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Chapter Text

Remus sits as close to the fire as he can stand, wrapped in a moth-eaten blanket he’d nicked from one of the wardrobes and tucked in one of the library’s hard armchairs. He’s six days out from the full moon and it feels like only six hours. He never used to feel it this early. It seems like with each passing year the moon creeps up on him earlier and earlier in the month, and lingers for a long time after. It will only get worse, he knows, not better. Someday, he fears, there will be no respite from the moon at all. He will only ever be a wolf or a pain-wracked human, and nothing more. 

The fire crackles. Even sitting this close to it, Remus feels a chill run through him. He tells himself it’s the house, not the moon, and that’s probably the case. Grimmauld is an odd place, dark and weird and strange, and he’s never felt warm here. Never felt completely comfortable, in all honesty. He sleeps with his wand under his pillow, and he only stays because of Sirius.

The door behind him creaks open, and Padfoot comes into the room. Remus can smell Sirius, heightened as his senses are this close to the moon, and doesn’t need to turn around to know that he’s in dog form. He does that now more often than not, especially at night. 

Padfoot flops down on the rug in front of the fire, lets out a tremendous sigh, and morphs back into Sirius. 

“Get your feet out of the flames, Moony,” he grouses, knocking Remus’s ankle with his foot. “Merlin, you’ll set them on fire.”

“Will not,” Remus mutters, but pulls his feet back anyway. He can smell the whiskey on Sirius’s breath even at this distance, and debates the merits of mentioning it. He decides it’s best not to. The last time he’d dared to mention Sirius’s drinking, they had nearly shouted the house down. Thank Merlin only Walburga Black’s portrait had been around to witness it. Well, and Kreacher. “What are you doing up?” 

“Checking on the kids.” Sirius gets to his feet in one fluid motion and pulls over the other armchair, so that they’re mere inches apart. He settles into it and closes his eyes.

“Harry alright?” 

“He was having a nightmare. Snuffles woke him up.” 

Remus smiles to himself. Back at school, the Marauders had referred to Sirius as Padfoot when he was in dog form, and he had happily done the same...until he started using the alias Snuffles when talking to Harry and his friends, and now that’s how he refers to his dog self. It’s endearing, how much he loves Harry. He will do anything for that boy. “Is he asleep now?”

Sirius huffs. “He fell asleep for a bit, then woke up again to kick Snuffles out. Apparently, I was hogging the bed.” 

Remus laughs. “Some things never change.” 

“Oi, rude.” Sirius extends his legs, the soles of his feet hovering mere centimeters from the fire. “I don’t want to send him back, Moony.” 

Remus’s heart constricts. “I know.”

“He’s keeping things from me.” 

“I know.” 

“I want to be there for him, I want to bloody protect him, and I can’t.” Sirius props his chin on his fist, staring moodily into the flames. “Some godfather I’ve turned out to be.” 

“It’s not your fault, Sirius.” 

“Whose fault is it, then? James’s?” Sirius says bitterly. “I was the one who convinced them to switch to Peter. If not for that, they’d still be alive. You can’t deny that, Remus.” 

Remus is too tired and in too much pain for this argument, which they’ve hashed out in dozens of different ways over the past two years. “I need to go to bed, Siri.” 

He rarely calls Sirius that, and Sirius visibly jolts at the nickname. 

“Right, yeah, ‘course,” he says, getting to his feet and offering a hand to Remus. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs.” 

It always helps to give Sirius a task—something to do, something to fix. That had chafed at Remus, back during their Hogwarts days, but now he sees it as a necessity. He’s not admitting weakness or fault—he’s giving Sirius a purpose. Something to focus on that isn’t his own self-loathing and misery. Remus doesn’t need Sirius’s arm around his waist as they make their way up the stairs, but Sirius does. He doesn’t need Sirius to dig out his pyjamas and help him get changed, doesn’t need Sirius’s help to settle into bed, but his friend does. Remus can give him that, if nothing else. 

And it is nice. He can admit that to himself, at least. It’s nice to be fussed over, when Sirius is the one doing the fussing. 

They’ve been sharing Sirius’s room and bed ever since Remus moved into Grimmauld earlier that summer. It doesn’t mean anything. It never has. It’s a habit that started at school, Sirius slipping into his bed to comfort him before and after a full moon, Remus going to his when Sirius’s nightmares struck. Back when Sirius first moved into Grimmauld and offered it to Dumbledore as Order headquarters, only his bedroom had been habitable, so it made sense for Remus to stay there. They’ve cleaned out other bedrooms since then, but he hasn’t seen the point in moving. 

It’s selfish of him, he knows. He’s the one who has always wanted more than Sirius’s friendship, despite knowing that Sirius's preferences don't lie with blokes. He’s the one who wants what he cannot have. Sharing this room, this bed, he can let himself believe that they are more than they are. 

Sirius strips down to his boxers and climbs in on the other side of the bed. Remus flicks his wand to turn out the light, but when the room goes dark, Sirius rolls over to face him. 

“Rem,” he says quietly, and Remus is instantly concerned, because that is also a rare nickname, and rarely portends anything good.

“Yeah?” 

“I wrote a will.” 

Remus blinks at him. The streetlamp outside Sirius’s window casts a weak yellow glow that doesn’t quite reach the bed. Remus can’t make out Sirius’s expression in the near-total darkness, can’t tell if this is some morbid joke he’s supposed to laugh at. “What?” 

“I wrote a will,” Sirius repeats, and there’s no teasing note in his voice. “It’s in my desk. If it all goes sideways...well. I’m leaving everything to Harry. I just thought someone should know where it is.” 

“You’re not going to die.” Every molecule in Remus’s body rejects the thought. Grimmauld Place is a house of horrors, but it is safe. That’s why Sirius has given up what little freedom he has, and his sanity to boot. Because at least being shut up in this house means that he will live to see the end of this war.

“Maybe not,” Sirius says. “I wrote a will, just in case. But there’s something I can’t put in it.” 

“What?”

Sirius reaches across the space that separates them and takes Remus’s hand in his own. Remus is so startled by the contact that it takes him a moment to process Sirius’s next words. “If something happens to me, will you look after Harry?” 

“I can’t,” Remus says. “You know I can’t, Sirius, werewolves aren’t allowed—”

“I know that,” Sirius says. “I don’t mean legally, though Merlin knows I want that more than anything. I know you wouldn’t be able to take him in, not before he’s of age, but will you look after him? I want him to have a family, Rem, even after he’s an adult. I want to be the one to provide it for him, but if I can’t, will you do it?” 

“Sirius, for Merlin’s sake, I’m not going to sit here and listen to you plan for your own death!” 

“I just want to make sure he’s looked after, that’s all,” Sirius says. “Because no one else cares about his welfare, you know that.” 

“His friends—”

“Are children. What adult in his life has ever looked out for his best interests?” 

“Sirius...”

“James and Lily would be horrified to know that he grew up in her awful sister’s house.” Sirius squeezes Remus’s fingers. “I’m not planning my own demise, Moony. Merlin knows I want nothing more than to see the other side of this war so I can look after him like I should have from the beginning. But I can’t stand the thought that—that something might happen to me and he would have no one.” 

“I wouldn’t let that happen,” Remus says, dry-mouthed. “I love him, too.” 

“Promise me.” 

“Yes, alright,” Remus says. “I promise I’ll look after him.”

They settle after that, Sirius’s head tucked under Remus’s chin, their limbs entwined. The house is cold, even in the height of summer, but tucked here under the blankets with Sirius, Remus feels as though the house’s damp chill could never touch him again. 

He’s almost asleep once more when Sirius says, “It should have been me.” 

Sirius’s voice is so quiet that Remus feels the words more than he hears them. His grip on Sirius tightens. “I know.” 

“A vial of Veritaserum, that’s all it would have taken,” Sirius mutters. “Or if they’d bothered to check my wand before they snapped it, see what spells I’d cast last...I’d have been free. I could have raised him.” 

Remus buries his face in Sirius’s hair and says nothing. What is there to say? That the world is cruel and unfair? Sirius knows that better than any of them.

“We’re going to find Peter,” he whispers. “We’re going to free you, and then you and Harry can be a proper family. You didn’t get to raise him, Padfoot, but you’re still his family.”

“So are you, Uncle Moony.” 

Remus closes his eyes against threatening tears, and tries to lighten the mood. “If you die before me, I’m hexing you.” 

Sirius gives a bark of a laugh. “Sure. Whatever you want, Moony. Just look after my boy.” 

“I will, Sirius. I promise.” 

Chapter Text

Sirius falls—

—and falls

—and falls

—and when it’s over, the Veil flutters, as though disturbed only by a gentle breeze, and then goes still. 

Harry lunges forward. Remus, reacting purely on instinct, clamps his arms around Harry’s chest, hauling him back. Harry screams, a visceral, guttural sound that Remus knows he will hear in his nightmares for the rest of his life. 

“Sirius! Sirius!” 

“There’s nothing you can do, Harry!” 

Harry struggles in his grasp. “Get him, save him! He’s only just gone through!” 

Remus’s heart rends itself in two at the utter desperation in Harry’s voice. “It’s too late.”

“We can still reach him!” 

“There’s nothing you can do,” Remus says. Harry’s fighting him viciously, but Remus cannot let him go, will not let him go. If Harry plunges through the Veil, too… “He’s gone.” 

“He hasn’t gone! Sirius!” 

“He can’t come back, Harry,” Remus says, voice breaking. “He can’t come back. He’s—” 

“He is not dead!” Harry roars.

Remus drags him away from the dais. But then he’s distracted by Neville, by the rest of the battle happening around him, and Harry breaks out of his grip.

“Harry, no!” 

“She killed Sirius!” Harry bellows, his furious face streaked with tears. “I’ll kill her!” 

“Harry!” 

But he’s gone, plunging after Bellatrix, and Remus can’t follow. 

Everything after that is a blur. He rounds up the rest of the children with Kingsley’s help and transports them to the Hospital Wing. They have to leave Tonks behind. The Aurors will see that she’s transported to St. Mungo’s. Her injuries are beyond what Madam Pomfrey can handle. 

They find Dumbledore in the corridor outside his office, obviously looking for them.

“Harry?” Remus asks. 

“Safe,” Dumbledore says.

“I want to see—”

“We have a more urgent problem on our hands,” Dumbledore interrupts. “Grimmauld Place has been compromised.”

And then he tells them the whole, awful story of the last few hours—Kreacher injuring Buckbeak to get Sirius out of the kitchen, telling Harry that his godfather isn’t at Grimmauld, Harry’s vision, all of it. Remus wants to scream, feels like he’s about to crack in two. They have been so perfectly played, it’s almost laughable. 

Dumbledore doesn’t know how much time they have, if they have any at all, so Kingsley and Remus rush back to Grimmauld to empty it of everything the Order might need, or anything that could compromise them further if it fell into the wrong hands. Remus is the only member of the Order who had been living here with Sirius, so he throws his belongings in a suitcase enchanted to be much larger on the inside than it actually is. He grabs what he can of Sirius’s, too—clothes, jewelry, photographs, letters. Harry might want them someday, he thinks.

The will. Remus runs over to the desk, rifles through its drawers until he finds three folded sheets of parchment tucked neatly in an envelope and filled with Sirius’s spiky handwriting. He scans the contents, desperately beating back the emotion that clogs his throat and threatens to undo him. He needs to get this will to Dumbledore—it might be the key to keeping Grimmauld in Order hands. 

“Lupin!” Kingsley bellows up the stairs. “We need to leave!” 

Remus stuffs the will in his pocket and grabs the suitcase. In the doorway, he pauses to take in the room one last time. Absurdly, the house that Sirius hated is the first place that’s felt like home since the flat they moved into after Hogwarts almost twenty years ago. It’s the last thing he has left of Sirius. His clothes are still strewn across the floor; the bedsheets still carry his scent. Remus doesn’t want to leave.

“Lupin!”

Remus closes the door one final time and hurries down the stairs.

Chapter Text

A week before they’re due to fetch Harry from the Dursleys for the last time, what remains of the Order meets at the Burrow to go over final logistics. Remus knows Harry’s going to hate the plan, but there are no other options to get him safely to the Burrow. Remus isn’t thrilled with it, either, because Harry’s young friends are all going to be decoys. He’s already lost one former student to Voldemort; he doesn’t want to lose more. And Harry would never forgive himself if something happened to one of his friends, but Remus doesn’t know what else they can do.

It’s hypocritical, he knows, to balk at the idea of these literal children fighting a war. Hadn’t he and his friends done the same twenty years ago? They’d thought themselves adults, too, and had bristled at the idea of sitting out the fight. 

The meeting breaks up. Moody heads back to the Ministry, but most everyone else is lingering over cups of tea (or firewhiskey, in some cases). Molly makes dinner, and they decide to eat it outside in the garden. There’s more room out there, and it’s a pleasant night. 

Remus goes back inside for more tea, and he’s pouring himself a mug when Tonks breezes in.

“Oi, Lupin, need a word,” Tonks says. When he looks at her, she adds, “You’re going to want to be sitting down for this.” 

The bottom drops out of Remus’s stomach. “What’s happened? Is Harry okay?”

Tonks barks a laugh that reminds him so strongly of Sirius, it’s a punch to the gut. “‘Course he’s okay. If something happened to Harry Potter, you wouldn’t be hearing about it from me.” 

That’s a good point. Remus sits, feeling shaky with relief. Harry’s going to be seventeen in a few days, which means he’ll have lost what safety the blood protection affords him. Remus has been on-edge about it for weeks. They have a plan to get him to safety, but he’s still anxious about it. It feels as though the walls are closing in on them, as though this war has already been lost. “Right, what is it, then?” 

“I’m pregnant.”

Remus’s mind goes blank. “You’re what?” 

“Pregnant. Knocked up. Bun in the oven,” Tonks says cheerfully. “It’s yours, by the way, in case that wasn’t clear.” 

“But we—” They’d been drunk, yes, and more than a little grief-stricken—Tonks freshly mourning Emmeline, Remus still haunted by Sirius’s death over a year ago—but they’d at least had the presence of mind for some contraception charms. 

“Guess you’re more virile than we thought,” Tonks says, sounding inexplicably amused. “Must be those werewolf genes. Do you want it?”

“What?” 

Tonks shrugs. “Well, I’m not raising it. Thought you might be interested. You want a kid?”

“I—” Remus rubs his face. “That’s not something I ever thought I’d have to have an opinion on. My kind aren’t allowed to…are you sure?”

“Sure that it’s yours?” She gives him an exasperated look. “I don’t make a habit of sleeping with the kinds of people who are capable of getting me pregnant, so yeah, it’s yours. You’re the only contender on that front.” 

“Oh, Merlin.” He remembers how he and Sirius had been in absolute disbelief back when Lily announced her pregnancy. They hadn’t understood what James and Lily were thinking, having a baby in the middle of a war. And now he’s gone and put Tonks in the same unenviable situation. “You could—you don’t have to go through with this. I support whatever you choose to do about it.” 

“Oh, I’m having this baby,” Tonks says. “Nothing would piss off the Ministry more than a werewolf procreating, you know that.”

Remus can’t help it; he laughs. It sounds slightly hysterical. “You can’t have a baby out of spite, Tonks.”

“Yes, I can,” she says. “And the baby is yours if you want them. If you don’t, I know Mum would bring them up.” 

“No,” Remus says, surprised at the sudden certainty that grips him. “No, if you’re going to have them, then I’ll raise them.” 

“Good,” Tonks says, though she doesn’t sound like there was ever any doubt in her mind that that’s what he was going to decide. “We should get married, then.” 

She’s right, of course. It’s one thing for a werewolf to knock up a human, and another for a husband to have a baby with his wife. It will give him a more legitimate claim over the child. Still, Remus’s gut churns at the thought. “Right. Yeah, we should. We should do that.” 

“I know a bloke at the Ministry who could do it for us. Tomorrow? We can meet him somewhere in Diagon Alley.” 

Remus has a sudden vision of getting married in the Leaky Cauldron and fights back another hysterical laugh. How is this his life? “Yes, fine.” 

“Aw, don’t look like that.” Tonks comes over to him and hugs him. He’s still sitting down, so he ends up with his face pressed to her stomach. He loops his arms around her waist and she wraps hers around his head. “We’ll play house for nine months, I pop out the sprog, and I’ll divorce you as soon as it’s over. I promise.” 

Remus laughs, and then he’s crying, and Merlin, he wishes Sirius was here. 

As though she can read his mind, Tonks says, “You know, I don’t know if Sirius would congratulate you or thump you for knocking up his baby cousin.” 

Remus wisely does not point out that they wouldn’t even be in this mess right now if Sirius was still alive. He simply hugs her tighter, and says nothing at all.

Chapter Text

After.

After the battle, after the deaths, after the horrible sight of Harry’s limp body cradled in Hagrid’s arms...after, Remus hugs Harry so tightly that he’s probably crushing the poor boy’s ribs, and Harry clutches him back just as fiercely. 

“James and Lily would be so proud,” he says into Harry’s ear, and Harry’s shoulders shake. “Sirius, too.” 

“I saw them,” Harry rasps. “I saw my parents.” 

Stranger things have happened tonight. Remus pulls back only enough to look Harry in the eye, holding him by the shoulders. “You alright?”

Harry gives him a shaky nod. “Yeah, I’m okay.” 

“Okay.” Remus does what he hasn’t done since Harry was a baby, and kisses him on the forehead. “Go be with your friends. I’ll come find you later.”

He’s taking Harry home, but there are other matters to deal with first. He finds Tonks by the dead, so many of whom are his former students. She embraces him tightly. They’re both battered and bruised from dueling Dolohov, and Remus’s nerves are still singing with the aftermath of the Cruciatus curse, but they’re alive. 

“Teddy’s alright?” he asks her, and she nods. 

“As well as he can be. He was screaming his head off for you when I left.”

Remus doesn’t think that at two months old Teddy really knows who he is, but his heart tugs anyway. “I’ll pick him up first thing. I’m bringing Harry back with me, too. Do you need a place to stay?” 

Tonks shakes her head. “I’ll be staying with Mum. She needs me.”   

Later, much later, after they’ve made arrangements for the dead and people are drifting off to the dorms for some well-deserved sleep, Remus catches up with Harry. 

“Listen,” he says, “do you have somewhere to go?” 

Harry gives him a slow blink. Exhaustion must be catching up with him; Remus can’t fathom how tired he must be. Not only from the battle, but from seven years of carrying the world on his shoulders.

“I was going to sleep in the dorm,” Harry says. “Maybe get Kreacher to bring me a sandwich.” 

“Come with me,” Remus says. “I’ve got a place in Wales; there’s enough room. I just need to fetch Teddy.” 

“Oh, I don’t...” Harry trails off, then shrugs. “Yeah, alright. That sounds great. Thanks.” 

Remus is too exhausted and battered to trust his Apparition skills, and the same goes for Harry, so they Floo to the Tonks home. Teddy’s piercing wail is the first thing Remus hears, and he thinks it might be the most beautiful sound in the world. 

“Hello, darling,” he murmurs, gratefully accepting the screaming infant as Andromeda hands him over. “Are you ready to go home?” 

Teddy hates traveling by Floo, and somehow his cries have magnified by the time Remus steps out of the fire and into the cottage’s main room. A moment later, Harry comes through the flickering green flames. 

“I’d give you a tour, but I think it can wait,” Remus says. He bounces Teddy in his arms, hoping that will soothe the baby. “Your room is upstairs, first door on the right. Bathroom’s the second door on the left. Get some rest.” 

***

Harry sleeps for two days after Remus brings him home. When he emerges, late in the afternoon on the second day, Remus is out back with a wailing Teddy and wondering if he should admit defeat and call Andromeda for help. The last thing he wants is to give her another reason to dislike him—and being unable to care properly for her grandson will undoubtedly be one—but he’s gone so long without sleep now that he’s pretty sure he’s hearing colors and tasting sound. He’s so exhausted that his brain is glitching, or at least that’s how it feels. 

“Oh, hello,” he says when the door opens and he turns to see Harry shuffle out, knuckling sleep out of his eyes. He has to raise his voice to be heard over Teddy’s cries. “He didn’t wake you, did he? I put a Silencing Charm up, but to be honest, my magic’s been a little wonky lately.” 

It gets that way when he’s under an enormous amount of strain, and the past two years have been only that.

“No, he didn’t.” Harry stifles a yawn with the back of his hand. Teddy, his attention drawn to the sudden appearance of this new person, stops crying. Tears still roll down his cheeks, but he fixes Harry with a curious look. Harry smiles back at him. “Hello.” 

“If I’d known that was all it took, I’d have woken you twelve hours ago,” Remus says. He still bounces Teddy in his arms and hardly dares to breathe, lest he remind the infant that he was crying his head off not ten seconds ago. 

Harry holds out a finger. Teddy grasps it in his tiny fist, and Harry grins. Teddy does not cry.

“Do you want to hold him?” 

“Oh.” Harry looks unsure. “I don’t know—I mean I’ve never—” 

“Never held a baby?” Remus nods at the bench by the door. “Sit down. I’ll hand him to you.”

Harry sits and holds out his arms. Remus settles Teddy in them, making sure his head is supported, tucking his blankets securely around him. He’s hit with a dizzying wave of  déjà vu when he steps back and takes in the sight—for a moment, it almost looks like James holding baby Harry.

