At the end of class Remus gave Harry a tired smile and Harry tried to return it on his way out the door, but couldn't manage.

"That was- interesting," Hermione said as they walked to Charms. Harry stayed silent.

"So you stayed with him last night Harry?"

"In the dungeons."

"But- doesn't he have his own quarters?"

"He slept on the couch. I'm going to stay in my room down there again tonight."

"What about your homework?" She'd been trying desperately not to say anything to Harry about it for days.

"He helped me finish it last night."

"Oh."

"I didn't cheat."

"I didn't say anything about it."

Harry felt irritated about the short exchange and resolved to keep his mouth shut for the rest of the day. He was feeling irritated rather a lot lately, and the more he felt irritated the more he wished for the dirt so that he didn't have to feel that way. He remembered what it felt like to take the dirt and feel as though he was walking on air. If only Devon was still around. He knew where all of the dirt grew out on the grounds. Harry didn't even try to stop himself from day dreaming about going out and finding asphodel for the rest of the day, and by dinner time his cravings were with him full force.

"Are you going to Quidditch practice tomorrow?" Ron asked him as he watched Harry eat the tiny bit of food he'd put on his plate.

Harry shrugged.

"It would be good to get your mind off of things," Ron suggested. "Hermione got on as backup, so she'll be out there with us."

Ginny, who'd been trying hard to give him space the last few days took his hand under the table from her spot beside him. "I think you should go," she said quietly, and he looked into her eyes.

"All right," he said quietly. For Ginny, he would go. If his father wasn't missing, he would have probably been engrossed in his budding relationship with Ginny right now, as he had that first few nights after Christmas holiday, but it felt wrong to feel happy now. Not when his father could be hurt, captured, or dead.

As he thought about the things that could have happened to him, he pushed the food around his plate and started to feel angry. This was all Sirius' fault. He'd gone and given away that Harry had a father. Then Harry had gone through an aweful lot to get close to him, and now his father was gone again. If Sirius would have just kept his big mouth shut, then Harry wouldn't be so worried right now... wouldn't be so upset over losing yet another father. James, Sirius, Severus. He still had Remus, his 'other' godfather, but he would lose him eventually too. He couldn't handle that. He couldn't handle this.

Standing up from the table suddenly, Harry kissed Ginny so she wouldn't think she'd done something wrong, and then strode out of the Great Hall without a word to anybody. Remus found him in the living room of his father's quarters angrily doing homework half an hour later. There were several crumpled pieces of parchment littering the floor.

"Need help?"

"No." Harry didn't intend to sound so short with Remus, after all, he wasn't mad at him, but he was mad overall with everything that had happened.

"Want to talk?"

"No."

Remus sighed and Harry looked up just in time to catch him looking like he wanted to say something before he turned to go down the hallway.

"Wait," Harry said, and Remus stopped.

"You were going to say something."

"It's not important."

"Please?"

Remus gave him a calculating look, as if trying to discern if Harry could handle the truth or not.

"I was going to say you're like Sirius. When you're upset, you push everyone away. You like your distance."

Harry felt bad for Remus then, knowing he'd had to deal with and take care of Sirius and was now having to deal with and take care of Harry, who was apparently just as difficult as Sirius to be around.

"How many people has Sirius lost?" Harry asked. He didn't want to be angry with Remus, but at the moment he would have been angry with anyone who was in the room with him, even Ginny.

Remus looked at him. "How- how many?"

Harry nodded.

"I-" he paused and never continued, and Harry was glad that he hadn't because he was afraid he'd say that Sirius had lost his godson, and Harry hated thinking of himself as the cause of others pain, even Sirius'."

"I know I'm not the only one to lose people," Harry said, deflating a little as he turned back to his homework, which had very sharp and dark handwriting scrawled angrily across the page. "But when it happens over and over... getting close to someone and having them snatched away... it gets old."

Remus sat down across from Harry as Harry stared at his parchment.

"I know it does, and I know that you're angry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"I made you."

"Harry, I wish I had words to make this better for you, but sometimes there aren't any words to say. What I can do is be here for you."

Harry rubbed his hand up the side of his face. Something he hadn't done in a long time. "It just- it sucked today seeing you in Potions and not him. I'm not saying you're a bad teacher, but-"

"I'm not your father. I know. I've been reminded of that all day by the Slytherins."

Harry gave a short, silent laugh then and shook his head. This was hard for Remus too.

