Chapter 2
Hermione had never been one to get a good night’s sleep, far too captivated by whatever book she was reading or essay she was working on to get her full eight hours. But at the moment, she felt better rested than she had in her whole life, letting out a pleased gurgle as she stretched out like a pleased cat.
“Happy girl,” a voice she didn’t recognize chuckled, shattering the peace that’d fallen over her.
She let out a scream as she opened her eyes and saw a man she didn’t recognize sitting next to her on a strange couch in an unfamiliar room. Something fell out of her mouth, landing on her lap with a small noise. A pacifier? What was going on?
“You’re okay, Hermione,” the man said, standing up and moving closer to her. He was huge, especially from this vantage point, tall and buff with sandy brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard.
She let out another loud noise of alarm at that, curling into herself as he loomed over her, missing the concerned expression on his face in the cloud of fear that overtook her rationality.
“What’s wrong?” an unfamiliar female voice echoed, a stunning blonde woman with curls to rival Hermione’s own hurried into the room, pushing the man aside to kneel beside the young witch. “Did he scare you, sweet girl?”
Soothed in the presence of a less statuesque individual, she slumped and nodded, comforted by the woman’s kind voice and comforting demeanor even without knowing her.
“He’s just a big old softie, he can’t help being a giant,” the woman smiled like it was all a joke, like everything was normal when Hermione had no idea what was going on. Her manicured hand reached out to take one of Hermione’s into her own, rubbing one warm thumb over her skin.
Bewildered, Hermione tried to speak. The words that were slowly forming in her brain didn’t come together right, leaving her to garble a single syllable.
“Where?”
“My name is Marlene, this is my husband, Remus. You’re at our house, you were classified at St. Mungo’s yesterday. Do you remember that happening?”
She nodded her head halfheartedly, not remembering too much about what had happened after the healers made her drink a potion. Why oh why did she drink something given to her by strangers?
“It’s okay if you don’t, sweet girl, you’ve had a confusing couple of days, hm? Remus is going to go get our third, Sirius, and he’ll be right back so we can chat. Why don’t we get you some water while he’s doing that?”
The woman grabbed what looked to be a child’s drinking implement off of a couch side table, moving to sit next to Hermione before holding it to the girl’s lips.
She crossed her eyes to stare at the glass, no, a sippy cup that only little kids used, bright pink and covered with polka dots. Was that for her?
“Your cup won’t hurt you, just take a drink,” the woman prodded, the same gentle, patient smile from before on her face as she held the cup steady.
Hermione scrunched up her face, opening her mouth to try and speak again when the woman moved faster than lightning to put the spout inside her mouth. She took a suck immediately, furrowing her brow in annoyance at the stranger, Marlene, but continuing to drink the ice cold water that was being handled for her.
“Mean Marlene, tricking you,” the blonde let out a small, twinkling laugh, tipping the cup back further as Hermione eagerly swallowed the cool beverage.
“That’s a thirsty girl,” a blessedly familiar voice called out, warm in a way Hermione had only ever heard directed towards others. She pulled back from the cup when she saw Professor Black enter the room, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt. Water dribbled out of her mouth and down her chin, drawing a clucking noise from Marlene who cleaned her up with her shirt sleeve like she was a baby.
“Why?” was all she could choke out, frustrated at the way that her brain and body weren’t working. Why was she with her professor? Who were these people? What had happened with her classification?
Professor Black and the other man, Remus, sat down on a couch that was perpendicular to the larger L-shaped one that her and Marlene were on, both men staring intently at the pair of them.
“Marls?” Sirius held a hand towards the woman as if to say ‘go on.’
The woman pulled Hermione closer to her, only speaking when the young witch was resting fully against her while a comforting hand was run along her back. Hermione was still covered in a fuzzy blanket and almost overcome at how warm she felt at being treated so lovingly. Her parents weren’t big on touch, never had been, so someone snuggling her so indiscriminately was both jarring and wonderful in near equal measure.