“You were the first baby I ever held, you know.” 

Harry blinks up at him. “Really?” 

“Really.” Remus sits next to him on the bench. He leans over to drop a kiss on Teddy’s wisps of blue hair, then straightens. “I was terrified. I thought I was going to, I don’t know. Break you, somehow. I was so scared. And your dad had me sit down, and he put you in my arms, and...well.” Remus passes a hand over Harry’s head, ruffling his hair. “I was smitten. Completely gone. You had us all wrapped around your finger. Sirius cried when he first held you, did you know that?”

Of course Harry doesn’t. Why would he? He only had Sirius in his life for two years—not even that, really. They had perhaps a handful of days together before Sirius died. It’s awful, truly, how much was stolen from them. 

“I found a letter in his bedroom at Grimmauld,” Harry says. Teddy has not only stopped crying, but is now drifting off. Remus’s eardrums couldn’t be more relieved. “It was from my mum. She wrote that he got me my first broomstick. For my birthday. I didn’t know.” 

“He was your favorite,” Remus says. “After your parents, of course. Which worked out rather well, since you were his favorite. Had to practically peel him away from you whenever it was time to leave.” 

A tear drips off Harry’s chin and lands on Teddy’s forehead. The baby doesn’t stir. Harry furiously scrubs at his cheeks with his sleeve. 

“There’s nothing in this world that he loved more than you,” Remus adds softly, hoping that it will bring Harry some comfort. He doesn’t know if it will—that all-encompassing love, after all, is what got Sirius killed. 

“Then why didn’t I see him?” 

Remus tilts his head. “What do you mean?”

Slowly, in bits and pieces, the story of what Harry went through during the final battle comes out. He’s able to keep his composure for most of the story, until he starts telling Remus about the Resurrection Stone and seeing his parents. 

“What I don’t understand,” he says shakily, wiping his cheeks with his sleeve, “is why I didn’t—why I didn’t see Sirius, too. He wasn’t there. Just Mum and Dad.” 

“Were you hoping to see him?” Remus asks, and Harry nods. 

“I’d give anything to see him one last time,” he says. “Just once, that’s all I want. To tell him I’m sorry.”

“He’d never blame you for what happened, Harry,” Remus says gently. “Bellatrix and Kreacher killed him. No one else.”

“Yeah, I know.” Teddy has fallen asleep, and Harry touches his cheek with gentle fingertips. “It’d be nice to hear him say it, though. Just once. But I’ll never…” 

He trails off. Remus puts an arm around his shoulders, squeezing gently. There are things he wishes like hell he’d be able to hear from Sirius, too, even if it was only once. 

***

Life goes on. 

Remus doesn’t know why he’s surprised anymore. He’s started over so many times in his life. He had to start over when he left Hogwarts for the first time, and then again when all his friends died, and yet again when Sirius broke out of Azkaban, and then when Sirius died. Now Voldemort is gone, the war is over, and Remus has to build something new from the ashes. Again.  

He’s a survivor. He doesn’t want to be, but that’s what he is. Time is indifferent to his plights, and it marches on regardless. 

There are funerals. So many funerals, it makes his head spin. Funerals for his former students, for Order members, for people whose names he only knows from the Prophet and its running lists of the dead. He goes to as many as he can, though that’s difficult to do with an infant to look after. Harry attends them all. 

Then there are the trials. He can’t go to many, as they’re usually all-day affairs and he can’t leave Teddy for that long. He’s only called to testify once. Harry’s called to testify at nearly every one, and Remus wishes he could be there for the boy in some tangible way. But all he can do is offer a shoulder to cry on, which Harry rarely wants, and a safe place to rest his head at night. 

Despite all that, they settle into a routine easily enough. Well, Teddy settles into a routine, and the two of them are more or less obligated to follow it. Remus more than Harry, of course, who has the ability to put up silencing charms and can be as uninvolved as he wishes, but Harry has taken to his role of godfather quite seriously. After he gets over his initial terror at holding the infant, he’s quite happy to hold Teddy, and feed him, and produce brightly-colored shapes from his wand while Teddy lays on his blanket and kicks in delight. Remus gets up for all of the nighttime feedings and does the nappy changes, but occasionally Harry is there, too, happy to heat a bottle while Remus tries to soothe his boy.

Remus’s only point of reference for raising a child is Harry himself. He had only been present for Harry’s first year of life, and even then he’d only been an uncle who dropped in when he wasn’t spending long stretches of time with England’s werewolf packs, but he remembers enough. He remembers the exhaustion etched into the lines of Lily and James’s faces, but also the joy. He remembers his own delight when baby Harry smiled and laughed just for him. He remembers bathtime, he remembers the bedtime stories, he remembers Sirius singing Harry to sleep the one precious night the two of them had been able to babysit while James and Lily went out on a rare date. 

He wonders, with an ache, if they all suspected him even then. Was that why Sirius had also been there to babysit? Remus hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, and hates that now even this precious memory is tainted for him. 

“Remus?” Harry asks quietly, and Remus realizes he’s been worryingly silent.

“Sorry, Harry.” He adjusts Teddy in his arms. The baby is on the verge of sleep again, but hasn’t quite dropped off. “Sirius used to sing you to sleep, you know.” 

“He did?” Harry’s eyes go wide and eager, as they always do when Remus brings up his godfather. He should start writing some of this stuff down, these little memories, so he doesn’t forget and so Harry always has them. 

“He had quite a lovely voice, actually. You wouldn’t know it from that Christmas at Grimmauld when he kept butchering those poor Christmas carols, but yes. He did.” 

Remus comes downstairs the next morning to find Teddy on his playmat in the main room, kicking his feet happily while Harry dangles a toy above him. Harry’s humming quietly to the baby, and Remus’s heart swells. He backs quietly out of the room and goes to start breakfast.

***

The first time they properly butt heads is on the day of the first full moon after Harry comes to live with him.

“I want to stay,” Harry says stubbornly.

“And I’ve told you already that you’re not going to,” Remus says. “I’m sorry, Harry, but this isn’t a negotiation. I won’t budge on this.” 

“My dad and Sirius wouldn’t want you to be alone!”

“Don’t bring them into this,” Remus says sharply, probably harsher than he would have on any day other than the full moon. “Your dad and Sirius also wouldn’t want you to be at risk. You and Teddy are going to Andromeda’s, and that’s final.” 

Harry’s expression is mutinous, and Remus half-expects him to do something rash. But when the time comes, he accepts the bag of Teddy’s things and takes Teddy into his arms, and he Floos to Andromeda’s without so much as a word. Remus tells himself that it’s fine. He can withstand the silent treatment, as long as it means the two of them are safe. 

He has a cage in the cellar that he uses for transformations. It’s still a painful, horrific process, his bones snapping and rearranging themselves in his body, but in the end it’s one of the easier moons he’s had. The wolf doesn’t like being caged, but instead of tearing at itself all night, it prowls restlessly for a while and then finally settles down to sleep. Its pack might be gone, but the comforting smell of both its cubs is prevalent, and that’s enough to keep it relatively calm throughout the night. 

When Remus wakes up as a human once more, the cage door is open and someone’s thrown a warm blanket over him. His head is also resting on a pillow, and when he opens his eyes, he sees that a steaming mug of tea has been left within arm’s reach.

It’s at least an hour or two before he feels able to bring the mug of tea to his lips. It’s been charmed to keep warm all that time. Eventually, he gets to his feet and makes his way painfully upstairs.

Harry is feeding Teddy a bottle in the main room. Remus rests a hand on his head as he passes behind the couch, and Harry leans into it, so he supposes he’s been forgiven. Upstairs, he showers, then cleans and bandages his new wounds before falling gratefully into bed. He sleeps for the rest of the day. When he comes awake again, later that night, there’s another cup of tea on his bedside table, this one also enchanted to remain warm until Remus drinks it. 

There’s also a piece of parchment under the mug. Remus picks it up and squints at it, ignoring the voice in the back of his mind that sounds suspiciously like Sirius telling him that he needs reading glasses. 

It’s an order for Wolfsbane. A recurring order for Wolfsbane, to be delivered to him monthly, paid for indefinitely. At the bottom of the order, in Harry’s messy scrawl, he reads: 

Don’t even think about canceling this order. I’ve told them they can only accept a cancellation if it comes directly from me. Sirius would want this for you. In fact, I paid for it out of his family’s money. I bet his mother’s going spare right now, knowing the Black family gold is being spent on a werewolf. Sirius would be pleased.

Remus laughs. He laughs for so long and so hard that his ribs ache, and then he’s crying, and oh, what he wouldn’t give for Sirius to be here right now. 

***

The perpetual exhaustion Remus now feels as a new parent does little to combat his insomnia, something that has plagued him since he was a child. He finds himself up at all hours of the night, whether Teddy is awake or not. Harry, it seems, sleeps better and more soundly than Remus does, for which he’s grateful. He’s usually abed at these odd hours, so it’s a surprise when one night Remus wanders downstairs at two and finds Harry awake and sitting before the fire.

“‘Lo, Harry.” 

Harry startles, sloshing some tea over the side of his mug. He hisses, and reaches for a napkin. Despite living mostly among wizards since he was eleven years old, Remus has noticed that Harry’s first inclination is to do things the Muggle way. He and Lily had been the same way, when they’d first arrived at Hogwarts.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Remus settles into the room’s lone armchair. “Couldn’t sleep?” 

“Haven’t tried.” Harry has the morning’s edition of the Prophet open on his knees, Remus notices. He’s circled some blocks of text on the page, but Remus can’t make out what they are in the dark. “Sorry, I didn’t realize how late it was. I can go—” 

“It’s fine,” Remus says quickly. He doesn’t know much about Harry’s life with the Dursleys, but he remembers meeting Harry as a too-small third-year who was almost preternaturally quiet, who had none of James’s bravado or vivaciousness. He thinks Harry’s spent his whole life trying not to take up too much space, and he doesn’t want Harry to feel that way while he’s under Remus’s roof. “I’ve always been a bit of a night owl. Which I suppose isn’t all that surprising, given what I am. What are you working on?” 

“Oh.” Harry looks down at the paper, sounding suddenly embarrassed. “Nothing, I only—well. I thought I ought to start looking for a job, yeah? And a flat. Only I never really expected there not to be a war, you know? I never expected it all to end. Or, I guess, I never expected to survive it. So I don’t really know what to do with myself. My whole life until now has been dictated by a prophecy. I don’t know what to do next. And I know you’ve got a life to get back to, so I don’t want to stay here too long—” 

“Oh, Harry,” Remus says softly. It would have killed Sirius to hear these words from Harry, to know that his godson never expected to live long enough to have a life. “Please don’t think you aren’t welcome here.”

“No, I know that you don’t mind me staying with you for a bit, but—”

“This is forever, Harry,” Remus says, and Harry stares at him. “This is your home. That bedroom upstairs, that will always be yours, even after you move out to start a life of your own.” 

Harry ducks his head. Remus watches him swallow. “I don’t understand. I can’t just…” 

“Of course you can.” 

“But I’m not—I’m not family. Why would you want me around?” 

That is the moment Remus’s heart cleaves neatly in two. He reaches across the foot of space that separates them and grasps Harry’s hand. 

“Harry James,” he says, “you are my family. You always have been. You are my pack.” 

“Then where were you?” Harry demands suddenly, and Remus inwardly recoils. “Sirius died and you never said anything. You didn’t even write. I was all alone, again, and you were—you were the one person who knew what it was like to lose him. And I couldn’t even talk to you. I just don’t understand.” 

“Harry,” Remus says carefully, because oh, he hadn’t expected this anger, “you know that I was with the werewolf packs—” 

“What about before that?” Harry interrupts. “Sirius died, and then I had to go back to Hogwarts like nothing had happened. Where were you?”

He remembers every detail of that awful night with perfect clarity. Being roused from bed by the alert that Harry and his friends were at the Ministry, Sirius’s long hair in disarray and his eyes wide with panic. Clattering down the stairs and finding Tonks, Shacklebolt, and Moody waiting for them. Turning to Sirius with a half-formed plea on his lips, and immediately closing his mouth at the expression on Sirius’s face. Harry was in danger. Sirius was going after him. Nothing Remus said would keep him at Grimmauld.

He remembers returning to Grimmauld hours later without Sirius. Gathering his belongings and will. Flooing to a temporary safehouse. Standing, dazed and unseeing, on the hearth until Shacklebolt touched his elbow, and then his knees gave out and he screamed.

“I wasn’t in the right state of mind to look after myself, let alone someone else,” Remus says quietly. “I’m sorry, Harry. I should have been there for you.” 

Harry deflates, all the anger leaving him at once. His temper is like Lily’s—quick to spark, but also fast to dissipate.

“It’s fine,” he says. “I get it.” 

“But I’m here now,” Remus says, even though he knows it’s a paltry offering. “I’m here, and this is always going to be your home. If you leave, I want it to be because you want to, not because you feel like you have to.” 

“Yeah, alright.” Harry folds up the newspaper and sets it aside. “Thanks, Remus.” 

***

Tonks checks in on them a couple of days later. She arrives like a whirlwind, tumbling gracelessly out of the fire and knocking over a pile of books. The commotion wakes Teddy, and it takes Remus a good half-hour to settle him again. By the time he makes it back down to the kitchen, Tonks and Harry have finished off a plate of scones and two cups of tea. 

“Sorry,” she chirps at Remus as he comes into the room. “Didn’t mean to wake the little beast.” 

“Maybe firecall ahead next time to make sure it’s not his naptime,” Remus says, waving away her apology, because it’s not like she did any lasting damage. At least this time, she can’t wake a portrait that will scream and re-traumatize Sirius all over again. “How’s things?”

Tonks tells them about the efforts to rebuild and restaff the Ministry and Hogwarts, as well as the ongoing damage control happening throughout the wizarding world. They’re relatively sheltered out here in Wales, tucked away in a little cottage next to a Muggle village, and Remus prefers it that way. Especially for Harry. Tonks drops more than a few hints that the Aurors would love to have him, that they would be more than willing to overlook the fact that he never completed his seventh year. Harry gives her a tight smile and nods, but he doesn’t look particularly enthused about the idea. Remus files that away for later consideration. 

After Tonks has left, Harry lingers at the table, poking at the crumbs left on his plate.

“Erm...Remus, is something wrong between you and Tonks?” Harry immediately looks abashed. “Sorry, I know it’s none of my business.” 

Remus frowns. “No, nothing’s wrong.”

“But she doesn’t stay here,” Harry says, looking thoroughly confused. “I mean, she’s your wife…”  

Oh. Remus fights the urge to laugh. He forgets sometimes that most people aren’t aware of the true nature of their union. “It was a sham marriage, Harry.”

“It—what?” 

“Tonks and I aren’t together. We never have been. It was all a ruse to make sure I could get full custody of Teddy once he was born without the Ministry interfering. They’re not fond of werewolves breeding.” Remus pulls a face. “We meant to get divorced, actually, but the birth was difficult on Tonks and then the battle happened...I should probably talk to her about that, come to think of it. I keep forgetting.” 

“So Teddy is an—” Harry breaks off, looking mortified. 

“Ah, well,” Remus says, feeling suddenly awkward. “The thing is, relations between two consenting adults are perfectly healthy and natural, and don’t always stem from said adults being in a romantic relationship.” 

Harry flushes so hard, Remus can see his dark skin take on a pink tinge. “I know what a one night stand is, Remus.” 

“Right.” Remus clears his throat. “Just, um. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, make sure you employ both contraceptive charms and contraceptive potions.”

“Oh, Merlin, stop.” Harry buries his face in his hands. 

“Condoms work just as well,” Remus added, “though they’ve yet to really catch on among those who aren’t Muggle-born.” 

“Remus, I’m seventeen. I can’t believe you’re trying to give me the sex talk.” 

“Well, has anyone ever properly given it to you before?”

“No,” Harry says emphatically. “And you don’t need to! I get it!” 

“Are you seeing anyone?” 

“Am I—Remus, there was a war !” 

“Your parents got married and had you in the middle of a war,” Remus says, and alright, now he’s kind of enjoying this. 

“No,” Harry says, still flushing hard. “I don’t—there’s no one.” 

There’s an odd quality to his voice—not bitterness, exactly. More...resignation? Remus pulls out the chair next to him and sits down.

“You know you’re young, yeah?” he says gently. “By Muggle standards and wizard ones. Harry, you’re not even eighteen. There’s still plenty of time for you to find someone.”

“I know,” Harry says. “I just don’t know if I want—” 

He breaks off. Remus says, “If you don’t want it, that’s alright, too. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I do want it,” Harry says. “I just don’t know—I can’t bring myself to—I kissed Cedric.” 

Remus has only known one Cedric in his life, and he’ll forever remember the boy at sixteen, the bright and promising student who had reminded him so much of his long-gone friends. 

“Cedric Diggory?” he asks quietly, and Harry gives a miserable nod.

“Right before the Third Task,” he says. “And I—well, I liked it, which was confusing, but also good? And Cedric was a good sport about it. Said he was flattered, but I was too young and he didn’t like me like that, but maybe when I was seventeen I could look him up and we could see how things go. And then—well, and then he died, and I figured...well, that’s what I got for showing an interest in someone. It only gets them hurt in the end.” 

Remus’s heart cracks. “Oh, Harry. No, that’s not true. You have been through a series of horrid and traumatic incidents, but none of it was to do with you.” 

“Yes, it was about me,” Harry says, looking at Remus like he’s lost his head. “It was always because of me. If it hadn’t been for that prophecy, Voldemort never would have come after me and everyone I ever loved. You know that.”

Remus wishes desperately that James and Lily were here. They would have the right words for Harry. Even Sirius would be better suited to this conversation than he was. But he’s all that’s left, now. 

“I’m sorry that it ended like that for you,” he says finally. “But please don’t think it means that you can never date. That you’re not allowed to find someone to share your life with. The war is over, Voldemort is gone, and you can live now.”

“Will you?” Harry asks. “Find someone, I mean.” 

And what can Remus say to that? That his heart knew what it wanted from the moment he laid eyes on Sirius, and nothing ever came of it, and now nothing ever will? That he aches for something he never had in the first place?

“Teddy’s enough for me right now,” Remus says lightly, patting Harry’s knee and standing up. 

***

Remus is jolted from sleep by a scream.

He’s only half-awake when he grabs his wand from under his pillow and bolts for his bedroom door, wrenching it open and skidding into the hallway. He stops for a moment, chest heaving, listening. 

Another scream from Harry’s room, and then a crash. Remus runs, his shoulder slamming into the door as he grasps the handle, and then he bursts into the room—and stops.

Harry is on the bed, clearly unconscious—or in the throes of some kind of vision. His eyes are closed and face twisted, and his spine arches off the bed. Everything in his room—everything, even the furniture—is levitating, swirling around the room like a cyclone. Harry opens his mouth and screams again, emitting sparks from his fingertips. 

Remus throws up a shield charm and ducks under a floating bookcase, dodging inkwells and books as he makes his way to Harry’s side. 

“Rennervate,” he says over the din, flicking his wand, and Harry comes awake with a gasp.

Everything crashes to the floor. Remus throws up another shield charm just in time, throwing his body half across Harry’s as the bedside table nearly slams into their heads. 

“What—” Harry gasps. “Who—Remus?”

He’s drenched with sweat, gasping like he’s run a marathon. 

“It was just a dream, Harry.” Remus is just as shaken, though he manages to keep his voice even. “Only a dream. You’re alright.” 

Harry shoves his glasses on his face and takes in the state of the room. “I—did I do this?”

“I think so,” Remus says. “Sometimes heightened emotions bring about unintended bursts of magic…”

“Accidental magic happens to kids,” Harry says sourly, surveying the damage with distaste. 

“You’ve had a lot of trauma in your life, Harry. I wouldn’t be surprised if it...affects you like this.”

A wail pierces the air, and Remus jumps. Merlin. He’d forgotten all about Teddy. 

He doesn’t want to leave Harry, but Harry at least will understand, whereas all Teddy will know is that he cried for his father and his father did not come. Remus hurries into Teddy’s room and scoops the boy into his arms. 

“Hey, now, it’s alright,” he murmurs, bouncing the sobbing infant. “I know, those were a lot of loud, scary noises. But I’m here. I’m here.”

He turns to carry Teddy back into Harry’s room—and jumps as something flashes in the window. His heart jams itself in his throat, and he points his wand at the darkened glass. He thought he’d seen—a face? White and spectral, but a face nonetheless. Or had he? The longer Remus stares, the more he convinces himself it was nothing. A figment of his imagination. A sliver of the waxing moon, or perhaps an animal rustling out there in the dark. 

Teddy’s cries have quieted to sniffles. Remus slips his wand back up his sleeve and carries Teddy into Harry’s room. Harry is right where Remus left him, cross-legged on his bed, but he’s got his head buried in his hands now. 

“Sorry about that.” Remus settles next to Harry on the mattress, adjusting Teddy more comfortably in his arms. “Can I ask what you were dreaming about?”

Harry huffs. “I don’t even remember.” He lifts his head, and his eyes are haunted. “Usually it’s Cedric or Sirius, though. Or the last battle.”

