Replacements

Her auburn hair spreads over the pillow while she sleeps. He had never noticed that before. He had noticed the twitching of her nose when she had a bad dream, and the soft smile that indicated she was having a good dream. Usually her good dreams were about chocolate, or so she had told him. Chocolate, clouds and him. "Sometimes all together," she had said with a wink and a smile that filled his heart with joy.

But he had never noticed the way her hair covered the pillows and touched him while they slept, and now he wondered if that wasn't on purpose, since her hair reminded him so much of another girl he had met. A girl that once had smiled softly at him and nodded as if she understood him; as if she understood everything he was saying and feeling.

She had never really understood it, though. But her warm green eyes had twinkled and he had rather fooled himself than believed her incapable of reaching him.

Only much later he realized no one could ever reach him, and it was best to leave it this way. But this girl beside him had tried again and again, so eventually he let her come closer; even though she had somehow sensed that she hadn't really reached him yet - he could tell it by the way she would crawl to him in her sleep, holding him as if afraid she would wake up and he wouldn't be there.

He hadn't had the heart to tell her he could never leave. He was a coward before her brown eyes, especially when she would stare at him so intensely he felt like shouting, wishing he hadn't set up so many restraints around him so he could return that stare and tell her in so many words how he couldn't ever leave.

He was captive of this little girl - oh, who was he kidding? She had quit being a little girl many years ago, even before their paths had entangled; during those lenient years where they all believed things could turn out for the best.

Harry tried to tell him. Back to when the boy was alive and well, he had told him in confidence how the little Ginny had grown up lovely, but Remus hadn't noticed, and he hadn't cared to do so. He had just grinned, happy to see the boy smiling so widely for the first time.

That boy had his mother's eyes, and when he smiled like that, he resembled her so much. How could Remus not love him, when he saw a little of Lily every time he looked at Harry?

So losing him was losing her for the second time. He had thought that kind of pain could only be felt once, and then would numb him in a way that meant he'd never experience it again.

He was wrong. He had experienced it over and over throughout his life, and he was so tired - tired of burying so many people he loved and still be left standing with the dread of burying more of them - that Dumbledore feared for him, and asked him to withdraw from the remaining war with the Death Eaters. There was the young Weasley, he had said, who had just lost her mother and her boyfriend and had to see all her brothers and her father fighting, imagining when she'd lose them too.

So he was convinced. He would withdraw, not for him, but for her, so he could help her heal.

How exactly he would help her he didn't know. It's not like he had healed after all this time, so what kind of advice he could give her? Hold on to the memories of your loved ones, and let them guide you through a life you will never find complete again, for all you'll have will be memories. That's what he had done, and look at the good it did him. He couldn't let it happen to her, even if he sensed it was already happening.

The entire time they had travelled she hadn't shared a word or exchanged a glance with him. She was numb, and he knew the feeling. Eventually it would go away and she would feel the pain again, and it would seem unbearable. So he had to be there to stop her from sinking into the misery he recognized in her, but also to stop her from going rashly into war. That's what she wished to do to feel useful, and Lupin recognized a touch of masochism in that wish, for deep down she believed she would be closer to the ones she loved by suffering the way they did.

He could see those images rushing through her mind, forming awful and cruel pictures of horror and self-reproach, but he never bothered to let her know he could see them. She was clever - much cleverer than anyone thought her to be - and she would block him if she had the chance. So he waited and waited until she felt ready to talk, and then they talked about Harry. They talked about how much he looked like his father - she had seen the photographs, but he had stated, "But his eyes are from Lily; yes, he has his mother's eyes" -; how much he had suffered; how much they both wished they could had made him happier; how much he would have embraced life now that Voldemort was gone.

And they would talk about him in the present tense, forgetting momentarily that he was gone and he wouldn't come back.

"But he is happy; for years he wanted to see Sirius again," she had muttered after many months, when the pain begun to subside and became a quiet and sad acceptance. And she didn't see - how could she? How could she know? - that that sentence opened his barely closed wounds, just because she had reminded him of Sirius.

Through all his early years he had thought - in fact, he had known he would be the first among his friends to go. People with his condition never lived too long. It was too exhausting going through the full moons, losing a part of him at every transformation.

On the other hand, Sirius was full of life. Actually, he was larger than life, so he would live five hundred years, spending every second of them complaining about being bored and pressing people to keep up with his rhythm.

