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What it comes down to	By : melinda1293 Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 115219 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 7
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 38
- 39
- 40
To my readers,
I just wanted to let you all know that I have not abandoned this story, or fallen off the face of the Earth. In truth, I’ve been struggling with this next chapter for quite some time and my college load last semester was completely brutal which added to the delay. I also work full time and have two children (three if you count my husband) so I was a bit overwhelmed.
I was about 7,000 words into the chapter, still not happy with it, but then the worst happened. The file got corrupted and I lost everything! I know you’re calling me an idiot for not having a backup, and I can’t deny it. I’ve berated myself over and over if that helps. I’ve had it happen to me in the past and I’d started saving copies elsewhere, but I guess I got lazy. Anyway, I probably spent another two months just too disgusted and pissed off to start over. There was a lot in this chapter that wasn’t coming together for me the way I wanted, but there was a lot of stuff I was generally happy with, too, if I could have managed to pencil whip it into shape. The idea of starting the damn thing over was just daunting and depressing.
The good news is that I have concluded my mourning and self flagellation finally and have started over at last. I can’t say how long it will take me because I’m finding it just as difficult this time around trying to shoe horn this stuff together , but I am working on it. So for now, this will serve as a placeholder for Chapter 39 and I will update it when I have it completed. Many of the ensuing chapters are already near completion. So they should follow more quickly once I get past this one.
Until then, since I’ve teased you into thinking that I’d finally posted the next chapter, I’m providing a sneak peak at a rough draft of one of the scenes in the chapter (unless I end up scrapping the whole thing and burning it! - JK). It’s told from Lupin’s point of view and Harry’s, set at Shell Cottage after the birth of Remus’ son.
Thank you for your continued support, reviews and encouragement. I truly appreciate them so please stick with me. We’re almost there!
Greycie

. . .
Remus walked out into the shadowed garden where Harry was standing beside Dobby’s grave. Everywhere, shoots of new spring grass were pushing up through the fresh soil to heal the wound and cover the ugly scar in its landscape. Beside the lichen covered, roughly carved headstone stood a jar of fresh sea lavender and a few large, carefully arranged shells from the shore as offerings to the departed. As Harry stared down at the marker, Remus could see his continued grief manifest itself in the droop of his shoulders and the bow of his head.
“I am deeply sorry that he died. He was immensely loyal to you.” Remus offered his condolences quietly as he came to stand next to his dear friend’s son who he’d come to know and love as his own.
Harry just nodded while Lupin put a hand to his neck and squeezed consolingly.
“He did a magnificent job caring for you, Harry. You look so much better than the last time I saw you, particularly since you did something with that hair.” Smirking slightly, he ran his hand up into Harry’s dark locks, tugging on a clump of the recently shorn strands that stood up perpetually at Harry’s crown like his father’s had before him.
Harry’s lips pulled up into the briefest of smiles for a moment, but then it quickly faded.
“He was a dear friend to me, Remus. He saved all of us, and now he’s dead.” Hesitating, he looked up into Remus’ face with those beautiful emerald eyes that were so like his mother’s, yet even more striking framed by his father’s dark hair coloring and her fair complexion.
“You were right when you told me that the time for Disarming was over. It has been for a long time now, but I just couldn’t accept it. I had her wand, and still she killed him. She was aiming for me when she threw that knife, only she got him instead.”
“Were you injured?” he asked worriedly, looking Harry over as if searching for wounds through his clothes. His werewolf traits made his eyesight keener than most, but it could not penetrate through layers of fabric, and his nose had not alerted him to any concealed damage either. Harry appeared healthy, at least physically. All he smelled was sadness in his companion which was such a familiar scent on his newborn son’s godfather that he’d come to associate it with Harry, however much he wished it weren’t so. Sirius had the same melancholy scent in the last years of his life. Perhaps the mutual sorrow between the two of them was what had helped forge the deep bond they had for each other before that was ruthlessly taken from Harry too.
