Chapter 03 – Bedside Tales

Remus was a patient man under nearly any kind of circumstances, but sitting next to the bed of the unresponsive teenage-son of his long-deceased friend was eating away his nerves quickly. About an hour after Snape had left, Harry's doctor had come into the room and after a quite surprised examination had explained to Remus that Harry's condition had stabilized remarkably. Another hour later, a nurse had taken Harry off of most of the control-devices and the doctor had taken of the artificial air-supply. The only thing that remained were the IV-drips in Harry's left arm. The doctor had explained that they would be taken out as soon as the liquids had run through, but Remus had hardly listened. He knew that they were not really needed, that whatever antidote Snape had administered would be enough to cure Harry, but he also knew that Snape would have taken off the IV-drips if he had suspected them to counteract the antidote. So he had merely nodded as the doctor explained Harry's medications to him, but had not listened.

His thoughts had been focussed solely on Harry, his worry about him rising by the minute. Truly, he might be out of the woods physically, but Remus knew that this wasn't everything. If Harry was depressed, worried, or sad enough to try and commit suicide, he didn't even want to think about what was going on in Harry's head. And it hurt Remus to see Harry like that. He had never before consciously contemplated what Harry meant to him, not after his parents had died and he had lost contact to the child –on Albus Dumbledore's insistence, amongst other reasons. When James and Lily had still been alive, Remus had been close to Harry, just like Sirius had been. He had babysat him, had worried when he had been sick and had endured Lily's lecture when he and Sirius had taken the child flying for the first time – on Sirius' motorbike while James and Lily had been away for the afternoon. And already at the age of seven months Harry had loved flying, if his cooing and giggling had been any indication, so neither he nor Sirius had understood the lecture they had received by Harry's parents after they had landed again. Even though he would not openly admit it, one of the main reasons why Remus had been so excited about Dumbledore's offer to take up the teaching position at Hogwarts had been to see Harry again. Even after nearly twelve years of not seeing the child, Remus had realized then that he still wanted to see how he was doing, what kind of person he had become. But not until this afternoon when he had seen the pale and ever-too-thin frame lying on the hospital bed, had Remus realized how much he cared for Harry. He didn't want to see the teenager come to any harm, and not because Harry was the hope of the wizarding world, which was the reason why half the wizarding world thought they cared about Harry. It was a more personal care, an emotional involvement Remus had not admitted to himself before.

He knew that this was a one-sided thing, that Harry did not trust easily in adults anyway, and that he could never hold the same position that Sirius had held for Harry, but he'd be damned before he let anything else happen to that boy. Remus cared too deeply for Harry to let something like that happen. Far too deeply.

Hours had passed in such contemplations, it was already getting dark outside, and in the small hospital room Remus watched as Harry stirred and slowly opened his eyes. He blinked a couple of times but had quite obviously still problems at seeing properly. Reminding himself quickly of the cause of those problems, Remus reached for Harry's glasses on the bedside table and wordlessly pressed them into Harry's hand. Harry put the glasses on with slightly shaking hands and blinked again a couple of times. His eyes darted around the room unfocusedly for a moment, taking in the fact that he was obviously in a hospital, then they finally settled on Remus. Harry's eyes widened slightly in recognition, then narrowed in confusion as he obviously tried to find out where he was and what had happened.

Remus could have cried in relief, but he forced himself to smile down at the teenager.

"Hello Harry."

Harry's lips moved, but the only sound coming out was a raspy cough.

"Do you want some water?"

Harry nodded and Remus got up to fill a glass from the jug on Harry's bedside table. Harry struggled to get up, and Remus handed over the water to Harry. Harry greedily drank the water and sighed contently as Remus put the glass away. Harry sank down on the mattress again.

"Thank you."

Remus only nodded and wordlessly looked at Harry for a long moment, trying to sort through the turmoil of emotions that was raging inside of him. Harry shyly glanced at Remus.

"Professor?" It was obvious that the thing that confused Harry most was finding himself in a hospital with his former teacher sitting up with him. As Remus didn't answer at first, as he simply didn't know how to answer, Harry cast his eyes down again and didn't dare to look up into Remus' eyes anymore.

