Basilisk Eyes

Chapter 127: Pine resin and cooking sherry

Harry sat on the wall of the keyhole garden in the center of the herb garden running his hands lightly over the lavender plants and inhaling their fragrance.

Professor Lupin had pulled over one of the rickety wrought iron chairs and was rocking back and forth on the uneven legs—gravel crunching underneath.

"Harry, you know there are bees on the lavender, right?" Professor Lupin asked.

"Yes—I can hear them." He didn't add that he could feel the miniature windstorms their wings stirred up as they moved around the blossoms... he wasn't worried about being stung... he even went as far as to consider that it might be a welcome distraction.

"Right. So, I owe you... well, a lot. An explanation to start."

Harry waited... he felt like he'd been waiting for nearly twelve years, though it had been less than a week since he met the Professor.

"Blimey. Harry. I..." Harry could hear Professor Lupin running his hands over his face and through his hair.

"Um. Where did you go... after... my parents were... killed?"

"What? Oh. Well, that's it... I really don't remember much. I mean, of course, I remember. It was one of the worst days of my life. Right up there with the day that I was bitten... "

Harry sucked in his breath. He felt a tingling in his arm—the memory of it being impaled by the Basilisk fang, the slicing stinging throbbing, the poison nettles of pain piercing his eyes. And then the creeping understanding of the irrevocable change that the sharp moment of agony rendered. The loss of his parents had been a lifelong ache that he was accustomed to—it wasn't a searing moment in his memory, but the bite... the bite... that he could understand.

"Everyone was celebrating—fireworks and parties everywhere—but my world had just fallen apart. All of my friends... every single one of them destroyed... one way or another... dead or worse."

"Worse? What's worse than being dead?"

"What's worse than being dead?" Professor Lupin's voice rose.

Harry thought of Alice and Frank Longbottom. Maybe that was worse than being dead. Being stuck in an in-between.

"I know it is hard to believe... but there are worse things than being dead. It wasn't just that my friends were destroyed—our entire friendship—everything before, every memory that I cherished, everything that I believed about them and myself was crushed to dust—it had all been a lie."

A thudding ache in Harry's chest that had been the size of a cherry stone was gaining weight and girth as he tried to wrap his head around this. He thought of his friendship with Ron—shaken as it had been by the changes forced upon him. Shaken, but not pulverized.

"But your friendship with my father and mother... was that a lie?"

"No, no. I didn't mean that. I have those memories... but I see them differently now. We had been deceived, taken in by a great actor. It has shaken my faith in my ability... to judge people. I thought I had... I thought I knew how to judge a person's character... but I... James and Lily... and Peter, too... we were wrong... about someone that we trusted with our lives. And with your life. Literally."

"So... it was Sirius Black? He betrayed my parents?" Harry had a hard time aligning this revelation with the boisterous, laughing boy who always had an arm slung over his father's neck. The clammy, nervous boy who hung around in the corners... he'd been the one Harry had a weird feeling about when he felt his form in the photographs. "It wasn't Peter?"

"No. It wasn't Peter. He killed Peter," Professor Lupin said with a hollow laugh that more of a sob. "Peter stood up to Si... to him—hunted him down... proved his Gryffindor mettle more than anyone could have ever guessed. Certainly, more than I ever... I have had to live with the regret, the shame for how I treated Peter... I never really accepted him. Sure, he was our friend, but I never loved him as I loved James and... well, that's just something I have to..."