“We are sure you’re very confused and sleepy right now, Hermione, but we will answer all of your questions when you’re ready to ask them. Healer Prewett and Healer Davies classified you as a little, and after you took the Headspace Settlement Serum you fell into your headspace for the first time. That can often be a bit scary and dramatic, as the potion gives your brain the green light to let go and give into its deepest instincts for the first time.”
Hermione felt her stomach seize up at that, the water that she’d just swallowed down threatening to make a reappearance. How was she a little? She was smart; she had a future. She was nothing like the other littles she’d met, surly and unloveable whereas other littles were sweet and giggly and so very loved by their neutral and caregiver friends and professors.
Marlene continued on, all of the caregivers trying not to look too concerned by the girl’s nearly green face.
“Remus, Sirius and I were contacted by Healer Prewett, Dorcas, who is one of my dearest friends. I know that you know Sirius as Professor Black, but he is also an approved foster through the Ministry. Foster parents, much like in the muggle world, will take littles into their home when they may need somewhere to stay or someone to look after them. All littles take a bit of time off from school while they acclimate after taking the serum, so the Ministry decided you’d come home with us. We are very happy to have you here, but know how scary this must feel for you, sweetheart.”
Marlene took a breath and Remus chimed in, finishing up what he knew his wife was going to say.
“It probably feels like your life has turned upside down, but all three of us are here to help. Anything you need, even if it’s just a hug or a shoulder to cry on, we are here for you.”
Hermione’s brain had shut down halfway through Marlene talking about foster families and only switched back on as a loud clap sounded in the room, an alien in a sequined dress popping into the room and waving at her. The bile that’d been sitting sourly in her stomach made its way up and Marlene didn’t recoil as Hermione right into her lap, only let out soft coos that the little missed over the roaring in her ears.
Sirius had shooed the elf away, trying to hide his anger, the creature having popped in to let them know that they’d finished decorating Hermione’s bedroom.
He’d forgotten to forbid the elves from popping in before they could introduce her to one, not having realized that the girl had never seen a house elf before. The Hogwarts elves blended into the background, whereas now, she wouldn’t be able to move two steps without seeing one.
Marlene easily waved a hand to clean up the puke, easily accepting a damp towel and bowl of water that Remus had run to grab, not wanting to startle the girl further by using a summoning spell or calling in an elf.
The girl was trying to say something through her heavy sobbing, and Marlene shushed her while cleaning up her face. She pulled the girl’s blessedly clean curls away from her face with a hair tie, not wanting them to get any sickup in them.
“What’s that?” Marlene asked gently as Hermione continued to murmur, only burrowing closer to the woman without regard for the snotty mess on her face that the older witch was trying to clean up. Marlene took the affection with grace, surprised that Hermione was moving towards her instead of away. It broke her heart a bit as she realized that the girl was repeating ‘sorry’ over and over again, only stopping as Marlene whispered that she had nothing to apologize for for the third time.
The room was quiet aside from the little’s sniffling cries, the three adults laser-focused on the finally-quieting girl.
What felt like eons later, Hermione felt able to speak, brain both a bit more scrambled and a bit calmer after a good cry.
“Not little,” she croaked insistently, the pair of words sounding through what Hermione would have found to be a cozy room in any other scenario.
“You are, sweetheart,” Marlene’s expression was solemn and somber. “It’s going to be alright… Magic has blessed you, and even if it doesn’t feel like a blessing now, it will someday soon.”
The ordeal had exhausted her, and Hermione knew that in order to leave or fight she’d need to regain her wits. Giving into the bone deep exhaustion she felt, she fell back asleep, resenting herself more than a little bit for the way that she snuggled into Marlene’s chest, allowing the woman’s sweet humming to lull her to sleep.
xx
Hermione did, in fact, not wake up in a better mood. She also didn’t feel anymore in control, which was only made worse by the way Remus, Marlene and Professor Black fawned over her.
Her anger only grew when she found out that they’d put her in nappy, like she was a baby! Her rage grew to previously unreached levels when she discovered she’d used it, her hair crackling with latent magic as she screamed and screamed while Marlene changed her, the two men nowhere to be seen, which was a blessing in itself.
