The Proud Man's Contumely

##Chapter Seven: Make Your Wantonness Your Ignorance

...a useful distraction...nothing more...

...what happened to your travesty of a godfather...

You can't blame me...

Can't I?

I want you to take this.

What is it?

A way of letting me know if Snape is giving you a hard time...I want you to use it if you need me, all right?

Harry sat on the floor of Sirius' wardrobe, fondling the small mirror that was now his last remaining souvenir of his late godfather. He'd come here in search of a shirt but had found instead a sanctuary; a buoy in the relentlessly shifting tide of feelings, thoughts, and questions that had begun to rise the morning before and now, swollen to the breach by Remus' disturbing news, threatened to overwhelm him completely.

It was quiet in the wardrobe. A good kind of quiet, and not the deafening silence that rang throughout the rest of the house. That was a silence that was so oppressive it almost seemed sentient. Harry sometimes fancied the house watched him, waiting for moments like these when all his most painful memories had been stirred to the surface and the stillness could prove more dangerous than the most brutal Legilimens attack. Here, however, among Sirius' things, the quiet was comforting.

Here he could smell Sirius all around him. Over two months of marinating in the stale air of Grimmauld Place had not purged Sirius' scent from his clothes. And Harry let that scent envelope him, relaxed into it with a sense of calm and security as if it were Sirius' embrace itself. Safe in his comfortable nest of cotton and denim and dragon hide, Harry let his mind play itself out. All those thoughts he could no longer keep at bay were allowed to race freely.

How would this all end? How many more would be lost before it did? Was Dudley really gone? Was he truly free of Privet Drive, and must it have come at such a price? Was Snape right? Was Sirius' death really his fault?

It was this last question that seemed most pressing to Harry. He stared into the mirror, concentrating on the thin line of light from the crack at the bottom of the door which was reflected in his glasses and across the contour of his eyes. It was really the only thing discernable in the darkness. The longer he stared at it, the less solidity those painful thoughts retained. They slowly lost form and dissolved into a general, wordless ache, and then a tingling numbness. Harry simply drifted on Sirius' scent, suspended in time, the light in the mirror his only anchor. The world beyond the wardrobe door seemed less and less like reality.

In here, it was so easy to imagine Sirius still lived, that he was only just down the hall with Buckbeak. It was so easy to imagine this was not Grimmauld Place, just a place he shared with his godfather, the one he had always dreamed of while locked away at Privet Drive. There was no Dark Lord here. There was no Snape, no training, no threat. Here was home, and Harry was happy...

Happy. Harry then tried to recall if he had ever been happy: content and carefree. He wondered if he was even imagining it correctly, or if it was possible to having never known it, however much he had longed for it. Did his idea of happiness bear any resemblance to the reality of it? He wasn't sure. But he was certain he had never truly been happy. Each time he had come close it had been tainted by something...a sense of expectancy, a knowledge it wouldn't last. Nothing so wonderful as that could ever be allowed to happen to Harry Potter.

He had always felt wary, threatened. Preyed upon. Yes, that is exactly what Harry had always been, even at the Dursleys: prey.

'Is that why I do what I do?' he asked himself. Perhaps he was driven toward danger out of rebellion against that sense of helplessness, so that he could fool himself into believing he'd had some choice in the matter, and even if he was harmed by those who preyed upon him it would not be by their will alone. Master of his own destiny, wasn't that the expression? What a silly delusion. Hadn't one of his favourite excuses always been his faultless victimisation? Who was he trying to fool with it anyway? Those who criticised him, or himself? Perhaps the answer lay somewhere in between, a taste of it all together.

The answer was that there were no answers. Yet even as Harry pondered these possibilities, he felt hunted. Even as he sat locked in his sanctuary hiding from the outside world, doing nothing to provoke it, he felt its threat. Someone somewhere sought him. Someone was drawing close. He could feel it like hot breath on the back of his neck.

'Who are you?" Harry wondered dreamily to himself. 'Where are you?'

Where are you?

