Life is Fair (Where is that Written?)

Griphook prides himself on his discretion. Other goblins may be stricter, when it comes to the vaults; may have sharper eyes and shinier teeth, with which to threaten the vile scum who saunter in to gawk and goggle at the wealth of Gringotts’ fortune, but Griphook is a positively congenial teller, better at counting out coins with a reassuring smile than even Bloodgore. And she’s been working with the Black vault for the past hundred-and-fifty-seven years. 

(That Lupin fellow’s been dodging her missives for quite some time now.  Shame to see the mighty lose their touch.)

Griphook’s subtlety has been useful on more than one occasion, but he cannot think of a better use for it than here and now. 

After all, the Heir Potter wants no untoward eyes on his finances, surely?

—

Harry doesn’t know where this is. He’s gotten rather lost on the year three class trip to London Aunt Petunia couldn’t excuse him from. It’s not all his fault; his buddy, a pretty girl with braids down the length of her back named Aaliyah, won’t hold his hand for fear of Crazy Cooties, which Dudley insists are the reason Harry’s always doing freaky stuff. So Harry got separated from the group, and wandered a bit through an alley, and now he’s here. 

It’s pretty, of course. Mag-ni-fi-cent, like the palace kids at school talk about visiting with their parents. The Dursleys never went; Dudley would throw a fit. (Harry is quite proud of himself for using that word, mag-ni-fi-cent. He’d learned it in year two from a battered copy of The Princess Bride that Miss Patel certainly didn’t intend for him to see, but that Harry was unbelievably grateful to have found, even if she did make him sit out a week’s worth of recess for ‘stealing’ when he gave it back.)

(He sometimes rolls the words of it around in his mouth, passages he doesn’t entirely understand, but loves all the same. Gets pushed around by Dudley’s friends on the playgrounds and just barely keeps the words to the pain back behind his teeth, imagines that instead of a crash his parents were killed by a man with six fingers or no nose and one day he’ll face that man and show him the many-branched lightning scar on his forehead and snarl Hello. My name is Harry Potter. You killed my family. Prepare to die, and dreams, most secretly, that somewhere out there, somehow, there is a man in black who would tell him I love you in a way Harry might not hear, or at least take him away on a pirate ship to become the next Dread Pirate Roberts.

Harry wishes, maybe even more than that, in a secret dark place under all his thwarted romanticism, that someone might tuck him in and read this book to him, with all of the best parts and none of the bad. 

But wishing has never gotten Harry anywhere.) 

If Harry were writing a book, he would describe the place he is as, um, shiny and impressive. It’s got big high ceilings and windows that match, and the light from outside is, er, is falling in like a shower of stars. The high domed center of the building is the best, with a painting (a moving painting) running all around the inside of ladies and men with their clothes off and furry beasties (Aunt Petunia calls Harry a beast all the time, but these are real beasts) and the same short, serious looking men that sit behind the room’s tall, in-tri-cate  wooden desks, taller than even the adults here, even that man with the funny plum-colored tophat. 

Harry has to know more. 

(Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True Love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. This could be the closest he ever gets to it.)

He steps up to the queue, because if there’s one thing a year three knows how to do, it’s wait in line, and passes the time until his turn with one of those funny men in funny suits by staring up at the painting on the ceiling. The people in it are jumping, dancing around in circles, and one of the ladies (she must have at least been Third Most Beautiful when she was alive) takes special care to keep in tow with a beastie that looks almost like a wolf, if one were to ignore that the wolf’s legs stretch too far for its body, and its snout seems full of far too many teeth. Harry’s eyes keep drifting back to the lady and her wolf, her red hair drifting in the breeze and his tongue lolling in puppyish joy. Something about them is almost, almost familiar. Something about them makes the back of his eyes itch. 

“Next!” 

Harry’s head jerks to find that one of the men in suits is glaring impatiently at him. His shoulders hunch around his ears almost involuntarily, and Harry creeps forward until he’s a few feet away from the desk. 

Only, that seems to be the wrong thing to do, as now Harry can’t see the man at all, and can only wait, feeling more and more people start to look at him and notice all the ways he’s weird and freaky and bad until a little voice sounds from nowhere, “Please approach the Welcome Desk.” 

Harry glances around. There, where he previously thought there were just little em-be-lish-ing bits of bronze pummeled onto the intricate face of the desk, a tiny trumpet is peeking out. It prompts him again, “Please stand on the marble tile in front of the Welcome Desk.” 

Harry, not one to disobey Adults, even ones in funny suits, stands on the bit of white stone in front of the desk. 

To his astonishment, it begins to rise into the air, with him on it, until Harry is face to face with the man who called him up, now seeming a little calmer than before. 

Harry takes a moment to look at him. With his patchy hair and stuffy suit, he seems old in the way all adults do, but not unfathomably old like Mrs. Figg or Aunt Marge’s least favorite ex-husband. He’s got a bigger nose, but so does Harry, and at any rate, it wouldn’t be noticeable except for the silver jewelry stuck in his nostrils. He’s even got some in the bridge of his nose, real wicked twisted bars and a hoop that seems fastened with a big blue gem. His ears are full of piercings too, chains clinking and swishing with his every movement, and there’s a ring right in the middle of his lip that seems to hum with some extra special something Harry can’t quite place. 

Aunt Petunia would faint if she saw him, and he’s the coolest person Harry’s ever met. 

“Name?” He asks, not looking up from the paper he’s writing on with a feather. 

“Harry Potter,” Harry says, because that seems easiest and while he could swear the Dursleys taught Dudley something about ‘stranger danger,’ they also tell Harry at least once a week that he’d be returned from a kidnapping within the hour and they’d be glad for time away from him. Also so he can ask, “Where is this?” 

The man snorts faintly, which hurts a little, but not very much anymore. (Harry put a lot of work into connecting that name to himself. He was just Freak or Boy or You until year one, and then suddenly everyone expected him to know Harry, too? Unfair. Inconceivable. And then he learned Potter was his parents’ name, too, and if Harry is the last one, well. He should take care of it. Like his own Dread Pirate Roberts. Pass it on to someone worthy. And that’s a lot of pressure for a seven-and-a-half-year-old.) 

“I’m sure you are. Do you have a key?” He shuffles between his papers, which are an odd faded yellow color. Harry likes it. It makes them seem old. 

He shakes his head. Dudley has a key to Number Four, in case he ever gets home from school before Aunt Petunia finishes her shopping, but getting one made for Harry would be too much work and too much money, and besides, what would he do until she got home? He’s barely allowed anywhere besides his cupboard. 

“Well.” The man, who Harry is just now realizing he doesn’t know the name of, grins at him, pulling out a little sheet of paper and a small knife. It is not a very nice grin, and Harry is suddenly reminded of why he usually observes what little he can parse of ‘stranger danger’ as best he can. “I’m sure you wouldn’t mind providing blood proof, then.” 

Harry nods, eager to prove—er, he’s not sure what, exactly, but eager to make the man stop smiling like that, anyway. “And not to pry,” he says, as the man reaches across the desk and takes his hand, drawing the knife cleanly across the tip of Harry’s pointer finger. “But you never answered my question earlier. And, if you’d be so kind, what is your name?” 

The cut is far smaller than Harry used to get peeling the potatoes for dinner, and at any rate he hated the burns from the stovetop more, but it still bleeds quite a bit onto the paper, and the man stares at the droplets for a long while, chains swishing, until they sort of shift into something else. It looks like a name. 

As Harry is squeezing the cut closed, the man looks at his face for the first time. His eyes are dark, and bright, like obsidian or onyx. “This is Gringotts bank, Mister Potter,” he says, and if it weren’t so beautiful Harry would wilt at the mundanity, “And my name is Griphook.” 

When Harry returns to Number Four, Privet Drive at eight o’clock in the evening, five hours after his field trip was set to return, there are a great number of emotions all around. 

Wrath, at That Boy for mucking up Vernon’s evening television session with his no-good presence. Jealousy, because he was the one who left their trip, Mum, and he probably spent the time nicking stuff and making money and buying sweets, never mind the fact that Dudley stole sweet little Aaliyah Peterson’s Mars bar right out of her hand, and all her friend’s besides. And wrath again, but colder this time, and delivered from behind chewed lips as Petunia Dursley whispers vehemently that she and her boys will not stand for this delinquent behavior, you hear? Do it again and it’s the cupboard for you until summer, and not a word out of you. What if the neighbors saw? You’d have been better sleeping wherever you were, foolish boy. 

And, well. 

There is joy, too. Buried deep, deep under a layer of contrition and anxiety and probably some neurological response that people forty years from this day will call trauma. And that joy burns brighter than fire, and brighter than the Patronus Charm, and certainly brighter than some rather murky hacked-off chunks of soul energy. 

Because this joy is Harry Potter’s. Fought for, and hard won, by something as simple as a trip to the bank. 

It almost scalds him, under his too long shirt and close to his heart, where he’d tucked the bronze key Griphook pressed into his hand and warned him never to lose. (“I give you my word as a Spaniard,” Harry had replied, and Griphook had looked at him funny.)

He takes the cruel words and the crueler strikes round his ear—they are rather like a tax, to him, on this happiness; not, that he knows exactly what taxes were—and runs into his cupboard with them. 

It clicks and clacks shut, locked by Aunt Petunia’s hand, and finally, Harry’s shoulders relax. He shifts and shuffles on his cot, hands curled around his middle. Around the treasure he found in his vault. (He has a vault. And according to Griphook, on his seventeenth birthday, he’ll have more than one.) 

Slowly, slowly, Harry pulls the treasure from the safety of his middle. Twice, he has to bury it back in his chest, where no one, not even him can see it. 

(He had found it, like he imagines many people have found the best of treasures, tucked away in a corner of the vault. The pile of gold was interesting for maybe twelve point eight-seven-three seconds, but by then Harry had predicted, rather accurately, that shiny coins didn’t exchange very well for pound notes. And besides, the Dursleys would certainly notice if he started spending money all willy-nilly. 

So Harry began searching. Carefully, cautiously, the way the man in black climbed the cliffs of insanity, he wound his way around the vault, following, more than anything, a pattern that the light bouncing off his gold coins made across the wall. 

There were many a miraculous thing in his little vault, and Griphook was entirely kind to explain to Harry anything he wouldn’t understand, like the strange puffing knickknack on an old broken end table (“A divining smoker, Mister Potter”) or the blown-up giant newspaper plastered across the back wall (“A prank, I believe, by the former Lord Potter. Notice the headline? Your grandfather invented Sleekezys. This was the day they broke one million bottles sold.”) 

It was almost a miracle Harry found it at all. It was hidden in a little nook in the back, almost embarrassed to be there. Not that dissimilar to Harry at the Dursleys. 

But it was there, all the same—the small cardboard box of his parents’, and what he found inside.)

Finally, Harry (with that joy beating and stomping and wriggling wildly in his chest like an untamable horse) brings his treasure up to eye level with shaking hands. 

The cover of this copy, unlike Mrs. Patel’s, is glossy and almost perfect. It would be perfect, except for the corners are a bit worn, well-loved, and—

And. 

Harry traces the loopy handwriting on the yellow sticky note with shaking hands, almost unable to believe it. 

James, 

If you know what’s good for you, you’ll have these vows memorized before the wedding. 

And if that wasn’t enough, (it is, it is, cries a part of Harry that still shakes through thunderstorms when every bolt of lightning is tinged green) then below it, in spiky-smooth letters;

As you wish, Evans. 

Harry almost falls asleep staring at it, wondering if maybe, just maybe…

He only gets as far as opening the cover before another mystery unfolds before his eyes. A third type of writing, a small note from someone else. 

Lily, 

You mentioned missing muggle books at school, and I’ve been visiting my mother this month — ill again, if you can believe it — but I wanted to suggest this. Right trip to read at first, dunno what Goldman’s got, but effing funny at any rate. 

Don’t let James get you down, or Snape besides, and remember you’ve got friends in Gryffindor, too. 

See you after curfew,

Remus

Harry does fall asleep now, mind spewing theory after idea at him and his heart beating Lily, James, Remus. 

Before the wedding. 

As you wish. 

Wanted to suggest. 

Harry dreams of books coming alive in school hallways and boys presenting girls with novels that sing to them, and he does not dream of green light. 

There is no greater luxury to Harry than a book of his very own. Especially this one, which is covered front to back in multi-colored notes wondering what Fezzik stays with Vizzini for, and where Inigo spent his time before this, and whether or not Buttercup would be any good at Charms, whatever those are. 

Some of Harry’s favorite passages are the ones that have no notes at all, but have been highlighted, like the person reading before him wanted to remember them in their entirety. 

(Some of them are nice. Harry pours over the passages describing Westley and Buttercup’s love, tracing the neon yellow paper with his fingers and picturing the two of them, except Buttercup has red hair that falls in a curtain around her face, as Aunt Petunia once muttered while cutting his hair that at least Harry’s awful rat’s nest wasn’t red, like hers and the Westley had Harry’s brown skin and dark, frizzy hair. 

Some of them are not so nice. Harry looks at the passage describing Westley’s time under the Machine, blocked out in yellow highlighter that hurts his eyes, and swallows uncomfortably. He almost wishes he could go back to picturing Westley as someone else. 

Harry supposes a car crash must hurt terribly.)

Harry takes to carrying the book with him everywhere, even to the school library, (a place Dudley will never bother him, because Harry is not sure Dudley knows where it is) where Mr. Caldwell takes one look at him and exclaims, “Woah, there! You going to return your book in that state, kid?” 

Now. Harry does like Mr. Caldwell. Harry finds Mr. Caldwell to be almost as exciting as a particularly interesting writing assignment, and that is saying quite a lot, because before Harry had his book, that was all he had to look forward to in a given week. (Really, more surprising is that Harry is having an excellent week, and he is still really looking forward to Writing tomorrow.) 

But he does not take kindly to the idea that he is mistreating his treasure. 

So Harry says, “It’s my book, thanks. I’ll do what I like with it.” 

And Mr. Caldwell gets the look on his face that all adults do, the one that Harry’s learned to expect over the years. The look with the screwed-up brow and the pinched nose, nostrils flared. That definite pucker and purse to the lips. 

Mr. Caldwell says, “Is that right? So I suppose you won’t be needing the library again, if that’s how you treat my books,” and that hits right on Harry’s nerve. 

“It’s not yours,” Harry huffs, marching up to Mr. Caldwell’s desk and slapping his book on it. “It’s mine! And it was my Mum’s before, so you can just—just—” 

But Mr. Caldwell isn’t frowning more, and rearing up to throw Harry out the library and pull him by the ear down to Headmaster Tumpkin’s office. He’s just looking, wide-eyed, at Harry’s book. Confused, Harry watches as his eyes flit back and forth over the cover—he’s reading the note!

Harry bites his lip. He wants to pull his book back across the desk and run back to Mrs. Patel’s room, but that seems unlikely to get him out of this situation. Plus, he’s caught enough pull-too-hard-and-rip-the-page plots from Dudley’s television programs to know that this could all go terribly wrong if Harry isn’t careful. 

“Blimey,” Mr. Caldwell says, finally, pulling his eyes from Harry’s book and to his face. “That’s—your parents wrote that, Potter?”

Harry nods, picking at the lip of Mr. Caldwell’s desk nervously. 

“I see.” Mr. Caldwell pushes Harry’s book just the slightest bit towards him and turns back to his own novel. “They must have loved each other very much.” 

Harry nods again. “Er,” he says, not exactly knowing how to proceed now. “I had a question.” 

Mr. Caldwell blinks. His eyes are a little too big for his face, a dark brown that reminds Harry of weeding flower beds in August. “About the book?” 

“Sort of.” Harry shrugs one shoulder, pulling the book back to him. “My parents died,” Mr. Caldwell gives him a look that Harry gets a lot when he talks about his parents, eyebrows all pinched in the middle, too-big eyes all droopy. It makes Harry feel itchy. “But this book was given to my Mum by a man named Remus, and I was wondering…” Harry trails off, abruptly certain all of this is stupid and he shouldn’t have come at all, even if he doesn’t have any idea where else to go, even if all the other teachers think he’s a bad kid on purpose—

“You want to know how to find him?” Mr. Caldwell asks, face clearing when Harry nods. “Well. Should be simple enough, once you narrow it down. Isn’t exactly a common name, now is it? Remus,” he chuckles. “Check the yellow pages, why don’t you. We have a few over in the Nonfiction Section, by the encyclopedias.” 

Harry says a quick thank you and hurries over, spending the rest of his recess pouring over directories with a mind full of sticky notes and highlighted passages. 

(You think Padfoot based his speech (Great Hall, March third, Sixth Year) on this one, reads that spiky handwriting over Vizzini describing the threatening Buttercup with shark frenzy. 

Absolutely, reads the reply. 

You see, it scribbles, in the middle of Buttercup’s first confession, this is like you and me all throughout Hogwarts, ‘cept instead of ‘do this, Farm Boy’ I really confessed my love!

Yes, the loopy handwriting responds. And ‘bugger off, Potter’ meant exactly what it seemed. 

The message is underlined by doodles of frowny faces and broken hearts, and one mournful Evans!

But underneath it, in the margin of the text, reads a small addendum, as if added by an abridger:

‘Bugger off’ in the fondest, most adoring fashion, of course.)

The directories at school have nothing in them. Nothing of interest to Harry, at least, although he does learn that in addition to the total lack of one single Remus in the surrounding township of Little Whinging, there is a small, dull management company under the name Remus Property Services. 

This, of course, means Harry has to find one in the public library, which thankfully is also in the Yellow Pages, and Harry copies it down with unwavering focus and attention. 

With his second-hand backpack full of his treasure, three and a half pencils (there used to be more, but Dudley snapped most of them when Harry came home with a hundred on his spelling test. Dudley got a seventy-five, and that was because he was cheating off Piers Polkiss) and a tattered notebook, he sets off on Saturday. The Dursleys are going out on some family trip and sending him off to Mrs. Figg’s, so Harry walks to her house and tells her they changed their minds. Therefore, because the Dursleys like Mrs. Figg to keep him overnight whenever possible, Harry is free until tomorrow morning. 

He stands on the corner of Magnolia Crescent, something in his chest strangely hollow. 

Somehow, he didn’t think it would be that easy. 

What does it say about Harry, that twice in the past two weeks he’s given everyone in his life the slip, and no one seems to care overmuch? Is he that unpleasant, that everyone hurries past him and breathes a sigh of relief when he finally turns the corner? 

It’s not fair, Harry thinks, balling his fists on Wisteria Walk, and trying to ignore the way his lip is wobbling as his eyes burn. It’s not fair at all. 

Who says life is fair, he remembers dimly after a moment, where is that written? 

Okay, Harry thinks, wiping his nose where it’s started to drip on the hem of Dudley’s old shirt and shaking out his hands, frowning at where his nails, jagged from the weeding Aunt Petunia had him doing this weekend, cut into his palms. Okay. He’ll get to the library, somehow, and look through their Yellow Pages, and find his mother’s Remus, and meet him somewhere, maybe London and maybe that strange bank with Mr. Griphook, and then…

Then Harry will ask this Remus, his mother’s Remus, the same way Buttercup asked Westley after figuring out her own love and with more dignity, too, if he could do anything to earn his love. 

Maybe he won’t phrase it like that. But still. 

Once he finds his mother’s Remus, Harry will know if he should just give up now. 

He sets off in the direction of greater Surrey. 

The Central Branch of Surrey Public Library is big, and beige, and a little bit dusty. The walls are high, and the skylight set into the ceiling makes it feel cozy and warm. 

Still, after what feels like hours of searching, Harry is a little frustrated. He’s got a list the length of his arm of Remuses Kennedy, Hopkins, Clarke, Clark, and Ash, not to mention Lupin . He had to ride in a strange lady’s car to get here, and then run away once her pursed lips and furrowed eyebrows culminated in her talking at Harry in a too-soft voice about the nice people at NSPCC and are his parents treating him alright? He seems awful thin, poor dear. It was almost funny. 

Harry’s parents haven’t treated him better for years, thanks. 

He’s taking a well-deserved break from Listing by re-reading the fight atop the Cliffs of Insanity when he feels somebody’s eyes on him. 

Harry whirls in his seat. 

There’s a girl in a pod of seats next to him, staring at Harry like he’s personally offended her. Her hair adds a good foot and a half to her height, it’s so poofy. 

Harry stares back at her through his smudged glasses lenses, wishing he could ever get them clean. 

Finally, the girl turns back to her own book, which Harry notes with some envy is much smaller than the Yellow Pages, although not much thinner. 

Harry turns back to his book, but his focus is shot. He can’t picture the man in black trailing Inigo across rocky steps, he’s too preoccupied with catching the girl staring at him from across the room. 

Finally, he snaps, picking up all his stuff (and leaving the Yellow Pages, which he is still cross with for giving him Remus Dixon as an option) and marching up to her, demanding, “What do you want?”