She was completely worn out by the time Marlene put a new nappy on her, soft and light pink and something she hated so, so much. The woman just crooned at her, promising that everything was okay and she was good.
Hermione didn’t want to be good in their eyes for doing absolutely nothing, she wanted to be at Hogwarts getting perfect marks on her essays!
The woman lifted her easily, swaying side to side with a red faced Hermione in her arms.
“It’s time for dinner, where did the day go?” The woman asked herself, already walking out of the comfortable sitting room into a long, bright hallway.
Curious as always, Hermione opened her aching eyes to look around. There were moving photos along every wall, the three adults and a boy who looked to be a perfect mix between the three of them featuring in every image. There were other people, including her friend Harry, in some of the pictures, something that was especially intriguing to her.
“That’s our son, Ophiuchus. He’s a first year at Hogwarts, he’s in Slytherin… He’s a lot like his papa, Remus, but can be loud and silly like his daddy too. Have you met our Ophi?”
Hermione nodded into Marlene’s shoulder, remembering the firstie who was loitering outside of the common room when she had snuck back to the dorm after a late night at the library. The boy had splotches of red and gold paint on his hands that matched his tie and said he’d forgotten the dormitory password, his expression barely innocent. The next day she saw that the Slytherin table had been painted Gryffindor colours, only giving the boy an appraising look to which he winked at her, looking far too much like Sir- Professor Black.
“He’s a good boy, I think you’ll get along real well. Now… we’re going to meet some other special members of the family before we eat. Have you heard of house elves?”
“No,” Hermione croaked, flipping through the countless pieces of information she’d stored in her brain from this book or that lecture, coming up without an answer or definition as to what a ‘house elf’ was.
“Well, house elves look a bit different than we do, but they are magical creatures who like to live with families, and find happiness in cleaning and cooking and helping out with household tasks. There are thirteen elves who live here, which is far more than we need, but they all enjoy living with us and with each other, so we make it work.”
Hermione didn’t really understand, picturing one of Snow White’s trusty little companions with a cherry red nose and long hat to boot.
“Here’s the kitchen! I know you haven’t been able to see much of our home, but we’ll take you on a tour later.” The woman sniffed in an exaggerated manner, smiling to herself when the little in her arms did the same only a moment later. “Smells good! What’s for dinner?”
“Miss Marley! Jett is cooking up a whole chicken and green beans and peas and brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes for dinner!”
The little perked up at that, staring down with wide eyes at the creature that was manning the stove authoritatively from her perch on a hot pink step stool.
“Brussels?”
“Brussels sprouts, very delicious and nutritious!” the elf replied with a beaming smile that showed off far more teeth than humans had. “Me is being Jett, Jett is being excited to meet little Miss Her-my-knee!”
It was closer than most people got on their first try, the little giggled. She waved a shy hand at the elf, getting an excited squeak in reply.
“Why don’t we sit down and meet some elves while we wait for pa- Remus and Sirius?” Marlene suggested, not that Hermione had much of a choice while being held.
A parade of elves streamed in from another hallway as if they heard Marlene, not popping in like before, which was a relief.
“Hi everyone, this is Hermione,” Marlene greeted in that musical, sing-songy voice of hers as she sat at the table, immediately shifting Hermione to her lap. “Can you say hi, sweetheart?”
Hermione blushed at the tennis-ball sized eyes that were staring at her as much as she did at the woman’s childish directive.
“No.”
Marlene just clucked her tongue sympathetically, “It’s hard to meet new friends sometimes, isn’t it. Cobain, why don’t you all say hi?”
“Hi!” the elves all crowed at the same time, causing Hermione to let out a squeak and burrow into the blonde woman’s chest.
“Why don’t you lot quietly say your names and share what you do around the house,” Remus suggested. Hermione peeked out to see him and Sirius walk in, taking seats on the other side of the sleek grey kitchen table.
It was clear that the family was well-off, but prioritized comfort over flash. The appliances in the kitchen looked like any other muggle house she’d seen, which left her with questions over how Hogwarts was so antiquated if a wizarding house could be extremely modern.
