Chapter Nine

It was another bloody brilliant day in Ron's opinion. When his shift at Azkaban finally ended at six o'clock he didn't even know how he had made it through the day. He hadn't slept at all the night before and Harry had spent the day walking around like a man possessed. Ron didn't think it was possible but he actually looked weaker.

He knew Harry had been unsuccessful in his attempts to locate Snape, and it seemed to make him angrier when he found out from Moody that the Potions Master had indeed been called away on an urgent mission for the Order, one which Moody insisted had been more important than brewing a potion.

He and Harry changed in silence in the Auror locker room. When they walked out, Mackenzie was waiting for them.

"Potter, Weasley, let's go to my office."

She led them into the Auror department and through the maze of desks and cubicles until they arrived at her office. She indicated for them both to go inside and then shut the door.

"I'm changing your schedule for a while," she stated, getting right down to business. "Weasley I want you partnered up with Roberts for the next shift. Potter, you'll be with Davis. You two will take the wizarding villages outside of Surrey for the next couple of weeks."

"What about Azkaban?" Harry questioned.

"You're not needed there. Weasley can handle himself with Roberts."

"Why?"

"Potter, I don't have to remind you that since I'm in charge I don't have to explain the reasoning behind my orders. I just expect you to follow them. Is that understood?"

Harry nodded stiffly.

"Dismissed," she commanded.

Harry tore out of there so fast, Ron had to jog to catch up to him.

"It's not so bad," Ron said in an attempt to cheer him up. "At least Davis isn't scared of you. It's only temporary anyways– "

"You fucking traitor!" Harry spun around in fury. "You said something to Mackenzie, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't. I just talked to Moody and he – "

"And that's so much better," Harry snapped.

"Christ, Harry, have you looked at yourself lately? Because you look like a bloody zombie. Moody's not blind, he can see that too. He was already thinking of giving you another assignment anyways."

"And you gave him the convincing he needed. How long have you been planning this?"

"You think I'm out to get you? Bloody hell, you are paranoid – and it's Azkaban that's doing this to you." Harry looked like he was barely holding himself together as it was. Ron decided it was probably for the best that he didn't embarrass them both by saying he heard Harry having nightmares at least two or three times a night.

"I'm not paranoid," Harry seethed. "I'm just pissed off that my best mate wasted no time in selling me out to the first person he could come across!"

"Harry, come on, that's not it."

"Now I know how Hermione felt when we went behind her back."

Those were Harry's last words before he stormed out of the department.

The only thing Harry wanted was to be left alone, but knew that he should probably check in on Lupin. Tonks had avoided giving away too many of the gory details when he had seen her at the department, but it sounded like his former Professor had scratched and clawed himself from being locked up all night, being unable to fulfill the wolf's natural instinct to kill.

The trip to Lupin's place was kind of a blur to Harry. His fury at Ron combined with his inability to get little more than a couple of hours sleep each night for the past two weeks, meant he was running on little more than adrenaline – and even that was running out.

He walked up the porch and into Lupin's. The first sight that greeted him was a sallow-faced Snape who was fastening his cloak, getting ready to leave. Snape threw him a look of pure contempt but said nothing.

"Where's Lupin?" Harry asked him.

"Upstairs resting. I gave him a sedative potion for the pain."

Harry could have been mistaken but it actually sounded like Snape felt guilty for what had happened. Guilty or not he wasn't going to let him off the hook.

"Where were you last night?" He questioned Snape.

"That's not your concern Potter."

"You left him to transform without the Wolfsbane. He didn't even know that was going to happen."

"I have already explained the extenuating circumstances to him. Unlike you, he understands that unfortunate yet necessary things come up that cannot be avoided."

"You could have made the potion for him before you left."

"Wolfsbane is not something that can be thrown together haphazardly. Of course, you might think that considering you have not demonstrated any skill at all for potion making."

"I bet you enjoyed it, knowing Lupin would suffer for a night."

"Potter, you may not be my pupil anymore, but continue speaking to me in this manner and I will not be so tolerating," Snape said, his voice threatening. "I think your worship of Lupin is rather misguided."

"He's ten times the man you'll ever be," Harry stated, ignoring Snape's previous warning.

"Potter, how much do you really know about your dear old professor? Aside from his lycanthropy and friendship with your parents, you know nothing about him."

"I know that you resent him because he was my dad's friend and that you cost him his job at Hogwarts by telling everyone what he was."

"If you knew the truth, Potter, you would have thanked me."

"What are you talking about?"

Snape smirked. "I think you would rather not know. The last thing I would want is for your precious Lupin to fall off that high pedestal you have him on."

Harry was growing more irritated by the second. He knew Snape was purposely goading him. It was his way of getting back at him for quitting Occlumency. Even so, Harry still wanted to hear what he had to say. "Go on, say whatever it is you've got to say. I'm listening." He knew full well there was nothing the greasy git could say to change his opinion of Lupin.

"He was in love with your mother. It went all the way back to their days at Hogwarts and even lasted after she married your father."

"You're lying," Harry fumed.

"Use your brain, Potter. Why do you think he came to Hogwarts in the first place? It certainly wasn't because Dumbledore offered him the job. You were the only thing he had left to remind him of Lily Evans. That's why he's always shown you special treatment – treated you as if you were his own flesh and blood."

Harry turned away. Snape was lying. He had to be. No one had ever mentioned anything to him. Harry had never even got the impression from Lupin that his feelings for his mother had gone beyond friendship. He had always sounded so happy when he spoke of his parents together.

