The first thing I felt was the light. Not the usual weight of the day or that tight knot of tension lodged behind my ribs. Just light: soft and golden, spilling through the tall windows as if it had been waiting for me. It lay across the floorboards in slow, lazy bands, catching on dust motes floating through the air. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I didn't want to move. No plan. No urgency. Just light.
But peace, when it came, always felt suspicious.
Outside, the world had already started turning. I could hear it, faint but steady: someone dragging a deckchair across a patio, tyres crunching over gravel, a laugh carried on the breeze. The sort of laugh that never had to check over its shoulder first. It sounded like someone else's life.
I sat on the edge of the bed, my bare feet brushing the wooden floor, cool beneath my skin. I stared at my hands, flexing them once, then again, as though they might remind me who I was meant to be today. They didn't.
The room looked softer in daylight—gentler somehow. The Quidditch posters on the far wall fluttered faintly in the breeze. Viktor Krum was frozen mid-stretch, his broom angled as though he hadn't a single worry in the world. I envied him. That kind of freedom—playing for yourself and no one else—felt impossible.
My owl shifted on her perch in the corner, feathers puffed as though she'd been awake for hours and wasn't impressed by my slow start. She gave a low hoot—not urgent, just a quiet nudge. A small reminder that time hadn't stopped, even if I wished it would, just for one morning.
"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, voice rough. I hadn't meant to speak. The quiet felt almost sacred, like something that shouldn't be disturbed before the day had properly begun.
I crouched beside the trunk at the foot of my bed—still half-packed, like everything else in my life. Half-sorted. Half-settled. T-shirts crumpled in corners, books stacked unevenly, curled scraps of parchment, a few empty Chocolate Frog wrappers. The remains of a life that never stayed still for long.
I didn't bother to choose. Just grabbed the nearest clean-enough shirt and pulled it on. It didn't matter. Not today.
The stairs creaked beneath me as I padded down, barefoot and quiet. It wasn't a harsh sound, not a warning. More of a greeting—a soft 'Ah, there you are.' As if the house had noticed me. As if it remembered.
And then the smell reached me.
Toast. Butter melting into it. Something sweet—cinnamon, maybe cloves—and tea: strong and earthy, the kind Remus always brewed. The scent wrapped around me as I reached the bottom step.
I didn't speak straight away. Just stood in the doorway, letting it settle.
Remus stood by the hob, sleeves rolled up, his wand lazily stirring the kettle as it hovered over a blue flame. The scent of rosemary had joined the others. He looked at ease, though there was a softness to his shoulders, a stillness I rarely saw.
He moved like someone who had finally stopped running, if only for the morning.
I didn't want to interrupt. It felt wrong to break the moment. So I just watched, sunlight spilling across the floor at my feet.
"Good afternoon, Harry," Remus said without turning. There was a small smile in his voice, the kind that told me he'd known exactly how long I'd been awake, lying there and thinking instead of sleeping.
I gave a short laugh. "It's barely morning," I said, though we both knew mornings didn't mean much to us anymore.
He turned slightly, one eyebrow lifting. "It's nearly midday," he said, and there was something faintly amused in the way he said it, like he was pretending things were normal for my sake.
I shrugged, though the corner of my mouth twitched. He handed me a mug with that same easy, practised movement I remembered from every place we'd ever stayed. It looked so ordinary, so routine, it almost tricked me into believing this was just another quiet morning instead of borrowed peace.
The tea was perfect—slightly sweet, with a trace of chamomile beneath the stronger herbs. Calming. Thoughtful. Of course he knew what I needed before I did.
He always had. Ever since the first safe house, when I was too young to understand why the curtains were always drawn.
We didn't speak straight away. We stood in the quiet hum of the kitchen, sipping tea while the world outside carried on without us. I could hear birdsong, the soft crackle of the fire, and somewhere beyond the trees, a faint tune drifting from a wireless.
"Toast?" Remus asked, tone light, almost casual but never unkind. "Or are we feeling a bit grand today? Scrambled eggs?"
"Eggs," I said, too quickly. It wasn't about being grand, or even about the food. It was the choice, the ritual, the rare comfort of someone standing at the hob, asking what I wanted, not what I needed to survive.
