Facing Backwards

Chapter One--Ridiculous

This is ridiculous, Harry thought, as he stared down from the Head Table into the sea of faces that was the Great Hall.

Many of those faces were clearly focused on him, making him feel less as though he were getting ready to eat than that he was himself some exotic dish about to be served up to the assembled crowd.

"It's all right, mate," Ron muttered into his right ear, "they're all dying to get to know you. They've been hearing a million stories about what an amazing Defense teacher you are."

"Oh?" asked Harry, feeling the panic claw its way slowly up his throat. "Who told them all those stories?"

"We did, of course," said Ginny Longbottom's voice in his other ear. "Me and Ron and Neville, you stupid git."

"Thanks a lot," Harry muttered. He leaned across Ron's empty plate. "What about you, Luna? What did you tell them about me?"

Ron's wife was enormously pregnant, looking rather like a scarecrow that had swallowed a somewhat oversized beach ball without letting the air out. "I told them you made very good Beef Wellington," she said, and stared fixedly at the third of the yellow banners that marked Hufflepuff--Hufflepuff!--as last year's winner of the House Cup.

"So, Neville," Harry said, desperate to discuss anything other than his own stupid decision to take over teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts for a few weeks while Remus Lupin was on leave, trying out a new treatment for his lycanthropy. "Excited that your house won the House Cup last year?

"I must say," Neville said, stroking his beard with his usual look of vague surprise and pleasure, "it was an unexpected honor. Only the third time in the twenty-three years since we left school. It's just for fun, of course. Though I must admit, it's rather a pleasure to get a break from the yearly merry-go-round of red and green and blue."

Harry looked up into the ceiling, which revealed a gathering spring storm and a half moon peering through the clouds. "I wonder how Remus is doing," he muttered.

"He promised to send us regular owls," Neville said. "Of course, I made sure he had a half dozen, in case the treatment was less than effective, and he ended up eating some of them."

"Poor old Moony," Harry sighed.

There was a clicking just beyond Neville, someone hitting a silver goblet with a spoon. A tall, crooked figure in black unwound itself to a standing position, silver-streaked, greasy hair swinging back to reveal a severe, hooked nose as he stood. The headmaster.

When the hall had fallen silent, he spoke, his face as usual twisted into a sneer of displeasure. "So kind of you to quieten your impulsive little mouths," he said, his low voice managing to carry more undertone than actual volume. "As you all know--those of you who have actually managed to pay any attention at all--our beloved Defense teacher, Professor Lupin, is taking a leave of absence for the next two weeks. He's doing this to see if he can't make it easier to keep himself from devouring students every time the moon is full. I told him he needn't have bothered, that most of you are good only for werewolf fodder, but," Snape sighed, "he insisted."

It was a testament to how much the students trusted and respected their headmaster that most of the children seated at the front of the hall--the sixth and seventh years--actually laughed. Harry was shocked--he had been well into his twenties before he had even begun to appreciate Severus Snape's biting humor.

"Since I have no desire actually to teach any of you," Snape continued, once the laughter subsided, "I have been obliged to find a substitute for Professor Lupin. The man you see between Professors Weasley and Longbottom--the redheaded ones--was, Professor Lupin assures me, the finest Defense Against the Dark Arts student he has ever taught. I cannot tell you how surprised I was to hear that, since Harry Potter was, as I remember far too clearly, an unparalleled disaster in Potions, exceeded in his ineptitude only by our learned Hufflepuff House Head, Professor Longbottom. The brown-headed one."

Neville lead the laughter this time, which swept all the way to the back of the hall. How could one not laugh with Neville?

When the hall had settled back into an easy, pleasant silence, Snape's voice sliced out once more. "Please disappoint my expectations--as you so often do--and make Professor Potter..." Snape smiled thinly, delighting in the agony of anticipation in the assembled crowd as they waited for him to finish, "welcome."

The warm burst of applause washed over Harry like a rolling, open-sea wave, leaving him stunned in his seat.

"Get up, Harry," whispered Ginny into his ear, and he stood, a little shakily, to the continued ovation of over a thousand Hogwarts students. As he stood there, trying to smile as they clapped, he saw his eldest daughter Sidi jumping up and down and applauding like a mad woman back among the third-year Gryffindors. Harry's heart fluttered. "I can't believe I'm doing this," he said through clenched teeth.

