Chapter 12 –More SeriousCollisions

With the arrival of Ron and Hermione, Harry had a bit more of an easy time at Grimmauld Place. It had not been bad before, but now he had two friends with him who were just as little involved in the Order work than he himself was. So instead of hanging around the house with nothing to do like he had been doing since his arrival, he could spend time with Ron, Hermione and Ginny instead. Remus was relieved about that development. He had done his best to spend time with the teenager after he had brought him here, but that had not been enough, Remus knew that. He and Harry were not close, Remus didn't delude himself in thinking they were. And though he had taken up on calling him 'Remus' by now, Remus knew that for Harry he would probably remain the everlasting Professor. It was hardly more than a teacher-student relationship they had managed to establish over the years they had known each other, and that was not always enough to make the teenager confide in him when he had problems. But now Harry had his friends with him, teenagers just like him, with whom it probably was easier to talk about what was bothering him. Maybe that would be one thing that finally worked out all right in this house, because nothing the Order attempted did at the moment.

Meeting after meeting, discussion after discussion, and the only thing that became more and more clear was that the Order was as helpless as it had ever been. Helpless, useless, clueless, name any other –less and most probably it would fit on the Order's momentary state as well. And every other day they met in the basement kitchen at Grimmauld Place to discuss how to make things better for them. Without any success. But as the next meeting approached, Remus once more dragged himself down the stairs and into the kitchen to attend it. Of course he did. He could as well have kept on brooding in his room, but for now he still refused to give up hope that something good might come out of what they were trying to do. He was close, but still not ready to give everything up.

If only he were not so tired. Again he had not gotten more than two and a half hours sleep last night, then his nightmares had driven him down into the basement kitchen again. Fortunately, without any interruptions this time. He had tried to get some more sleep around five in the morning, but other than half an hour of tossing and turning in his bed he had not managed anything. It was wearing on him, especially on his patience and on his ability to keep up his guard in front of others. That was probably what worried him most. He had worked hard to perfect his ability of hiding what was going on inside of him for so many years, yet lately it didn't take much to make his façade crack and his temper rise. He never wanted that to happen, he simply lacked the strength to stop it from happening.

When Remus came into the kitchen, everybody else already seemed to be there. The usual suspects. Remus grabbed himself a cup of tea and sat down on a chair next to Kingsley, watching the faces of the others. Tension hung thickly in the room and that showed in the other's expressions. Everybody was hoping for good news, yet they all knew it was a futile hope. Nobody wanted something to happen that would actively start this war, but without anything happening, they'd never know what it was they had to prepare themselves for. Talking about the war, finding allies and preparing for it was one thing, but the thing as such was something entirely different. Something they could never prepare for. At the end of whatever awaited them, not all the people here in this room would be alive anymore, they all knew that. And they were all afraid of it. Not a good mixture, fear and anticipation, but those were their feelings and nothing in the world could stop that.

Dumbledore, who had been talking lowly with Mad Eye on the far end of the table, cleared his throat a few minutes after Remus had come into the room and stood up from his chair.

"Thank you all for coming so early this morning. There is not much we need to talk about, but I have some news from Hagrid, and there are some other things we need to talk about, but all in all I won't take up much of your time today."

Dung murmured something which was too low even for Remus' hearing to catch, but judged by the tone of his voice it had not been an exclamation of pleasure. Dumbledore continued unfazed of this remark.

"Hagrid contacted me yesterday evening, at a rather unusual hour, using rather unusual means." The old wizard chuckled lowly to himself, then he continued. "First of all, he has found a wild herd of hippogriffs up in Ireland, and as soon as he has finished his current assignment he'll set to the task of releasing Buckbeak into the wild. Though it might take a little while longer, as he is currently not in Ireland anymore. But as soon as he comes back he'll take care of it."

"Wonderful", Snape said with a raised eyebrow. "Freeing that hippogriff is a big step to winning this war for us, I've always said that."

"Severus", Remus and Dumbledore said in unison, though Remus' voice was distinctly sharper than the headmaster's. Snape raised a hand and averted his eyes in a silent gesture to state that he had understood their message of keeping his mouth shut until he had something important to say. Not that he saw it as relenting to others who were right while he was wrong, but at least he remained silent for the time being. Dumbledore nodded.

