There's a Regret

There's a Regret

The house is cold despite the heat of the interminable days, and Harry shivers, scarcely dressed, his bare feet slapping the fine smooth wood of the townhouse floors. He wanders at night because he does not sleep. He would wander outside, around the garden, into the neighborhood, but he's not yet that desperate nor that unfeeling towards the wishes of the others. So he wanders the house like a ghost searching for rest.

He ends up in the unlikeliest of places when exhaustion finally overtakes him. On molding sofas in dusty parlors; atop ancient beds in empty bedrooms; in a chair by the fire in the basement kitchen; on the stairs to the little root cellar where Remus locks himself each month; even in Buckbeak's room, where the earthy stench of a caged animal lingers despite the fact that the animal is long gone.

Tonight, when he wakes, he finds himself curled in a ball on the window seat in the library. He blinks in the darkness and is startled when the darkness moves.

"Come on, Harry. Back to bed."

The voice is rough and familiar, and Harry sighs, longing to slip back into the black oblivion of sleep where voices don't bother him so much. Reluctantly he uncurls his legs, keeping his arms wrapped around his bare torso for warmth.

"Sorry," he mumbles, aware that the Remus-shaped darkness is still watching him. "I'm going."

He stands and puts his weight on a leg that is still fast asleep. He stumbles gracelessly into Remus' dark form.

"Lumos." A bluish light blinds from the tip of Remus' wand and Harry winces as he rubs the pins and needles in his leg, sitting back down onto the window seat.

"Go on," Harry says gruffly. "My leg's asleep. I'll be all right in a minute."

Remus nods, but instead of leaving, perches on the arm of a nearby chair. Harry frowns down at his own leg, rubbing at the red flannel, trying not to wince at the sharp pricks of pain as the blood flow slowly resumes.

"I'll go back to bed," he says churlishly. "You don't have to wait."

"I don't mind," Remus replies.

Familiar anger wells up inside Harry's chest, and he fights with it. It has been the same all summer. Dumbledore has left them alone together at headquarters, presumably so that they can grieve together, yet neither has done any grieving as far as Harry can tell. Remus hates him, that much is clear. And why shouldn't he? Harry is the reason that all of his friends are dead, the reason that Remus is alone. He's a cancer, a plague on Remus' life, and the man has been saddled with him yet again.

They communicate as little as possible in terse phrases, circumspect glances, tired sighs, always waiting for the few moments of respite they are granted when an Order member comes to call. They are too much alone, and being together doesn't help.

Remus yawns, and Harry glances up to see if there is any ire behind it, expecting a sarcastic glint in the other man's eyes as he waits so patiently for Harry to catch up. Instead, Harry sees exhaustion, sleeplessness, bags under the eyes, sagging limbs, and hopelessness that hangs about his shoulders like a heavy chain.

Remus' eyes are unfocused, staring at a spot on the carpet, his fingers idly scratching the thin fabric of his cotton pajama trousers. The fabric is whisper soft with age, shiny, and almost worn through in places, showing the bones of his knees. Above, his thin torso shines in the bluish wandlight crossed every which way with raised pink scars.

Harry doesn't realize he's been staring until Remus catches him at it. They lock eyes for a moment, and he feels instantly ashamed for looking, so he looks away. His heart is pounding from embarrassment, and he searches for something to say.

"Sorry," he mumbles, rubbing his calf with renewed vigor. "I didn't mean to..."

"That's all right," Remus says quickly. "Sometimes I forget they're there. Didn't mean to startle you."

"No," Harry says, looking up. "It's not that." He finds the courage to seek out Remus' gaze. "It's just, I know what it's like to have people staring at your scars."

Remus' eyes flick to his forehead for the briefest of seconds before alighting back on his face.

"Scars tell a story," he says with a shrug. "They're a part of who we are. They're nothing to be ashamed of." He glances down at his arms, his torso, as though cataloguing the marks. "This one," he says, pointing to a small sickle shaped scar on his side, "is my favorite." He looks up and gives Harry a small grin. "Had my appendix out when I was seven."

Harry can't help but laugh at that. It seems so anticlimactic somehow. He glances down at his own arm resting on his thigh. He holds it out into the light and points at a round mark just above his elbow.

"This is where the basilisk bit me," he says. "Fawkes healed it, but he couldn't make it completely go away."

Remus stares at him. Not at his arm where the shiny disk of discolored skin shows up so starkly in the wandlight, but at his eyes. Harry wants to show him that he isn't afraid of his scars. He holds his gaze.

Then Remus turns slightly, gesturing to a series of similar round scars that mar his left side along the line of his ribs. "James did those," he says, his voice pinched from holding his head at an odd angle, trying to see the scars for himself.

Harry starts at the news, but tries not to look as horrified as he feels. Why would his father--

"He had to stop me, you see," Remus explains calmly. "From killing Snape." He reaches down and fingers the topmost one, and Harry has a flash of realization, seeing a stag goring a wolf in his mind's eye, while a terrified boy looked on. He nods carefully. A dog barks outside in the neighborhood, and Harry uses its lonely cry to turn away and stare out into the blackness of the night.

"What about that one, then?" Remus asks after a long moment of silence.

