Hope
Sunday, December 19 - Wednesday, December 22, 1971
Remus ended up staying home for the weekend with Professor Dumbledore’s permission. On Sunday, he did everything he could to make his mother smile. He brought her breakfast in bed, he read to her when she couldn’t get up, and, most importantly, he decorated the entire house for Christmas. His mum loves Christmas, it’s her favourite holiday. The lights, the food, the gift-buying. She loves all of it, and Remus knew his father wasn’t going to do any decorating, he never did, he was always ‘too busy’. He put up lights on the bushes outside, he set up and lit the tree, and he started making Christmas cookies. Each time his mother took notice, she smiled, and he felt like every time he was helping her get better.
He vowed to do anything and everything he could to make her happy. He started a list on a stray piece of parchment:
-Paint the kitchen honey yellow
-Help her with dinner
-Make her favourite tea (mint)
-Get her lots of chocolates
-And lots of soup
-Light candles (her favourite scents: lavender, jasmine, sandalwood, pine, bergamont)
-Scrapbook
-Cuddle (she wants her baby back)
-Flowers, lots of flowers
-Go with her when she does the shopping (or do it for her)
-Read to her, get new books from the library down the road
-Give her quiet time
-Clean so she doesn’t have to
-Go on walks with her
-Somehow get dad involved in all of this
-Smile
By the time Sunday night rolled around, Remus was no longer on the verge of bawling at any given moment. He wanted to skip the last week days before the winter holidays, but his mother insisted he go back to school and that she would still be there when he came back.
He hoped.
Nobody said anything when he showed back up for classes on Monday morning. Even James and Sirius were quiet.
Remus had never felt more out of place.
“Hey, Remus, did Slughorn say clockwise or counter-clockwise?”
“Half a turn counter-clockwise, three turns clockwise, repeat.”
“Thanks mate,” Peter said, and returned to stirring their potion.
When Potions finished, Remus meandered around the castle, taking his time to finally, actually add to the map that Sirius made him at the beginning of the year. At one point, he leaned against a tapestry in the armoury to take a breather and fell straight backwards. Of course. After righting himself, he turned to face the passage he’d just fallen into. He traversed through it and ended up in the Charms corridor.
He marked it on the map.
The day seemed to follow that pattern. Space from his friends and hours spent wandering around the castle. Remus began checking behind every tapestry, painting, statue, and suit of armour to see if there were more passages behind them. There were. He found one behind a statue on the first floor that let out on the third floor, one behind a bookshelf on a fourth-floor corridor that went to the Fat Lady’s corridor, and one behind a tapestry that linked the first and second floors, although there was a trick step halfway up those stairs. All of these, he marked on the map.
None of his friends were at dinner. Okay. Remus decided that he’d done enough mapping for one day and returned to the dorm, hoping he could just go to sleep and forget this wretched day. However, as soon as he opened the door, he was promptly tackled by a pale body with black hair.
“Remus!” Sirius shouted, and before he could right himself to hold both himself and Sirius upright, he was tackled again by James and Peter.
“Hi, guys, what’s up?” Remus asked, relief and laughter lacing his voice.
“Remus, we missed you so much!” exclaimed James, giving a last squeeze before releasing him. Peter and Sirius kept holding on.
“I fmm s ba bt lvg you ln l da”
“What?”
“I feel so bad about leaving you alone all day,” Sirius repeated after extracting his face from the crook of Remus’ neck. “I wanted to talk to you but McGonagall told us to give you space and I know that if I was around you at all I’d just talk your ear off and I’m so sorry and are you okay?” he rambled.
“I’m okay, guys.”
“How’s your mum?” Peter asked sheepishly.
“She’s… got a chance. And time. I’ve been trying to keep her in good spirits,” Remus replied. Honestly, he was doing okay. “Cmon, off, you’re squeezing me to death.” Sirius and Peter reluctantly removed themselves from around Remus, but neither went very far.
“So she might be okay?” James asked.
“Maybe. The treatment gives her a better chance and more time so I’m just… trying to stay on the brightside.”
“That’s the way, mate, make the most of it,” James replied, pulling him in for another quick hug.
“That’s the plan. Now, what’ve my boys been up to? I know my absence hasn’t stopped you three from coming up with a good prank,” Remus said conspiratorially.
“Welll…” said Sirius, fully pulling away from him, “we did make a potion that would make people’s words come out as animal sounds…”
“And just how are we going to execute this wondrous idea?” Remus asked, grinning.