Instead of trying to string together her words and ask, she listened to the elves introduce themselves - all she needed was to hear that their elves were named Cobain, Jett, Ringo, Bowie, Hendrix, Nicks and other recognizable names, besides one named Clarence, to understand the pattern.
“Music,” she observed quietly as the elves teetered out of the room with excited waves to their newest, littlest charge.
“Right on,” Sirius smirked. “Coolest elves in the world, ours.”
“He made the older ones change their names,” Remus rolled his eyes, exasperated. “Besides Clarence of course, he was smart enough not to give into this big goof.”
“Oi, I didn’t make them do anything! I played some music and they did it themselves. I mean, would you rather be named Remus or Ringo Starr?”
“Remus,” the man replied immediately, his deadpan expression causing Hermione to giggle.
The trio, as annoyed as she was at them taking her away from Hogwarts without telling her, made her laugh.
“They’re silly, aren’t they?” Marlene fake-whispered, bouncing Hermione on her knee and pulling the little closer to her.
“Food! Food! Time for food!” Jett the elf called, levitating a bunch of dishes over to the table, including a whole roasted chicken.
“Thank you, Jett,” Marlene smiled at the elf, turning so that she was facing the table. “What kind of meat would you like, Hermione?”
What kind of question was that? They only had chicken on the table. Was this a trick question?
“Chicken,” she whispered to Marlene, missing the soft smiles of the two animagi across from her at her literal answer rather than the response of white or dark meat that they were after.
“Of course,” Marlene answered just as seriously, settling Hermione’s tummy just a bit. “Rem, will you plate us up some food?”
“Already on it,” the man replied, handing over a heaping plate of food with a bit of everything a moment later.
“Look how yummy!” Marlene exclaimed, grabbing a fork in her free hand. Remus had cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces already, removing the skin, which Hermione found a bit weird. She couldn’t stop staring at the brussels sprouts though, perfectly caramelized and without a pat of butter in sight. They were her favorite, and she hadn’t had one since the summer. “Let’s have a bite.”
Hermione didn’t realize what the woman was trying to do until there was a fork with a bit of moist, skinless chicken breast right in front of her mouth, having to go cross eyed to see it.
She was not a baby!
“No!” she scowled, crossing her arms over her chest and pouting at the insinuation that she couldn’t feed herself.
The woman made a noise of understanding, speaking after popping the bite of chicken into her own mouth instead. “Yummy chicken! You want to feed yourself, sweetheart?”
Hermione reached a hand onto the plate to grab one of the pieces of brussels sprouts, popping it into her mouth to prove a point.
The only thing that she showed the caregivers as she fed herself, though, was that she didn’t even try to grab silverware. None of them said anything, instead having a conversation about Remus’ upcoming week at work and watching as Hermione fed herself. They were all surprised by her voracious appetite, the little girl devouring all of the brussels sprouts before anyone else could even have one.
It was an admittedly small portion, though, with the trio preferring green beans and peas over sprouts. Sirius had remembered when one Gryffindor firstie complained to her head of house about the lack of healthy options at Hogwarts, smiling as he recalled Minerva’s shock over the girl’s righteous anger. Not that they’d changed anything, keeping to the same tried and true meals the school had been serving for many years.
Turned out that his memory served them well with the way that the girl who’d only had bottles of formula while she was out of it was now attacking food.
“That good, pup?” Remus asked as the girl slouched back against his wife’s chest, contently sucking from the sippy cup Marlene was holding. The girl just peered up at him through now sleepy eyes, keeping steady eye contact with him for the first time.
“We had a hungry girl, didn’t we,” Marlene stroked a hand through Hermione’s curls, staring at the puff of hair with a look of determination. She had already told Sirius and Remus how poorly the girl’s curls were being handled and had already penciled out a plan of attack to get them untangled and soft.
The men wanted to stay far away from that, knowing that this was their wife’s wheelhouse.
“We did, and now there’s a sleepy girl,” Sirius teased lightly, grin growing as Hermione pulled away from the drink.
“No!” she squinted her eyes, fierce expression offset by the water once more cascading down her chin as she garbled her answer, clearly forgetting that she was drinking.