"You'll be brilliant, Harry," Ron said.

"Right," Harry muttered, sitting back down again, as the applause died away.

"And now," Snape called out with a flick of his stiletto-like wand, "let us eat."

The table before them groaned, as the bowls and platters filled suddenly, and Harry sighed, surveying his first Hogwarts meal in almost a quarter century: steak and kidney pie, mashed potatoes, French beans, and, incongruously, a mound of curried tofu.

"Could you pass that to me?" Luna said.

"She's decided to go high-protein vegetarian," whispered Ron. "Makes me nervous--I want her to eat well..."

Luna was devouring the tofu and the beans with a gusto that Harry had never seen her exhibit toward anything aside from Ron himself, her numbers, or beasts that even the wizarding community considered mythic.

"She'll be fine," Harry said.

* * *

As Harry was shoveling the last of his potatoes onto Ron's plate--how had he ever eaten so much when he was sixteen?--Sidi's black mop bounced its way up to the head table. "Hullo, Professor Daddy!"

"Hullo, Sid." He peered down at her bright, wry face. "You know, I rather like sitting up here and looking down at you. Keeps you from getting ideas, I hope?"

"You wish!" Sidi snorted.

"Miss Potter," hissed a voice behind Harry's shoulder, "you will please show the teachers due respect. Even if they have the misfortune to be related to you."

Harry glanced back to see Professor Snape's sneering face glaring down past him with that same look of disdain he remembered so well from his own days at Hogwarts. "Professor," he said, "surely it wouldn't be seemly for her to show more respect for me than does the headmaster himself?"

The former potion master's eyes gleamed for a split second, and he moved on.

"Harry," said Ginny, breathlessly, "did you just make a joke with the headmaster?"

Sidi was gawking up at him, as were several of her friends.

Harry grinned. "See, Sidi," he said, "I actually did have the courage to be a Gryffindor, once upon a time."

"I always thought so," Sidi said, "but now I know." One of the boys next to her, Fred and Angelina Weasley's son Harry, was frozen in an expression of transcendent awe.

"I know that look, nephew," Ron grumbled, every bit the Quidditch coach. "Don't you start getting any ideas. It's taken your godfather thirty years to work up the courage to try that with Professor Snape; I'd be happy if it took you that long."

"Because if it doesn't," Ginny said, "you'll never be able to eat a meal without a Sneak-o-scope in hand again. The headmaster knows poisons so subtle, so terrible, you'll be begging for us to kill you within five minutes..."

Even Luna got into the act: "Of course, you'll have to hope we understand the language of whatever creature it is he's transformed you into."

The students goggled up at them, uncertain whether the teachers were joking or not. In fairness, even Harry wasn't all that sure.

"Come on, Siria," Harry Weasley said, apparently deciding they were having him on, "I need to look at your History notes..."

Sidi waved over her shoulder as her friend led her out of the hall. "Bye, Daddy!"

Harry waved back as she disappeared. "See you tomorrow."

Ginny's hand squeezed his shoulder. "She's really something, you know."

Harry grinned. "Yeah, cute and smart. Good thing she got my dad's rat-nest and my mum's eyes, or no one would believe I had anything to do with her...."

"Stop it, Harry," said Ginny, and then she leaned very close to his ear so that he felt rather than heard the next words, "or I'll come back here tomorrow morning and read to the entire assembly some very racy poems about what I wanted to do to a certain fourteen-year-old green-eyed boy."

Harry laughed, as he felt the blood rush to his face. "God, Ginny, you wouldn't!"

Neville's warm voice intruded. "Don't believe it, Harry. There's very little she wouldn't do when she's got her back up." He smiled, scratching his beard. "What has she threatened you with?"

"Uh..." said Harry.

"I was threatening to get up and read all of my schoolgirl scribblings about him in front of the Great Hall."

Harry buried his head in his hands, and Ron and Neville both howled with laughter, Ron until his face was nearly the shade of his hair.

"What a sweet idea," mused Luna. "I have some sonnets I wrote about Ron from back then..." And they all collapsed.

"It's so nice to see the young faculty bringing some life into the school!" said a high, merry voice from the vicinity of Harry's elbow.

"Hullo, Professor Flitwick," said Harry, madly wiping his eyes and glasses. Clumps of students where staring up at the Head Table as they walked out, clearly considering the possibility that the teachers had all gone mad.