Eventually, Remus put a hand under his chin and forced the teenager to look into this eyes.

"If you ever even so much as think about doing something this stupid again, ever, be sure that I won't hesitate to give you the lecture of your life for that. You've had me worried there."

Harry frowned, obviously confused.

"What?"

"What 'what'?"

"To be honest, Professor, I don't really know what you're talking about. Why am I in hospital? This is a hospital, isn't it?"

"Yes it is. But I don't really get what you're asking me."

Harry frowned again and thought a bit.

"What is wrong with me? And where is 'here'? It doesn't look very much like Hogwarts or St. Mungo's."

Remus was completely and utterly confused.

"We're in a muggle hospital in Little Whinging. Your relatives brought you here because they found you unconscious in your room. You had brewed some kind of potion – a poison – and we thought that…that you had tried to poison yourself."

Harry shook his head vehemently, disbelief clearly etched no his face.

"Poison?" Harry looked positively shocked as realization set in. "You thought I tried to kill myself?"

Remus nodded gravely. "That was what we thought, yes."

"But…Professor, I wasn't. Honestly."

"Then what were you trying to do? You've never been that much of a potions brewer as far as I know, it doesn't sound like you to start brewing up potions during your holiday."
Harry nervously bit his lip and stared down into his lap.

"Harry?"

No matter if Harry would normally entrust him with it or not, Remus needed to know. It was a question of Harry's security, they could not have him in the hospital on a regular basis, and it would be even worse if the next time something like this happened he would not be found in time. Remus needed to know what had caused Harry to brew up a poison, even if accidentally. He needed to know so that he could prevent it from happening ever again. Remus gently put his hand onto the teenagers shoulder and was surprised to see tears in Harry's eyes. One was making its way down Harry's cheek and Remus handed him a tissue from the pocket of his robe. Harry took it with slightly shaking fingers and wiped away the offending tear-track, still not meeting his former teacher's eyes.

"I was…I have been trying to make a sleeping potion."

That was an answer Remus definitely had not expected, not at all.
"Why? Did you have problems sleeping?"

Harry shook his head and wiped away another tear. He had started shaking a bit and so Remus got up and pulled up his blankets again. As he sat down again he did not take the chair, but sat down on the side of the mattress so that he was facing Harry, one hand resting lightly on Harry's shoulder.

"No problems sleeping. I was…having dreams. And I wanted them to stop."

Remus' chin dropped as the implication of that statement sunk in, and it took him a moment to find his voice again.

"You tried to brew a Dreamless Sleep Potion?"

Harry nodded, still not looking up.

"Harry, that potion is ridiculously advanced! Why didn't you owl to the Weasleys, to Hermione or me, to anybody about it? You nearly killed yourself because something was wrong with the potion! The doctor said that you stopped breathing! If your relatives had not brought you here, you could be dead now!"

"I thought…I didn't want anybody to worry about me. And the potion was in our book, so I thought I could brew it. I know I suck at Potions, but I thought that without Snape breathing down my neck I could do it."

Remus shook his head. "Oh Harry, when will you finally learn that you don't have to make out everything on your own?"

"I'm sorry."
"It's all right. I'm just glad that nothing happened. Severus said you'd be out of the woods in a day or so, and then we'll see about doing something against the nightmares."

At that moment, something visibly clicked in Harry's head as his mental gears shifted according to the information in Remus' last sentence.
"Snape was here?"

Harry couldn't hide the astonishment in his voice at those words, but Remus only nodded.

"Of course. When I heard that you had taken some sort of potion, I called him to examine you. After all we could not be sure that muggle doctors would find a poison like that during their examination. He was a bit startled about the sort of poison he found you had taken, but in the end he gave you an antidote and we decided to clear that mystery up when you were well on your feet again."

"I guess I have to thank him then."

Remus nodded.

"Yes, I think you should do that, whether you like it or not. But no need to worry about that now. Just see to it that you're getting better. Do you need anything? Are you hungry?"

Harry shook his head. "No, thank you."

"Do you want to sleep some more? It's evening already and nearly dark. I'll go to headquarters and let the others know that you're all right, they've all been a bit edgy during the past day."

He got up from the bed but noticed that Harry was suddenly looking wide-eyed and even a bit scared.

