The Most Beautiful Thing

Remus was officially thirteen. At home, his birthday had usually been a relatively gloomy affair. Werewolves didn’t usually live very long, especially if they’d been bitten as children. That was just a fact. So, though his parents had tried to celebrate, he could always tell they were more sad than anything else. His mother actually usually cried, which was just amazing for the festive spirit.

At school it was different. His friends (he had friends!) had been extremely celebratory the year before, especially after finding out that he didn’t usually do much. He obviously didn’t tell them why, but they were nonetheless determined to make up for his years of depressing birthdays. When he turned twelve, it was the first time the day had felt more like a birthday and less like a prolonged funeral where everyone keeps telling you to celebrate the deceased’s life instead of mourning their death.

This year his friends were once again outdoing themselves. He woke up to them all singing different birthday songs, none of them in tune. Then there were three boys clambering onto his bed, Sirius attempting not to drop a large chocolate cake with thirteen candles that burned in a variety of colors.

“Best wake up, Lupin. We’ve brought you breakfast.” James laughed, poking Remus’ cheeks until he sat up.

“Sure, ‘we’.” Sirius mocked as plopped the cake down.

After he blew out the candles, which exploded chocolate confetti when extinguished, Remus stared at it hungrily. “Did you lot make it?” He asked, half extremely touched and half afraid of their baking skills.

Peter shook his head and James started to say something before Sirius pinched him and got smacked in return.

Sirius assured him it was the house elves and handed him a giant piece on a malformed paper plate. It was amazingly delicious, just as overly sweet as Remus liked it, and he did his best to not think about what might have been transfigured into the plates.

The rest of the day was unofficially ‘Do What Remus Wants Day’. Unfortunately for his friends, Remus was rather fond of school, which meant they spent most of the day in classes instead of skipping like they did on their own birthdays. To Remus’ amazement, they even paid attention (or at least pretended to) to the lessons for possibly the first times in their lives. He even saw James taking notes, and he’d never felt more loved.

During lunch and dinner his friends made sure to snatch up as many of his favorite foods as possible before they were devoured, piling his plate higher than he could ever eat. They also told everyone that would listen to them that ‘their Remus’ was a real teenager. He got countless happy birthday wishes from people he hardly even knew, but who had slowly become kinder since his sorting, and he secretly loved it.

The only tiny shadow on the day was that Sirius seemed… uneasy perhaps? He was as cheerful and festive as on any other holiday, but Remus caught him staring at him several times, after which he didn’t even grin or stick out his tongue like normal but instead pretended to be very interested in his own finger nails. Rarely one to sit still, he bounced even more than usual, and after dinner, he impatiently herded them all up to their dorm (with a good collection of pumpkin juice and biscuits for continued celebration of course.) As soon as they were through the door, he left the food on the floor, shoved Remus into a sitting position, and declared: “present time!”.

They’d stayed up late on his last birthday eating sweets and giving him gifts as well, but he didn’t remember it being under such a strict schedule. Sirius grabbed a wrapped box from under his bed, snapping at the others to hurry up and flopped down beside Remus, shoving a biscuit into the baffled birthday boy’s mouth.

Soon they were all seated in a circle, three with presents in their laps, and Remus was feeling the lovely birthday spirit again. It wasn’t that he was getting gifts (although what thirteen year old could help being excited by that?), but just the fact that they took the time to make his birthday special. It made him feel embarrassingly warm and fuzzy.

Obviously having sensed his urgency too, James and Peter looked expectantly at Sirius, but he silently stared right back and gripped his box tighter.

“Alright then. Remus, we know you weren’t all that happy that we spent money on you last year. As ridiculous as we all still think that is, we agreed to give you things this year that didn’t cost us money. So here.” James said, handing over his own messily wrapped bundle.

Remus smiled at him, before really hearing what he said and asking worriedly “Merlin, that means stolen doesn’t it?”

All three of his friends laughed loudly. “I wish!” James cackled.

Morally reassured, Remus carefully unwrapped the gift. As untidy as it already was, he still would have hated ripping the paper. What he found inside was red, gold, and extremely soft. He unrolled it and discovered it was a wonderfully giant, Gryffindor colored jumper.

“Mum made it!” James said enthusiastically. “I told her I’d do the dishes for a full week when I’m home.”

Remus pulled the jumper on and hugged him tightly. James laughed and patted him on the head. Remus was so, so happy to have such amazing friends.

Peter gave his gift next, handling it particularly carefully. Remus unwrapped it with equal delicacy and was delighted by a sturdy little pot filled with soil and a few tiny green sprouts sticking up.

He beamed at the sprouts and again hugged Peter as he told Remus about the present. “The pot is just one of the ones Professor Sprout had us make. Mine wasn’t very pretty, sorry about that, but I didn’t think you’d mind. And she gave me these charmed lupine flower seeds after I helped her repot some of those tentaculas; they’re supposed to grow really fast and bloom all the time.”

Despite his rushing, Sirius seemed very hesitant to give his gift. He fiddled with the corners of the box but made no move to actually hand it over.

“He’s been very secretive about it. My bet’s that he snatched Lily’s kneazle.” James giggled.

Sirius glowered at him. “I’d never set that beast on poor Remus. But I don’t know if you’ll like mine, it might’ve been a bad idea. I thought it would be best for everyone to see it now… but I think I was wrong. Maybe later, yeah?” He rambled, tapping his fingers nervously over the box.