"Good luck tomorrow, Harry!" said the diminutive Charms teacher, "I remember my first class as if it were yesterday! Advanced Levitation charms! A third-year inadvertently turned me upside down and dropped me out the open window..." With a nostalgic smile and a wave, he headed off the dais and out the door.

Suddenly sober, Harry stood. "Right, I should probably try to pack it in early tonight."

"You staying in Remus's rooms?" Ron spluttered, his face blotchy and red. When Harry nodded, he continued, "I'll walk you there."

* * *

Ron walked Harry into the Defense classroom. "I saw some of those poems, once," Ron said, still tittering. "If they're the ones I'm thinking of, Merlin's beard, Harry, they're really... colorful!" And he broke into a wet, snorting guffaw.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about them?"

"You've got to be joking, mate! First of all, what boy wants to know some girl is writing wanky bloody poetry about him?" I'm not sure I would have minded, Harry thought. "Second of all, Ginny swore she'd stick her wand up my bum and do a Bat Bogey Hex on my colon if I ever told!"

They walked up the stairs into the office, which was crammed with the same tanks of eerie animals that Harry remembered from Lupin's first stint, along with a couple of battered dark detectors. He thought of the various teachers he had visited--or been forced to visit--here. And now, for a few weeks, this was his office. He turned to the door at the back of the room--just past the fireplace where he had held his last conversation with Sirius--flicked out his wand, and attempted to unlock it. "Alohomora."

The door remained locked. "Want me to get it?" Ron asked, a little embarrassed.

Harry sighed, and shook his head. "Alohomora," he said again, and this time the door gave an audible chunk as it unlocked. What had possessed him to think he could teach? He was barely a wizard these days...

They entered Remus's sitting room, which was, like Remus himself, plain and threadbare, but also, like Lupin, permeated with some indefinable warmth. The only decorations were four pictures on the mantle: Lupin's family, a picture of the second Order of the Phoenix, with Ron's parents still alive and waving happily, a snapshot of an infant Harry with his parents, and, in pride of place, a glowering picture of Sirius, clearly taken during that long last year at the house that Harry now shared with Hermione, Grimmauld Place.

"I always wondered how he could have stood Sirius's death," Ron said. "I mean, you were devastated, Harry, but Remus, the only time I saw him show any emotion at all was at the Order's memorial service. I mean, just imagine, to have been separated for all those years, then finally get the opportunity to be together, only to have Sirius die..." Ron and Harry both stared at the photo.

Harry began to feel his heart choking all of the breath out of him. Even now, twenty-five years later, he missed Sirius. He missed them all: Dumbledore, Ron and Ginny's parents, Hagrid, even Professor McGonagall. But mostly, he missed Sirius. And somehow, time hadn't taken the ache away, just made it part of the everyday backdrop. How could Remus stand it?

"Look, Harry," said Ron, still looking at Sirius's portrait, "I wanted to ask you something... a little embarrassing."

Harry looked up at his friend. "Is something wrong?" Ron began to pinken. "What is it?"

Ron began to scratch his head, almost compulsively. "It's about Luna," he said, very quietly. "She's... she's like a wild woman. I mean, there she is, like a beached whale, in a really amazing, beautiful sort of way, but she's incredibly... randy."

Harry pursed his lips to keep himself from laughing when Ron peered at him.

"Is that normal?" Ron asked, sounding truly worried.

It was Harry's turn to laugh at Ron's discomfort. "How should I know?" he asked. Ron's face fell, and so Harry said, "Yeah, Ron, I think it is perfectly normal. And you might as well enjoy it. Because in another month or so, your love life is going to take a serious trip south."

Ron's face seemed to be pulled between relief and alarm. "I guess I'm just worried we might be hurting the little bugger."

"I'm sure you're not," Harry said. They both laughed, a little nervously at first, and then, as they saw each other's faces, with the same drunken abandon as at dinner. Finally, they settled into an exhausted calm.

"What's your first class tomorrow?" Ron asked.

"Oh, fine, kill what little good humor I have going. It's NEWT-level," Harry said with a shudder. "I think the only reason Snape accepted Ginny's recommendation was that he knew I'd never survive the first hour. They'll eat me alive!"

"Nah, Harry, they're good kids, that lot. Two of the Quidditch captains are in that class, and my niece, Alithea. I promise they're excited to meet you."