Was that his own voice? It seemed soothing, trustworthy. Maybe Phineas had been right. Maybe he was cracking up. Harry gave a short laugh.

'I'm in the closet.'

Where are you, Harry?

'I told you, I'm in the-' Harry paused. Where was he?

'I'm...I'm alone'

Are you hiding from something?

'I suppose I am.'

And what are you hiding from, Harry? Are you frightened of something?

'...Aren't I always?'

Oh? And what of that legendary Gryffindor bravery?

'Just because you're brave doesn't mean you can't be scared,' Harry reasoned calmly. 'It's not real courage if you aren't. It's stupidity, or folly. Something like that. I think someone told me that once.'

Ah. How wise. And who told you these things?

'Does it even matter?'

Ha. I like your way of thinking. What are you scared of now, Harry?

Harry thought for a long time. '...Of being alone.'

Then why aren't you with the others?

'I'm even more afraid of being with them and still being alone, if that makes sense. And I'm afraid of the things they expect me to do that I can't do.'

You cannot? And why is that? Do you know your weaknesses? Every man should. Tell them to me. What haunts you, Harry? What hurts you most?

Harry was beginning to feel uncomfortable. 'He's...'

Yes?

'...He's...'

He's what? Who? Answer my questions, Harry.

Harry felt suddenly confined, trapped and suffocating.

Answer me. Tell me what you fear.

'No.'

...Harry-

'I said no.'

"Harry!"

"No!"

"No what? Harry?"

Harry was suddenly aware of Remus standing over him in the now open wardrobe doorway. Light poured in from behind him, blinding Harry who struggled to lift a hand to shield himself from it as if from an imminent blow.

"Gods! Harry, you're drenched. What's wrong? What's happened? How did you get here?" Remus asked in a desperate voice as he dropped to his knees beside Harry. Harry did not remember lying down, neither could he understand why he was sweating when the air seemed so chill on his still bare skin it practically stung him. His scar burned almost intolerably, the sudden brightness punctuating this pain. He had difficulty focusing on Remus and felt he was about to be ill.

"I'm. I'm not sure," Harry said weakly. "I mean, I came in here to find a shirt. I just, I think I nodded off," he lied. As badly as he was hurting, Remus looked worried enough as it was.

"We've been searching for you for hours," Remus told him, "since you missed your session with me. Snape is downstairs waiting to give you your Occlumency lesson. Dumbledore's there. He's frantic. I was frantic, we all were. What in Merlin's name-" Remus stopped and took a deep breath to calm himself. "Are you all right?" he asked more gently. "You look pale."

"I think I need to lie down," Harry said. With his arm hooked around Remus' neck they shuffled out of the wardrobe and over to Remus' bed where he lowered Harry onto his pillow and fussed over him, stoking back his sweat-soaked bangs and mopping his brow with his tattered coat sleeve. The pain in Harry's scar was staring to subside, and the room became clearer. As soon as Harry was settled and appeared to relax, Remus sat back and carefully placed his hands on his knees.

"I need to tell the others I've found you," he said, but Harry halted him.

"Not yet! Don't leave me alone just yet," he begged. Remus gave him a worried but indulgent look and settled back onto the bed. Having nothing better on hand, he reached over and stripped the case from his other pillow and, almost worshipfully, set to drying Harry's neck and chest. Harry lay motionless under Remus' ministrations, still not fully recovered from his episode in the wardrobe. Everything still felt a bit surreal, and he looked about him with thoughtful detachment.

For some reason he only just noticed that Remus had taken over Sirius' old room. Everything was as Sirius had left it, obviously even the wardrobe. Remus' own clothes, of which there were so few he perhaps didn't feel the need for a wardrobe of his own, were hung on the back of the chair at the writing desk in the corner. On the desktop there was a picture of the two, Sirius and Remus, good friends smiling fondly at each other and clasping arms, though their expressions were much less carefree and exuberant than in the photos in Harry's album. Over the desk hung the legendary Kreacher. He was missing an eye and most of one ear; his face was sullied by claw-like slashes, yet looked more pleased than Harry ever remembered him being in life.