"Listen Harry, just tell me what you need, and I'll be here."

With unexpectedly wet eyes Harry looked up at him then and said, "I wish you were my godfather."

"You don't mean that."

"Yes I do. All I was was a big disappointment to Sirius. That's why- that's why-" he didn't finish. He wondered if Remus really knew what Sirius did to him and Draco over the summer.

"Harry," Remus said quietly, and Harry looked away. "You were never a dissapointment to Sirius. He was disappointed with himself. I told you before, and I'm sure your father has told you too. What happened wasn't your fault."

They were quiet for a few moments, and then Harry closed his book on his homework and said, "I think I'm going to go to bed early. Ron wants me to go to Quidditch practice tomorrow. There's a game in a couple of weeks."

"All right. That sounds like a good idea."

Harry stood up and walked towards the hallway, and then stopped and said, "I meant what I said. It'd be nice to have a godfather like you."

Long after Harry went to his room and closed his door, Remus sat on the couch and fought with the conflicting emotions inside his chest. He swelled with pride to know Harry thought so highly of him, and at the same time felt sad that the relationship between Sirius and Harry seemed to be permanently broken. Sirius hadn't been exactly clear on what all he'd done to Harry to make him run away, but he had told him he'd given Harry a black eye. Sirius had always had a short temper, even in school, and that had often led to trouble. He wished that somehow time could be turned back so Sirius and Harry could have a second chance. Since that wasn't possible, he knew he would be whatever Harry needed him to be. Harry was right. He'd unfairly lost too many people... too many parents and would be parents

In Harry's room, Harry sat at his desk with a new piece of parchment and quill, and penned a short letter to Sirius.

Sirius,

I hate you. You gave me my father just so he could be taken away from me again. He's not coming back.

Harry didn't write for Sirius not to write back this time, because he half hoped he would so he could have an excuse to spew out more angry, hurt words at him. Words he couldn't spew out at his friends or Remus. Remus who was not his god father, and who was not his father, and never would be. Harry stood and turned and kicked his mattress hard and then fell face first onto it. He hated this life and he hated being him. Why had his father gone to that meeting in the first place? Why couldn't he have just stayed behind? As he drifted off into a less than peaceful sleep, Harry felt not good enough, like he had felt at the Dursleys and in the weeks after he'd run away from Sirius. If he had been good enough, his father would have stayed, and would be there now. If he was good enough, he wouldn't be Harry Potter.

* * *

Quidditch practice hadn't been good for Harry like Ron had said it would. He couldn't concentrate to find the Snitch because his mind was irratic and his palms were sweaty. He felt like he had when he was first having withdrawls from the red dirt, and his heart kept fluttering in his chest, as if it were beating too fast. Harry stuck it out through the hour and a half practice, but he practically ran out of the Quidditch pitch, not bothering to change or answer to the worried calls from his friends. He ran to the lake and finally slid with his back down a tree at the water's edge. What was wrong with him? He was anxious and felt like nothing would be right ever again. It could be, he thought frantically, if he could find some asphodel. Was he having some kind of episode related to the dirt? His father hadn't said that anything like this would happen, and he wasn't around to ask, but these thoughts only made Harry feel more panicked. He wiped his sweaty hands on his pants and tried to slow his breathing, because the faster he breathed the less oxygen he felt like he was actually getting.

"I know you don't want me to do it," he said to his father who wasn't actually there, "but I'm not all right like this." He clenched his eyes shut tight and burried his face in his knees, trying to block everything out. Just breath. There's nothing wrong with you. You don't even know where there's asphodel anyway. It's not like it's the full moon and you can go get some. Breathe. Breathe.

Harry didn't know how long he sat there, but eventually his heart rate slowed, his breathing evened out, and his hands stopped shaking (he hadn't even realized they had been until they stopped). He didn't know what had happened, but he never wanted it to happen again. He knew that if he could have asphodel right then, he would have taken it without a second thought.

He stared out at the lake, and minutes ticked into hours. Finally he felt steady enough to get back up and walk to the castle. He was glad it was Saturday because he didn't have any obligations aside from Quidditch. Tomorrow would make a week that his father had been gone. A week since he could have been captured, or dead. Or maybe he just got tired of Harry and ran away from him, like Harry had run from Sirius. As he neared the castle, his palms and forehead began to sweat again, and he felt shaky. He didn't bother going to the Great Hall where dinner was being served, and instead went right down to his dungeon quarters.