“Not sleepy, that’s good news! We have a bath to take,” Marlene smiled, cleaning up Hermione’s face with a clean cloth napkin on the table that they’d kept there just in case the girl got dirty. They’d chosen a relatively mess-free dinner for that purpose, wanting to observe how the girl ate.
Even though she was classified as a little, there was still a lot that they didn’t know, from her eating habits to her speaking patterns to her bladder and bowel control. As her fosters, they were trusted with learning all of those necessary habits and skills as well as settling her into her new routine before she returned to school.
“No,” Hermione pouted again, annoyed at the way that the trio would toss up activities like they were suggestions when she found out they were anything but.
“Seems we found your favourite word, pup.”
“No!”
Like they would treat any other toddler, the trio stood up from the table and made their way upstairs, thanking the elves that were waiting to clean up after them and asking one to pop up and start a bath.
Not that Hermione needed to know why, but the bathtub in the trio’s room was big enough for a quidditch team, which they were planning to use to their advantage.
There were many schools of thought on integrating littles into a family, especially when first classified. Time had shown that it was easier to rip the bandage off and dive right in, showing the little their place in a family and reassuring them that their relationship was not sexual with their caregivers in any way.
Not that most littles had sexual relationships on their mind, especially at the adolescent age that they were first classified. Some littles, the rare ones that came from abusive households or were muggleborn, might entertain those worries, so fosters and new caregivers in those delicate situations were advised to show the young witch or wizard that they were safe and that their fosters had nothing untoward on their mind.
Hermione was taking in their surroundings as they headed up an ostentatious spiral staircase, unable to peer into the many rooms that they passed before they were in a large bedroom decorated in dark grey and light blue. The bed was the largest she’d ever seen, covered in a downy blue duvet and soft-looking pillows.
Sirius and Remus chose that moment to pop out of a doorway further into the bedroom, dressed in what looked to be brightly-coloured swim trunks.
“Bath’s ready!” Professor Black smiled easily, moving into yet another brightly lit alcove. How big was their bedroom?
Marlene followed right behind with Hermione in tow, steaming water wafting from the largest bathtub she’d ever seen capturing her attention. Remus and Sirius hopped into the tub, which helped make sense of their trunks, but left her uneasy.
“Careful now,” Marlene placed Hermione on the ground, holding her steady as she tried to stand on wobbly legs. “Good girl! Let’s get you ready for your bath.”
“No!” Hermione exclaimed, wanting no part of the bathtub party that was going on. Professor Black was just that… her professor! She didn’t want to be in the water with him, she just wanted to go home.
“Yes, darling, it’ll be fun,” Marlene promised, letting go of Hermione carefully and moving to pull her own clothes off. Hermione covered her eyes, not wanting to look at the woman’s body. It was weird, she didn’t know her! “Now it’s Hermione’s turn.”
Weak as a kitten, Hermione could barely fend the woman off as she was undressed from her onesie and nappy, taking the stupid dry diaper as a blessing. It was embarrassing enough as is, and she let out helpless cries as Marlene, just as naked as she was, lifted her carefully into the tub, shifting her into Remus’ arms so that she wouldn’t slip.
Hermione cried louder at that, thrashing as best she could in the man’s arms.
He placed her down in the perfectly warm water, eyes trained on the girl as he backed away to sit on the other side of the tub near Sirius who was uncharacteristically quiet.
“No one’s going to hurt you here, Hermione,” the woman stepped into the tub herself, taking Sirius’ hand gratefully as she lowered herself in, just as naked as Hermione. “I promise.”
After consulting with Dorcas about the best way to move forward with the girl, they decided that they needed to make it clear that Remus and Sirius had no interest in her in any way that was not paternal. They’d all loved bathing Ophi when he was little, only stopping when the boy insisted he was old enough to take showers himself. They knew immediately that, foster or long-term, they wanted to take up the same nightly ritual with Hermione. It was an important way to show the girl that they only wanted to care for her in a non-sexual manner, though the men wouldn’t go naked immediately and scare the girl further.
