Happy Easter! Big thanks for all my reviews, with the exception of one Harry fan-girl who bitched about my Neville chapter (Go read it if you want, it's actually quite funny). So, here's Remus.
29. Remus
1. He was a small boy when he was bitten. It means that his childhood memories, as far as he can tell, are all after he was bitten. That's one of the hardest things to deal with - that he doesn't remember a time when he wasn't like this, a time when his mother could look at him without a shadow of sorrow and fear on her face, a time when his father could look him in the eye without guilt. He doesn't remember a time when his life was mostly pain-free, terror-free.
He doesn't remember ever being innocent, and he feels cheated.
2. He was fourteen when he found out who bit him, and why. His father told him, which, Remus supposed, showed some courage. It can't be easy to tell your only son that it's your fault he's a werewolf. But Remus' father told him, and asked for forgiveness. Because his father was ill, Remus muttered through the shock that he forgave him, that it was alright.
A week later, his father was dead, and Remus wondered if, had his father had known Remus' forgiveness was false, he'd have held onto life a little longer. As it is, Remus has never forgiven the man, and never forgiven himself for the death-bed lie.
3. Easily the worst day of his life is when Lily and James died. Because he went from being a man with five great friends and a bright, happy child in his life, to a man with two dead friends, one Death Eater friend, and that child removed from his life. Even though it was a little while later that Remus was told Peter was killed, too, it was the second worse day before he knew the truth.
Because when Lily and James were killed, and Harry taken, Remus believed Sirius to be the cause, and everything he knew came crashing around him. Peter's "death" wasn't even a shock. Everything else had been taken from him, after all.
4. He will always feel guilty that he didn't visit Harry at all during his childhood. If asked about it - and only Sirius and Tonks have ever asked him - he'll say that Dumbledore told him not to, because Harry's aunt and uncle wouldn't let him near the boy. Sirius and Tonks accepted this, with a commiserating comment, telling him it must have been hard to stay away, or that it was unfair of Dumbledore to do that.
In truth, Dumbledore simply warned him that it might be difficult to gain access to Harry. Remus used it as an excuse to stay away, because for the longest time he didn't feel worthy enough to see Harry. Survivor's guilt, he supposed they'd call it, but he despised himself for living when Harry's parents were not.
(Plus, it was hard enough looking into Lily's eyes, on James' face, when the boy was thirteen. How could he ever have watched him grow up, knowing that two of his best friends should have been there?)
5. The first time he saw Sirius again, knowing that he was innocent, he felt normal for the first time in years. He felt whole again. He remembered thinking that if Lily and James were to jump from the shadows telling him that they were alive, really, and it was all a mistake, his life would be right again.
They didn't, of course, but Sirius was enough.
6. The days after Sirius' death are mostly a blur. He remembered, when the fight was over and the injured were being carted away, seeing Tonks, moaning in pain, half-unconscious, and he stayed with her, all the way to St. Mungo's, and waited outside her room while the doctor's dealt with her, sitting with her parents. Busying himself with Tonks allowed him to block the thoughts that tried to overtake him - that Sirius was dead, gone, for good this time.
It was only when he stood beside her bed, when she looked up at him, her eyes somewhat glazed over and her mind still only half-alert, when she said softly, "I'm so sorry about Sirius, Remus..." when Andromeda looked up in shock, demanding to know what she meant, when Tonks muttered, slipping into sleep, that Sirius was dead, and when Andromeda gasped and her eyes swam with tears, it was only then that he had to accept it. When he almost choked on the pain, when he fled from the room, when he went back to Grimmauld Place and sat, crying, in Sirius' room.
7. She found him, sat with him. She seemed to know, instinctivly, when he needed to sit in silence, or when he needed comforting words, or when he needed to talk about Sirius, to hear about Sirius. She got him through it, and somewhere along the way he fell for her.
And as much as he tried, she never let him go after that.
8. The wedding was his idea. He knows most people assume she talked him into it, pushed, but it was his idea. Put it down to too much drink, but it wasn't. Put it down to grief over Dumbledore's death, but it wasn't. Put it down to fear for the future, but it wasn't.
It was simply because he loved her.
And even though, afterwards, he regretted what he'd done to her, he could never completly regret marrying her.
9. The worst thing he ever did was leave her. He had the right reasons, but it was the worst decision he ever made. He didn't expect her to forgive him, but if she hadn't, he didn't know what he'd have done. How he'd have lived without her, how he'd have managed without ever holding his son.
10. When the news about Hogwarts arrived, about the battle, he hesitated. He looked at his son and hesitated.
And then he stood anyway, and told Dora that he had to go. He told her she had to stay. And while he pretended to believe her when she said she would, he knew, really, that it was a matter of minutes before she followed him.
And he knew that if he'd stayed, stayed with his son like his instincts told him to, he wouldn't have been able to forgive himself. But she'd have been alive, and that would have been enough.
So his last thoughts were regret. Regret that he'd left his son. Regret that he'd led his wife into this. Regret that he'd never return home, the he hadn't said all the things to little Teddy that he wanted to.
