In My Voice

"And as for who’s going to look after Ron and Ginny if you and Arthur died," said Lupin, smiling slightly, "what do you think we’d do, let them starve?"
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, p. 177 (American ed.)

You could call me many things, but a liar is not one of them. I meant it when I told Molly we wouldn’t let Ron or Ginny starve. A promise given is a promise kept, but I didn’t realize at the time that I had so completely tied myself to them. Well, it was to her, actually, because he didn’t really need me as much as she did. Ron had both Hermione and Harry, who also had Sirius and Dumbledore, but who did Ginny have?

There was something I had been feeling all summer but simply couldn’t name. War was coming, so, of course, it put us all on edge. Maybe it was while waiting for the hammer to fall that I first became aware of Ginny‘s unique burden. It was something I never got to know so well until then even though I was her teacher right after the incident.

No one talked anymore of the time Ginny was in the Chamber of Secrets, but she never forgot, even though she always showed everyone a brave face. I heard her from time to time on the nights we were both at 12 Grimmauld Place. She whimpered in her sleep every time the nightmare of Tom returned, and the wolf in me always knew it. When she was awake, she would use the sense of humor she learned from Fred and George as a shield and hide it from the rest of the world. I suspect where Harry was a failed Occlumens, Ginny was a master trained by the worst.

So of course I told Molly we’d take care of Ron and Ginny. It was the least a decent human being would do. I even joked to her later that I would go fatten them up on Honeydukes finest. When Ginny fell down the stairs the next day because she was pushed by the twins’ school trunks, I had to give pause and wonder if I realized the truth of what my promise would entail. So I accompanied her, Fred and George just to make sure nothing happened on the way to King’s Cross.

Months later when Arthur was bitten by Voldemort’s snake Nagini, I made sure to help the family. I visited Arthur in the ward and spent my first Christmas together with the rest of the Weasley clan at Grimmauld Place. Later in a replay of the trip to King’s Cross, I escorted Fred, George and Ginny and the others as they all took the Knight Bus back to Hogwarts.

That was only the beginning because we both went separately to the Ministry that night to save Harry and Sirius. When Sirius fell beyond the veil, I had to keep my eyes on Ginny for it hurt too much to consider anything else. I certainly couldn’t ponder the irony that I made a promise to protect her while my best friend had just been murdered in front of my eyes and I was helpless to save him.

The miracle was that once again Ginny had survived. She may have been injured and broken, but she was not defeated. When I praised her skill in the battle, she thanked "Professor Lupin", but I couldn’t be him to her any more. I was simply Remus--Remus who was bound to her by a promise.

II. Ginny, Part 1: After Tom

Gilderoy Lockhart was a joke. He was supposed to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. He was supposed to know how to fight evil and protect us from it. He was supposed to do all of this, but he failed all of us, especially me. He never told me about Tom.

When I was in the Chamber losing my life, it wasn’t Lockhart that came to save me. It was Harry Potter. How I loved Harry then! How I have since given up that he will ever see me, but he came for me then and Lockhart did not.

I had to continue my life after Tom in full knowledge of the depth of the Dark Arts. Would there be someone who could help me in a way that Lockhart did not?

After the pretty Lockhart with all his mirrors and portraits left the school, Remus Lupin came to Hogwarts. That is, Professor Remus J. Lupin, professional werewolf. We didn’t know that at first, of course, but at least that explained why he seemed to get sick so very often.

Lupin was different; he knew right away how to fight evil. He helped us learn true defensive spells and fighting skills. I wondered what he had done in his life to know so much. He seemed so young somehow, even if his hair was accented with grey. When it was said that he was the best DADA teacher Hogwarts ever had, I agreed, though my opinion on the subject was skewed by both Tom and Lockhart.

After Lupin left, we had "Mad-Eye" Moody, or at least the person who we thought to be Moody. I feel somehow that I should have known he was an imposter. Hadn’t I already had enough experience with trickery and deceit? Surprisingly when this Moody was in character, he was a good teacher. It just goes to show that being Dark himself, he really did know how the Darkness worked and how to fight it.