“No bath,” she pleaded, feeling smaller than small as she looked up at the high sides of the tub that felt even higher in her current mental state.
“Do you like pink bubbles or blue bubbles?” Sirius asked, changing the subject.
That piqued her interest, her tears slowing to sniffles in the way that only a child’s could at a subject change.
“I think we even have orange bubbles,” Remus chimed in, flicking a lazy finger to conjure three vials over to the tub with liquids of the aforementioned colours inside.
“What colour would you like, sweet girl?” Marlene asked, wading over to Hermione. The water was far lower than they’d normally have it, the trio worried about the girl’s swimming abilities. They’d have time to give her the full jacuzzi experience and were confident she’d grow to love it in the way they did and the way Ophi once had.
Her fear of the bath had all but dissipated as the three vials floated in front of her face, the decision of what colour bubbles to use nearly all-consuming. She pointed to the orange bubbles after a long moment, blushing a bit at the praise that all three lobbed her way.
“Let’s pour it in,” Remus directed, moving slowly over to Hermione with the orange vial after he’d sent the other two back to the cabinet. He placed the vial in her hand, holding it steady with his own. “One… two… three!”
She gasped as the bubbles formed automatically when they poured the orange potion out, the vibrancy of the bubbles ranging from creamsicle to as bright as a baby carrot as they grew in size and increased in number.
“What a good choice, how pretty!” Marlene smiled, leaning back and dunking her hair in the water.
Hermione reached a finger out to touch a bubble, this one the colour of a summer sunset, eyes widening as it grew in size at her prodding before popping with a funny noise. She giggled and poked another, amused by how three bubbles would form in the wake of the popped ones.
The adults just watched with pleasure as the girl relaxed, clearly forgetting what she’d been fussing about in the face of her current focus.
“Rem, can you wash my hair?” Marlene asked pointedly, hoping to show the girl that it was safe to trust the men.
The man worked up a lather between his hands immediately, using the jaw-droppingly expensive muggle shampoo that Marlene had found on a trip to muggle Paris.
“Siri, why don’t you do the same for Hermione?”
The girl still didn’t notice what was going on, now sinking deeper into the water to blow at the bubbles. Sirius waded over with a plastic cup in one hand and Marlene’s shampoo in the other.
“One shampoo and massage coming up!” he called out, dipping the cup into the water as he placed the shampoo down on the tub’s ledge. “Let’s cover those little blinkers, no itchy eyes on my watch.”
Hermione let out an indignant noise as he placed one large, gentle hand over her eyes, feeling the warm water wet her curls only seconds later.
“No!”
“Yes, grumpy girl,” Sirius laughed, continuing to wet her impressive head of hair. “Now comes the fun part.”
Sirius paid no mind to the way that the girl tried to swim away with an angry look on her face as he squeezed a dollop of shampoo in his hands.
“C’mere, fishy fishy,” he called out, amused as Hermione took a deep breath and plugged her nose before diving under the water, as though they all couldn’t see where she went. “Hmmm… Marley, have you seen Hermione?”
The woman let out a faux-shocked gasp. “She was just right here!”
It only took a moment for the to girl pop up from under the water, looking surprised when she saw her professor right in front of her.
“There’s our girl,” he exclaimed, quickly wrangling her with one gentle hand to hold her in place as he started working the shampoo into her scalp, wanting nothing less than to get the concoction in her eyes.
Hermione couldn’t help but sink into the man’s ministrations, his strong fingers working the shampoo from her scalp to the very tips of her curls.
She’d never gotten a massage like this, having to come into her rare hair appointments with her hair dry so that the stylists could properly cut her curls. It made her feel special and loved, as crazy as it was to draw a conclusion from such a task.
“Someone likes daddy’s scalp massage,” Marlene said quietly, not even realizing that she’d reverted to calling the man what their son once had.
“Just wait until she gets a lotion rubdown,” Remus chuffed a laugh, eyes soft as he watched the duo.
Hermione was tiny even for a third year, diminutive size something that nearly all littles shared. It harkened back to the time before Severus Snape had revolutionized the integration of littles into families, both with the invention of the headspace serum and resizing remedy that made the transition into a fully-accepted headspace far easier.