“Well, she tried to eviscerate me first, but she only managed to catch me in the thigh. It wasn’t bad,” Harry added when Lupin’s eyes grew wide with concern. “Hermione healed it. I’m fine, truly, but I couldn’t finish her before Dobby was Apparating away with us.”
A cold fury seemed to emanate from Harry then, chilling the air around them perceptibly. The sharp odor of hatred and regret stung Remus’ senses before it curdled back into sadness, tinged with shame.
Remus had a sudden image of Harry on his bed in Grimmauld Place, head down, hands in his lap, his hair standing up comically in every direction, as the bruising around his eye darkened.
“Everyone is dying because of me,” he heard Harry’s anguished words echo again in his ears.
Merlin, life had been cruel to James and Lily’s son. How he wished they had lived to see him safely grown. How different would Harry’s life and Sirius’ have been if Peter hadn’t betrayed them all? How different his own? God he missed them, the ache more acute today from his inability to share with them the new miracle in his life. He was alone of the original Marauders, the lone survivor of that band of rebels because Peter didn’t count. Remus had once mistakenly considered him a friend, but he never had been. He’d finally shown himself as the traitor he was. The turncoat at whose feet the blame for the others demise truly lie.
“It’s not your fault, Harry,” Lupin told him bracingly as he stroked Harry’s neck with his thumb, knowing Harry was blaming himself for the elf’s death, struggling under the weight of one more burden he had no cause to carry.
. . .
Lupin’s thumb trailed along the back of Harry’s neck as he whispered lies meant to comfort while Harry again felt the horror of that day, at the other lives that might’ve been lost because of him. It could have been Ron and Hermione he’d watched die that day; instead, it was Dobby and Wormtail. And it was his fault. Lupin said no one was dying for him, or because of him, but Dobby did, and he would have to live with that forever.
He looked up at Remus then. “Peter is dead, too,” he blurted, realizing suddenly that Lupin might not be aware.
Remus was quiet for a minute. Then he nodded grimly. “Did you kill him, Harry?”
“No,” Harry answered softly, shaking his head. “I didn’t have to. He killed himself, but I would have. He was strangling Ron.”
Remus’ hand tightened on Harry’s neck, but he didn’t respond. To Harry, his silence felt like a remonstration, as if Lupin was struggling to keep the words, “I told you so,” from spilling out of his mouth. He looked down again, unable to meet that amber gaze.
“I should have let you and Sirius kill him that night in the Shrieking Shack,” he confessed guiltily. “So much would be different now if I had. So many lives spared. I caused great damage that day, Remus.”
“You showed him mercy, Harry. You gave him a second chance to redeem himself. He certainly didn’t deserve it for what he’d done to you, but you gave it anyway. I know what I said at the Burrow, but I was wrong then. I was afraid and worried for your safety and for my wife and the others, but I never should have told you to ignore your instincts. They’ve always served you well, and if I were a wiser man, I’d have remembered that before cursing you in anger when you next tried to set me straight. I regret that very much.”
Harry looked at him in surprise at the mention of that ill-fated visit before it turned to shame. “I’m sorry, Remus. I shouldn’t have said those—”
“No. Don’t apologize. I was a fool and you were absolutely right. Your father and Sirius would have agreed and used much more force than you did to knock some sense into me. Lily would have been on your side, as well, and done even worse to ensure I saw the error of my ways. She was uncommonly skilled with a wand,” he added ruefully. “After she finished with me, I probably would have been sporting a horse’s arse as a face so that my appearance would match my words. She always was able to keep the four of us in line. In truth, we were all a bit terrified of her.”
“Like Hermione.”
“Yes, like Hermione,” Lupin agreed.
Harry tried to stifle a snort at the image Remus had conjured, but couldn’t. Remembering the scene he’d witnessed in the Pensieve of his father and Sirius with Snape, he recalled how James had eyed Lily’s wand nervously and stopped taunting Snape. That is, until she’d ultimately given her permission and angrily walked away after Snape’s had called her a Mudblood. But then the levity left him when the thought of Snape called up the other images he’d seen of her in those moments in the dungeon as his former Professor had been assaulting him.