"All right, now that this is settled with far more words than I would have used on it, we can maybe continue on to things relating to our current situation."

Snape did a small eye-roll at this remark, but it was barely noticeable and Remus doubted that anybody had seen it.

"Hagrid reinforced his and Madame Maxine's opinion that it would not be a wise attempt to contact the giants again. He said that he had received information due to which they retreated farther into the mountains and takes it as a sign that they'll stay out of whatever conflict will arise in the wizarding world soon."

"Bloody good this does us", Dung grumbled. Moody's magical eye swivelled around until it focussed on Dung.

"That's far better than having them against us in the war, Dung. We're probably up against the worst You-Know-Who can rouse, I for one can do without the giants on the other side as well."

Dumbledore listened to them attentively, but when it became obvious that there was nothing constructive coming from them anymore, he picked up his former line of thought again.

"There are still the other non-human groups to consider. There is no way we can get into contact with the trolls, that much is obvious to everybody, but at the moment I have envoys sent off to contact two respectively three of the largest non-human populations in Europe, aside from the groups with whom we've already started to establish contact."

Kingsley frowned at Dumbledore.

"What groups are we talking about? Non-human is a very wide field, I'm a bit at a loss right now."

"For one, I have asked some of Hogwarts employees to spread word around the house elfs."

"House elfs?", Kingsley asked without even trying to conceal his astonishment. "What's the use in contacting a group in our society who are only loyal to their respective masters? Care to tell me what the use is in that?"

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair. "We should never under-estimate the house elfs as a group, Kingsley. I think that is one big problem in our society. I do not harbour the hope that we might get information about Voldemort's top servants through their house elfs, but try to see it on a different scale. It's the house elfs who run nearly everything in our society. They are the backbone of every one of our organizations and institutions, always remaining unseen and doing the work nobody else wants to do. Nobody notices a house elf when it does its work, and they get to know far more about what is going on that most other employees. Be that at Hogwarts, St. Mungo's, all the Ministry institutions, name whatever you want, house elfs are always involved. As I said, I don't expect to receive any vital information about Death Eater activities, even if we knew house elfs working for suspected Death Eaters they would not give anything away. But the loyalty of especially Ministry elves is not bound to a single person, but rather to an institution. It might be easier to get some information that way. And no matter what kind of information we receive, it might prove useful for us. We cannot be picky about where we get our information from, and I for one lie quite a bit of hope into receiving some useful pieces of information that way. After all, what is more inconspicuous than a house elf doing its work?"

Kingsley shrugged, but still he didn't look to convinced of the idea. Remus wasn't, either, but it certainly did no harm to give it a try.

"What is the second group you were talking about?", Remus asked. Dumbledore looked at him for a moment, and there was something in his eyes that made Remus feel uneasy all of a sudden. He got the sinking feeling that he would not like what was about to come, not one bit.

"It's not so much one specific group than a few of them, most probably the first ones Voldemort will try to pull on his side, if he hasn't already done. I've sent Hagrid to find out just how much he has already set in motion there."

"Where?", Remus asked sceptically, the bad feeling in his stomach rising rapidly.

"Romania."

An oppressive silence settled over the kitchen, which was broken a second afterwards when Remus slammed his flat palm onto the table with so much force that the teacups rattled in their saucers. His face had rapidly lost all colour and his mouth was pressed into a tight line.

"No!", he brought out in a tight voice. "No, Albus. You can't do that, that is madness. Sheer and utter madness! We're talking about the largest werewolf populations in all of Europe here, not to mention the vampires and whatever else lives there without registration and control. In certain areas there you're lucky to go out at night and not be something entirely else by the next morning! What in Merlin's name do you think you can achieve there?"

Dumbledore watched Remus' outburst calmly, then he stroke through his beard before he answered.

"In the worst case, we have to see what we're up against. We have to get a picture of just how bad the situation in Romania really is. That is why I sent Hagrid, because I know he can handle what he'll be facing there. In the best case, we might win some allies, but I'd settle for anything in between that doesn't have us facing the Romanian non-human groups in this war."

