#everyone lives
<3 (this is short)
“James? Where are you?” Lily called from the hallway, spelling her red hair into a bun and picking up the lime green Mungo’s robes.
“Out here! Garage!”
Through the garage door, Lily found James laid out under their car, struggling to poke around the underside with his wand.
“Are you a wizard or not,” Lily sighed, motioning to levitate the car onto conjured stands.
“Wait, wait no—” James gestured frantically, but it was too late. With a soft bang, something blew up and James’ arms flew up to shield his face from the tiny shower of sparks. “Yeah. That didn’t sound good.”
Lily winced, “Oh godric’s. Sorry dear.”
“Charms react with chemicals, apparently.”
“Ah. I should have remembered.” Lily said, holding in a laugh and not at all sounding sorry. She crouched down to pull up her husband from the ground. “What were you even trying to do?”
“Well, you know what Sirius said about how muggle machinery isn’t safe for direct apparation? Because magic fucks up electrical conduction or whatever,” James said while patting dirt off his jeans, wiping his glasses on his shirt, “I was hoping to tinker it enough so we could send it waiting for you in Hope’s garage. Then you won’t have to drive the whole way there and back?”
“Oh,” Lily smiled, wiping dirt from his nose, “That’s considerate of you.”
“Would have been if it worked.”
She gave him a short kiss and a pat on the cheek, “Then make it work. Listen, I’ve got to go check in on Mungo’s, they’ve just called. I’ll be back by noon but it means I’ll actually need this trick of yours—”
James groaned. “Not today, Lily! How long’s it been since your last proper day off?”
Lily immediately started to sound impatient, “Oh come on James. We’ve talked about this—”
“It’s not that! Of course I respect and admire your choices in career, but— you’ve got to take time off! And especially today—”
“Do you see Remus taking today off? Exactly. And I’m nowhere close to workaholism am I? Living up to being a responsible senior healer is not mutually exclusive with a well-adjusted and healthy work schedule. Are you trying to say that I—”
“Nothing! I’m not trying to say anything! Not in general, but you could just take it easy today?”
“Oh for Godric—”
“Mum! Dad! What is happening?” Harry poked his head through the open garage door. Sirius was close behind, carrying Teddy on his shoulders.
“Oh hello Harry!” Lily moved in for a quick hug from her son.
He spied the robes on his mother’s arms and quickly caught up. “Oh. Well, dad, quit it. You know you aren’t going to convince her.”
“Yeah James,” Sirius chimed in gleefully, “should have learnt about twenty years ago, no?”
James sighed, Lily chuckled. “Well, at least some of you’ve got your head the right side up today. Hello Teddy, how are you doing?”
“Dada cake!” The toddler exclaimed, excitedly tugging on Sirius’ hair and earning a wince from him.
“Well aren’t you a handful.” Sirius carefully reached up to untangle tiny fists from his hair, “James, what have you done with the car?”
“It’s four against one this morning, is it?” James crossed his arms.
Lily snorted. “Careful there, Black. Push his buttons and you’ll make him go stag.”
“Stag!” Teddy shouted, and James was only too happy to oblige. Some might say transforming to avoid confrontations is a family trait. And really, Harry still could not take seriously having a giant deer for a father. Though seeing Teddy laugh delightedly as Sirius put him on the back of James’ stag form brought back only fond memories.
“Alright well, you boys sort yourselves out.” Lily said as she started to leave. “I’ll see you for lunch.”
“Bye mum!”
“Bye-bye!”
“Love you—” they all chorused.
-
Sirius examined inside the car’s open front lid, while James stood besides him, sheepishly pushing a hand through his hair.
“Nope.” Sirius said simply as a verdict. Harry snorted from where he was bouncing Teddy in his arms at the back of the garage, letting him grab at different trinkets along the walls.
“Was I at least on the right track?”
“I mean,” Sirius teasingly tilted his head from side to side, “one day it’s gotta either become sentient or blow itself up, so I say you’re doing good work.”
“That Ford Anglia could do with a brother,” James shrugged, “but can you fix it?”