“But this has never happened before?” Remus nods at the destruction. Harry shakes his head. “I can brew some Dreamless Sleep for you tomorrow, if you want.” 

Harry’s relief is palpable. “You could?”

“I may be pants at potions, but that one’s easy enough. It’s difficult to brew it incorrectly.” Teddy’s fallen asleep against him, and now that the adrenaline has faded, Remus is exhausted as well. “I’ll help you put the room to rights in the morning. Try to get some rest.”  

“What if it happens again?” Harry doesn’t look worried, he looks scared. And, oh, that’s a fear that Remus knows all too well, not being able to trust your own mind. He aches for Harry. 

“There’s a charm,” he says carefully. “It’ll put you right to sleep, and it should be a dreamless one. I can cast it for you. But just this once. It’s risky to use spells on the mind, that’s why potions are preferable.” 

“Can you do it for tonight? Only tonight,” Harry asks—pleads, almost. 

“Of course.” Remus pulls out his wand again and casts the spell. He stays there long after Harry has fallen asleep, cradling Teddy and keeping watch over them both. 

***

Remus dreams, too. 

He dreams of aisles filled with glowing prophecies. He dreams of a dais. He dreams of the Veil. They’re not nightmares, not really. He doesn’t relive Sirius’s death in his sleep—Merlin knows he relives it enough during his waking hours. Compared to Harry’s nightmares, his dreams are mundane. 

He walks through the halls of the Ministry. 

He enters the Death Chamber. 

He mounts the steps of the dais.

He steps through the Veil.

He wakes up. 

The dreams are so vivid that sometimes when Remus wakes up, it takes him a moment to remember that it has been two years since he last stepped foot in that room. That he’s home in his cottage with Teddy sleeping next door and Harry down the hall. It feels so real that often he wakes up with his skin tingling and chilled from where the Veil brushed against it. 

He briefly contemplates making another batch of Dreamless Sleep for himself, but his dreams aren’t destructive like Harry’s. And on more than one occasion, he finds himself hoping that one night, he might see Sirius in his dreams. 

He never does.

***

Remus isn’t quite sure what to expect when he receives an owl one morning asking him to meet with the new Minister for Magic, but it’s certainly not to be offered a job. 

“You want me to what?” he says blankly.

“I want you to be my assistant,” Shacklebolt says, and he sounds faintly amused at Remus’s bewilderment. 

“Why?” At any other point in his life, Remus would probably have been able to phrase his confusion more tactfully, but at any other point in his life, he hadn’t been a new father running on fumes. 

“Because I need an assistant and you would be good at it.” 

“Harry didn’t put you up to this, did he?” 

“No.” Shacklebolt looks amused. “I haven’t spoken to Harry in quite some time. I believe he’s ignoring my owls.”

“He—what?”

“Needless to say, the Auror department was hit hard by the war. Harry would be an asset to us. But we’re here to talk about you.” 

“Harry doesn’t want to be an Auror,” Remus says, latching on to the only part of this ridiculous conversation that makes sense to him. 

“I suppose I’m starting to get that now, yes. But back to the matter at hand: will you be my assistant?” 

Remus does need the money. Harry’s granted him access to Sirius’s family vault, and Remus only withdraws enough money to cover the necessities. He uses Harry’s justification that it would make Walburga Black spin in her grave to know that her family’s money was going to a werewolf and his child, but even then, he still feels guilty living off of someone else’s wealth. He’s almost forty years old. He’d like to be able to provide for his small family on his own. 

“Teddy’s only a few months old,” he says finally.

“I wouldn’t expect you to begin until he was old enough, of course,” Kingsley says. “And when you do decide you’re ready to take the position, you can bring him with. All Ministry employees may take advantage of the free childcare provided here.” 

“Yes, alright,” Remus says, every protest he can think of drying up on his tongue. Why is he fighting this so hard? It’s practically a dream come true. “I’ll accept the position.” 

***

They celebrate Remus’s new job that night with Tonks and Andromeda, who has thawed slightly towards Remus in recent months. He’d only known her during the first war through stories from Sirius about his favorite cousin and fellow family outcast. He met her for the first time after Tonks got pregnant, and she hadn’t exactly been thrilled at the news that Tonks was going to have a baby at the height of a war. She was cool towards him during Tonks’s pregnancy, but for Teddy’s sake seems willing to set her dislike for Remus aside. Not that he would ever withhold Teddy from her—she’s still his grandmother. 

“Did you cook this?” Tonks asks Remus halfway through the meal. “It’s good.”

“Harry might have helped,” he admits, and she cackles.

“That’s what I thought. This one burns toast,” she says to Harry, jabbing her thumb at Remus. 

“Yeah, I know,” Harry says, and Remus rolls his eyes. 

“That was one time.” 

“It was definitely more than one time, Moony.” 

Remus softens a bit at the nickname. Harry doesn’t use it often, but it’s nice to hear when he does. “Yes, well. Thank you for your help on the meal anyway, even though I’m sure I could have handled it myself.” 

After dinner, Andromeda takes Teddy into the main room while Harry goes outside to fly for a few hours. Tonks helps him clear the table, though she draws the line at washing the dishes by hand and Remus won’t let her use magic. 

“What’s the point of magic if you’re not going to use it to make your life easier?” she asks in exasperation. 

“Some things are worth doing by hand,” Remus says. Tonks snorts and leans against the countertop, watching him wash the dishes with no small amount of amusement. “Which reminds me—I need your signature.” 

“Oh, did you get the divorce papers?” Tonks asks, face lighting up.

“Picked them up today when Kingsley was finished with me. They’re upstairs on my desk, if you want to grab them.” 

Tonks rolls her eyes, pulls her wand out of her pocket, and says, “ Accio divorce papers!” 

A stack of parchment comes sailing into the room, hits Remus in the back of the head, and scatters all over the floor. He sighs. “And magic was helpful in this situation how?”

“Didn’t have to climb the stairs,” Tonks says cheerfully, gathering up the sheets of parchment. She grabs a quill off the table and quickly signs them. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t wait to be divorced from you.” 

Remus laughs. “What’s her name, then?” 

“Alicia.” Tonks grabs his elbow and pulls him away from the sink, hauling him off for some whiskey and a good gossip session. 

Tonks and Andromeda leave once Teddy has been bathed and put to bed. Remus had abandoned the dishes earlier to gossip with Tonks about her new girlfriend, and now returns to washing them. It’s full dark now, and Harry is still out flying. He likes nighttime flights, and Remus tries to tamp down on his slowly-rising anxiety. Harry is perfectly safe now, with Voldemort gone and his followers imprisoned. He can stay out all night on his broomstick if he wants, and no harm will come to him. 

Remus looks up, and promptly drops the plate he’s holding. It shatters on impact with the floor, but Remus barely registers the sound. 

There’s someone reflected in the glass of the window above the sink. Remus sees his own scarred face, and over his left shoulder stands another figure. 

Sirius

Sirius is standing there. His dark hair is tied back in a hasty bun, and he’s dressed in the same shirt and trousers he was wearing when he fell through the Veil. Heart in his throat, Remus whirls around—but there’s no one standing behind him. He turns back to the window. 

The reflection is gone.

***

Remus tries to write off the incident as the result of having shared a little too much firewhiskey with Tonks, or his unending exhaustion, or the approaching moon, or any combination of the three, but he’s putting Teddy to bed one night a week later when something in the window catches his eye. It’s a flash of light, a flicker of movement, and Remus moves closer to the glass. It’s dark outside, so he only sees his own face reflected—

And Sirius.

There he is again, standing just behind Remus. Remus stares at the reflection, not even daring to breathe, afraid that if he blinks, Sirius will disappear again. He looks the same, and he doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. 

“Sirius,” Remus whispers. There is no reaction from the reflection. Remus raises his hand to the glass, brushing his fingers over Sirius’s reflection. Sirius doesn’t disappear, but he also doesn’t react. What is this? He’s never heard of a ghost that only appears as a reflection. A manifestation of his grief, then? Is he hallucinating Sirius? He yearns for Sirius, aches for him, but he also died over two years ago, and as much as he hasn’t wanted to, Remus has moved on. Moved on as best as he can, anyway. He has Teddy, he has Harry, he has a life. Why now? 

Slowly, Remus turns around. Sirius isn’t there. When he looks back at the glass, only his own face stares out at him.

Chapter Text

Being the assistant to the Minister of Magic is fulfilling work in a way that Remus never expected it would be. He answers correspondence for Kingsley, schedules meetings, does research, helps him draft legislation—in short, Remus has an active role in shaping the new government, in building the new world they had hoped to when they were first fighting the war twenty years ago. Not everything is a victory, of course—Wolfsbane is still prohibitively expensive and thus inaccessible for nearly all werewolves, and many of Dolores Umbridge’s harmful policies are still in place—but it’s progress. Remus never thought that they would get here, to be honest. 

Summer bleeds into autumn. The days grow shorter, and the nights are crisp. Teddy grows and hits milestone after milestone, so quickly that it makes Remus’s head spin. He crawls; he gets his first tooth; he babbles nonsense at Harry and Remus. As winter melts into spring, he takes his first unsteady steps in the garden, tumbling into Remus’s arms and grinning up at him while Harry snaps photographs with a Muggle camera Hermione had given him for his last birthday.

Remus catches glimpses of Sirius at random moments—in mirrors, in windows, in the surface of the highly-polished lamp that sits on his bedside table. He almost asks Harry about it on more than one occasion, but always stops with the words on the tip of his tongue. Harry doesn’t need this, not while he’s still recovering from last year’s trauma—and, to be frank, from the trauma he’s endured his entire life. He doesn’t need to know that Remus sees Sirius everywhere he looks. What good would it do, except to reopen the wound that Sirius’s death left? 

Harry stays busy, spending most of his time visiting friends or having them over to the cottage. He gets to know Andromeda, Sirius’s favorite cousin, and makes the occasional excursion to Gringotts to sift through the contents of his parents’ vault, slowly piecing together the lives of two people he’ll never know. Sometimes, he asks Remus questions about them, though Remus quickly learns that while Harry is hungry for information about all of the Marauders, he’s reluctant to ask for it. Remus takes to telling Harry stories about their exploits at school at random intervals, and Harry is delighted every time. 

The first anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts falls two days after the full, and truthfully, Remus wants nothing more than to stay in bed with the curtains drawn and the blankets pulled over his head. But he can’t do that to Harry, so he drags himself through his morning routine, which is a chore today even with the aid of pain potions. He has Teddy in his high chair and is feeding him breakfast by the time Harry comes downstairs, still in his pyjamas and looking like he hasn’t slept a wink. If he had any nightmares last night, Remus didn’t hear it—and then the terrible thought occurs to him, that Harry might have used a silencing spell to mask a restless night, and he hopes that isn’t the case. 

“Hey.” Remus puts Teddy’s food aside for a moment to hug Harry. “Alright?”

“Alright,” Harry says tiredly. Remus cups the back of his head.

“Do you want to do anything today?” There are remembrance ceremonies being held all over the country, and people will undoubtedly be flocking to Godric’s Hollow and Hogwarts. 

“Might go see Ron and Hermione.” 

“Of course.” Remus holds on for a moment longer, then releases him. “The weather’s nice today. Maybe go do some flying?”

He knows how flying helps Harry clear his mind, how it grounds him. James was the same way. Harry nods. “Yeah, maybe I’ll—” 

“Da!”

They both freeze, and then, slowly, turn to look at Teddy. The baby slaps his hands on the tray of his high chair, grinning at them.

“Da!” he says again. 

“Did he just—”

“Yeah,” Harry says. “I think he did.” 

Remus feels faint. “He said Da.” 

He feels Harry’s hand on his shoulder. “Yeah, he did.” 

“Da!” Teddy shouts again, clearly delighted at his new form of communication, and holds out a grasping hand.

“Oh!” Harry says. “I think he wants food.” 

“Oh, right.” Remus reaches for the jar of food, a tangle of emotions clogging his throat. He said Da! “Here, Teds, is this what you want?” 

“Da,” Teddy agrees, and opens his mouth for the spoon.

Later that night, after Harry and Teddy have both gone to bed, Remus kneels in front of the fireplace, intending to call Tonks and Andromeda and tell them about Teddy’s first word. But when the flames turn green, Remus can only stare. 

Sirius.

Sirius’s face appears in the flickering flames, like he’s fire-calling Remus. Only he isn’t, because he wears the same placid expression on his face that he has every time Remus sees a reflection of him. Nonetheless, Remus draws a deep breath and whispers, “Sirius?” 

There is no reaction. Remus puts his hand in the fire, as though he can grab Sirius from the other side and pull him through, but of course his hand grasps only air. When he pulls it back, Sirius is gone.

***

Remus is in his office one afternoon in late autumn when the door bursts open and a young Ministry worker hurries into the room.

“Lupin!” The poor lad’s out of breath and practically gasps his name. “St. Mungo’s. Harry Potter.” 

Remus grabs his cloak and runs.

St. Mungo’s is confusing at the best of times, and more so when he’s half in a panic. Fortunately, all he needs to do is say Harry’s name and people fall all over themselves to help him. He’s led up innumerable stairs and through a labyrinth of corridors, and finally deposited in front of a room. 

Harry’s inside, sitting on the edge of a bed, looking pale and wan. The Healer talking to him turns at the sound of the door opening, and then says briskly, “Ah. You must be Mr Lupin.”

He never receives that kind of reception at his name, not since the news broke back in ‘94 that Hogwarts had hired a werewolf as a professor. Usually his name is met with a sneer, if it’s met with anything at all, but the Healer merely looks at him placidly and says, “Mr Potter has been through quite the ordeal. Come, let us catch you up.” 

Harry doesn’t even protest with a sullen, “I’m fine,” the way that Remus expects him to. 

“Sorry, Moony,” he says miserably as Remus takes the chair next to the bed. “I didn’t know they were going to call you.”

“He’s your emergency contact, Mr Potter, of course we’re going to call him,” the Healer says.

“I’m your emergency contact?” Remus asks, his brain—of course—focusing on the least important part of the conversation right now. 

Harry picks at a thread on his sleeve. “Well...you’re sort of my guardian, yeah?”

“If we could return to the matter at hand,” the Healer says impatiently. “Mr Potter had several seizures this afternoon. According to him, he has never suffered attacks like that before. I would like to keep him here overnight for observation and so that we can run a battery of tests.”

“Seizures?” Remus touches Harry’s knee. “Are you alright?”

“Hit my head,” Harry admits. “But they fixed me up. Andromeda found me.” 

“Mrs Tonks called a Healer to her home, where it was determined that Mr Potter’s condition was worrisome enough to warrant hospitalization.” 

“Alright.” Remus checks his watch. “I have a few hours before I need to fetch Teddy. Let me tell the Minister I won’t be back for the rest of the day, and then I’ll bring you some things from home. You’ll keep me updated throughout the night?” 

The Healer nods. “We will.” 

Remus tells Kingsley he needs the afternoon off, and the Minister tells him not to worry about coming in tomorrow, either. He then brings Harry some pyjamas and a couple of books, and he stays as long as he can. Harry’s not unfamiliar with hospital stays, he knows, but St. Mungo’s is different from Hogwarts’ hospital wing. Harry looks unsettled, and a little panicked when Remus finally has to leave, though he hides it well. 

“I’ll be back first thing in the morning,” Remus promises. He gives Harry a quick hug and drops a kiss on top of his head. “You’ve got your mirror?”

“Yeah,” Harry says. 

“Good. I’ll keep the other with me, so call me if you need anything.” 

As he straightens, his gaze falls on the window, and he jumps when he notices someone standing behind him. He hadn’t even heard the Healer enter the room.

But when Remus turns around, no one is there.

“Remus?”

“Sorry, Harry,” Remus says, though he’s not exactly sure what he’s apologizing for. He gives Harry what he hopes is a bracing smile. “Get some rest.” 

He’s about to use one of the hospital fireplaces to Floo back home when the thought occurs to him that he should go to the Ministry. Yes, he absolutely needs to go to the Ministry, right this moment. Remus tosses a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace, steps in, and says, “Ministry of Magic!” 

Moments later, he steps out of a fireplace at the Ministry and blinks. What is he doing here? He’d meant to go home, he’s sure of it. Did he forget something in his office that he wanted to pick up? No, he can’t think of anything he might have left behind. 

A couple of Ministry workers pass by, shooting him odd looks before continuing on their way. He must look strange, standing on the hearth and blinking at his surroundings like he doesn’t know where he is. 

Perhaps there’s an issue with the fireplace he used at St. Mungo’s. He’ll have to remember to mention it to someone tomorrow when he goes to pick up Harry.

Sighing, Remus grabs another handful of Floo powder, and heads home.

***

When Remus returns to the hospital the next morning, Harry is still asleep. That’s unusual for him—he’s much more of a morning person than Remus is, and it’s nearly nine. Remus quietly takes a seat next to the bed and regards his sleeping...nephew? Honorary godson? Ward? It doesn’t matter, he supposes. Harry is pack. That’s all he needs to know, and all that the wolf cares about. He reaches out and brushes his thumb over the lightning-bolt scar. Harry doesn’t even stir. 

“That’s the culprit, funny enough.”

Remus jumps and turns around. He hadn’t even heard the Healer enter the room. “Pardon?”

“Well, not funny, I suppose.” She comes over to Harry’s bed and sticks out her hand. “Healer Callahan. You’re Lupin?”

“I am. How’s he doing?” 

“Fine, at the moment. We gave him a sleeping draught. He’ll probably come to around noon.” She perches on the other chair. “It’s spell damage. Mostly from the killing curse that he deflected, but he’s suffered under a number of other spells over the years.”

“That’s why he had those seizures?”

“We believe so, yes.”

“Then why is it only manifesting now? He’s had that scar practically his whole life.” 

“I don’t know. The brain is a funny thing. Something we have in common with Muggles: we don’t know how it works any better than they do. I believe the curses and spells and potions he’s had used against him over the years compounded the damage over time, until it was too much for his brain to handle. Perhaps that final battle was the last straw.” Callahan pauses for breath, perhaps waiting for a litany of questions, but Remus can’t think of a single thing to say. “Have you noticed anything unusual about his behavior since the battle?”

“His behavior? No.” Remus pauses, thinking. How would he know, anyway? Harry has only lived with him for a short amount of time. “He’s been having these...nightmares, though.”

“Not unusual for someone who has been through as much as he has.”

“No, I mean—he has nightmares, and his magic manifests outside of them. He destroys everything in his room when that happens, and he's not even aware of doing it. He does unconscious magic while he's dreaming.”

Callahan absorbs this for a moment, thinking.

“I suppose it’s possible that the two are linked,” she says finally. “His scar is magical in origin, and a piece of Voldemort’s soul was embedded in him. We also know that Voldemort used it to plant images in his mind. I don’t think it’s out of the question to assume that having nightmares where his magic manifests in reality is linked to the scar, just like the seizures are.” 

“But why now?” Remus rubs his forehead. “It’s been over a year since Voldemort’s defeat.” 

“I wish I had answers for you,” she says. “We’ll want to continue to monitor him, of course. He needs to come by for regular scans. There are also potions we can give him that should prevent the seizures, but he’ll have to take them every day. As for the nightmares, I’d recommend an occasional Dreamless Sleep potion."

"I'm already brewing that for him."

She nods. "No more than once a week, yes?”

"Right, though if there's anything else he can take more frequently that might help, we'd both appreciate it. I know these nightmares are draining for him." 

"Perhaps a calming potion right before bed. It doesn't prevent dreams like Dreamless Sleep would, but if he's calm enough when he falls asleep, maybe they won't manifest."

Callahan gets Remus a batch of anti-seizure and calming potions that should last them for the next month, and then writes Harry a recurring prescription to be delivered by owl every month after that. When Harry wakes up, she explains everything to him, though it’s clear from the slightly dazed look on his face that Harry is absorbing only about half of what she says. 

Remus gets Harry home with minimal difficulty. For once, he’s glad for the unnatural strength that lycanthropy gives him. Harry’s still in a haze from all the potions, and he’s practically a dead weight that Remus has to half-carry up the stairs. He gets Harry into bed, and he’s drawing up the blankets when Harry murmurs, “Sirius?”

“No, Harry,” Remus says softly, chest aching. “It’s only me. It’s Moony.” 

“Mmph.” Harry rolls onto his side and presses his face into his pillow. “Where’d he go?”

“Sirius isn’t here, Harry,” Remus says gently. 

“Was just here…” Harry trails off, sleep finally claiming him. 

Remus sits for a few moments on the edge of his bed, running his fingers through Harry’s hair. He doesn’t know much about Harry’s life with the Dursleys. What he’s learned has been cleaned from snatches of conversation, from stray comments here and there, and it’s enough to paint a grim picture of Harry’s childhood. He knows about the cupboard; about the bars on his window; about the old socks he received for presents. He doubts the Dursleys ever took care of him when he was ill, doubted they put plasters on skinned knees or hugged him when he was sad. That’s always been unfathomable to Remus, but even more now that he has Teddy. He can’t imagine seeing a child in pain, in misery, and ignoring them. 

It should have been Sirius, he thinks morosely. It should have been Sirius then, and it should be Sirius now. 

***

Remus goes to sleep in his bed.

He wakes up in the village, thinking of Teddy.  