"And how are you planning to do that?", Remus asked with a mirthless laugh. "Go to the Romanian werewolf registry, ask for the addresses of all lycanthropes in the country and go knocking on their door? Albus, Romania is not Great Britain. There is no werewolf registry, that is why the situation got so much out of hand there. I've been there during the first war, do you really want me to remind you of what I saw there? The people in the areas where the situations are worst both fear the non-humans as well as they try to hunt them down and kill them. Nobody there will openly admit that they're a werewolf, a vampire, or anything else slightly out of the ordinary. Nobody. They're scared of what they are, what they are able to do, most of them try to pretend that nothing was wrong at all. I don't know how Voldemort might plan on recruiting anybody there, but I know for sure that we won't be successful with anything we try. And even if it worked, would you really want werewolves and giants as allies?"

"Personally, I've been against employing werewolves in our cause right from the start", Snape threw in from the side, which earned him a sharp glare from Remus and a silencing look from Dumbledore. Yet he smirked openly, knowing he had scored a point and stated his case. Dumbledore held his stare for a moment, then looked back at Remus.

"I would very much prefer knowing them to stand on our side than on Voldemort's. It will be difficult enough to fight against Death Eaters, it's always far more dangerous to fight against not entirely human beings. I don't plan on anything, Remus. Especially not on employing werewolves and vampires as an army of sorts."

"Then what do you want to do?"

"I want them to keep out of this for as long as possible."

"Werewolves can't be trusted", Moody threw in from his place at the far end of the table. "And neither can you trust a vampire. I think we're wasting our efforts, seeing that Romania is a far shot from the distance alone. The war will start here, and not in Eastern Europe."

"You're forgetting one very strong connection Voldemort has always had to that area, Alastor. Durmstrang. That is where a lot of his followers bid their time and raised their offspring. We all know that something has been silently boiling there since the first war ended, and I fear that it's close to spilling over now. It's not that far from Russia to Romania. And once this war breaks out, it won't be limited to Great Britain for long, not if Voldemort gets his will. He wants absolute control over all of the wizarding world, it would be foolish to think that he is still planning on a nationally limited scale. And if he isn't doing that, we can't allow us to do that, either. Not if we want to be prepared."

Again, silence settled over the kitchen while everybody let the last bits of the conversation roll through their heads again. Remus was shaking his head in denial.

"It can't be a solution, Albus. Werewolves and vampires are not a solution to our problem, they'll only cause us more trouble than we can deal with."

"For once, Lupin and I are in perfect agreement", Snape snarled. Remus bit back a remark and instead balled his hands into fists so tightly that his fingernails dug painfully into his palms. He knew that Snape just wanted to provoke him, that his former classmate wanted him to lose his temper, but still he was dangerously close to losing his composure. Another of those remarks, and Snape would get what was coming at him. Dumbledore interrupted their stare-down.

"I think it is both important and necessary to at least inform ourselves about the situation especially in that area. Actually, there are far more things we ought to keep an eye on, but we only have the capacities to focus on the potentially most dangerous ones. Hagrid is already on his way, we'll see what we do about the situation in Romania once he reports back."

"Are we doing anything about the situation here in Great Britain, or do we focus on other affairs for the moment?"

"Alastor, there is absolutely no need for this attitude, you should know the situation well enough to know that!" Dumbledore's voice sounded slightly exasperated, nothing unusual during their meetings as of late. Seeing Dumbledore lose his temper was something that only served to upset all other Order members, though nobody would openly admit it. But their situation was getting more and more desperate with each day that passed without achievements and results, they all knew that. And it wore on them. As Dumbledore continued, it was obvious from his voice that he was not in his usual pleasant mood but was holding on tightly to keep his voice level.

"We're doing everything we can, you know that. I do not have daily meetings with the Minister because I appreciate his presence and his pleasant small-talk so much. Severus isn't risking his neck because he enjoys being around Death Eaters who mistrust him and would probably prefer to see him dead. You know that as well as I do, Alastor, so don't start this with me. We're both short on people and on information, so we're doing the best we can with what we have. We have a tail on the Death Eaters we suspect to be involved with Voldemort right now, we're using every resource we have. It is not much, but we're doing all we can at the moment."

Snape got up from his chair and started pacing in front of the fireplace.

"I doubt that tailing Lucius Malfoy will do us any good, It's just as much of a waste of time like any possible involvement in Romania."

