My Fear Is Your Fear

Remus Lupin sat on a hard, lumpy mattress in one of the numerous dusty, upstairs rooms in Grimmauld Place. He had been here for an indeterminable amount of time, though he could vaguely hear a large, majestice grandfather clock ticking away somewhere. Others were here, downstairs mostly, but he took no notice of their voices drifting up the staircase.

Likewise, he took no notice of the sound of approaching footsteps that stopped just outside the door. Then, a gentle, feminine voice called, "Remus?"

He only blinked very hard, more of a facial spasm than a natural function.

"Remus, are you in there?"

He drew his knees up and leaned his elbows on them. His face went into his hands, and his longish hair touched his wrists.

There was a brief rap on the door, which she couldn't possibly have expected him to answer, and then it swung slowly open. Through his fingers, Lupin saw a pair of feet step softly into the room. The door closed again behind them.

Lupin withdrew his face from his hands.

The woman was nearing him , cup in hand. He knew what was the contents of that cup were before he even caught the scent. Molly Weasley had one special, trademark method of comfort.

"I brought you a cup of tea, Remus," she said.

"Thank you, Molly," he said politely, the first words he had spoken since his entry into this room. He took the cup from her hand but did not drink.

"I thought you might like something warm in this drafty old house," she said.

He nodded, brought the cup to his lips--hesitated--and then took a small sip.

"It's very good," he said dully, and of course it was. He just couldn't taste it.

"I know it's silly..." Molly apologized, taking a seat at the bottom of the bed.

"No," Lupin replied briefly, and he took another sip as if to prove he meant it.

They sat in silence for a moment. He looked at the grim design of the bed-covers, she at the floor. At last she glanced up to where he sat, his back against the headboard.

"I didn't come up here simply to give you tea, Remus," she stated quietly. "I also wanted to talk."

"Forgive me for my abruptness, Molly," he said, "but I don't feel like talking at the present. I came here to be alone."

"Forgive me, Remus,"responded Molly, "but if you wanted to be alone, why didn't you go to your own house?"

Lupin chewed on his lower lip for a second. "I didn't feel like being that alone."

"I see."

"Molly," Lupin spoke again after another uncomfortale period of silence, "I do appreciate your trying to help me. But I'm in no need of help. I am doing quite well, considering the circumstances."

"You've barely spoken to anyone since...it happened." She grew bolder. "Since Sirius died."

"Was killed," Lupin whispered.

"Yes," Molly agreed, but continued. "You've barely spoken to a soul--not to Arthur, not to Moody, not to Tonks. It's not healthy, Remus. I realize you need time for yourself, but you can't just lock yourself out of the world." She leaned closer to him, her eyes warm and open, as they almost always were when she was not angry or rushing to get some task completed. "There are people that care about you."

At that, he drew in a ragged breath.

"You don't know, Molly."

"What?" She sat back, eyes a bit wider now at his harsh tone.

"I'm not one to feel overly sorry for myself--" he began.

"Oh, I know that, Rem--"

"--but," he went on, as if she had not spoken, "there are times when I.... Molly, I know that there are people who care about me, as you say, and I am grateful for that. Let no one say I am not a grateful man."

He stopped for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts. Words were not coming as easily as they usually did.

"Harry has never known his parents," he finally said. "For that, I feel for him--more than he knows, I think. But...and perhaps I'm being vain when I say this...I believe it may be far worse to know your parents--and to know that they fear you." He blinked very hard again. "As mine feared me."

"Oh, Remus--"

"It was not their fault. I can't imagine what it must have been like to have a werewolf--a monster--for a son. It--it must have been.... When I began to attend Hogwarts, I hid my condition as best I could. Dumbledore was quite helpful in that respect. So, you can imagine my surprise when my friends--Sirius, James, and Peter, who I did then consider a friend--discovered my well-kept secret and didn't hate me for it. On the contrary, they went so far as to become Animagi so that they could keep me company during the full moons."

He took another sip of the now cooling tea.

"I suppose, Molly, that what I am trying to say is that not many people in my life have cared about me, not ones who knew my secret, at least. And because such people are so very, very rare...they are also very dear."

"I know," she said, tears in her voice and most likely on her face as well, although he refused to look at it. She rose from where she sat and reseated herself beside Lupin. "I know," she repeated.

"Just as I am not one to feel sorry for myself, Molly," he went on, "I am also not one prone to hatred. I've felt it, though, and I feel it now. I hated Sirius once, or I thought I did, when I believed he had taken away two of my precious friends. Then, when the truth was revealed, I hated Peter instead, both because he had caused James's death and because he had sent Sirius to Azkaban for so long."

Molly's arm crept around him.

"Sirius and I had grown very close of late. Even closer than we were at Hogwarts."

He began to tremble. Molly clutched him.

"And now," he continued through clenched teeth, "someone else has taken Sirius away from me. This hatred that I feel for that woman.... It is almost literally unbearable."

"We're all angry, Remus," she said through her tears.