I leaned against the counter, hip pressed into the warm wood, and looked out the window. Outside, the village carried on as if nothing had ever gone wrong, as if no one had vanished in the night or been hunted for their name. Gardens glowed with colour. A neighbour knelt among hers, trimming a hedge. A dog wandered past the post box, tail wagging. Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang, perhaps from a bakery, perhaps a clock tower. I didn't know. But it was… normal.
Blissfully, utterly normal.
None of them had any idea who we were or what we'd seen. What we carried. To them, we were just another pair of quiet faces passing through, shadows at the edge of their peaceful little world.
For a while, neither of us spoke. The gentle sounds of cooking filled the quiet: the faint pop and sizzle of oil and the scrape of a spoon against ceramic. It should have felt hollow, but it didn't. The cottage seemed to still around us, listening, holding its breath.
Of course, Remus was the one to break the silence. Always too observant for his own good.
"You're quiet today," he said softly; not accusing, just noticing, the way he always did.
I hesitated, tracing the chipped rim of a mug by the sink. I didn't want to lie. But I didn't want to explain either.
"It's nothing," I said, and winced as the words came out. I didn't believe them, and neither did he. Somehow, that made it worse.
Before I could stop myself, the words slipped out. "Just a bad dream."
He went still for half a heartbeat. Not dramatically, just a quiet shift of his shoulders, his head tilting as if to listen more closely. He didn't speak straight away. Didn't try to fill the silence with reassurance. He simply turned towards me, slow and careful, and looked.
"Harry," he said quietly, "that's not nothing."
He stepped closer, one hand lifting my chin; not roughly, not to demand attention, but with a quiet care that made something in my chest ache. I felt like a boy who still flinched at kindness because he didn't quite know what to do with it.
There was something grounding in his touch. Remus didn't see the name, the history, or the secret the world had forgotten. He just saw me: scarred, tired, still trying. And somehow, that made it worse. Because it made me feel real.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, his thumb brushing beneath my jaw before he let go. "I know it's not easy."
I looked at him. The lines on his face seemed deeper than I remembered, the skin beneath his eyes bruised with sleeplessness. He didn't look like someone who'd missed a night's rest. He looked like someone who'd given too much away, again and again, until the world had worn him thin in quiet, careful ways.
He turned back to the hob and stirred the eggs. Something in the movement felt final—a quiet full stop.
"We're only here for a while," he said, voice barely louder than the wind through the open window. "You know that."
I nodded, something inside me twisting.
Of course I knew. We never stayed long. We never could. No matter how solid the walls felt, no matter how many mornings passed without alarms or whispers, it was always borrowed time. Another safe house. Another almost.
"I just…" I began, but the rest caught in my throat.
I just want to stop running. To breathe without looking back. To believe this could be real.
Instead, I dipped my head in a small nod, barely there. I hoped it said everything I couldn't bring myself to voice.
Remus noticed, of course. He always did.
"There's no need to rush," he said after a moment, softer now. "We'll talk later."
Later.
The word hung between us, not a promise, but close enough. Close enough to believe in.
Later meant we were still here. It meant there might be a tomorrow. Meant that, for once, nothing had to collapse or vanish or end.
I clung to that.
Sometimes, it felt like that was all I ever did.
Living with Remus had started as a precaution. A strategic measure. Dumbledore's idea, really—another safe house for a boy the world had forgotten. A boy who wasn't supposed to exist. But the truth was simpler and heavier. Remus took me in because he cared. Because no one else had thought to. Because he understood what it meant to be hunted for something you couldn't change.
But knowing that didn't make it any easier.
He said it was for my safety, and maybe it was. But every day I stayed, and every night guilt crept in. It felt like I was stealing from a man who'd already lost too much.
And then there was the other truth: the quiet, dreadful one.
The full moon was still weeks off, but I could feel it already, hanging over us like a thread pulled too tight.
It showed in the way he winced when he thought I wasn't looking, in the stiffness of his shoulders, and in how he flinched at sudden noise.
We never spoke of it.
But I saw it. And it terrified me, because I knew he'd carry that pain in silence, never asking for help. Just like I did.
Maybe that's why we kept orbiting each other like this: not quite kin, not quite strangers, just two worn things trying not to break in front of one another.