"Harry? What is it? Is something wrong, do you need something?"
Harry just shook his head, but his expression didn't really change. Remus stepped beside his bed again.

"Harry, what is wrong?"
He tried to sound as warm and gentle as possible, and truly Harry seemed to relax a bit.

"I…could you…"

"What Harry?"
"Could you stay a bit? I mean, I know that you surely have something else to do, but would you mind…"

Remus shook his head and sat down again, smiling at Harry.

"Of course I can stay with you." He placed a hand on Harry's arm and squeezed gently. "Care to talk about those nightmares?"
Harry shook his head. "No, not really. Could you maybe just tell me something? Anything would be all right, actually."

Remus smiled. "Sure."

But he quickly realized that it wasn't all that easy as he had thought. Any other time he'd have gladly told Harry a story from his time at school with Harry's father and Sirius, but now the mere thought about Sirius made a lump form in his throat. He couldn't talk about Sirius just yet. Not anytime soon.

Harry seemed to sense what kind of struggle Remus was going through, because he quickly averted his eyes.

"Sorry, you don't need to."

Remus smiled down at him which was a bit hard as he was fighting down the tears at the same time.

"It's all right, Harry."

"No, it's not all right. And it'll never be."

Remus couldn't find anything to say after that. There was a stretch of silence between them before Harry's low voice spoke again.

"You miss him, don't you?"

Remus nodded and gripped his hair tightly with his hands as if trying to convince himself through the pain that he was still alive.

"Yes", he finally breathed out, "I miss him. I miss him horribly, so much that it hurts."

Without really knowing why, Remus continued. It actually surprised him that he spoke to Harry about those things, he was normally not the kind of person to openly talk about what was going on inside of him, not to anybody. But the words just tumbled out of his mouth and only as he spoke them did he realize how much he needed to talk about it.

"It was like that when your parents – and as I thought Peter – died. Just a dull aching feeling in me, whatever I do and whatever I think about. But back then at least I could still try to hate Sirius for it. And now I had him back, he was back and things were starting to be all right again and then he had to fall through that blasted archway. Now I just feel so empty."

A tear rolled down Remus' cheek and he quickly wiped it away before Harry could see it. When he looked up from the floor again he found that the teenager was not watching him, but staring at the far off wall with an opaque expression on his face.

"I dream about it", Harry finally said. "That's what I wanted the potion for. It was already hard enough last year, with Cedric's death and the nightmares I had afterwards. But now I see him fall through that veil every night. And every single night it's as if I try to get to him before he falls through it, but I'm always a step too late. Then I see that astonished and shocked look in his eyes as he vanishes and I wake up. I can't take that anymore, I just can't."

Harry curled up under his blanket and buried his face in his pillow, and all Remus could do was put a hand on his back and rub a couple of small comforting circles on it. He was surprised at how openly Harry talked about what was going through his mind. It had to be bothering him really much if he finally decided to talk about it and seek help, something that did not help to alleviate Remus' worries.

"I never really thought he could die. I didn't think about it, it just wasn't a possibility, was it?"

Harry was surely convinced that Remus would agree with that, he didn't know that he had struck a painful chord with his words. Remus bit his lip. "For me it was."

Harry paused for a moment before he asked. "Why?"
"Because I've learned that lesson during the first war. Learned it the hard way."

Harry didn't ask, but Remus knew he wanted to know more about this. And maybe talking about it instead of merely brooding over it would help.

"There were far too many occasions which turned out to be too dangerous or too daring afterwards. There were too many times when one of us jumped out of death's way in the last moment, Sirius once even a bit after that last moment had already passed."

Harry turned around and looked at Remus curiously. "What happened?"
"He and I were on Order business in London but we were given away – today I'm convinced this was also Peter's doing. We were ambushed and cornered by about twenty Death Eaters and all our ways out were blocked. We managed to fight most of them down, but Sirius got stabbed by one of the Death Eaters. The wound was pretty deep and the dagger had cut an artery. Sirius was losing too much blood, and for minutes I just knelt next to him with my hands pressed on his wound until help arrived and brought us to St. Mungo's. It was such a close call, I don't even want to think about it. It took six days until he finally woke up again, six horrible days of nerve-wracking waiting, sitting next to his bed in the hospital, praying that he would make it. That was the first time I really became aware of the fact that none of us was immortal. He still has that scar, it strangely didn't vanish no matter how much the doctors tried to erase it." Remus' voice caught for a moment. "That is, he still had the scar."