"It's not anger," he replied roughly. "I have felt anger, and I can swear to you that this is simply blind, consuming hatred. That night--that damned, cursed night--in the Department of Mysteries, I tried to hold Harry back when he went after Bellatrix. He broke free, and, though he could have been killed, I didn't chase him. I knew I couldn't follow him as he ran after that bloody murderess."

"Why?" Her head was against his shoulder, and now he could feel her tears.

"I realized that by holding Harry back, I was trying to hold myself back. I was frightened of letting that hatred overtake me, become me." He shook his head and said dully, "Now it is anyway."

Molly's head came up; so did her hand. Her palm went to his rough cheek and she wrenched him around to face her. Her eyes were both wide and wild, mirrors of his own.

"No, Remus!" she whispered earnestly. "No. That isn't part of you. That's not who you are."

"It's there, Molly, I--"

"It's there because you want it there."

He looked both hurt and highly offended for a moment and began to pull away. Her fingers drove into the grey hair at his temple and pulled him back. Their foreheads knocked together, but neither he nor she noticed the pain.

"It's there because you want it there. It's blind and consuming because you want it to be. It's there, Remus, so that you can feel nothing else."

He looked as though he wanted to speak, but then he pressed his lips together tightly.

"You're looking at me as if I'm mad," she said, a small, humorless laugh escaping her lips. Suddenly, her hand left his hair and shot to his hand, the one that was holding the tea. The cup was knocked from his grip and fell to the floor, where it shattered. For a miniscule portion of a second, she looked nearly mad. "You know my greatest fear! You saw it the day I tried to take on that damned boggart. My children--my family--the people who love me, and who I love--dead on the floor!"

Her grasp on his hand was painful, and he realized dimly that he was likewise crushing her hand.

"So you see, Remus," she gasped, breathless with emotion, "we have this much in common: what you are afraid of feeling is what I am afraid of feeling."

Then she did the oddest thing.

She kissed him.

And he kissed her back.

The hand that wasn't holding Molly's stole around to the back of her head, sank into her red hair, and pulled her closer. Her tears were now on his face, as well. The kiss was deep, and rough, and slightly painful. It was a strange kiss. There was passion in it, but it was not a strongly sexual passion. It was a passion that came from an almost undefinable source--it may have been pain or terror, perhaps both, neither of them knew.

It was broken.

Lupin simultaneously shoved Molly and pulled himself away. She took her hand back and caught the mattress before she could fall backward. Lupin just barely stopped himself from tumbling off the bed, sticking out one shoe that slid on a fragment of the broken cup.

They remained so for a minute or two, Molly sitting on the mattress and Lupin facing the wall, his hand over his mouth. At last, he spoke.

"Molly," he choked. "I--I'm very sorry."

"Don't be silly," she replied, sounding embarrassed. "I kissed you. You were taken by surprise, that was all."

"No," he said, turning to face her once more. "I kissed you, too."

He looked away again.

"I think, Molly....that we should forget about this. You do have a family, and--"

"Of course, Remus, I know that," she sighed. "It's not as if I want to start some sort of--"

He could practically hear her blushing.

"--torrid affair with you. I think the only reason I kissed you in the first place is that I'm all too aware I have a family, and all I can think about is--what if I lose them? I feel as if you're the only person to whom I can tell that, because, as I said, my fear is your fear. I don't want to scare the children, and Arthur--"

She paused for a moment, and Lupin closed his eyes, remembering what had just taken place--what they had just done.

"--Arthur is worried enough as it is," she finished. "I was talking to you just then, Remus--pouring my heart out, actually--and all I could think about was the day you held me after I faced the boggart. I came up here telling myself I wanted to help you--now I know I really came for myself."

She sounded so dejected, so morose and humiliated, that he touched her again. He turned and let his hand fall innocently near her neck.

"But you helped me, Molly," he told her sincerely. "You did help me. Like no one else has."

They stared into each other's eyes, searching what they found there. Molly drew in a breath and parted her lips to speak.

There was a knock at the door.

Both Molly and Lupin jumped and jerked away in opposite directions. Molly scrambled to her feet, while Lupin remained on the bed, leaning back awkwardly on his hands.

It was Arthur. He stood in the doorway, gazing in at them.

"Oh, hello, Arthur," Molly said. "I was bringing Remus here a cup of tea."

Arthur's eyes went to the shards of cup on the floor, the puddle of dark liquid.

"What is it, dear?" Molly prompted, raising her eyebrows.

"I've just got back from speaking with Dumbledore," said Arthur.

"Ah," said Molly, starting forward. "Let's discuss it downstairs."

"I intended for Remus to hear it, too" her husband protested as she began to usher him out the door.

"I think we should let him be, Arthur," she whispered.

"Is he okay?" Lupin heard Arthur ask as the door closed. He didn't catch the answer.

He wondered himself what the true answer was.

Remus Lupin stared down at the broken cup. Then he let himself fall back against the headboard.

Once more, he was alone.