As for Peter, Lupin thought he was too cautious to ever let himself fall into a trap; he would walk through life carefully, following his friends to catch a glimpse of their lives while keeping them company.

But James would be the happiest of them. He was clever and bold, but not as careless as Sirius. He was also a brat, so he would piss off a lot of people through his life, however it would never bother him because he'd have Lily, and she would light up his life in a way that nothing else would matter.

And he would have been long gone, perhaps alive in their memories; still a part of their conversations when one of them would shout, "Old Moony! I wonder if he's happy now," while completely drunk at the Christmas holidays.

He had pictured it all in his mind. So how come he was the only one there, condemned to be the one that would keep their memories alive and worried about preventing a little girl from becoming like him?

Except she wasn't a little girl anymore. Harry had told him, but he hadn't paid attention back then, but now he could see how she wasn't the little redhead he had taught Defence Against the Dark Arts so long ago. She had grown into a brave and lively woman, and he was afraid she would hate him for keeping her with him while she wanted to be out there, being part of all the action.

However, he couldn't let her go. He feared the war would steal away her vivacity and make her braveness feel bitter. It was better if they stayed there, hidden and almost alienated from all the confusion. Not that France was far enough, but it gave him a feeling of safety, and knowing she was safe was the only thing that helped him sleep at night.

Of course it didn't take long to bore her. "Looking for safety in times like these is a very cowardly thing to do," she had complained, but he pretended he hadn't listened. Maybe it was cowardly, but he liked that feeling, that certainty, that she would stay unharmed there.

Soon the excitement of taking care of a werewolf wore off, especially since she realised he wasn't any dangerous after taking his potion, and her impatience and her annoyance reminded him of his friends back when they were at school, and he treasured all the moments she had tried to persuade him like James used to, and fumed like Sirius for not getting her way.

But in spite of those moments, she looked just like Lily. The way her now auburn hair would shine in the sun; the way her laughter would echo in the garden; the way she seemed to see inside him when asked, repeatedly, what was wrong.

She was getting too close, and he was beginning to fear it. Every time it happened he would pat her head, treating her like a child so she would back away, but with time she didn't. She would just make a face and tell him not to run away from the subject.

She was getting too close and she had to be stopped, so he begun to think war would be safer than staying there, waiting for the day she would finally see through him.

He dreaded that day. Would she be disgusted by what she saw? Would she feel pity? Or would she feel anger towards that coward old man who had chosen to stay away from a war he, more than anyone, should be fighting?

None of the options were good, so the letter he received from Arthur Weasley had been a relief, an escape and an excuse. Charlie had been injured and he needed a quiet place to recover. Remus needed to return to war, so it was the perfect arrangement.

As expected, Ginny didn't take the news lightly. She had accused them of preventing her from helping them. She had complained about how unfair it was to be treated like a child at twenty-one. And she had pointed out how cowardly it was for him to run away from what was happening between them.

The first thing that crossed his mind was that nothing was happening between them. Yes, he had seen her hopes through flashes from her thoughts; he had recognized the moments when he had occupied the thoughts that once belonged to Harry, but that was natural, considering their situation. She had been hurt, and to a certain extent he had fit the role of Harry's replacement. That was expectable coming from such a young girl.

Except twenty-one years old is not that young anymore. She was no longer a child, no matter how much he kept trying to convince himself that that's what she was.

Maybe things would have been easier if he had analysed his thoughts and not hers. He might have come to the conclusion that she was correct. But he was somewhat of a coward, and stubbornly refused to consider that she could be, indeed, right.

It took him the pain of leaving her behind on a Wednesday morning to wake him to the danger he was in. And he had stood there for hours, annoying the hell out of the poor injured man, making him promise a gazillion times he wouldn't let his sister away from his sight.

"Three years stuck with me in this house and yet you don't trust me," were her last words to him before she slammed the door in his face, leaving him outside, not giving him the chance to explain he did trust her, and that he knew she would do well in a battle, but he just couldn't bare the thought of burying the people he loved one more time.

So one can imagine the fear that took over him when he learned from Dumbledore that Ginny Weasley had escaped from Charlie and was somewhere in England fighting beside Ron. "But there is nothing to worry about," said the old man, recognizing the desperate glimpse that crossed Lupin's eyes. "Ronald Weasley had told me in confidence she will be the happiest of us, and you know he's a true seer, that boy

He winked and Lupin had felt his heart sinking. Sure he was glad to think about her being happy, smiling widely as he had seen her do, but it saddened him to think he wouldn't be there to see it again.