“The house elves love you, Remus, can you ask them to lace the drinks?”
“Yeah, yeah okay, I can ask,” he laughed, and his life was back to normal.
The plan was, of course, to lace the drinks at breakfast the last day of classes before break to cause the most chaos possible. Tuesday night, Remus snuck down to the kitchen and asked Misly if she and the other house-elves would be interested in a little good-natured joke. They immediately agreed, and Remus suspected that pity had a small part to play in their decision. After multiple offers of various foods- sandwiches, desserts, leftovers from dinner- he accepted a cup of tea from them and went back to Gryffindor tower.
“I wonder what sounds they’ll all make,” he heard Peter say as he walked in.
“I hope we get at least one panicked elephant,” Remus joked.
“What’s the word, Remus? Success?” James asked.
“You know it, and they gave me tea for the road,” Remus replied, sipping on his mint tea.
“Fantastic,” Sirius said, clapping him on the shoulder. The four of them fell into a giddy sleep, thinking of dolphins and lions and monkeys.
And oh boy, did the prank work. It started at the Gryffindor table with Selpie suddenly squawking like a duck in the middle of his sentence. He cleared his throat and attempted to speak again, but he just squawked once more. Those around him started laughing… as birds, dogs, and one very notable owl. Then it really kicked into gear, with howls, squawks, bellows, hisses, clucks, screeches, and to Remus’ delight, a very panicked elephant trumpet. Even the teachers were affected, McGonagall meowing sternly and Dumbledore cawing happily. At some point, they heard a chilling lynx screech coming from the Ravenclaw table. Remus and Sirius, when they tried to talk, barked at each other, with Peter squeaking and James grunting in response.
Eventually, the cacophony of animal noises transitioned back into words, but throughout the day they kept hearing remnants. James said something that made Sirius laugh a little too hard, causing him to literally howl. When they went to Charms, Flitwick was still barking every ten minutes or so. McGonagall even let out a dignified meow in Transfiguration. To say the least, the day was filled with laughter, just as the boys had planned. Remus wished this would last forever.
Alas, that could not be the case. Tuesday was soon over, and when Wednesday came Remus found himself on the train home. At least he was with his friends, the loud laughter drowning out his fears about his mother. The train ride was over far too quickly, and when he stepped out onto the platform he saw both of his parents. He ran straight over to his mum and hugged her tightly as she laughed sweetly and pet his hair.
“Remus! Is this your mum?” came a voice, and Remus turned to see his friends approaching.
“Yeah, mum these are my friends, James, Sirius, and Peter,” he said, and the boys all waved.
“It is lovely to meet you, boys, I’m so glad my Remmy has such good friends,” she said, beaming.
“A pleasure, Mrs. Lupin,” Sirius said, extending his hand and, when she took it, placing a kiss on the back of hers.
“Why, aren’t you charming? And please, you can all call me Hope, or mum if you like, she replied, earning a ‘thanks, mum’ from all three boys.
“I must be getting on, lovely to meet you Mrs. Lupin, Mr. Lupin,” Sirius said, then walked over to a severe-looking couple and a petrified boy.
“Us too, nice meeting you mum and dad,” James said, and Peter nodded as he followed him to a kind looking witch that enveloped them both in a warm hug.
“Your friends are darling, dear,” Hope said, giving Remus another quick squeeze, and Lyall nodded in agreement.
The three made their way out of Kings Cross and to the car, chatting animatedly about anything and everything and nothing all at once, savouring each other’s company for the first time in quite a while. The car ride home was much the same, though Remus took a nap about halfway through the five hour drive. When he awoke, it was to his mother singing “Your Song” and looking at his dad like he was the most perfect thing she’d ever seen. For the first time in his life, Remus heard his father sing along. When the song finished, they both laughed.
“I remember when this album was released, it was all you’d listen to,” Lyall said fondly.
“It’s still my favourite, darling, that’s why Remus learned it on piano,” Hope replied, glancing back at her son who was pretending to still be asleep.
“He loves you so much. I… I think he’s taking you falling ill very badly.”
“Of course he has, Lyall, I’m his mother. Every child wants their mother to live forever,” she responded.
“I want you to live forever too,” Remus’ father said sadly.
“What a tortuous fate. No, I’d much rather spend the time I have left with my two favourite people on the planet. Just love me back, that’s enough,” Hope said, patting Lyall’s hand, and that was the end of it. She always won, Remus thought, before he fell back asleep for the rest of the way home.