She squeaks at him, eyes widening as she holds her book in front of her defensively. “W—what do you mean?” 

“You keep staring at me,” Harry snips. “Why?” 

She averts her eyes, fidgeting with the spine of her book. Harry watches something flicker in her expression, before she sighs and says, “Not many kids visit the nonfiction section of the library. Less, Adult Nonfiction. I’ve never seen anyone go for the periodicals.” She meets Harry’s eyes again, then looks back down at her shoes. “I was just curious.”

“Oh.” Harry blinks, taken aback. His face heats. She hadn’t meant to upset him, she just didn’t know what he was doing. “Well, I, er—I’m writing a list.” 

“A list?” She repeats, brightening. “A list of what? I’ve a few lists of my own at home, mostly on Ways to Improve the School System—” Harry can hear the capitals in her tone— “But a few on NHS budgeting, as well. A list of things you can only find in the Yellow Pages must be interesting, what did you say it was on again—oh, I’m so sorry to be rude, just—” she hops out of her seat and offers the hand not holding her book to him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Hermione Granger. And you are?” 

Harry takes her hand and says, without thinking, “No one of consequence.” 

And something magical happens, for (not, technically) the first time in Harry’s life. 

Hermione Granger laughs. Not cruelly, the way Dudley and his friends do when they catch Ickle Harry, practicing for pouf theater. She laughs like she gets Harry’s joke. 

“I must know,” she answers, and Harry could swear he falls just a little bit in love with her right then and there. Just a grain of sand in a universe of beaches. 

“Get used to disappointment,” he says. Then, “Harry Potter.” 

Harry and Hermione spend the rest of the school year meeting up at Surrey Public Library, getting nowhere fast with their list. By the start of summer, the List is almost as long as Harry is tall, and they have yet to find a way to narrow it down. 

Hermione, when finished with her third rant about NHS budget cuts this week, (she’s recently discovered the lack of public transport available in Little Whinging, unlike the more metro area she and her parents live in. But Harry’s recently discovered the existence of a triple-decker bus that can take him anywhere he’d like to go and doesn’t charge for ‘sprogs under thirteen, so what’cha waitin’ for, then?’ so it’s all working out) thinks he should ask his Aunt. “I ask my parents when I don’t understand things,” she reasons. “Why shouldn’t you?”

(Hermione, as a note, is unaware that at a pristine eight-and-five-eighths-come-Thursday, her parents have recently begun dreading her questions, as they have reached such velocity and specificity that two dentists who took A levels in Medicine and science and not Ancient Greek are nigh incapable of answering them without contacting Oxford. She will not remain unaware of this for long.) 

“I suppose I should,” Harry sighs, put-upon. “It’s just I don’t feel like being locked in my cupboard till August.” 

Hermione purses her lips. (Hermione, as a note, is aware that little boys should not be locked in cupboards ever. She’s working on it.) “No, I think not. But where else can you go?” 

Harry stares at the table. He doesn’t want to admit it, especially not to his new friend, but he hasn’t got anywhere. It’s just been the Dursleys, as long as he can remember. 

Maybe once, a long time ago, his mother’s Remus would have answered his questions, but now he’s gone. 

To his horror, Harry feels tears welling in his eyes. He swipes at them as unobtrusively as possible. New to having friends he may be, but Harry’s pretty sure you’re supposed to have fun with them and make them laugh, not start sniveling like an ungodly freak —

Harry hears a soft gasp from behind him, and then all of Hermione’s eight-and-howevermuch-old weight hits him from behind, softly. She’s about a head taller than him, so it’s quite a bit, when not compared to Dudley. 

She rubs her hand up and down his back, a little too hard, and adjusts them until Harry can comfortably hide his face in her soft jumper. He tries to swallow, to tell her he’s fine, and he’s sorry for crying on her, but Hermione’s making little panicked shushing noises. 

“It’s alright,” she’s saying, rather fast because Hermione is many wonderful things, but if she were in Harry’s favorite book she would more likely be the Count than Buttercup. “We’ll take a break, and look at some books on—on the etymology of your Remus’ name, and then we’ll rule out any names that seem too plain, your parents would understand, and anyone who seems too silly,” here, Hermione’s disdain is clear, and Harry finally laughs. 

She lets go of him reluctantly, if stiffly, and Harry catches her hands in his. “Thanks,” he says. “Really.” 

Shoulders hunching around her ears, Hermione shrugs. “Don’t mention it,” she mumbles, flushing. 

“I’m going to.” 

“You’re strange,” Hermione sticks her tongue out at him. 

“I wouldn’t want to change,” Harry grins. 

Rolling her eyes and yet unable to completely hide her smile, Hermione leaves their table, heading off toward the 400s shelves, Language and Linguistics. “I’m leaving you alone, now,” she calls over her shoulder. 

Harry gets up and rushes after her. “I should be getting home, anyhow!” 

As Hermione gets on her tiptoes, looking for a suitable title, she scoffs at him. “Honestly, Harry, I don’t know why you bother going back there. My parents would be happy to have you, they love you.” 

Harry puffs out his cheeks, trying to hide his discomfort now their game is gone. “I wouldn’t want to impose,” he says, which is half-true. 

Really, Harry doesn’t want whatever he’s done to Mr. and Mrs. Granger to make them like him to wear off too soon. 

(Harry’s not stupid, no matter what the teachers whisper about his missing assignments Dudley tore up or the smashed windows he blames on Harry. He knows he’s a lot of trouble (and work, and freaky stuff, and money ) for his Aunt and Uncle. He doesn’t try to be, but somehow, all his strangeness knows the exact times to burst out to make everything as bad as it could be. And maybe it makes him selfish, but Harry doesn’t want the Grangers to find that out before they have to. It’ll be bad enough as is. 

Maybe when he finds Remus, Harry can ask why.)  

“Ah! This looks promising,” Hermione exclaims, pulling a book entitled 10001 Baby Names Beginning with R off the shelf. 

They trek back to their spot happily, pushing the phone books to the side and turning to a fresh page in Harry’s journal, which Hermione writes ‘REMUS’ at the top of in her neat, blocky handwriting. 

Harry watches her flip through the baby book, his mind drifting slightly as he crosses off Aabid, Ashby, Butler, Clark, and Clarke . Where else can they go to find his mother’s Remus? It’s not like Harry knows where his parents used to live. The only things he knows about them are their names, that they loved his favorite book, and they have a vault at—

Harry slams his head into the table just as Hermione remarks, “Oh, that’s interesting. Romulus and Remus were the founders of Rome, did you know that, Harry? They were also raised by a she-wolf, so you can cross Lupin off the list, as it’s obviously a fake name—is something wrong?” 

“Hermione,” Harry groans. “I am a fool.” 

“No,” Hermione disagrees absently, “We haven’t gotten involved in any land wars in Asia.” 

“No!” Harry glares at her, before rubbing his face where his glasses dug into the bridge of his nose when he hit the table. “I know where we can go to vet our List.” 

The second time Harry enters Gringotts bank, he knows what it is. 

Hermione isn’t as dazzled by all the sights around them, walking with single-minded determination toward the line as she is, but she has kept up a rapid-fire stream of questions in his ear since they got on the Knight Bus. 

Harry is getting very good at using the Knight Bus. He doesn’t even accidentally ride it all the way to Ynysawdre when they take that strange left over the side of a building in Soho anymore. Stan is even starting to talk about taking him on as an apprentice in a few years, provided he learns how to say all of the Welsh towns before then. Harry practices a lot. 

Hermione didn’t like it as much as Harry thought she might, but that’s okay. 

“And you’re sure we won’t get caught breaking the speed limit?” She’s asking as they slide up to the back of the long line of bank patrons, right behind a gaggle of red-headed kids and their overtired-seeming father. “I know for a fact we didn’t dip below ninety-five on some of those back roads, and I am not being caught up in a police investigation before I run for office.” 

Hermione has told Harry repeatedly in the past few weeks that when she grows up, she is going to be the Prime Minister because see if I let Britain’s only female PM be that horrible Thatcher. Harry has told Hermione that she has his vote, and also three passengers have given them alarmed looks so far because her voice is quite loud when she gets going. 

“No one saw us,” Harry says. “Last week I had to wait thirty minutes before the bus came because my neighbor wouldn’t stop talking to me. If someone was going to see us, it would’ve turned invisible.” 

Harry still doesn’t know what quality the bus looks for when deciding to appear or not, only that when he brought Hermione aboard, Stan cocked his head at them a long while, smacking his gum, and said, “Found another one, eh sprog? Good on you, then,” before shouting for the driver to take off. 

“Fine,” Hermione huffs. She has a long overcoat on, like a character in one of the old detective novels Harry found at Surrey Public Library that they both giggled over during their breaks. She’s really good at solving the mystery, where Harry’s better at pointing out how all the people echo each other across the pages. “Where is this again?” 

Right. Harry clears his throat. “Welcome,” he says, gesturing around at the white marble and tall windows, “to Gringotts bank.” 

Hermione keeps glancing around, brow furrowed in that way of hers where she looks judgemental but is actually only really confused and curious. “A bank? Why’s it so…” 

“Opulent?” Harry offers. “Effervescent? Magnificent?” 

“... Ornamental,” Hermione decides, looking none too impressed. “Banks are modern. Clean. Rectangular, generally speaking.” 

“But that’s the best part!” Harry argues, shuffling forward with the line as he points toward the spiraling columns and domed ceiling. “It would be so boring if everything was clean. Look at the windows! Griphook told me last time that they’re charmed to be unbreakable, and the tapestry, up there—” Harry glances up to the familiar woman and her equally familiar wolf— “It shows what kind of, er, wealth, is here today. Look, see—that lady,” he points her out to Hermione, whose eyes go wide, as if she hadn’t noticed her at all. 

(Hermione is Harry’s first and only friend. Sometimes he worries that she doesn’t look up enough.) 

“She represents, um—Intelligence. Ambition and—and, er…” Harry trails off, Griphook’s calm (if sparse) lecture slipping away from him at the moment.

“Strategy.” 

Harry and Hermione whip their heads to the new voice. A bit of Hermione’s hair gets caught in Harry’s mouth. Harry’s glasses very nearly fly off his head and hit Hermione in the eye. 

The speaker, a boy their age with the same red hair as his siblings, looks taken aback. Admirably, he swallows and stands his ground. “Um. You guys are talking about Antares?” He points straight up. 

Harry nods stiffly. 

“Yeah,” the boy says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “You were mostly right, but the main thing Antares represents is strategy. She was, uh,” he looks at the ground, and Harry notices that the tips of his ears are very red. “She was the star I was born under, so I know. Uh. Yeah.” He settles back, and then hastens to add, “I’m Ron.” 

Harry shares a look with Hermione. She trusts him on things like this. 

He nods. 

“Fascinating,” Hermione says, stepping forward. “What about the wolf?” 

“Oh, uh—” Ron glances up at it, expression open in clear shock at being invited to talk to them more. “Romulus? I think he represents familial wealth. You know, new members, closer bonds, that sort of—” 

Hermione whirls to Harry. “Romulus! Harry, do you know what this means?” 

“We should play Euchre against your parents when we get back?” Harry ventures. 

Hermione smacks his arm. “It means we should bring Ron—” she waves a hand at him. Ron, for his part, looks baffled and pleased to be brought anywhere. “—to meet Griphook! Think about it: if what’s in the cards for today—”

“More like this month; they usually move pretty slow, unless something terrible happens,” Ron puts in, scratching his nose. 

“—Thank you, Ronald—if your familial wealth is meant to grow, and soon, but only in tandem with your strategy, and someone with a link to the star of strategy just falls into our laps, we have to take him!” 

“He’s not a book, ‘Mione,” Harry says. “We can’t just take him anywhere.” 

“I don’t mind,” Ron shrugs. “Beats playing chess against Percey for the fifteenth time this summer.” 

Harry turns to him. 

Ron looks nice. He’s got freckles and a nice, if worn, rugby shirt that looks like it fits him. Harry would like to be his friend, but neither Harry or Hermione have experiences with nice boys in nice shirts doing anything but pushing them or muddying their books. 

In a last-ditch attempt not to like him, Harry asks, “Won’t your family miss you?” 

“Eh,” Ron says, shifting on his foot. “Dad was born under Hadar—for spatial awareness, land wealth and all.” He gestures to the very small, very far away looking centaur across the ring from Antares and Romulus. “Probably won’t miss me.” 

“Next!” Calls the bank teller. 

“Okay, come on, kids,” Ron’s dad says, shuffling the lot of them to the front. “Yes, one moment, one moment, thank you. Arthur Weasley, if you don’t mind, yes I have the key right here…” 

Ron watches him go, something resigned settling into the slump of his shoulders. Only the two identical older boys, each with their father’s hand on their shoulder, notice. They wink at Ron in tandem. 

“See?” He says, turning back to Harry and Hermione. 

Harry gives up. “We’re looking for my mother’s friend,” he says in a rush. “Have you ever read The Princess Bride?” 

Ron winces. Another expression passes his face, this one very familiar to Harry. “I don’t read much,” he says, one of his hands coming out of his pocket to rub at his bicep. “All the letters and—it just doesn’t agree with me.” 

Hermione squints at him curiously, but Harry puts a hand on her arm. “That’s okay,” he says. “Hermione and I can read to you.” 

Pursing her lips at Harry, Hermione nods. 

“Next!” 

“That’s us,” Harry says, ushering Hermione and Ron toward the desk. 

“Dad usually—” Ron starts. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Harry says. “This part I’ve done before, it’ll be fine, just—here we are.” He nudges Hermione’s foot all the way onto the marble tile, then bends to the small trumpet. “Harry Potter, here to see his account manager?” 

Ron sputters. 

Harry frowns. He shares a glance with Hermione, but the marble lifts them face-to-face with an unfamiliar banker before either of them can ask. 

“Mr. Potter,” says the banker, and Harry sees they have three tongue piercings and two in their upper lip, which are connected by a wrought chain. “We are glad to see you again. Griphook will be here momentarily, if you’d provide your key?” 

“Harry Potter?” Ron babbles. 

“Of course,” Harry says, pulling it from under his shirt. It’s warm in his palm now from residual body heat, and as he hands it over he asks, “What’s your name? And can you tell Griphook we don’t need to see the vault right now, we just have a couple of questions?” 

“Harry. Potter.” Ron is saying behind his back to an unsympathetic Hermione. 

“Honestly, Ron, it’s like you didn’t butt into our conversation.” 

The teller blinks at him. “Durinn,” they say. “And of course, Mr. Potter.” 

“My name’s Harry.” 

“So it is.” They turn to the door that’s just creaked open behind them. “Griphook! Mr. Potter and—” with a glance to Hermione and Ron— “Company, to your office for questions.” 

Harry doesn’t know what Durinn’s face looked like when they said questions, but based on the way the word came out, he doesn’t like the implication. 

“But he’s Harry Potter,” Ron whispers desperately. 

“Obviously,” Hermione answers. “And I’m Hermione Granger.” 

They follow Griphook through the hallway with the torches, but instead of going down to the cart and the track, they take a sharp turn and come to a stop at a door that seems to have a nameplate on it, stamped with entirely nonsense. 

“What’s that?” Hermione asks with her ever present sharpness. 

Griphook looks briefly placid, like Aunt Petunia whenever Dudley’s tantrums reach a fever pitch and Harry knows that whatever he’s saying just doesn’t reach her, and then he says, “A nameplate. Because Gringotts is Goblin-owned, most of our signage is in Gobbledegook.” After a moment, he adds, in that same placid tone, “The language of Goblins.” 

Hermione looks like she has more questions, and so does Harry for that matter, but Ron seems about to whistle like a tea kettle if they spend one more moment out here, so they let Griphook usher the three of them into his office. 

They—they being Harry and Hermione, as co-writers of The Remus List—take the two chairs on one side of Griphook’s desk. They’re some sort of wrought metal, like most things in Gringotts proper. Griphook takes the chair on the other side of his heavy iron desk decorated with gold flakes and notches holding a continuously moving liquid that might be silver. His chair looks very cushy; it’s a deep maroon inlaid with more gold bits. 

Ron looks around for another chair and then shrugs and sits on the floor with his brow furrowed in thought, his back to the cheerily crackling fireplace. Momentarily, Harry wonders how the room isn’t melting them all, and then his attention is abruptly stolen when Griphook says, “Now, what is this meeting about?” 

Harry jumps into action, pulling the relevant items out of his rucksack. He and Hermione planned this very carefully, for all that Ron was a surprising add on. It’s two weeks into summer, and Hermione’s parents are at some sort of dentistry convention that means she’s being watched by a Great Aunt who’s mostly deaf and prone to losing her bifocals, the only things keeping her from being declared legally blind, on the top of her head. In Hermione’s expert opinion, the only thing that could possibly alert her to Hermione disappearing for the weekend is an absence of great mountains of curled hair and questions about the house, which she’s solved by affixing her Mum’s old mops to various swathes of countertop and couch and putting an old record of one of her parent’s lectures from Uni on repeat. 

Harry, who distrusts Aunts of any kind, great or otherwise, thinks this is brilliant. 

All he had to do was say Mrs. Figg wanted him for gardening this weekend. Aunt Petunia just huffed and demanded he finish the Dursleys’ first. 

“Do you remember my last visit?” He asks, putting The List on the table, freshly recopied on a new page of Harry’s rapidly filling spiral notebook in order of most to least likely. He places his treasure immediately beside it with no small amount of reverence. 

“Vividly,” Griphook says, extending a hand toward The List. When Harry nods, he pulls it toward himself and fishes a pair of glasses with about five of those little extra lenses people can flick down when looking at jewels and the like. Harry doesn’t know what they’re called. 

Griphook doesn’t flick the lenses down, though. He just puts on the glasses and waits for Harry to continue. 

“Have you ever read The Princess Bride?” Harry asks. He tries not to think about how Griphook was right next to him when he found that box of his parents’ stuff, how he probably saw Harry burst into happy tears as soon as he touched it. 

“I do not read Gaian’s novels if I can at all help it, Mr. Potter,” Griphook says. “But as this one was written by a Friend to Goblins, yes.” 

“What?” 

“Friend to Goblins, Mr. Potter,” Griphook repeats. “Not that it matters much for your purposes, but, though he is Gaian, Mr. Goldman once held a pewter ball bearing intended for the Goblin Queen’s Court for two years continuously, in so doing allowing for Her Nastiness to vanquish her foes twice as effectively and, yes, earning himself the title of Friend to Goblins.” 

Hermione makes a noise rather like the chipmunks Harry finds in Aunt Petunia’s gardens sometimes. Right pompous things, chipmunks. Or at least so the snakes say. 

“But I digress.” Griphook meets Harry’s eyes through his glasses. It’s rather unnerving. “I understand from your last visit, Mr. Potter, that you’re rather fond of the novel. So I am understandably confused to find you returning to my place of business with not a query of wealth, but a list of names.” 

Harry nods. His stomach is churning rather industriously all of a sudden. “Right.” He swallows thickly. “Well, I—I was reading it, and, er, I wanted to—that is—” 

Hermione, ever his savior, jumps out of her chair and blurts, “We’re looking for Harry’s Remus!” 

Griphook blinks. “Pardon?”

“His Remus,” Hermione emphasizes, gesturing for Harry to help her. He lurches to his feet, careful of Ron, who is sitting criss-cross-applesauce and watching the proceedings with interest, and opens the book hastily to Remus’ note. “The book is his mothers’ and it’s all he has left of her and Remus gave it to her and please, sir, Harry needs his Remus, so if you could tell us anything about him or look at our list and tell us which one it is, well, we’d really appreciate it!”  

Griphook looks between them, eyebrow arched. “Is that so?” 

Harry nods. “Yeah, sir. I’d—yeah.” 

Griphook is silent and grave for a moment, looking between their List and the note with a stone face before he sighs and removes his glasses. 

“As it happens,” he says, sounding older than Harry’s heard anyone sound in his life, “I do know a Remus. Not one on this list, but definitely a step in the right direction for you three.” 

Harry’s heart soars. They’re so close!

“What’s the catch?” 

Griphook meets Ron’s gaze steadily from where he’s risen from his cross-legged position on the floor, shoulders pushed back in a defiant posture Harry’s only read about in books. He’s never seen anyone look so sure. 

Ron’s taller than Harry and Hermione, and he’s also taller than all the bankers here. Probably because they’re Goblins. 

“I’m afraid, Mr. Weasley,” Griphook says flatly, “That as a Gringotts banker, I cannot give out additional information about my patrons. Especially those who haven’t yet negotiated their inheritances.” 

Harry frowns, but Ron’s expression clears like he got something out of that which, after a glance with Hermione, Harry knows neither of them did. 

“Did he go to Hogwarts?” Ron asks, a smirk almost like his older brothers’ in the lobby curling at his mouth. 

Harry could swear Griphook’s eyes twinkle in the light of the fire. “Oh, Mr. Weasley,” he chuckles. “Nearly everyone does.” 

