Thicker than Water (Marauders Era) PART II

10 August, 1995 - Complicated (II)

Lavinia trailed Harry into the house without really knowing why she was doing it. She was reasonably certain, actually, that she should just go home because Harry very clearly did not want to be around her right now. Or possibly ever again.

But leaving felt too much like running and Merlin knew she had done plenty of that lately. And true, she knew it probably wouldn't be quite the same but... but it felt like if she left and went home, she was letting the doubts and fears and hurt win. Like she wasn't... trying. And she had promised to try.

Besides which, if she was entirely honest, Lavinia didn't really want to be alone right now. Because... well because the way Harry had looked at her, with such hate and condemnation... that was what she had been afraid of when she'd told him she was his godmother. That was what she'd been running from in the weeks prior and... and she'd thought she'd avoided it. Thought she had dodged the bullet and was in the clear now but... but she wasn't. She might never be.

It was almost funny to her, actually, in a slightly depressing way, that what Harry hated her for was her forgiveness. Not the pain she had caused him, not the abandonment or all the million things she had so often wished she'd never done. All the guilt that screamed at her on the bad days and bad nights. No, it was the one thing she had never hated herself for. It was her willingness to understand the pain someone else had caused him. Her willingness to see both sides because... because she had lived both sides. Because she knew better than perhaps anyone else that nothing in the world could be drawn in black and white. People didn't just do things because they were pure evil. They did things for reasons. And sometimes the reasons were ambition or greed or... or other things that were less easily forgiven. But, at least in Lavinia's experience, more often than not, people did things out of fear and love and pain and that... that she understood. That she could forgive.

And she had never hated herself for that. For just about every other bit of who she was, yes, but... but this... She had never regretted her forgiveness. And she wasn't about to start. Because even if Harry hated her for it... it was hers to give. And no matter how much she cared about him, no matter how much she wanted to be in his life. To help him. To protect him. To love him.... No one, not even her godson, got to decide who was worthy of her forgiveness.

Besides, she reasoned, fully aware that she was just trying to make herself feel better, Harry was young. He hadn't experienced quite so much of the world. He hadn't lived or even seen both sides of the war. So of course he didn't understand that forgiveness. Because all Peter Pettigrew had ever done to him was hurt him. All Peter had ever been to him was a villain.

But Lavinia had known him as a friend. As a person. As who he was beneath all the fear and loneliness and pain. As someone she had cared very much about. Someone she had not been able to save.

And the rest of it... the suspicions she had not voiced, the realizations she had kept to herself... Well. That was harder to look past. Because she had hated herself for those. Many times. But she had learned to accept those mistakes. Because they had all been suspicious of everyone in those days and she... she had tried to save him. She had failed but... but she had still tried. And she knew what would have happened if she had told Dumbledore. Peter would have been torn apart. Outcast. Ostracized. And in a twisted way, that might have meant the war wouldn't have ended. So she had tried to save him herself. And she had failed, of course, but... but she had forgiven herself for that too. And Harry didn't get to say she couldn't do that either.

And not telling anyone about he guesses after Sirius had been arrested... well. She was right about that. It wouldn't have changed anything. And everything beyond that was between her and Sirius. And Remus. But not Harry. She could understand the boy's frustration, his annoyance and... and even his hate. But she would not let it turn into her own hate. She just... couldn't.