked.

"Now," Lupin said, watching him. "I can get you to within a mile of the manor, you'll have to walk the rest on foot. And you know there can be no contact after you leave."

"So what –"

"I've told you all I know." Lupin lifted his shoulders helplessly. "Look at it as a second chance of sorts."

"Bollocks," Snape said flatly. "I arsed it up the first time, Merlin only knows what I –"

"Severus." Lupin reached out and took his hands. "Time to go. Good luck."

Snape shut his eyes. "Get it over with."

A soft chuckle. "Hang on. I don't think this will feel very pleasant."

Dull, aching pain suffused Snape. He had never felt it before, but he could guess what it was. There was a snapping, grinding noise as bones formed, and his teeth clicked into being. Limbs flexed as tendons grew, and then a thick rippling as muscle was layered on. That hurt a great deal. But the most painful thing was the first agonizing beat of his heart.

Snape gasped, and his chest burned as he realized he was breathing. His eyes sprang open, and then black hair fell into existence over them as he tumbled facefirst into the snow.

It took a few moments to get accustomed to having a body. He hadn't been dead all that long, but it had been long enough to forget about the encumbrances of a physical form. Snape pushed himself up on his hands, spitting out snow and biting his tongue in the process, and climbed awkwardly to his newly made bare feet. Well, at least he wasn't naked.

He was standing in a wilderness of snow. Flat whiteness stretched away from him in every direction. After a moment of searching his brain, he decided this was Siberia. Which he was grateful for, because the flat and the white made it easy to find the huge black monstrosity that was Zephyrine Manor.

Snape, shivering violently, began to stumble through the snow. Remus Lupin, he had no doubt, was laughing.