Remus talks with Dumbledore about Harry's past and his imminent future. I kind of feel like this chapter is a bit dull, so I'm very sorry about that. I'm also not sure that I quite captured Dumbledore right, hopefully the next chapter will be better (and swifter.) Thanks for reading and reviewing, you people are lovely and totally splendiferous.

Chapter 12: Face Value

Remus knocked on the inner door to Dumbledore's office, he knocked a little harder than he usually would have, causing him to wince a little, but ultimately put it down to the stresses of the day.

"Come in Remus." Dumbledore's warm, avuncular voice came from within and Remus dutifully pushed the door open and entered, still as bewildered as ever by the Headmaster's innate ability to tell who was behind a door at any given time.

"Professor Dumbledore." He greeted him, walking into the room and taking the seat that Dumbledore offered him.

"You are upset, Remus." The old man said astutely, though he had his back to him and was currently feeding Fawkes some pumpkin seeds.

"Yes, it's Harry." Remus replied, rather quietly.

Dumbledore turned to face him. "Harry?"

"It's... well..." Now that Remus found himself face to face with his former head master and current employer, he found his words came slowly, clumsily. "His relatives, they... they abused him, they tortured him." Some of his anger began to resurface, thinking about reading the letter, thinking about today in the ward and what Harry had, had to endure. He found that he was shaking with a barely suppressed fury.

Dumbledore looked at him in silence for a little while before he moved to sit opposite him. "Tell me everything, Remus."

Remus exhaled shakily, trying to keep himself calm; he knew that regaling everything that Harry had told him without punching and/or kicking the furniture was going to be tough, but he thought it best if he maintained at least some level of professionalism and self-control, especially since he had every intention of broaching the subject of Harry's guardianship.

"It started when he was young, at least five years old..." he began, and found himself relaying the contents of Harry's letter, chronologically, to Dumbledore who sat stoically opposite him, his face unmoved, but the usual sparkle gone from his lapis-lazuli blue eyes.

Once Remus had told him what Harry had said in the letter, he went on to explain what had happened in the hospital ward. Still the old man remained seemingly unmoved, his blank expression a stark contrast to Remus's own, with his knitted brow and swollen eyes from lack of sleep and surplus of crying.

"They've broken him. He's been so brave, but... he's so scared, he's just, lost. And the worst thing is that he blames himself for this, he thinks it's his fault - that monster, that fucking bastard, he made him think it was his fault." Remus felt a stray tear roll down his cheek before swiping it away with the cuff of his shirt sleeve.

"Sorry." He said quietly.

"It's quite alright Remus, this is terribly upsetting news indeed, and it sounds as though you have had a very stressful weekend." Dumbledore still seemed worryingly calm. He sat back in his chair and brought his hands up, flat against each other and pressed to his pursed lips, almost as if he were praying. There was a very long silence in which Remus became increasingly frustrated.

"Professor?" Remus uttered eventually.

"How did you come by Harry's confidence?" Dumbledore asked, his hands pointing outward towards Remus now.

"Well, we've been close for a while, I suppose. I have spent a little time with Harry outside of classes, telling him about his parents, and a little while ago he asked for extra tuition to help ward off Dementors since, as you will have noticed, they seem to have formed a particular interest in him." Remus felt slightly unnerved by Dumbledore's unwavering gaze, he felt almost as though he were being interrogated, though the Professor was in no way being invasive or demanding. "So on Friday last Harry came to my office so that we could go over the Patronus Charm..."

"Ah!" Dumbledore said, and Remus eyed him curiously. "Boggart?" He asked.

"Um, yes." Remus responded. "Well... the Boggart didn't appear as a Dementor like I had suspected, it appeared as... as him." Remus found he couldn't even bring himself to utter that odious man's name. "Harry was terrified, literally petrified - it was a fear that I had never seen in Harry, or in any student I have taught, and that worried me. He was reluctant to talk about it at first... eventually I managed to break down his barriers but, well he was very upset, by the time he'd stopped crying he was just exhausted, so I walked him back to his dormitory under the agreement that we would meet the next day to discuss things."

Dumbledore nodded to show he was listening.

"The next day I was up rather early, I couldn't sleep to be honest, all I had ascertained from Harry at that point was that the Boggart's illusion was that of his Uncle and that something dark had occured between them. I was in my quarters and all of a sudden there was a tapping at the window, it was Hedwig, she had brought me a letter from Harry, outlining what I have just relayed to you."

"Do you still have the letter?"

"Yes, it's in a locked drawer in my office."

"Very good, then what happened?"

"Well, I wrote a quick response to Harry, attempting to reassure him and asking him to come to my office, which, after a while, he did."

"Go on."

"We talked, again he was very upset, but I managed to get him to agree to a medical examination, albeit reluctantly."

Remus considered telling him that he'd confided in Harry about his condition, but decided against it. After all, it was his secret to tell, Dumbledore didn't need to know who knew and who didn't.

"Oh... he also had a panic attack. Two in fact, one yesterday in my office and one today in the hospital wing."

Dumbledore simply gazed at Remus for a while, digesting the information that had just been relayed to him, before standing and moving over to the window.

"You know Remus, the safety and wellbeing of all my students is paramount to me." He said quietly and Remus rose from his chair to look over at the man now facing away from him, slightly hunched. "Their happiness also, and I fear that I have failed Harry on both counts. Failed him most cruelly."

"You weren't to know." Remus walked a few steps closer.