Remus turns slowly in a circle, taking in his surroundings. He's definitely in the village, but why? He sees no one else, and his heightened werewolf senses don’t pick up anything unusual. Dawn is still a few hours off. It’s cold, and dark, and silent. Teddy certainly isn't here, even though Remus can't get the thought of him out of his mind. He must have been dreaming.

Great. Now he can add sleepwalking to his list of ailments. He’s grateful he at least woke up when he did. There’s a Portkey station nearby, and he doesn’t want to think about what would have happened if he had managed to transport himself somewhere else. Knowing his luck, he’d have ended up somewhere in the world where it was the middle of the day, in a crowd of people, still wearing his pyjamas.

It’s a cold walk back to the house, but thankfully not a long one. They’re a couple of kilometers away from the village, and the walk serves to wake him up a bit. This turns out to be a good thing, because when he steps into the house, the first thing he hears is Teddy crying.

Remus hurries up the stairs, reaching Teddy’s room just as Harry comes out of his own, rubbing his eyes, his sleep-mussed hair standing on end.

“Sorry,” Remus says. “Sorry, I didn’t hear him until now.”

“Were you outside?” Harry frowns blearily at him.

“Just went for a quick walk. Couldn’t sleep. Go back to bed; I’ve got him.”

Harry accepts this without question and disappears back into his room. Teddy needs a nappy change, and then Remus settles with him in the rocking chair in the corner of the room, his mind still spinning. He doesn’t know much about sleepwalking, but venturing from the cottage all the way to the heart of the village seems like quite the feat.

It’s almost as if he had been determined to go somewhere, but where?

Chapter Text

Autumn stretches on into winter, and before Remus knows it, the new millennium is upon them. For a multitude of reasons, he’s never imagined living this long. He’s a werewolf, he’s a veteran twice over, and somehow he’s still here. His closest friends, his family, he’s now had to leave behind in a different century. It’s surreal to think that all of them have stopped—James, Lily, Sirius, who were all so full of life —while he continues on.

With the spring, Remus turns forty, which is almost as surreal as the turn of the century had been. He catches sight of Sirius in the kitchen window that night after dinner, and raises the glass of wine he’s holding in silent toast. 

“Wish you were here, Pads,” he mutters before taking a long swallow of wine.

Sirius, of course, does not answer. 

Teddy turns two not long after that, and Remus can’t believe that he has a toddler. He’s learning more words every day, and even strings a few of them together here and there to convey his thoughts. Remus can actually talk with his son, which of course is an inevitable part of growing up, but it still astounds him. Now that Teddy is mobile, he has a penchant for getting into mischief, which Remus isn’t surprised at but it still gives him as many grey hairs as the moon does. He’s just lucky that Teddy is still too young to display any accidental magic, though that isn’t far off. Teddy gets into enough trouble on his own without the aid of magic. 

Harry’s destructive nightmares resume, with such frequency that he’s taken to putting up silencing spells before he goes to bed each night. Remus brews Dreamless Sleep for him, but it’s a highly addictive potion and he can’t take it more than once a week. St. Mungo’s is as baffled by the magic-manifesting nightmares as they are by Harry’s seizures, which don’t seem to be affected by the potions the Healers prescribed for him. Harry won’t give up flying, but now he has to cast a cushioning charm each time he takes to the air in case he falls off his broom. Remus has never felt so helpless, and he can’t help but think that if Sirius were here, he would know what to do.

Late spring brings with it days of rain and storms. There’s a particularly vicious storm that strikes in the early hours of the morning one night, and while the thunder doesn’t disturb him, Teddy’s cries wrench him from sleep and send him stumbling into the boy’s room. 

“Oh, Teddy Bear, come here,” Remus murmurs sleepily, lifting the toddler from his cot and cradling him in his arms. “Shh, it’s alright, it’s only a storm.” 

He takes Teddy back to bed with him, where they huddle under the blankets and wait for the storm to pass. Teddy finally falls asleep as the last of the thunder fades away and the rain peters out.

Remus gets Teddy settled in his cot again, and he’s about to return to his own room when he notices that Harry’s bedroom door is open. He usually closes it at night, and Remus moves to do so when he notices something odd. Or, rather, a lack of something.

He doesn’t hear Harry breathing.

Remus knows that Harry took Dreamless Sleep earlier tonight, so he shouldn't have needed to use a silencing charm when he went to bed. He opens the door fully and turns on the light, confirming that Harry isn’t in the room. He goes back to his own room for his wand and then hurries through the house, checking every room, even going down to the cellar to make sure. 

Harry isn’t here. 

It’s not like Harry to sneak out. In the time that he’s been living with Remus, he’s always said when he’s going to be out late with friends or staying over at someone’s house. He doesn’t need to sneak out. He’s an adult, and Remus trusts him. So where could he have gone?

Or could he have been taken?

Voldemort is gone, but Harry still has his fair share of enemies. Or at least his fair share of people who want to see him come to harm. The wards around the cottage mean that only a select few individuals can call on them, and only pre-approved owls are allowed through, but Harry still goes out with his friends. Still participates in wizarding society. He attended the trials and the funerals, he gets mobbed by photographers every time he ventures into wizarding London, the press speculates endlessly about him...if someone truly meant him harm, it isn’t difficult to find him. 

Snatching up his wand, Remus hurries out of the house. He picks up Harry’s scent almost instantly—thank Merlin for his lycanthropy—and follows it. It leads him in the direction of the village, and Remus knows he’s going to find Harry there, but he doesn’t know why. He can’t help but think about his own sleepwalking escapade a few weeks earlier. That had seemed like a random incident, but if the same thing has happened to Harry, there might be something else going on. Could the two of them be under some kind of spell? A modified Imperius that only affects them at certain times? But why did they both end up in the village? 

Remus catches up with Harry in the middle of the village, not far from the designated Portkey station. It’s virtually the same spot where Remus came awake all those months ago.

“Harry,” he says, grabbing Harry by the shoulders. Harry stares at him—stares right through him, really. His gaze is blank. He doesn’t seem to register his surroundings at all. “Harry.” 

Harry blinks several times, and Remus can see the moment that he comes back to himself. The glazed-over look on his face melts away, replaced by a frown. “Remus?” 

“You scared me, Haz,” Remus says. Even though he already suspects the answer, he asks, “What are you doing out here?”

“I don’t—” Harry looks around, taking in his surroundings for the first time. “Am I in the village?”

“Yeah.” Harry’s starting to shiver, and Remus rubs his arms briskly. “You weren’t in bed. I followed your scent here.” 

“I don’t—I don’t remember,” Harry says. “I don’t know how I got here.” 

“Were you dreaming?” Remus asks. “Do you remember anything?” 

“I don’t—” Harry stops, swallows hard. “Sirius.” 

“You were dreaming about Sirius?” This is new. Remus doesn’t remember anything from his own late-night excursion to the village. He’s certain he hadn’t been dreaming, at least. And for Harry to have been dreaming despite the Dreamless Sleep potion...Remus doesn't know what that means, but it makes him feel uneasy.

“I heard him. Saying my name,” Harry says. “But I couldn’t—I couldn’t find him. I didn’t know where he was.” 

“Okay,” Remus says. Unease sits heavy in his gut. “Let’s get you back to the house.” 

He lays awake for the rest of the night, listening to the two heartbeats that thud away while Teddy and Harry sleep in their respective rooms. He’s too restless for sleep, his thoughts tumbling over each other as he tries to make sense of the bizarre situation. He and Harry have both sleep-walked into the village now. They’ve both been in close proximity of the Portkey station. And Harry heard Sirius calling for him, while Remus continues to see his dead friend reflected in almost every surface he looks at. 

What could it all mean? 

***

On an unseasonably warm spring afternoon, Harry has another seizure, and for the first time, Remus is around to witness it.

It doesn’t happen the way he’s been imagining it, the way that the Muggle articles he’s been reading have described it. One moment, he’s standing in Harry’s room, discussing expansion spells with him and wondering whether it would be better to physically add an addition on to the cottage, or enlarge it by magical means. The next, Harry’s eyes roll up into his head and he collapses to the floor, and then every piece of glass in his room explodes. 

Remus drops to his knees beside Harry and holds his head so he can’t slam it against the floor, and he’s helpless to do much else until the fit ends. He times it on his watch—forty-three seconds. Thank Merlin Teddy is at Andromeda’s for the afternoon, and isn’t here to witness this.

“Hey,” he says softly when Harry’s eyes clear and his body stills. “Hey, Harry. You’re okay. You’re with me. I’ve got you.” 

He helps the trembling boy into a sitting position, letting Harry lean against him for support. 

“Are you okay?”

Harry grimaces. “Yeah. Wish my room was, too.” 

He scowls at the mess. He’s cracked the windows, shattered his mirror, and exploded a few glasses that had been sitting on his bedside table. It’s nothing one of them can’t repair, but Remus is concerned that he’s now displaying magic while having a seizure, in addition to doing so while sleeping. 

“I think you should tell St. Mungo’s about this,” he says.

“Yeah, I know,” Harry says darkly.

Remus helps Harry to his feet and runs a quick diagnostic spell. Nothing looks out of the ordinary, though he’s not exactly sure what he should be looking for. Harry seems more annoyed than anything else, and he surveys his room unhappily.

“I hate this,” he says. “Am I going to be like this for the rest of my life?” 

“I don’t know,” Remus says honestly. “I hope not. I do know that St Mungo’s will do everything they can to figure out what’s wrong.” 

Movement out of the corner of his eye distracts him, and Remus whips his head around to find himself staring at Harry’s shattered mirror. He freezes.

There’s Sirius, standing right behind him. He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, simply stands there with his hands in his pockets and stares placidly at Remus. 

Beside him, Harry goes completely still. Remus’s eyes flick to his reflection, and he sees that Harry’s face has gone ashen. 

“Harry,” Remus whispers, realization hitting him like a blow. “Do you—do you see him, too?” 

Wordlessly, Harry nods.

Remus looks over his shoulder, knowing nothing will be there, but it’s still a disappointment. When he turns back to the mirror, Sirius is gone and Harry has his face buried in his hands.

“How long?” Remus asks. 

“I dunno.” Harry’s voice cracks. “A while. It started not long after the final battle. I keep seeing him...but only in mirrors, or sometimes glass. Anything with a reflective surface. I thought I was going mad for a while there. I mean, I still might be. Feels like it, some days.” 

After the final battle. That’s when it started for him, too. 

“What does it mean?” Harry asks. “He’s not a ghost. Right? We never see him, except as a reflection. Or maybe he’s a ghost that can only show up in mirrors?” 

“I suppose it’s possible.” Remus has a headache brewing behind his right eye. He rubs his forehead. “I’ve never heard of a ghost like that.”

“And he never does anything,” Harry says, a hint of frustration in his voice. “He just—stands there. I’ve tried talking to him, but he doesn’t—he doesn’t respond.”

“And he always vanishes when you look away,” Remus says, and Harry nods. 

“I know I said I wanted to see him one last time,” Harry says miserably, “but this is worse. Because he’s not really there. You can’t talk to him. So I see him, and I can’t—I can’t tell him anything I want to say.” 

Remus knows how he feels. It is worse, catching glimpses of Sirius but knowing it’s not really him. It’s not even a ghost. “Have you tried your mirror?”

Harry nods. “I’ve tried calling for him, but he never answers. And then one time—one time I caught a glimpse of him in the mirror, but it’s no different than when I see him in a window or anywhere else. Remus, why is this happening?"

Remus has no answer for him.

***

After that, it seems like Sirius’s appearances pick up in frequency. Remus catches glimpses of him everywhere—in windows, in mirrors, in the waters of the fountain at the Ministry. He keeps the curtains drawn on his bedroom windows, and notices that Harry does the same. He turns his bathroom mirror opaque, except when he needs to shave, and avoids looking out of the windows downstairs at night, when they are at their most reflective. 

Harry’s losing sleep. So is he. They need to figure something out, but what can they do? Remus can’t bring it up with Kingsley—the Minister has bigger things to worry about—and Tonks and Andromeda will think he’s losing his mind. Remus spends several of his lunch breaks in the Ministry’s vast library, looking up whatever information he can find on ghosts, but there’s nothing there that’s information he doesn’t already know. Nothing about ghosts that only appear as reflections, at least. 

Remus is bent low over one of these texts one day when he starts to feel lightheaded. The words on the page swim before his eyes, and then all at once, his vision goes dark.

“Lupin!”

Remus jerks back with a gasp. For a moment, he can’t make sense of the scene in front of him. Shacklebolt is gripping his shoulders, flanked by two Aurors. His last clear memory is of the library, but he’s not there anymore. The room he’s standing in is dimly-lit and cold, and—

The Veil.

Remus catches sight of it over Shacklebolt’s shoulder. Ice plunges into his stomach. Why is he here?

“What’s happening?” he manages. “What am I—what’s going on?”

“I was hoping you could tell us that.” Shacklebolt still hasn’t released him, and he’s peering intently into Remus’s face. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“My lunch break,” Remus says. “I was at the library. And then...I felt a little dizzy. I don’t remember anything after that.”  

“From what we can tell from witnesses, you left the library and came straight down here. You disarmed and stunned the guards. We couldn’t get you to respond to us. It was like—what are those things Muggles are so afraid of? Zombies. You were like a zombie.”

“I came down here?” Remus echoes faintly. 

Kingsley turns away to have a quick conversation with the Aurors, and then they disperse. He puts a hand on Remus’s elbow and steers him out of the room. 

“I want to have a Healer check you over, and then I’m sending you home for the day,” Kingsley says. “Remus, have you thought about...have you ever seen a Mind Healer?” 

“Kingsley, I’m—”

“If you’re about to say that you’re fine, let me remind you that I just found you in the room where your boyfriend died four years ago, about to follow in his footsteps.”

Remus stares at him, stunned. “That’s not—Sirius and I—we were never together.”

Kingsley lifts an eyebrow at him. “You know it doesn’t bother me, right? Your love life is your own business.”

“We weren’t together,” Remus says again. “We were—friends, good friends, but we weren’t a couple and I didn’t come down here to kill myself! Merlin and Godric, Kingsley, I’ve got two kids at home, I’m not about to—I wouldn’t—” 

He can’t even contemplate it, not now. Had he done so once? Yes, of course he had. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d wished for death in the years following 1981, there were so many of them. But it’s unfathomable now. 

“It’s still concerning to me that you seem to be missing a portion of your memories, and that you don’t know why you were down here or what you were about to do,” Kingsley says. “Let a Healer look you over today, and then please think about the Mind Healer. It might help.” 

The Healer finds nothing unusual, and Remus is allowed to go home. He immediately regrets it, because the first thing he sees when he steps out of the fireplace is Harry sitting on the sofa, eyes red-rimmed and jaw set in a stubborn line. 

“Why?” he demands. 

Remus drags his hands down his face and sighs. “Kingsley told you.” 

“Yeah, he thought I might want to know that you were trying to off yourself.”

“Harry, that is not what happened.” 

“Then what did happen?” 

Remus explains as best as he can, though even he has to admit that it does sound like he’d tried to harm himself. Or that he’s suffering through a temporary break from reality. 

“You can’t leave us,” Harry says when he finishes. “I just—you can’t, Remus.” 

“Harry, I’m not going to.” Remus folds Harry into a hug, and is relieved when the boy squeezes him back. “But I think we need to get to the bottom of this. These incidents we’ve been experiencing—the loss of memory, waking up in places that we weren’t supposed to be, Sirius’s reflection...something strange is going on. And I’m at a loss for what to do about it.” 

Harry pulls back and wipes his sleeve over his cheeks.

“Well,” he says after a moment, “we can always call Hermione.”

***

Harry has Ron and Hermione over one spring afternoon. It’s a rare sunny day, and Ron and Harry spend a few hours flying while Hermione curls up on one of the chairs in the garden with a book. Remus brings Teddy outside after his nap to toddle around in the garden, and he even lets Harry take Teddy for a ride on his broomstick, though it’s only a lazy lap around the house and Harry doesn’t go more than a couple of feet off the ground. Teddy is delighted anyway. 

“He’s getting big,” Hermione says, and then laughs when Teddy’s hair turns brown and curly. She tickles his ribs, and he giggles. 

Later, long after dinner has been finished and Teddy put to bed, Hermione and Ron chat with Harry by the sink while he does the dishes. Remus is at the table, skimming the morning paper, which he never has time to actually do in the mornings nowadays. 

Hermione lets out a shriek, and he jumps. She’s clapped her hands over her mouth and whirled around, her back to the window, eyes frantically darting around the kitchen.

“Hermione?” Ron asks, startled. 

“Oh, I—I’m sorry, I just—I looked out the window...must have been an animal or something…” 

“What did you see?” Harry asks urgently.

“Nothing,” Hermione says quickly. “I, um. It must have just been my imagination, that’s all.” 

“Hermione!” Harry takes her by the shoulders, his desperation palpable. “Please. Tell me.” 

Ron is looking between them, clearly bewildered. Remus gets up to join them, heart hammering against his ribcage. It was one thing when only he and Harry could see Sirius, but if others can as well…

“This is going to sound completely insane,” Hermione whispers, “but I—oh, it’s ridiculous, but Harry. I thought I saw Sirius. Just for a moment.” 

“It’s not ridiculous,” Remus says. He takes a deep breath and adds, “We’ve been seeing him, too.” 

“It started after the final battle,” Harry says. “I saw him in a mirror, the first time. But he’s never there when I turn around. It’s only in glass or mirrors.”

“I’ve been seeing him, too,” Remus says. “But we only realized last week that we’ve both been seeing him. And now, apparently, the two of you can as well.” 

“Sorry for not saying anything earlier,” Harry tells his friends, somewhat sheepish. “This was...sort of a test.”

“But what does it mean, that you can see him in mirrors?” Ron demands. “What kind of a ghost only appears as a reflection?”

Hermione looks faint. “I don’t think it’s a ghost.”

“Then what—” 

“I need a library,” Hermione says, because of course she does. Harry catches Remus’s eye and grins. Trust Hermione to know exactly where they needed to start. 

“We have one here,” he says. 

“And precisely how many books do you keep on dark magic in this house?” Hermione shakes her head. “No. I need the library at Grimmauld.” 

Remus’s gut twists. He had only stepped foot in Grimmauld once after Sirius’s death—three days after the attack on the Ministry, when he had finally managed to lose the Death Eaters following him and tracked Harry down at the house. There had been no point to the visit, really, except to reassure himself that Harry was alive and whole. He’d offered the trio what help he could, short of going with them—and even now, the memory rankles. A proper guardian would have accompanied Harry on his quest to destroy the Horcruxes. Sirius would have done it. But with Tonks pregnant and Death Eaters on their tails, all Remus could do was give Harry a long hug and tell him to be careful. A paltry offering at best. 

“Remus?”

The trio is staring at him. Remus draws a deep breath.

“It’s your house, Harry,” he says. “It’s up to you.” 

***

Grimmauld Place obviously hasn’t been inhabited by a living being since Harry, Ron, and Hermione hid out here during the war. Virtually every surface is covered in dust, and the cobwebs are so thick, they’re visible even in the dim light from their wands. 

They make their way to the library. Back when they were clearing out Grimmauld to be Order headquarters, this had been the one room that they hadn’t even tried to tackle. Sirius had sealed it off with a series of complex warding spells. There were all manner of dark objects in the library, and he hadn’t wanted to put any of the kids at risk. Well, more risk. 

Sirius and Remus had made a half-hearted attempt to neutralize the library later on that year, after all the kids had gone back to school, but they had only been able to make it so far before deciding that the library was a lost cause. 

“Let me,” Remus says as they reach the library’s closed doors. He waves his wand, uttering a series of counterspells to undo the wards. He’d been the one to put them up, that second time. The wards fell, and the library’s door unlocked. “Right. We need to stick close together, and we need to examine each book before we take it off the shelf. There are some nasty cursed ones in here.” 

They step into the library. Hermione flicks her wand, and all the sconces along the walls light up, revealing a truly impressive collection of books. It was the kind of library Remus had always dreamed about having, though he could do without books that tried to maim him—or worse.

“What are we looking for?” Ron asks. “I don’t reckon there’s going to be a book in here called How To Bring Someone Back From The Death Veil.” 

“Muggles have this thing called the Internet,” Hermione says. “Information that’s stored in a vast archive that you can search with only a few words needed. Much more efficient than spending hours looking through books, hoping you don’t miss a key sentence.” 

They all give her a blank look. She sighs. “What I mean is that I came up with a spell for work that will allow us to do the same thing. If there’s a particular word or phrase we’re looking for, I can cast the spell, and every book in this room that contains those words will light up green.” 

Remus stares at her. Merlin, Lily would have loved her. “That’s incredible.” 

“But we don’t even know what we’re looking for,” Harry says. “We don’t know what Sirius is or why we keep seeing him.” 

“I think we should start with the Veil itself,” Hermione says, and pulls out her wand. 

Within half an hour, they’re seated at a table with a pile of books in front of them. Hermione’s spell not only highlights the books that contain what they’re looking for, but the pages themselves. 

“What spell was he hit with before he fell into the Veil?” Hermione asks abruptly. “Was it the Killing Curse?”

“It was red,” Harry says. “It all happened so fast, I didn’t…” 

“It was a stunner,” Remus says. 