Morning light spilled through the curtains, cutting softly through the hush of the cottage and falling across Remus's face. It drew faint shadows beneath his cheekbones, deepening the tiredness written there. His shirt hung loose, worn thin from years of washing, faded from blue to a colour that wasn't quite anything. His trousers sagged a little at the waist, held up more by habit than fit. He didn't look like anyone's idea of a protector.
He looked worn. Threadbare, like his clothes.
But dignity still clung to him. The sort of strength that didn't need to prove itself. The kind forged not in glory, but in the long hours after the fight, when the noise fades and the weight settles again.
I watched him in silence. The movement of his hands was slow and deliberate as he turned the eggs in the pan. There was a strange grace to it, the sort earned through a thousand quiet defeats and the refusal to stay down after any of them.
And I wondered, not for the first time, how someone so worn thin could be the one meant to keep me safe. How he could carry both our ghosts when it was clear he could barely stand beneath the weight of his own.
I looked away, heat and guilt crawling up my neck. The mirror above the sink caught my eye; the glass was cracked straight through, like lightning had once struck it and no one had bothered to mend it. My reflection stared back: pale, thin, with hair sticking out in every direction. My glasses sat crooked on my nose, useless as ever.
And the eyes. Always the eyes.
Remus said they were my mother's, like it was meant to comfort me. But all I ever saw in them was weight. Expectation. A legacy I'd never asked for.
Remus turned from the hob and set a plate in front of me: scrambled eggs, neat and steaming, a quiet offering. He rinsed his own at the sink, every movement steady and deliberate, as if keeping order might stop something else from coming undone.
Remus crossed to the window seat with a slow exhale and sat down, the old bench creaking beneath him. With a flick of his wand, the Daily Prophet drifted across the room and unfolded in his lap. He didn't open it as though he expected good news. He opened it like a man waiting for the next blow to land.
"What's new?" I asked, though I already knew the answer. It was never anything good.
He didn't answer at once. Just tilted the paper so I could see.
The headline didn't matter. The photograph said enough.
Ash and ruin filled the frame; walls folded in on themselves like broken bones. Black smoke curled from what might once have been a home or a Muggle café. It was hard to tell. And above it all, hanging in the sky like decay itself, was the Dark Mark.
Green. Twisting. Cruel.
I stared until the image blurred, but I couldn't look away.
"Muggles live in fear now," Remus said at last, his voice low and tired. "Even in the quietest villages. There's nowhere safe anymore."
Guilt surged, sharp and sudden. I looked around the kitchen; the scent of rosemary and toast still hung in the air, the sun was warm on my skin, and the floorboards were smooth beneath my feet. All of it felt wrong.
How dare we have peace, even a sliver of it, when others had none?
"What can we do for them?" I asked quietly, almost to myself. "While we sit here, safe and hidden, they're out there dying."
Remus turned his head slowly, his eyes unreadable, shadowed, and guarded. Not unkind, but distant. Like something in him had gone to ground and refused to come back up.
"Your path's already been laid for you," he said at last. "Even if you can't see it yet."
The words landed cold and heavy. They were meant to comfort, I think. But they didn't.
I didn't want a path. I didn't want prophecy or pre-written endings. I wanted freedom—choice—the right to be ordinary. To decide for myself who I'd be, not who the world thought I was meant to become.
But that had never really been mine, had it?
I looked back at the paper, at that image of smoke and green light, and the fear crept in again, slow and familiar.
I didn't feel safe.
And I wasn't sure I could save anyone.
"They're scared," I murmured. "All of them. And all we do is sit here. Just watching."
For a long moment, Remus said nothing. He folded the paper with deliberate care, pressing the crease flat before setting it aside. His face gave nothing away—blank, almost—but when he finally spoke, his voice was gentler than I'd expected.
"Fear can stop people," he said. "Make them freeze. But it can also push them to do things they never thought they could. You've seen that. You've lived it."
I swallowed hard. The lump in my throat was sudden and stupid and made of too many things.
"And you've done more than just act, Harry," he said quietly. "You've given me something to believe in. You've given me hope."
Hope.
The word hit something raw in me—too fragile, too dangerous.
Faces rose unbidden: people who had followed me, believed in me, and fought beside me.
Died because of me.
And still, I was here.
And that, more than anything, was what made it hard to breathe some days.
"I don't feel like hope," I whispered. "I feel like a mistake. A name in a story I don't know how to finish."