"Harry Potter is a boy who's life and safety have been taken advantage of many a time, and not just by his Uncle and Aunt, nor his enemies. It's very easy to take things at face value, and I fear that's exactly what I, perhaps what all of us, have been doing with Harry. It's difficult to see past the fame, his scar, James's face, Lily's eyes..."

At this Remus felt a spark of guilt, knowing Dumbledore was right, everyone had always seen Harry as the Potters's son - The Boy Who Lived, the boy who vanquished the Dark Lord... he had never really been allowed to be just Harry. And everyone had always taken him at face value. Except for the other children, those who hadn't lived through the war.

"... and now to learn that he has been abused so horrifically, it's a pain so unbearable. I am to blame Remus. I should have checked on him."

Remus was rather astonished. He had never seen Dumbledore so full of emotion, his ever calm exterior crumbling down, the gentle waves becoming a flurry of guilt.

"What's done is done." Remus said, taking control. "It's awful, and I know it's hard to come to terms with, but right now we have a duty of care to ensure that Harry is safe and that he has a better future."

At this Dumbledore turned to Remus and smiled a little.

"Do you know Remus, you were always one of my favourite students." Remus was a little dumbstruck at this statement, and simply stared at Dumbledore as he walked back to his seat behind his desk. "You have a good head on your shoulders, and a kind heart in your chest. I am very glad that you decided to study at Hogwarts, and more so that you agreed to teach here." Dumbledore sat down shakily, the revelations of the afternoon clearly still weighing him down.

Remus sat also, slightly unsure of what to say.

"You, of course, are right. Our focus needs to be on keeping Harry safe, and helping him to heal."

Remus nodded, glad that the conversation had now turned back to Harry.

"I... I have a feeling that you were hoping to attain guardianship." Dumbledore looked at him intently over his half moon glasses.

"Yes, I am. I promised James and Lily that if ever anything happened to them that I would look after him, and I have failed to do so thus far. But I am committed to him now, and he trusts me, more than anyone else." The words tumbled out of his mouth rather clumsily, and he disliked that he wasn't pleading his case a little more eloquently.

"Remus - you must know that there are a lot of obstacles in your way."

"Yes, I am abundantly aware of that." Remus retorted heatedly. "I do remember pleading with you to place Harry in my care after James..." His voice began to falter a little, and he quietened himself before continuing. "...after James and Lily died."

Dumbledore's face softened considerably.

"I know that my condition means that legally speaking there would be a lot of hurdles to overcome. But I am willing to face each and every one of them. Harry is vulnerable, he is scared and he is hurt. I cannot stand by and allow him to be thrown into a situation that he isn't comfortable with."

The old man sat back in his chair, considering this for a moment.

"Remus, we must consider Harry's safety. Were he to be placed under your guardianship, to live with you, then he would be susceptible to considerable danger. The wards that surround his Aunt's house cannot be matched through any spell or charm."

"But Professor-" Remus began in protest but stopped abruptly when Dumbledore held up his hand.

"I am by no means exerting that he should go back to that house. I am adamant that, that will never happen. So, the safest place for Harry to be is Hogwarts. And, if he is to stay here over the holidays he will need someone to stay with him, and since I am informed that you are currently without a fixed abode, it would serve to solve two problems if that person were to be you."

Remus looked away from Dumbledore. He was hoping that they could have got through this conversation without the issue of his current homelessness arising.

"Remus." Dumbledore said softly. "I know that you have not had an easy life, far from it, and I feel that I have failed you almost as much as I have failed Harry. Your life did not have to go the way that it has, I know how lonely you've been, and I will do everything that I can to make things right, for both of you. You certainly won't become Harry's Guardian overnight, possibly ever. But I will try, Remus. I will try."

Remus smiled politely. In truth, this conversation was making him feel wholly uncomfortable, and he felt somewhat deflated by the knowledge that he Harry would probably never be under his care. The worst thing was that deep down he knew all along that this would be the case. He was used to rejections, but this meant more to him than anything else he'd ever hoped for.

"Harry will need to press charges against his Uncle of course." Dumbledore said wistfully.

Remus nodded.

"It shouldn't be an arduous process, Harry's letter to you can act as a statement, unless he wishes to write another one, and you and Poppy can be called upon as witnesses."

"Will Harry have to appear in court?"

"I'm not sure, I would hope not, I shall certainly try to engineer the situation so that he doesn't, he's been through quite enough already. But I should like to speak to him."

"I did discuss that with him, I informed him that, that would probably be the case, he agreed that he would speak to you provided that I was present and had already outlined the situation to you."

"Good." Dumbledore sighed. "It would be better to speak with him this evening, I appreciate that he has already been through a lot this weekend, but the sooner we can press charges that better."

Remus considered this, though he was reluctant to put Harry through yet more today, he was every bit as eager to see Dursley serving time in Azkaban as quickly as possible. It was also, hopefully at least, the last trial that Harry would have to be put through, and the sooner he could put this weekend behind him the better.

"Of course." He sighed eventually. "I'll go down to the great hall and fetch him."

Dumbledore nodded and smiled sadly in response, Remus rose from his chair and headed towards the door, his shoulders slumped dejectedly, reluctant to put Harry through yet more arduousness.

"Remus!" Dumbledore's voice called out behind him, and he turned to look back at the old man. "Thank you. For being there for Harry, for handling all of this so admirably. I appreciate none of this has been easy for you, and for what it's worth, there is no doubt in my mind that you would be a superb guardian to Harry."

Remus appreciated the Professor's kind words, but couldn't quite manage a smile. Instead he nodded silently and slipped through the door