“So he wasn’t dead when he fell into the Veil,” Hermione says.

“No. He should have been alive when he crossed the threshold.” 

Hermione’s eyes are bright—Remus recognizes the look instantly. He remembers it from his too-short stint as her teacher, knows that she’s just had a revelation, and all the pieces are slotting together for her. 

“According to this,” she says, skimming a finger down the page of the text she’s reading, “the Veil was once used as a means of execution. Condemned witches or wizards were forced to cross the threshold. Some stepped through on their own; others had to be thrown in.”

“Or pushed,” Ron says, reading over her shoulder, and Remus’s stomach clenches as he remembers Sirius falling, remembers the graceful arc of his body as it tipped backwards through the Veil. 

“Right,” Hermione says, “but the interesting thing is, there are several accounts of family members or loved ones of the condemned later walking up to the Veil and stepping across the threshold themselves. They weren’t condemned. No one forced them to do it. Well, no one seemed to force them to do it, though eyewitnesses do mention that the people seemed...compelled by something.” 

Remus can feel Harry’s eyes on him. “Were they truly in control of their minds?” 

“I don’t think so.” Hermione flips a page and taps a piece of the text. “This is what’s interesting. One of the final times the Veil was used for an execution, a condemned wizard’s wife and children were all lost to the Veil. But it wasn’t right away. It was a year after his execution. There was only one eyewitness, and she tried to stop them from crossing over. She says that she cast various shielding charms, trying to block the Veil, but the family broke past the barriers. When they did, she noticed something odd. Crossing through her shields revealed some kind of...thread. A golden thread that seemed to be pulling them to the Veil, invisible when there was no magic around to illuminate it.” 

A golden thread. Well, there’s only one thing that can be. Remus locks eyes with Hermione, understanding passing between them. 

“Their souls,” he says, and Hermione gives a quick nod. “They were being pulled into the Veil by their souls.” 

Ron scrunches his nose. “How is that possible?” 

“We all know that souls can be drawn out of the body and separated from the person,” Hermione says, and Remus suppresses a shudder at the mental image of a dementor sucking someone’s soul out of them. “But there are theories—none of it’s proven, mind, it’s all anecdotal—there are theories out there that souls can be attached to physical objects, or to people. Almost like a—well, like a rope.” 

“So what does all that mean?” Harry’s voice skitters up the scale, full of desperate, terrifying hope. Remus puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently, and shares a look with Hermione. If her expression is anything to go by, she’s reached the same conclusion he has. 

“If I’m right,” Hermione says slowly, “it means that Sirius’s soul has anchored itself to this world. To someone in this world. Or, in this case...to two someones. And their souls have been anchored to his.”

A heavy silence falls while they absorb this. 

“That’s why we’ve been seeing him?” Harry asks. “Why now, after all this time? It’s been years.” 

“I think, for whatever reason, it’s getting stronger. The pull is becoming greater.” 

“His soul hasn’t been able to pass over,” Remus says, “because part of it is tethered here. And it is trying to pass over.”

“It can’t do that if part of it is stuck here, so it’s trying to...reach out to us?” Harry asks.

“Trying to reach out to us so it can pull us in with him, yes,” Remus says grimly. “That’s why we keep having these sleepwalking incidents. His soul is trying to get us to come to him. If we’d made it to that Portkey station in the village, I bet we would have ended up at the Ministry.” He pauses, struck by a sudden memory. "And I did end up at the Ministry once, when I hadn't meant to go there at all. The night you were hospitalized, Harry. I meant to go home, but I Floo'd to the Ministry instead. I had no idea why."

Harry pales. “And then there was that time that you ended up in the Department of Mysteries, but you didn’t know how…” 

Remus nods. Part of him is relieved to finally have an explanation for all the incidents, but another part of him aches at the thought of Sirius trying to call out to them all this time, only to be met with nothing.

“Harry, your nightmares,” Hermione says suddenly. “And the seizures. Those both started around the time that you began to see Sirius, didn’t they?”

Harry blinks. “Yeah, reckon so. Sounds about right.” 

“What do they have to do with Sirius’s soul?” Remus asks.

“It’s just a guess,” Hermione says, though Remus has learned long ago that her guesses are to be taken seriously, “but Harry’s already had part of a soul inside of him before, right? I wonder if Sirius’s soul anchoring itself to Harry’s has caused a reaction. Like an immune response. Harry’s body has been trying to fight it off. You don’t know that you’re having nightmares for sure, do you? You don’t remember anything when you wake up. All you know is that you’ve done violent magic in your sleep, and you have seizures that no potions have been able to help.” 

“I’m trying to get rid of Sirius’s soul,” Harry says, sounding a bit dazed. “I guess that makes sense.”

“So how do we break the tether?” Ron asks. “If it’s just going to keep getting stronger, trying to pull them into the Veil, then we’ve got to break it.” 

“Can’t it work both ways, though?” Harry asks. “If Sirius’s soul is trying to pull us through the Veil, can’t we do the same to him? Can’t we get him out?” 

“It would be an incredibly dangerous thing to try, not to mention difficult…” Hermione trails off, withering under Harry’s glare. 

“I defeated Voldemort,” he says flatly, and Remus can’t help it—he laughs. Hermione flushes. 

“Fair enough,” she mutters. “Yes, I assume that the connection goes both ways. If his soul can pull you in, you should also be able to pull him out."

“And how do you know an actual person will come out?” Ron counters. “What if you’re just, I dunno, ripping out his soul, and his body gets left behind?” 

It’s a fair concern, and one that Remus doesn’t have an answer for. 

“I’ll take that chance,” Harry says. “If we fail, then Sirius stays dead. But there’s a chance that we could succeed, and I want to take it.” 

He looks at Remus, imploring. Remus nods, and hope lights up Harry's face. They're going to try this, no matter how slim the chance of succeeding.

“Magic like this will come with a cost,” Hermione says. 

“What kind of cost?” Harry asks. 

“You’re taking life back from death. The cost will be equivalent to what the Veil is giving up,” Hermione says. “So, life for life.” 

Life for life. “Does that mean one of us will die?”

"If I'm understanding this magic correctly, no. It doesn't quite work that way," Hermione says. "You're not creating new life from nothing—animating something that was never alive in the first place, for instance. Sirius was alive once, and had already lived out a portion of his life. If you get him back from the Veil, the Veil is giving up all the years he had yet to live. So it will take some of those years from you. Probably a couple of decades from both you and Harry. Neither of you should die, as long as you don't cross the threshold.”

“Well, how can we make sure of that?” Ron asks. “What’s to stop them from letting the Veil pull them in?” 

Hermione chews on her bottom lip for a moment.

“Every time you’ve woken up after one of these spells,” she says, “what was it that brought you out of the—the trance?”

“Remus,” Harry says. “When he’s seen me do it, all he has to do is say my name or touch my shoulder or something, and I come out of it.”

“Kingsley,” Remus says. “And when I woke up in the village...I was thinking about Teddy.” 

“People who are important to you,” Hermione says, and they both stare at her. “Your friends and family. You’re not connected to them the way that Sirius is to the both of you, but they’re still reasons to stay here. They’re reasons to live. That's why you haven't been pulled across the threshold yet.” 

“So we let them go into the Death Chamber, walk right up to the Veil, and hope that when Sirius’s soul tries to pull them in, they’ll be able to resist it by thinking of their friends and family,” Ron says, and well, when it’s put like that, it does sound absurd. “You know, I think this is the most daft plan we’ve ever come up with?”

“I think calling it a plan is a bit generous,” Harry mutters.

“You’re gonna do it anyway, though, aren’t you?” Ron says, and it’s almost accusing.

“Yeah, I am,” Harry says. “He’s my godfather. I have to try.” 

“And what happens if they can’t pull him out?” Ron asks Hermione. “They’re just gonna live their lives with this—this soul connection that keeps trying to kill them?” 

“We’ll have to sever it somehow,” Hermione says. “If we can’t pull Sirius out, then we have to break the connection. Ron’s right—it could kill you at any time.” 

Remus tamps down hard on the part of him that thinks that maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, that he’d take the risk of dying a thousand times over if it meant he got to keep some connection with Sirius, no matter how tenuous. But Harry’s at risk, too, and he’d never be able to live with himself if something happens to Harry and he could have prevented it. If breaking the connection with Sirius is the best way to keep Harry safe, he’ll do it. 

“One problem at a time,” he says. “Let’s try to get Sirius out of the Veil, first. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to figure out how to break the soul connection.” 

***

They decide to enact their plan one evening after most Ministry workers have gone home for the day. It’s not unusual for Harry to visit Remus at work, so no one thinks anything of it when they see him enter Remus’s office, and then leave with him a few minutes later. 

The halls of the Ministry are mostly empty at this time of night, so no one takes much notice of Remus and Harry as they make their way to the Department of Mysteries, Ron and Hermione tailing them under the Invisibility Cloak. If anyone wonders where they’re going, they don’t ask about it. It’s a strange feeling for Remus, knowing that being the Minister’s assistant grants him a certain kind of immunity. He’s never been able to walk through life without suspicion dogging his every move before.

It’s only when they’re standing before the dais, staring at the tattered Veil, that it hits him how insane this is. Next to him, Harry is trembling slightly, and Remus realizes this is the first time Harry’s been in the chamber since that awful night. 

“Hey.” He touches Harry’s arm, leaves his hand there for a moment. “It’s alright.”

Harry huffs. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“Then I guess you’re stuck with just me for the rest of your life.” 

Harry shudders, then rubs the back of his hand under his nose.

“And what if it does work?” he asks softly. “What if we get him back, only it’s not—it’s not really him?”

Remus doesn’t care. He’d do anything, anything, if it meant having Sirius back, in whatever capacity that meant. Even if they walk out of this with only a piece, with only a shade, of Sirius, it will have been worth it for him. But he understands Harry’s fears. What if the Sirius they get back is only a shell? What if he doesn’t remember them? What if his mind is so far gone, he might as well be a different person, or no person at all? 

He takes Harry’s hand and squeezes. “We’ll get through it together. Whatever we get back of him, it will be better than what we had before. It will be better than not having him at all.” 

Harry nods, then draws a deep breath. “Okay. I’m ready.” 

Their hands remain linked. Since Sirius’s soul has tied itself to each of theirs, Hermione believes that having physical contact will only boost that connection, and help to draw Sirius out of the Veil. It will also, she hopes, help prevent one of them from crossing the threshold. They can hold each other back. 

Minutes pass. Nothing seems to happen. Beside him, Harry is almost trembling with the effort it takes to keep himself in check, to keep his emotions in check. Remus finally releases his hand so that he can throw an arm around Harry’s shoulders and draw him into his side. He’s not even a fraction of the father James was and would have been, but he’s also acutely aware that he’s the closest that Harry has to one, at least right now. 

“‘s alright,” he murmurs into the messy hair. “It’ll be okay. We’ve barely even started.” 

“Professor!” Hermione exclaims suddenly, because even though he only taught her for a year, even though it was already almost a decade ago, she still can’t see beyond that barrier between them. “I have an idea. Whenever you saw him, whenever those strange incidents happened...it was because you were thinking of him, right? Or you were dreaming of him. He was close to the surface. He was at the forefront of your mind.”

“We need to be thinking of him?”

“I think it would help,” Hermione says. She’s standing a ways off with Ron—not close enough to run to them if they need help, but Hermione’s magic is faster than that. If they are pulled towards the Veil, Remus is confident that she could throw up a magical barrier before their feet cross the threshold. 

Remus closes his eyes. Unlike Sirius, whose memories had been altered or erased entirely by Azkaban, he has a wealth of memories from their time together to choose from, and none of them have been tainted by dementors. But what to focus on? The first moment he met Sirius? The day his three friends sat him down and told him they had figured out his secret, but it wouldn’t change anything between them? Sirius in the kitchen at their shared flat, cooking breakfast while the Muggle radio played music in the background? Watching Sirius play with baby Harry on the rug in front of the fireplace?

“Oh,” Harry says softly, and Remus opens his eyes. Thin threads of gold stretch from the middle of his chest to the Veil. Looking over, he sees the same thing happening with Harry. But the threads are faint, and they flicker. “I think it’s working.” 

“It needs to be stronger.” Remus takes Harry’s hand again, hoping that will give the threads a boost. “What’s your favorite memory of Sirius?”

It’s not fair that he has so many memories to choose from and Harry has so few, but there were moments, no matter how small, that were happy. 

“When he asked me to live with him,” Harry says immediately, and Remus squeezes his hand. 

“Good. Focus on that.”

He’s grasping at straws here. He has no idea if this will work, but guessing is all he has. And then he sees the thread coming from Harry’s chest glow brighter, and knows they’re on the right track. 

“What’s another memory?” he prompts.

“Um.” Harry hesitates. “There was one night, when we were all at Grimmauld. I had—I had a nightmare. He woke me up, and he hugged me, and then he turned into Snuffles and stayed with me.”

Remus remembers that night. Both of their threads have grown brighter, and Remus sees now that they stretch all the way to the Veil—and through it. "Good. Focus on that."  

“Remus,” Harry says suddenly. “Remus, I hear him.” 

He tightens his grip on Harry. He’s not losing anyone else to this damn Veil.

“He wants me to come, Remus, he wants me to come to him—”

“Tell him to come to us,” Remus says firmly. “Harry, tell him to come home.” 

And then Remus hears it, too—or, rather, he feels it, Sirius’s voice brushing across his mind. Almost like a caress.

Moony. 

Come here, he thinks back. Come here. Come to us. 

Harry takes a step forward. Remus grips his hand, pulls him back. 

“Harry, no,” he says fiercely. “You have to stay here, with us.” 

“Right,” Harry says faintly.

Moony, Moony, I see you, come to me.

Remus’s feet, seemingly of their own accord, stumble forward. He grits his teeth and thinks of Teddy, of Harry, of Tonks and Andromeda and everything he has now, the life he’s built for himself, the life he wishes he could share with Sirius, Sirius who is so close Remus can almost reach out and touch him—

“Moony.” 

Harry’s voice draws him up short. He can definitely feel the pull now—not only in his mind, but physically as well. The golden threads have melded together into one, and it feels as though a rope has been wrapped around his chest and is trying to reel him in. Harry gives a soft grunt, and Remus knows he can feel the pull as well. 

“We’ve got to get him to come to us,” Remus says, voice strained with effort. “Harry, step back.” 

“I can’t.”

“You can.” It’s like dragging his feet through wet sand, but Remus manages a couple of steps back. He tugs on Harry’s hand. “Come on. You can do it. Step back.” 

They take a step back, and then another, Remus practically dragging Harry with him, but they manage it. All the while, Sirius’s voice in his head is begging for him to come closer, and it’s getting harder and harder to resist it. 

Harry breaks free of his grip and staggers forward. Remus’s heart jams in his throat. He rushes forward and throws his arms around Harry in a horrible parody of that awful night, trying to haul him back. Harry struggles in his grip, a good deal stronger now than he had been four years ago. 

“You’ve got to break it!” he hears Ron shout at Hermione. “Break the connection!”

“No!” Remus shouts. “Not yet!” 

“But Professor—” Hermione cries.

“No!” They’re close, they’re so close, he can feel it. He can’t give up now. He won’t , not yet, not when he knows that Sirius wouldn’t give up on him, either. “Harry, come on, we can draw him out!” 

“No, please, Remus,” Harry begs. “Please, I have to go to him, he’s right there—” 

“He’ll come to us,” Remus says, and he hopes to Godric that it’s true. If the pull on Sirius is as strong as it is on them right now, then he has to come out of the Veil. 

Harry breaks free of his grip, and Remus’s heart stops.

Before he can even scream, Hermione shoots a shield charm at Harry, who slams into it and staggers backward. It’s enough for Remus to get his arms around Harry again. The golden threads ripple, but they don’t break. 

“He’ll come to you, Harry,” Remus says. “He’s your godfather, he loves you, he’ll always come to you, but you have to hold on.”

Harry goes to his knees, dragging Remus down with him. Remus hadn’t realized how strong the pull was getting until this moment, because the moment they’re no longer on their feet, the two of them start sliding, inch by inch, towards the Veil. 

They hit Hermione’s shield. Remus braces his feet against it, pushing back with all his might. Harry does the same, seemingly coming back to himself, at least a bit. If they can just hold on for a while longer—

“Oi!” Ron exclaims.

There’s a shadow in the Veil. For the first time, Remus can no longer see through the tattered curtain to the opposite wall. Something is obscuring the view.

“Harry,” he whispers. “Harry, look.” 

But at that moment, Hermione’s shield fails. Remus finds himself pushing back against nothing but air, and they’re starting to slide again. 

“Protego!” Hermione practically screams, and another shield appears. Remus has no idea if it will hold for long enough, but he doesn’t have time to worry about that. The shadow is becoming darker, more defined. It seems to be human-shaped, and he hopes that isn’t wishful thinking. 

But then, the golden thread connecting them to whatever is coming out of the Veil starts to flicker. Next to him, Harry goes limp. 

“Harry!” Remus gets an arm under his shoulders, hauls him practically into his lap. He taps Harry’s cheek as Harry’s eyelids flutter. “Harry, come on, stay awake. I think Sirius is coming, but you need to stay awake.” 

Harry grips his shirt, clearly trying to stay conscious, and Remus can tell that it’s a losing battle. He glances at the Veil again. Something is coming through, if they can just hold on a while longer—

All at once, the golden threads dissolve. Hermione’s shield fails. The rushing in Remus’s ears goes abruptly quiet, leaving only a ringing silence behind. Harry collapses against him, breathing heavily, and Remus holds him, trying to calm his own painfully-thudding heart. 

“Harry,” he says softly. “Harry, look.” 

A figure lays crumpled on the dais. Harry scrambles to his feet, then reaches out a hand to pull Remus up as well. 

“Is it—” Hermione whispers, coming to join them, Ron close behind. 

For a moment, no one moves. Then, finally, Remus compels himself to approach the dais. 

The man on the dais lays facedown. Remus nudges him with his foot. When there is no response, Remus bends down to roll him over. 

It’s Sirius.

Next to him, Harry sucks in a sharp breath. Remus feels for a pulse and finds one. It beats away steadily under his fingers. He looks up at Harry.

“He’s alive,” he says.

Harry drops to his knees next to Remus. His cheeks are wet with tears. He puts a hand on Sirius’s arm, tentatively at first, as though to confirm that he’s actually real. Then, Harry grips his arm so hard his knuckles turn white, and he looks at Remus.

“We did it?” 

They won’t know for sure until Sirius wakes up, if Sirius wakes up, but Remus nods anyway. “We did it.” 

Everything that happens after that is a blur. He’s aware of people pouring into the room—a team of Aurors, Healers, Shacklebolt. The Healers whisk Sirius away. Remus moves to follow them, but he’s stopped by the Minister. 

“I’ve sent Auror Tonks with them,” Shacklebolt says before Remus can protest. “She’ll make sure they look after Black properly. I need to have a chat with you and Mr Potter.” 

Ron and Hermione join them, and the four of them explain—as best they can—what has happened. Remus is still fuzzy on some of the details himself, admittedly. He’s not sure he fully understands the magic that was at work here, only that it worked and Sirius is back. 

“I could have the four of you locked up for this,” Shacklebolt says wearily. He fixes Remus and Hermione with a stern glare. “You two especially have put your entire careers at risk. You could lose your jobs for this.”

Remus shrugs; losing a job is nothing new to him, even if this is the best job he’s had since Hogwarts. But to his surprise, Hermione also seems unconcerned. 

“I don’t care,” she says defiantly. “Harry has his godfather back. That’s more than worth my career.” 

“Minister,” Harry says softly, a note of pleading in his voice, and Shacklebolt sighs.

“Yes, yes, alright. I’ve kept you long enough. Off to St Mungo’s with you. Give Black my regards when he wakes up.” 

***

Tonks is waiting for them outside Sirius’s room. 

“He’s fine,” she says before Remus can ask. “The Healers did a full exam. He’s in the same condition he was in when he fell through the Veil, so he’s not in perfect health, but he’s also not in any danger.”

“Same condition,” Remus says. “Does that mean he hasn’t aged at all, either?”

“That’s what they think. It’s like he was suspended in time.” Tonks shrugs. “He woke up a bit ago, if you want to see him.”

“Has he been told anything?” 

She shakes her head. “It wasn’t my place. The last thing he remembers is Bellatrix hitting him with a spell, so he thinks the battle in the Death Chamber just happened. I told him that everyone’s alright, no one died in the battle. He just doesn’t know it was four years ago.” 

Remus lets out a slow breath. “Alright. Thanks, Tonks.”

She squeezes his elbow. “Good luck.” 

Once she’s left, Remus puts a hand on Harry’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “Let me go talk to him first. Break the news.”

Harry looks unhappy about that, and Remus can only imagine how much he’s aching to see Sirius. “I want to see him.” 

“I know, and you will. Let me just explain the situation first. Ten minutes?” 

Harry deflates. He pushes a hand through his hair. “Fine. Ten minutes.” 

Remus pats his shoulder, then drops his hand. He takes a breath to steel himself, and then enters the hospital room. 

There’s a curtain around Sirius’s bed. Remus clears his throat and says, “You decent, Padfoot?”

