Daddy's Favorite

Soon it will be time. The moon is waxing quickly. Already it is nine-tenths full. In another couple of nights, yes it will be time.

Time is very important to my kind. We live with it in our bones. We feel it in our pulse. We breathe it in with the dirt and smoke and smells. We feel ourselves caught in a dance we cannot any more alter than we can prevent the rising of the sun. Or, for that matter, the rising of the moon.

We learn very early not to battle the cycles. Not to rage against the tides. No, we must ride the rhythms of the cosmos and accept our place as just another link in the chain of laws that binds both natural and supernatural.

If we have any hope of surviving at all, we must learn not to fight. We must accept. We must....

We must become useless.

I am sitting in the largest room of 12 Grimmauld Place. I have no need to go outside to see the moon. I can feel it from here quite adequately. Even the fidelius charm will not keep out that influence. No secret keeper can hide me from the cruel sight of Selene.

I should be preparing to brew my wolfsbane potion. Severus is on a mission and will not be able to provide it, and I do not have the funds to purchase a supply. I am sure if worse came to worse Dumbledore would lend me the money without a problem. I hate to ask though. Dumbledore has so much on his mind. Sometimes it would help to have a rich friend.

I pry myself up from the couch and make my way to the kitchen. I have begun making motions at preparing ingredients. I move to the counter and pick up a knife to resume chopping. Then I put it down again with a sigh. What, after all, is the point in hurrying?

I should be with Harry.

And what would I possibly do for him?

I could love him.

I already do love him.

You have a strange way of showing it.

When you're a werewolf often absence is a very good way of showing love.

But that is something of a lie too. It's not just when you are a werewolf. It's when you're Remus Lupin. After all, I showed Harry my love for twelve years by never once looking in on him, didn't I? I showed Sirius my love by letting him go to Azkaban, even though I was certain he had to be innocent.

I walk out onto the back porch and look up at the moon, fat and pregnant in the sky. Pregnant with pain and change. Pregnant with a life that I hate, but cannot escape. Pregnant with my own futility.

I have an article in the bottom of my trunk that I cut from muggle magazine several years ago. It was written by an American anthropologist who had spent a year with a small tribe of Indians in the Amazon River basin. The body of the article is an interview with the tribe's chief. I have read it so often I can easily recall the words.

Once we thought the moon was a god. On the first night of a full moon we would have a great feast with singing and dancing and chanting of the ancient hymns. Then we heard that your people had gone there, to the moon, and found it was only a big rock.

So you no longer have the feasts? (prompted the anthropologist)

Oh yes, we still have the feasts with the singing and dancing. But now instead of the ancient hymns we sing a new song:

Foolish Moon we know you now

Worthless Moon you have no power

Stupid Moon you are only a big rock

When I first saw that article I knew it summed up my life perfectly.

Worthless Moon you have no power.

What more is there to say? Harry is at Hogwarts, bleeding from a wound so terrible he probably cannot comprehend it. I sit here, bleeding from the same wound. And I'm going to let both of us go right on bleeding, because I have no power.

I'm sorry Harry. I can't be the father for you that Sirus could have. Look to someone else - someone with power. Find someone who won't betray you.

And who would that be?

I go back inside and resume chopping my ingredients.

I hear the sound of someone coming down the stairs. As there is only one other in residence at Grimmauld Place at the moment (well, two others but Buckbeak has four feet) I am able to call a greeting to Tonks as she reaches the hallway.

"Wow," she says a moment later from the kitchen doorway, "is your nose really that good."

Well, yes. I did smell her, come to that. Unlike most women she does not smell of shampoos and hair gels and cosmetics - her powers as a Metamorphmagus make all that moot. Rather she smells of the faint perfume she uses, of sweat (she is very active physically), of dust from constantly brushing against surfaces in this house that remains old and dusty despite Molly's repeated attacks, and of bruises (those smell rather like over-ripe grapes) from her frequent falls, trips, and other misadventures.

But I decide not to go in to all that.

"I heard you. I take it you can't sleep either."

"No, I can't." She sounds tired and worried. Why not? We are all tired and worried. I turn to her. She is still wearing the jeans and pullover she had on at the meeting of the Order this evening. She has allowed her hair to fade from two-toned to all pink. Otherwise her appearance is the same. "I thought I would have a snack."

"Help yourself, there's plenty. In fact, I'll join you." After a few minutes of bustling we are both seated at the table with rather large sandwiches and glasses of pumpkin juice.

"What are you making?" she asks, gesturing to the scattered ingredients on the counter.

"My wolfsbane potion," I say simply. "The moon is almost full."

"Oh. That must be why you're up then." Why does she sound so disapproving?

Because I should be thinking of how to help Harry. Or at least how to help myself.

"Yes it is. Severus can't make it this cycle and, well, I'm out of money." I'm ashamed of that. I don't know why, but I am. Damn the Ministry anyway!

"You could borrow it," she says around a mouthful of sandwich. "I'm sure you could pay it back later."

"From who?" I say more bitterly than I mean. "It isn't as if anyone I know has lots of extra cash. The potion is very expensive. I could use Order funds, but we need those for more important things."

She regards me with a strange frown. "First of all," she says calmly, "I'm not sure keeping me, or any of the others, from an encounter with an uncontrolled werewolf is exactly a low priority. Not the highest, I'll grant you, but I wouldn't call it unimportant."

I open my mouth to protest that that is not what I meant, but she just holds up her hand to forestall me. "Secondly, I'm not sure you're thinking through all your resources."