"It's weird how fate takes so many turns," Ron once told him, completely out of the blue when he had visited them for the first time after the war was finally over.

So many years fighting and they all bared some scars. Ron's were on his arms and face, recollections of deep wounds gained in battles. Ginny's were hidden - the worst kind of scars, as he had told her. He knew it, for those were the kind of scars he bared and fought very hard not to show anyone.

But she never bothered hiding. Even if she tried, he suspected she couldn't; it was very clear from the way she looked at him that the impetuous fiery redhead was long gone.

And he would look back at her, because she seemed beautiful there, sitting among her family on that lovely afternoon, ignoring Arthur's complaints that she was too young to stay locked in that house, nursing her old father now that nearly all her brothers were married.

He had conveniently forgot to mention her dead brothers, but Lupin could see she remembered from the way she had stated "Twenty-four is hardly too young," sounding too old for her years. "Besides, where else would I go?" she asked half-whispering, staring intensely at Lupin's eyes as if she was searching there for the answer.

Soon it was time for him to leave, this time for Hogwarts, to resume the teaching position he had thought he would never have again. She followed him to the door, and they were about to say their goodbyes when he recalled another afternoon back in time when she had surprised him by declaring, "You are always so in control of yourself, so self-conscious. I like to imagine you losing control, at least once. I wonder how that would be." She had laughed before inadvertently snapping, "Have you ever been in love?"

He hadn't answered - at least he thought he hadn't, he couldn't recall saying a word about it, but she had smiled and whispered, "I thought so."

For a while he thought the subject was dead, but days later she had said, "She must be beautiful."

"Who?" he asked and she promptly answered, "The woman you're in love with."

And he had started, "No, she-" but what was he doing? He thought he could never say anything about that out loud, and yet he found himself mumbling, "Yes, she was beautiful, but she is gone."

"Your feelings must have been really strong," she daydreamed. "Did you want to give her the world?"

He recalled smiling at that question, so unusual and yet, revealing so much of her romantic side - a side she had tried to hide at all costs since Harry's death. "Did you say that to her? She wouldn't refuse if you had said that."

He just smiled faintly. "She was offered a more beautiful world." To which she had mumbled, "I doubt it," and ended the subject.

And it was that Ginny, that romantic girl, feeling desperately in love as she dreamed he had felt one day, who had looked at him so fiercely that afternoon in the Burrow's front yard and pleaded, "Just say the words and I'll go with you."

He had wanted to say the words, he really had, but he didn't know what those words were, and he imagined how unromantic it would be, asking her what he was supposed to say. So he composed himself, as he always did, and told her to give it more thought.

Luckily, she had given it more thought and still hadn't changed her mind. That was why she had arrived in front of his door on a Sunday evening, completely wet from the rain, complaining about not being able to apparate inside Hogwarts' castle and carrying a suitcase with all her clothes, "We'll just start from scratch!" she had suggested and he let her in, afraid that there was too much history before and between them to let them start like that.

Years had passed, and he was afraid her enthusiasm had waned. It wasn't unexpected, considering she had spent all those years hanging onto the hope that he felt something for her in return; clinging to the belief that he wouldn't leave her for his fears and insecurities; telling herself and him that he had given her a world too beautiful for words, so no words were needed.

In his case, he knew she would stay; he knew she would always be there and it finally struck him how unfair it was that she wouldn't know for sure as he did, and all because of his irrational fear that he was nothing but Harry's replacement - the safety blanket she could use. And because he couldn't control the mixed emotions he would feel when he recognised that her auburn hair would shine exactly like he could remember Lily's would, he couldn't bring himself to say the words she had begged him to say, afraid she was nothing but Lily's replacement and he was just fooling himself.

He was very good at fooling himself, and the possibility that they were using each other was too plausible to be ignored.

But it had to have more to it; they have to be more to each other than just mere replacements of what they had lost. Because despite all his fears, it was Ginny winking and smiling, telling him she would dream of him and of chocolate and causing his heart to leap with joy; it was Ginny trying to reach him with big brown eyes that seemed to read into him; it was Ginny's hair spreading over the pillows and tickling his face.

It was her, and she wasn't a replacement. She had reached him, and he'd make sure to tell her as soon as she opened her eyes; he would tell her all the words she wanted to hear, and assure her he would never leave; not because of fear, not because of uncertainty, but because he also dreamed of her, and those were his best dreams.