“Oh absolutely not!” James grabbed the box from him and threw it to Remus. “I’m bloody curious now.”

Peter agreed, and Remus couldn’t help being curious too, so he smiled warmly at Sirius and took the paper off. “I’m sure I’ll love it.” He soothed.

Under the paper was a plain wooden box, which apparently wasn’t the gift. Did wizards not have cardboard? Sirius was chewing his nails and staring unblinkingly at the box as Remus lifted the lid. Then the world stopped and Remus could barely breathe.

Sirius was frantically whispering “I promise it’s good, if you just read it. I promise it’s ok. I just wanted you to know it’s ok.”

James and Peter tried to see what it was, but Remus clambered onto his bed, bringing the box, still too terrified to take his eyes off of the gift. It was a little paper book, obviously handmade, with Sirius’ best loopy handwriting (that he rarely used) on the front, along with paintings of the moon, in its various phases. The title read “The Complete Guide to Werewolves”.

Sirius looked pleadingly at him. “Read it, Remus.”

Barely understanding how he was moving, Remus carefully opened the book. The other side of the cover page had a dedication in the same lovely writing.

Dedicated to Remus Lupin,
the bravest person I know,
and winner of
The Most Ironic Name Award
13 years in a row.
(Happy Birthday!!!)

‘Person’. Remus’ fingers started to shake. The next page was labeled ‘Physical Description’ and detailed Remus’ physical traits, beside a startlingly accurate portrait of his face. His scars were never once mentioned, but they were included in the image. The last sentence said ‘This is just from personal experience; I’m pretty sure werewolves can (obviously) look any way, but I doubt any of the others look this cool.’

The other pages had the titles: ‘Eating Habits’, ‘Intelligence’, ‘Stealth’, and ‘Habitat’, and Remus got the impression they must have been copied from a real book, but the actual words were nothing like he’d ever read in a werewolf book before.

‘Eating Habits’ said ‘Chocolate and potatoes mostly, they’re smart enough to stay away from green things. Werewolves are normally very generous with their food, but if you take their sweets they might not let you borrow their DADA notes for a while :(.” and had pictures of chocolate frogs and roast potatoes.

‘Intelligence’ was only a single sentence, saying ‘Better than mine.’ and had one of Remus’ old Transfiguration essays stuck to it.

‘Stealth’ told the reader that ‘With some convincing, werewolves can be very sneaky. They’re particularly good at getting mischievous students out of trouble by distracting teachers. They’re also very shy and tend to avoid attention when they’re tired.’

Under ‘Habitat’ there was just a beautiful painting of Hogwarts, with a tiny line at the bottom that added: ‘And Wales I think?’.

Remus let out a hiccuping laugh.

The last page was neatly labelled ‘Executing’ and Remus’ heart beat faster than he knew was possible. But Sirius had promised it was ok, so it couldn’t be that bad could it?

‘If you’re looking to execute a werewolf, I’d rethink your priorities in life. However, since this is the COMPLETE Guide, I’ll still offer my advice. In my vast experience, werewolves tend to just about die from embarrassment every time they answer a professor’s question correctly or are complimented. They also love sugar, and adults say it isn’t good for you, so that could be a strategy too. I guarantee those are the only two methods that actually work.’

Remus didn’t know when he’d started crying, but his face was wet as he kept laughing.

Sirius grinned at him. “You like it?” he asked hopefully.

Remus nodded and fell into him, snuggling into the comforting warmth. “It’s really ok?” He murmured.

“Of course it is.”

“You won’t tell anyone?”

“Not if you don’t want me to. But I don’t think you should have to keep hiding from them.” Sirius nodded to James and Peter, who were watching with nervous wonder and confusion. “And this way, I’m here to hex them to bits if they’re mean.”

“Ok…” Remus handed him the book and curled up on his bed under the covers, just barely peeking his face out. No one was supposed to know at all, and now he was choosing for them to. But it felt so good to not have to worry about them finding out anymore, and Sirius was miraculously fine with it.

“What in the world is going on?” Peter finally exclaimed. He and James seemed to have broken out of their daze.

“I’m an author!” Sirius bragged, jumping onto James and waving the book in his face.

Once Sirius stopped flapping it around, James took it and flipped it open for he and Peter to read. They were silent for a terribly long time; Remus was sure he was going to be sick.

“Well?” Sirius snapped. “Am I a bloody brilliant writer or what?” There was obviously more to the question and his threatening scowl than his literative skills.

“Remus is…” James started, looking slowly from the little book to the lump of blankets on Remus’ bed.

“A werewolf. And that’s fine, isn’t it?” Sirius was almost growling.

And that, more than any other part of his incredible birthday, was what made Remus deliriously happy. Sirius was, yet again, staring people down for his sake, and damning the consequences. Almost the entirety of the wizarding world feared and hated werewolves, but Sirius Black was glowering at his best friends and demanding that they were also fine with living with one, or he’d ‘hex them to bits.’ Remus absolutely loved him, even before he realized how much James and Peter teased him for the beautiful book and for baking Remus’ birthday cake.

“Obviously.” James replied, Peter smiled, and the night ended in hugging, more biscuits, and Remus cuddling into his favorite friend more than was probably normal.