"Meaning?" I hope this isn't going to be another cheer-Moony-up speech. I've had several of those already this week and they don't do any good.

"Meaning, it's my understanding that Harry Potter is actually rather wealthy. Why don't you ask him for the money?"

"What?" I feel myself blinking stupidly.

Tonks shrugs. "Why don't you ask Harry for the money?"

"Well, for one thing I was his professor."

"And he dislikes you enough that he would like to see you go through a transformation without the potion?" She takes a huge bite of her sandwich and waits for an answer.

"Well, no. I don't guess that's the case."

"Good. When we meet him at the station tomorrow ask him."

"How?" Idiot question, but this whole line of conversation has me flummoxed.

"Oh something like - 'Harry it's the full moon tonight and I can't afford my potion. Could I charge it to your vault?' - ought to do the trick." The rest of the sandwich disappears in a very unladylike gulp.

"I couldn't do that!"

Why not?

Because I'm afraid if I show weakness, he'll start to love me.

"Suit yourself." She shrugs again.

"Harry has just lost his godfather!"

"And you've just lost your best friend. I'd think that doing something for an old friend might help cheer the kid up. Make him feel useful and part of the group, you know."

Except that being part of the group should not involve loving me. It's too dangerous.

"I'll think about it."

"Meaning you won't do it." Tonks gives me a look of disgust. "Like I said, suit yourself. I'm back to bed."

She rises to take her dirty dishes over to the sink. Snagging her pants leg on her chair she does a small dance across the floor, an athletic maneuver that involves juggling her plate and saucer while twirling her cup around one finger. She manages it without so much as a chipped rim. I can't help but chuckle.

"Oh ho, he finds something funny," she says with good humor. "And just when I've learned how not to fall over that umbrella stand in the hallway! I wish I could have cheered up Dumbledore as easy."

"He was very down tonight, wasn't he? He worries a lot about Harry."

Don't we all.

"He has good reason to be worried," Tonks says softly. "It can't be easy to be fifteen and have the Dark Lord for your number one enemy. I thought it was bad enough having to deal with Severus Snape at that age!"

"No," I say, "it is very hard on Harry."

Then why am I here and not with him?

Worthless Moon.

"Hard on Dumbledore too," Tonks continues. "He really cares about that boy."

Yes, Dumbledore does care about Harry. That is the one spark of hope I have. I am worthless. Worthless Moony. But Dumbledore is powerful. He can be the parent Harry needs.

"I wish Sirius hadn't died." I say quietly. I want to cry, but I won't

"I know." Tonks lays her hand on my shoulder. I manage a grimace of a smile and turn back to my potion ingredients. After a few moments, I hear her climbing the stairs again.

Yes, Dumbledore is Harry's best hope.

Still.

I remember Dumbledore's face this evening. The way he spoke about Harry. And suddenly, irrationally, desperately, I am angry.

I put down the knife and breathe deeply. This is not unusual near the full moon. But generally I have more warning before a wave of temper hits.

Yes Albus, I know you love Harry. I know you are sorry that Sirius is gone.

Or are you?

I can't think like that. I WON'T think like that.

Of course Albus is sorry Sirius is gone.

Then again.

I know Albus is SORRY Sirius is gone. I'm just not sure he's sorry SIRIUS is gone. Standing there in the kitchen, suddenly engulfed in rage, I wonder for the first time if he is truly mournful for the loss of that wonderful, stubborn, noble man with his barking laugh and his fierce heart. Or is he just mournful that Harry is hurting? Is he sad about Sirius, or is he sad about Harry's godfather?

Am I the only one who misses SIRIUS? Am I the only one who longs for Padfoot to return in his own right? Am I the only one who loves him as something other than a way to make Harry smile?

No, you are not alone. Harry loved SIRIUS.

That's true. Harry and I, we know what it means to miss Sirius Black.

Then why am I not with Harry?

Worthless Moon. Stupid Moony.

Sirius. Twelve years in Hell, three years on the run, only to die because you got pushed through an archway by your bitch cousin's spell. And all for a prophecy that was lost anyway.

I am angry with Dumbledore. I am angry with Harry - why didn't he let us kill Peter when we had the chance? At least Sirius could have lived free in the light. Were a thirteen year old boy's scruples worth Sirius' suffering? I am angry with Sirius for not staying put in Grimmauld Place as he was told.

Sitting down at the table again, I put my head in my hands. The draw of the waxing moon is like a tide in my blood. It throbs in my head, in my arms, in my legs.

I can't do this.

It doesn't matter. The world will go on whether I can or not.

Stupid Moon.

And now a new thought. Is Dumbledore truly all that sorry even that Harry's godfather is gone?

No. It is the moon talking.

So it is. The moon summons forth the despair in my heart. It cloaks all my thoughts in darkness and desire.

And still I wonder, is Albus secretly glad that Padfoot is gone?

After all, Sirius was the only one that stood between him and Harry. With Padfoot gone, Albus has Harry all to himself. Only Molly Weasley would dare stand up to him. And Molly's love is that of a mother. Albus can abide that. But he can't abide another father for Harry.

This is insanity.

So it is. But it is also the will of the moon. There is a reason they used to call it lunacy.

Yes, Albus has no competition now. Who will fight him for Harry? Who is left?

Only Worthless Moony.

Worthless Moon, you have no power.

I rise slowly and return to my chopping board. The moon knows no reprieve. I am not a man who can fight the world. I am a man the world does things to.

As I chop I wonder if the werewolf tears falling into the ingredients will affect the potion. But I know in my heart they will not.

They are as worthless as the rest of me.