A/N: Just a little something that popped into my head, as our poor dear Remmie has always seemed so prone to blame himself for the world's problems. I have always imagined that he wanted to do so much more for Harry, and his "furry little problem" held him back from doing the right thing, so, here we are! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't have the privilege of even knowing the lovely Ms. Rowling, let alone being her. :)
A psychotic murderer. And a sadistic ministry puppet.
And it's all my fault.
I was selfish. I was the one who ended the school year in a condition perfectly capable to return for another year of teaching. I could have ended the curse. But I was too afraid. Too afraid of what a bunch of school children would think once they found out what I really was. Too afraid of the things their parents would feed them over the summer. It never crossed my mind that Harry and Ron and Hermione are all school children. Somehow they've never quite seemed as young as the rest of them.
And I've done nothing to ease the burden on those poor children. On Harry. God, the kid has every right to hate me. If I could have just stuck it out, even for one more year, he would have been spared so much. Hatred and jealousy and mistrust from everyone around him, even his own best friend. Battling dangers no fourteen year old should ever have to worry about, even within the approved tournament tasks.
And then, there was the third task. I wasn't even there. How could I not have been there, at least to cheer him on from the stands?
That boy, son of my two best friends, long gone by now, watched a friend murdered. Witnessed the rebirth of the most feared wizard in all of wizarding history. Was forced to give his own blood to aid in the return of a psychotic killer who wanted desperately to finish him off. And then fought for his life in a graveyard against a group of people who had killed thousands in their lifetimes. Perhaps tens of thousands. They never were able to come up with an exact number after the first war.
He was tortured. And, as if the cruciatus weren't bad enough, he was saved through a hitherto unknown magical phenomenon that brought Cedric , and Lily, and James, and even more deceased, to the graveyard. His first time speaking to his parents, and they had to spend all of their time telling him how not to be murdered. His last time speaking to Cedric, and all the kid had time to say was a request to bring his body back to his family.
It's wrong. It's so, so very wrong. And I could have stopped it all.
And, even after all of this. After all of the pain I knew that I had caused Harry, I still did not step forward the next year to reclaim the position. Dumbledore was left with the ministry appointing someone as Defense teacher, because not a single person would accept the job.
That Fudge-loving witch tortured Harry. She taunted him, and harassed him, and then, when he finally cracked, she forced him to carve words into his own skin. For heaven's sake, Dumbledore allowed her to take over the school, one power-crazed decree at a time. By the end of the school year, she was so far gone that she attempted an unforgivable curse on a student. She intended to torture him into telling some warped version of the truth to suit her selfish agenda.
Never mind that she was the one responsible for destroying my credibility as a human being in wizarding society. I would have gladly spent the rest of my life barely scraping by if she would have just given Harry one normal year to be fifteen years old, and go to school and have fun like any other child.
If those kids hadn't been so terrified of being caught by the person who was supposed to be in charge of protecting them, maybe they would have been able to learn that Sirius was safe at Grimmauld Place and not run off to London by themselves. If Dumbledore hadn't been driven into hiding, hell, if I hadn't been driven into hiding, they might have had someone to turn to. Instead, they were sent traipsing through the forest by the woman who was supposed to be in charge of making sure they were safe in their beds. They were left alone, with no authority figure to tell them it wasn't their duty to go and save Sirius from Voldemort. And so they went.
And Sirius is dead.
And Harry is so, so alone.
Sure, he still has me. But I can't really say that that's worth all that much anymore to him.
I've been such a fool.