Feel
By: Lady DeathAngel
Disclaimer: not mine, not profiting, 'nuff said
Warnings: language, for once, and angst.
A/N: Woo-hoo, new chapter. Actually, two, technically. I split them up because 1) they're easier for me to beta when they're only a couple pages long and 2) I felt like it. So this part A of chapter seven and then you can go on to read part B. Um, damn, this thing has just grown beyond my control. But thanks to all your wonderful feedback I'm not at all bored and I've actually grown to love this story. Thanks so much for your great reviews. Let's see . . . no Remus for this chapter set, but an appearance by another familiar face. He'll be back, though. No worries, Remus fans! Anyway, please read, enjoy and review.
His reentrance onto front and center stage of the modern conflict (definitely the Prophet's words, not his) was, as per usual, not gradual. One morning he was dragging his feet around, declining offers to play chess and exploding snap and all of a sudden Mrs. Weasley rushed into the drawing room with a large smile.
"You're back to school in a week," she said, stating the painfully obvious. "So I thought we could all head down to Diagon Alley to do your school shopping."
She was extremely excited about it, and that transferred over to Hermione and Ginny. The two girls took all of five minutes to get their things together, giggling over random items that they just had to buy. He and Ron took a bit longer, Ron because he was opposed to shopping (something about his manly image. He was already enough of a ponce, being a prefect and all, or so he said. He didn't want to be a flaming poofter by default so he was adamantly opposed to shopping). He just didn't feel like shopping. There would be too many people, it would be too noisy . . . it wasn't his ideal way to spend the day.
"Not that you havean ideal way to spend a day," Ron pointed out helpfully when he complained. "All you do is mope around kicking inanimate objects."
"I do not," he retorted, knowing full well he did. His big toe throbbed enough from its last fated meeting with the solid corner of a grandfather clock to scream 'LIAR' the minute the words left his mouth.
"You do," Ron replied before shrugging. "I don't know what happened between you and Lupin, but maybe you should talk to him about it."
He pushed a hand through his hair, agitated.
"I don't need to talk to him about anything," he said angrily.
"He's the last living link to your parents and to Sirius. I mean . . . I dunno, that's got to mean something, hasn't it?"
He had a point, of course. Only, as close as he was to hitting the nail on the head, he was still off by a few inches. Yes it meant something. It meant a lot. Too much. That was part of the problem. Of course, it was a pretty pathetic excuse now. He wasn't as scared as he'd been, holed up in his room back on Privet Drive with Dudley and his uncle and his aunt convinced that he was, not only not normal because he was (perish the thought) a wizard, but now he was homosexual as well. Back with no friends but a playful kitten and nothing to distract him from thoughts of death and Sirius and Cedric and his parents and how it was all his fault. Back feeling like he was so alone and the one person who made him feel less alone was doomed if he got close. It was different now, actually being with his friends.
Maybe he needed to admit to himself that he didn't want to face Remus. He had no real reason. There were, however, several non-reasons. As they took a bit of floo powder each and made their way to Diagon Alley, he thought on them.
Non-reason number one: It was, essentially, his fault that Sirius was dead. Remus had been his best friend and vice-versa in the last two years. Sirius had said as much late one night when they'd both woken from nightmares and found each other in the kitchen.
"James was my best mate, of course, before . . . well, back at Hogwarts," he'd said. "But Remus was a constant friend. You know, when I wasn't busy fucking things up."
He'd had no qualms about cursing in front of him and he'd found it refreshing. Better than the restricted speeches of everyone else in the dilapidated house.
"He's my best mate now, Moony is. He's been great, you know, since I've been back," he'd smiled fondly.
He'd smiled back.
"Yeah?"
Sirius nodded.
"Yeah. I dunno, always thought he'd be a bit hostile. He was, for a while. But not because he hated me. He's always had his hang-ups, and I've always had mine and the whole situation kind of . . . compounded them."
He hadn't elaborated. He'd asked, of course, for details. Looking back, though, he thought that he understood it now. Sirius and Remus always got so close to telling him what he desperately wanted to know, about his parents or the war or the Order. And then they'd get this look on their faces and stop and change subjects. Remus was better at it than Sirius; his godfather usually spent a few minutes in moody silence with a frown whereas Remus would discreetly ask about his family or something before rushing off to help Mrs. Weasley or Mr. Weasley or, if they weren't together already, Sirius.
Somewhere they were told not to share. And it made so much sense now, that.
Anyway, non-reason number one translated roughly into: Remus should hate him. Remus should be angry and bitter at the very least. His last friend was dead because of one slip of a boy who just couldn't die.
Which tied into non-reason number two: he was guilty as sin. That was a phrase his Aunt Petunia had used when he was younger.
"What've you done boy? You look guilty as sin itself!"
He'd never known what it looked like to be guilty as sin, but he knew what it felt like. It fluctuated between a gnawing pain somewhere below his stomach, fluttering beneath his sternum and sometimes spreading through his legs and knees and toes and making him shake until he could barely breathe and a small twinge that pulsed beneath his skin and made him flinch so often he looked like he had permanent body spasms. He wasn't just guilty about Sirius, though.
God knew he'd been guilty enough about that over the past two months.
He was also guilty about he he'd acted with Remus. He knew it hadn't been his former professor's fault, but he'd taken out all his anger on him when he should have breathed and acted civil and more like an adult. Maybe Tonks was right . . . he was just a kid. A kid who would, by the time he could be classified as an adult, have killed or been killed by Voldemort. At least, if things went according the plan. And he knew they would. Dumbledore would make sure they would.
Non-reason number three didn't really exist. It was one of those things that he preferred not to think about. He felt . . . uncomfortable about thinking about it and, really, he'd decided that there was no non-reason number three. He steadfastly told himself to 'fucking stop it' because his mind would wander and there were several roads it liked to take when his conscious self wasn't around to stop it.
Hermione had looked at him a few times like she knew. Ron had as well, though he wanted his best friend back more than he wanted the right thing. He ignored it, but Hermione seemed determined not to let his mind wander that particular path either. In fact, his own voice of 'fucking stop it' was often joined by Hermione's own harried 'don't you dare, Harry, don't you dare'. So he didn't. He took deep breaths and he told himself that Remus was his father figure now, even if he wasn't. Even if he wasn't allowed, would never be allowed, and he didn't want that anyway.
It was safe. A safe road.