“Moony?” 

Sirius’s voice is croaky with disuse, but it’s so unmistakably his voice that Remus draws a sharp breath. Sirius is here, Sirius is here. 

“Yeah,” he says after a beat. “It’s me. Can I come see you?” 

“If you don’t get your bony arse in here and tell me where my godson is right now, I won’t be responsible for my actions.” 

Remus can’t help it; he laughs. He peels aside the curtain, and there Sirius is, not a day older than when Remus last saw him. His dark hair spills over his shoulders, and the loose collar of the hospital gown exposes his sharp collarbones. It’s the same Sirius who haunts his dreams at night. Remus can’t remember a time when he didn’t love him. 

“Hey, Pads,” he says, unable to keep the tremor from his voice. He offers what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “Harry’s fine.” 

“I want to see him.”

“In a minute,” Remus says. “How are you feeling?”

“Confused,” Sirius says. “About a number of things, but mostly why I’m not in Azkaban right now.” 

“Ah.” Remus sits in the plastic chair next to the bed and clears his throat uncomfortably. “That would be because your name’s been cleared.” 

“Since when?” Sirius demands. “And what happened to you? You look like you’ve aged about ten years.”

“Thanks a lot, Pads.” Remus scrubs a hand over his face. “Tonks says the last thing you remember is Bellatrix.” 

“She hit me with something,” Sirius says darkly. “Thought it was just a stunner.”

“It was,” Remus says. “But then you fell into the Veil.” 

Sirius stares at him, uncomprehending. “Into the Veil?”

“Well, through it, really.” Remus takes another bracing breath. “Sirius...that was four years ago.” 

“What?” Sirius gives him a disbelieving look. “Moony, this really isn’t the time for a prank—”

“It’s not a prank,” Remus says. “You fell through the Veil four years ago. You died, Sirius.” 

“If I’m dead,” Sirius says slowly, like Remus has lost his mind, “then what am I doing here?”

“That’s a long story,” Remus says. He wants to tell Sirius everything, but it can wait until they’re home. He doesn’t want to talk about the magic that brought Sirius back—or its consequences—in this sterile room. “Harry and I—we figured out a way to get you out of the Veil, and we did it, and now you’re here. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the gist.” 

“Harry’s okay, then?” Sirius asks tentatively.

“Yeah, Pads. He’s okay. He’s waiting outside, actually, and I think he’s going to break down the door if I don’t let him in here soon,” Remus says, smiling. “He defeated Voldemort.” 

“Voldemort’s gone?” Sirius asks, bug-eyed. 

“Two years ago, now,” Remus says. He quickly sobers. “We lost a lot of people, though. Dumbledore, Snape, Andromeda’s husband, Fred Weasley…”

He rattles off the names of the dead, as many as he can remember. Sirius rubs a hand over his face. 

“Merlin,” he says roughly. “I never thought it would be over. How did Harry manage it?”

“That’s his story to tell. I’ll send him in.” Remus hesitates for a moment, then says, “There’s...one last thing I should tell you.” 

“What?”

“I have a kid,” Remus says, and Sirius’s eyes about pop out of his head.

“ What ?”

“Yeah, erm...his name’s Teddy, and he’s two…” Remus digs his wallet out of his pocket and flips it open to the picture he keeps there of Teddy and Harry. “Harry’s his godfather.” 

Sirius gives a whoop of laughter, taking the picture from him and staring at it. His eyes are shining. “He’s beautiful, Rem. What’s with the blue hair, though?” 

“Erm.” Remus rubs the back of his neck. “He’s—he’s a Metamorphmagus. Like the person who gave birth to him.” 

It takes Sirius all of two seconds to put it together, and he gapes at Remus. “You knocked up my cousin?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Remus says. He can feel his cheeks aflame. “It was an accident.”

“You? You’re supposed to be the responsible one!” Sirius exclaims, but there’s mirth in his voice. “What kind of example does that set for Harry?” 

Remus groans. “Don’t remind me. Thanks for dying and saddling me with that talk, by the way. It was mortifying.” 

Sirius cackles, but then grows somber a moment later. “I wish it could’ve been me, Rem. It should have been me. I should have been there for all of it.”

“I know,” Remus says. He gives Sirius what feels like a wobbly smile. “But we managed.”

“So...you and Nymphadora, then?” Sirius asks tentatively.

“No,” Remus says, shaking his head. “We were never a couple. It was only...it was a mistake, but she wanted to have the baby and I wanted to raise him, so that’s what we did. She’s not his mother, but she’s still a part of his life. I think she rather likes being the cool aunt.” 

Remus glances at the clock. He’s already been in here twenty minutes. He’s surprised Harry hasn’t knocked down the door yet. “Enough about me. You ready to see your godson?” 

“More than.” 

Remus hesitates for a moment, and then he says, “Sirius, he’s nineteen now. He’ll be twenty soon.” 

Sirius gives him a blank look. “Yes?”

Remus sighs. “It’s just...he looks exactly like James. But don’t tell him that, yeah? He gets it enough from literally everyone else, and he just—he needs you to see him as Harry.” 

“Yeah, Moony,” Sirius says roughly. “I can do that.”

Remus sticks his head in the hallway and beckons to Harry, who nearly falls over his feet in his haste to hurry into the room.

***

Seeing Harry is a punch to the gut.

Remus was right—he looks exactly like James. At nineteen, he’s lost much of the softness of youth, and years of solid meals have filled out his frame. He’s been of age now for two years, and that is a jarring realization. 

Harry darts around Remus, scrambles onto the bed, and suddenly Sirius’s ribs are being crushed in a vise-like grip. He grunts, startled at the force of the embrace, and then huffs a laugh as he squeezes Harry back just as tightly.

“Hey, kiddo,” he murmurs. Harry’s shoulders shake. “It’s good to see you.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Remus slip out of the room. Harry holds onto him for a long time, and Sirius won’t be the first one to let go. Eventually, Harry draws back, swiping his sleeve across his cheeks.

“Look at you.” Sirius grips his shoulders. “All grown up.”

And I missed it, he doesn’t say. 

“I missed you,” Harry manages. He takes a shuddering breath. “And I—I got you killed , Sirius, and I’m so sorry. It was all my fault —”

Sirius’s heart constricts. “Harry, my memories might be a little fuzzy right now, but I’m fairly certain you weren’t the one who hit me with a stunner that knocked me through the Veil.” 

“I might as well have,” Harry mutters, and the whole story comes spilling out. How he’d refused to use the mirror that year because he didn’t want Sirius to do anything foolish—which explains why Sirius never heard from Harry, he thinks a little wistfully—how the image of Sirius being kidnapped had been implanted in his head, Kreacher’s betrayal, all of it. And once Harry starts talking, he can’t seem to stop. He tells Sirius about the final years of the war, about Snape and Dumbledore, about Regulus—and here Sirius almost loses his composure himself, but no, that can wait—and about all that the final battle cost him. 

“And then I went to stay with Remus for a bit, and, well, he doesn’t seem to mind,” Harry says with a sheepish shrug. “So I’m, ah, still there.” 

“Good,” Sirius says. He brushes his fingers through Harry’s hair. “You deserve to have someone look after you for a change. And I’m sure Remus doesn’t mind the help. He told me about, um, Teddy, was it?” 

“Yeah,” Harry says, brightening slightly. “I got him a broomstick for his birthday this year.”

“Did you?”

“Well, it’s tradition, isn’t it?” At Sirius’s blank look, he adds, “I’m his godfather. You got me my first broomstick.” 

“I didn’t know you knew about that,” Sirius says. 

“After the Ministry fell, when we were at Grimmauld? I went into your room.” Harry grimaces. “Er—sorry about that.” 

“You did think I was dead,” Sirius points out, and Harry nods. 

“I found a letter from my mum in a book. Well, part of a letter. I never found the rest. But she mentioned how you got me a broomstick for my birthday, and how you couldn’t be there to celebrate with them because you were away on Order business, and I scared the cat…” Harry trails off. “I didn’t even know we had a cat.” 

“Daisy,” Sirius says, and he’s once again struck by how absurd his memory loss is. The dementors took great swaths of his life, including so much from his Hogwarts years, but he can remember the name of a cat that lived twenty years ago. A cat that wasn’t even his. 

Harry’s eyes start to water again, and he scrubs furiously at them. 

“Haz.” Sirius runs a hand over his head, ruffling his hair. “I’m here. I’m alright.”

“I really missed you,” Harry manages. 

Sirius pulls him into his arms again, marveling once more at how much he’s grown. He’s no longer a scrawny, underfed teenager, though of course he will carry some of the marks of his malnourished childhood forever. He’s a young man now who has lived the majority of his life without the people who were supposed to be there for him—James, Lily, Sirius, Remus. 

Sirius has missed so much. He’s not about to miss a minute more. 

***

The Healers finally clear Sirius to go home at the end of the week. Remus brings him some clothes and helps him make himself somewhat presentable, though no cleaning charm in the world is an adequate substitute for a hot bath. 

“You can have a shower at home,” Remus says, because he’s always had the uncanny ability to read Sirius’s thoughts on his face. “Do you want me to do anything with your hair?” 

The memory hits him like a blow—Remus’s fingers in his hair, carding through the thick strands, nails gently scratching his scalp. The number of times he nearly dozed off in front of the fire in the common room while Remus braided his hair…

“Maybe later,” Sirius manages, shoving down a shiver of pleasure at the mere thought of those fingers in his hair. “I’ll just put it up for now. Do you have—”

Remus pulls an elastic tie off his wrist and hands it over. He’s never needed them—Sirius doesn’t think he’s ever seen Remus let his hair grow past his chin—but he’d got in the habit of carrying them around for Sirius when they were at school.

“Tonks is sitting with Teddy while we fetch you, so you’re going to have a bit of a welcoming committee when we get home,” Remus says while Sirius pulls his hair back. He grimaces apologetically. “Sorry about that.” 

Sirius rolls his eyes. “I can handle Tonks.”

He hopes he can, at least. He still hasn’t been able to sort out exactly what he’s feeling in regards to his cousin, only that the thought of her with Remus makes his insides twist unpleasantly. He knows that there was never anything romantic between them, but—well, Teddy does exist for a reason.

Harry pops around the curtain, looking lighter and more cheerful than Sirius has ever seen him before. “Ready, Sirius?”

“Ready, kiddo.” He ruffles Harry’s hair. “Let’s go home.” 

Remus’s cottage is about what Sirius expected—small and cozy, warm and cluttered. But there are brightly-colored toys strewn amid the books and papers and knickknacks, evidence of the home’s tiniest occupant. Apprehension knots itself in Sirius’s chest, which he tells himself is ridiculous. He should not be nervous about meeting a two-year-old, for Merlin’s sake.

He’s barely stepped out of the fireplace and taken the room in before someone throws themself at him, wrapping him in a hug so tight, it’s almost painful.

“Sirius!” Tonks crows happily in his ear. “Looking pretty good for a dead man!” 

“Thanks, Tonks,” he says dryly, but hugs her back all the same. He’d never really known her as a child—Andromeda had been kicked out of the family before she was born, and his missions for the Order during the first war had kept him too busy to keep in contact with anyone aside from the Marauders. She’d been at Grimmauld Place a number of times in the year before his death, but rarely had time for anything longer than a quick chat. He pulls back, looks her up and down. Her hair is the vibrant shade of pink she seems to favor, and she’s wearing a familiar leather jacket. “Oi! Is that mine?” 

“Oh, shit, yeah, sorry.” Tonks looks sheepish. “Remus gave it to me. He was going through some of your old things, and, well, it’s not like he was ever going to wear it. Sorry. Do you want it back?”

Sirius waves a hand. “S’fine, I’ll get myself another. Did you happen to liberate anything else of mine, cousin?”

“No clothes, but I may have taken some of your records.” She shrugs. “We did think you were dead. Anyway, I’m off. I think they’ll have my head if I’m late again. The little beast is taking a nap, but he’ll probably be up in an hour.”

“Thanks, Tonks.” Remus gives her a friendly kiss on the cheek. “I owe you one.” 

Tonks gives them all a cheerful wave, then grabs some Floo powder and disappears into the fireplace.  

Remus gives him a quick tour of the place. Sirius is fairly certain this hadn’t been a four-bedroom cottage back when Remus was growing up, and Remus sheepishly admits that he had an addition put on shortly after Harry came to live with him. 

“He wouldn’t take any of my money for it,” Harry puts in, and ah, that’s where the source of Remus’s sheepishness is. “So we used some of yours. Er...sorry?”

Sirius waves him off. “You used Black family gold on a werewolf and the child he’s not supposed to have. My mother would be turning in her grave. Thank you.” 

It’s the closest he can come to saying what he wants: Thank you for taking care of them when I couldn’t.

Remus peels off at one point, disappearing into one of the bedrooms upstairs, and Harry shows Sirius the downstairs and the garden. 

“Good for flying,” Sirius remarks as they survey the empty fields that stretch behind the cottage. 

“It is,” Harry says happily. 

The door behind them opens, and they turn to see Remus step into the garden, a small boy propped on his hip. All the breath abruptly leaves Sirius’s chest, like he’s been punched. Merlin , but he looks just like Remus. The same bow-shaped lips, the same chin, the same eyes. But the sharp line of his nose is Black through-and-through.

“Edward John,” Remus says tentatively, and Sirius realizes he’s just been staring at the child. “But we call him Teddy. Teddy, can you say hi to my friend Sirius?” 

Teddy says nothing. He eyes Sirius for a few contemplative seconds. Then, his chestnut curls abruptly straighten and turn jet black, liberally streaked through with grey, and Sirius gives a startled bark of laughter once he realizes what’s happened.

“Are you imitating me?” 

“Teddy only does that when he likes someone,” Remus says, sounding downright relieved. He bounces the child in his arms. “Is that right, Teds? Do you like Sirius?” 

Abruptly shy, Teddy hides his face in his father’s shoulder, but not before Sirius catches the smile on his face. 

Teddy seems enamored of Harry, immediately reaching for him when Harry comes over to them. Harry takes him off to the garden, holding Teddy’s hand while he toddles among the flowers and vegetables, pointing at the different things that catch his interest. 

“Harry’s his godfather,” Sirius says, and Remus nods. 

“I felt awful, putting that kind of burden on a seventeen-year-old, but there was no one else,” he says. He adds quickly, “Not that I regret it. Harry’s wonderful with him.” 

“He looks happy, Rem,” Sirius says quietly. “I’ve never seen him like this.” 

“Neither have I,” Remus says. “It’s good to see, isn’t it?” 

He tears his eyes away from his son and Harry to look at Sirius. “How are you feeling?”

Sirius shrugs. He feels perfectly fine; better than he has in years, in fact. It’s probably to do with all those potions the Healers spent days pouring down his throat—potions to combat the twelve years of malnutrition he still carried on his body, to fix his teeth and regrow a couple he had lost during his time on the run, to strengthen and repair some bone fractures that had healed improperly years ago. 

“Bit tired, I suppose,” he says finally. 

“Harry’s showed you your room?”

Sirius snorts. “Yes, and whose idea was it to hang those pictures on the walls?” 

"The half-naked women?" Remus rolls his eyes. “Your godson seems to have inherited your sense of humor.” 

“Where did he even get them?”

“Well, they certainly didn’t come from me.” 

Sirius barks out a laugh. “No, I don’t suppose they would have.”

He spends the rest of the day hovering on the edges of this little family, trying not to intrude on their well-established dynamic while also trying not to feel too out of place. He’s known Remus for more than half his life, but twelve of those years were spent in prison and he was dead for another four of them, so he feels more like an intruder than anything else. Remus, Harry, and Teddy have their routines, and are clearly used to operating as a family of three. The addition of a fourth throws them off a bit, like when Harry sets the table for three for dinner, and then quickly adds a place for Sirius when he realizes his mistake.

“What do you think you’ll do?” Harry asks him later that night over a game of chess. Remus is upstairs, putting Teddy to bed. 

Sirius huffs. “No idea, pup.”

That’s a nickname he hasn’t used since Harry was a baby. Harry lifts an eyebrow at it but says nothing. 

“I missed four years and I’m suddenly a free man,” Sirius goes on. “I never thought I’d be in this situation, so I’m not really sure.”

“You’ll stay here, though, right?” 

“Yeah, Haz.” Sirius leans over the board to ruffle Harry’s hair. “I’m staying here, at least until Remus gets sick of me and kicks me out.”

“He’d never,” Harry says firmly, and Sirius’s stomach swoops as he sternly tells himself not to read too much into that statement. “Did you ever think about it, though? What you’d do when you were free?”

“Sure,” Sirius says. “But back then, you weren’t of-age. My plan was always to get a house and take you in. I figured I’d be busy making up for a childhood I wasn’t able to give you in the first place.” His mouth quirks. “But you’re all grown up now. You don’t need me.” 

The sudden stricken expression on Harry’s face nearly breaks his heart. “I’m always going to need you.” 

“Oh, Harry.” Sirius pushes the board aside to pull his godson into a hug. He’s done this more in the past twenty-four hours than he ever had in the two years after the Shrieking Shack. Why hadn’t he hugged the boy more back then? He’d needed it. Hell, Sirius had needed it, too. “I’m here now. We’ve got a second chance.” 

Harry just hugs him tighter.

***

Harry turns in around midnight. He’d been nodding off on the sofa and trying to pretend that he wasn’t, until Remus finally prodded him off to bed. He gets the feeling that Harry’s reluctant to let Sirius out of his sight, and can’t exactly blame him. After all, he feels the same way.

“You should get some sleep, too,” he says to Sirius, wincing inwardly even as the words leave his mouth. Merlin, he does sound like a mother hen. Somewhere in the afterlife, James is probably laughing at him. 

Sirius gives him an unimpressed look. “You said you were going to explain what happened.” 

“Right.” Remus clears his throat. He had promised that, after all. It’s just that he doesn’t want to have this conversation. Not now, and if he had his way, not ever. But he supposes it’s best to get it out of the way now. “Drink?”

Sirius lifts an eyebrow. “You need to get me drunk for this? It must be bad.” 

“It’s not bad, I just would rather not be entirely sober when you shout at me.” 

Remus has a bottle of Ogden’s that’s been sitting in a cupboard, untouched, for years. In fact, it probably came from Grimmauld, though Remus tries not to think of that as he pours them both glasses and hands one to Sirius. 

“Something happened when you went through the Veil,” Remus says after taking a bracing swallow of firewhiskey. “I don’t know how , but somehow part of your soul remained in the world of the living. It had anchored itself to someone. Well, two someones.”

“You?” Sirius ventures, and Remus nods.

“And Harry.” 

“I remember hearing him screaming,” Sirius says after a moment. “Screaming my name.”

A fist closes around Remus’s heart. “That happened right after you fell through. He was screaming your name...if I hadn’t held him back, I think he would have jumped in after you. Merlin, Sirius, it was awful.”

“But I couldn’t reach him.” 

“You must have tried,” Remus says. He rubs his forehead. “I hardly understand it myself. You must have tried to reach him, to reach us, but all you managed was to tether yourself to our souls. You couldn’t pass fully through the Veil to the other side while anchored to people who were still living. We didn’t realize at first that it had happened. But after Voldemort was defeated...strange things started happening.”

Remus explains about the incidents of sleepwalking, the trances, the reflections, how both he and Harry tried to break into the Death Chamber to get to the Veil. Sirius first goes pale, then ashen, then looks like he might be sick. 

“You could have died,” he says.

“Thankfully, Harry has a habit of befriending clever people,” Remus says, feeling a faint smile touch his lips. “Hermione finally figured out what had happened. Our choices were either to break the tether to let you pass over...or to try to use the tether as a physical connection that could pull you out. Like a rope. It’s old, dangerous magic. We weren’t even sure if it would work.”

“Magic like that comes at a price,” Sirius says. He knows that better than any of them, considering who his parents were. “Merlin, Moony. What did it do to you? What did you have to give up?”

“Well, it’s the Veil of Death, and we were extracting life from it. So we had to give some life in return.” 

Sirius stares at him. “You didn’t.” 

“It wasn’t even a question, Padfoot. Of course I did. We both did.”   

“Harry, too?” Sirius looks properly angry now—and with good reason, Remus thinks ruefully. “You let him do this?” 

“It was his choice, Pads.”

“You don’t get to call me that!” Sirius snaps. “Not right now. You were supposed to look after him, Remus! That’s what you promised me. Look after him and give him the home and family he deserved, not allow him to shave years off his life just to save me. I’m not worth that!”

“You are to me!” Remus snaps. “And to Harry. Do you know what it’s been like without you? All our friends are dead, Sirius! You were all I had left, and you’re the only father Harry has ever known. Do you know what it did to us, when you died? Yes, we gave up years off our lives, and gladly.” 

“How many?”

Remus lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “Hermione couldn’t say for certain. The text she was using wasn’t exactly clear on that point. She thinks it probably wasn't more than two decades.” 

“Two decades…” Sirius gives him a wounded look, and Remus knows what he’s thinking. Wizards live much longer than Muggles, but Remus’s lifespan was already shortened by the lycanthropy, and with two more decades shaved off of it, he’ll be lucky to see eighty. 

“I’m sorry it hurt you,” Remus says. “But I’m not sorry I did it. Neither is Harry. You’d have done the same for either of us.” 