Ron grins. “Great!” He claps his hands. “Harry, you should withdraw something from your vault, just so this doesn’t look suspicious. And thank you,” he adds with an earnest smile at Griphook. “I hope you don’t get in trouble for this.” 

“For what?” Harry asks. 

Hermione points at him, vindicated. “He didn’t tell us anything!” She sounds near tears. 

Griphook inclines his head, pushing the now-useless List toward Harry along with a little velvet pouch that absolutely wasn’t there a second ago. “Exactly so, Miss. No thanks is necessary.” 

With that, Harry numbly says his goodbyes to Griphook, following him, Ron and Hermione out until the three of them are deposited on the stone steps of the bank, the late afternoon sun blinding him as he slowly comes to terms with the end of his search with Hermione hanging off of him and hiccupping intermittently. 

It’s over. 

There’s nothing else Harry can do. 

He never even got to ask Remus if his mother would have loved him. 

“...Why are you two so sad?” 

Hermione bares her teeth at Ron, tears shining gold in her eyes. “Because now, thanks to some stupid regulation Harry can’t find his Remus, and he can’t get away from his terrible relatives, and—and—” She trails off into more angry hiccups. 

Ron frowns. “No? He told us where to look next. The Tongue-Tie just wouldn’t let him, so he had to be creative about it.” 

Harry sniffs. “What?” 

“The Tongue-Tie! Y’know, the Enchantment Goblins take to become tellers at Gringotts?” Ron gestures madly, like this is something taught in primary school and not very nearly gibberish. 

Hermione just stares at him. “...No, we do not know!” She says finally. 

“No?” Ron looks thoughtful. “Huh. Must be something I picked up from Bill. He’s learning to be a curse breaker for Gringotts, you know. Bloody interesting stuff. Anyway, what he was saying—or really, what he wasn’t —was he can’t give out your Remus’ name, because he’s come into an inheritance, and he hasn’t gone through the paperwork yet. And that he went to Hogwarts.” 

Ron beams at them expectantly, as if they’re supposed to jump for joy at the news. 

Harry squints at him. “Is that some kinda fancy school in London?” 

Comically, Ron’s jaw drops. “You’re Harry Potter,” oh, Harry thought they were done with that now, “and you don’t know Hogwarts? I figured back in Griphook’s office you were being raised by muggles, but Merlin, don’t they teach you anything?” 

He turns to Hermione, next. “And you, too, ‘Mione! You’re wicked smart, I thought you’d be waiting on your owl like Percy!”

Hermione sputters, indignant. “What—curse breakers? Hogwarts? Owls? What are you talking about?” 

“You know,” Ron meets her energy with his own, and if Harry had known having friends was going to be this loud he might’ve just gone on this journey by himself, “Owls! Wands!” He waves his arms significantly again, which does not enlighten them any more than the first time. “Magic!”

The air gets very quiet between the three of them. 

Harry looks at Hermione. 

Hermione looks at Harry. 

They both turn to look at Ron. 

“Magic?” The two of them say together, and then, as if for the first time, look around them with clear eyes. 

It is four-fifteen on a Friday, and they have just left a Goblin-owned bank. The street outside this bank is filled with people wearing cloaks, robes, and strange dresses with, apparently, living fabric. Said people are shopping for eye of newt and tongue of toad, and also regular newts and toads, which change color every time they croak. Harry has seen no less than three people disappear or reappear in the five seconds he has looked with any degree of discernment. 

They arrived here via a bus that no one else can see. 

Harry lets his head fall to Hermione’s shoulder. 

“Inconceivable,” he croaks, and then the two of them start laughing and don’t stop until they cry. 

“So, that book,” Ron asks later. “Was that… The Bride Prince, or whatever?” 

They’re sitting outside an ice cream shop called Fortescue’s, because it’s Ron’s family’s rendezvous point for if they ever get lost in Diagon Alley, and also so Ron can fill Harry and Hermione in on magic while they fill him with ice cream. As an aside, Harry now knows the joy of money. 

Vizzini makes a lot more sense. 

Anyway, the three of them are sitting with ice creams the size of their heads, and Mr. Fortescue keeps coming over to ask if their parents are coming  soon and gives them little trinkets that Hermione huffs over being too old for but keeps stealing glances at over her banana split. Harry gives her fifteen minutes before she tries to sneak one from his pile. 

“ Princess Bride, yeah,” Harry nods, trying to wipe his mouth as best he can. “It’s brilliant! I’ve loved it for years, but I just found the copy my Mum left me, after—” 

His voice catches. 

Ron filled them in on everything, not just magic. Harry never thought he could have a title that makes him sadder than Freak, but there’s something about being the Boy-Who-Lived that makes him feel…hollow. Scooped-out, and not like an ice cream. 

When Harry looks up again, Ron’s eyes are doing the pinch-frown thing, so he says, “Anyway. Thanks for explaining all this stuff. It’s nice to understand what they were writing about in there.” 

“What’s it about?” Ron asks. “The story, I mean. Gotta be good, if you all like it.” 

Before Ron is even done asking, Harry is up on his feet on the bench. “Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison—” 

Hermione laughs. “I like it fine,” she says. “But Harry’s obsessed. He’d never put it down if he could. I think he wants to find his Remus just to see if there’s someone half so excited about it as him.” 

Unperturbed, Harry continues, making wild slashing motions in the air with his ice cream spoon as he steps along the bench. “—True Love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest Ladies. Snakes. Spiders—” 

Ron shudders. “Maybe it isn’t for me,” he says. 

“It isn’t so long a bit,” Hermione reasons. “We can skip it.” 

Ron frowns. “I thought you’d be against skipping bits,” he says. “Percy is.” 

Hermione snorts. “It came abridged,” she explains. “We can skip all we like.” 

 “—Pain!” Harry shouts. He imagines his mother’s Remus, shouting with him, and his father shouting too. 

“Death! Brave men!” His father, not a drunk, but a brave man fighting a war no one thought they could win. 

“Cowardly men!” His Uncle, a liar and cheater too.

 “Strongest men! Chases! Escapes! Lies!” Lies from Aunt Petunia, from Uncle Vernon, even a hidden truth from Griphook. Harry jumps onto the table, pointing his spoon at Ron. “Truths! Passion!” 

Ron fights admirably, but ultimately loses his spoon to a twist of Harry’s wrist at just the right place. He holds it three inches from Ron’s throat in a victorious threat, then stabs it into his ice cream as a replacement for the one he dirtied and looks at Hermione. 

“Miracles.” It comes out softer than he meant, but as Harry sees it, he couldn’t have done any of this without Hermione. He’d be calling every Remus in the phonebook and getting nothing but smacked for his troubles, without even a friend to do it with, if not for her. 

Harry looks at the sun, low in the sky and bleeding pink and orange and red, and sighs. There’s just nothing for it. 

“Magic,” he breathes, astonished by the wonder of it on his lips. Even without his mother’s Remus, he thinks this summer is going to be worth it. 

Ron will write to a professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry tomorrow, asking about a Remus connected to one Lily Potter. He’ll have his father, who is reportedly ‘aces at muggle stuff, I swear, he’s got a car in our garage he’s going to charm to fly,’ contact Hermione at her house, and then she’ll tell Harry what they’ve found out at the Surrey Public Library the following Thursday. 

Harry is, potentially, one letter away from being in the same room as his mother’s Remus.

It’s an amazing sunset. 

“What are you gonna ask him when you meet him?” Ron wonders. “Are we allowed to come? Cause I have some questions.” 

(As much as Ron filled them in, Harry and Hermione filled Ron. And Ron may only be seven-and-three-quarters, but his Mom gives free lessons on recognizing abuse to all the moms and kids in Ottery St. Catchpole, regardless of their blood, and Ron doesn’t let people he cares about get hurt.

If Harry’s Remus can still be there for him, Ron can’t help wondering why he isn’t.)

“Well, I’m certainly going,” Hermione announces. “Half of this work is mine, I deserve to be there!” 

“Yeah,” Harry nods. “Of course you guys can come. I don’t think I could—I wouldn’t want to meet him without you.” 

Hermione and Ron both reach up to wind their arms around him at that. There doesn’t seem to be another option. 

“You don’t have to tell us what you’re gonna ask,” Ron says. “I got a little excited, mate, sorry. But we’ll be there. No matter what.” He squeezes Harry’s shoulder tight.

“I’m asking him what books he’s been reading,” says Hermione. “Just think how interesting Wizarding textbooks must be, if Friends to Goblins can write novels that well.” 

Ron groans good naturedly. “Don’t even say that.” 

They watch the sunset for a few moments, peaceful, before Ron’s dad is calling in the distance, “Ron? Ron? Is that you? Oh, I was so worried! Are you alright?” and he has to go. 

Harry and Hermione fall asleep on the Knight Bus back to Surrey, only woken by Stan shaking them and yelling, “Up and at ‘em, sprogs! Night’s a-wastin’ on youse!” and Hermione successfully bullies Harry into sneaking past her Great Aunt, confidently watching Doctor Who reruns with a bowling ball covered with a brown bath mat that seems to have a lecture on enamel droning from somewhere near it. 

Every once in a while, the Great Aunt snorts at something (Harry isn’t sure what, as the television is usually mid We’ll Be Right Back message) and informs the bowling ball that in my day, people were snorting cocaine to go to work! Those soft Thatcher types, they’d never last back then. 

Hermione almost breaks their cover by laughing as they creep up the stairs and into her room, collapsing into bed and barely turning the lights off before falling dead asleep. 

It’s been a good day. 

Minerva McGonagall does not have an easy schedule to keep. The bustle of a school this large and sprawling would make teaching seven grades difficult enough as is, not to mention the duties she takes on as Head of House and, additionally, Deputy Headmistress. There are continually classrooms to clean, squabbles to break up, and parents to owl. 

To cope, Minerva has taken to her small routines, as petty as she can get away with while still being fair. 

On every Tuesday, she takes tea with Poppy and—it isn’t gossip, Minerva would never. She cannot abide flapping mouths, and so she moves her lips very little as Poppy informs her of all the many suitors Madame Rosmerta has waved away this week, each one less aware than the last that the girl’s been married thirteen years. In return, Minerva sips her tea and implies Albus’ latest sweet obsession—a muggle candy bar named for the god of War—has somewhat stained his second-loveliest handkerchief. 

Poppy’s eyes crinkle around her answering laugh, and Minerva’s chest loosens. 

She writes perhaps overmany lists; lists of her duties for the day, of the students who need a stern talking-to and a biscuit, (and who need a rather less stern talking-to and several biscuits) lists of which owls relieved themselves on Severus this month while departing from the Great Hall; it’s his own fault, being so stingy with the birds. There is nothing, Minerva knows, quite like crossing a task off of her docket. It soothes the roof of her mouth and the depths of her throat, where she will always be raw from screaming. 

Most unfairly, Minerva likens her students to those who came before. Not often, not if she can help it; each pupil which passes through these halls is their own person, and it would not do for Minerva to lose sight of that fact. 

But enough. Enough for Minerva to convince herself they weren’t lost for nothing. 

Here, in the third-floor corridor rushing off to Charms, is Bill Weasley, who is next to nothing like his uncles until he smirks at her with that familiar light behind his eyes. 

In the most ambitious, fierce-eyed Slytherins, Minerva idly pretends she sees the swish of Miss Meadows’ braids, always just out of sight when an unexplainable act of kindness and thoughtfulness had occurred in the staff room. 

And, perhaps worst of all, whenever a new band of mischief-makers graces their halls, Minerva keeps a petty tally of their infractions against the greatest and most terrible pranksters she’s ever taught. 

A color-changing potion in the staff pumpkin juice at breakfast? James Potter’s lasted a week, and he managed to make it so any attempts to remove the offending hue caused it to shed glittery dandruff. 

Gnomes let loose in the library? Peter Pettigrew once smuggled a phalanx of them into the Slytherin common room, each astride a garden rat and equipped with a shrunken butterknife, screaming ‘For honor! For glory! For Marauding!’ Minerva still doesn’t know how he got the rats to listen to him. 

The perfect alibi for two, produced at two in the morning on a school night, while Minerva is in her dressing gown and the exact right amount of tiredness to allow it to slip by? 

Please. Remus Lupin conspired with his friends to be made Prefect, against all logic and reason. He played the part of well-meaning and abashed swot so well Minerva believed him right up until his fifth year, when he appeared off the Hogwarts Express with a smile unlike she’d ever seen him wear, crooked and smug and so bright on his face that she still couldn’t fault him for it. 

And he waited until the sorting had finished to call over all the first years and lead them on ‘a small tour of the castle, Professor, I swear. We’ll be back before dessert.’ 

Minerva had let him. Of course she had. 

Served her right when the lot of Gryffindor first years burst through the doors right before said dessert, hands and pockets and faces full of pie and tarts and all manner of sweets, pelting tables and siblings and houses with them and screaming their little heads off as full-scale food warfare broke out. 

When Remus Lupin sauntered back into the room, looking for all the world like he presided over the chaos the way a king does his subjects, James Potter and Sirius Black hoisted him onto their shoulders atop Gryffindor table while Peter Pettigrew led the Hall at large through a rousing chorus of for he’s a jolly good fellow. 

And Minerva had been warm. Indignant, yes, but underneath that, unbearably fond of those four boys, even as they lost their grip on Lupin and he toppled down onto hard wood and Peter and treacle tart, staining his robes quite unchangeably. (This was after James Potter’s impressive growth spurt, but still before Sirius Black’s rather unimpressive one. They should’ve really expected it to happen, but it was still funny to see Lupin, attempting to wave regally from atop his throne with one arsecheek six inches below the other.) 

Sometimes, reminiscing like this is all that keeps Minerva from sinking into the bitter tang at the back of her tongue, the way Severus seems so inclined to. It’s all she can do to remember the smiles James Potter shared with his friends, before he and Peter died at Black’s hands. All she can do to remember that Remus is, at least, still here. That little Harry is with his relatives, even if they are the worst sort of muggles. 

She needs her routines, if she wishes to keep her head. 

Which is why Minerva is surprised, during her morning cup of tea, (a more important ritual than most, given her hour-long tea session is one of the only breaks she has in a day) an exceedingly old, exceedingly dusty owl flies into her closed window. 

Minerva sighs but hurries over to throw the window open and let the bird through, wincing as it collides with the gingham tablecloth with a heavy thunk. 

Upon closer inspection, she recognizes this as the same owl that Bill and Charlie Weasley would occasionally field visits from at breakfast during the school year. It’s getting on in years, and Minerva wonders absently how long it’ll be until she’s watching new Weasley children squabble with a new owl as she gets this one a bowl of water and some digestives. 

After it gulps down a bit of the water, Minerva braves the mound of dusty feathers for the rather crumpled and misaligned envelope tied to its leg. 

Minerva frowns contemplatively at it. The envelope is creased and ripped in places, and the wax seal is almost entirely ineffectual, as off-center as it is. This is not at all the quality of letter Molly Weasley produces. 

Then, reading the address, Minerva realizes it must be from one of the children, and relaxes. 

After all, Minerva is far better equipped to deal with children than adults. 

Hullo Professor McGoni McGonagall,

I’m Ron Weasley. I’m bad at speling, so this is gonna going to be a short leter. Sorry. My friend, Harry Potter, has a book called Prinses Brid from a freind of his parents named Reemus Remus, and we were wondering if you could find him in you’re old classes. We would really apresheateappreshiat like if you would help us meet him. Thanks. 

Sinserely,

Ron

P.S. Does he still read a lot? Hermyonee told me to ask.  

P.P.S. You didn’t here from me, but Gringots is waiting for him to talk about his new acount with them. They seem prety mad. 

Minerva puts down the letter and thanks Circe it’s summer break as she goes to wrest her aged firewhiskey from the cabinet. Honestly. Couldn’t this Weasley even have the decency to be lying about meeting the Boy Who Lived? 

Minerva is not equipped to deal with this. 

Remus Lupin has not read a book in three months. 

Technically, that’s not fair. 

It is, after all, more accurate to say that Remus Lupin has not read a book in three years, four come October. 

He is made, occasionally, to drag his eyes across pages and forcibly shove the information into his brain in service of translation or editing or some other inane farce, but those jobs are few and far between, and at any rate Remus does not want those jobs. 

He doesn’t want to be editing or writing or doing reading of any sort. 

Not that Remus wants to do physical labor, either. 

No, the idea of standing for hours on end or moving stacks of boxes or, God forbid, talking to people makes him want to vomit his oh-so-nutritious breakfast of ice-cold tea and bile into his kitchen sink and then try to drown himself in the dirty dishes which have been molding there for weeks. 

The only thing Remus wants to do is ease his aches and cuts with firewhiskey until the next moon and wonder idly if this is the one that will kill him or if he’ll need to wait for an Auror to look at his file when he applies for his next fucking editing job. 

On his better days, (because Remus doesn’t have best days. Not anymore) he blames Black. He runs through all the terrible things he did, all the times he showed his true colors with a dark grin or a cackling laugh, and curses him to Hell and back. 

On his worst days, Remus blames himself. How could he have missed it, missed him turning? They were the ones who lived together, they were the ones so enmeshed with one another that even James (it hurts to think of James) gagged at them and told them to save some of it for the bedroom. 

How does Remus still not know when Black turned? How, after six years, can he still look back on those memories, and only see a boy with bright eyes and a wicked smile? 

His bottle is empty. Remus shoves his face deeper into the understuffed couch cushion and throws it on the floor of his derelict cottage, listening with a sort of hollow satisfaction as it shatters in a crunch of glass. 

Today is a better day. Remus started it off by leveling his wand at the biggest cluster of things in this shithole that remind him of Black, (because when he gets right down to it, every fucking thing reminds him of Black, him and Black, living here and so disgustingly happy) and very nearly managed to cast Bombarda at it. His hand shook too much, though, so he just staggered into his bathroom to vomit away yesterday’s hangover, and now he’s in the living room, getting started on tomorrow’s. 

Ohh, if Lily could see him now. Second in their year, promising young Remus Lupin, you know he’s a favorite to become a Magizoologist? Now he’s too shaky to cast an exploding charm. Too drunk to leave the house. Too Dark and ill and disgusting to even think about putting in charge of H—

Of anything. 

Remus growls softly, mind drifting against his will to that last fateful meeting with Dumbledore as he gets up to fill the hollowness in his stomach. 

His bad leg, still twinging from the last Full, sends hot bursts of pain up Remus’ spine, which he takes as his due, trudging into the kitchen. 

God knows why he even tried; Dumbledore puts up a genial front, but the man is stubborn as a Grindylow when it comes down to it, and proud besides. Remus had just hoped, maybe, that with the anniversary coming up, and after three years —

But no. No, it was the Wizarding World wouldn’t understand, my boy, and your group was far too well-known during the war, young man, and, though he wouldn’t say the quiet bit of it out loud, (too afraid to lose his precious werewolf spy) don’t you think Dark Magic has taken enough from you both? 

Well, Remus thinks, pulling the door of his ancient fridge open with perhaps a bit too much force and coming away with most of the handle between his white-knuckled fingers, (still too much moon in his blood; always too much) Dumbledore doesn’t have to worry about him any more, because Remus is finished. 

He pulls the last of the bread from its shelf, along with some cheese and butter. 

Remus is done looking for ways to be great, or even good in this world. He saws through the bread as best he can, trying to remove as much mold as possible, and scraping cold butter along its stale face. 

Remus’ only ambition, from now- fucking- on, is to hang on to life with one clawed, furry hand so he can outlive Sirius Black and be the last Marauder standing. Also hopefully so he can piss on that bastard’s gravestone. 

Then, and only then, will Remus find Harry, beg forgiveness for being such a useless friend to his parents, and finally piss off and die. 

Remus cuts his thumb slicing the cheese, curses, and shoves it in his mouth to heal, which is of course when Minerva McGonagall bursts through his fireplace with all the fury of a righteous storm, waving a letter like a talisman. 

“You’ve been ignoring Gringotts missives?” She barks, and Remus’ spine straightens without his conscious input, like he’s been thrown bodily into his Hogwarts days, covering for James and S—Black under the cloak. 

“Hello, Professor,” Remus hedges, wiping his thumb on his jeans (which his brain helpfully reminds him he’s been wearing for the past week straight) hurridley. “I don’t quite catch your meaning?” 

“Oh, don’t give me that,” McGonagall waves a hand at him dismissively. “Your innocent act hasn’t worked on me since you set those Third Years on Mulciber with paint-filled puffapod seeds. Gringotts, Lupin! I’ve a letter here from Ron Weasley saying you’ve been ignoring their inquiries.” 

Remus squints at her. “Weasley? That’s, what, their twelfth kid? How would Ron Weasley know about my mail?” 