“Were you in love with her?” he’s shouted the next time they’d met in the woods, but Snape wouldn’t give him an answer.
“Listen to me, Harry. Don’t ever doubt yourself for what you did for Peter and Stan—”
And Snape, Harry thought. He’d let Snape live too. He had him on his back at the end of his wand, but couldn’t kill him. Ron had called him a coward for letting him go. Well, he hadn’t actually said it, but he certainly thought it.
“—and don’t ever resist the impulse. Mercy is a rare quality to possess for someone who has lost as much as you so young. You are not to blame for what Peter did with that gift. He chose to squander the clemency you bestowed on him, and so it was taken away.”
Harry nodded though he wasn’t sure he believed Lupin. He didn’t say it, but he wondered if there was any mercy left in his heart anymore. There might have been for Snape, but there certainly wasn’t any for Rowle, nor would there have been for Bellatrix. But Dobby’s death was a reminder that for every act of vengeance he took, another innocent’s life would be forfeit, and that was much too high a price.
“Why were you three in Diagon Alley?”
Harry looked up at him again in surprise, the unexpected query jerking him out of his thoughts. Then he raised his eyebrows in silent question of what Lupin knew while remaining resolutely mute.
“Bill has kept the Order informed,” Lupin admitted. “How else would I have known where to find you?”
“What else has he told you?”
“That you three are planning something, but he won’t divulge what those plans are.”
Harry nodded, the sudden knot of tension in his stomach easing somewhat with the knowledge that Bill had not betrayed their confidence to the rest of the Order to thwart them, despite his belief that this was another suicide mission Harry was leading his baby brother into.
“You won’t tell me either, will you? Does Bill even know himself?”
Harry stared hard at him. “Stay out of this, Remus. You have a wife and son that need you. Don’t make me goad you into hexing me again to get rid of you!”
Lupin’s face split into a sheepish grin. “All right, all right. I just worry for you three with good reason. You seem better, though, than when last we spoke. Are you coming to terms with all that has happened to you?” He asked hesitantly.
“I’m doing better with it, yes. I think in some ways, it took Dobby dying for me to finally come round. I won’t lie though, Mooney. It’s still a struggle every day.”
“It always will be,” Lupin replied sadly. “But despite all the bad in the world, there is still good, too. Still happiness to be had, even in the darkest of places…even for people like me, who don’t deserve it.”
“But you do deserve it, Remus,” Harry said earnestly. “You deserve to be happy with Tonks and your son.”
“You deserve it, too, Harry. More than anyone I know.”
Lupin pulled him into his embrace then with his hand across Harry’s back. Harry laid his head on Remus’ shoulder, his face against his neck. Feeling slightly drowsy from all the wine and heavy with the burdens he bore, he let Remus stroke the back of his head, allowing himself to take comfort from the last father figure left to him who, unlike Dumbledore and Sirius, was now truly a father in his own right, the proud parent of his own flesh and blood newborn son. It was a role, Harry believed, that Remus had been born to fulfill.
“You’re going to be a great father,” Harry mumbled into the collar of Lupin’s cloak.
Remus snorted. “We might never know. If I don’t get back home soon, Dora will have thrown me out of the house.”
“You’d better go then,” Harry advised, pulling back to look at Lupin. “Give her my love, okay?”
“I will, Harry,” Lupin promised, handing Harry his half-finished glass of wine before squeezing Harry’s shoulder again. “And I’ll see you soon. All right?”
“All right,” Harry agreed, nodding. “But bring pictures next time. I want to see what a beautiful child this godson of mine is.”
Lupin beamed with joy. The happiness radiating out of him made him look younger than Harry had ever seen him, and Harry felt suddenly older than he’d ever been. If Remus only knew the reckless man he’d named as godfather of his son, he thought. With the path he was on, Harry would undoubtedly be a more absentee godfather to Teddy than Sirius was to him. At least the little tyke had both his parents, and Lupin was close to Bill. He and Fleur would make fine substitutes in Harry’s absence, he decided.
- 38
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What it comes down to