They hugged, and wished each other good night, and Ron made his way out of the room, shaking what was left of his red mop.

When he heard the door to the outer office close, Harry walked forward and picked up Sirius's portrait in its plain black frame. Where the other frames showed signs of dust and disrepair, this picture was plainly, pristinely clean.

Something vague filled Harry as he gazed at Sirius's battered face, which was smirking up at him and seemed to be peering around Remus's room. He thought of Dumbledore's words: a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than forces of nature. But why? Why do we have to feel? Why do we have to care?

As galaxies of thought and feeling wheeled through him, Harry put down the frame.

A muffled footstep on the classroom stairs announced a visitor. The office door creaked, and sharper footsteps approached. Harry stepped forward to open the sitting room door.

Ginny was standing, ready to knock, a very dusty bottle in her hand. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Professor, have you been peering into your Foe Glass?"

"Why, Professor?" Harry asked, leading her inside. "Are you intending me grievous bodily harm?"

"Only if you're really, really lucky," she joked, and handed him the bottle. "Firewhiskey. Old Aberforth distilled that himself. Gave it to me and Neville as a wedding present--about four years after we were married, but who's counting?" She smiled wistfully--it was a smile that melted Harry just a little every time he saw it. "Anyway, Neville never touches anything stronger than port, and I don't have the inclination very often. So I thought we'd drink a toast to your success."

"Firewhiskey," Harry said, wiping the dust off the cork, "perfect. In honor of my going up in flames tomorrow. Ouch!"

She had kicked him, with swift efficiency that made him wonder, not for the first time, why she'd decided to come back and teach rather than stick out her auror training. "You are lucky, aren't you?" she joked, as a Sneak-o-scope began to whir on the desk.

"Yeah, luckiest bloke alive, for letting you talk me into this," Harry muttered, looking around for glasses. All he could turn up was a single, chipped tea mug that looked as if anything approaching a full measure of liquid might overwhelm it entirely. He turned it uncertainly.

"We'll drink from the bottle," Ginny said. "I promise, I'm not contagious, and even if I were, this stuff can probably kill anything it doesn't cure."

"Ta," said Harry, pulling the cork. A lambent flame danced briefly from the bottle's mouth. "To my survival," he toasted, and tipped a dollop of the whiskey into his mouth. Smooth and hot, it went down like liquid smoke, warming him to his fingertips. "Wow!" he exclaimed. "Thank Aberforth the next time you're down at the Hog's Head. That stuff's amazing."

Ginny took the bottle. "I haven't seen him down there in a while. Last I heard he was in semi-retirement, back with his goats."

"Oh, dear," Harry said.

"To the best Defense teacher I've ever seen, and don't you make some smart comment, Potter, because I'm looking right at him." She lifted the bottle in a salute, and then drank. "Wow, indeed!" she said, giving a small shudder. "That's definitely the good stuff."

"Come on," Harry said, walking over to the battered, graying couch opposite the fireplace. "Take a load off."

With an almost negligent flick of her wand, Ginny lit the fire and sat beside Harry, kicking her feet up on to the two planks on boxes that served as Lupin's coffee table and revealing pale calves beneath her black robes. "So," she sighed, "how's Hermione? Anything new at the Ministry? How are the little ones? And what's she doing with Minnie and Albie while you're here?"

Harry took another drink and placed the bottle on the table by Ginny's feet. He tried hard not to stare at her legs. "She's got an intern from one of the education committees serving as nanny. Minnie informed me by Floo right before dinner that the young lady was really cute, could do all kinds of cool charms almost as good as Auntie Gin, and they were going to paint their nails before bed. So I've clearly been replaced." When Ginny gave him a threatening look, Harry just held his hands up and laughed. "Hermione's tried to clear out some time--there's an American delegation coming over next Tuesday, but other than that, she's going to be home for dinner every night, which is quite a change of pace. Nothing new at the Ministry. Mostly approving budgets and legislative agendas. And complaining about your brother."

Ginny sighed as she down another gulp of firewhiskey. "Yeah," she said, "Percy doesn't have much good to say about her either." She shook her head, and then put her hand on his elbow. "Hey, is Hermione doing okay? About her dad?"