Sirius looks away, a muscle tensing in his jaw. It’s the look that says he knows Remus is right, and doesn’t want to admit it. He finishes off his drink in one long swallow, then sets the glass down on the table with more force than necessary.

“Good night, Remus,” he says, and stalks from the room.

***

Coming back from the dead, it turns out, is a pain in the arse. 

First, there’s paperwork. So much paperwork. The Ministry doesn’t quite know what to do with an ex-convict wizard who has been dead for the past four years, so their solution is to draw up enough paperwork for Sirius to drown in. His death certificate has to be rescinded, assets have to be signed back over to him, he has to be formally re-named the Black heir, his family’s seat on the Wizengamot has to be given back to him—on and on it goes. 

Then there are more practical things to deal with. Sirius needs a wand, as well as clothing from this decade. Clothing from this century , and Merlin, he can hardly comprehend that. He never thought he’d live long enough to see the turn of the century, yet here he is.

Remus had packed up what belongings Sirius had at Grimmauld and brought them to the cottage, along with what few items he had saved from the flat they had shared during the first war. They spend a pleasant, albeit emotionally-charged, afternoon sorting through all the items. Sirius in particular is delighted by how many of his t-shirts with the logos of Muggle bands emblazoned on them had survived. He’s less delighted by the loss of some of his favorite records, but he knows he can always buy more. 

“We’ll go to London one of these days,” Remus says. “We can go to that record shop you were always dragging me into.” 

“Oi, I didn’t drag you!” Sirius protests. “You went willingly! Merlin, I loved that shop, though. I hope they’re still around.”

“They are,” Remus says, and Sirius blinks. Is that a blush staining Moony’s cheeks? “I checked. I knew you’d probably want to visit them.”

“Thanks, Moony,” Sirius says, as an unnamed emotion clogs his throat. “Means a lot.” 

They continue sorting through Sirius’s belongings, sorting them to piles of definitely keep and throw away, until Remus pulls something out of a box and makes a startled noise. 

“What is it?”

Remus shows him what he’s holding—a photo album. “I forgot all about these.”

“So did I.” Sirius moves to sit next to him, leaning over Remus’s shoulder so he can see the pictures. Most of them were taken by Lily using a Muggle camera, and so they’re stationary. “I helped James pick out that camera.” 

“I remember. He gave it to her for her birthday. Was that before the wedding or after?”

“After,” Sirius says. “They’d just found out she was pregnant.”

She had been utterly delighted by the gift, and had taken to enthusiastically documenting every part of their lives together.  

“We should show these to Harry,” Remus says. “He knows so little about them. I’ve been trying to tell him as much as I can remember since he came to live with me, but there’s still so much he doesn’t know. He didn’t grow up hearing stories about them like he should have.” 

They flip through the photos for a while in silence, each lost in their respective memories. Eventually, Sirius closes the album and sets it aside to show Harry later. 

“Lunch?” Remus asks as he gets to his feet, offering a hand down to Sirius to help him up. Sirius’s bones creak and pop as much as Remus’s these days, he notes wryly. A side effect from the Veil, perhaps, although twelve years in Azkaban and three more in hiding certainly didn’t help.

“Listen, Rem,” he says, and Remus goes very still at the rare nickname. “What I said that night...I’m sorry. You’re right, I would have done the same thing that you two did, no matter the cost. And don’t get me wrong, I’m beyond bloody grateful to be alive again, I just—I hate what you two had to give up.” 

“That’s where you’re wrong, Padfoot,” Remus says. “We didn’t give anything up. We got you back. That’s a gift, not a sacrifice.” 

***

Even all these years later, Sirius is surprised by how much Azkaban took from him. It wasn’t only his health and his looks. The dementors drained him of joy, robbed him of some of his most cherished memories, and took his sense of time. Those years spent in a dank cell feel at once as though they were an eternity, and also like it was no time at all. Sirius can’t wrap his head around the fact that he is almost forty-one now. For him, his life stopped at twenty-two and never resumed, but the world went on without him. 

It’s strange to see Remus with a child. Sirius knows they are middle aged now, but it still feels as though they are too young to be parents. James and Lily had been too young, certainly, so it stands to reason that Remus is also too young. Of course, that isn’t the case, and more than that, parenthood fits Remus like a glove. It’s weird.

There is also something about it that is undeniably attractive. Which is absurd, of course, because Sirius has never wanted children—or, at least, there was no point in even considering it, since he hadn’t expected to survive the first war—but something in his hind brain sits up and takes notice whenever Remus is particularly affectionate with Teddy. Like the time that Sirius finds them both fast asleep on the sofa, Teddy on Remus’s chest, one hand curled into his dad’s shirt. Or when they go out for a stroll in the village, and Teddy tucks his tiny hand into Remus’s much larger one. Or when Teddy scrapes up his knees and Remus is there with a quick healing spell and lots of kisses to make it better. 

And then there’s the time the four of them are at one of the shops in the village, and a shopkeeper looks over to where Harry is holding Teddy and examining some of the produce and says, “Your kids are cute together.” 

“Yes, they are,” Remus says with a smile. Sirius’s heart expands about three sizes, and it takes every last ounce of his willpower not to shove his friend up against the nearest wall and snog him senseless. 

Teddy is adorable, almost as cute as Harry was as a baby (Sirius is a bit biased, and in his eyes, his godson will always be the cutest baby he’s ever seen). The way his nose scrunches up when he’s displeased is all Remus, as is his pout. And all he has to do is look up at Sirius with those big, imploring eyes and ask, “Puppy?” to get Sirius to turn into Padfoot.

“I’ve been replaced,” Harry complains good-naturedly one afternoon as Teddy and Padfoot roll together in the grass outside. “I used to be the cool one.” 

“I don’t think either of us stood a chance against Sirius Black,” Remus says, ruffling Harry’s hair. “Don’t worry, you’re still his favorite godfather.” 

“I’m his only godfather,” Harry mutters, and then yelps as Padfoot jumps up and places his muddy paws on Harry’s shirt. “Gross, Snuffles! Ugh, you’re the worst.” 

***

Sirius comes down to breakfast one morning to find that he’s the last one awake. Remus is feeding Teddy, while Harry sits across from them at the table, poring over the Prophet. It’s a cozy, domestic scene that makes Sirius’s heart swell. 

“Morning, sprog,” Sirius says, dropping a kiss on top of Harry’s head as he passes, marveling at the fact that he gets to do this now. He’s alive, and he’s free, and he gets to help look after Harry—not that Harry needs it, of course, but Sirius is going to do it anyway. He’d have preferred this to happen nineteen years ago, sure, but he’ll take what he can get. Having Harry at twenty is better than never having him at all. 

“Hi, Sirius.” Harry grins up at him. “You’re in the paper.” 

“Oh? What are they saying now?” Sirius moves over to the hob and pours himself a cup of tea from the kettle that’s been charmed to keep warm. “How devilishly handsome I am?”

“You’re not far off,” Harry says. “You were photographed with Andromeda in Diagon and now they’re speculating that you’re carrying on a torrid affair.” 

Sirius rolls his eyes. “Well, that’s what happens when you come from one of the most notoriously incestuous families in wizarding Britain.” 

Remus leans over to look at the photograph. “I dunno, Pads, you’re sitting pretty close. That’s, what, a foot of space between you? Very cozy, I say.” 

“I am not sleeping with my cousin!” 

Harry and Remus both snicker. Harry goes back to the paper and Sirius starts rummaging in the cupboards. 

“Hey, Remus, have you seen the—” Sirius clamps a hand over his mouth and jumps back, startled by the five butterflies that came out of his mouth as he spoke. “What the—” 

“Ooh!” Teddy exclaims, reaching for the butterflies, which flit around the kitchen before disappearing in tiny clouds of colorful dust. 

“Remus Lupin!” Sirius barks, and more butterflies fly out of his mouth. Teddy’s giggling, Harry’s trying not to, and Remus looks too damn pleased with himself. “Oh, come on, Rem, this is ridiculous—”

Sirius breaks off as his right leg jerks, and then his left, and suddenly he’s doing a clumsy tap dance in the middle of the kitchen. Teddy claps his hands, while Harry has given in completely to his laughter and is sliding out of his chair onto the floor. 

Finally, Remus relents, and Sirius catches himself against the countertop as power over his legs is abruptly returned to him. 

“What was that for?” he demands—thankfully, sans butterflies this time—and he’s cursing himself for leaving his wand upstairs. He’s not as adept at wandless magic as he used to be, and he needs to get revenge on Remus right now.

“I said I was going to hex you if you died before me,” Remus says smugly. “Consider yourself hexed.” 

And if he’s honest with himself, Sirius has never wanted to kiss Remus more than right at this moment.

***

A month after Sirius’s return, Remus goes back to work. 

“What do you do with Teddy?” Sirius asks the night before Remus is set to go back to the office. He leans against Remus’s door jamb while Remus sorts through his clothes, picking an outfit for tomorrow. 

“The Ministry has a daycare for employees,” Remus says. “Or sometimes Andromeda will take him.” 

“You don’t leave him with Harry?”

“It’s not Harry’s job to raise my child,” Remus says. “He has his own life to live. I didn’t move him in here to be Teddy’s caretaker. I moved him here because I wanted to give him a home.” 

“Thanks for that, Moons,” Sirius says quietly, and Remus meets his gaze briefly before looking away.

“Of course. It was the least I could do.” 

“I can look after him,” Sirius says. “Teddy, I mean. If you like. You can leave him here with me.” 

“I don’t think so, Pads.”

“You don’t trust me with him?”

“Of course I trust you with him,” Remus says. “But I’ve disrupted his routine quite a bit lately, and I want to keep some things the same for him. Besides, I think Harry could use some proper bonding time with his godfather.” 

“Right.”

Remus gives him an odd look. Why does Sirius sound so hesitant? “You don’t want that?”

“‘Course I do!” Sirius says hastily. “I—fuck, Moony, you know how much I missed him. It’s only—”

“What is it?”

“Well, I’m his godfather, and I barely know him. You know him better than I do.” 

It’s always been a point of contention between them, or at least a point of contention ever since that night in the Shrieking Shack. That first year of Harry’s life, Sirius saw him more than Remus ever did, but then Remus had a whole year with Harry at Hogwarts while Sirius was on the run. And now he’s had two whole years of Harry living with him, which is all Sirius has ever wanted. He wanted to take care of his godson, the way that James meant for him to do, and chance after chance has been taken from him. 

“I know,” Remus says quietly, because it isn’t fair, but it’s true. And he wants Sirius to know Harry like he does, wants Sirius to know his thoughts and his moods and his dreams and what troubles him, and wants Sirius to know how good Harry is with Teddy and how talented he is on a broom and how he might look like James, but it’s Lily’s kindness he inherited. “And it’s not fair, it really isn’t. But you should use this time. Get to know him. I know he wants to know you, he—Merlin, Sirius, he’s missed you so much. You’re the only father he’s ever had.” 

That seems to bring Sirius up short. He pauses, then swallows hard. “He saw me, what, all of six times before I died? Pretty shit father figure I turned out to be.” 

“So you can imagine how Petunia’s husband treated him.” 

“Fucking hell, Moony.” Sirius looks stricken. “I don’t know how to do this.” 

“Well,” Remus says, “you know how not to raise a child, right?”

Sirius snorts. “S’pose I do.” 

***

Sirius had a special bond with Harry from the start, and not only because he’d been named the boy’s godfather. As a baby, Harry took to him like he took to no one else aside from his parents. Sirius was the one Lily would call if neither she nor James could soothe the crying infant. Sirius was the one who just instinctively seemed to know what baby Harry needed, whether it was food or a playmate or a cuddle. Whenever James and Lily managed to have all of their friends over, Harry never wanted to be held by anyone but Sirius. And, of course, Sirius was the one who got Harry his first broomstick.

Sirius misses those days—not only because he misses James and Lily fiercely, but because he and Harry had understood each other. It had been easy to be around his godson back then. Harry now, at twenty, is practically a stranger to him. 

“Looks like we’re on our own for the day,” Sirius says after Remus and Teddy have left, and reaches out to ruffle Harry’s hair. Harry ducks away from him with a laugh. “What do you want to do?”

Harry lights up. “You want to do something? Just us?”

“Of course I do,” Sirius says, and inwardly he curses the Dursleys. He can’t even imagine the kind of upbringing Harry had, if the idea that someone actually wants to spend time with him makes him that happy.

“Okay,” Harry says, and then he looks uncertain. “Um. Like what?” 

“We could go flying?” Sirius suggests, which turns out to be the right response. Harry hurries off to find brooms for them both, and then before he knows it, he’s flying on a broom high above the trees for the first time in decades. 

He learns a lot about Harry over the coming days as they spend more time together. In addition to flying, they take to traipsing through the woods beyond the cottage, and in the evenings they sit in the living room with their heads bent over a chess set. He learns that Harry is quiet and reserved, and he tries to stay out of the way as much as possible. He tries not to take up any space, and Sirius hates that his Muggle relatives made him feel so small. Taught him to make himself small, because that was how he avoided their wrath. 

But Harry also has a quick wit, and he’s mischievous, and he’s unfailingly good and gentle and kind. He takes his role as godfather seriously and is almost as involved in Teddy’s upbringing as Remus is. Harry reads him stories and plays with him in the garden, gives him baths and soothes him when he falls. 

One evening, as they’re trudging back up to the house after a spontaneous flight on their brooms, Sirius slings and arm around Harry’s shoulders and says, “I love you, kid.” 

Harry goes very still. Then, with forced casualness, he says, “Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Sirius pulls him tighter against his side. “I mean, I loved you even before you brought me back from the dead, but that didn’t hurt.”

Harry huffs, but then goes quiet. 

“Do you mean it?” he asks finally.

Sirius stops. So does Harry. “Yes? Of course I mean it. Why would I say something like that if I didn’t mean it?” 

“Dunno, just…” Harry trails off. He keeps his gaze fixed on the ground, refusing to meet Sirius’s eyes. “We had that chat, the year that you—my fifth year. Through the fireplace. You wanted to meet in Hogsmeade and I said no because I was scared you’d get caught and you—you were really upset with me.” 

“Oh, Haz.” Sirius isn’t proud of that conversation—actually, he’s not proud of a lot of things he did that year. Even before he rushed off to the Department of Mysteries and got himself killed, he’d been a right bastard to a lot of people. Remus got the brunt of it, living with him in Grimmauld Place, but Harry hadn’t been immune to his outbursts. “Kid, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said any of that to you.”

“It’s fine,” Harry says quickly. 

“It’s not,” Sirius says. “I don’t have any excuse for what I said to you, and I’m so sorry, but Harry—my love for you isn’t conditional.” 

“Oh.” Harry shuffles his feet. “Are you sure?”

Sirius’s heart cracks. “Yes, I’m sure. Merlin and Godric, kiddo, of course I’m sure. I love you, and nothing’s going to change that.” 

He pulls Harry into a tight hug. Harry mutters, “Love you, too,” into Sirius’s shoulder. 

***

September’s moon is rough. Remus is moonsick for a full week leading up to it, and the old fear takes root in the back of his mind again, that someday this will be his entire existence. The moons had been getting better since the war, especially now that the wolf has Padfoot again, and he’d foolishly believed that maybe it would stay that way. 

“This won’t be forever,” Sirius says one morning while Remus has his head stuck in the toilet bowl, because he’d made the mistake of voicing his fears out loud in-between bouts of retching. Sirius rubs his back and casts a quick Scourgify every time Remus comes up for air. 

“You don’t know that,” Remus says weakly. He drags the back of a shaking hand across his mouth and thinks he might be done. There’s nothing left for him to bring up, anyway. It’s just bile, at this point. 

“It’s a bad moon, Moony, that’s all. You’ve been through them before. They get better.”

“But what if—”

“And if they don’t,” Sirius says, “we’ll figure it out. I’ve got the Black family fortune. I’ll throw galleons at every potions master and researcher in the country if I have to, and they’ll come up with something that will help.” 

“The oldest known werewolf only ever lived to be sixty-three,” Remus says hollowly. That’s still twenty-three years away for him, although he reminds himself that’s only if the magic that brought Sirius back from the Veil knocked years off his actual lifespan as a werewolf rather than his human lifespan. Regardless, he could have as many as two hundred and seventy-odd moons left. He can’t imagine going through bad moons like this two hundred more times. He thinks he’d rather die. 

“You helped a man cheat death, Moony,” Sirius says as he helps Remus back to bed. “You think I can’t do the same for you? Besides, if you die before me, I’m going to hex you.” 

Remus huffs and eases his aching body onto the bed. He lays back, and Sirius draws the blankets up. 

“Get some rest,” he says, patting Remus’s leg affectionately. “We’ll look after Teddy.” 

That night is one of the hardest moons he’s had in recent memory, even with Padfoot at his side. The Wolfsbane doesn’t seem to help, or there’s something wrong with the batch he’d been taking for the past week. Remus keeps his mind for some of it, but he loses entire hours to the wolf. When he comes back to himself for the last time, shivering and naked under a cloak with Padfoot curled around him, he croaks, “Did I hurt you?”

Padfoot shifts back into Sirius. “Think you hurt yourself more than me, mate. Come on, let’s get you back inside.” 

At some point, the wolf had raked its claws across its belly, and Remus is now bleeding from three deep gashes. He’s also cracked some ribs and broke his wrist, and his ankle is purple and swollen. Sirius gets him into bed, mends the injuries, and gets a pain potion and sleeping draught down his throat. Just before Remus drifts off, he thinks he feels Sirius’s fingers in his hair.

Remus wakes when the pain potion wears off. The house is dark, ringing with a particular silence that tells Remus it’s the middle of the night. He rolls onto his side with a muffled groan, hoping that will relieve some of the ache in his joints. His feet brush up against something solid and warm, and Padfoot lifts his head. 

“Oh, hello,” Remus whispers as the giant black dog stands and then leaps off the bed. “What are you doing here?”

There’s a soft whoosh of transformation, and Sirius leans over him. 

“You were in pretty bad shape, Moons,” he says, brushing his fingers through Remus’s hair, and Remus has to bite back a moan at the blissful sensation. What he wouldn’t give for this to be real, for Sirius to feel more for him than mere friendship, for Sirius to be here in his house, in his life, as a partner.

But this is what he has, and it’s more than he ever thought was possible, so he’s not going to waste time wishing for more. 

Sirius is still stroking his hair. Lovely as it feels, it doesn’t manage to fully distract Remus from the pain, and he rasps, “Is there more of that pain potion?” 

He drinks another goblet of pain draught and settles, shivering, back under the blankets. He’s cold, even with the thick duvet piled on top, and for a werewolf who typically runs hot, that can only mean he’s running a raging fever. Between that, the continuing nausea, and the pain, it’s like the moons he used to suffer through in his later Hogwarts years. Puberty was hell on a werewolf. Apparently, so was middle age.

Sirius strips down to his t-shirt and pants, folding his jeans and a cardigan he’d nicked from Remus neatly and setting them on a chair.

“What are you doing?” Remus rasps. 

“What’s it look like I’m doing?” Sirius gets in on the other side of the bed, scooting closer until he’s pressed up against Remus, his chest to Remus’s back. “This used to help when we were at school.” 

“We’re not at school anymore,” Remus says, feeling as though he should put up some sort of protest, though it’s a token one at best. Sirius tucks his knees behind Remus’s and settles an arm across his waist, and Remus nearly weeps. Stupid, bloody werewolf hormones. Is he truly so touch-starved that a simple cuddle is what sends him over the edge? 

No, of course he isn’t. He has as much love in his life now as he did back in his Hogwarts days. There’s Teddy, who loves nothing more than curling up with his da, and Harry, who has turned out to be a surprisingly tactile child. Touch isn’t what Remus has been starved for—it’s Sirius. It’s always been Sirius.

The weight of him eases some of the pain in Remus’s joints, and his warmth bleeds into Remus’s fever-chilled body. It can’t be comfortable for him, cuddling an overheated werewolf under a mound of blankets, but he doesn’t complain.

“Better?” Sirius whispers to him. 

“Better.” Remus finds Sirius’s hand and laces their fingers together. “Thank you, Padfoot.” 

“You’re welcome, Moons.” 

***

Sirius doesn’t know exactly when his feelings for Remus became less-than-platonic.

He remembers the precise moment he knew he wanted to jump Remus’s bones—when his friend came back to school for their fifth year, having filled out and had a growth spurt over the summer—but he can’t remember when those hormone-addled bursts of lust morphed into something that feels a lot more like love. He doesn’t know what would have happened if he’d acted on those feelings back then, either. Would their fallout during the first war have been just as disastrous? Or would he have trusted Remus as a lover the way that he didn’t as a friend, and the whole thing could have been avoided? 

They’ll never know for sure, and it doesn’t help to dwell on it. 

And now here he is, decades later, living out the domestic fantasy he longed for as a teenager—sharing a house in the countryside with Remus, raising two kids, having tea with his cousin and hanging out with Harry during the week, going to the shops with Remus at the weekend. Cooking meals together. Spending their evenings in armchairs by the fire, sharing a comfortable silence. The weeks pass, the seasons turn, and Sirius settles into a life he never thought he’d get to have—and one he knows he someday must give up. 