After that year I had hoped for more; I really did. We got that toad of a woman in pink cashmere, Dolores Umbridge. I think she was more of a joke than Lockhart was, but while he was merely incompetent, she was a bureaucrat.

When Harry began Dumbledore’s Army, I knew I had to be there. I had learned too much already to ignore the Dark truth around me. So I practiced and practiced, honing my defensive skills. I felt that if Lupin could have seen us all he would have been proud.

He did see us, though, that night in the Ministry. He was there with the other members of the Order when they came to fight the Death Eaters. I had broken my ankle, but still I fought with every defensive spell I knew. He came to me in the rubble after the fighting was over.

"Well done, Ginny," he said to me when he found me.

"Thank you, Professor Lupin." I said to him earnestly.

"Remus," he corrected me with a weary sigh. Then he reached down his hand to me.

As I slipped my palm into his, I said as quietly as a prayer, "Remus."

III. Harry: Holding Her Hand

It started that night we flew the thestrals to the Ministry of Magic. I was busy fighting the Dark Lord and then Dumbledore portkeyed me back to Hogwarts. So, no, I didn’t see it that first time, but I know it happened. I doubt they themselves even know when it began, but I do.

It was all so innocent, too. She had a broken ankle. I am sure he had offered her his hand, and she took it. He had shown her basic consideration, and maybe later she offered her hand to him for comfort when he needed it.

It wasn’t as if his was the only hand she had been holding. By that time she had many boyfriends. She had already been with Michael and was probably making plans for Dean, Seamus, Colin, or Neville. She was never with me, though. I had never let myself even consider holding her hand, had never thought of her as a possibility.

I don’t even know why I started to notice them in particular. Maybe it was because when Voldemort returned we all were involved in battle in some form or another. When she would stumble or fall, he would be there to pick her up. He always reached for her with his hands--those of a man whose mouth spoke without duplicity, but whose hands showed the beginning of desire.

After time, I noticed their hands lingering together. It was never more than fingers entwined as they stood together surveying the damage. There was always damage, and most of it was disturbing. So even then it didn’t seem inappropriate for them to hold hands. They were two people fighting in the same war and sharing the same scars.

Simple hand-holding led to smiles and looks. No doubt they still didn’t realize it themselves, but their looks were unique and reserved only for each other. Ginny never looked at any of her many boyfriends like that, and she certainly didn’t look at me like that any more. As for Remus, well... I had honestly never before seen him look at any other female in a way that actually suggested interest.

It was after the fighting that I saw her with the face of a dirty angel and her hair fallen all around her like a crimson halo. Remus, never far away, came to her yet again. His long fingers reached for hers as she in turn reached for his. When he pulled her closer, I snapped with the rage of jealousy that had been building inside me.

"You were supposed to love me!"

Ginny looked to me at first surprised, and then truly angry. "I did love you, but you never loved me back."

She reached closer for Remus and I taunted her in a way that would have actually made Malfoy proud.

"Does your mother know you’re in love with a werewolf?"

They both stared at me in shock, as if the thought had never crossed their minds. Then I saw their expressions change from shock to a blushing look of new regard. He smiled to her and I saw it accepted in her eyes.

I walked away in disgust, and he was still holding her hand.

IV. Remus, Part 2: Naked

Tu crois être le doute et tu n'es que raison
Tu es le grand soleil qui me monte à la tête
Quand je suis sûr de moi.
--Paul Eluard "Je t’aime"

The key question was this: Did Molly know a werewolf was in love with her daughter? When Harry confronted us, I knew with complete certainly that I loved Ginny. It was not part of anything I had planned, especially as I had promised to protect her, not to fall in love with her. It had happened slowly and quite by surprise like the slipping of darkness into sunrise.

Like any man finding love in awkward circumstances, I was unsure of what to do. My mind was riddled with questions of self-doubt and propriety, so I tried to be noble and self-sacrificing. In other words, I ran like a scared puppy with his tail between his legs. It was the end of the War so it was easy to find an excuse not to see her. In complete contradiction to the truth in my heart, I left Ginny.

