Only Kindness

Only Kindness

Pretense:

"In the end, only kindness matters." -- Jewel, "Hands"

He told himself that when any happiness presented itself, you seized it quickly, because happiness was fleeting. He told himself they knew what they were doing. He told himself they were in a war, and war changed people, superceded custom, altered taboos.

He knew he was lying to himself. He was being selfish, plain and simple.

He ought to tell her no, ought to send her away instead of allowing her to keep him company. He should decline her help in clearing away the last vestiges of a friendship older than she was. He ought to give the summer auxiliary of the DA some exercises that would keep her away from him.

He knew he wasn't going to. Her small kindnesses, her quiet presence, her understanding silences, they had all come to mean too much to him. He spent a great deal of time going through the papers left behind, and she sat with him, not speaking much, just refilling his teacup and listening. Sometimes he found an old photograph, and he forgot himself enough to laugh while telling her the circumstances surrounding the photo, until he remembered again that those times were gone forever, and tears replaced the laughter.

The thing he appreciated the most was how she let him cry without ignoring it or fussing over it. Molly fussed over him endlessly, acting as if he'd lost a lover--which, he supposed, was only slightly removed from the truth; Sirius was closer than a lover could ever have been, because no lover could ever be allowed to see the wolf. Harry ignored his grief, ignored everyone's grief, as if he were the only one who were allowed to mourn. Ron and Hermione, bless them, were too wrapped up in each other to notice anyone's joys or griefs.

But Ginny listened.

He was chuckling as he passed a picture across the table to her. "We were at the Potter house, just before James and Lily's wedding. Pads had got himself in trouble with Lily by suggesting the rest of us wear black to the ceremony, and he was attempting to make it up."

Ginny studied the picture for a moment, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips. "Looks like this wasn't the way to go about it," she offered. The picture was of Sirius attempting to tug something away from his mouth. There was nothing visible, but the contorted expression on his face said it hurt.

Remus' chuckles turned into outright laughter. "The first thing he did, once we reversed the hex, was complain about not being able to make any toasts at the reception."

Ginny's eyes widened in mirth. "How long did the hex last?"

He laughed again. "Three days!" He leaned back in his chair, remembering the way Sirius had howled when they'd finally got the hex off. "It was a lot quieter for those three days, though." He sighed, and felt his eyes prickle. "Not as quiet as it is now, though." He closed his eyes.

A moment later he felt her fingers slide over his. It surprised him; she'd never touched him before, which he had always used to excuse himself. But even though he knew he should discourage this with a few kind but well-placed words, he allowed her to take his hand in hers, allowed her to grip his fingers. He tightened his hand around hers and pretended he was doing nothing wrong.

*

Scars:

"According to Madam Pomfrey, thoughts could leave deeper scarring than almost anything else..."

-- Order of the Phoenix, "The Second War Begins"

She knew she was the only one who saw his pain so deeply. Everyone else seemed to be preoccupied, to have something to keep busy. Her father was on Order duty and her mother nagged at everyone. Tonks was undercover and gone for days at a time. Kingsley stopped in when he could, but he was always hurried and avoided Remus' eyes. Snape wasn't gentle, but at least he acknowledged Remus. Harry was--typically--completely self-absorbed, selfish with his grief; he would neither share his feelings nor the right to be sorry. Out of the entire Order, Bill was the only one who spoke to Remus as an equal, and for that, Ginny was fiercely proud of him.

But none of them could see how badly Remus hurt, except the little girl who had to be protected from everything. Partly because she had nothing to do but help around the house, Ginny took to spending large amounts of time with Remus. She pretended, to anyone who asked, that they were being highly productive in cleaning out the attics. She was afraid if anyone really took notice of the fact that she was voluntarily spending time with a man who was nearly sick with grief, they might try to protect her from that, too.

Ginny was tired of being protected. She had taken part in the battle at the Ministry, hadn't she? She'd ridden a Thestral when she couldn't see them, and had realized at the end of term that she could see them now. If that didn't make her worthy of taking part in the war that was raging around them, what would?

She became aware that Remus was saying something. She wanted desperately to ignore his words, to concentrate on the feeling on his fingers between hers, the desperation evident in the way he clutched her. But she forced herself to open her eyes and focus on his lips, on what he was saying.

"How do you understand so well?" he asked, his voice low. It wasn't what she had expected; she'd been waiting for a reprimand. She paused in thought.

