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31 October, 2000
“Teddy Remus, I’m not going to say it again. Shoes are not optional,” Tonks said firmly.
“No shoes, Mummy! No shoes with costume!” he wailed.
“Why can’t you wear shoes and a costume?”
“The rules!”
“What rules! It’s not like there’s a costume regulation department at the Ministry! The only rule is that you have to wear shoes when you leave the house!”
Tonks was only slightly ashamed to admit she’d reached the end of her tether. Littlest Lupin decided to wake her up at 4 in the morning by making her violently reject everything she’d consumed in the last 24 hours. She hadn’t even bothered to Morph her hair before going into the office, where she had spent 8-and-a-half miserable hours training new recruits. Now, a half hour after they said they would be at the Potters’, Tonks dodged the foot of a failing toddler and realized rather grimly that she had signed up to deal with these kinds of tantrums all over again in another 2 years.
“Teddy,” Remus cut in using his Teacher Voice. “Can you tell me about your costume?” He crouched down to the little boy’s height and looked at him encouragingly.
“I’m a person!”
Right. That.
Lily had remarked about a month ago over tea that Teddy would make an adorable little teddy bear, should he want to dress up for Hallow’s Eve. She’d even gone so far as offering to make the costume herself--now an empty nester, she made it her mission to dote on Teddy.
“Little fleece coveralls, and fuzzy little ears--would you like that, Teddy?”
“Yes, Auntie Lily,” he said, running around the table legs and growling like a bear.
Not to be outdone, Sirius caught hold of him on his third circuit around the table and faced Teddy toward him. Had Remus been in better practice, perhaps he would have noticed the mischievous glint in Sirius’s eye and been able to stop him before he went this far…
“So, Teddy, my dearest, shortest cousin. You want to be a teddy bear for Hallow’s Eve?”
Teddy nodded vigorously.
“Very well. But,” he let the word hang there for a moment to pique the boy’s curiosity, “I think it would be a bit too predictable to have a person named Teddy dressed as a teddy bear, yeah?”
Teddy nodded again. Lily glared. Sirius pressed on.
“See, what if you went as a Teddy--” he poked Teddy in the ribs, making him giggle “--dressed as a person. Much cleverer, right?”
“Yeah! Teddy-person, Teddy-person!” the little boy cheered.
James snorted into his teacup, then quickly converted the snort to a coughing fit when he saw the look on his wife’s face. Remus just sighed. This would surely just blow over and be forgotten in a few days when the novelty wore off, much like the chocolate frog that had been smuggled into the bath because “froggies like water” the week before or the buried treasure hunt that took over the garden for a week in the summer.
But it hadn’t blown over. A month later, Teddy was still absolutely stuck on the idea of being a person for Hallow’s Eve. Remus and Tonks had foolishly thought that perhaps, at least, this would mean Teddy could just wear his normal clothes, but Teddy had informed them that he needed a costume, which he insisted on picking out himself. Apparently, the perfect “person” costume consisted of blue pajama pants with a yellow duck print, an orange t-shirt, a ratty green cardigan of Remus’s, and a floppy straw sunhat. Oh, and blue hair. Mustn’t forget the blue hair, although Teddy’s hair was blue more often than not these days.
“That’s right, a person. And people generally wear shoes,” Remus prompted.
Teddy looked at him skeptically.
“It’s true. I’m wearing shoes. Mummy is wearing shoes. I’ll bet your auntie and uncles and cousin Harry all will be wearing shoes once we get there.”
“Baby wear shoes?”
“Well, erm, no,” said Remus, not remotely prepared to explain that, at 2 month’s gestation, Baby Lupin barely even had feet.
A triumphant look--that he definitely got from the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black-- broke across the toddler’s face.
“Not yet,” Remus amended hurriedly. “Your little brother or sister is too small to come outside and wear shoes yet. But you are a big boy, and that means you get to do things babies can’t and you also sometimes have to do things babies don’t. Like play with your auntie and uncles and cousin. Or wear shoes.”
“But costume!”
Fifteen agonizing minutes later, the Lupins tumbled out of the Potters’ fireplace, shoes having been negotiated to galoshes, which apparently fit better with the overall look of the costume. James smiled as he watched the little boy race into the kitchen at Lily’s suggestion of hot chocolate, floppy hat abandoned near the Floo in his excitement.
“So, I take it he dressed himself, then?”
“Yeah, Merlin’s pants, Moony!” said Sirius. “I thought he was going to wear a costume.”
“That is his costume. As James said, he picked it himself.”
“Well, what the bloody hell is he supposed to be?”
Remus rolled his eyes. “Teddy!” he called into the kitchen. “Come out here and tell Uncle Padfoot about your costume.”
Teddy came bounding into the living room in a garish blur, one hand clutching a pumpkin pasty. He skidded to a stop at his father’s feet, grinned, and stuffed the treat in his mouth.
“Um a pwerff--”
“It can wait. Don’t talk with food in your mouth.”
He chewed hurriedly and took a comically huge breath before diving back into his explanation.
“I’m a person!”
“‘Course you are, squirt, but what’s your costume?” Sirius said, ruffling Teddy’s hair.
“Teddy-as-a-person-costume! More cleverer, ‘member?” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Sirius looked over at Remus, a mix of triumph and incredulousness on his face.
“Really?”
“Really. It appears your little joke had quite an influence on him.”
Sirius smirked. “And this is how a person dresses?”
“Apparently.”
Sirius turned back to Teddy, kneeling down so he was at eye-level.
“Well, that’s brilliant, Teddy! We have some good ideas together, don’t we? Now, do you know what every person needs?”
Teddy shook his head.
“A dog!”
And a moment later, Teddy was clapping his hands and shrieking in delight while a giant black dog ran around him in circles.
“Ride?” Teddy asked hopefully.
Sirius wagged his tail, and Teddy climbed onto his back. They did a few laps around the room, Teddy squealing happily, before laid down and nudged Teddy off of him. He changed back to his human form, still lying on the floor.
“Bloody hell,” he gasped. “Don’t remember Harry being that hard to cart around.”
“We’re getting old, mate,” said James.
Remus nodded along as his friends carried on their conversation, but his mind wandered. Sure, his joints put up more of a protest now, and grey hair was rapidly overtaking brown, but despite all that, he didn’t feel old. In fact, he felt younger now than he could recall feeling in the times James and Sirius were reminiscing about. Perhaps a lifetime of complicated feelings about his body made the changes of something as innocuous as age seem less of a betrayal.
But this went beyond his body. Old age seemed to imply a sort of cynical, bone-deep exhaustion with slogging through life. Strangely, that was the feeling that colored most of Remus’s young adulthood, not his life now. Back then, life had seemed like a duel where he was constantly struggling to remain upright against the volley fired at him: money, jobs, parents, the war, the moon, the future. But now...now he had a life beyond young Remus’s wildest dreams. Friends and family (a very blurry line, if any, between the two). A job at Hogwarts that was stable and paid well, a job he enjoyed with people who enjoyed working with him. Advancements in werewolf rights and treatments for lycanthropy. And, most importantly, he had a wife and a child he loved more than anything in the world.
If getting old meant living more of this life, Remus decided he didn’t mind getting old one bit.