Remus turned fully then, watching me with that quiet intensity of his. Not judging. Not pitying. Just seeing. Seeing too much.
"There has to be something we can do," I said again, my voice rising. The words spilled out, messy and desperate. "Anything. I can't just sit here. I can't wait. Not while people are… while they're…"
My voice cracked. I didn't care.
He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. It lingered faintly at the corners of his mouth, tugged by some old memory that never quite let go.
"Perhaps, Harry," Remus said softly. "But the change begins here."
He tapped his chest, two fingers against his heart.
"Changing the world starts with learning to change yourself."
Outside, the wind pressed through the trees, bare branches scraping the windowpane. They seemed to shiver, as though they had overheard him and weren't sure what to make of it.
"Master your craft," he went on, voice quiet but steady. "Not just the incantations. That's the easy part. Learn restraint. Precision. Learn to lead, not merely react. Become the kind of wizard who can carry what is coming and endure it."
I hesitated. My throat tightened.
"Do you really think I can?" I asked. I hated how small my voice sounded.
"Yes," he said, without the faintest pause. No hesitation. No doubt. Just yes.
"But not all at once," he added gently. "Today, practise the spell I showed you. Tomorrow, we will talk about what comes next. Just put one foot in front of the other, Harry."
There was something in his tone, firm and certain, that pulled me back from the edge. Not away from the war or the fear, but back to something solid.
One footfall.
One breath.
One spell.
I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. The tightness in my chest eased slightly, like a knot beginning to loosen.
Outside, the wind still whipped through the trees.
But inside the cottage, the warmth held.
The village moved at its own pace: slow, deliberate, like the ticking of an old clock that refused to be hurried. Ottery St Catchpole had a rhythm born of old memories and older stone. Cottages pressed close together, ivy climbing lazily up their chimneys. Smoke curled from hearths. Mornings arrived cloaked in birdsong and the scent of jasmine or damp earth, depending on the weather.
People waved as you passed. They paused to exchange pleasantries, to ask after the weather, the price of eggs, and whether the baker's daughter had finally married the smith's apprentice. Milk bottles sat on doorsteps. Dogs dozed in sun-dappled patches, unbothered by the comings and goings of the world.
But even here, you could feel it, that quiet buzz beneath the calm. The sidelong glances. The questions that never quite made it past polite smiles. They did not know who we were, but they knew we were not locals. Knew we did not belong.
A boy who looked too closely at everything.
A man with scars on his face and shadows in his eyes.
We were not guests or cousins come to visit.
We were ghosts in borrowed clothes, haunting the edges of their peace.
Sometimes, when the wind came in from the east, I swore I could hear it: the faint crack of Apparition, the cruel laughter of Death Eaters threading through the trees, and the distant murmur of a world fraying at its seams. Maybe not all who remembered me had forgotten their orders. But up here, on this quiet rise looking down at windmills and fields, it felt like it belonged to someone else's story.
I wanted to believe it could be ours. That peace could last longer than a moment.
Remus's voice broke softly through my thoughts.
"Do you agree, Harry?"
I blinked. "Sorry, what?"
He was watching me, not with frustration, but with that quiet weariness that had become part of him. The look of someone who had learnt that most answers are not found in books or spells, but in surviving.
"We were speaking about Hogwarts," he said evenly. "About keeping a low profile."
Right. Hogwarts.
It felt wrong, somehow. I could not imagine myself roaming those corridors, falling into House routines and timetables, pretending I was just another student.
But Dumbledore had arranged it. Said it would keep us safe, for now. Said there were things I needed to learn. And Remus had to stay traceable enough for Hogwarts to find him. I was still the one no one was meant to remember.
The castle was protection, yes, but also a prison of sorts. A fortress built of stone and history, where every step echoed with what had come before.
Remus cleared his throat.
"You and I will be there in different capacities, student and staff. That gives us access, but it brings scrutiny. Hogwarts is full of secrets, Harry. You will need to keep your eyes open."
I nodded slowly. The weight of it settled over me like a cloak pulled tight around my shoulders.
"Sounds absolutely marvellous," I muttered, though a reckless part of me meant it.
Somewhere deep down, the thought of going to Hogwarts, despite everything, sparked something dangerously close to hope.
Remus caught it. Of course he did.