Harry shrugged. "She's gone from being a bit of a zombie that first month or two to bouts of tears and anger. I feel so horrible for her, but, I mean, what can I do? Just listen." It's not like I'd ever had my parents to lose, he thought. And he saw Hermione's tear-stained, frightened face the last time they'd tried to make love, all of those months ago. "Most days, she's just fine. Then suddenly it'll all come crashing down."

"Look, I've talked to her, but..." Ginny began, her voice trailing off when she saw Harry understood. "If there's anything I can do, let me know."

Harry nodded.

They stared into the hearth for a moment, each feeling the whiskey send its smoky tendrils further out into their bodies. At the same moment, they both began to speak.

"Ginny, I..."

"Look, Harry..." After another moment, Ginny said, "You first."

"Yeah. Look." Harry examined a small, orange stain on the floor. "About the night of reunion dinner..."

"Oh, God, Harry," Ginny blurted, "that's just what I was going to say..."

They fell silent again. Determined not to act like a fifteen-year-old, Harry pressed on. "I'm really sorry about that. I acted... like an idiot." She flipped her hair behind her ear and looked at him, dark-eyed and inscrutable. "All those questions about Neville and his... problems. And talking about me and Hermione. And about wanting to kiss you since we were here..." With an indistinct gesture he indicated the building whose weight seemed to be pressing down in on him.

She looked at him, her brown eyes deep and unreadable. "You didn't say that."

"What?" Harry asked.

"You didn't say you'd wanted to kiss me back then."

"I didn't?" Harry laughed, a note of mild panic beginning to etch its way into his voice. "I thought I had." He lunged for the bottle and downed another slug of whiskey. This was exactly the direction he hadn't wanted the conversation to take.

She shook her head and leaned back against the arm of the couch. "No, I think I would have remembered that," she said.

"The thing is," Harry went on, feeling the moisture seeping from his palms onto the green glass of the bottle, "it was such a weird, confusing exchange. But I'm not sorry it happened. And I'm glad we made the decision we did."

She looked at him, her head slightly canted, as if she were trying to get a better view. "Yes, it was rather weird, wasn't it? And there would have been all kinds of hell to pay if we'd, you know, made the different choice."

Harry began to take another swig of firewhiskey, but put the bottle back on the table. Anywhere but her eyes, Harry found himself thinking. Or her throat. Or... He found himself once again looking at the stain on the floor, wondering what on earth could have left so peculiar a color.

He felt her hand slide across the back of his. "Harry, I'm glad it happened, too--that weird, fluky, how-did-that-happen kiss. And I'm sorry it happened. And glad Albie popped in and we decided not to, you know, do anything." He looked up and her eyes were brightening and he thought, Merlin, if she starts to cry I think I'll melt. "And I'm sorry we decided that way, too. But," she said loudly, her eyes widening, "we're still good friends and it isn't going to change anything, right? It's just something else we shared, right?"

Harry nodded, numb.

She drew her hand back and crossed her arms as if she were cold, in spite of the blazing fire. "Well... What are you teaching tomorrow?"

Harry groaned. "Ron quizzed me on the same thing, Ginny. Why is it the two of you are so fascinated with my teaching schedule?"

Ginny fixed him with a practiced glare. "I have no idea why my brother might do anything. As for me, I happen to have a free block tomorrow at the end of the day. I was wondering if I could stop by and watch. But if I'm prying..."

Harry snorted. "Yeah, I knew it, you just want to watch me flounder about like a Flobberworm."

"Harry!"

He held up his hands. "It's the Gryffindor third-years last thing tomorrow. Sidi's class. I'm more scared of them than I am of the sixth- and seventh-years I'll be teaching right after breakfast." He looked over to her. "I, um, could actually use some moral support."

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "You're a good man, Harry."

"Yeah," he muttered. "So you said once." He reached up, recognizing the impulse to run his fingers through her hair almost too late, and adjusted, giving her shoulder an awkward squeeze.

They both smiled.

"I've got to teach tomorrow, too. Time for me to get to bed," Ginny said, and stood, a little wobbly. "Whew. I'd forgotten how quickly that stuff goes to your head."

Harry picked the bottle up and began to hand it back to her. She shook her head. "I'll tell you what, Professor. I'll come by tomorrow night and we'll toast your auspicious first day."

She was just about to open the door when Harry said, "Ginny?"

She turned around.

"Ginny... Ginevra. Thank you. For believing I could do this. It means a lot to me."

Ginny smiled and shrugged. "You're welcome." And then she let herself out of the room.