Harry Potter Hogwarts Caretaker

Chapter 10: Remus

Harry spent most of the afternoon looking for suitable new furniture for Hermione's classroom. Professor Hermione Weasley had very exact ideas what she wanted and the list she had handed him during lunch was very detailed.

Of course there was lots of unused furniture standing around in all the unused classrooms all over Hogwarts, but to find 20 exactly matching desks of one particular height proved to be almost impossible. In most of the old rooms several different types had been mixed, but Harry noticed that desks of the same kind could often be found in different rooms and after searching for several hours he managed to find the desks he needed.

Only the chairs didn't match. Where were the chairs that had originally gone with those desks? Harry didn't want to send out the house elves to help with the search as the four he had originally chosen were still busy cleaning Hermione's classroom and the others had to take over their usual duties as well. So he continued to search on his own.

By the time he reached the DADA corridor dragging along one chair under his arm to use for comparison as most of the chairs looked the same to him on first glance all he needed were two more chairs. It had to be possible to find two more chairs that exactly matched the one he had with him. It just had to.

He walked into the room next to the DADA teacher's quarters and froze in shock. The room was crammed full with desks and chairs stacked on top of each other and no two pieces seemed to match. Harry groaned. It would take him an entire day to dig through all of that. That was the moment he resolved to sort all the unused furniture out. He'd ask Dobby to help him. From now on all desks and chairs stored in the same room would have to match. He never wanted to have to trudge back and forth through the whole castle to find the right kind of chair again. Why oh why couldn't Filch have sorted them properly in the first place?

With one last heavy sigh Harry set to work pulling the first chair from the first stack out. No, it didn't match his chair. He carried it out into the hallway. Maybe he'd find some more chairs to match that one. He'd store them together if he did. He pulled out the next chair ....

CLATTER! That chair's foot had gotten caught on one of the neighbouring stacks and pulled it down after it. The stack had taken several others with it burying Harry under chairs.

Harry sighed once again. Surrounded and felled by chairs. Didn't that situation fit exactly the feeling he'd been getting all afternoon? He started to dig himself out and found to his surprise that he was getting help from the other end. Who would come here to help him? Nobody knew where he was. He pushed aside another chair and stuck his head out of the pile.

"Professor Lupin?"

"Ah, Harry, it's you. I should have guessed. Who else would be interested in this old storage room?" Lupin smiled at him. "And do call me Remus. You are no longer a pupil after all."

"How did you know I was in here?" Harry asked still slightly confused.

"I heard the crash. I was making myself a cup of tea in my office which as you know is just two doors over from here and heard all the noise when the chairs came down. I went to check what had happened and found you under this mountain of chairs. You probably should have taken one from one of the other classrooms where they aren't piled up to the ceiling. There is one right next doors."

"I know." grumbled Harry angrily. "But they aren't the right kind. Hermione wants them all to be exactly the same."

He looked around for his sample. Ah there it was. It had been covered in chairs too. He pulled it out.

"I need two more like this one. You wouldn't happen to have seen any somewhere around?" he asked Lupin.

"I never look at chairs that closely." Remus shrugged. "I'm quite satisfied if I have enough of them for all my pupils and I don't care what they look like. We could look in my classroom though. Maybe there are some there."

"But you'll need those." protested Harry.

"I'll trade them against two of these here." Lupin said pointing at the mountain of chairs as he'd called it. "As I said, I don't care what they look like. Matching chairs! Hermione must think you're bored to demand something like that. Come on, lets go to my office and I'll make some more tea for you and after that we can start looking for chairs. I wanted to talk to you anyway."

Harry grabbed his sample chair once again and trudged after Lupin into his office wondering why everybody was always offering him tea. Had somebody recently discovered some calming effect tea had on suicidal people? And why were they all trying to get involved in his life anyway? Why couldn't they just leave him alone with his guilt and misery?

Lupin's office was just as it had been when Harry had still been one of his students. Several cages with dark creatures lined the walls. There even was the old water tank that he had once used to show them a Grindylow during Harry's third year. And indeed there was the angry face of a captured Grindylow starring at them through the glass wall.

Lupin knocked against the glass casually when he passed the tank and the Grindylow turned away sulkily.

Lupin handed Harry a cup of tea and started making small talk. They talked about the weather, pupils, the monsters in their cages, ... Harry was getting more and more anxious. What did Lupin really want with him? Finally he could take it no longer.

"So why did you really ask me in here? You said you wanted to talk to me about something and I don't think it was the weather."

Remus got up and walked over to the window. It had been raining all day and it didn't look like it was going to stop soon. Harry watched Lupin's back as he stared out at the rain and mud he knew were the only thing to see out there today.

"Its about Sirius." he finally said. "I think you ought to talk to him."

"Why?" asked Harry surprised. "He didn't seem too eager to talk to me so far and I really don't want to force myself on anybody. I know I was a big disappointment to him, to all of you and I understand if some of you really don't want to talk to me ever again. Actually I'm surprised that some people still do talk to me."