Tears were threatening to fall again and while Remus tried to fight them down silence once more settled over the room. Harry just looked at Remus, but whatever was going on in his mind was too well hidden for Remus to detect. Remus tried to smile at him but failed miserably.

"I just thought that after twelve years in Azkaban, he'd get some rest. I thought that if he had survived that, he'd survive anything. I didn't think it would happen…so fast, so senseless. I think I was trying to push away the thought that I might lose him again."
Harry looked out of the window.

"And if I hadn't been so stupid he would still be alive today. If I had taken Occlumency more seriously, and if I hadn't fallen for Voldemort's trap that night then it would not have happened. Sirius wouldn't have been in the Death Chamber at all if it had not been for me."

Remus saw how Harry averted his eyes, but he wordlessly looked at the teenager until Harry raised his eyes again and met his gaze. He knew what Harry was thinking, he had thought the very same thoughts more than once during the past weeks.

"Yes, if you had studied Occlumency a bit harder you might not have fallen for that trap. And if you had not been that rash, then maybe none of it would have happened.

Don't you think I have had the same thoughts since Sirius died? I've been brooding over it for hours, but though you made mistakes you're not the only one.

Sirius is…Sirius was a grown man, he knew perfectly well what he was doing. He was the one who lowered his defences while duelling Bellatrix. He should have known better than doing that. It was his decision to leave Grimmauld Place that night, and his decision alone.

Maybe he would not have done it if he hadn't been caged there for the past year, who knows? If Albus had allowed him to act more freely, if I had had the courage to speak up against locking him up in headquarters without any task to do at all, things might have ended differently. If anyone did, I knew how much Sirius hated being unable to do something.

We could have told you more about what we knew of your connection to Voldemort, Severus could have given you more reassurance when you told him that Sirius was in trouble, I should have known that Kreacher was a treacherous bastard, Molly maybe should have been less territorial when you were concerned…Harry, so many of us have made mistakes over the past years. And I don't think you can place the blame on one of us alone. Merlin knows I've tried it. I first blamed myself, then I blamed you, then I blamed Albus, I think I blamed each and every single person I know, but it just doesn't work. In the end, all I end up with is the conclusion that either none of us or all of us are to blame. Basically, it doesn't really matter which is the case because it has happened and we all have to learn how to live with it.

Sirius is dead Harry, and it hurts. But no matter who you or I or whoever else blames for it, in the end we'll simply have to live with it. Because unfortunately we can't change it. Merlin knows I'd give my life for his if I could, but we simply can't change it."

Remus slowly shook his head and wiped some strands of hair out of his face. "How about I organize something to eat for you and quickly apparate over to Arabella's to use her fireplace? I won't be gone long and I'm sure the doctor wants to have another look at you in the meantime. Is that all right with you?"

Harry nodded slowly. "Sure. Sorry if I'm causing too much trouble for everybody."

Remus got up from his chair and smiled at Harry, this time a bit more convincing than earlier.

"No need to apologize. Just see that you're getting better, get some rest and then we'll se what we can do about maybe getting you out of here as soon as possible."

Harry nodded and Remus left the room. As he watched his former teacher walk away Harry for the first time since waking up realized that it surely was a great inconvenience for Dumbledore and the Order that he was here now. Obviously, somebody needed to guard him in case Voldemort found out that he had left Privet Drive, and surely that was what Remus had meant when he had talked about getting him out of here. Harry's heart sagged a bit. For one short moment he had thought that maybe Remus had meant taking him out of Privet Drive completely, maybe send him to the Weasleys or back to Grimmauld Place. But then again Harry didn't really know whether he wanted to return there, to the place where he had last seen his godfather alive and where surely everything reminded him of Sirius.

At that moment the door to Harry's room opened and a nurse came into the room with a tray in her hands which she deposited on the bedside table and Harry stopped brooding about that question. Maybe when Remus came back later he'd ask him. Maybe.