“Your guess is as good as mine,” McGonagall offers, crossing to the old oak table in Remus’ kitchen, one of the many things that have fallen into disrepair over the three years Remus has truly given up. Shaking his head, he gathers up his cheese sandwich to meet her with. “But the fact remains that he’s written a letter saying you gave Lily some book years ago, and now Harry and his friends want to meet you, and you’ve been—”

There’s a clatter as Remus drops his knife on the floor. His head fills with static and rushing blood, and his mouth feels dry. 

“Harry wants to meet?” He croaks. 

McGonagall’s lips purse as she looks him over, and Remus can almost feel her eyes drilling a hole into his old denims and holey shirt and unkempt hair. There’s so much trash and broken glass around the house, and Remus just smashed a bottle in the living room this morning, the pieces are probably ground into the floorboards, there’s no way she’d allow Harry to come here—

But all she says is, “By the sound of it, young Mr. Potter would like nothing more. And I, of course, would be willing to facilitate it, provided you speak to the Gringotts bankers.” 

Remus gapes. “But—Dumbledore—” he sputters.

McGonagall arches an eyebrow at him. “Did Mr. Weasley write Albus?” Then she sighs and waves her wand, conjuring a very familiar tin. “Have a biscuit, Lupin.” 

“I—” 

“You dropped your sandwich and then stood on it without noticing and you’re at least three stone underweight,” McGonagall says. “Have a biscuit.” 

Remus looks down. His cheese sandwich somehow manages to look even sadder squished under his bare feet. 

He sits at the table and has a biscuit.

McGonagall sighs. “When Albus first spoke of having Harry placed in the muggle world, I argued with him for ten days that you should’ve been the one to take him. I knew it would be difficult, but I believed that with your mother and your wit, you’d be able to take on the challenge.”

Remus recoils like he’s had the air knocked from him. 

He never even considered asking her for help when he petitioned Dumbledore to visit Harry. Somehow, he’d been sure she would scoff at him. He figured they all would, especially after running into Snivellus in the corridor one evening during his second attempt, eyes still burning faintly from his quick cry in an abandoned classroom. 

He’d looked Remus in the eyes and laughed, asking if the monster had come to be put down after it wore out its usefulness? 

Remus is quite pleased to say that though he is now a crapshoot with a wand, his right hook is still going strong. He hopes everyone asked about Professor Snivellus’ black eye during Potions the next day. 

“I am sorry,” McGonagall says, and something in Remus’ chest tightens at the real sorrow in her eyes as she reaches across the table, putting her hand over his. “I wish I’d been able to do more for you. Both of you. But I can do this.” 

She leans back, clearing her throat and wiping discreetly at her eyes. “That said, you really must meet with the bank tellers posthaste. Mr. Weasley has implied they are quite cross with you. In that case, I expect you will be ready for the children, say, Friday?” 

Remus blinks. “I—wait, I don’t—Friday?” 

It’s Tuesday. 

“Well, I don’t suppose you had plans,” McGonagall sniffs, casting a look around the room and rising to leave. Remus flushes, seeing the clutter and trash and old, peeling wallpaper anew as he follows her into his living room. Could he even get this place safe for a child in time? 

The biscuit churns ominously in Remus’ stomach. 

“I don’t have a vacuum,” he mumbles. “I’ve been mistreating this house for nearly four years and I don’t even have a vacuum. Are you certain this is a good idea?” 

McGonagall turns back to him, something familiar on her face that it takes Remus entirely too long to realize is fondness. “If you’re feeling overwhelmed, Lupin, might I suggest a list?” At his affronted face, she chuffs a soft laugh. “I would not have offered this to you if I had any doubts. You might notice I never mentioned the state of your home. You know what to do.” 

Remus’ gaze drifts to the floor. The words hurt, dully, like pressing on an old bruise. 

It’s really no wonder Dumbledore didn’t trust him with Harry. It’s been so long since Remus has trusted himself. 

McGonagall’s stern voice pulls him back to the present. “Lupin.” A huff. “Remus. You are not the only person who Black misled. You are not the only person who has doubted themselves, since.” She purses her lips at Remus’ undoubtedly hurt expression. “I’m not chastising you. I’m commiserating.” 

McGonagall steps into the floo. “But if you’re going to be in Harry’s life, you have to learn to trust yourself. It might even make you feel better.” 

With a last shouted don’t forget Gringotts , she disappears into emerald flames, leaving Remus to the daunting task of cleaning his horrible cottage, vanishing all his alcohol, and worst of all, going to the bank. He hasn’t even gotten any missives, or mail at all in the last three years. Nobody’s left to write him anything but bills, and even those are mostly muggle, nowadays.

Through it all, there’s a steady strum of electricity in his bloodstream, right up against where Mooney usually sits, beating Harry’scomingHarry’scomingHarry’scoming.

He gets halfway through the list before he has to sit down on his terrible couch and have a grand old fashioned cry. 

So it turns out Ron’s Dad is not actually aces at muggle stuff, especially not after Ron’s just been lost in Diagon, but it’s alright because McGonagall gets back to him by dinner and that means Ron can just ask him to go to a friend’s tomorrow and not mention that the friend isn’t Luna. 

It works for Harry, and Ron’s mostly extra around the house anyway, so it should be fine. 

McGonagall’s letter is brilliant too, (sent by one of the Hogwarts owls while Ron’s on a walk outside) once Ron finally manages to pin down the letters from where they wriggle about the page to read them. 

Dear Mister Weasley, 

I return your greeting, and disagree very much with your assessment of your letter-writing talents, as this was certainly the most engaging correspondence I’ve received in quite some time. I expect your essays to be of similar caliber, when the time comes. 

As to your inquiries, I am pleased to report that I have successfully located the Remus in question, a friend of Harry’s parents from their school days, and am extending my offer of a portkey to his cottage from my office in Hogwarts at eleven o’clock this Friday. If this date is unacceptable for you and yours, please send this owl back with another. Your family bird will be back in a day or two, I expect. 

I have notified him of his yet-unlitigated shares at Gringotts, and yet failed to acquire his most recent book recommendations. I sincerely apologize. 

Best, 

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress, Hogwarts

Ron snorts, folding the paper back up and then in half again to put in his pocket. He figures Harry and Hermione will want to see it, what with all the stuff they don’t know—

“What’s that, Ronnie?” 

Ron shrieks and stuffs the envelope in his mouth, hoping Fred didn’t see the page inside. He chews quickly, shooting a baleful glare at his brothers. 

“Think it’s a letter, Freddie,” George says, wrapping his arm around Ron’s shoulder. “Ronnie has a letter from somebody—”

“—Isn’t that swell?” Fred continues. Ron makes a muffled sound of protest, but the wad of paper in his mouth is starting to thicken and the wax seal is tucked up against his cheek uncomfortably. “Who would be writing to Ickle Ronniekins, Georgie?” 

“No one we know.” George puts on his thinking face. “But Ronnie went with some other kids at Gringotts—” 

“—was gone the whole day!—” 

“—and now he’s got a letter.” 

Fred and George look at each other the way they always do, like no one else is quite as real as them. Harry and Hermione do it sometimes, too. “There’s only one thing to do, isn’t there?” 

They turn back to Ron. 

“Help him with his joke.” 

Sometimes, Ron does love his family. 

“On Friday?” 

Hermione’s voice is really clear through the speaking-box the twins gave Ron. He’s got no idea where they found it, or what price he’s going to have to pay later for their help, but it’s worth it for Hermione’s astonished questions through the ‘telephone.’ 

“Yep,” Ron says, taking some pains to keep his voice at a ‘reasonable volume.’ (Honestly, it made more sense to shout in his head. He didn’t want her to miss his call!) “Eleven at McGonagall’s office. You can only take the Knight Bus to Hogsmeade, but Percy’s talked Bill into taking him up on Friday anyway to see what his school’s gonna look like next year, so I’ll meet you there and we can head up together.” 

“Brilliant,” Hermione says. “While you’re on the line, I have to ask. You said something about moving letters—do all Wizard books do that? Move?” 

Ron considers this. 

He’s always known he’s slower than his siblings. Especially once Ginny started reading and practically started inhaling all the books on Quidditch in the house. It’s not that Ron doesn’t like stories, or even that he doesn’t like to learn. He just can’t seem to make the letters stand still on the page, always flickering around and changing when he tries to pin them down. 

It’s easier on Chocolate Frog cards, when the words are all spaced out and rounded, but Ron still messes up from time-to-time, and he can’t figure out why. 

He doesn’t say that to his new, scary smart friend, though. 

Instead, Ron says, “Yeah, I ‘spect they do. I’ve never noticed any not.” 

Hermione hums. “Well, then maybe you’d like a muggle book more, anyway! Harry and I love them. We could trade some on Friday!” 

Ron’s stomach sinks. “I don’t know,” he says, instead of please don’t. “I can’t imagine Mum would like me taking books off her shelf.”

“Oh, yes, I suppose that’s fair.” Hermione sounds wistful, and Ron grins at her through the phone. “Well, at any rate, I’ll tell Harry about it tomorrow. He’ll be so excited. His Remus! This Friday!” 

Ron grins over the field at the back of the house, where he’s tucked behind the shed, away from his Mum’s prying eyes. “I know. It’s wicked.” 

Hermione wakes early on Thursday. 

She doesn’t usually spend much time on her hair, but today she asks her mother to do it for her. 

“Of course, ma cherie,” says Estelle Granger, thrilled to see her daughter take an interest in hair care. Happily, she pulls the whole curly lot of it into a puff at the base of her neck so her hair falls around her shoulders, beautiful and stately, just like her daughter. Hermione wonders as her mother slicks it into place how Harry’s grandfather’s Sleakeazy works with textured curls, and if it would be less of a pain to do. 

“Can we go to the library today, Mum?” She asks. 

Estelle, busy picking clips to go into her daughter’s hair, laughs softly. “Anything you like, belle. Which one? You favored Newton Branch last summer, if I recall correctly.” 

“No!” Hermione says hurriedly. “Sorry. Just…” She takes a deep breath. (For all she’s very independent, Hermione has never lied to her parents this much before. She doesn’t care for how it feels. But this is important.) “The main branch has a volume on etymology I didn’t check out last time. I’m curious about it.” 

Estelle chuckles, well used to her daughter’s particularities. “And this has nothing to do with your lovely little friend? The same one who seems to be at the library whenever you are?” 

Hermione flushes. “Harry just likes the same books on local government as me,” she sputters. 

“Aww,” Estelle coos, curling her arms around her daughter’s shoulders and rocking her gently side-to-side in her chair, pressing a kiss to Hermione’s cheek when she groans playfully, “Ma cherie, ma cherie, there’s nothing wrong with seeing your friends! Your father and I, we love Harry, and we’d have him over whenever you’d like. I’m just glad someone sees how special and lovely and brilliant you are, mon coeur.” 

With one final squeeze, Estelle lets her daughter go. Hermione stares at her face in the mirror, framed by black and gold barrettes, and feels…Courageous. 

“Maman,” she asks quietly. “Can I go to Harry’s tomorrow to play?” 

“Ah,” Estelle sighs. “If you wish, ma cheri. I will not stop you, so long as you feel safe.”

(The Grangers, though they love their daughter and refuse to stifle her thirst for knowledge, have many responsibilities. They are often absent. They are often worried that growing up in a quiet house has made their daughter restless and anxious. 

They are also worried that her lovely new friend, the quiet and watchful Harry, is perhaps too helpful and too obedient for a child. They worry that the scar on his small forehead, branching in many directions and cutting into his right eyebrow, did not come from a car crash as he says. 

But the Grangers are absent, and they still believe in their daughter’s judgment.) 

Hermione nods, accepting the final kiss pressed to her forehead, and sets about gathering her books for the library. 

The first hour passes as normal, Hermione there far before Harry could possibly get away from the Dursleys and picking her way through high, dark bookshelves, pulling titles that look interesting into her arms. 

The ones too high up the shelves for her to reach, Hermione turns her body to, concentrating, squinting, and visualizing, until…

The book floats all the way to her arms, delicate as a feather, and Hermione smiles down at it, satisfied. Really, she should have figured it out herself, but well. 

Before Hermione knew this was magic, she called it ‘wanting.’ 

And Hermione has always known what she wants. 

By the second hour, Hermione is wary, but not truly nervous. Harry often comes ‘late’ to their library meetings, for all that there isn’t a set time, usually apologizing and explaining that he had extra chores today or that his Aunt Petunia was busy and didn’t let him out until late. 

(When Hermione pictures Harry’s relatives, she begins with a square of beige. Harry is never so rude as to explain that Privet Drive was likely cooked up in a lab to be the most boring place on earth, but he has said that the houses all look the same, and the grass must be mowed and watered regularly, and his least favorite job in the summer is weeding the lawn, because it always takes a whole day to comb through the grass and remove any imperfection. 

Weeding. The lawn. 

So Hermione begins with a beige square.  She then proceeds to Aunt Petunia, picturing the gossipy, judgmental woman as her year one teacher who wouldn’t let Hermione read her book on beginner’s psychology during silent story time because I’m sure your mother reads it to you at home, love, but she’s not here right now. Perhaps rudely, Hermione yellows the horse-like woman’s teeth and pictures her making terrible faces when she thinks, which isn’t often. 

The backdrop consisting of a pale beige like the most terrible of waiting rooms and a woman constructed primarily of her own disdain and ignorance, it is time for Harry’s cousin to spring to life, a horrid conglomeration of all the most terrible bits of boys Hermione’s known. Upon his head rests Xavier Carlton’s straw-like hair, which shined in the afternoon light as he and his friends followed Hermione home, chanting names and poking at her bag. Stretching across his mouth is the same smile as Davey Brighton’s when he dumped all her books into a mud puddle in March of year two. Worst of all are his hands, the exact shape and size of Thomas Dillop’s when he tore apart her sweater last September, laughing all the while. Hermione has known many terrible boys across many terrible grades, but she’s never been angrier than when Harry explains Harry Hunting, or flinches away from Hermione’s touch. 

Finally, galumphing into frame with all the grace of a rampaging elephant, Hermione pictures Harry’s Uncle Vernon. 

She does not picture him large, or imposing, or consequential. She does not picture him with his full mustache or rather average height. 

Hermione pictures Vernon in much the same way as a Chief Executive Officer pictures the cashiers at a grocery store. She tolerates the idea of him in short, conceptual chunks. She pictures him as she knows him to be: 

Lazy, small, and scared. Too weak to create anything, and too empty to do something with his life that isn’t sucking every joy, every ounce of status out of the world. Harry’s Uncle Vernon is not wanting, he is hungry, and he will die starving.

This is how Hermione sees the Dursleys. She has always been a visual thinker.)

She waves off her parents when they come over. Harry’s just late. That’s all. 

He’ll be here soon. 

After four hours, Hermione has crossed the line from nervous to apoplectic, and her mother won’t stop stroking her hair or rubbing between her shoulder blades. 

Harry’s never been this late to one of their meetings. Ever. 

Even the time Hermione almost left because she didn’t think he was going to show up, only for Harry to tumble out of the bushes on her way toward the car park, covered in scratches and saying he’d been waiting for her for an hour. 

“The librarians were watching me,” he said when she’d asked, bewildered, why he was hiding in the bushes, “I didn’t want to get kicked out.” 

But it’s four fifteen and Hermione’s checked the bushes all around the building five times, the librarians are starting to stare at her, and her mother won’t stop touching her. 

“Shh, shh, ma cherie, it’s alright, let’s go home—” 

Hermione fights her way out of her mother’s grasp. “I don’t want to go home! I want to wait here! Harry’s coming soon.” She takes a deep breath to steady herself, just like her father does when he’s listening to her sixteenth question on molecular structure. 

It doesn’t work. 

“Harry’s coming soon,” she repeats, and meets her mother’s eyes in a dare to say otherwise. 

By the time Surrey Public Library closes, Hermione is numb. 

Tear tracks have run down her cheeks and dried there, her mother’s hands are still where they rest on her shoulders, and her heart is only barely beating. With stiff fingers, she tucks a note into the baby names book, trying to convince herself Harry will find it in time tomorrow. Trying to convince herself Harry will find it.

They ride the trolley back home in silence, and Hermione stares out the window with ambivalence, gray street after gray street passing her by. 

The world seems awash in gray without Harry there to bring life to it, to tell Hermione to breathe and wait and enjoy all the wonders in it, even purple buses and—wait. 

Hermione sits straight up in her seat, fingers alighting on the window sill. 

“What is it, ma coeur?” Her mother asks. “What do you see?” 

Hermione says nothing, only stares over at the plum-colored triple-decker bus in the next lane, something hard and burning beginning to rise in her chest. 

Harry might not be there, but she was. And she’ll be at the meeting tomorrow. Whatever’s gone wrong, whatever happened, Hermione will find a way to fix it. 

She leaves the library numb, but enters her house determined. 

Ron almost can’t believe they made it all the way to Hogwarts. His brothers were easy to fool, of course, and easy to lose once he got to Hogsmeade, but everything’s fallen apart since then, what with Hermione showing up alone and shaking. 

“What’s wrong?” Ron asks, throwing an arm around her shoulders and wishing he was as big as Bill or Charlie so he could pick her up and take them both somewhere safe. “Where’s Harry?” 

Hermione’s eyes are hard and burning. “He didn’t come yesterday,” she says, voice trembling. “Ron, I think—I think his relatives did something.” 

Ron swallows. “We’ll talk to McGonagall.” 

Hermione nods. Her jaw is set, bolted tightly with anger. It reminds Ron of when Mum is worried-angry, as opposed to regular angry. 

The air around her sparks all the way up to the castle. 

Minerva can’t quite believe what she’s hearing. 

“So you mean to tell me the three of you have been conspiring for weeks to find Harry’s father’s friend, using only muggle libraries and Gringotts bank?” 

The young bushy-haired girl, Hermione Granger, nods fiercely, her eyes never leaving Minerva’s face. She’s shaking all over, accidental magic gathered like static in the air about her, waiting to strike. Minerva is reluctantly impressed. Not impressed enough to allow the two of them use of the crumpled tin can sitting on her round table, but impressed nonetheless. 

“And none of your parents knew of it?” 

“None,” says the youngest Weasley boy. Minerva studies him briefly. He’ll be a shoo-in for Gryffindor, the same as the rest of his brothers, but Minerva can’t help but sense something more calculated about him. Cunning. Perhaps the first Weasley hat-stall, then. “Harry didn’t want them to know. We just wanted to help. Please, Professor.” 

Minerva sighs. “I’m sorry, Mr. Weasley, but if Mr. Potter’s guardians have seen fit to keep him home—” 

“But they’re awful—” Begins Granger, only for Weasley to cut her off. 

“We understand, Professor,” He says, that uncanny cunning flashing in his eyes. Hello, Minerva thinks, to a Weasley unlike any before him. “Can we get some paper to write to our parents, so we can get home?” 

Minerva would like it known that she is no fool, and this is far from a perfect alibi. 

She is, however, sentimental. 

And she’s seen that cunning in a Gryffindor once before. She’s made that cunning Prefect once before. 

Minerva turns to her desk on the other side of the room, away from the children, and blames it on her curiosity when Ron Weasley says, “Five past eleven. Hermione, the can!” 

With an arched eyebrow, one that’s seen countless bouts of mischief and great achievements, Minerva watches Hermione Granger reach out a hand and wandlessly levitate the portkey from the table and into her palm, Ron Weasley hanging off her shoulders all the while. With a rush of air and magic, the two of them disappear, leaving Minerva well and truly speechless for the first time in nearly ten years. 

Well, she thinks, sitting heavily behind her desk. Surpassing even the Marauders definitely earns those two a head start. 

Just until Minerva can scold them without laughing. 

Remus is going to be sick. 

He is going to be sick, and then there will be vomit in his hastily cleaned living room fifteen minutes before the son of his dead best friend is going to show up at his house and Remus won’t even be able to vanish it because it took him three tries to light the kettle today with a simple fucking Incendio. 

He’s not ready, and the bank trip did not help. 

(He had cut his hair hastily, in the bathroom with the terrible powder-pink walls that James always laughed himself silly over, and it scratched behind his ears oddly. The wind felt closer and colder on the back of his neck, even in that dark, richly wooded office with a squat, opinionated Goblin named Bloodgore administrating and Remus’ mother serving as a witness. 

Hope Howell is probably the only reason Remus is still alive, but it still stung to be twenty-seven and accompanied to the bank by his mother. 

Still, it helped to have her in the room when Bloodgore slammed the door open and roared, in a sonorous, croaking voice, “Lupin! Finally done ignoring my owls, eh?” 

Remus has searched his cottage top to bottom while cleaning. He has looked inside his cupboards and under the cushions of his house. Against all logic, he spent a particularly irritating hour and a half scrounging around the yard. 

He has not gotten any goddamned letters from Gringotts bank. Not once in six years. Not since he graduated and Lyall decided the shame of raising a werewolf son wasn’t worth bearing anymore. 

“Yep,” Remus grimaced, Mam petting a hand too-lightly down his arm. 