“Sure. You’ll just have to go pick up Remus’ cake with Harry.”
“Dada cake!” Teddy yelled again, throwing the garden glove into Harry’s face.
“Ah I see!” James grinned, turning to Harry, “some quality father-son time it is! Sirius, reckon you could keep Teddy around?”
“I think we should bring him along, no?” Harry said hurriedly, batting Teddy’s hands away from reaching for a screwdriver.
Sirius waved a hand dismissively. He was already hunching over the engine, brows drawn in concentration and the tip of his tongue sticking out the corner of his lips. “Go on, you three. Clear out of here.”
so much fluff coming your way. spoiler alert: EVERYONE lives
who said he never lived past forty?
March 10th, 2000.
“Oh come on you old thing—” Harry muttered at the ancient bike squeaking its way up the hill— why did they have to live on a hill? At least, Harry thought, the weather was nice. It was a glorious March day, the sun finally starting to grace England amidst the spring buds just about to bloom.
Panting as he jumped off the bike at the front porch, Harry wasted no time in starting to pound their front door, “Sirius! Sirius get out of here— if we don’t go get the cake by noon we’ll have to put Fred and George on Teddy duty and they’ve threatened to feed him the—”
The door opened with Remus looking exasperatedly bemused.
Harry gaped at him with one fist still raised in the air, “Remus! Ugh— hi!” he said intelligently, “aren’t you— supposed to be at Hogwarts? It’s a Friday.”
“For sure, I was just about to floo up. Harry, is everything alright?”
Darn it, Harry thought, Remus had been back living with Sirius ever since Teddy was born. It’s been two bloody years, how could he have forgotten? “Um, yeah. Everything’s great.”
“Did I hear something about Teddy and a cake?”
“No! Nothing of the sort.” Harry tried an oblivious look, which only turned into a shit-eating kind of grin at Remus’ raised eyebrow.
“Hmm. Try to keep your dad and Sirius in check, won’t you? Merlin forbid they strain themselves at this age.”
“Hey, I heard that—” Sirius called groggily from inside the house.
Remus sighed, fond and exasperated (in Harry’s memory Remus constantly seemed to be exasperated), and said “Do you want to come in?” and when Harry moved forward, unblocking the bike from Remus’ view, “Harry, is that— that bike on the ground used to belong to my mother!” he said laughingly.
“No offence to Nana Hope but Remus, that bike is now a pile of junk.”
-
“A very good morning to you, Prongslet,” Sirius’ hand, even after so many years, magnetically veered towards ruffling Harry’s hair in greeting.
“Ay stop it.” Harry half heartedly tried batting his hand away, “is Teddy still sleeping?”
“Mhm. I’ll just check on him before I go.” Remus said, making his way towards the stairs.
“Sirius—” Harry started whispering aggressively, the moment Remus moved out of earshot, “we’re on cake duty, turns out Nana Hope’s train got cancelled— fucking British trains— now Mum has to go pick her up, so we’ll also have to find someone to babysit Teddy, because no, the twins are not an option—”
“We could leave him with Molly?”
“No! This is Teddy, Molly can’t keep up!” Harry followed Sirius as he walked through to the kitchen, flicking on kettles and hobs, taking his wand out of his hair (let it be said that this never got old) to send breakfast ingredients flying across the air. He added a single sugar to a hot cup of tea, and sent the mug sailing out to find Remus.
“Eggs, Harry?”
“Oh yes, and have you got one of those blueberry muffins— oh hell yeah! Cheers, Sirius.”
“Anything for you, pup. Now what about Ginny, shouldn’t she be free?”
“Godric’s sake, Sirius. You were the one who kept telling me about having to stop Dad from throwing me around like a quaffle. We don’t trust toddlers with professional chasers.”
Sirius laughed, “You’re right, you’re right. Well, Ron and Hermione?”
“Have you even been paying attention? Ron and Hermione are setting up the—”
Remus appeared at the kitchen door, and smiled, indulgently suspicious, eyes narrowed just, at the way Harry had abruptly cut himself off. Sirius, completely unfazed, chuckled to himself.