"Then why don't you ever propose something that helps us progressing with what we're doing? I for one haven't seen you supply us with anything constructive, with anything at all aside from your snappy remarks. I'd rather go searching out every single werewolf in Romania myself than sit here and idly twist my thumbs."

"Well, sitting here waiting for something useful to do won't get you killed before the war even starts!", Snape shot back at Moody, his dark eyes blazing furiously in the light of the torches. That was the moment Dung chose to enter the discussion. Before, he had taken up his usual position with his head resting in his hand and looking fast asleep, but this time he had been awake and following the discussion.

"Neither of what you're doing is in any way constructive, you know? I for one opt for a little action on our behalf, and Romania is an interesting place to be…"

"Merlin, isn't anybody here taking this seriously?", Snape all but shouted. "This is not about using the Order to get your next load of contraband across the border. Am I the only one here in the room who sees things clearly, and if so, may I ask what is keeping all of you blinded from reality? We have no standing, we have no information, we have no starting-point for anything! I'm hanging in thin air as far as information about the Inner Death Eater circles are concerned, the Minister is keeping everybody so short on information that it's a small wonder he publicly mentions what day of the week it is, and by sending Hagrid to Romania we're desperately clinging to the last available straw! If we're that desperate, we can as well give up the whole resistance now, because hell will freeze over before Lucius Malfoy makes a mistake that gives away Death Eater secrets. What's the use in tailing him then? I've always said we should focus on different things for the moment."

"Merlin Snape, could you simply shut up for once and not try to make everything look worse than it already is?"

Snape sneered at Dung and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"Just for the sake of letting you live your illusions I will certainly not keep my opinion at bay when I know things to be wrong."

Remus sighed, doing his best to prevent another fight from breaking out. He himself was already angry enough, he definitely didn't need the others around him to bite their heads off.

"You could at least be a bit less sarcastic about it, Severus."

"I'm realistic, Lupin, not sarcastic. Or would it help if I allowed all of you to continue working into the entirely wrong direction with what we're doing just for the sake of the atmosphere here in the room?"

"But it wouldn't hurt you to treat the others around here like human beings! Or don't you think you're facing equals with the right for an own opinion here?"

Remus' voice had grown steadily louder and he had gotten up from his chair, but Snape only seemed to feel encouraged by that. His sneer widened and he made a step towards where Remus was standing.

"Unfortunately I can't adopt the famous 'Devil may care' attitude a certain former inhabitant of this house always had, so you'll have to bear with what I have to offer. Be that as it may, as Black is certainly in his own private dog-hell already and you are anything but a complete human being, there is no reason for me to behave any differently."

One more remark, just one more of those remarks and Remus would not guarantee for anything anymore.

"Don't you dare talking about Sirius like that!"

Snape only shrugged but after a cough from their right both men turned their attention back towards Dumbledore.
"Gentlemen, please. Could we maybe come back to the topic?"

Dumbledore looked at the seething Remus and then towards Snape again. It didn't take a genius to realize that Remus was close to losing control.

"Severus, please. This definitely is not the appropriate time to discuss things that can't be changed or blamed on anybody."

Snape shrugged, though the sneer never left his face.

"You are right of course, Albus. Especially since it's not Lupin's fault that he's so personally involved in the discussion about whether or not to contact the werewolves. Parents just shouldn't let their children play in the woods after nightfall."

A fragment of a moment later Snape staggered back against the counter by the impact of Remus' left hook. For a moment his knees swayed and he had to hold onto the counter for balance while Remus waved his left hand around and held his aching knuckles. But there was still a blazing anger in his eyes and Kingsley lost no time to position himself in front of Remus in case he attacked Snape again. But Remus obviously didn't think about getting into any kind of physical brawl with him.

Nobody in the room had ever seen Remus lose control like that – to the point that he actually resorted to physical violence – and even Dumbledore was caught in a moment of stunned silence. It was Remus who broke the silence first.

"Don't ever say that again, Severus! Don't ever dare to, I won't be held responsible for my actions!"