"I lost something to Voldemort, too," she said quietly. "It might not have been a person, really--but I lost my innocence to him. And," she added with surprise, because she had never thought of this before, "I lost a friend, really. I thought Tom was my friend, and he turned out not to be."

Remus nodded slowly. His golden eyes studied her face for a moment longer, then lowered to gaze at their intertwined fingers. She knew he was going to pull away.

"I think--" He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, Ginny. I think I need some tea." He stood, and she opened her fingers, allowing his hand to slip gracefully from her grip. What would she accomplish by clinging to him? She had tried that with people before, and Harry and Tom had both been driven away from her.

*

Crossed:

"In my place were lines I couldn't change, I was lost.

I was lost, I was lost, crossed lines I shouldn't have crossed."

-- Coldplay

Arthur Weasley couldn't possibly be a Legilimancer, or he would have killed Remus by now.

He reprimanded himself for even considering Ginny Weasley a woman, rather than a child. But he couldn't deny that, at fifteen, the girl was already lovely, and possessed of as fiery a spirit as any man could want. She wore her hair long and loose all summer, and wore shorts that really weren't decent, and spent copious amounts of time in the back garden, so that her freckles vanished underneath a healthy tan. She was tall and her legs were long, and she made it a habit to walk about barefoot--she was just the right age to make it look like innocence, when it was actually the beginnings of youthful lust. Remus wasn't so old he couldn't appreciate it.

He shouldn't appreciate it, of course, and the fact that he did made him feel mildly queasy whenever he considered it. Sirius had once mentioned Ginny as a perfect match for Harry; how could Remus even look twice at her in such a manner? And yet, Sirius had also once expressed a wistful desire to be twenty years younger for the precise reason of Ginny Weasley's attractiveness.

When Remus realized he was thinking of Sirius without feeling guilty, he pushed away from the table and began pacing.

*

Coming of Age:

"That's when you've got to remember the things that are worth fighting for.

I know you and me, we can keep it together; though I've lost a few battles, I'm winning the war."

-- Jude Johnston, "Coming of Age"

After the battle, in which she had glimpsed, however briefly, the thing that Tom had become, Ginny began sleeping poorly. She woke Hermione twice screaming, and only kept Hermione from telling Molly by claiming dreams of spiders and losing Quidditch matches to Cho Chang. After the second time, Ginny began sneaking down to the library at bedtime and reading herself to sleep. It didn't necessarily keep her from dreaming, but the library had hushing spells on it, and at least there no one else could hear her scream.

Three weeks into the summer holiday, Ginny remembered she knew where Sirius had kept his cache of Firewhisky. The first time she made the mistake of drinking two glasses on an empty stomach. Her dreams that night had been bad enough that she woke drenched in sweat and hoarse from screams she hadn't thought she was making; she'd sat wide-eyed, wand in hand, awake for the rest of the night. Remus had been the one to find her, and when he realized what she had done, he'd recommended a single splash of Firewhisky in her tea at bedtime. That worked much better.

She didn't know what to do, though--how could she thank him for bringing her peace? (Never mind that she was on her way to becoming a teenaged alcoholic; she'd deal with that later.) So she brought him tea and sat in unwonted silence in order to be near him. She thought it intrigued him, but her secret fear was that he was just humouring her.

*

Lose Your Way:

"Lose your way, and I will follow

Here today and here tomorrow"

-- Sophie B. Hawkins, "Lose Your Way"

Tonks snorted in a distinctly unfeminine way. "For heaven's sake, Remus, if you're going to fall for her, you could at least have the sense to keep it a secret!"

"I don't know what you mean," he said, trying for quiet dignity. He feared he had failed, but Tonks was exceptionally good at seeing inside people, so it might not be his fault.

"I mean that I can see the way you look at her, even if no one else does yet," she said. Her hair and eyes were purple today, and her skin was very pale. She was wearing a Wyrd Sisters shirt and a pair of jeans, and her wand was tucked into her back pocket.

"Don't you ever listen to Moody?" Remus asked, knowing already that his diversionary tactic would fail. "You'll be lucky if you don't lose a buttock that way."

"How many wizards or witches you know only have one buttock?" Tonks asked.

"None that I know of," he replied, his voice mild. "But that's hardly a fact I'd go around advertising, Nymphadora."

She scowled at him. "Look now, Remus, I'm keeping your secret for you. Don't make it difficult on me."

"What, the secret or life?"

She sighed. "Either one." She cocked her head, birdlike, and looked at him. Her eyes were suddenly black and curious. "Do you love her?"