It was the elf who told me--laughing fit to burst--where Sirius had gone.

So the rumours were true. His quiet, unassuming new guardian had indeed slaughtered the thing and brought his head back as a trophy, hanging it in Sirius' room as if in offering. Harry turned his detached, unabashed stare to Remus who was still wiping sweat from him. Could this man who now touched him with such tenderness really have done such a thing? Remus looked weary and apprehensive, and Harry found he rather missed Remus' silent sureness, the serene confidence that once infused everything he did or said. What could have caused such a change in him? Harry had not given much thought to Remus Lupin before he'd come to Grimmauld Place that summer. He'd had no reason, but things had changed. So many things had changed.

He found Remus intrigued him more and more. He was full of paradox, a deceptively simple enigma. Harry wondered how someone so obviously young could seem at the same time so very old. He was Dumbledore's exact opposite. Remus' face was lined with care, but was more handsome for it, Harry thought. His eyes especially bore deep creases that, at the moment, looked as though they must be from kindness. His eyes were indeed gentle, but also piercing and wary, and ever so slightly feral. Harry was warmed by Remus' light, attentive touches, yet shivered under them. Quite suddenly Harry was possessed of a desire to understand this man, to spend time with him, but not now out of pity or compassion. Remus had never posed such an enticing mystery as he did at that moment, and Harry wanted to know what went on behind those amber eyes. They seemed so wise, so honest. Harry wanted to see himself through them, as his own he considered too jaded to bear much truth. Remus noticed Harry's placid, half-lidded stare and grew more concerned.

"I'm going to go and get the headmaster," he said, frowning, and rushed to do so. Harry watched him rise without a word.

"Do you blame me?" he asked quietly before Remus could reach the door. Remus stopped mid-step and turned back to Harry with some measure of feigned confusion.

"Harry," he said carefully, "I've said before, there's no way you could have known. No one believes your cousin's death was your fault."

"I didn't mean Dudley," Harry replied, propping himself up on his elbows, though he had a feeling Remus had understood to begin with. "I meant...do you blame me for Sirius? Do you think it was my fault he died? Do you think I killed him?"

Remus stared blankly at Harry for a moment, and then took a shaky breath. "...Of course not," he said finally. "How could you think such a thing?" Harry would not be so easily placated. He didn't answer, only looked away, staring thoughtfully at the empty air before him. "You all blame me, don't you?"

Remus hesitated, debating whether to continue on his errand and let Dumbledore handle the situation or to return to Harry's side. Slowly, he drew back to the bed and looked down at Harry with an expression of deep distress. Absently he reached out and re-tucked a strand of damp hair that had fallen into Harry's eyes, causing Harry to look up at him and hold his reluctant gaze with one of unflinching resolve.

"Is that what you believe, Harry?" Remus asked, shaking his head, his brow furrowed. "Do you really blame yourself?" Again, Harry did not answer the question put to him.

"That doesn't matter. I want to know if you blame me."

Softly, "Harry, I said I didn't."

"That doesn't mean you don't," Harry replied in a hollow voice. "That doesn't mean anything at all, really." He could tell by the look in his eyes that he had wounded Remus with his statement, but he didn't relent. "If you don't blame me, why do you avoid me? Why won't you look me in the eye?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Remus replied with a nervous laugh. "I'm looking you in the eye now aren't I?" He wet his lips and began to shift uncomfortably. "I'm going to fetch someone. You aren't well." Harry reached out and took hold of Remus' wrist to keep him there. Though he pulled against Harry's grasp firmly and steadily, Remus did not jerk away or try to wrench himself free. He looked suddenly frightened of Harry, and Harry could simply not understand why.

Harry didn't understand his own actions either, or why he was saying such things. He'd never felt Sirius was the reason Remus was so distant, though the thought should have occurred to him before now. Still, even now he didn't feel that to be quite the truth. It seemed Harry had an ulterior motive that was unbeknownst to even himself. Yet he continued to ride this wave of impulse, still too numb to comprehend all that was happening, or to really care why.