And he freed himself from Kingsley's grasp on his upper arm and stormed out of the room. Everybody was looking after him with slightly stunned expressions, with the exception of Snape who was leaning against the counter and rubbed his aching jaw. It took only one look from the old headmaster to suddenly remind every other person in the room that the meeting was over and they had important business elsewhere in the house. Most of them knew Remus' and Snape's verbal sparring matches, and though they could be enjoyable to listen to at times, this was a whole different level of them.

After the room had cleared Dumbledore led Snape towards the table and gestured him to take a seat. The younger man was about to protest, but with a firm grip on his shoulder Dumbledore pressed him down.

"If you want an apology you're not going to get it, Albus", Snape grunted out between clenched teeth.

Dumbledore smiled gently and took a moment to examine Snape's jaw before he answered. Snape hardly ever called him by his first name, and never when they were not alone.

"If anybody, Remus is the one you should be apologizing to, Severus. Not me."

Snape laughed harshly, which was somewhat muffled as Dumbledore took the moment to perform a healing charm on the rather large bruise that was already starting to show. Snape gingerly fingered his jaw and nodded his thanks at Dumbledore.

"The day I start apologizing to him is the day he won't transform on a full moon night."

Dumbledore sat down on the opposite side of the table and simply looked at Snape for a moment.

"You've gone too far, Severus."

Snape shook his head vividly.

"Don't start this on me, Albus. You know that I respect your opinion, but that doesn't mean I need to think about what you think of everything I do."

"Severus, I don't care what yours and Remus' relationship is, and it doesn't matter that it's been the two of you and not anybody else who lost control like that. Whoever is responsible or to blame, we simply cannot afford to go at each other's throat as well. There is enough we have to fight against, if we can't face that as a united front then we have already lost. Don't think I don't know what you are doing for Remus, or that I don't appreciate it, I only tell you that this time you've gone too far."

"What do you mean 'you know what I'm doing for Lupin'? I'm not doing anything, especially not for him! Nothing except from telling him that he's useless ever since Black was stupid enough to get himself killed."

Dumbledore chuckled lowly.

"Severus, I would have expected that you do not pretend to be the heartless man most people make you out to be. At least not in front of me. I know very well that while you held no warm feelings for Sirius you do not detest Remus as much as you pretend to. You would never let him know of course, and he doesn't expect you to act any differently than you do, but I know that it's not so."

"Would you care to enlighten me what this is supposed to mean?"

"That means I know you are so increasingly antagonistic and towards him lately to keep him on his toes, to keep him from brooding and give him something else to think about. And – even though you will deny this – I know that you have taken up on that role so that Remus can vent his anger out on you instead of somebody else who maybe can't take it as well as you do." He chuckled again. "Sometimes it would do you good not to forget how well I know you."

Snape shook his head and got up from his seat.

"Think whatever you want, I don't have time for such a conversation. But if he ever as much as looks at me wrongly again, I won't hesitate to draw my wand. Tell him that."

Snape stormed out of the kitchen not much unlike Remus had done earlier, and Dumbledore smiled calmly. He knew he had hit a nerve with what he had said, otherwise Severus would not have acted as he had done. Actually he was glad that Severus had taken up the task of being Remus' verbal punching-ball, but he knew that his former student would not appreciate it if he told him that.

But still, this time Severus had gone too far and he'd better go and have a look at Remus. Remus wasn't in the best of moods anyway, and with Severus acting like he had done…with a sigh the old headmaster rose and walked towards the door. He was worried about Remus, and this worry had increased dramatically during the past days. He had noticed that his former pupil was neither sleeping nor eating properly, and while he understood Remus' grief for what he had lost, he would not sit back and watch it destroy the younger man. Sirius' death had not only been the death of a very good friend for Remus, Dumbledore knew that. With Sirius, the last reminder of Remus' happier days had passed away, and this was eating away at him. There didn't seem to be anything he deemed worth holding onto in the present, and that alarmed the headmaster. He'd need to find out how to possibly help him, and now might be the best moment to start.

As he reached Remus' door, sounds which he could not immediately place reached his ears. He knocked, but as he received no answer opened the door anyway.

Remus was bent over a suitcase that stood on his bed and was carelessly packing things together. His clothes were already in the suitcase, and now he started leafing through a stack of books on the desk, sorting it into two piles. He didn't even look up, though he must have heard Dumbledore come in.

"Remus?"

Remus didn't answer, instead he turned towards the desk and packed up some parchments.