"Enthusiasm can be useful," he said wryly. "But dangerous, too. Attention brings questions. Questions you may not be ready, or safe enough, to answer."
I exhaled and rubbed the back of my neck.
"Alright. I will keep my head down."
"Self-control," he corrected gently. "Not silence. Not hiding. Just awareness."
I knew he was right. He always was, curse him.
But that didn't make it easy.
"It is just harder for me than it is for you," I said quietly, not meeting his eyes. "You always knew how to disappear into a room. I will never have that luxury once I use my real name."
For a moment, he did not answer. Then he faced me fully, and when he spoke, his voice was low and steady.
"It is not about luxury, Harry," he said. "Or ease. It is about necessity. Not that it matters—no one at Hogwarts will recognise it. Dumbledore's seen to that."
He paused.
"Sometimes the only way to survive is to become smaller than the danger that hunts you," he added. "Not forever. Just long enough to outlast it."
His words sank in slowly. I did not respond. I just stood there, feeling the weight of another truth settle beside all the others.
There was a softness in Remus's eyes that caught me off guard. Not comfort. Not kindness. Quieter than that. Knowing. The look of someone who had seen too much and said too little. A gaze shaped by restraint. And loss.
"You have done hard things before, Harry," he said, voice low and measured. "Harder than this. And you will do more because you must. But do not forget there is strength in patience, too. In knowing when to hold back."
I opened my mouth to say something sharp, maybe something tired. I wanted to shout that I was done with waiting, sick of hiding in shadows while the world frayed. Sick of watching others fight and fall while I stayed tucked behind curtains and spells and plans I did not understand.
But then I saw it, the faint tension at his mouth. The new lines above his brows. The flicker of worry he had not quite managed to hide.
And the words died in my throat.
"If anyone can do it," he said simply. That was all.
No speech. No fuss. Just quiet certainty.
The kind that settles somewhere deep.
I turned back to the window. The village basked beneath the morning sun, rooftops bathed in that soft, golden light that only seems to appear just after dawn. It spilled through the clouds like something precious leaking from the sky.
And for a single, weightless moment, everything held.
One breath at a time, I told myself. One day at a time.
I would blend in. I would play the part. I would become whatever the world needed of me, even if I no longer knew who that was. Even if every part of me ached to be someone else entirely. Someone unburdened. Unmarked.
Remus moved through life with a rhythm: measured, deliberate, maddeningly serene. His composure had nothing to do with ease. It was learnt, rehearsed, a survival instinct honed sharp like the tip of a duelling wand. Watching him felt like watching someone who had memorised the rules of a game designed to break people and had mastered it without blinking.
And me?
I was still fumbling for the instructions.
He wore his disguises like second skins: names that were not his, posts that were not real. He slipped into false lives as easily as pulling on an old coat, familiar and well-worn. He knew how to vanish properly, how to take up space without drawing attention.
It grated on me, that grace.
While I struggled under new names and borrowed smiles, he settled. He made it look effortless, this life on the run. But I did not want effortless. I did not want practised smiles or half-truths spoken through clenched teeth. I wanted connection. Something raw and real.
A laugh unfiltered by fear.
A touch that did not flinch.
A story shared in the open without glancing over our shoulders.
Sometimes, on long walks through Muggle parks, or sitting across from each other in little cafés that smelt of coffee and dust, I let myself pretend. I would sit there, fingers curled round a mug, and think, Maybe this is what being normal feels like.
Just a boy with a scar and a headache.
No prophecy. No war.
But fantasy has a way of cutting back. The more I reached for it, the more danger slid in behind me.
And always, Remus noticed.
He would give me that look, that silent warning, and then we would leave. No argument. No explanation.
Just another door closed behind us.
Another house abandoned.
Another not-quite-life left behind.
This time, he promised, was different.
But Hogwarts did not feel different.
The thought of those halls and staircases, those endless echoing rooms, did not comfort me.
It filled me with something that felt too much like grief.
Even as Remus spoke of protection and permanence, something deep inside me recoiled.
Because I did not believe in safety.
Not really.
And a school full of sharp-eyed students and portraits that never slept did not feel like a sanctuary.
It felt like a trap.
Still, his voice, calm and maddeningly certain, anchored me.
"Hogwarts is the safest place for you," he said. "The Headmaster has protections you cannot yet imagine. If you stay within its walls, you will not have to keep running."