“Alright, then.” Bloodgore sat with a thump into the chair behind her sturdy iron desk, her body jewelry swishing where it hung from her nose, ears, and lips. Remus’ nostrils burned with the scent of silver clouding the air, and he awaited impatiently the full-blown migraine waiting for him at home, once the stress was over and done with. “I’ll be recording this meeting for any and all future litigation and counter-litigation, in accordance with all existing and semi-existing and secretly existing Etiquettes of Inheritance for the Account In Question. Do you both give your permission?” 

Remus and Hope nodded, one step off from each other. 

“Excellent.” Bloodgore flicked a heavily jeweled finger at the far corner of her office, where a cerulean quill and sheaf of parchment picked themselves up and began stenographing hurriedly as she cleared her throat to say, “Probate attorney Bloodgore authorizing over the Inheritance of one Remus Lupin. Witness Hope Howell, do you give your word that everything said here in this office is true, sound, and correct upon pains and penalties of perjury, and that you have not been charmed, hexed, cursed, or otherwise compromised?” 

“Ah,” Remus’ Mam glanced at him, taken aback. “Yes, I do.” 

“Do you consent to the Blood Oath, as required by Secret Etiquette Gamma III, Section Two, clause five?” 

Brows furrowing, Hope nodded. She took Bloodgore’s proffered parchment and the needle from the ring bisecting the shell of her ear, hands steady. “I apologize for bringing it up now, but I’m non-magical. Will that affect the Oath?” 

Bloodgore waved a hand dismissively.  “Not at all, Ms. Howell. In fact, I am—” her eyes sparkled dangerously in a way that made Remus want to pack up and leave. “— most pleased to have a Gaian such as yourself here for this. Just prick your finger and your and let seven drops—precisely seven, if you please, the Oath is not one for ambiguities—just like that, there, you’re a natural!” 

The paper burst into a fluttering swarm of deep green, moth-like creatures who faded out of existence as they scattered toward Hope and Remus. 

Bloodgore watched them go, something like satisfaction warming her smile. “I do so love a change of regime,” she rasped, picking up a sheaf of papers and handing them to Remus. “With Ms. Howell’s Oath magically bound, we are free to begin. In accordance with Semi Etiquette Delta IV, Section Three, Subsection Five, the Benefactor, one Remus John Lupin, will hear the entirety of the assets he is positioned to inherit as consort and—” 

“Consort?” Remus choked. 

The office, almost uncomfortably cold for summer, suddenly heated to the temperature of the sun. Remus hunched in his seat, trying to figure out what the fuck Bloodgoare was talking about. He hadn’t been consort to anyone in six years, unless drunken handies with muggles outside bars Remus shouldn’t have been going to counted. 

“You were named consort by the family magics,” shrugged Bloodgore, and Moony wanted to rip her throat out. “Do you wish to forfeit? Because that will mean more paperwork, more blood oaths, and more Etiquettes.” She shuddered visibly after the last word. “I swear, those bastards had more Etiquettes than the Summer Court has flowers, good riddance.” 

She spat on the floor, and Remus very stubbornly did not think about the sinking feeling in his stomach that he knew what bastards she meant. 

“You ought to listen ‘till the end, anyways, cariad,” said Hope (who had been suspicious of the very same thing as her son since finding out he’d been missing owls). 

Swallowing, Remus nodded. 

Bloodgore clicked her tongue, making the chains on her lips clink together, and went back to reciting. “One Remus John Lupin will hear the entirety of the assets he is positioned to inherit as consort and custodian of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black.” 

Remus is confident Bloodgore spent at least an hour listing houses, accounts, and more cursed furniture than anyone should have to hear about, let alone own. He didn’t, actually, hear any of it over the rushing of blood in his ears, which only abated when he felt the distinct burn of silver on his palm and realized he was clutching the grooved edge of Bloodgore’s desk. 

The pain grounded him enough to hear her finish, “—all this, the benefactor is set to inherit, in place of consort and custodian until one Harry James Potter reaches age of majority. Harry James Potter, not present, inherits the Heirship to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black.” 

Remus is not… quite sure what happened, then. 

All he knows is his vision and his memories have all vanished as if they were never there, and when he came back to himself he was standing in the middle of Bloodgore’s empty office, which looked like a tornado had torn through it, breathing heavily. His leg was on fire, and he couldn’t remember why. 

In his chest, Moony howled.

After a few minutes, there was a knock on the door jamb, and Remus turned quickly to see his Mam, looking pained around the eyes. “Cariad?” She asked softly. “You done?” 

Weakly, Remus nodded. He righted the chairs for him and his Mam and let her help him to his seat while Bloodgore plowed back inside, whistling lowly as she surveyed the damage. “Now that’s usually how these things go.” 

“Sorry,” Remus said. “Sorry, I—uh. I’ll pay for the damage.” 

“And you can!” Bloodgore said happily, brushing debris off of her unmoved desk and snapping out the sheet of parchment she’d been reading from. “Don’t bother, though. If I tell my superiors that a patron destroyed my office, they’ll finally refit it.” She cleared her throat. “Now, any questions?” 

Remus just stared at her, dumbfounded. He was dimly aware that Mam hadn’t let go of his arm since she sat down, but he couldn’t think with Moony clawing at him, howling mournfully. 

“ How?” He croaked finally. “Why?” 

How could Sirius have done this? How could he put Remus, put Harry in his will when he was in bed with Voldemort? Why would he leave Harry anything? Did he think that if Voldemort couldn’t kill him, a fanged ottoman would? 

Why was this Remus’ responsibility? 

He can’t even cast warming charms anymore. 

“‘Why’ is tricky.” Bloodgore pointed at him consideringly. “I worked for those snobbish pricks for three-hundred-and-fifty-seven years, and I could never find out why they did anything. How’s a bit easier in your case. He did it the usual way,” She pulled another paper from the stacks now strewn about the room, offering it to Remus. 

He took it with shaking fingers, running them over Sirius’ posh fucking handwriting sprawled defiantly across the page. 

I leave my life, and everything in it, to Remus John Lupin and Harry James Potter. 

“It was the strangest thing, you know. Usually, the paper says one thing and then you go into the family magics and just have to ignore how all the shit the benefactors are getting is pulled off to the side, quiet as a mouse.  Practically floating off the page, it wants to get away so bad,” Bloodgore picked at something under her nails. “But this one, it was like opening a door into the sun. Just your name and his. Bright white. Like a star, burning in the night sky.” 

Remus stood up. “I can’t do this,” he gasped, “I can’t, I can’t,” he looked down at Sirius’ note, crumpled in his hands, and he wanted to scream, to grab him by the collar and demand to know how could you?

How could you do this to us, Sirius?

Hope came up with him, and Remus broke down, sobbing into her shoulder like a little kid again, like when he was small and Mam could make everything better with a smile and a kiss. Time slipped away from him again, and when he came back, the fire had nearly died out. 

“Shh, sh,” Hope whispered, smoothing a hand down her son’s spine. (Her son was tall and strong and brittle and breakable, and she knew he had loved Sirius Black nearly as long as he’d been alive, but in the moment she felt nothing but purest, blackest hatred for that man who made her son distrust himself. Not even the wolves, not even his father had done that, because Hope Howell wouldn’t let them. If she ever saw him again, Hope was going to kill Sirius Black.) “It’s alright, cariad. It’s alright.”

“Harry, Mam,” Remus gasped, and she choked a bit. (Oh, the boy who would’ve been her grandbaby if things were different, Fleamont and Euphemia’s if they all were lucky. Oh, little Harry.) “What do I—I can’t—” 

“Hey,” Hope whispered, pulling away and resting her hands on her son’s cheek, swiping a thumb just under the new scar cutting across the bridge of his nose. “Do you want my advice?” 

Remus blinked. His mouth opened and closed; he nodded. 

“Remus,” Hope said, the same way she’d said his name for twenty-seven years, alight with the miracle of it. “My kind, fair boy. You don’t want anything you haven’t earned. You don’t want anyone to pity you.” 

She saw how he struggled, and struggled more to reach out. To be enough. The two of them were cut from too much the same cloth, and it pained her when she saw how her quiet nature left him always wanting. 

She breathed in. “This is not charity. It is not pity. This is yours, Remus, and Harry’s, too. You deserve every bit of it.” 

Hope let go, trusting her strong, kind boy to hear her. “Do what I couldn’t, blaidd bach. Take his money. Ruin his name. Squander his precious fortune.” 

Remus laughed, and it was the sound of miracles.)

Well and good it may have felt to say in the moment, and as much as Remus chanted squander his fortune to himself yesterday at the store when he bought food (real, edible food, not just whatever he drunkenly shoved into the cart from the Tesco’s clearance aisle at two a.m., and more than he’s had to fill his cupboards in… years ) for today, it is not going to save Remus from being sick at the thought of Harry here. 

In his house. 

After Remus essentially left him for years, without even a note. 

(He doesn’t know what Harry is like anymore. Doesn’t know if he has James’ laugh or Lily’s smile, if he’s twice as daring or three times as cunning as either of them, or if he’s someone else entirely. Remus never bothered to check. Damn Dumbledore, he should’ve found the kid on his own. He could have. Nothing would’ve stopped him.

What was he thinking?) 

Remus spends another ten seconds dithering in the kitchen before he gives up the ghost and goes to check the window again. It’s a low pain day, so his leg doesn’t bother him too much as he pushes aside the old white drapes with the delphiniums patterned on them. His Mam had cleaned them just yesterday, humming softly under her breath. 

There is, of course, no one outside. It’s only four after eleven. 

Remus used to be the most patient, after Peter. He used to place a hand on S—Black’s bouncing leg and shoot James a look that said wait. Still. Be ready. 

Now he picks at the frayed hem of his nicest jumper and wonders what Peter and James—and, God forbid, Lily —would think of him. 

Somehow, Remus sits down on the couch he’s just barely dragged back from the grave—forcing the restorative transfiguration and cleaning charms through his thrice-damned twig of a wand and using the hoover on every cushion for good measure—and stews until a sharp rapping at his door startles him. 

In a few bounds and a warning pulse from his leg, Remus is tearing open the door to see, instead of the mystery of a boy he was expecting, a dark-skinned girl with such burning eyes she reminds him painfully of Dorcas, and a boy who could only be Gid and Fab’s nephew. The girl doesn’t introduce herself before she speaks.

“Please, sir, you have to help us, Harry’s in trouble, we—” The boy cuts her off, whispering something in her ear. The girl’s eyes narrow dangerously, and Remus is cut by how much she looks like Lily. “Are you Remus?” She demands. “Harry Potter’s Remus?” 

Remus, who has not belonged to any Potter in quite some time, blinks down at her. At her muggle clothes and fiery stare. At the swirling, sparking magic in the air around her. 

“Yes?” He guesses. “I’m—Remus Lupin, yeah. I was a friend of his parents.” 

Her glare turns positively baleful. “Your name is wolf John wolf?”

“Actually it’s oar John beans,”  Remus shoots back by rote, and then shakes his head, refocusing. “You said Harry’s in danger?” 

In an instant, the girl’s expression crumples. “Yes,” she breathes, rushing forward to take Remus’ hand and pull him out of his doorway. “His relatives are awful and they don’t feed him and he didn’t come yesterday, he always makes it, Remus! Something’s really wrong if he can’t make it!” 

“Hey, hey,” Remus says, in a futile effort to calm her. “Go back. What’s wrong with Harry?” 

“His relatives,” answers the Weasley, stepping toward the pair of them. Ron, Remus thinks his name is. “We think Harry’s Aunt and Uncle are hurting him, right now. We need you to listen to us.” 

Remus, who’s been barely restraining Moony this whole conversation, abruptly has to wrench his hand from the little girl’s so he can put it through his porch railing. Hmm. That’s not good. Harry won’t be safe with a broken porch.

Well, he’ll fix it later. 

“They put him with Petunia?” Remus asks, aware that the growl in his chest is inappropriate for children but unable to quell it. “And her whale of a husband?” 

Wide-eyed, the little girl nods rapidly. If his body was not made of ninety percent rage and five percent moonlight at the moment, Remus would worry for her neck. 

“It’s been bad for a long time,” she says quietly. 

Slowly, Remus lowers himself to the wood of his porch to meet her eyes. “I see,” he says, attempting to convey with his body language that he isn’t going to hurt her. “And you want him to be safe again?” 

She and Ron nod. “Really bad,” the girl says, voice cracking as her eyes well up with tears. 

Remus dips his head. “Okay.” He extends an arm to them both. “Hold on tight, and don’t feel bad if you need to be sick once we get there.” 

It would be the least Petunia deserves. 

Remus hasn’t Apparated in months, but it doesn’t matter. When it counts, he’s never failed. 

He’s going to get Harry or die trying. 

The problem is that Harry got careless. 

If he hadn’t been cutting corners with his chores to meet Hermione sooner, Aunt Petunia wouldn’t have gotten suspicious. If he hadn’t almost burned the bacon Tuesday morning, head too full of possible answers from his mother’s Remus, Uncle Vernon wouldn’t have snapped at him and thrown his plate at Harry’s head. And if Harry hadn’t stashed his backpack in his cupboard, zipper open just enough for the corner of his treasure to peek out, Dudley wouldn’t have gone in and grabbed it when he noticed the door open after breakfast. 

Westley would never do that.

But Harry was doing all those things, and so when Aunt Petunia flies into the kitchen where he’s brushing pieces of broken dishware into the dustpan with slightly bloodied fingers, voice shrill and cutting as she screams at him for dirtying up her house with his horrid trashy books, Harry speaks without thinking. 

He probably got too comfortable, too, with Hermione and Ron smiling at him and letting him speak, because before Harry can even really process anything beyond the horrible pinpricks in his fingers and the fizzy, hot anger in his stomach, his mouth is saying, entirely without his brain’s permission, “Don’t call my Mum’s book trashy just because you can’t read!” 

Aunt Petunia goes purple with rage and drags him to his cupboard by the hair, hissing, “That’s the last we’ll hear from you, you ungrateful brat! And your freakish book is staying with me until your Uncle gets home. Then we’ll see how you want to speak to us!” 

The hot rage in his stomach had lasts Harry about fifteen minutes before he starts getting worried. 

Aunt Petunia has his book. She hasn’t done anything to it yet, because Aunt Petunia always asks Uncle Vernon before punishing Harry, but she could do something very bad. And the only way to keep that from happening is for Harry to be very, very good.

Harry spends the worst day of his life stuck in his cupboard, sick to his stomach and trying not to move, not to make noise, not to breathe until he hears Uncle Vernon come home. There’s a lot of thunking in the hall, then dust falling from Harry’s ceiling as Uncle Vernon thunders up the stairs, and then more thundering when he rampages back down them after Aunt Petunia tells him what happened. 

By the time Uncle Vernon’s undone the lock on his cupboard and hauled him out by the neck, Harry’s worked out what he’s got to say. 

Uncle Vernon brings him to stand in the living room, where Aunt Petunia is sitting in one of the ugly patterned armchairs in front of the television, two glasses of iced tea sitting on the end table next to her. Harry’s gaze zeroes in on his book in her lap, still unharmed for now.

Relief floods him and the words crowd around behind his teeth. 

“Boy,” Uncle Vernon starts. He always likes to begin Harry’s punishments by yelling at him for a while. Harry is inclined to let him this time. “We’ve been very good to you, haven’t we?” 

Harry nods. (They aren’t so bad, anyway.) 

“We let you live here.” 

Harry nods. 

“We feed you, clothe you, waste our money on you and keep you from falling in with the other vagrants, like your parents.” 

Harry’s jaw sets against his will, but he nods. 

“And this —” Uncle Vernon snatches the book from Aunt Petunia— “is how you repay us? Bringing rubbish and vandalism into our home? Going out with other hoodlums—oh, yes,” he says to Harry’s blanched face, “Don’t think we haven’t noticed you disappearing from the neighborhood, likely doing whatever it is common street thugs get into, drugs and thievery and the like; well I’m not having it!” 

He slaps the cover of Harry’s book, and Harry hates him. 

“You’ll be in your cupboard the rest of the summer, boy,” Uncle Vernon sneers. “And if you step one toe out of line you’ll feel it, I mean that.” 

Harry nods. “I understand, Uncle Vernon,” he says. “I’ll be on my best behavior, I promise, so if I could have my book back—” 

Uncle Vernon actually laughs, his head thrown back like a dying whale. “Back? This rubbish?” He waves the book as if fanning himself with the pages. “No, I think not. In fact, Freak, I think what you need is a demonstration of what awaits vermin in my home.” 

He pulls something silver from his pocket, and Harry’s heart hammers with sudden terror. 

“Now,” Uncle Vernon says, cold glee shining in his eyes as he flicks the lighter, opening the book and flipping through pages absently. “What should we dispose of first?” 

He stops somewhere near the end, a page filled with notes Harry’s run his fingers over again and again, tearing up and wiping his eyes hurriedly to keep from staining the pages.

His stomach is churning, but he feels frozen, unable to do anything but watch as Uncle Vernon chuckles to Aunt Petunia. “This seems good. Plenty of kindling, eh, boy?” 

He clicks the lighter and a flame springs to life, lowering toward the page. Harry can’t look away. He thinks he’ll die if the flame catches. He’ll explode into flames himself and burn down the house. Then he’ll really be a freak. 

The bright light of the fire meets his mother’s book, and Harry’s breath hitches. 

He waits, but instead of catching, the fire spreads around the edge of the book, dancing over and around the pages, curling up and spreading down until Uncle Vernon drops the book on the carpet. 

But it doesn’t burn. 

The carpet begins to catch, and Aunt Petunia shrieks, dumping the glasses of iced tea on it, but Harry’s book remains unharmed. 

Uncle Vernon tries seven more times to cut it, burn it, throw it out the window, drill holes into it, damage it in any way, but Harry’s book remains stubbornly impervious to damage. Finally, he throws an empty glass at Harry’s head and shouts, “INTO YOUR CUPBOARD! NOW!” the book still clutched in his hands, and still, somehow, unharmed. 

Harry goes, and once he’s locked in with the promise of no meals until September, he laughs into his hand, tears streaming down his face. 

He waits until the middle of the night to jimmy the lock on his cupboard, slipping out into the living room and hoping wildly. 

No luck. Harry searches the whole downstairs, but his book isn’t there and Aunt Petunia is too light a sleeper to risk searching upstairs. 

He stares at his cupboard door, two options weighing heavily in his mind. 

Harry could leave. Remus or no, Hermione’s parents would take him until school started and he could look for something else. 

Or Harry can stay, hoping his magic (because that’s what it has to be, Harry’s magic, keeping the most precious thing in his life safe) holds, and that the Dursleys can’t keep his treasure from him forever. 

With a great sigh, Harry tucks himself away into his cupboard. 

Remus takes one look at Privet Drive and comes to the conclusion it needs to be exorcized. 

Not just burned, not just demolished; full, salt-the-earth and bless the priest cleansed. It looks like the fantasy every Prime Minister since Robbie Walpole jizzed to. It looks like Thatcher threw up on it. The hedges are judging Remus, and Moony wants to rip up every geranium on the block. 

Ron lets go of his arm stiffly, staggers up to Number Eight’s lawn, and promptly vomits on it. Remus cannot blame him. 

(Looking at his face, he is pretty sure Ron didn’t strictly have to vomit.

He still cannot blame him.)

“What number is Harry again?” Ron asks. “You know, right, ‘Mione?” 

Remus lets go of the little girl whose name he still doesn’t fully know. He—probably should’ve figured that out before Apparating with her illegally. 

Ah, well. 

“Number Four,” ‘Mione recites. “That was extremely unpleasant,” she notifies Remus. 

“I’ll let the Ministry know,” Remus says, setting off toward Number Four. He is aware, distantly, that he should be paying more attention to his small charges, but cannot quite bring himself to do so. He may be experiencing a bit of tunnel vision. 

Ron doesn’t help, spouting off helpful facts such as, “Harry must hate it here. He says weeding the yard is fun, but this doesn’t look anything like our garden, and I don’t think the muggles let him use gloves for the plants that bite.” 

“Muggle plants don’t bite, Ron,” says ‘Mione. She keeps glancing about them, noticing the way curtains suddenly snap shut as soon as she focuses on them. Remus notes distantly that she’s got a keen eye for observation, which Moody would love. 

“But Harry said he got a rash from one, remember? He said it was all down his wrist and up his neck from scratching, and that sounds like—” 

“It sounds like poison ivy,” Remus grunts. They’ve reached Number Four, and his grip tightens around his wand. The lawn is already wilting, and the three of them are just walking. The last thing anybody needs is Remus’ control faltering and leaving a smoking crater in the side of their house. 

He means to walk up to the front door and knock, but Ron pipes up, “Gimme a second,” and darts off the walkway to peek through the open windows. His march leaves patches of sickly brown and yellow grass in its wake. 

“Harry’s in there,” Ron reports after a moment. “But I think his Aunt’s in the kitchen.” 