Sirius, on the other hand, was a tall man with a fair amount of muscle on his lean frame. Remus forced him to workout, knowing the other man was content to laze about and just tinker with his motorcycle and classic cars in his spare time.
“Now we wash these curls and condition them,” Sirius narrated, looking pointedly over at Remus who dutifully brought the conditioner over and placed it next to the bottle of shampoo. “Now let’s get these all glossy and beautiful like mam- Marley’s.”
It looks like both of his spouses were putting the broom before the quidditch player, not that he was surprised. Remus would need to remind them to tread carefully. He was as enamoured with the girl as the pair, but he knew better than to think that her exhausted grumpiness was the full reach of her uncertainty and anger against their treatment as well as the ministry’s handling of her.
The girl was plucked from her life, fed a potion essentially against her will, and placed in a house with three strange adults, one of them being her professor. Hermione had every right to resent the system, to feel betrayed by Sirius and the other magical adults in her life. All that they could do was treat her with love and care and show her how life would be as a little, nonverbal apologies for the way they had taken her autonomy away, at least for a short period of time.
But Remus, unlike his spouses, realized that loving her well didn’t mean trying to adopt her before she’d even fully awoken from the deep headspace brought on by the serum. Now that she’d taken the serum and turned 14, as difficult as it was to explain to the girl, she’d never truly be the same. Little and big were not black and white; she would take on even more mannerisms and traits from her headspace’s age when she was more in control of her adult faculties, which made her having a caregiver even more important.
She wasn’t a middle-aged or teen-aged little either, so finding her a caregiver and getting her into Hogwarts’ programming for classified littles would be even more important. It broke Remus’ heart a bit, knowing what a bright little girl she was and the internalized shame that was likely to fester in the days ahead.
Her future prospects weren’t diminished by her classification, though, not if she didn’t want them to be. But the fact was that most littles found more joy in staying home with their family or going to daycare than in working full time. Time would only tell for Hermione, but Remus knew that they’d advocate for the girl, no matter whether or not she decided to stay with them long-term.
“Just a quick scrub,” Remus came back to himself as Marlene was coaxing the girl into letting her give her a wash with a soapy towel, her eyes drooping even as she whined. “Good, sweet girl.”
Marlene moved lightning fast, far too used to years of washing down a squirmy boy who was normally covered in one substance or another.
“There we go! Siri, towel please?” Marlene asked as she pressed a gentle kiss to a quickly flagging Hermione’s wet curls, the little girl leaning against Marlene’s size.
Sirius, a towel slung over one arm, easily plucked Hermione out of the water, wrangling her onto his hip before wrapping the towel around her soaking wet body.
Remus had dejavu as they stepped into their bedroom, a towel-covered changing mat on the corner of their bed in the same way the elves used to place it when Ophi was little.
Hermione could barely keep her eyes open as the man placed her onto a soft surface, opening her eyes shyly to see both Remus and Sirius standing over her, still in their dripping trunks.
Unlike the day before, she didn’t feel scared by their commanding sizes compared to her own. She didn’t trust them fully, no, not when they stole her from school, but she didn’t think they’d hurt her. They were putting their own comfort second, foregoing sleep clothes for themselves for a bit while they got her settled.
Her trust in them was only solidified as each man took a foot, massaging lotion into her skin from her pinky toe up to her thighs and her shoulders down to her terrifyingly tiny fingers before they carefully removed her towel, eyes trained on her face.
Too worn out to do anything more than place her thumb into her mouth to suck on the digit soothingly, she allowed them to continue their ministrations.
“Ah ah,” Marlene made a tiny noise that Hermione didn’t understand, unwilling to fully open her eyes until her thumb was pulled from her mouth. “Yucky fingers.”
Yet another pacifier was placed between her lips at that, the blasted rubbery tip even more soothing than the warm skin of her thumb. Maybe Marlene was onto something.
“Such a perfect baby girl,” Remus praised, the sound of his voice the last thing Hermione heard as she fell asleep.