Boggarts, Blowups, and Brooms (Part Four)

"Professor Lupin?" Harry asked knocking on the door to Remus' office. The man waved him inside and Harry sat down in the chair across from him.

"How can I help you, Harry?"

"Well, I could use some help, Sir…Also, I talked with Shiva about Halloween the other day. She…mentioned that you two got into a bit of a fight and that I should ask you about it first."

Remus sighed and pulled out a tea set. "Would you like some?" Harry shook his head. Remus poured a bit for himself and leaned back into the chair. "Did Bathsheda tell you the general subject of our disagreement?"

"No, but it's not too hard to figure out that it was about me."

"It was, but probably not in the way you are thinking, Harry. I…have not made the best of choices in the past decade. Your guardian drilled that into me rather effectively the other night. First allow me to apologize for the boggart incident. I should not have frozen like that. I simply never expected to see a student's boggart manifest as a teacher. Especially not one they are known to like."

"It's fine, Professor," Harry said waving that off. "I wanted to face the boggart. One of my friends actually tripped you up to make sure I could."

Remus' eyebrows rose. "Really?" he chuckled. "No wonder I tripped. Well whoever it was, congratulate them for me would you? That was a delightfully subtle little prank."

"I will. Anyway, it wasn't your fault. I figured my boggart would be weird and I'm a little embarrassed about how poorly I handled it. I do think I'm going to let others stick to dealing with them in the future though."

"There is certainly no shame in that, Harry," Remus said nodding to the boy. "Now, as to what Bathsheda and I argued about….I knew your parents, Harry." Harry's gaze jerked up and a lot of the humor in his expression visibly drained away. "I was quite close to your father actually. We were best friends during the majority of our schooling."

"Like with Sirius Black?" Harry asked.

Remus flinched. "I deserved that. Yes. While James and Sirius were always exceptionally close, I was almost as good of friends with them. I have a…problem…a disease. It has caused many complications in my life. Your father and Sirius discovered my little problem but instead of shying away from me it instead drew them both closer. A fourth joined our little group – "

"Peter Pettigrew."

"Yes, poor Peter," Remus sighed. "The four of us grew quite close and when James started to date your mother, Lily, she shortly became a fifth member of our circle. After we graduated we all remained somewhat close though I drifted apart. Again largely due to my shame. After James' and Lily's deaths I blamed myself. I realize that was foolish, but I did. I felt that if I had let them in more than perhaps I could have helped. Or at least died with them."

"While this is interesting, Professor, I don't see what this has to do with why Shiva would yell at you and as she put it 'come within a hair's breadth of beating the stuffing out of you'. It takes a lot to rile her up like that. Generally I'm the only one who can do it and that's just because I tend to almost die on her a lot." Harry shrugged. People knowing his parents was no longer as interesting as it used to be.

"It relates because the context is important." Remus sipped his tea and grimaced. "After I sobered up I attempted to find you. I felt it was my duty as the last remaining Marauder to at least look in on you from time to time. Albus however, informed me that you were safe with your relatives and I took his word for it. He was Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard since Merlin himself. Who was I to question what he said?" Remus sighed again and closed his eyes. "I never bothered to consider that your relatives were Petunia and her family. Lily had…complained about her sister often enough that I should have taken action. Bathsheda would not tell me what Petunia did and I don't expect nor ask you tell me yourself. But, I know it was not pleasant and I know that it was persistent. I can only imagine what you endured because I was a fool more interested in my own self pity than in you."

Remus spread his hands in supplication. "Even now, I have been a fool. We have seen each other for over two months and I never once mentioned that I knew you as a baby or that I knew your parents. I have failed you in many ways, Harry. I humbly request the chance to attempt to rebuild the bridge I burned so many years ago."

Harry frowned at the teacher and considered. On the one hand, here was a man who was at least partially responsible for his neglect at the hands of the Dursleys. On the other, like McGonagall he did seem to be genuinely sorry for the past. "What did Shiva say to this?" Harry eventually asked.

"She said," Remus gave a small, sad smile, "that she did not have the right to do anything more than berate and threaten me. That the decision of how to proceed in the future would be left completely up to you. Though she did threaten to remove my bits should I do anything untoward in the future. That is quite a fiery young woman you've chosen as a protector."

"I think she kinda chose me, more than the other way around," Harry muttered. He sat thinking for a few minutes. "Will you tell me what your problem was that didn't scare my dad away?" It would be a good test to see just how far Professor Lupin was willing to go for his forgiveness.

"…Will you agree in turn to keep this between us?"

"And Shiva. That's non-negotiable." Harry countered.

Remus gave a slow nod. "Very well. As a young child I was bitten by Fenrir Greyback during a full moon. I…am a werewolf." Remus closed his eyes and braced for the explosion. For the look of disgust in the eyes of his best friends' son.

"Seriously? That's it?" Remus' eyes snapped open and instead of disgust or pity in Harry's eyes he instead saw confusion. "I thought you were going to say you'd killed someone or something. A werewolf, that's the secret? That's nothing."

"Harry…I don't think you quite understand the stigma associated with my…condition…"

Harry snorted. "So you're a super big wolf that likes to rip things apart one or two days a month. Hell Shiva is worse than that for longer." Remus opened his mouth to protest again completely confused at this reaction but Harry waved him quiet. "Whatever, I'm not going to argue about this. Look you want another chance? Okay, fine. But we start over from square one. Professor McGonagall has proven that she's pretty cool and I avoided her like the plague for a while. I can at least give you the same chance. But I don't give out third chances."

"Fair enough." Remus nodded at the boy. "I truly appreciate this, Harry."

"Okay. Now that that's out of the way. I need help."

"With what?"

Harry sighed. "I got to thinking about Dementors the other day. It's hard not to what with them surrounding the school and all," he said and growled. "Especially after falling off my broom thanks to them. Things like that and the train incident can't happen again. I can't afford to collapse like that in a bad situation. I need to be able to defend myself."

"Well," Remus said rubbing his chin, "I could attempt to teach you the Patronus charm. However it is quite complicated. And I am certainly not willing to bring you out to the grounds to practice in on an actual Dementor. There is quite a large difference between performing it in the middle of a classroom and against the creatures themselves."

Harry shrugged. "Being taught the charm is all I'm looking for, Sir. Once I know the basic underlying principles of it I can try to make a rune cluster to replicate the effects. Whether I can perform the charm under pressure would be moot at that point."

Remus' eyebrows rose into his hairline. "A rune stone to reproduce a Patronus? That…I don't believe that is possible, Harry…"

Harry laughed. "I've invented at least five different clusters that are supposedly impossible and I'm pretty close to figuring out another three. Hell this should be simple really. I'm not making anything new, just a rune to perform a spell. Three of my primary combat runes do exactly that with reducto, confringo, and diffindo. I'll probably try to supercharge it or something in case I'm ever swarmed and I should be able to do the spell itself at least somewhat proficiently to make sure that I get credit for it when it comes time for OWLs and NEWTs but the rune itself shouldn't be too hard."

Remus's jaw snapped closed. He started laughing. "You have your father's confidence and your mother's brilliance, Harry. Let's get started then, shall we?"