Three years is the blink of an eye. Three years is a lifetime. Severus has had three years to rage against why he didn't die, why things happened the way they did. He hasn't let any of it go, but he hasn't had the luxury of being able to lay around being depressed about everything. He has to get up every morning and mentor a hundred children ravaged by war, he has to go out every night and study and search at the headmaster's behest. His feelings have been grounder under his own heel, made toxic and insidious.

"How can you ask that?" is duller than before. Tired, maybe. He knows Remus is closer, still standing in the smoldering impact of it. But to Severus it's obvious. It was even then. The very morning after with Ministry hacks shaping press releases and sighing with relief. "Do you really want to talk about this?"

With me? is unvoiced, but somehow still present.