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When Harry arrived home from work, taking a half day for his birthday so that there would be time to celebrate with everyone before sundown, he was not expecting to touch down in his back garden to find his entire family outside playing with a tawny owl he didn’t recognize. Connor was sitting with his mother in the grass giggling while Evie and Oliver were up in a tree playing fetch with the bird. He had never managed to convince either of his own owls to do that so he was honestly amazed that his children had managed it. Albus and Jareth, Oliver’s new barn owl courtesy of Sirius, were perched on the garden wall seeming off put by all this funny business with the newcomer.
“Do I even want to know?” Harry asked as he leaned his Firebolt against the kitchen door and walked across to join Ginny and Connor.
“Playful little thing arrived about an hour ago and the kids decided to play with it. Hence what you see in the tree. Welcome home, birthday boy,” Ginny answered, kissing her husband when he sat beside her on the grass. Connor immediately went to go and sit in his dad’s lap.
“Glad to be home.” Harry grinned at Ginny before hugging his son and ruffling his hair. It looked no messier than it had started since both boys had inherited Harry’s untamable mane. Thankfully, Evie’s was far more manageable, when she let her parents put it up for her anyway. Presently it looked like the braid he’d put it in this morning was holding for the most part. “Didn’t want to play with them, Conn?”
“You know I don’t like climbing the tree, Dad. It’s too high up. I throw the ball back whenever one of them drops it, though.” Connor grinned at Harry as he leaned on him.
“One of these days, I’ll get you on a broom, kid,” Harry teased. “Can’t have a Potter afraid of flying!”
“Uncle Remus doesn’t like heights either!” Connor argued.
“No, but he isn’t a Potter, is he? Last I checked, his surname was Lupin-Black.”
Connor made an indignant face at his dad that looked so much like his own that Harry couldn’t help but laugh. He hugged his son again and turned his attention up to his more adventurous children who were presently playing monkey in the middle with the owl.
“So why did this owl show up at our house, Gin?”
“It brought a package for you. It’s on the kitchen table if you want it,” Ginny answered with a shrug before she lifted her wand, pointed it at the open kitchen window and summoned it from within the house. A colorfully wrapped thick envelope floated to land in her lap. “Haven’t opened it yet though Evie was very curious about it.”
“This looks like Sirius’s doing,” Harry commented as he reached over to take the package. It was wrapped immaculately through when the sun caught the paper, it shimmered and changed colors. He wasn’t sure whether it was a trick of the light or if it really was changing colors as he changed the angle at which he held it.
“Well, open it,” Ginny prompted, nudging his shoulder with her own. Harry waved her off.
“Fine, fine.” He began to carefully unwrap the package. This apparently caught the owl’s attention as it hooted from the tree and flew down to settle on Ginny’s knee.
“Come back!” Evie’s shout came from the tree.
“Race you down!” Oliver challenged. Then there was a mad rush of small limbs working to get down and Harry hoped neither of them got hurt doing so. Just last week, Evie had broken her wrist falling out the tree and Sirius had needed to patch her up. He sighed and watched them both scramble to the ground, breathing a sigh of relief when nobody injured themselves, and then run over to join their parents before he resumed doing anything with the package. The owl hopped onto Evie’s head with a satisfied chirp.
“What is it, Daddy?” Evie asked through her giggles about the owl.
“Well I was about to find out before you lot so rudely interrupted,” Harry quipped back, winking at her. He continued taking the wrapping paper off the package to reveal its contents. Inside was a small wooden box and a handwritten thin journal. Harry raised an eyebrow at it before opening the box to find a crystal, a silver teaspoon and a drawstring bag, inside of which were some magically preserved mandrake leaves. Ever more confused, Harry set the box down and flipped through the journal. It was written not in Sirius’s handwriting as Harry had expected but his son’s far messier scrawl. It appeared to be directions of some kind. When Harry looked up at his equally baffled family, the owl hooted at him.
“Blimey!”
Ginny, Connor and Oliver followed his gaze and made their own shocked exclamations. Evie looked confused and then worried. The owl atop her head, that she couldn’t see, was no longer a tawny owl but instead a snowy owl. It hopped down into her lap, made a friendly series of clicks and drew out a surprised shriek from the little girl as well. It looked pleased with itself but something caught its attention before anyone could say anything. It hopped out of her lap and then took off as the sound of a motorcycle drew closer out front.
Harry got up, Connor at his side, and scooped Evie onto his hip since she hadn’t recovered from the owl being suddenly different in her lap. Oliver immediately recognized the sound and raced around the side of the house yelling, “Uncle Sirius!”
Ginny took Connor’s hand and followed, shaking her head while Harry walked behind her with his daughter, the little box and journal left in the grass for now where they had been sitting. Remus would surely be able to help him get to the bottom of all of this, especially since it seemed to be Teddy’s handwriting in the journal. Knowing the full moon was tonight, he hoped that his godfather was alright and would make it through at least some of the party planned for later when more of his friends and family arrived.
“So this is where you went.” Remus was addressing the owl sitting on the front gate when Harry rounded the corner into the front garden. It was now a screech owl who appeared to be smirking up at him. “I realize that you are legally an adult now but a little courtesy would be nice to at least tell us of your intentions before you take off.”
To a muggle, the scene must have looked absolutely preposterous. A scarred middle aged man in jeans and a leather jacket speaking to an owl as if it could understand him, reprimanding it like a child. When the owl actually chirped back at him to indicate that it did, in fact, know exactly what was being said to it, anyone would think they had gone mad.