"Remus, please talk to me."

Remus turned around towards Dumbledore and fixed him with an angry glare.

"I'm done with talking."

He brushed past the old wizard and took a robe from the hook behind the door.

"Remus, you know what Severus is like, don't you? What do you want to do, just leave headquarters and the Order because he said that?"

"No, I'm leaving headquarters and the Order because I'm useless anyway. I'm just a werewolf, a creature of the dark. You'll all be better off without me."

Dumbledore made a step forward into the room and tried to fix Remus with his stare.

"You know that this is not true, Remus. It is not now and it never has been. And I know this is not the reason why you react like you do right now."

Remus didn't answer. He was standing in front of the shelf next to the window, a picture frame in his slightly shaking hands. He was biting his lips, his eyes fixed on the frozen image of the past. He hadn't even wanted to look at the picture now, he had banned it onto the shelf first thing after Sirius' death. He hadn't thought about it anymore until he had started searching the shelf for things he needed to pack. Bonelessly, he sank down onto the bed and after a moment Dumbledore sat down beside him. The old wizard looked at the framed picture and found a group of faces smile and wave back at him. A younger image of Remus was standing on the left, and next to him were all his friends, laughing cheerfully. Looking over the faces, Dumbledore realized that except from Remus and the small baby in Lily's arms – Harry – nobody on that picture was alive anymore today. Peter Pettigrew was not on the picture, though, but if Dumbledore remembered right he had mostly been the one to operate the camera on those occasions.

"I have simply lost too much, Albus."

Remus' voice was nearly too low to hear.

"I just can't continue like that, not if it doesn't make any sense."

He turned his head and looked Dumbledore straight in the eye. The raw pain reflected there made Dumbledore's throat constrict painfully. He knew how much had been demanded from the younger man throughout his life, and he asked himself if Remus wasn't right and this time it had simply been too much.

"It's not what just happened in the kitchen. It's more than just a fight with Severus. Is there still a sense in all that, Albus? Is there still a sense in all that talking, meeting, planning? That's all we do lately, there's nothing we're achieving. Is there still a sense in all that? Because if there is, I can't see it."

Dumbledore took his time in answering, knowing that Remus would not believe any platitude from him.

"It is difficult to see what good our actions do when the people we love suffer and die nevertheless. We have all lost somebody to the war, Remus, but if we just give up fighting then their deaths become even more senseless. Do you think Sirius would have wanted you to give up?"

"Don't!" Remus jumped to his feet. "Don't, Albus! I can take much, but I can't take that! Sirius is dead, and what he would have thought, said, done or wanted is of no importance at all. It's unfair and uncalled for that you say something like that!"

Dumbledore shook his head as he watched Remus pace up and down the room.

"I'm sorry, Remus. But I want you to think about it again before you pack your things and leave. There is much that needs to be done and we need you."

Remus leaned against the windowsill with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He shook his head wearily.

"I just can't, Albus. I don't have the strength to go on like that. I'm tired, Albus. Tired. Burnt out. I have lost everything that mattered in my life, every person I cared for. I simply see no reason to go through all this again when the last time nearly killed me. I don't need any more sleepless nights, no more fighting against the inevitable. I can't bear this anymore and I don't see any reason why I should force myself to."

"There is Harry, for one."

Remus shook his head again and laughed.

"Harry has Molly and her family, he has you and half of the wizarding world to look after him. He didn't even know me for most of his life and even now I'm the everlasting 'Professor' for him. He doesn't need a guilt-ridden werewolf in whose proximity people frequently die way before their time, certainly not."

"You still have your family to think of."

"My brother can very well take care of himself. He's in the middle of this war anyway, whatever I do. And my father is living safely in France, far away from Voldemort and the Death Eaters."

"For now."

Remus threw his hands in the air in exasperation and went over towards his suitcase again, running his hands over the lid as if he didn't know whether to open it up or not. He wrung his hands for a few moments, then ran his index finger across the back of his right hand.

"Albus, if you're trying to make me feel guilty for leaving then you can as well give up now. I'm past the point where I still care about whether I feel guilty or not. Is it so wrong that for once in my life I'm putting my own life above the welfare of the entire wizarding world? Don't you think I have earned that?"