I might have been a man running from the face of love, but as I was the architect of my own prison, I never got too far. All thoughts eventually returned to Ginny in the way thoughts tend to do when they are repressed. It was only a matter of time before my world would crumble, which it did with exacting precision.

I had gone into my monthly transformation without the benefit of Wolfsbane Potion, and was holding on to the slimmest thread of my humanity. The wolf had been hunting voraciously, and it was in the dark hours before the dawn that I caught the delicious scent of a human. I tracked it to where it was walking through the forest and snarled a menacing challenge as blood still dripped from my wolf’s jowls. In my haze of madness, I was going to rip the flesh and taste the blood.

The human female, cowled like the proverbial Red Riding Hood, turned slowly with a hand in the air as a prisoner under fire. The long, slim fingers of the victim’s hand removed her cloak to reveal hair with hues the color of sunrise foreshadowing the soon-coming dawn. She reached for me without faltering as I in werewolf form actually retreated.

True dawn came quickly after this in its own brilliance as I began my painful transformation back into something that was called human. When it finished, I was laid bare and broken as I stared from my grey eyes up into Ginny’s warm brown eyes. I was naked to her in both my body and my mind because I wasn’t going to run any more. The truth was as evident as my naked flesh. I did love Ginny, but if she were to love me in return, she would have to accept all of me.

With her outstretched hands, she lightly touched my cheek and traced fingers down my arm and torso to the rest of my body. Then Ginny came to me, pulling me under and devouring me until I was wholly hers and not my own. She loved me in the dawn of the morning in the same place where as a werewolf I had threatened to break her completely apart.

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Translation:
"You think that you are doubt, but you’re just reason
You are the powerful sun that rushes to my head
When I am sure of myself."
--Paul Eluard: "I Love You"

V. Ginny, Part 2: Typerys

"Kun sormi osoitta kuuhun, typerys katsoo sormea."
-- Finnish proverb
Translation: "When a finger points to the moon, a fool will look at the finger."

I see the moon and not merely the finger that points to it. I always thought its glowing face was beautiful and fascinating. It controls the tides and supposedly makes some men go insane. Then there is my love who is a werewolf. Full well do I know the moon’s effect on the tides of his psyche and sanity.

I don’t think I have slept on the night of a full moon since we came together. I remain awake, and I watch and wait for him. I am compelled to be where he is. Even in his werewolf form he knows my scent and feels my presence. I do not fear the beast in him, but I also do not provoke its anger.

I asked him once if he would give up being a werewolf if it were possible. He was surprised at the question and immediately answered "Yes." It was a fast, easy and obvious answer, but it was almost too easy.

I know that pain helps make us who we are. No one normal, sane or healthy really craves it, but it is there. By now being a werewolf is so much a part of who he is, that I don’t think he could imagine himself any other way.

It’s not as if he is alone, for I know about darkness in the soul, too. Ask me about Tom some time, and I will tell you. Like Remus, I wish I were free of my demon, but it has been a part of me for so long that I don’t know what it would feel like if it weren’t there.

He goes out into the wild on these nights alone without Peter, James or Sirius, but his beast is calmed by the Wolfsbane Potion. When I hear him howl, I know he mourns for the many lost. As I watch and listen from a distance, I mourn with him as well.

How I pity the fool who only sees the finger and not the beautiful moon in the sky. It is the same for my Remus. I know that others can not truly see him as he really is. He is so much more than a werewolf or member of the Order, or any other title he has had in his life. He is the one who has come to love me completely when all others have seen me as the fool.

He made me come open to him when I didn’t even know I was as closed as the Chamber. Maybe he sees in me that which is reflected in himself. I am the moon to his sun; only the tides of me he does not fear. Still, I move him to be more than he realizes.

To others he is guarded, and yet to me he is so passionate when he lets down his defenses. His passion is primal and sometimes it reminds him of the wolf. I embrace it and push him to the edge, thrilling to see what no other sees.

He will return to me in the morning smelling of blood and sweat. His body will glisten and shake from the trauma of transformation, yet he will be strong. When he reaches for me, he will press his naked flesh against mine and seek the comfort only I know how to give him. Together we will hide away from the sun and be thankful that another full moon has passed.