Remus just sighed and put his helmet onto the bike where his husband was laughing too hard to dismount, the sound muffled from within his own helmet. He pushed Sirius’s shoulder to prompt him to move and then shook his head and walked to the gate where the screech owl hopped onto his arm when he pushed it open. Remus shook his head at it and kept walking as it hopped and flapped up to perch on his shoulder. He muttered something to the owl in Welsh and it chittered and shut its eyes like it was laughing.
Oliver rushed past Remus with a brief hug and hello to get to the bike and his favorite uncle. Sirius had managed to get his helmet off by then but was still laughing when he greeted the little boy. Harry just rolled his eyes and joined Remus on the front walkway while his son chatted up a storm with his uncle and made some sort of noise about wanting to ride the bike which he was sure he’d hear about later. Oliver was obsessed with the thing and had been since he was old enough to talk.
“Ah, so you’re the brat, huh?” Ginny teased, poking a finger at the owl perched on Remus’s shoulder. She was grinning and started laughing when the owl turned away its head indignantly. “Explains why you’ve been hanging around so long. I didn’t realize that animagi could change their forms, though.”
“Neither did we,” Remus answered with a sigh. “Registering him took all morning because he can change into every known species of owl… I wouldn’t be surprised if he could change into unknown species as well but I’m not about to tempt him. We think it’s because he is also a metamorphmagus.”
Harry grinned and looked at the owl. Now that he actually paid attention to it, the eyes were the give away. The owl had Teddy’s green eyes in all three of the forms Harry had seen so far, the same as his father’s. Of course his godson would learn how to become an animagus. The gift in the grass out back began to make a little more sense. “I think he wants me to become one, too.”
“Does he now?” Remus fixed the owl on his shoulder with a look that sent it fluttering away to land on Sirius’s shoulder instead.
“Oi, I don’t want your talons messing up my leather, Mini-Moony!” Sirius complained. The owl hooted at him and then hopped onto his head instead. Sirius sighed.
Harry chuckled. “Yeah. I’ve got a box of what seems to be potion ingredients and a journal out back, delivered by Teddy himself while I was at work.”
Remus groaned. “Of course. Why am I not surprised that my son would do such a thing?”
“Because he’s also my son and Dora’s son,” Sirius quipped as he guided Oliver inside the gate and came up beside Remus with a grin. Remus just sighed and muttered in Welsh again; both Sirius and the owl laughed. Harry wondered what he said but didn’t bother to ask as they all went inside.
The afternoon was an enjoyable one even as the house began to get more and more noisy with new guests arriving as they got off work. They’d set up a tent in the back garden to accommodate most of the party and though both Harry and his godfather alike preferred the quiet, it was his birthday and it was one of the only times he tolerated that much excitement and attention. Christmas was more about the kids these days, and there were a lot of em with the extended Weasley family, as were their birthdays, obviously, and Harry loved to lather on all of the attention for Ginny come her birthday a couple of weeks after his own. He was glad that Remus had arrived early and gotten to spend some quiet time with him before everything got busy, though as it was pretty obvious that he’d already been fighting a migraine when they got there and by the time they left just after dinner, he was really suffering. Harry excused himself from the party for a while to bid them a safe night.
“You gonna be alright, Remus?” Harry asked as he hugged his godfather.
“Yeah… Just gets harder the older I get.” Remus sighed.
“You aren’t old, Tad. You’re fifty-five,” Teddy argued.
“Need I remind you that most werewolves didn’t live past about ten when they were bitten as young as I was?”
Teddy made a face at his father and then took over hugging him. Remus smiled at him and hugged him in return.
“He’ll be alright, Pup. Now he has both of us to watch over him, right?” Sirius called from where he was already straddling the bike.
“Yeah. That’s the entire reason I did it,” Teddy answered, looking over his shoulder at his dad with a serious look that Harry rarely saw on his godson’s features. He reached out and ruffled the young man’s fluffy teal hair.
“You’re a good kid, Ted. Your Tad’ll be fine,” Harry reassured him even though he’d just been asking after him himself. He got a smile that looked a lot like he remembered Dora’s for his trouble.
“C’mon, you two. Time’s a-wastin’ here and we have to get to Scotland to meet the rest of the pack,” Sirius called to them. “Sorry to cut things short, Prongslet, ya know.”
“I know, I know. Just send me an owl after?” Harry insisted as Remus straddled the bike behind his husband. Teddy smirked at him and shifted to a tiny little elf owl that settled in his dad’s lap to cling to his jeans since he couldn’t fly as fast as the bike. Sirius shifted his jacket around him for added protection.
“Not my godson next time?” he added hastily. Sirius laughed while Remus gave him a tired yet genuinely amused smile. The little owl chittered in amusement.
“We’ll send Romulus or Alhena in the morning,” Remus assured before he pulled on his helmet and lifted a hand to wave. As the engine revved to life, he put his arms tightly around Sirius.
“Bye Uncle Remus! Bye Uncle Sirius! Bye Teddy!” Oliver’s voice suddenly yelled from the front door. Harry glanced back as his son bounded over, waving at the retreating bike. Sirius waved back to them while Remus looked over his shoulder. Harry smiled and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder to hug him close while his godparents left. He hated it when the full moon interfered with celebrations but the entire family had gotten used to it by then. As the bike disappeared out of sight into the clouds, Harry steered Oliver inside and decided to send at least half of the birthday chocolates he’d gotten to Remus in the morning.