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair--hair that was turning grey, above a thin face with shadowed eyes. He scrubbed his hand across the top of his head and buried his face in his hands. "How should I know, Nymphadora?" he asked. "I've spent so much time telling myself not to fall in love with her that I think I'm incapable of an objective evaluation at this point."

She stifled a giggle. "You sound like a Ravenclaw," she pointed out.

"Yes, well, Gryffindors don't always do everything right. Look at the way James and Sirius treated Snivellus."

He froze after he said it, knowing it was the first time...since...that he'd voluntarily spoken Sirius' name. He'd also voluntarily said something less than complimentary about Sirius. Was it one of those Milestones Dumbledore had spoken of? Did he care?

He still had his hands over his face, but he heard her moving. It surprised him when Tonks placed a hand gently against his shoulder and gripped it for a moment. "You were his best friend, Moony," she said quietly. "I'm glad you were here this year. He really needed you. He was my favourite uncle."

Look at whom you had to choose from, he wanted to say, but he just nodded and did his best to choke back the thickness in his throat.

*

Falling:

and how do I feel right now?
stepping out of my private world into
something that scares me so

-- Donna Lewis, "Falling"

Ginny wished she knew how to cross that invisible line. She knew it was there, and she knew it would probably be a mistake to push it. She had never felt so absorbed by someone--not this way, not when she knew she was safe. Tom had absorbed her, but then it had overwhelmed her sense of self. With Remus, she knew completely who she was, and who he was--but she only wanted his happiness--and she knew his happiness wouldn't demand she become someone she wasn't.

He was leafing through an old composition book. It had pictures charmed to stick on some of the pages, and Sirius and Remus waved from several of them. One had a picture of a girl with red hair standing next to a boy who looked so much like Harry she had to lean closer and squint.

"It's James," Remus said, his voice low. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye; he had a soft look in his eyes that said he was remembering their friendship and forgetting his friends were all dead. He smoothed a corner of the photo that had bent. "Harry looks so like him." He smiled. "And you share hair colour and spirit in common with Lily."

She turned her head to look at him directly. "But I'm not like Lily, Remus," she said. Her voice was husky, because she was afraid she was going to cry, damn it. She didn't want him to think she was pining for Harry.

They were close enough that she could feel him swallow. He opened his mouth and hesitated, then said, "I know you aren't, Ginny."

They stayed that way for a moment, then he drew in a breath, and she knew he was going to say something that would hurt. So she pulled away and smiled. "I'd better go downstairs. It's nearly suppertime."

She saw the look of surprise that crossed his face, chased by relief and then disappointment. The disappointment made her feel better. He nodded. "I'll be down in a while. I think I'll...finish up here."

*

Only Chance:

"And this could be my last chance,
This may be my only chance,
Yeah this could be my last chance,
No more keeping my feet on the ground."

-- Coldplay "No More Keeping My Feet On the Ground"

Remus accompanied them to King's Cross because Tonks had managed to give herself a concussion the night before and they were already a wand short because Kingsley had been sent on a mission somewhere in Wales. He watched her walk next to Hermione, whispering and laughing together. Ron and Harry were walking ahead of them, talking Quidditch. Occasionally Ginny murmured comments loud enough for them to hear her--things like, "You wish," and "Chang won't know what hit her".

Somehow she contrived to be the last person left on the Muggle platform with him. He'd had his back turned, watching for trouble approaching from behind. When he glanced over his shoulder, she was there. Her brown eyes were downcast, and she was biting her lip. He made a noise and she glanced up.

"I thought I ought to let you know that the Firewhisky is almost gone," she said conversationally. "Only I didn't want to finish it off. I thought you might like the bottle. He bought it, you know, at the winter holidays, when Dad was so sick."

He reached out, but he didn't know why. He wanted to touch her, but he knew he shouldn't. He wanted to thank her, but he didn't know how, or even what for. Thank you for being so kind this summer, didn't seem quite right.

"Remus," she said, and hesitated. Then, while he was still waiting for her to speak, she took two quick steps closer and leaned up. She pressed her lips against his. They were cool and slightly moist, and he could feel her breath against his and he knew she'd just been eating Ice Mice.

He lifted his hand and cupped her elbow tenderly for just a moment, then she pulled away. He was breathless, and her eyes were wide.

"Thank you," he whispered. It felt stupid and inane, but he'd been ready to say it anyway, and it was what fell off the tip of his tongue.

She smiled at him, a smile full of warmth and relief and understanding and a hint of mischief. Then she turned and went through the barrier.