Remus nods. “Thank you, Ron.” 

He doesn’t know how Ron knows that, but it’s still good to know. 

Remus knocks three times on the door, smiling his best ‘so sorry to bother you’ smile. It’s gotten him out of (and into) countless scrapes through the years, and if there was one thing Remus didn’t lapse in during his nosedive off the deep end, it was lying. 

When Petunia answers the door, he shoulders his way into her space immediately forcing her to back up. “Hi there! I’m Romulus Starr, with the Parents’ Club?” He waits just long enough for Petunia to start asking what the hell he’s talking about before adding, “We’re a neighborhood group for kids from blended families.” He gestures to Ron and ‘Mione, letting Petunia draw her own conclusions. 

Ron, for his part, catches on immediately and latches onto ‘Mione with a huge grin. 

“...I’m sorry,” Petunia says, disdain clear on her pinched face. “You seem to have the wrong house. We aren’t… That is—”

“Oh, really?” Remus asks with aggressively wooden cheer, forcing his way past her and into the foyer. Ron and ‘Mione spread out to search immediately, the clever sprogs. “That’s interesting, because I could swear I saw you and your boys at the park last Wednesday. You know, your big—” Remus casts about for a photo—aha! “Blond wonder with the enormous frame on him. He loves to push buttons, doesn’t he? Loves to push people around…” 

“I really don’t…” Petunia’s face is rapidly losing color as Remus presses her, some inkling of recognition beginning to flicker in her dull blue eyes. So unlike Lily. “I—have we—” 

“You’ve got another boy, haven’t you?” Remus drops all pretense, Moony clawing at his throat with the urge to growl and snap at this woman who pretended she didn’t even have Harry. “A smaller boy, with dark hair and green eyes and you just couldn’t handle it, could you, Tuney?” 

Petunia stares at him in shock. “You!” 

“Me,” Remus agrees. “Lily loved you, Petunia, fuck knows why, and if I find out you hurt a hair on her son’s head—” 

“REMUS!” 

He turns toward ‘Mione’s shout instinctively. 

She’s standing in front of the broom cupboard in the hall, Ron holding onto her for dear life, the both of them shaking like leaves in October, and Remus can’t quite understand why at first. He moves away from Petunia with one last disgusted glance at her. 

“What’s wrong?” He asks as the kids stare toward the door. 

Something in his chest ticks, and Remus breathes in deeply. With Moony this close to the surface, he can smell Harry everywhere, the slightly sweet spice he and James shared and the same tang of orange as Lily and something beyond both of those scents, something wholly his own. But—Remus sniffs again—it’s too close. There isn’t a bedroom on this floor, Harry’s scent shouldn’t be so concentrated, it should be—

It clicks in Remus’ head just as ‘Mione raises one, shaking finger to the cupboard door, which echoes with a hollow knock, knock, knocking sound. 

The cupboard door, which has a lock on it. 

Normally, the worst part of the Dursley’s punishments is that they’re boring. 

Harry doesn’t hate his cupboard. It’s the only place in Number Four he really likes, most of the time. But staring at the same dimly lit walls every day is enough to drive anyone crazy, and Harry doesn’t even have his book to distract him this time. 

So mostly, he tries to do magic on purpose.

It seems like it should be easy enough, and he can do some wicked stuff by accident, so Harry figures he ought to practice. 

Harry starts with something simple; his oldest blanket, the one he remembers carrying around before Aunt Petunia got tired of it and took it away for four years, is pretty gross. Its hem is all raggedy from Harry chewing on it and it’s full of dirt and dust and stuff, so he’ll try to clean it. 

Cleaning magic seems dead useful, especially for before dinner parties when Aunt Petunia wants the house spotless. 

So Harry sets out to clean his old blanket. 

It is not as easy as he thought. 

Harry’s pretty sure there’s something he’s missing, because whenever he’s seen Griphook or Hermione do magic, it’s been easy for them. A snap or an extended hand, and the thing flies across the room to them. 

Harry’s been snapping quietly and miming laundry for three hours, and his blanket is just as dirty as it was. 

He taps his fingers on his face, wrapping one arm around his stomach, which is beginning to cramp from hunger, and thinks. 

Magic is probably one of those things that works differently for everyone, like storytelling and love, right? 

So what works for Hermione won’t work for Harry, and what works for Harry won’t work for Griphook. 

Then the question is, what works for Harry?

He’s not as smart as Hermione, not as strategic as Ron, and not as wonderful as any of the people in his mother’s book. 

But Harry loves stories. He loves the feel of them in his hands, and he loves the words of them, rolling around in his mouth. 

So Harry pulls the blanket to himself, bringing the words fresh and clean and cotton and laundered to the front of his mind and letting them buzz down to his fingertips, lovely and soft and warm, and tells himself a story. 

In Harry’s story, a little boy of about five is walking down a path to a well. The well is where his terrible stepmother asks him to wash his clothes, because all the water at home goes to the stepmother’s son, and none of it to the boy. The well water is dirty and hard to get to, but the boy goes anyway because he needs to clean his clothes somehow, and at any rate, it gets him away from his stepmother. 

On this day, the boy is walking along to the well, minding his business, when a large wolf with amber eyes crosses his path. The wolf asks why the boy is going to a dirty well to clean his clothes when there is water at his home? And the boy says because clean water is for Real Sons and well water is for Boys. 

The wolf is puzzled, because clean water is for All Wolves, and asks if the boy would mind terribly if he ate the stepmother and her son? But the boy shakes his head and says they take care of him quite well, for a Boy. But thankyou Mr. Wolf, and he will make sure there is meat for you outside tonight. 

The boy is true to his word, leaving his small share of food outside the cottage where the wolf might get to it. The wolf, still quite curious about the boy’s family situation, follows him home and does eat the meat on his plate, but still peers into the home of the boy and his relatives. 

The relatives all sleep on mounds of feathers. The boy sleeps on dirt. 

The relatives all eat well into the night. The boy wraps his arms around his stomach, which growls hungry in the language of Wolves. 

The relatives all sleep soundly. The boy falls into night terrors, and endures them in silence. 

Hungry, considers the wolf, and creeps into the cottage to eat the family in their sleep. 

The boy wakes on a bed of feathers to find a man with amber eyes smiling softly at him. There is food on the counter, still warm. 

Hello, he says. 

Hello, says the man. You are a sweet boy, and you have fed me, so I will feed you for the rest of your life. 

And he did. 

Harry’s story is maybe not the best, and he definitely got distracted from the laundry aspect, but when he opens his eyes, his blanket is as good as new. 

He spends the rest of the week telling himself stories and practicing magic, until his cupboard is spotless and cheerful, and he can recite the ballad of Domigo Montoya from memory, excepting the bit where Count Rugen comes to collect his prize. 

Something about it seems… picturesque, to Harry; the idea of a son taking up chores and cooking and cleaning not because he was ordered to, but because his father needed him. Because he loved his father, and his father loved him. 

Harry wonders, when the hunger pangs get worse, what that would be like. How it would feel to say I love you and have it returned. 

He wonders if his mother’s Remus would ever consider saying it to Harry, and that turns just as quickly into a game, of sorts, each question turning the spread of Harry’s old sheets and clothes and even the spiders up in their webs different colors and textures. 

If Harry were very very good, and never talked back, his mother’s Remus might smile at him. The sheets on his bed go from old and unwashed gray to a cheerful light blue. 

If Harry did all the dishes and dusted his rooms without complaint or breaking anything, the man would touch him softly, the way Uncle Vernon sometimes does with Dudley. A pat on the head here or there. The one unshaded bulb above Harry’s head pulses with brilliant light; Harry very quickly abandons that train of thought, because it’s the middle of the day and Aunt Petunia might wonder why he was wasting energy. 

If Harry washed the floors and hoovered the couch and cooked everything to perfection, (maybe he could even use magic for that!) his mother’s Remus might, occasionally, tell him a story about her. One Harry doesn’t have to piece together from highlighted sections and notes in the margins of books. 

The whole of Harry’s cupboard softens just a little bit. Like Harry’s done something kind to it. He smiles softly to himself, enjoying the feeling. 

And then the commotion starts. 

Harry is well acquainted with the sounds of Number Four’s hallway, so at first he thinks it’s a solicitor that Aunt Petunia is being steamrolled over by. Harry snickers softly to himself at that, because Aunt Petunia is usually very polite, if firm with solicitors, and takes great pride in being one of few housewives in Little Whinging to have never taken anything from those awful highway salesmen! 

Serves her right, Harry thinks, hearing Mister Romulus Starr espouse the benefits of blended…something. Harry doesn’t quite catch his words, or they don’t make sense. 

Whatever the man is selling, he must have some sort of demonstration available, because more than two sets of feet set about the house, scuffing against the floorboards Aunt Petunia spent so much time this morning cleaning without Harry’s help. 

They must be a great deal shorter than most, too, because their steps were lighter than any of Number Four’s residents, if one didn’t count Harry. 

And they’re whispering. 

“Harry,” hisses one, and Harry is suddenly certain he’s hearing things, the way he had in year one when he turned his teacher’s wig blue and hadn’t gotten fed for a week and a half, because that’s Ron’s voice. 

“Harry, we’re here to help!” Hermione’s chimes in, and Harry is quite suddenly sick to his stomach. 

Even if it isn’t real, he doesn’t want his friends here ever, where Aunt Petunia could hurt them or take their precious things or—

“Where are you, mate?” says Ron. “We’re scared.” 

A little noise falls out of Harry’s mouth without his permission, and he plasters a hand over it. 

Too late. The light feet grind to a halt outside his door. 

“Harry?” Asks Hermione. Hermione who helped him at the library. Hermione who cares too big for her body. Hermione who brought him to her parent’s house and let him see love for the first time, love that might almost include him. 

Harry’s mouth is frozen shut, but his hands work fine. 

He knocks three times on the cupboard door. 

There is silence for a moment, and then—

“REMUS!” 

Harry jolts, his whole body falling against the rough wood before he can think better of it. One of the heavy footfalls is approaching ‘Mione and he can’t stop it, he can’t protect her—

But the steps falter just outside his cupboard, and he can hear Romulus Starr’s voice, murmuring quiet things to ‘Mione. Odd; Harry didn’t think she knew a solicitor. 

Things are quiet long enough that fear starts to crawl up Harry’s throat, wondering what’s happening outside that he can’t see. He counts to five and tries to be brave, bringing a hand to his door, knocking once. Twice. Three times. 

The door vanishes. 

Remus is going to kill her. 

Remus is going to kill her, raze Privet Drive to the ground, kill Sirius and then kill himself, because—

James’ little boy has his hair. Exactly his hair, down to the tiny ducktail in the back that Remus charmed downy-soft and yellow in third year, and the nose and the jawline, as well as his brown skin. But he does not have the baby fat that kept James warm until midway through fourth year, and he doesn’t carry himself with half James’ confidence. 

How would he, Remus wonders, when he sleeps in a fucking broom cupboard? 

A broom cupboard he shares with some dusty Christmas lights and old hat boxes, as well as a clearly broken hoover Remus supposes the Dursleys couldn’t be arsed to throw out when they shoved a child in there. 

James and Lily’s child. 

Remus is going to be sick, and Moony prowling in his chest with feral savagery is not helping. 

‘Mione’s already launched herself at Harry, followed closely by Ron, but if Remus sees any of these children inside of a closet for much longer he is going to do much worse than vanish a door, so he shoulders his way inside and simply picks the three of them up, settling most of their weight on his non-dominant arm so he can cast—well, easi er. (Strength is about the only perk Moony ever gives him. So yes, Remus abuses the hell out of it.)  

‘Mione gasps. 

Ron whoops. 

Harry just flinches . 

Remus is going to kill Petunia. 

“Harry,” he asks as softly as he can. “Is there anything you want from here before we leave?” 

Harry is quiet until ‘Mione nudges him and says, “It’s okay. Your Remus is nice.” 

Remus takes a moment to wonder how his only reference as ‘not another awful adult’ to Harry is an eight year old who insulted his name not fifteen minutes ago. 

“Er, I have my blanket,” Harry says quietly, holding up the scrap of fabric James made for him years ago, once Lily admitted she hated sewing with a burning passion. “But—oh!” 

He squirms, clearly wanting to be let down, but Remus cannot find it in himself to let any of them go in this awful house. 

“I can get it for you,” he says, a touch desperate. “Just tell me what you’re looking for.” 

If anything, Harry seems more uncomfortable. At Ron’s prodding, though, he nods. “My—uhm, my book.” 

Remus waits for more, but Harry stares resolutely  at the knit of his jumper, unwilling to elaborate. Finally, Remus just sighs and flicks his wand in the general direction of the rest of the house. “Accio Harry’s book.” 

It takes a moment, but eventually a blur of sky blue comes ricochetting down the stairs and into Harry’s waiting arms. Ron and ‘Mione breathe twin sighs of relief, and Harry bursts into tears at the sight of it, which alarms Remus until he peers at the cover. 

And then, very suddenly, Remus feels a lot like crying, too. 

He clears his throat roughly and turns to Petunia. “I would ask how you could do this, anything like this, to anyone, but I don’t care.” Remus stalks toward her, teeth bared, Moony only restrained by the thinnest strand of his self-control. “I don’t want your piss-poor reasoning, I don’t want your lies. I just want you to know, Petunia, that you ruined your chance to do your sister’s memory justice, and if I ever see you again I’ll ruin you for it.” 

Petunia has the gall to sneer back at him, arms crossed, enormous teeth visible in a mockery of threat. “We wouldn’t have it! She was always freakish, and I wasn’t going to allow her filthy child to spread such disgusting, vile —” 

Harry is hunched into his book, shoulders shaking, and Remus can still feel him tense. He flicks his wand at Petunia, not even bothering to cast anything. 

“Enough,” he orders, soft. “You are not worth our time. Goodbye, Petunia.” 

With that, Remus walks out onto the front step of Number Four, Privet Drive for what, he is confident, will be the last time. 

“Everyone ready to go?” He asks. 

‘Mione and Ron nod. Harry just cries quietly. Silently, if not for his occasional hiccuped breath. 

Remus closes his eyes briefly, and then takes them all away. 

Ron and Hermione don’t let him go for hours. 

Not when Harry is crying like a baby over his Mum’s book, (it’s okay. Harry was so worried about it for so long, and now it’s here and it’s okay and he almost lost it) not when his mother’s Remus asks a lot of weird questions about how the Dursleys treat Harry, (no they don’t hit him much, yes the marks on his neck are from Uncle Vernon’s hands, of course they keep Harry in the cupboard when he misbehaves) not when Professor McGonagall comes in through the fireplace with both of their parents behind her, (Minerva spent quite a bit of time tracking down the Grangers; mostly because she, against her better judgment, completely overlooked the possibility of such a magical child coming from muggle parents.)

Not even now. 

“Grounded,” Mrs. Weasley, the lady with orange hair and a round face that must be quite nice looking when it’s not screwed up and angry, like now, is snapping, one finger pointed at Ron. “Grounded for life, Ronald Bilius Weasley, see that I don’t have you de-gnoming the garden and doing dishes until you’re thirty —” 

Harry’s stomach flops uncomfortably at the thought of Ron being punished for helping Harry. He hadn’t thought it would matter that much, in the long run. Maybe he could arrange it with Mrs. Weasley so he takes the punishment in Ron’s place? But that still leaves—

“Hermione,” says Mr. Granger, who’d taken one look at Harry and gone drawn around the eyes, like something was scaring him terribly. “I admire your drive to help your friends, but your mother and I would have helped if you came to us. We care about your safety, which is why we want you as informed as possible, but tearing off to find and meet a strange man who might have known his mother twelve years ago? I hardly think—” 

Harry didn’t mean to scare Mr. Granger, who laughs when Harry accidentally does freak stuff at the table and didn’t once yell at Hermione for asking questions, not all the time he’s been over. 

“—broken the Statute in twenty different ways, mind you, worse than any prank your group ever pulled.” Professor McGonagall is standing in front of the fireplace, eating a cracker with some of the weird fancy cheese from Remus’ coffee table. Harry hasn’t gotten to talk to Remus yet, (besides when he and Ron and Hermione saved him like Fezzik and Inigo saving Westley from the Count’s machine, and all Harry did was cry on him like a child) and the wait is making him all buzzy and jittery, but Harry doesn’t want to cause any more trouble. So he just watches. “Oh, wipe that smirk off your face. This is one of the tricks that’s only funny if you don’t get caught, Remus.” 

The man in question is sitting across the room in an old armchair that looks worn to perfection, meeting Professor McGonagall’s gaze with a focus Harry envies. He hasn’t looked at Harry once. 

Harry takes the opportunity to examine his mother’s Remus fully. 

In the way Harry’s parents are Westley and Buttercup, he knows he’ll never see Inigo Montoya as anyone but his mother’s Remus ever again. From the silver bits streaking every so often through his curly, light brown hair to the big scars tracked across his face and over the bridge of his nose, Harry rewrites his mum’s story from the inside. Remus is a tall man, taller than anyone else Harry’s met, but he held Ron, Hermione and him with a gentleness that made Harry sob harder, fingers clenching around Hermione’s shoulders uncontrollably. 

His jumper is a deep red, and it looks (it felt, when Harry was pressed up against it briefly) soft. The fingers Harry can see peeking out of its sleeves are long and equally scarred as his face. Though his nails have the same bitten-off, ragged quality as Harry’s, he can’t help but imagine, momentarily, the way they’d feel, scratching into his scalp lightly, brushing his messy hair this way and that, the same as Aunt Petunia did with Dudley. 

All at once, Harry remembers his game under the staircase and is desperate to know if he was right about any of it. He must twitch, because Ron and Hermione pull back from where they’ve been weathering the onslaught from their parents bravely, sharing a look over his head. 

“What?” Harry protests quietly. He didn’t mean to get them in trouble. He would have warned them if he knew they were going to come!

“You’ve been sitting here, clearly still in shock, for hours,” Hermione begins, exasperated, “And the first thing you want to do when you’re finally starting to come out of it is clean?” 

Harry could swear something moves on Professor McGonagall’s side of the room, but when he looks over, his mother’s Remus is talking to her like nothing’s happened. 

The Grangers and Mrs. Weasley, long since noticing that their children aren’t listening to their attempts to reason with (the former) or discipline (the latter) them, have moved on to putting away an impressive amount of the store-bought orange-cranberry scones Harry thinks his mother’s Remus must have bought recently and commiserating between themselves about raising children. (Aunt Petunia would scoff and turn up her nose at serving anything store bought, but she was still rubbish at baking, so most of the scones at Number Four were Mrs. Next Door’s work, and anyway she isn’t here). The scones would probably be delicious, if Harry could have any. 

He reaches for the empty plates instead. “Can you blame me?” 

“Nah, mate,” says Ron, reaching over to pluck three scones from the one remaining plate and ignoring his mum’s warning glance. “We get it, really. Good time to do something you’re used to.” 

He offers Harry a scone, taking his shake of the head easily, and presses the other into Hermione’s hand as they troop into Remus’ kitchen. 

Harry’s been washing dishes since he was four, so even though the faucet is trickier than he expected and the hot water doesn’t seem to work all the way, he makes quick work of the plates and the other dishes in the sink. Like Number Four, this house doesn’t have a washer, and Harry is in the process of poking around for a towel to dry with so he doesn’t have to resort to using his dirty old flannel when Hermione bursts out, “I can’t take it anymore! Harry, what are you thinking?” 

Harry freezes. 

Slowly, he turns around to see Ron perched on top of the counter, half a scone hanging out of his mouth and despite it managing to do a fairly accurate impression of Mrs. Weasley’s reproachful look. Hermione was standing next to him, Harry assumes, but she’s taken a step forward to ask her frankly baffling question. 

“Er—” Harry says. “I was wondering where the towels are?” 

Hermione lets out a frustrated growl, which isn’t helped by Ron pelting the remaining scone at her. At her incensed look, he throws up his hands. “Well, don’t push him! This morning he was in a cupboard. He’s allowed a bit of simplicity, isn’t he?” 

Hermione crosses her arms in a huff. “But it’s Harry’s Remus. We found him! We worked for months—months!—looking through his book, making the List, asking Griphook, and you even wrote McGonagall that letter, and—I just want to know if…” she swallows the last of her words, trailing off into a flush in the dim kitchen in front of Harry. “I don’t want it to be something bad for you, Harry. I don’t want to have let you down.” 

Harry wants to comfort her, but the words get stuck behind his throat. All his reassurances that his mother’s Remus is the best he could possibly be seem…Flat, in the face of Hermione asking if she’s let him down, like she could ever. 

So Harry says, “He’s Inigo Montoya.” 

Hermione actually gasps; she places a hand to her mouth, eyes brimming with tears, and barrels into Harry with the force of an R.O.U.S. 

