A/N Anne Franke wants your babies. Ahahaha. There may seem to be, like, some implied slash, right? But there is none. None meant.
Disclaimer: Ahaa. Ha ha. Ha. Aha. Ha. I own NOWT.
Sometimes, I think I'm better off. I got to know them. I knew them all so well. I spent a lifetime with James and Lily and Sirius and what did Harry get? Harry spent a mere few years with Sirius and he barely remembers his parents. Sometimes, I think I'm better off. Because sometimes, after thinking about everything we've missed out in life, we look at the people who never had any of it. But, then again, Harry doesn't have to go through all the heartache. Knowing Sirius, James and Lily less means he doesn't have to miss them as much. He doesn't miss his parents, I'm sure. He wishes he got to know them, of course he did, but he doesn't miss them. He can't do; he doesn't remember them. And although he misses Sirius, everything was ripped away before they could have a proper friendship.
Sometimes, I think I'm better off.
What makes me sure is when Harry comes up to me after dinner. It's the first time he's entered the Order Headquarters since Sirius died and he looks distraught.
"Professor," he starts and I cut ahead of him, smiling.
"Please, Harry." He smiles weakly and I know it's just to please me. That's the funny thing about kids.
"Sorry- Remus," he says nervously, trying the name on his tongue. "Can I, er, can I talk to you? Now?" I frown and nod, opening the door to the empty library. Harry steps inside first. He's stepping wearily, almost nervously as if he's trying to get something off his chest. The weird thing about being a werewolf was that sometimes, without realising it, you pick up on how others are feeling, just like you see and feel. This seems to be happening now and it feels indecent.
"What is it Harry?" I ask. My eyes are narrowed slightly and I frown at him, arms folded across the desk. My weight's mostly on the table behind me and I look at Harry unsurely. "What's wrong?" He still doesn't face me. He's at another table, the one farthest from this one and has his hands on the top of it, leaning over the table and deliberately not facing me. His shoulders are shaking, and my heart sinks.
"Harry…" I speak quietly, walking towards him and I gently touch his shoulder. He jerks away and then stops, looking towards me.
"Was he really a good person, Remus?" I'm not sure who he's talking about. I look at him calmly, though inside I'm shaking. It hurts to talk about Peter, James and Sirius. "My dad. Was he really? Because… the person I saw in the pensive… he wasn't a good person." I smile despite myself and nod.
"James was one of the best people I've known, Harry," I say quietly. He looks at me and suddenly he's not a seventeen-year-old anymore. Suddenly he's not that laughing young man I saw at dinner. Suddenly he's a confused child, not sure where to turn. And I know exactly how he feels. "Everyone does stupid things. James was a stupid, thick headed idiot half the time but he was a good person. He died for you and-."
"Sometimes," Harry cuts across. He's looking deliberately at a bookshelf, and I don't try and make eye contact with him, knowing how much he would hate it. "Sometimes I think he just died for Mum. It's a stupid and selfish thought, but I think…" He cut off, biting his lower lip determinedly. I laugh and shake my head.
"You don't remember it." I'm smiling again and I want to know what on earth is wrong with me. But I have to smile because hell, if I don't, who will? I sit down on the table, placing my palms on my knees and concentrating on them. "When you were born… James was ecstatic. He was pacing up and down in the hospital, in St Mungo's and Sirius and I were there and we had to hold him down at one point. He was so worried about Lily and then when the nurse came out, when that Healer came out and smiled at him and told him he had a son and that he was a father…" I trail off and smile, slightly upset that James wasn't ever able to see his son grow up into the wonderful boy he is. "His face looked as if it was going to cut in two." Harry grins and meets my eye for a moment and then looks away.
"I just… I feel so awful that I lo- that I liked Sirius more than I ever did him. And then I saw in the pensive… I saw how he acted…"
"You're guilty because you loved Sirius more than you ever remembered loving James," I say quietly. "And all you know about James is the stories people tell but what you saw in the pensive was the closest you got to him and he was being a complete stuck up bastard there." Harry smiles weakly.
"I miss him," he says quietly. "Sirius."
"I'd think you were a bit odd if you didn't," I point out, laughing humourlessly.
"You do, too," he says finally. He says it quietly and I double take a look at him, shifting slightly. "I hear you at night… sorry." I shake my head.
"I miss him because, I suppose, he was all I had left. Sirius wouldn't want either of us to be this upset, would he?" My voice is grim. "We don't seem to be doing too good."
"No," Harry says, laughing. "Not at all." We sit together for a moment in silence.
Maybe I need Harry. Maybe we can find comfort in each other, maybe we can get over this together. If we could do that… well, it would be a god damned miracle. I laugh weakly to myself and shake my head.
"Dad was right, though," Harry says firmly. "Snape's a bastard. Maybe he saw who he was all along. And why was I feeling sorry for Snape?" I look at him wearily, not wanting to bring up the subject now. "He sold them out," he finishes quietly. "He helped, at least."
"Maybe," is all I say as I look at him. "Maybe."
Maybe I'm not as alone as I thought.