As soon as he opened the door, Remus was at his side.

"Harry. What happened?"

Harry wiped the sweat out of his eyes with his hand and hurried to the couch before his legs buckled. Remus sat beside him.

"Harry, you're shaking. What happened at Quidditch? Your friends said you raced out of the Pitch when practice was over."

"Nothing happened at practice. I was just- like this. I went to the lake and it stopped after awhile."

Remus looked him up and down. "Are you anxious?"

Harry gave him a look and nodded as he held onto one hand with the other, trying to get his hands to stop shaking.

"You're having an anxiety attack."

Harry shook his head. No. It had to be the asphodel.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's understandable given what's been going on in the last week."

"You said, you'd try to give me what I need," Harry said, trying to slow his breathing again.

Remus nodded. "Yes."

"I need you, to find someone to stay with me and keep me inside on nights with the full moon."

"I don't-" he paused and stared at Harry, mouth open slightly. "Harry- you weren't- bitten?"

Harry shook his head.

"Then what?"

"Sirius didn't tell you what I wrote in the first letter to him?"

"He wouldn't let me see it, no."

"And the Headmaster, he didn't tell you?"

"Harry, you're going to have to give me more help than that."

Harry wiped the sweat out of his eyes again and said, "I- I was messed up after Sirius. And after you came. I felt like a bad person. I was tired of being me. An older student sold me something, and I took it, because I wanted to feel good." Remus didn't know, and Harry hated telling him. It would break all trust Remus had in him like it had his father's, and it had taken Harry so long to get his father's trust back. Even now, Harry wasn't certain his father did trust him. But without him there, and the cravings as bad as they were, and now these panic attacks, he needed someone to help him with this. Someone who knew, and he'd rather it not be the Headmaster.

Seeing that Remus was listening intently and waiting for him to finish, Harry said, "I know you can't be with me on the nights with a full moon, but you have to get someone to stay with me, or else I'm going to go out onto the grounds and look for asphodel."

"Cub," Remus said softly, and he put his hand on the back of Harry's head and pulled him in for a sideways hug.

Still in the hug, and still shaking, though not as bad as he had been a few minutes ago, Harry said, "When I wrote to you and told you I hit my dad over the head with a book... I wasn't just sick. I was trapped here, going through withdrawls. He said I might have them for life... and they haven't gone away completely yet. That's why I wanted to learn to transform. I wanted something to keep me busy so I didn't have to think about it. And then I found out that when I transform, I have no cravings for it at all."

"And you're having them now?"

Harry nodded. "It's like it was before, the first few days after it was all out of my system. I think about it all the time. And the full moon is coming, and if there's not someone here, I'm going to go out there to find some."

"It took a lot of courage to admit that Harry, and I'm proud of you for it. Strong men and women everywhere have been unable to resist Asphodel, and have been unwilling to even try to stay away from it."

"He- my dad- he didn't want me to do it again."

Remus nodded. "Neither do I. Do you have a preference for who stays with you?"

"No one really knows. Professor Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey know."

"Madam Pomfrey will be with me for the upcomming full moon."

That just left Dumbledore, and Harry still hadn't forgiven him yet for the things he'd said at the end of summer about staying with the Dursleys. He'd made Harry feel like it had been his fault all over again for what had happened with Sirius, and then he'd searched him and Ron when they were caught out late at night with brooms, like Harry was a criminal.

"You look like you're not pleased with that option."

Harry shook his head. "No- if he'll stay with me, that'll be ok."

Remus put his hand on top of Harry's hair and gave it a light tossle. "Lets get you something to eat and get you into bed, and then I'll go talk to the Headmaster. The full moon is just a few days away. I don't have access to the potion I usually drink, so there's some other arrangements I need to make with him as well."

Remus made Harry a sandwich and poured him a tall glass of milk and told him he'd feel better if he ate all of it (and Harry did), and then took him to his room and saw that he climbed into the fourposter bed.

"We'll talk about the anxiety attacks in the morning. Do you want a calming draught to help you sleep tonight? Your father seems well stocked in them."

"No, I think I'm ok now."

"All right. I'll be back soon. Try to get some sleep."

Remus left, and Harry closed his eyes, but he woke soon after he'd fallen asleep, becuase his dreams were filled with a funeral for his father. A funeral without a body to bury.