"Of course you have, Remus. And if you ever felt that I was forcing you to put your own life in the background then please believe me that this was never intended. But we need you, Remus."

Remus shook his head and turned to look out of the window.

"I don't think so, Albus. I'm not very useful when it comes to leading a war. Just admit it, Albus. Harry doesn't need me and the Order would be better off with Sirius instead of me as well. There wouldn't be all those problems if I had fallen through that veil instead of Sirius."

"So you plan on leaving everything that needs to be done – now more than never – behind, hide yourself again and wallow in self-pity and guilt, isn't it?" Dumbledore's voice was sharp now and he rose from where he had been sitting on the bed. "Because I can very well remember how this didn't help you any the last time you tried it. Life has been hard on you, Remus. I don't deny that. It has probably been harder on you than on most other people I know. But that doesn't mean you're the only one who is suffering. We all are, in our own way, and if we all ran away from facing it we would lose this war before it even really begins. I for one am not willing to accept that as a possibility. Don't you think I know how you feel? Don't you think Severus knows it, or Harry?"

"I'm simply fed up with being strong, Albus. There is only so much hurt a person can take, and I'm well beyond my limit. What's next? Who is next to die, can you tell me that? Harry? Molly? Kingsley? You, Minerva or Severus? And what then, pushing the grief aside and keeping on fighting this hopeless war, just like we always did? Because I can tell you, no matter how much you push things aside, they catch up with you anyway. And it just gets harder and harder to bear it. Sirius is gone and so are James and Lily. Peter is as good as dead as far as I'm concerned, and I'm weary. Weary of death, weary of fighting. Weary of life."

A tear escaped Remus' eye and made its way down his cheek. He looked up at the ceiling and wiped it away, but it was as if a dam inside of him had broken. Remus had not cried in a long time, even after Sirius' death he had kept the tears at bay and had fought his grief into the back of his mind where it had been a constant nagging pain, but he had not cried once. Had not allowed himself to cry. Now the tears simply overflowed, ran down his face beyond his ability to hold them back and Remus bit his lower lip hard to keep himself from sobbing out loud. Dumbledore silently stepped towards him, gently wrapped his arms around the younger but slightly taller man and allowed him to cry into his shoulder. Remus held on tightly and finally let all his pent up emotions spill over, not allowing himself to think about the fact that he was a grown up man sobbing into Dumbledore's shoulder like a small child. Dumbledore simply held him, he didn't say a word, he didn't try to soothe or comfort him. He merely gave Remus a shoulder to cry on and the knowledge that Remus didn't need to say anything now or anytime later, not if he didn't want to.

Remus didn't know for how long he cried, how long it took him to let go off his anger and grief through his tears, but after what seemed like an eternity he finally had no tears left to cry. Hesitantly, he let go off Dumbledore, wiped his eyes with his sleeve and forced himself to smile at the old wizard.

"Sorry."

Dumbledore only shook his head and led Remus over towards the bed. He placed the suitcase on the floor and gently pushed Remus down on the mattress.

"There is nothing to be sorry for, Remus. But do me one favour."

"Which?"

"Don't leave tonight. Please take a Sleeping potion and at least for once get more than three hours of sleep at night. And don't look at me like that, of course I have known that you were not sleeping much. I might be old, but I'm not blind. Let's talk tomorrow morning again. If you still want to leave then, I won't stop you, but please don't make this decision now, when you're exhausted and upset. I don't want to see you harmed or hurt even more."

Remus tiredly sank down on the bed and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands.

"No Sleeping potion, Albus. Last time I took that stuff, it was hard enough to sleep without it anymore."

Dumbledore smiled gently and placed a hand on Remus' forehead, much like he might have done to soothe a small child.

"Just tonight, Remus. You have managed for long enough without any help, but your body needs some rest. I will fetch you some."

He turned towards the door and left for the bathroom. After a minute he returned with a bottle in his hand and handed it over to Remus. The younger man swallowed the potion wordlessly and allowed Dumbledore to take the bottle out of his hand again.

"Sleep now, Remus. We will talk some more tomorrow."

Remus nodded.

"Thank you, Albus."

Dumbledore nodded and smiled again.

"You're perfectly welcome, Remus. Good night."

"Good night, Albus."