“Merlin,” says Ron, still lounging on Remus’ counter. Hermione says she managed to read a little bit of Harry’s book to him over the phone, but that they haven’t got past the introductions to Fezzik, Inigo, and Vizzini yet. “He is, isn’t he? What with the scars and all. I’d be surprised if he hasn’t got in proper scraps, with those.” 

Harry, who has more experience than he’d like with ‘proper scraps,’ nods. “He’s good,” He whispers to Hermione, wishing he could explain his plan, or his game or whatever it is, so she could understand and maybe even help him earn some stories from his mother’s Remus. 

But all he can tell her is, “I like him.” 

As soon as the children leave, (HarryHarryHarry, Remus kept sneaking glances at him out of the corner of his eyes, couldn’t look away from his knobbly knees and bony elbows wrapped around his friends, Moony romping around in his chest all the while like a spring thunderstorm) all the air spontaneously evaporates from Remus’ living room. He himself collapses like a marionette whose strings have been ripped from the wood, leaving behind splintered joints and agony. 

His leg screams at him for lifting more than his own body weight, even if it was only by forty pounds, and his eyes itch with the effort of keeping back tears. He can still hear the children, bless Moony for once, which is the only reason he’s not pressed to the wall beside his kitchen entrance, breathing as quietly as possible and straining to listen in. 

The other adults (part of Remus wants to burst into laughter at that thought, the idea of lumping him, professional werewolf slosh, in with the parents in their early forties who have their lives actually together and not held up by tape, literal blood money, and raw spite is too much to bear) resettle on the couch, faces going, if possible, paler. Beside Remus, Minerva sighs. 

“Well,” she says. “I’ll be the one to write Albus. I’d like to know how they kept it from us all for months. Molly, you should really consider putting that mind of your boy’s to work; it’ll do him some good, keep him from getting into more trouble. Mr. and Mrs. Granger, I’ll have someone reach out to you with supplementary materials on raising a magical child, though I daresay excluding this—” her whole face spasms briefly— “incident, you’re doing perfectly well. Now, the matter of the Knight Bus—” 

“What?” 

Remus is so entirely disconnected from his body, it takes seeing every face in the room turn to him, surprise writ large across their faces, to realize he’s the one who said it. 

He is equally surprised to find rage, white-hot and boiling, entirely unlike the irritation before a Full, bubbling up in his stomach. 

“Yes, Remus?” Minerva says, after a moment. Molly frowns at him like she’s puzzling something out in her head. 

“What do you mean, write Albus?” Remus snaps. “You’re telling me Harry’s been—what? Using the Knight Bus to escape his awful home life—” 

Minerva winces. 

“—Getting into all sorts of nonsense looking for answers from Lily’s novel—” 

“Well, it was mostly the local library until recently,” says Edward Granger, who Remus resolves to dungbomb as soon as possible. Molly, eyes narrowing with something close to Ron’s cunning, looks between the two of them calculatedly. 

“—and somehow finding out confidential bank information along the way?” Remus is mostly pulling all of this out of his arse, but all of the stress and worry of the past few hours is catching up with him, wrapping around his throat and choking him nearly to death, Harry’s scared face in that damn cupboard flashing behind his eyes every time he blinks. “Information I didn’t even know? And you want to write Albus? Albus put him there, Minnie!” 

Minerva steps back as if he’s slapped her, and it’s enough for Remus to give up, bury his face in his hands and start weeping. 

“Albus put Harry in that house,” he manages, swiping at his eyes like he can gouge the tears away. Remus doesn’t want this; he doesn’t want to be yelling at Minerva, to be losing his mind in his living room in front of three more capable parents, but he’s long since accepted that he’s an unsalvageable numpty. “And I asked him so many times just to let me visit, and he said no.” 

“Oh,” breathes Molly Weasley, rising from her seat and coming to sit by Remus. Minerva presses her lips together until they very nearly disappear and tries not to cry in front of two of her former students. “I see.” 

Molly pats Remus’ knee. “Harry’s your first child, isn’t he?” 

Remus blanches. 

“No,” he sniffs, Moony howling in his chest, longing and pain and fear and cub. “N—no, I couldn’t, I—” 

“I understand,” Molly says, nodding like she has any idea what she’s done to Remus. (He can’t take care of Harry. He’s a werewolf, a drunk, a queer. He’s got no business getting anywhere near that boy.) “I was so afraid when Bill was born I tried to make Arthur divorce me.” 

Remus sputters. “But he—his relatives…I…” 

“Of course, this was during the early days of the war,” Molly reminisces. “I didn’t want him to have anything to worry about at home, not when everything was already so dangerous, but Arthur’s always been a stubborn man, and he told me he’d be dead in a ditch surrounded by a hundred Death Eaters before he’d leave me.”

Remus flinches, a broken sob tearing out of his throat as he presses his thumbs to his eyelids until he sees sparks. (Sirius, a curse on his lips and a star on his throat, laughing and happy and his, winking at Remus as he pointed at someone across the battlefield who could’ve been family and grinning, “We’ll need to duel our way out. Can you fight, Moony?” 

And Remus would have swallowed the sun for him, felt it burning in his stomach even then. “You’re here. If you want, I can fly.”)

“I know we can’t possibly imagine what you’re going through,” Molly continues, turning her gaze down to somewhere around Remus’ awful hardwood floors. “Knowing somebody hurt your little boy all these years. Knowing you’ll never be able to take that pain from him.” 

They take something from Remus, these great heaving sobs, scraping him raw on the inside. He wonders if this is how Hope felt, all those years ago when Remus was turned. Confused and angry and so, so scared to do the wrong thing and make it worse. 

“But, mon cherie,” says Estelle Granger, who Harry clearly adores. (Remus watched him relax as soon as she arrived, pressing a kiss to his and Hermione’s cheek and had to quell Moony’s completely inappropriate jealous howl). “Every kid on earth is going to do something terrifying that you hate. It’s what they’re meant to do. I think we’re—” She casts a quick smile at Molly— “just lucky our kids did it for such a good reason.” 

Remus sits there, letting Molly and Estelle look at him with soft eyes, and feels completely spent. 

After an amount of time, Minerva clears her throat. “Remus,” she says, stiffening ever so slightly when his gaze roves over to her, and a weak pang of regret sounds in his chest. “I regret that I was not more clear before. I intended to write Albus to inform him that you were taking emergency custody of Harry, and that he is in no circumstances to contest this.” 

Her eyes are soft and regretful. “I apologize for my part in Harry’s pain over these years, and I trust that you will be an excellent guardian to him.” 

With a nod to Molly and the Grangers, Minerva turns to leave. 

“Thank you, Minnie,” mumbles Remus. He’s rewarded by her stopping just short of the door. “You were so kind to us all.” 

Minerva rests a hand on the doorjamb. “It was my pleasure, Mr. Lupin,” she says. 

And then, with a crack, she is gone. 

At seven thirty, Ron and Hermione’s parents pull them away to go home, to their bleary-eyed protests. Harry waves them off with a promise that he’ll be alright and he’ll write them tomorrow. 

“You’d better,” Hermione demands, practically curled around her mother like a snake. “I’ll send your Remus a telephone myself if I must.” 

“You’ll do no such thing,” Mr. Granger says in a feeble approximation of sternness before crouching in front of Harry and saying, “You were extraordinarily brave today, kiddo. I’m so happy you’re safe.” 

Harry smiles at him, puzzled. 

Everyone seems to think Harry is safe, but Harry doesn’t really understand what they mean. He can’t go back to the Dursleys, surely—Remus said to bring his things along, and Harry did bring everything he couldn’t part with. But that just means Harry doesn’t know where he’ll end up next. 

Maybe his mother’s Remus will let him stay the night? Like a sleepover, because he was friends with Harry’s parents!

Once that’s figured out, Harry waves to Ron as he leaves (“Don’t forget to write! And you’re coming over next week! And I’ll come and get you if you don’t show up!”) and presses his back to the door as soon as he disappears into the air with Mrs. Weasley.

His mother’s Remus had taken over the kitchen after he and the adults had a long, loud conversation Harry, Ron and Hermione understood about half of. Ron reckons they did a little bit of breaking the law when they figured out Remus had an account at Gringotts, but we knew that already, so it’s fine.

The idea that his mother’s Remus is already catching on to the fact that Harry is a freak and a criminal makes his teeth itchy, though, so Harry sets about straightening up the living room a bit before bed. He’s not entirely sure what it looked like before now, but probably the table was more in the middle of the circle of chairs and couch, so Harry fiddles with that first. It’s lighter than the one at the Dursleys’, which is nice. After that, Harry pads into the hall cautiously, wondering where Remus stores his housekeeping things. 

He’s just found the broom cupboard when a voice behind him says, “Harry?” 

Remus’ voice is nice, warm and soft and just the slightest bit hoarse, like he isn’t used to talking. 

Harry turns around, trying to stifle the part of him certain he’s done everything wrong and Remus will start screaming at him any moment.

“What are you doing?” 

“Er…” Harry points to the cupboard. “I was looking for your broom.” 

Remus’ face sort of shudders, going pale in the half-shadow of the hallway between his staircase and the washroom. Harry tilts his head. 

After a minute, Remus offers a sort of strangled, “Tea?” 

Harry nods and they move to the kitchen, where Remus shoos him off to the table and fusses with the kettle for a moment. Harry uses that minute to take deep, calming breaths, the way Hermione keeps telling him to. 

The newness feels so…raw against his skin. New place, new friends, new adults to learn. Harry’s never been this watched before. He’s not sure he prefers it. 

“Here,” says Remus, setting two mugs on the table and sitting across from Harry. “Earl Grey. Is—Do you like Earl Grey?” 

Harry blinks at him. 

“I’m seven.” 

“Right. Right,” Remus sighs into his cup. Harry tries a mouthful of his, and is pleasantly surprised to find that the tea—a pale, opaque color he’s not sure any of Aunt Petunia’s teas were—is actually really good. “Well. I suppose…” 

Harry looks at his mother’s Remus, waiting. For what, he supposes he isn’t sure. Remus could probably do anything, and Harry would go along with it. He took Harry from the Dursleys; Harry’ll do whatever he likes. 

Remus might not understand that quite yet, because he averts his gaze and says, hurriedly, “My mother will be over. Tomorrow. Three o’ clock, so—” 

“I understand,” Harry nods. “I’ll have everything done by twelve, and then I’ll—find somewhere to stay until she’s left.” He bites his lip, then adds, “Only—I never actually found your broom? Or your hoover?” 

Remus looks at him with wide, alarmed eyes, and Harry almost spills his tea. “Done? You —Cynch. Cagchi.” The last bit he says very quietly, and looks up to meet Harry’s eyes again, a worried little pinch between his brows. “Harry, you don’t have to do anything. And—You don’t have to hide in your room. She’s coming over to see you.” 

All of this is news to Harry. “Why?” 

“Wh—Lembo, lembo, Christ in Heaven,” Remus swears, stumbling up from his chair. Against his will, Harry squeaks and holds his mug closer to him, squeezing himself into a ball on his seat, like that will save him. Why is he so stupid, he knows asking questions is wrong—

“Cariad,” comes Remus’ voice from very close. “Harry.” 

Harry cracks one eye open to see Remus, kneeling on the tiled floor of his kitchen beside Harry’s chair, one hand on the table leg. The dying sunset is cutting in through the treeline outside his window, and he looks shattered. 

“I’m sorry,” Remus says, “I’m not good at this yet. I don’t know how to talk to you, or how to be a good parent, and I’m fucking this up right now, aren’t I?” He asks. 

Harry giggles. 

“Oh well at least you find my incompetency funny, thank you so much,” Remus says, and his words bite but Harry can see relief in his eyes. “Anyway. What I mean is, Harry, I think you’ve had a long day, and no one has adequately explained the situation to you. Does that seem right?” 

Harry shrugs. “No one ever does.” 

Remus heaves a big gusty sigh. “Okay. If you want, I can tell you the whole story? From the very beginning.” 

Harry blinks at him. A story about his parents? One he didn’t even have to trade for? That sounds like a dream, like a treasure Harry wouldn’t know how to wish for. 

At Harry’s nod, his mother’s Remus clears his throat and begins. 

He tells Harry a nice story, one he’s never heard before. A story where Harry was loved by two parents and wanted for years, long before he was ever anything more than an idea. One where four people (Remus as Moony, a man named Wormtail, someone called Padfoot who made Remus’ eyes flash a shiny amber color and a funny growl vibrate out of his chest, and Harry’s father as Prongs.) paced up and down the waiting room while his mother shouted that she was going to kill James for this, mark her words. 

Apparently, the battle for Harry’s first hug from anyone but his mother was fought via miniature prank war, “and believe me when I say James had to work for that victory.” His mother’s Remus smiles over the rim of his mug as he says it, eyes twinkling like the first stars Harry can see in the sky outside. 

“Did you hold me?” Harry asks. He almost risks getting down on the tile floor with Remus, to see if he’ll hold him again, but wisely shakes the thought out of his mind before he does something stupid. “In the hospital, I mean.” 

“Harry…” Remus’ gaze drops to the floor again, hands on his knees with his palms up toward him. “I very nearly didn’t. I was—I am sick, fairly often, and I was worried about getting you sick. But James wouldn’t have it.” He sniffs and shakes his head, looking up to the ceiling, a watery smile on his face. “After he and—well. I held you third, after him and Padf…” he swallows, “and if I hadn’t I’m quite sure I’d still be in that waiting room, watching the Queen’s own theater.” 

Remus puts on a voice Harry recognizes from Aunt Petunia’s soap operas, dramatic and aggrieved. “How could you, Moony! You said you loved us! You said you’d provide for us, and now you won’t even hold him, your own son? And you can imagine how this confused the nursing staff, though by then each one of us had come, sweating buckets and shrieking our heads off, and naturally we’d each shown up at a different time, and Prongs last, all claiming to be the father, so when he finally did get there the receptionist just sort of sighed at him and said I suppose you’re his fifth Dad, then and shunted him off toward us.

“So finally Lily, who’s really been doing most of the work, mind you,” Remus shoots Harry a look that makes him burst into giggles, “She sits up in bed and looks at me and says,” He swallows, something focusing in his eyes. Harry leans in. “Remus Lupin, nothing you can do to that boy is worse than what I will do to you if his Uncle Moony never holds him .” 

His mother’s Remus (his Uncle Moony) takes a big breath. When he looks at Harry, his eyes are glassy. “So I held you.” 

He reaches forward and takes one of Harry’s small hands in his big scarred one. “And you were the smallest, biggest thing I’d ever held. Please understand, I don’t have siblings and my parents were only children. I was right to be nervous; I didn’t know the first thing about babies!” Remus’ breath is coming quicker now, but his words are full of something feverish that makes Harry shiver. “But your parents—hell, we all wanted you so badly. Every time I saw them from then on, the first words out of our mouths were where’s Harry? How were you doing, what had you learned, were you driving them up a wall yet?” 

Harry shifts, something warm and squirmy in his stomach, but Remus just runs his thumb across Harry’s knuckles. “We were all…fragile, back then. Paranoid. But I never saw anyone look as happy as they did with you in the room, Harry. Even S—ah, Padfoot, who couldn’t sleep when everything wasn’t going to shite, I found crashed on your parent’s couch with you fast asleep on his chest, and him just snoring away.” 

Remus pulls away, swiping at his eyes with one hand. “Your parents loved you, Harry.” He sniffs, staring with fantastic intent at a table leg. “More than anything. They wanted all the best for you, they just…” 

He trails off into silence, so Harry finishes for him. 

“They died.” 

His mother’s Remus sucks in a breath, between his teeth. “Yes, they did. And I—everything had gone wrong so fast, and before I knew it, I was—” he makes a choking sound, and Harry suddenly remembers that this is not a happy story. “I was the only one left.” 

Harry, who usually thinks he knows quite a bit about being alone, suddenly realizes he doesn’t know anything about being alone after something. After someone. 

In a fit of something, (pique? Bravery? Empathy? Harry doesn’t know, he just thinks of being alone after Hermione and Ron and looks at his mother’s kind, weary Remus and feels an ache deep in his chest, like being connected to the Count’s Machine only by the heart, and knows he has to do something) Harry gets down off his chair and wraps his whole, small body around Remus’ middle. He wishes he were big and strong or at least wide like Dudley so he could cover Remus more, and maybe hold him together. 

After a moment, Remus’ arms come to rest on his shoulder blades and the back of his head. Harry is warm, and he feels safe. 

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Remus says, carding a hand through his messy hair. “I left you in that house. I wasn’t the only one left, it just hurt too much to remember you were—” his voice breaks, and Harry tries to hold him impossibly closer. “You were out there, and I couldn’t see you. I should’ve come sooner. You don’t ever have to go back, I promise. I don’t care what happens, you’ll be here and I’ll protect you, I swear it—” 

Harry gasps. 

Remus stops immediately, and his grip on Harry lightens without releasing, like he can’t quite bring himself to let go. Harry looks up at him, hope blooming in his heart like blood in shark-infested waters. 

“I can stay?”

Remus’ face crumples. Just for a second before he schools his features into something more even, but Harry still sees the abject grief on his face. He uncurls his fingers from Harry’s hand-me-down flannel, five-four-three-two-one, and brings up his hand to brush against Harry’s cheek. 

“Oh, cariad,” Remus says. “As long as you want.” 

Harry wakes up early the next morning and wonders for a moment where he is. 

The sun barely peeks over the green treeline just a ways away from the house, forming an odd barrier between the pale sky and high grass outside Harry’s window. 

Harry takes a moment to wonder at the fact that he has a window. One Remus took care to tell him he can open anytime he likes last night, when he half carried Harry up to his room (his room!) and tucked him into bed. 

(Remus seemed a little flustered, bumping his head in the linen closet when he looked for some spare pajamas for Harry because he hadn’t thought to bring any from the Dursleys. Or had any at the Dursleys. 

Harry didn’t tell Remus that part, though, because the Dursleys seem to make Remus mad, and Harry doesn’t want to make Remus mad.) 

The marvel of the window is enough to occupy Harry for a while, and he just stands, hands pressed to the sill and watching the sun emerge from behind the wood barrier, painting the whole world gold. 

It’s nice, until Harry remembers breakfast. 

Then he’s off like a shot, still in the red, cuffed-at-the-end pajamas covered in funny little gold balls Remus gave him last night. Harry rummages through the things in his squarish room, looking for a clock on the bedside table and on the bookshelves on the far wall, but all he finds is a strange little sundial with a shadow much darker than seems right, unerringly falling over the word panikos etched into its face. He almost trips over the little rug in the middle of the room on the way out. 

“Brilliant,” Harry huffs, pulling the door to his room open and shutting it as quietly as possible. Just brilliant, really; his first day here, a day when Remus’ Mum is coming over, and Harry’s already behind. Wasting his time on sightseeing he can do later, who is he, Dudley? 

Harry takes the steps two at a time, mindful of the dreadful squeaking one fourth from the bottom that Remus keeps on purpose to warn him of intruders. (“Every house should have a trick step,” he explained when Harry had cocked his head, interested but guarded. “And no one else should know where it is. Keeps us all on our toes.”) 

There’s a clock above the stove in the kitchen, that should tell Harry what he has time for, and if he can’t scrape a full English by the time Remus wakes up, he’ll just poach some eggs and make toast, it shouldn’t be too difficult. And tea, too, Remus drinks tea, can’t forget—

It’s seven twenty-five. 

Harry stands frozen in the middle of the kitchen, blood turned to sweat in his veins. Seven twenty-five? 

He never slept past six at Hermione’s, and that was in her room, with her there to run interference on her parents if they decided Harry had overstayed his welcome. Here, it’s just Harry and Remus, and he slept until seven twenty-five? 

God, Aunt Petunia would have locked him up ‘til Halloween. 

Harry’s never made eggs so fast in his life. He’d think it was magic, except he doesn’t even have the wherewithal to tell himself stories while the pot is filling, and his hands are shaking too much to feel that warm buzz. Still, they turn out fine, and Harry only burns himself a little bit making toast, and before he knows it, the only thing left is tea, which is…

The tea is over…

Harry hums to himself, thinking. There’s tea in here somewhere, he knows it, but last night Remus was the one to make it. That was nice. Usually Harry isn’t even allowed tea, for fear he might spill on something. 

But. That means Harry doesn’t know where the tea is, which is bad. 

At the Dursleys, the first thing Harry made in the morning was a pot of tea, strong, because without it, Uncle Vernon got a headache, and when Uncle Vernon got a headache, Harry didn’t eat if he was lucky. 

Harry doesn’t want to see what lucky is with Remus. 

He needs tea. 

All at once, the memory comes back to him of Remus, holding him and Ron and Hermione and looking Harry in the eyes and saying something, and then suddenly Harry’s book was in his hand. It looked so easy. 

That’s what Harry needs to do. 

He mumbles to himself, trying to remember the word, “Acero…accelerando…protego? No, that’s stupid,” but nothing sounds right. Harry scrunches his nose in frustration. 