"I admit that Sirius is very disappointed. You're right about that. But he also feels for you in a way. You are like a son to him Harry and he too spent time in Azkaban."

"He was innocent. I was not." Harry stared down at his arm where he knew that the dark mark was hidden beneath his shirt.

"Maybe so, but he was there and he remembers what it was like. He knows how you feel and it's tearing him up inside. Just go and talk to him. It will help you both, I think. Sirius really wants to forgive you, but you have to be the one to go to him and ask him to do it. He wont come to you."

"I don't know if I can." Harry said still staring at his arm. "I'm not sure it would be right for him to forgive me. There are things that shouldn't be forgiven, you know and this is one of those."

"Harry you came back to us. You went through Azkaban to be forgiven and now you just say 'It's not right. I shouldn't be forgiven.'? Don't you think it's up to us to decide what we want to forgive and what not? I think that Sirius will forgive you if you ask him to, that he really wants to forgive you. He just doesn't know it yet. You have to talk to him. I know it will help both of you if you can talk about it all."

"I only came back, because those aurors talked me into surrendering. I had the choice to either surrender to them or to kill somebody. It's not like I decided to come back on my own and walked into the ministry to ask them to forgive me. I'm not Snape, Professor Lupin. I'm no hero. I just surrendered because I was too scared to murder that man."

"The point is you did surrender. A real death eater would not have thought twice about committing murder. Actually I don't think a real death eater would have thought about it at all. You are not a killer, Harry. And that means that you are not and never were a death eater." Lupin said staring hard at Harry as if he was trying to hypnotise him. "And don't call me Professor. Call me Remus."

Maybe Lupin really was trying to hypnotise him. Harry didn't know and he didn't care either. He was still staring at his arm picturing the dark mark he knew was there. It said death eater, marked him as a criminal for everyone to see unless he kept it covered at all times which of course he did. Voldemort might be gone but people still remembered him well. They'd recognise his mark if they saw it and Harry didn't want to think about what their reaction might be.

"You were never in this situation. It's all very easy for you to say."

"No I wasn't. That's why I think you should talk to Sirius. Because he was. He knows what it's like and he'll be able to help you where I can't. I still want to be your friend, Harry. Give me a chance."

Harry looked up at him at that. Give him a chance? What did he mean? What chance? How should he do that? Harry couldn't have any friends. At least not in the wizarding world where everybody knew what he was and what he'd done. It just wasn't right. They couldn't accept him back. The way the children talked about the war and those who had fought in it they could never just forget what Harry had done.

'And they shouldn't either.' Harry thought bitterly. 'They have every right to hate me for what I am."

Lupin was silent now probably waiting for an answer from Harry. When none came he got up and took the empty cups away without a word.

"Well, come on. Lets find those two chairs to make Hermione happy." he said when he returned and found Harry still sitting there staring at his arm once again.

Harry again picked up his sample chair and they went to search Lupin's classroom. Indeed they soon found the chairs Harry needed and he dragged them back to Hermione's class happily. He put the chairs into one of the old unused rooms in the arithmancy corridor which he used to store Hermione's new furniture until they were ready to move it into her classroom.

Then he went to check on the house elves. They had made remarkable progress. Almost all the wood splinters and damaged books had been removed and they were almost ready to start with the actual cleaning.

"Very good." Harry told them. "If you go on like this we can start bringing in the furniture tomorrow evening."

"Has Harry Potter Sir found all the furniture Harry Potter Sir needs? House elves know good places with lots of furniture." One of them offered in return.

Harry smiled wishing he knew which one it was. He still hadn't had time to ask them for their names.

"Thank you, my friend, but I have everything we need now. Let me help you carry out the last of the larger pieces and we'll do the rest tomorrow."

"Harry Potter Sir does not have to help house elves, Harry Potter Sir. House elves can carry out large pieces all alone. House elves are strong, Harry Potter Sir. Harry Potter Sir doesn't need to work." they protested immediately.

"But I want to." Harry explained. "I've got nothing better to do and I want to make sure that you guys stop working before you drop. We don't have to have all of this done by tomorrow so I want you all to use the night to sleep. Is that clear?"

"House elves not that tired Harry Potter Sir. House elves can finish this easily." another elf protested.

"That's exactly what I mean. I'm here to see that you don't. I'm your boss and I'm ordering you to stop working once you're done clearing the debris out and go to bed. We will continue this tomorrow. On my order." Harry insisted sternly.

"Yes, Harry Potter Sir." the house elves chorused.

"Much better." Harry smiled and they set to work.

Harry needed to work to take his mind of Sirius. He just couldn't get Remus' words out of his head. Talk to Sirius. Talk to Sirius. ... He was just too scared to do that and he didn't want to think about it. If only that horrible voice somewhere in his head would shut up about it.

In the next chapter: we meet one Sirius of course, Twichy makes another appearance and Harry is feeling very down again.