Survivor's Guilt: Moony's Tale

Three weeks' time found Remus boarding the Hogwarts Express, as he had not done since he was a boy, from platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station. He had known it would be difficult. The memories he had been trying to evade for years had come flooding back over the past few weeks; the previous night he had been unable to sleep because of them. Now, exhausted, he had arrived early in the hope that he might secure an empty compartment for himself. He did not feel in the mood for company and everywhere he looked seemed to be full of memories.

Here, the compartment where James and Sirius had set off a load of dung bombs under the seat of a sleeping Severus Snape. Here, the compartment where they had played Strip Exploding Snap and had been caught and reprimanded by the witch with the food trolly. Here, the compartment where he had walked in on James and Lily having a blazing row. And here -- here, the compartment where he had seen Sirius for the first time, over twenty years ago. He hurried past that one and at last found a memory-free -- and mercifully also student-free -- compartment at the end of the train. There he pulled his cloak up over his head and went to sleep.

He awoke, disoriented this time not because of disturbing dreams, but because it was very dark and very cold. The train had stopped and the lights were out but he could hear children's voices calling to one another, nervously asking what was happening. From the sound of it, there were children in his compartment as well; three or four, he guessed. Two more entered, tripping over the others and exchanging hurried apologies.

"Quiet!" he told them, quickly making a light. "Stay where you are." He was just about to move toward the door when it opened. Standing in the corridor was the thing he had known it must be, but had hoped it was not: a Dementor of Azkaban.

The temperature in the compartment dropped still further as the tall, black-clad creature drew a rattling breath. By the dim light Remus saw one boy drop into a dead faint. The other children were clearly terrified, cowering back against the seats. Remus was not sure he felt much braver than they did but he knew that, not only as their Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher but also as the only adult present, he had to do something.

He bravely took a step over the prostrate form of the boy, looked the Dementor squarely in what he supposed must be its face and said, "none of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks. Go." He felt his heart skip and his mouth tremble as he said the name he had not voluntarily uttered in twelve years.

The Dementor did not move. Well, if it did not understand the words, still he knew one thing it would respond to. "Expecto Patronum," he muttered softly, pointing his wand at the thing in the doorway. There was a flash of silver light, and the Dementor turned and quickly retreated down the corridor taking some of the cold with it.

For a moment, there was silence in the compartment. He could feel all the children's eyes on him. Then the train shuddered back to life, the lights came back on and they began to move again.

"Harry!" cried a girl suddenly, crouching beside the prone form on the floor. "Harry! Are you all right? Wake up!" The other children also crowded around the unconscious boy.

Harry. So this was the boy he was living for. And now that he had a good view of him, there was no mistaking who he was. Even without the telltale mark on his forehead he looked so like James that Remus felt mildly dizzy.

Harry's eyes opened and the other children all began asking him if he was all right. He looked very pale. No one was paying any attention to Remus, which gave him a chance to collect himself. Harry was asking about someone screaming but Remus could not remember anyone having screamed. He shook himself. Chocolate. That was what was required in these circumstances.

He took a large slab of the stuff from his bag and broke off a big piece for Harry. "Here," he said hoarsely. "Eat it. It will help." Everyone was looking at him again. He began handing out smaller bits of chocolate to the other children as he explained to them what they had just seen. "I need to speak to the driver," he lied and left the compartment quickly.

What he really needed was time alone to collect himself. No, there had been no mistaking James's son, nor Lily's either, once he had opened those eyes. It was as if their ghosts had walked into that compartment and spoken to Remus. Well, perhaps they had. He had a duty to them; he must protect their son. With that thought firmly in mind, he went to send an owl ahead to Hogwarts.

Remus's reintroduction to his old school continued to be both disconcerting and bewildering. In one way, it felt like coming home. Not only was he amidst familiar surroundings, but he was properly back in the wizarding world for the first time in more than a decade. He had lived for so long as an outsider -- almost a ghost -- that just hearing all these voices and being surrounded by so many people felt strange.

The children looked at him either with speculation or outright mistrust. They all surely knew which post he had come to fill, and he had heard their previous experience of Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers had been less than confidence-inspiring. It was understandable that they should view a newcomer with suspicion.

In another way, coming back to this place made him feel more like a ghost than ever. He was still an outsider. When last he had walked these halls they had been filled with friendly -- or at least familiar -- faces. These children were strangers to him. Some of the professors he knew, and some he would rather he did not, but all in all, coming back was a very lonely feeling.

He drifted into the Great Hall and found his place at the head table among the other professors. There was Professor Dumbledore, offering him a smile and a nod and looking very much as he had in Remus's days as a student: a cheerful man with twinkling eyes, of indeterminate but decidedly great age.

And there was Severus Snape. It had been many years since Remus had seen him, but he looked just as Remus would have expected him to look by now: bitter, sour, unwashed and beginning to age ungracefully. The black-haired professor met his eyes and they both looked away quickly in dislike. He had been warned that the man was Potions master here. In fact, Snape would be making the new Wolfsbane potion for him when the full moon approached, but it was clear the man was not happy about this fact.

Remus's feeling of otherness was not to last long, however. His isolation from his surroundings crumbled a bit when Dumbledore -- old, familiar, warm, funny Albus Dumbledore -- rose to make the start-of-term announcements. These started, of course, with the bad news about the presence of the Dementors and their search for Sirius, but these thoughts were never far from Remus's mind and so they caused him no undue discomfort.

When Dumbledore announced his own arrival the halfhearted applause of the students was broken by enthusiastic cheers and clapping from the middle of the Gryffindor table. Remus looked more closely and saw young Harry and his friends beaming down the table at him. At once the feel of the place changed. It felt somehow warmer and more inviting; more like home. These children -- and especially that child -- were glad he had come to Hogwarts, and suddenly so was he.

The feeling of tentative optimism was nearly lost to him in the hours following the banquet. He had been prowling the corridors in a much better frame of mind than when he had arrived, remembering the happy and innocent moments of his early days at Hogwarts, helped along in these thoughts by the clusters of first years discovering the wonders of the castle for the first time.

Then he had turned down a corridor, deserted but for one person. Severus Snape.

"Lupin," Snape acknowledged stiffly, nodding, though a twitch of his lip betrayed his barely-concealed dislike.

Remus sighed. He knew this could go one of two ways: either they could spend the rest of the year pretending not to know one another and avoiding all contact, or they could acknowledge the long-standing animosity and try to deal with it like the adults they now were.

"Severus," he said at last. "You're looking ..." but he could not think of anything complimentary, or even civil, with which to end the greeting.

"Indeed," replied the Potions master. "As are you." His eyes flicked over Remus, taking in his shabby, dusty appearance, the lines of hardship and old grief etched into his face and the premature graying of his hair.

"Severus --"

But Snape cut him off. "Never forget, Lupin; I know what you are. I know what you've done. And yes, I know who you've screwed as well. Dumbledore may trust you, but the old man can be a sentimental fool. I know you. Make no mistake, I saw enough during our school days and heard enough after to know that you're a man to be watched, especially now that the name Sirius Black is being whispered again. I'll make your damnable potion, because someone has to for the sake of this school, but know this: I shall have my eye on you." And with that, he turned on his heel and strode away down the darkened corridor, robes billowing in his wake.

Remus closed his eyes and sighed. Apparently schoolboy grudges were not to be forgotten, at least not while the two of them were still within the walls of Hogwarts. It was going to be a long year.