I wanted to believe him. I did.
"Time to get changed," he told me.
I nodded.
I went upstairs and opened the trunk at the foot of my bed. The hinges squeaked the same way they always had. Familiar. Almost comforting.
Inside, my robes waited, folded and neat.
I shrugged them on. The sleeves were too short, the hem hanging awkwardly. I had grown taller and leaner, with more angles than softness. The fabric hung off me like something meant for someone else.
Or maybe it was not the robes that no longer fit.
Perhaps I was the one who had changed.
I stared at myself in the mirror.
The boy looking back was not quite the one I remembered.
There was something in the eyes.
Something that had not been there before.
A wariness.
A weight.
Maybe that is what war does to you.
Not all at once, but slowly.
Until one day you cannot remember what it felt like not to be afraid.
I smoothed the front of my robes and turned from the mirror.
It was time to go.
Even if part of me still was not sure where I was going back to.
Downstairs, Remus was already waiting.
Gone was the tattered traveller who had drifted through too many half-lives. In his place stood someone more composed: robes crisp and dark, cuffs buttoned, collar pressed. Yet the wear still clung to him, subtle but unmistakable, stitched into the set of his shoulders and the grey threaded through his hair. His eyes, watchful and world-weary, had not changed.
He stepped forward without a word and straightened my tie with hands steadier than mine. His fingers moved deftly, practised, like someone who had done this before, for someone else, long ago.
In the hall mirror beside us, I caught a glimpse of myself.
The reflection startled me. The Hogwarts crest sat bright against black robes. A school hat perched awkwardly on hair that refused to be tamed. It looked wrong somehow. Too neat. Too formal. Like a costume meant for someone else.
I did not look like myself.
I looked like a boy pretending to be someone. A ghost dressed in school colours.
"There," Remus said at last, with a faint huff of amusement. "From wandering nomad to certified schoolboy."
I flinched, just slightly, at the words.
Wandering nomad. The phrase struck harder than it should have. Not because it was untrue, but because of how casually he said it. As if it were a badge. I could not tell whether he meant it kindly or if it was simply a truth too worn to sting anymore. Either way, it sat on my chest like another weight I did not know how to carry.
"I'm not sure about this," I said, my voice low and uneven. "What if I am not ready?"
He paused, the humour fading. Then he stepped closer, close enough for me to see the slight tremble in his jaw and the quiet strain at the corner of his mouth.
"You are," he said gently. "I have watched you, Harry. I have seen every step, every choice, every burden. You are stronger than you believe. And ready or not, this is the next step. You will do great things."
It was meant as encouragement. I knew that. But it echoed like something heavier.
You are stronger than you believe.
You will do great things.
People said things like that to me often. I never knew how to answer. It always felt less like a compliment and more like a sentence. A prophecy handed down.
"I do not want to be someone who is supposed to do great things," I muttered. "I just want to feel like I belong somewhere."
Remus did not reply at once. He simply looked at me, and there was something in his gaze that steadied me. Something that did not ask anything of me.
"You do belong," he said. "And you will not be hiding in the shadows anymore, Harry."
My throat tightened. I looked away.
"What if something goes wrong?" I asked, quieter now. "What if I cannot hold it together in there? What if I bring danger with me?"
"Then we will face it," he said at once. "Hogwarts is not just a school; it is a stronghold. It is where hope has begun again before. And it is where you will have space to be, not just survive."
His faith in that place, that it could hold me or heal me, was difficult to grasp. It was the kind of belief I had not managed for a long time.
Still, I wanted to believe it. I needed to.
"But it still feels dangerous," I admitted. "Like I am stepping into the centre of something I am not ready to carry."
He placed a hand on my shoulder; firm, but not heavy.
He set a hand on my shoulder, firm but not heavy. "That is why I am here. And that is why the Headmaster is watching. You are not alone this time, Harry. You do not have to be. You will be safe."
"What if Hogwarts is not safe?" I asked.
Remus's hand stayed on my shoulder, steady. "Then we will learn to make it so."
He meant it kindly. But as we stepped outside and the wards shimmered to life behind us, a thought slipped through before I could stop it.
If safety can be made, it can be broken.
Still, for once, we were walking towards a place that might remember me, even if no one else could.