The tides were rolling in and it was almost high tide. The two sat on the pier, though didn't really care. As the stars started to make their appearance the air, a deep tension between the two, caught wind and a sense of wrongness swooped in close behind. Neither of them spoke for a long time.
"Remus?" a seventeen-year-old Ginny Weasley asked her future professor while playing with her hair. Oh, how she hated silence and that was why she had broken it. Silence reminded her of the chamber, the dark chamber… but she wouldn't allow herself to think like that. Not now.
"Yes Miss Weasley," Remus asked as if he were tired of being his normal brave self. He was a man filled with pride, yes, but even people like him, deserved someone to lean on. 'Tuh, People like me,' the critical voice in his head yelled at him. 'People like you don't deserve anything!' Another sigh of self-hatred escaped from his lips.
"What would you do if you weren't a werewolf?"
'Ah, such an innocent question from such an innocent girl,' his inner voice said with a scoff. "Shut up," he mumbled to himself.
"What was that?" Ginny questioned looking up into his eyes.
"Nothing, I didn't say anything." Remus defended himself, as well as kicking himself. He hated his inner conscious always yelling at him. He hated the way he had to put on a brave face for those around him. Be the calm one, the one in everlasting serenity. "Why are we here, Miss Weasley?"
"We are here, because I caught you, again, never mind you, sulking around in your room again. Ever since, well, you know, the battle, you've been acting strange and I wanted to…"
"Wanted to what, Miss Weasley?" he asked, his voice starting to get edgy.
Ginny hated the formality that he used for her. It wasn't her fault that she was younger than him. 'Oh, never mind that,' she told herself. 'It's not your job to tell him what not to do.' "Well, I just wanted to make you feel better," she said shyly.
Again an eerie silence fell over the two and the strange tension was back. This time it lasted much longer than before, but being who she was, Ginny could not stand silence. "Professor Lupin," she asked, speaking the "professor part" of it just as he had.
Remus cringed at how she said his name, but guessed it was for the best. He would be back to teaching at Hogwarts again, and having her call him Remus, might cause some problems. "Yes, Ginevra?" he asked using her full name.
"What would you do if you weren't a werewolf?"
'Again? Couldn't she just drop it?' 'Shut up!' Remus yelled inwardly at himself. Recollecting his cool, he spoke. "I, I have no idea." Sighing, he continued. "It's a hard question"
Looking down at her feet, Ginny blushed, feeling a bit embarrassed for asking such a personal question. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "You don't have to answer it. It was too personal."
Remus looked his friend's daughter in the eye. "No, I want to tell you. I want to tell you everything."
Ginny cut him off. "Then tell me and I will listen. Tell me everything that you've kept bottled up inside of you because you are to damned independent to tell anyone." Ginny caught her breath. "We're two in the same, so open up to me, and maybe I'll open up to you too."
Remus closed his eyes. It was a win-win situation and he was happy about it. "Well," he started slowly. "I'm not quite sure what I'd do, if I weren't a werewolf, but I do know something. If I weren't a werewolf, I wouldn't be whom you know today. I wouldn't be this, this calm, cool and collective guy all the time."
"Why not? Isn't that just the way you are?"
"No, that's the way I've become. I was young when I was bitten, too young to know what the world was about, but as I grew up, I learned that one wrong move, could cost me my life. One outburst at the wrong time and the wolf would come out in me, and… it would be all down hill from there."
"Oh," Ginny said starting to understand.
"If I wasn't a werewolf, I wouldn't be this understanding, I wouldn't feel for those who are less fortunate than the average wizard."
"But how…"
"Please, Ginny. You said you'd listen to me." Remus sighed, knowing that this was going to just like his talk with his friends. She'd always be jumping in. "If I weren't a werewolf, I'd have never felt the things I've felt, both physical and emotional. Also I wouldn't be this… this…"
"Yes," Ginny interrupted. "But, you would be an arrogant, selfish, all about me prat! You probably wouldn't have been able to look past James, Sirius and even Peter, yes no don't give me that look, thoughts."
"Gin," Remus said quietly as he stared out ahead of him watching the waves crash on the shoreline. "Can I start from the beginning? Before… Everything?" he asked getting more comfortable with his surroundings
"Sure,"