"The truth is always hardest to swallow when it's about those we care about," Snape said.

"You don't know what you're talking about. He cared about her, that was all."

"Open your eyes, boy. You're too old to be coddling yourself with stories about friendship and loyalty, when you know that's not true. If your Professor Lupin is such a good man – a good friend – why did he betray your father by pursuing your mother?"

"You're lying!" Harry shouted venomously.

"Before they were married, he had an affair with your mother. Your father never knew. Only Dumbledore and I knew the truth. If you still don't believe me, ask him."

Harry couldn't stand there and listen to Snape anymore. He felt sick. He needed to get away. He grabbed the door handle and walked out, Snape's voice sounding behind him.

"I suppose it's rather ironic that the only one of your father's friends that was ever truly loyally, spent twelve years of his life rotting in Azkaban."

Harry stormed into his room, going straight for the closet. He pulled out the box he kept stored in there and brought it out into the living room. He dumped the contents of it onto the coffee table. He frantically searched through the pictures, letters, and other mementos of his parents. He scanned the photos the closest, taking extra care when watching his mother and Lupin. But the pictures did nothing to incriminate themselves.

He came across photos of his parents, which had to have been taken shortly after they graduated Hogwarts. They were laughing and smiling, and in one of the pictures his dad would move to stand behind his mother and wrap his arms around her waist.

He threw everything back in the box and slammed the lid back on top. There was nothing there to either prove or disprove what Snape had said. He took his hands and raked them shakily through his hair. He needed to clear his head. He just needed to get one decent night of sleep and he would be all right.

Sleep actually turned out to be the worst thing for Harry. He thrashed wildly in his bed, plagued by nightmares that refused to relent or show him any kind of mercy. He could hear his father's voice screaming for his mother to take him and run. But she wouldn't and Voldemort soon found her and used the killing curse on her without even offering her a chance to beg for her life. That image soon blurred to one about eight years later, when Dudley and his friends chased him into the park after school one day, taking turns holding him down and beating him mercilessly. The only thing the Dursley's had said to their son afterwards was that he shouldn't have done it in such a public place. Everything blurred again and he found himself watching Voldemort kill Cedric in cold blood, and then he was transported back to Hogwarts, clutching Cedric's lifeless body, as everyone in the school looked on. Then Cedric turned into Sirius and he was winning the battle against Bellatrix Lestrange, but his overconfidence made him vulnerable to attack and he fell through the veil. Harry was sure he was screaming both in the dream and in real life. Again everything changed and he sat helplessly as Lucius Malfoy alternated between throwing the Cruciatus curse at Ron and Hermione. This time he couldn't break free and was powerless to do anything but watch as Ron slowly bled to death, and after a few more hits with the Cruciatus Hermione stopped getting back up.

He bolted upright in bed, breathing as if he had just run a marathon. He wiped his hands across his face, sure he was feeling a combination of sweat and tears there. He disentangled himself from his bed sheets, feeling the cold rivulets of sweat running down his back. When the oxygen finally came back to his lungs, he swung his legs over the side and hung his head between his knees.

When his legs no longer felt like jelly, he stood and stumbled towards the chair where his clothes were thrown over. He dressed in the dark, not even sure he knew where he was going.

Ginny, already dressed in her nightgown for bed, closed up her notes and textbook, finally decided to call it a night. If she didn't know better she would swear she was starting to act like Hermione with the constant working and studying, but she knew it wasn't like she had much of a choice. Her mother had booked her O.W.Ls test at the Ministry testing office for the first weekend of October. So while she was continuously reviewing her notes from fifth year, both from Hogwarts and Lupin, she still had her sixth year lessons to worry about. She knew Lupin was doing his best to go at a slower pace, at least until she took her O.W.Ls, even offering lessons on Saturday mornings so she would have less of a workload during the week. But if they continued like that for much longer, she knew she would be in danger of missing the ministry examinations the following June. If that happened she would have to wait until the Ministry booked another date for sixth year examinations for those students who were being home schooled – and she most certainly did not want what was happening with her fifth and sixth year studies to happen again.

A quiet knocking sounded against her door then. With Lupin still recovering from his transformation, she knew the only other person it could be was Hermione. She knew there was only one thing keeping her friend up at this late hour when she had work in the morning.

She opened her door slowly, not wanting to disturb Lupin, and nearly gasped when she saw Harry standing there, clutching the doorframe and looking like he was about to pass out.

Without hesitation, she ushered him into her room and quietly shut the door behind him.

She took one look at his flushed face and the sweat running down it and knew he had to be running a fever. She pushed his bangs back and pressed the back of her hand flat against his forehead.

"Merlin, Harry, you're burning up," she said, panicked. She didn't want to disturb Remus, but this was an emergency. "I need to wake Remus– "

"No," he said, his voice harsh. "Please, Ginny," he said, his voice much softer but shaking considerably.

The sight of Harry Potter looking that scared was something she would never forget. His eyes had a pleading haunted look to them that she would have given anything to make it go away.

"I just – I need – "

He seemed incapable of forming a coherent thought, and he was shaking worse than before.

She took his hand and led him towards her bed. She helped him lie down and then grabbed the blanket that lay folded at the end of her to bed to cover him with it. He closed his eyes, but she could still see him shaking visibly under the cover of the blanket.

She grabbed her dressing gown to cover herself up and crawled onto the bed beside him. It was a long time before she allowed her eyes to close and sleep to overtake her.

LovePadfoot5867: Hermione and Ron have some difficult times ahead but they will get back together eventually. That's all I can say without spoiling the story.