Well, he’s already done magic without the funny words. He’ll just do it again. 

Taking a deep breath, Harry closes his eyes and thinks about finding his first, battered copy of The Princess Bride. How it felt, glossy and elegant in his hands, and the pure wonder of it as Harry read it. The sweep of disappointment in his chest when Miss Patel shouted at him about lying and stealing, even though Harry just found it on the playground. 

The way his treasure looked, the first time he saw it, tucked out of the way in an old bank vault. Like the sea and the Cliffs and the Florinese countryside, all just begging to be explored. Like his mother’s handwriting, neat and precise, against his father’s fluid elegance. 

Like home. 

Harry opens his eyes just in time to be smacked in the face by a teabag, which is fine because it shocks him out of crying before more than a couple tears can fall. 

“Next time,” he whispers, careful of Remus sleeping in the room next to his upstairs, (Remus said last night that he has very good hearing, so if Harry ever needs him he should just shout. Harry knows what that means) “I’m going to keep my eyes open and catch.” 

He sets the kettle to boiling, and wonders. 

If Harry can clean his cupboard and summon tea, turn his teacher’s wig the color of a robin’s egg and mend some of the holes Dudley left in his shirts, surely he can keep the food warm until Remus wakes up? 

Harry looks at the eggs. He definitely has time to try, right? Remus didn’t even have bacon.

With a thoughtful look, Harry moves closer to the pan, rolls up his sleeves and thinks, warm. 

It’s ten forty-two by the time Remus stumbles downstairs, yawning so wide it cracks his jaw and scratching under his sweater, which seems to be the same one from yesterday. Harry frowns at it. Why go to the trouble of getting him pajamas if he wasn’t going to wear any?

Remus doesn’t say anything to Harry, just slinks into the seat Harry put a mug of tea and a plate in front of and settles his hands around it, staring deep into the liquid. 

Harry nods to himself, vindicated. Definitely had to have tea. 

Hurrying over with the pan of eggs (warmed by magic after many unsuccessful attempts resulting in brief fires and a small smattering of eggs in Harry’s hair, don’t ask, and also sausage now, because he had so much extra time! Harry is doing this whole ‘staying with people who don’t hate him’ thing so well) Harry shovels a few of them onto Remus’ plate quickly and settles into his own chair. Two eggs and three-quarters of the sausage links, just like Uncle Vernon, and a quick trip back to the hob for toast. Harry’s already got butter out. (But not jam. The jam had a weird fuzzy layer on top, and while Harry might’ve tried to serve it to the Dursleys if he thought he could get away with it, he likes Remus. He threw out the jam). 

Then…

Harry, as if waking up from a dream, realizes he doesn’t have to wait for anyone else to eat before he can snatch any scraps left. No Dudley to hork down the remaining sausage links in one greedy gulp, no Aunt Petunia to cut away half of the remaining egg and ferry it over to her son’s plate, brows pinched just by looking at Harry. No blackened toast because he was listening to the mile-long list of other chores he’d have to do and wouldn’t be able to ask about again and lost track of time on it. 

Harry gets to sit and eat at the table. Quietly, but unbothered. 

He beams at Remus and fishes the last poached egg out of the pan. 

It tastes like…

Egg. Harry may have forgotten to season these, but in his defense Remus doesn’t have a lot of spices and he was a little busy trying to make the food stay hot without burning and-or exploding. 

It was a process.

But it’s warm, and it’s filling, and it’s Harry’s. No one takes it from him. 

So really, it’s the best egg Harry’s ever eaten. 

He’s finished his egg and about two sausage links, when Remus (halfway through his tea and all the way through his eggs, plus most of his own sausage, though if pressed Harry’s not sure he’d know what he’s eating) finally seems to realize he’s here. 

It’s pretty weird, if Harry’s honest. His eyes sort of squinch up, and his whole face brightens. 

“Harry!” Remus says. “Good morning.” 

“Good morning,” Harry returns. 

Silence. 

Harry can feel questions crowding themselves around his teeth, but every time he tries to ask, something under his jaw tightens and Uncle Vernon’s voice in his head screams don’t ask questions. So he waits. 

“Did you sleep well?” Asks Remus finally. “And I don’t quite…remember all of this being here yesterday.” He looks around the kitchen, eyes a little sharper, face a little darker. “Did you make breakfast, Harry?” 

“Er,” says Harry, abruptly wondering if this is another situation like the Broom Incident. Dangerous, for him, especially considering he still has no idea what he did wrong. Does Remus not like poached eggs? 

“I slept fine,” he settles on finally, relieved when it makes Remus smile for a minute. “And I…tried to?” 

“I’d say you did more than tried,” Remus counters, eyebrow raised over his mug. “Do you like cooking, Harry?” 

Harry feels himself flush. “W—well, it’s not much, just eggs and toast, ‘cause I overslept, and the sausage links after you didn’t wake up, plus the er, the keeping it warm—I used most of your eggs, so—but I can pay you back, and—sorry.” 

He stares at the wooden table top, feeling about two inches tall. 

“Harry.” Remus’ voice is hushed. “I’m not mad at you. And you certainly don’t have to pay me back.” 

Harry’s head shoots up. 

Remus looks a little like he had last night, a crumpled-up piece of paper that somebody tried to smooth out and only half-succeeded. He offers Harry a weary smile. “I’m sorry. My manners are terrible, aren’t they? Thank you for making breakfast, Harry, it was wonderful. You say you did these warming charms yourself?” 

The words light up part of Harry’s chest. “Is that what they’re called?” 

Remus smiles; something deep in his eyes lights up, and not in the way that Harry figures is magical, somehow. “Yes,” he says, setting down his mug and pulling the pan just a bit closer to himself to inspect it. “And quite sophisticated, for a wizard of your age. You have your mother’s capacity for charms, I imagine.” 

There is a storm inside Harry’s chest. He wants to be excited about Remus teaching him something (maybe that means breakfast is an acceptable price for lessons, at least short ones like this? Harry will have to do more to understand the rates, but he’s gonna if it kills him) or the confirmation that his mother was good at charms like Harry can do (Maybe it’s some sort of easing Harry in, because it’s his first day, and the stories will cost more later?) or the smile Remus fixes on him, sort of soft and warm. But Harry can’t focus on any of it, because—

“A wizard?” Harry repeats, strangled. 

Remus blinks. “Oh, er—yes, I should explain a little more,” he mumbles, fiddling with his napkin. “You see, Harry—” 

“Like Inigo?” 

Harry can see the moment Remus’ train of thought spins off its track. He stares at Harry, mouth agape, utterly dumbfounded, for a moment before he’s throwing his head back and guffawing. 

It seems like a laugh that hurts, the kind that burrows into your stomach and leaves you breathless after a long, harsh winter, leaving you staring into eye-searing blue skies and thinking spring has come again. Tears are streaming down Remus’ face, which is bright red from lack of oxygen, and he has his arms wrapped around his middle as he stomps his leg on the ground. 

After a moment, Harry joins in, first chuckling and then growing into a belly laugh of his own, until the two of them are sitting there, cackling at the kitchen table. 

Harry loves his mother’s Remus. 

Finally, when they calm down a bit and Remus is wiping the tears from his face, he sighs, “I’m sorry, Harry, I didn’t mean to laugh at you, I just—” he trails into giggles again. “I’d forgotten about that entirely. Merlin.” He turns shining brown eyes on Harry, looking years younger than he seemed even wreathed in the light of the Dursleys hallway, burning with righteous fury like the Wizard of Wizards himself. 

Moony, Harry thinks. He couldn’t quite see it before, the way his mother’s Remus described it. Him, a trickster and a liar, too, one part of a quartet who’d barrel their way into the room of their friend’s wife giving birth. 

He seems…Happy.

“To answer your question Harry, no, not like Inigo. I don’t swing a sword or practice much fencing, as it were,” Remus chuckles. “Wixen—witches and wizards—are a kind of being in the magical world. Many different creatures have their own unique words for and means of accessing magic, but one of the most well-documented are wixen, who wield wands and study to gain proficiency. Does that make sense?” 

More than Miss Patel explaining maths, that’s for certain. It also dashes Harry’s hopes of being like Inigo Montoya, a master before he’s twenty. 

Harry doesn’t say any of that. “Yeah. I think Ron told me some of that, but…” He was mostly interested in Harry’s parents and You-Know-Who. Harry does have one question though. 

He glances up at Remus, wondering if maybe he could risk asking, when he notices the empty plate with his knife and fork on it. A pained zing shoots through his palms. 

“Do you want more?” Harry asks, throat constricting with the idea that he didn’t notice Remus finishing his food. 

“Hm? Oh, no,” Remus shakes his head. “I’ve had more than enough. Your cooking is excellent, Harry—but there’s still a few sausage links, if you want them?” 

Harry shakes his head. He’s not hungry anymore. With twitching fingers, he goes to clear the plates, only for Remus to raise a hand. 

“Oh, just leave it.” He smiles, like Harry’s spine hasn’t gone tight with adrenaline. “I can do those in a minute. Think of what you’d like to do before my mother comes over.” 

Harry nods, a quick jerk of the head. 

(When Remus enters the kitchen an hour later, after taking a minute to write out his plans for the week— job hunting, groceries, kill Petunia, take Harry to doctors, take Harry to therapist, take self to therapist? Kill Sirius,  find out if seven year olds are supposed to know how to use the hob, fix porch —he finds that, instead of the mess of jam-smeared plates (he vaguely remembers there being jam in his fridge) and greasy pans he was expecting to be strewn about the room, someone has apparently already cleaned, dried, and put away the dishes. They’ve wiped the counters. They’ve cleaned the hob down to the grates, which until today nobody had ever done. After a sniff, Remus is certain the floors have been cleaned with lemon and vinegar. 

This is concerning because, Moony excepted, Remus does not experience amnesia, and he doesn’t know anybody else who could have done this. Even if Black was murdering, traitorous scum, before he showed his true colors, he warded the shit out of the cottage that was meant to be theirs, and if nothing else the Black pride would have kept him from skiving off on purpose. And there’s no way it’s an elf, either, because Remus can’t smell a whiff of elf magic anywhere. All he smells is Harry. 

…Well, fuck.) 

“I come bearing gifts, cariad,” Hope calls to her son, tromping in her best wellies and softest cardigan up the hard-packed dirt path to the little cottage he bought, just out of school and so so happy. 

She hopes it becomes happy again now. 

The shoulder-strap bag at her side thumps softly against her leg with each step. It’s filled with little bits and bobs Hope thinks her son and—and Harry might need. Old clothes of Remus’ and another bottle of shampoo for bathtime, and a toothbrush, because she’s certain her fool son didn’t think of that. 

“Mam,” Remus greets her from the top step of his porch. “Hello.” 

Oh, blaidd bach. Still so awkward. Hope chooses to believe things inside her son’s house are going better. 

“Where’s the cyw?” She demands. “Most of the gifts are for him. ” Tramping up the steps of the porch, she opens her arms to her boy and lets him hug her briefly. 

“I sent him out to the back yard,” Remus says. Hope looks closer at him and finds that his irises are ringed in that particular golden shade they always are when something’s bothering him. “It’s a good day for it, and, well.” 

He trails off. 

This is normally the part where Hope pushes past him, poking around her son’s house and trying to clean what she can while he pretends she isn’t here and she pretends she isn’t failing him. 

(Sometimes, Hope wonders if she made it worse, relying so much on Remus when he’d just left school and Lyall had just left both of them and there was a whole war he just wouldn’t tell her about. She’d pushed, and he’d pulled, and by the end of it they couldn’t get through one dinner together without it ending in infuriatingly strained, quiet arguments, her baby storming off to shout in the Welsh countryside where he thought she couldn’t hear him, Hope smoking on her own porch, staring at the waxing moon and trying not to think about what it would bring. 

Then, the end of the war.

Then, his friends. 

And Remus was…not fine, Hope never thought he was fine, she just thought it was like the war, like Lyall; one more thing they wouldn’t talk about, but would pull tight in their voices, ready to snap. 

It felt like the only thing Remus would ever talk about—really talk, not just monosyllabic answers given without emotion, was Harry. Something in his eyes too bright when he asked if she’d be a reference to him, if she thought he could really do it, raise him like James and Lily asked if something ever happened . 

It wasn’t often. But it was enough, and he seemed stable enough, that Hope was still caught off guard when it all came crashing down. 

She’d been sleeping. It was two days after the Full, which he still took at her house, in the cellar Lyall never let her put down carpet in. So that was something Hope could do for him, at least. 

The crash woke her. Not a crash, exactly, just a horrible mash of sounds like a small bear bumping into something and then a long screech of that something moving across the floor. Hope stumbled into the kitchen with wild eyes, her shotgun out and ready before her senses. 

But it was too late. Her baby boy, slumped into Hope’s kitchen table, had seen her. And there were tears in his eyes and he laughed like broken glass. 

“You gonna put down the monster, Mam?” He’d asked, grinning lazily at her, and in it Hope saw all the wakes she’d been to in the past three years and during his war, when he couldn’t make it because the man who looked her in the eyes fifteen years ago and told her to give her son away to a world that hated him put her baby in danger for the greater good. In his face, Hope saw funerals filled with people who saw her as less than just because she wasn’t magic, and she wanted to be sick. 

“Like Da wanted?” 

And she wanted to scream. )

But she’s turned over a new leaf, and there’s real joy in her boy’s eyes, even under the worry and the guilt, in a way she hasn’t seen in six years. Not since before his war. 

So Hope takes him by the hand and asks, “What’s happened, cariad? What’s wrong?” 

Remus waves her off gently, pinching his brow between his fingers. “It might be nothing, Mam,” he sighs. “I might just be paranoid.” 

Hope turns expectant eyes on her son. He may be a parent in his own right now, but he’s green, and she’s always known just how to turn the pressure on when it counts. 

She’ll give him some credit, of course. He lasts longer than he did at ten. 

“He made breakfast this morning.” The words come out in a rush, like they always do when he’s unsure. “And last night, I caught him rummaging in the broom cupboard, which—Mam, you don’t understand, those bastards kept him under the stairs, and I just—” Remus huffs an annoyed breath. “I’m scared he thinks I’m going to be more of the same.” 

Hope nods. She is somehow still entirely unprepared for him to come to her for advice. It was always Lyall, for magic and mishaps and mischief—never mind the fact that Hope’s been thrown in the county jail more times than she can count on both hands. (Never mind that they were all before he was born. Before Lyall.) 

But Goddamn it, she won’t leave him alone again. 

“So you show him you won’t. Reassure him, and when he forgets, do it again.” Hope pulls her baby to the rickety bench she used to drag him out to, months ago, when she found him covered in sick and sweat, so he’d at least be out in the fresh air. 

“What if I fuck it up?” 

His voice is so quiet, so unsure. It breaks Hope’s heart, a little. 

“Oh, f’annwyl,” Hope sighs. “You will.” She laughs a little, at his offended expression, looking out into the green field and the blue sky. “Whatever gave you the impression, my darling boy, that parenting would be simple? Everyone messes up. It’s the only guarantee.”

“They never seemed to,” Remus mutters. She doesn’t have to ask what he means. 

“They were trapped in a war, Remus,” Hope says, sharper than she means to. “I rather doubt they could share everything they were feeling.” 

His spine cracks, it stiffens so fast. Hope winces. There was a reason she bit her tongue, after all. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “That was harsh.” 

“No,” Remus says, brows furrowed like he’s solving a puzzle in his mind. “I…You’re right. I shouldn’t be pretending, or—glorifying them.” He laughs a bit. “James—the first thing he told me and—the first thing he said when he told us was how scared he was. I barely kept us alive, how am I supposed to raise a baby? He actually expected me to answer, Mam. Like I knew fuck all about sprogs.” 

“And yet,” Hope agrees. 

“And yet.” Remus sits with her in silence for a moment, then smacks his palm against his thighs. “I suppose you’re wanting to meet Harry?” 

“More than anything.” 

Harry runs up to the back door when Remus calls for him. He’s been listening to the newly-hatched adder in the overgrown grass gossip about its family and the state of this cottage and the prey available here for the past fifteen minutes, careful not to make it too obvious. 

“Bye,” he whispers, gratified when the snake hisses back a farewell. Harry pauses at the screen door, trying to wipe his trainers off on the ancient mat, only for Remus to swing open the door, that same smile from breakfast on his face. 

“Oh, don’t bother,” he says, pulling Harry inside by the sleeve and setting him down gently on the hardwood to remove his shoes. “I hardly clean enough for you to worry about it. Just come meet Hope.” 

He leads Harry through the kitchen and into the front of the house.

Hope is standing in Remus’ living room, surveying the space with a smile that pulls on her crows feet. Her gray hair, of a similar texture to her son’s, is bound into a braid down her back, pieces escaping to frame her clear, bright eyes. She’s wearing patched dungarees and a flannel shirt and her face brightens when Harry enters the room, too. 

“Hi there,” she says warmly. “I take it you’re the boy who’s been looking for my son?” 

Remus is smiling between them like he’s never been happier, but all the anxieties Harry’s been dutifully shoving down his throat since Remus pushed him outside without any objectives this morning churn in his stomach; he clears his throat and nods, looking down at his socked feet. 

“Oh, dear,” Hope says, and before Harry knows it she’s crouched on the ground to look closer at him. “I didn’t mean it badly, Harry. Remus has been looking for you, too.” 

Harry looks up at her. “He has?” 

Hope nods. “For a long time.” 

Harry’s chest goes warm. He steps closer to Hope. “You’re his Mum, right? Ms. Hope?” 

She laughs. “You can call me Hope, Harry. Auntie Hope, if you’re willing.” She shrugs at his confused stare. “It’s what you’d call me if everything went to plan. But yes, I’m Remus’ Mam.” 

“Hope.” Harry swallows. “I have a question. About Remus.” 

“Hm?” Hope leans in, ignoring Remus’ confused face, and gestures for Harry to whisper it to her. 

Harry puts his mouth close to her ear and talks a bit about his game. He’s been very confused over the past two days. All the rules are different here, and Harry’s worried about breaking them accidentally. He’s also very anxious to know if he could ever get the prizes he made up. “—and then I saw the yard here, and, um, do you think if I weeded the flowerbeds I could get him to read to me? Only at Privet Drive, Aunt Petunia read to Dudley all the time and he never enjoyed it, but I have my Mum’s book, and now I have her Remus, and—” 

There’s a soft gasp behind him, and Remus is definitely a werewolf like Hermione suggested, because he shouldn’t have heard what Harry said. He’s very good at whispering. 

Harry finishes, “Do you think Remus would like that?”

Hope pulls back from him, eyes shining. “Yes, calon bach. I think he would like it very much.” 

She manages to push herself back up on her feet, knees cracking, in time for Remus to barrel into Harry’s side, just holding him for a moment, arms shaking. 

“What did I do?” Harry asks, baffled. 

“Nothing.” Says Remus, voice strangled. “Absolutely nothing, fy ngalon bapur i. You don’t have to do anything. Not for that.” 

“Oh.” Harry relaxes into his hold. It’s nice. He feels…safe. “Thank you.” 

Remus shakes his head minutely, face buried in his hair. 

“Tell you what,” Hope says, amused. “I’ll make you boys lunch and we can all do the dishes together.” 

Remus nods, still unwilling to let Harry up. That sounds like quite a novel experience, so Harry agrees as well. 

“As for the rest, Harry,” Hope ruffles his and Remus’ hair on the way to the kitchen. “I think you’ll find we’re a bit different than your relatives’.” 

Hours later, after he’s eaten food an adult prepared for him, washed dishes with people happy to listen to his request not to deal with the food caked onto pans, (it gets under Harry’s nails and makes him feel sick) and received a truly astonishing amount of Remus’ old clothes, including a matching set of dungarees Harry put on immediately, Harry thinks Hope might have been right. 

But nothing will compare to this; half-laying in his bed, in his room, the lamp on his bedside table illuminating Remus’ scars as he opens his hands, waiting for Harry’s permission to touch his treasure, which he’s proffered from under his pillow, arms stretched out. 

“And you’re sure?” Remus asks one final time. 

Harry nods, only to interrupt just as Remus’ hand brushes the cover. “Wait!” 

Remus jerks back. “What is it, cariad?” 

Harry winces, embarrassed. “Just—will you read the notes, too? The—the extra bits, that my mum and dad…” 

Remus’ eyes soften, and Harry is reminded again that his mother’s Remus really, truly wants him. Wants Harry, chores or not. 

“Of course,” he murmurs. “Let me just…” 

With careful hands, Remus takes the book, flipping the cover open and running his hand over the message inside. “You know,” he says to Harry, quirking one eyebrow. “This is my favorite book, though I’m sure I’ve never read it like this before.” 

Harry giggles, sweet and settled. 

Remus clears his throat. “Here we are, then: Lily. You mentioned missing muggle books at school, and…” 

Harry manages to fall asleep before Westley dies. (The first time).