Harry turns back to him. Remus is pointing to his shoulder. Foolishly, he puts his hand up and touches the top of the thin jagged scar that runs down across his shoulder blade.

"Oh that," he says, feigning a grin. "That's from the Norwegian Ridgeback, in the Tri-Wizard Tournament." Remus is watching him intently again, and he feels forced to shift his gaze. Dropping his hand to his lap, he stares at his fingers. "Madam Pomfry said that wounds from magical creatures don't always heal like they should."

He is aware of Remus nodding slowly in his peripheral vision as a wave of embarrassment washes over him. What a stupid thing to say! Remus, of all people, knows--

Remus stands abruptly. He reaches down and yanks up the leg of his pajamas to just above his knee, and Harry turns to look, despite himself.

"That's the first one," Remus says flatly, indicating an angry, red half moon of teeth marks on his calf, partially obscured by other scars, yet somehow still looking newer than all the others. He reaches down as though to touch it, but his fingers never make contact with the skin. "The worst one," he adds, unnecessarily.

Harry swallows hard and the sound echoes in his ears. He had never considered that Remus would still have that scar, from the night that changed his life so many years ago. He desperately wants to ask how it happened, but cannot find the words.

Remus releases his trouser leg as he sits again, and it falls like a curtain over his leg.

Harry holds out his arm again. "This is my worst one," he says. He isn't sure why he says it. Tit for tat? Maybe. But more a need to prove to Remus that he too has suffered; that he understands the weight of scars.

"This is where Peter--"

"I know," Remus says suddenly. His head is turned away. He doesn't want to see, Harry realizes, and he crosses his arms again defensively across his chest, hiding the thin brown line that slices across the blue veins of his inner arm with his hand.

The silence descends again, and it is worse than ever. Harry wants to scream just to hear the noise. He realizes that his pins and needles have finally subsided, and he wonders if he ought to go. Slowly, carefully, he stands.

"I've failed you, Harry," Remus says, his voice abrupt and jarring. "And I'm sorry."

"Failed me?" Harry repeats uncertainly, faltering in mid step.

Remus is staring at the cold, empty grate in the fireplace his eyes wide and dark in the magical light. "There were reasons. Always reasons." He glances back at Harry, his expression forced into a wry smile. "I am, after all, an ineffably reasonable man."

He folds his hands neatly in his lap and looks away again, studying the wand poking up between them, casting strange shadows on the geography of his worn face.

"I couldn't protect you when you were young. No one gives up an infant to a werewolf; I could hardly fight Dumbledore for that. After you started school, I didn't want to bother you, get in your way. Things were difficult enough for you, getting used to your fame, and I -- I didn't want to be a burden."

His head is bowed, and Harry is not sure what to think. Remus hasn't spoken this much to him since... Practically ever. Definitely not since they were professor and student. It feels like a lifetime ago.

"Then I was there, at Hogwarts and you were..." Remus falters, twisting his wand between his fingers thoughtfully. "But when he came back, it only seemed right that I step back, let him take his place as your godfather, your family."

Harry stiffens. Here it comes, he thinks, steeling himself for the declaration of regret he has been waiting all summer to hear.

"It's all right," he says angrily, the words erupting from his lips. "I already know. You wish it had been me who fell through the Veil, and not him." Harry clenches his fists at his sides. "I understand."

Remus' head whips around to stare at him with eyes that blaze. He leaps up from his perch on the armchair and crosses the few steps to where Harry stands, grabbing him roughly by the shoulders, his wand clattering forgotten to the floor, making the shadows in the room come alive as it falls.

"Never," he hisses, his voice thick and intense with emotion. "Don't ever think that. You should never dishonor his sacrifice by thinking that. It's all he ever wanted in the world: to protect you, and to go down fighting."

Harry cannot speak. He is frozen by Remus' grip, hypnotized by his eyes, afraid of his intensity.

"You feel remorse for what happened, but there's a regret--"

Harry tries not to flinch as Remus tightens his grip on Harry's shoulders. He wonders if he can feel his pulse through the pads of his fingertips, or if it is only his imagination.

"I live every day," Remus breathes, as though each word were sharp and cutting as he speaks it, "regretting that it couldn't have been me."

Harry stares.

"It should have been me," Remus continues, his control noticeably returning. "And if I knew a way to go back and take his place, I would already have done it."

His arms drop to his sides and he exhales; by so doing, he is visibly deflated, as though only his own self-loathing had been keeping him upright. "I'm sorry it wasn't me, Harry," he says at last, bending to retrieve his wand.

He turns to go, taking the artificial light with him, leaving Harry standing alone in the encroaching darkness.

"You don't hate me then?" Harry shouts desperately at the retreating figure.

Remus pauses and turns, disbelief writ large across his normally placid face.

"How could I hate you?" he demands. "How could I possibly hate you when he loved you -- when I love you -- so much?"

Something inside Harry breaks. It is like a rubber band that has been drawn too taught, or a dam built too quickly, always cracking and in need of repair, that gives way at last to the tears he has not shed, the fears he has not shared. His eyes barely even prickle before the first hot tear runs down his cheek.

Remus closes the distance between them in two long strides and suddenly has Harry in a tight embrace, and Harry is crying -- sobbing -- with his forehead pressed to Remus' scarred shoulder, because he can do nothing else.