Unworthy

Disclaimer: I own nothing, except the plot.

I can honestly tell you why I left him. He was the most wonderful man I'd ever known. Yet, I couldn't let myself be with him. I didn't deserve him.

He tried to convince me that "love conquers all," but I didn't believe him. "Ginny," he'd said to me, "nothing else matters- not our pasts or our dark secrets, nothing- except our present and our future." I cried when he said that. I wanted so badly to believe him, but I just couldn't.

So here I am, alone in my flat, crying and missing my Remus.

Perhaps you're wondering what happened. Well, I'll tell you...

We'd both lost so much during the years of the war. I'd lost countless friends and one brother. He'd lost his best friend, and now he was the only Maurader left. Sirius was gone, and Remus was alone.

Harry had fulfilled his prophecy and defeated Voldemort, but in doing so, Harry lost a good bit of himself and became a shell of the man he was. He could never love me, and I'd given up on loving him long ago.

Perhaps it was out of pity that I first went to check on Remus. He was still living at Grimmauld Place, alone. Harry hadn't wanted to be there- too many sad memories. But memories were all Remus had left of his friend, and I guess being in Sirius' house made him seem alive still, at least in Remus' heart.

When I first went to see him, my poor, sweet professor was so broken. He tried to pretend that he was all right, but I knew better. I knew the forced smiles and strained expressions all too well, as I'd perfected them myself after my first year of school.

I tried to get him to talk to me, but he wouldn't. Not at first anyway. After a few weeks of my visits, he began to open up to me. He told me of his three boyhood friends who managed more mischief than my elder brothers even imagined. He spoke briefly of his parents. We talked of what to do now that the war was over and lives could begin again. I was training to work for the Ministry, and he had no idea what he was going to do. I suggested teaching again, and that's how the subject of the wolf came up, for that was why he had left Hogwarts in the first place.

He whispered the story of his bite as a boy, while I held his hand and acted supportive. Truth be told, I had no idea what to do. No one- no man- had ever told me such intimate stories of his life before, and as an eighteen-year-old girl, I hadn't a clue how to act.

When he was finished, he kissed me. It was nice. Surprisingly, he was a good kisser, and I enjoyed it. But at the same time I felt so wrong about kissing my much older former teacher. After all, he'd just poured his heart out to me, and he knew nothing of my life. If he did, I'm positive he wouldn't have touched me, much less kissed me.

The visits after that were different. We still talked, never about me though. He tried, God love him. He tried to get me to open up, but I couldn't. I'd never told anyone- not Dumbledore, my friends or even my parents - of the pain and anguish I still felt from my first year. Oh, Remus knew about it. He knew I'd been the one to open the Chamber. He knew I'd been possessed by the Dark Lord. But he knew only the bare necessities of what really happened. I'd never tell him. I swore it.

One afternoon, we were walking hand in hand in the garden behind the house, and Remus leaned over to whisper in my ear, "I love you, Ginny." I looked up at him, shocked, and he smiled bashfully at me. Sweet, shy Remus. Who knew that he was capable of such emotion in four words?

I managed to force a smile at him. I didn't speak. What could I say really? "Gosh, Remus, I love you too. Unfortunately, I'm nowhere good enough for you." No, I couldn't say that. So I just smiled.

My brilliant professor- God, I hated that he was so brilliant- knew. He knew I loved him, but something was holding me back. He never pushed, never prodded. He just waited patiently. (Something else I hated, yet loved, about him. His bloody patience.)

We continued with our visits, and every evening when I would leave, he would tell me he loved me and kiss me with all the love he had in his soul. I tried to kiss back with something equal, but it's hard to do that when you don't have a soul as beautiful as Remus'.

A year later, he surprised me again by asking me to move in with him. That's when it happened. That's when I lost it. I could easily hide my emotions and my broken down soul from him now. If we were together all the time, I couldn't. So I declined as politely as I could, but damn Remus couldn't accept it.

"Why not, Ginny? I know you love me. I see it in your eyes, I feel it in your kisses. Why won't you just surrender to it?" he'd asked, pleading with me.

"I can't, Remus," I'd told him, struggling not to cry. "I can't."

He grabbed my shoulders and forced me to look him in the eye. "Why won't you ever tell me about it? Why won't you talk to me about the Chamber?"

Damn him again. Damn him and his perceptiveness.

I wrenched myself from his grasp and turned away from him. "Stop pushing me, Remus," I'd said quietly. "Stop pushing or I swear to God I'll hurt you."

"By all means, hurt me," he'd replied with a haughty tone I instantly learned to hate. "It won't matter. I will still love you. Nothing could make me stop loving you, Ginny."

Right. If only he knew. That's when I decided to tell him, to prove him wrong, to show him that my deepest secret would frighten away any love he had for me.

I turned back to face him and stood my ground as I told him...everything.

I told him of the diary, how I'd been stupid to write in it, and in turn, listen to Tom. I was so lost that I allowed this evil memory of him to invade my body and my soul. He did such cruel things to me, things I'd never spoken aloud until then with Remus. I told him of the torture I'd endured while waiting for Harry to be lured into the Chamber. After Harry destroyed the diary, everyone assumed I was perfectly fine. But I wasn't. Tom Riddle had left a stain on me, on my soul, and I could never get past it, never get over it. I finished my story be telling Remus how I still felt evilness inside me and how dirty I felt when I had those thoughts.

I stood there, triumphantly, knowing I'd turned him away from me.

I was wrong. He wasn't sickened or appalled or even shocked. He was angry.

"Ginny, do you really think that would make me not love you?" he yelled at me. He'd never raised his voice to me before, and it was scaring me. "I could never stop loving you. How dare you think that you're tarnished and evil? Do you think I don't feel that way every time there's a full moon?" He reached over to caress my cheek.

"Ginny, even though you have those feelings and thoughts, you don't act on them. You are a truly good and wonderful person, and I can't believe that you would think so horribly of yourself. It's in your past, Ginny. You have to make peace with it. You have to let it go and move on. Yes, it is a part of you now, and it always will be. But you can't let it influence your life forever." His voice softened. "You can't let love stare you in the face and turn away from it because of your past."

Damn, I hated it when he was right. But I couldn't see that yet. So I did what any terrified girl would do. I slapped him and ran.

He tried to visit me. I even let him yell at me through the door (the "love conquers all" speech) before charming it so I couldn't hear him anymore. I assume he left.

I think of what he said. I know now that he's right. But there's a funny little emotion called pride in the way. I don't want to admit it to him. I don't want to admit to him that I know he's right and that I want him more than anything.

So here I am now, still sitting here alone and missing my Remus.

How can he be so magnanimous? He's a bloody werewolf. He's a creature of the dark once a month. Yet he can forgive my darkness? I don't understand. I want to understand because I miss him and love him and want just to be near him.

Perhaps I should try. He would be worth any effort. My Remus is so perfectly unperfect, and I love him for it. I just hope when I go, he's there. I hope he's there with open arms and an open heart for me.

He is.

He envelops me into a hug and crushes me to his chest. I think he might have even shed a tear when he opened the door. I reach up to kiss him, but first he has a question. "Are you sure? Are you ready to let the past go?" I nod and kiss my love, my Remus.

As he holds me, he whispers in my ear. "Ginny, I'm not perfect by any means. And I know you're not perfect, and I accept that. But please allow us to be perfect for each other."

I pull back from his embrace and look into his eyes, his wonderful, beautiful hazel eyes and tell him my worst fear.

"I love you, Remus Lupin."

The End

A/N- Yeah, I kind of swiped a quote from "Good Will Hunting." Get over it.