"Why did you flinch?" Harry went on. "You act like my touch hurts you."

"It does," Remus rasped breathlessly, surprising Harry.

Harry swung his legs over the edge of the bed and rose to stand before Remus, allowing only enough room to accommodate the wrist he still held gripped between them. He looked searchingly deep into Remus' eyes. And Remus, though he stood in place, slowly began to lean away from Harry.

"But why?" Harry asked in genuine and innocent confusion.

"Harry, this isn't the time for this," Remus tried to say sharply, but the quaver in his voice ruined his attempt to sound authoritative.

"When is?" Harry demanded. And why not? As far as Harry knew he didn't have much time left.

"Harry," Remus said, his composure rapidly crumbling, yet frozen in place by Harry's gaze. "I can't. You're...It's too soon," he stammered.

"Too soon for what?" Harry asked, desperate to understand. Remus' wrist flexed under his fingers.

"Too soon after...after Sirius-"

"What does Sirius have to do with you and me?" Harry interrupted. "Because Sirius is dead I can't touch you? Because he's dead you can't look at me?"

"Yes."

Harry grimaced at Remus, not comprehending; unaware he was tightening his grip on Remus' wrist.

"Harry, you don't understand. I can't explain it. This is just wrong," Remus said firmly.

"But why?!" Harry cried, growing upset.

"I'm your godfather, Harry-"

"Sirius was my godfather!" Harry said with vehemence he didn't understand.

"You're right! You're right...And I shouldn't be feeling....It's that damned spell," Remus growled. "This isn't right. You're still too young. It's too soon."

"What are you talking about?" Harry bellowed.

"We were lovers, Harry!"

Harry gaped at Remus, unconsciously releasing him, and Remus stumbled back away from him.

"What?"

Remus reached behind him to grasp the desk for support. "Your godfather and I were lovers, Harry," he confessed, breathing as though he'd just run a mile. "And I feel I'm betraying him. I can't imagine what he would think of me if he were still alive." He laid his face in his hand. "You turned sixteen," he said as though this was supposed to explain things. "I just never thought it would ever affect me." Harry shook his head, he was so very confused. But just as Remus seemed about to elaborate, the bedroom door burst open. "Potter!"

Harry turned a dazed look to Snape, standing in the doorway and looking livid.

"Where in Hell have you been?" Snape snarled, bearing down on him. Harry opened and closed his mouth, looking at Snape as though he were some alien creature.

"I found him in the wardrobe," Remus said now, rapidly composing himself. Harry could tell by the look in his eye as he glanced at him that he would never know what Remus had been about to say before Snape interrupted them. Harry could just strangle the sallow bastard.

"The wardrobe?" Snape said, raising an eyebrow at Remus, and then turning an ugly grimace of confusion to Harry. "You mean to tell me the entire Order was set on alarm because you left like playing Hide. And. Seek?!"

"Now, Severus," Remus threatened gently but firmly. But Snape only sneered at Harry, apparently too disgusted to insult him further. He looked at Remus.

"He's your bloody responsibility, Lupin," Snape said, speaking as though Harry were not even in the room, which irked Harry beyond words. "Can you not even keep up with him? Can you not impose some discipline?"

"Yes, Severus," Remus began, drawing himself up. Harry could detect a hint of the old sureness in his voice. "He is my responsibility...not yours. And as such I ask that you leave me to see to it. Your advice, though duly noted, is neither requested nor desired. However, if you'd like to feel useful, I suggest you go and inform Albus that Harry has been found and will be coming downstairs directly to explain himself."

Snape glared at Remus, but did not shoot back any scathing retort, which frankly shocked Harry. With a final disgusted glance, Snape muttered, "We're all going to die," before he turned on his heels and disappeared, robes cracking behind him. Harry watched him go, still thunderstruck, then turned to Remus. But the man only regarded Harry for a moment, as with deep regret, and followed Snape out of the door, motioning for Harry to follow.

*~*~*