“Thank you for the tea, love,” Remus said, setting his mug down on the counter.
Sirius immediately made his way across, and they shared a short kiss. “You’re heading off?”
“Yeah.”
“Well go on,” they share a honey-wine kind of smile, mellowed by three decades of life together, “go blow some children away.”
“I’ll see you both tonight? At Lily and James’?” Remus said on the threshold of the fireplace.
Harry turned to Sirius. They shared an identical grin.
“Hey Remus,” Harry called out. Remus raised a single eyebrow. “Happy birthday.”
Remus breathed a laugh like he’s finally heard the stone he’d been waiting to drop. “Thank you Harry. But I’ll have you know, these two words have somehow filled me with so much fear.” he said, before stepping away into the green flames.
-
As Remus sat down at the head table next to Regulus, he pushed towards him a book-shaped package, neatly wrapped in parchment.
“Happy birthday, old man.” Regulus said between sips of tea, eyes not leaving the Prophet page.
“Regulus— thank you.” Remus said heartily, “What book is it this year?”
“A niche thing about pseudo-reactive potions in identifying dark artefacts. I think you’ll appreciate it.”
Remus laughed, “One of these days you’ll quit trying to get me into potions.”
“One of these days you’ll quit pretending you don’t enjoy them.”
“Oh, it’s a day for baring our hearts, is it?”
“If there ever was one.”
“You know, Reg. You might need to admit how much thought you’ve put into the gift, and I’ll admit how much I appreciate it.”
Regulus chuckled, “Keep talking and you’ll sound like Dumbledore.”
Remus shook his head, “Could I ever.”
As they spent breakfast in each other’s comfortable companionship, familiar sharp banter, Remus allowed himself just one moment of sentimentally feeling his age. His eyes scanned the hall-full of children and marvelled. Seven years he’s been here now. He’d watched most of his friends’ children grow into brilliant young people, been witness to all the wonderful little moments of their growth, and not just through their letters on parchment. Inadvertently, embarrassingly, he’d been right there for Harry’s first detention, first crush, first break-up; picked up on too many quarrels between Ron and Hermione or the Weasley siblings; laughed his way through every time one of them slipped up during a practical lesson and called him Moony or Remus. (He always thought those occasions were more of an embarrassment for the children than himself, though Regulus thought otherwise. He heard about how he went livid the time Harry slipped up and called him Uncle Reg.)
Now, every child in the seats below Remus had known since they were eleven— the thought filled him with inexplicable warmth. This, this was worth all of it. It was worth every day of wrestling with teenagers, worth the grey lining his hair. Really, he couldn’t believe his luck. His younger self— sitting in this same hall at a much darker time— would never have fathomed being this happy, being loved and accepted in this big a place as Hogwarts, despite his lycanthropy. Would he have imagined even living to see this age?
“You know,” Regulus said suddenly, breaking him from his thoughts, “I overheard the Wilkins talking about certain— plans. I think you can look forward to an eventful day.”
“Oh dear,” Remus groaned, “I was hoping they’d forgotten now that the last Weasley’s gone.”
“Their influences stretch far and wide, that hoard of yours.”
“Mine? You mean ours, dear brother in law?”
“Oh please, imagine. The sole heir of the house of black, consorting with blood traitors and half-breeds.” He mocked, with a completely straight face.
Remus laughed in surprise, at Regulus’ accent deliberately turned up about five notches. The posh roundness was wearing thinner by the day, so it never failed to throw him back a decade or two hearing it again, even if their voices were now lower and rougher with age.
“So,” Remus asked, “you’ve any idea what that lot are up to?”
“I have no idea who you mean by that.”
A snort, “our one and only family, of course.”
Regulus smiled then, rare and soft. “For sure. Though no, you know I’m not lying when I tell you I don’t know what they’re up to. I just leave it up to them.”
“You don’t deny they’re up to something?”
Regulus put down his teacup, turned to look at him, “Remus. They’ve always been up to something. Every single day since they turned eleven.”
-