If Remus was interested in anything more, Sirius knows that he would have said something by now. Done something by now. Remus is expressive as anything and can’t lie for shit. He’d only managed to keep his lycanthropy a secret from the Marauders for a year and a half, after all. 

It probably isn’t healthy, Sirius knows, living with the man he’s been in love with for at least half his life and pretending to be a part of his little family. Sirius should move out, should find his own place and integrate himself back into wizarding society.

The thing is, he doesn’t want to. He belongs here, in a way he hasn’t belonged anywhere since Hogwarts. This is home to him in a way that no other place has ever been.

He never wants this to end, and knows that someday it must.

***

It’s rare for Teddy’s hair to be his natural color. Usually that only happens when he’s upset or feeling poorly, and sadly, today it’s the latter. 

“Let me look after him today,” Sirius says as Remus paces the main room, Teddy miserable and clinging to him. “He’ll be happier in his own bed.”

“Andromeda’s got experience with taking care of a sick child…” Remus says, but trails off at the look Sirius gives him. 

“Like I never watched Harry when he was sick,” he says flatly. “C’mon, Remus, I’m not incompetent.”

“I never said that you were, I just don’t want to make you watch my kid. It’s not your job.” 

“I want to look after him, alright? You’re not making me do anything.” 

Remus sighs. “Yes, alright.” 

He cuddles Teddy for the next half-hour, until it’s time for him to Floo to work. Teddy doesn’t protest when he’s transferred to Sirius’s arms, and when Remus leans down to kiss the top of the toddler’s head, Sirius catches the floral scent of his shampoo. He shivers involuntarily.

“Be good for Siri,” Remus whispers, and then he steps into the fireplace. 

And here is another reason Sirius knows he needs to move on with his life: he’s starting to think of Teddy as his own. The thought of leaving him with Andromeda was unfathomable, not because Sirius thinks she is incapable of taking care of her grandson, but Teddy is sick and needs a parent right now. He knows that he’s straying into dangerous territory, thinking of a child as his own who is most certainly not his child, but his heart is a traitorous thing that’s never cared much for common sense. 

Sirius gives Teddy a cool bath and some mild potions designed for young children. Teddy protests whenever Sirius tries to put him down, so Sirius spends most of the morning on the couch with Teddy asleep on his chest. Harry comes home from the Burrow shortly after lunch, and he takes Teddy off Sirius’s hands long enough for Sirius to shower and grab some food. 

“You were like this, too,” Sirius says as Harry transfers a sleeping Teddy back to him. “If you weren’t feeling well, you only wanted to be held.” 

Harry offers his godfather a smile and runs a hand over Teddy’s messy curls. “He loves you.” 

“Ah, well.” Sirius shrugs. “I give him sweets and I turn into a dog on command, what’s not to love?” 

When Remus gets home that night, Sirius is up in his bedroom with Teddy. The toddler has started to perk up a bit, but he still doesn’t want to be left alone, so they’re in Sirius’s bed reading a book when Remus comes in.

“Hello, darling,” Remus says as Teddy immediately reaches for him. As soon as he’s in Remus’s arms, Teddy starts to cry. 

“Teds, what’s all this?” Sirius asks. “I swear, Remus, he was perfectly fine all day--”

“I know. He’s probably just overwhelmed and still not feeling the greatest.” Remus sits down on the bed, swinging his legs up onto the mattress and leaning against the headboard with Sirius. He cuddles Teddy to his chest. “Why don’t you go back to reading? It might calm him down.” 

Sirius begins to read again, trying to ignore the line of heat where Remus’s arm is pressed against his own. Teddy’s cries slowly taper off. He clings to Remus, sniffling occasionally, but is clearly captivated by the book. Sirius is only halfway through when Teddy finally falls asleep, head resting on Remus’s shoulder. 

“Thank you for looking after him today,” Remus murmurs. 

“Don’t need to thank me for that.” Sirius runs his fingers gently through Teddy’s hair. “He’s a dream.” 

“Wish Prongs and Lily could’ve met him,” Remus says, and Sirius is surprised, because while they’ve both gotten to the point where they can reminisce about the good times with James and Lily, they don’t often talk about what might have been. “We’d have made them godparents, and they would have spoiled him rotten.” 

Sirius goes very still. “We?” 

Remus is quiet for a moment.

“Sorry,” he says. “I would have made them godparents, I mean. Not we.” 

“Right,” Sirius says, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Of course.” 

***

Sirius has always had a peculiar affinity for Christmas. Muggle holidays aren’t typically celebrated in wizarding homes, and certainly not by the old Pureblood families, who instead mark the solstice at the end of the year. Though, Remus muses, perhaps that’s precisely why Sirius has embraced this holiday so thoroughly. His parents would have hated it. 

After two months of tranquil moons, December’s full isn’t an easy one. Remus can never predict when the wolf will have a good moon and when it won’t. He had thought that things would get easier now that the wolf had Padfoot back, and for the most part they have. But December’s moon sees the wolf having a bad night of it, which thankfully it mostly took out on Remus. Padfoot came through the moon with a smattering of bruises, but is otherwise unharmed. Remus, on the other hand, spends two days in bed waiting for the skin he ripped open and the bones he broke to knit themselves back together. There’s nothing that can be done for cursed wounds except to rest and wait them out. 

Three days after the moon, he finally drags himself downstairs and collapses in an overstuffed armchair in the main room. 

“Sirius,” he croaks, “what the hell is that?”

Sirius appears out from behind a giant green monstrosity that has easily taken over at least a quarter of the room. “It’s a Christmas tree, Moony.” 

“Christmas isn’t until the week after next.”

“It’s never too early to start decorating,” Sirius tells him cheerfully. 

Remus has to fight back a smile. He loves seeing Sirius like this, excited and enthusiastic and unendingly happy. “Where are the kids?”

“I sent Harry to the shops for some supplies. Teddy went with him. You realize you have nothing here for Christmas baking?”

Even as he teasingly reprimands Remus, he fetches a blanket off the back of the couch and comes over to Remus, draping it over his legs. He then flicks his wand, and a fire lights itself in the grate. Remus basks in the sudden warmth. 

Sirius launches into his decorating plans. Remus is too tired to pay much attention, but he makes affirmative noises at all the appropriate moments. He loves Sirius’s voice. He loves watching Sirius’s elegant hands fly through the air, sketching out a mad scheme—or, in this case, detailing his plans for how to make enchanted snow fall from the ceiling. He loves Sirius.

He drifts off at some point, and doesn’t even hear Harry and Teddy return home. When he next opens his eyes, the tree is glittering with fairy lights, and Sirius is carefully placing ornaments on its branches. Not with magic, but by hand.

Teddy is playing with some of his trains on the floor at Sirius’s feet. He looks up at what Sirius is doing, then leans over and tugs on his trouser leg. 

“Siri, up!” he commands, thrusting his arms in the air. Sirius chuckles, but obligingly picks up Teddy and settles him on his hip. 

“Of course, Mr Lupin,” he says solemnly. “Would you like to help me?”

Teddy nods enthusiastically. With a flick of his hand—and really, it’s unfair how effortlessly the man does wandless magic, and it certainly has no right to be so attractive —Sirius levitates a handful of ornaments and brings them over to hover by Teddy’s head. “Which one would you like to hang?”

Teddy selects a gold and red one—good boy—and holds it out to Sirius.

“Actually, I think you can put that one on the tree yourself,” Sirius says. He points at a branch. “How about right there? Go on, I’ve got you.”

Teddy leans over and, with great care uncharacteristic of an almost-three-year-old, places the ornament on the tree. Sirius adjusts it so that the hook is securely over the branch, and then he beams at Teddy.

“That was an excellent job,” he says, ruffling Teddy’s hair. “How about another one?” 

Teddy selects another ornament, and Sirius helps him hang it on the tree. Remus closes his eyes and dozes for a while, until he feels a weight settle next to him on the arm of the armchair. He cracks open his eyes to see Harry there. He’s watching his godfather and Teddy with a fond smile on his lips, though there’s also something wistful about it. Remus reaches out and squeezes his knee.  

“Go help them,” he says softly.

“Nah,” Harry says. “Don’t want to intrude.” 

“You’re not intruding,” Remus says softly. “You never could. Not when it’s us.” 

Harry considers this for a moment. Then, he gets up and goes over to join Sirius and Teddy. Sirius immediately puts him in charge of the tinsel, and Remus drifts off again to the sound of laughter and happy chatter from his small family.

Chapter Text

Remus is going to go insane.

Remus is going to go insane, and it will be all Sirius’s fault.

It’s bad enough that Sirius lives in his house. Sirius’s presence has always been larger than life, and even when they’re in different rooms, Remus is always aware of him. Sirius hums, he sings, he clatters about in the kitchen, he tussles with Teddy as Padfoot. His scent lingers in every room. Remus is constantly finding bits of black clothing lying about, or hair ties, or he’s tripping over Sirius’s Doc Martens. He is never not aware of Sirius. 

And then there are the touches. Pressing a hand to the small of Remus’s back as Sirius moves past him in the kitchen. Touching Remus’s wrist to get his attention. Slinging an easy arm around his shoulders and pulling him close. Swinging his legs up onto Remus’s lap whenever they’re on the couch together. And holding him, Merlin, the way that Sirius holds him in bed after the full moon, all their jagged edges slotting together. It feels so perfect, so right, that Remus could cry.

Sirius drops down next to him on the couch one night after Teddy has gone to bed, settles his legs in Remus’s lap, and says, “We’re going to Muggle London tomorrow.” 

“You and Harry?” Remus says, trying to focus on the book he’s supposed to be reading, but it’s incredibly distracting when Sirius is right there, his warm legs in Remus’s lap and his scent overwhelming Remus’s senses. 

“No, us. You and me. I’ve got it all sorted, Harry says he doesn’t mind watching Teddy for the afternoon.” 

Remus looks over at him then. “And what exactly are we going to be doing in Muggle London?” 

“Whatever we feel like,” Sirius says. “You need a break, all you do is work and look after the boys, and I need to go somewhere where I’m not recognized by literally everyone.” 

“That’s what you get for being voted the wizarding world’s most eligible bachelor,” Remus says, and Sirius groans. 

“Don’t remind me. Anyway, we’re going to Muggle London, just like when we were kids, and if you’re nice to me, I’ll even buy you dinner.” 

“It’s a date, Padfoot,” Remus says, and immediately tamps down on the hope that swells in his chest when Sirius beams at him. 

***

Sirius hasn’t been to Muggle London since—well, not in over twenty years, and that’s a depressing thought. He’d once dragged James here all the time, especially after he ran away from home and was living with the Potters full time. Remus had joined them on occasion, and they’d been right terrors, sneaking into clubs and going to concerts, causing mischief and mayhem, visiting practically every record shop in the city. 

He misses those days fiercely, but this is nice, too—strolling through the streets with Remus, blending into the crowds of Muggles like they belong, going into whatever shops catch their eye. They buy presents for Harry and Teddy, and Sirius even manages to buy a new watch for Remus without Remus throwing too much of a fit about money being spent on him. Remus drags him into a museum at one point, because of course he does, but Sirius couldn’t be irritated about it even if he tried. He wants to spend the rest of his life being annoyed by Remus. He thinks it would make him the happiest man in the world.

They end their day at a record shop. Sirius has spent most of the past year trying to catch up on everything he’s missed since 1981, but even then, the sheer volume of new music and bands he doesn’t know is overwhelming. 

“Harry might like these,” Remus said, holding up a couple of records. Another band he’s never heard of, but Sirius is always game to spoil Harry. He takes them from Remus.

“Teddy, too.” 

“Teddy’s two, Sirius.” 

“Almost three. You gotta start them young, Moons,” Sirius said. The nickname earns him a fond smile—which, Sirius privately admits to himself, is probably why he uses it so often. 

As the afternoon starts to turn to evening, Sirius steps into an alley and calls Harry on the mirror to check on them. Harry assures him that things are fine at home and he’s about to feed Teddy dinner. Satisfied, Sirius joins Remus back on the pavement and says, “Dinner, Moonbeam?”

Remus rolls his eyes. “I can’t believe James got you calling me that.” 

Sirius is never going to tell Remus that he’s the one who accidentally gave Remus the nickname, and it was James who took pity on his pining brother and said that it was him. “Shall we?”

It isn’t until they’re sitting in the restaurant that it hits Sirius how much this feels like a date, how much he wants it to be a date.

Remus has never been interested, he reminds himself firmly. He has so much to be grateful for—Remus, Teddy, Harry, a place to call home, a second chance at life. He can be happy with only this. He shouldn’t want more. 

Conversation flows between them as easily as ever. They talk about everything—the boys, Remus’s job, the latest Muggle bands, what Sirius should do with himself now that he’s free and alive and has had a chance to familiarize himself with the world again. They eat their way through what is an obscene amount of food, and Sirius orders a second bottle of wine for the table.

Finally, hours later, they walk to the nearest Apparition point. Remus is the more sober of the two—damn werewolf metabolism—and so he Side-Alongs Sirius back to the village with him. 

“Should do this more often,” Sirius says happily, and then, in a moment of wine-induced boldness, slips his arm through Remus’s. Remus jumps, startled, and then relaxes. He squeezes Sirius’s arm affectionately against his side, and Sirius’s heart soars. 

“I’d like that,” Remus says quietly.

The boys are both in bed; Sirius hadn’t realized until now how late it truly was. He also doesn’t realize that they’re still arm-in-arm until Remus pauses outside his bedroom door. 

“What a gentleman you are,” he says teasingly. “Walking me to my door and everything.” 

Sirius quickly withdraws his arm before he does something stupid. He pastes a grin on his face. “That’s me, a true gentleman. I’ll even wait until the third date to completely ravish you.” 

Remus huffs a laugh, though color pinks his cheeks. “I’m not that easy, Black.” 

This is quickly getting into dangerous territory, so Sirius knocks his shoulder affectionately against Remus’s and says, “Good night, Moony.” 

Alone in his darkened bedroom, Sirius leans his forehead against the door and curses himself. Why can’t he just be happy with what he has? Why does he always have to want more ? Nothing good has ever come of wanting more—it only ever destroys all the good things he already has in his life. 

“Get over it, Black,” he mutters, and then finally he takes himself off to bed.

***

Harry and Sirius are playing in the living room with Teddy while Remus sits at the table in the kitchen, marking up pages for a textbook he’s editing. He’s not paying particularly close attention to their conversation, not until Harry says, “So have you decided what you’re going to do, Sirius?”

“Do?” There comes the sound of a block tower being knocked over, and Sirius exclaims in faux outrage, “Oi! That was quite rude, Mr Lupin!”

“Boom!” Teddy exclaims. 

“Knock over your own tower, squirt,” Sirius says, and Remus glances over to see that he’s scooped the blocks he was using back into a pile and is starting to build his tower again. Harry, sitting cross-legged on the ground next to them and leaning back on his hands, simply snorts and shakes his head. 

“Yeah, do,” Harry says. “Like, with the rest of your life. Did you want a career or anything?” 

“Trying to get rid of me, Potter?”

“No,” Harry says vehemently. “Of course not. I was just curious. What did you do before, you know, everything?” 

“Your dad and I were training to be Aurors during the first war,” Sirius says. “It made sense, what with all the work we were doing for the Order. The skillset of an Auror proved useful.” 

“Would you go back to it?” Harry asks, and Sirius shakes his head. 

“Not in a million years. Pretty sure law enforcement isn’t for me.” 

“You could write a book,” Harry says, and Sirius laughs. Even Remus isn’t able to hold back a snort. “What? You could! You’re the wizarding world’s most eligible bachelor. Middle age housewives would love you, since they don’t have Gilderoy Lockhart to fawn over anymore. House husbands, too, I suppose. House people?”

Sirius reaches over and ruffles Harry’s hair. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?” 

“‘M not ridiculous,” Harry mutters, pulling away from his godfather and trying in vain to flatten his hair. “You could get married.” 

Sirius chokes on air. “Married?”

“Well...yeah. If you wanted,” Harry says. “You’re not dead, your name’s been cleared, you’ve got loads of gold, you’re not that old—”

“Thanks a lot, Haz.” 

“I’m just saying that if you want a wife, you could totally get one,” Harry says sagely, and Remus would laugh if it didn’t feel like his chest was being squeezed in a giant vise. Of course, Harry’s right. Sirius has been here almost a year, and eventually he’s going to want to move on. He’s going to want to start building a life for himself, a life that’s been put on hold for two decades now, interrupted by war and prison and death. 

A life without Remus.

“Well, thank you for that ringing endorsement,” Sirius says dryly. “I’m glad to know I possess marriageable qualities such as not dead and loaded.” 

Harry rolls his eyes. “You know what I mean.” 

"I could ask the same thing of you, you know," Sirius says, poking Harry with his foot. "What are you going to do with the rest of your life?"

Harry groans. "I don't know, Sirius." 

"Well, are you seeing anyone? Thinking of getting married? Having some kids?"

"Sirius, you're the worst." 

"You started it, Mini-Prongs." 

Teddy, apparently having grown bored of his blocks and the grown-ups' conversation, goes over to Sirius and plops down in his lap. He’s clutching his new favorite toy, a stuffed black dog Sirius had given him a few weeks back. 

“See? You’re really good with him." Harry, relentless, nods at Teddy. “Don’t you want one of your own?” 

“I don’t know, Haz,” Sirius sighs, running his fingers through Teddy’s bright blue hair. “Maybe.”

Remus can picture it all too easily—Sirius with a wife and kids. He’d probably marry a Muggle, someone who knew nothing about his fame (not to mention someone who would make Walburga spin in her grave.) Sirius deserves every ounce of happiness he can wring from a world that’s done wrong by him for so many years, and what kind of friend is Remus to begrudge him that? 

Teddy twists around in Sirius’s lap to look up at him. “Puppy?” 

“You want to play with Padfoot, huh?” Sirius kisses Teddy’s cheek and lifts him to his feet. “Alright, but outside. Your dad’ll kill me if I break any more lamps.” 

Teddy grabs Sirius’s hand and drags him towards the back door. Sirius catches Remus’s eye as they pass through the kitchen, gives him a devastating smile, and winks.

Not for the first time, Remus thinks that Sirius Black is going to be the death of him.

***

Remus wakes in a haze of pain on the morning of his forty-first birthday. His bones ache and his muscles throb and if he lies still enough, maybe, maybe, the pain will fade and he can sink back into sleep. It doesn’t work that way, of course, but he’s not exactly thinking rationally this soon after moonset. 

His door creaks open, and tiny feet patter across the floor. 

“Hi, Da,” Teddy whispers. He’s still in his pyjamas and clutching his favorite stuffed green frog, and his hair is neon orange. “Up?”

“I think you’re supposed to be in bed, Teddy Bear,” Remus rasps, but he grits his teeth against the pain and helps Teddy up onto the bed anyway. Teddy cuddles up to his chest, and Remus draws the blankets over them both. 

“Sleep now,” Teddy says, patting Remus’s face with one hand and trying to close his eyes. Remus snorts softly. 

“Yes, Da’s going to sleep now,” he says. “Teddy, too.” 

If Teddy gives an answer, Remus doesn’t hear it. He drifts off quickly—the wolf is still close to the surface this soon after the moon, but it’s calmed by the scent of one of its cubs. When he wakes again, it’s to the sound of a plate and a mug being set on his bedside table. 

“I’ve been looking for him for the past half-hour,” Sirius says, amused. Teddy stirs, blinking owlishly up at Sirius. “You’re a rascal, Teds, you know that? Gave me ten more grey hairs, you did.” 

He plucks Teddy from the bed and props him on his hip. Teddy clutches Sirius’s shirt with the hand not holding his frog and rests his head on Sirius’s shoulder. “No, wanna stay.” 

“We’ll come see Da later, after you’ve had some breakfast.” Sirius reaches out with his free hand and pushes the hair off Remus’s forehead. “Alright, Moons?”

“Don’t suppose you have a pain draught on you?” 

Sirius digs a vial of purple liquid out of his pocket and sets it next to the mug of tea. “I’ll come check on you later. Use the mirror if you need me.” 

Remus eats some food, drinks the tea Sirius brought him, and naps on and off throughout the morning. Finally, around midday, he pulls himself out of bed to shower. Sirius had already cleaned and dressed all his wounds from the night before. Remus peels off the bandages so that he can shower, and only realizes after the fact that he can’t reach all of his wounds to re-do Sirius’s work. 

“Bugger,” he mutters under his breath. He puts his pyjama bottoms back on and opens the door to call for Sirius. “Sirius!” 

There’s a commotion from downstairs, and a couple of minutes pass before Sirius appears. 

“Alright?” he asks, slipping into the bathroom with Remus, his eyes automatically tracking to Remus’s wounds.

“I can’t reach them all,” Remus says. He gestures at his chest. “I got these few, but the ones on my back…” 

“You ridiculous man.” Sirius takes the fresh bandages and gauze from him. “You could’ve just called me in the first place, you know. I could’ve taken care of these.” 

“You were busy.” Remus frowns. “What’s going on down there, anyway?”

“Nothing you need to be concerned about,” Sirius says lightly, which means that Remus absolutely should be concerned. “Now hold still.”

Sirius cleans and dresses Remus’s wounds again. Given that they’re cursed wounds, he can’t heal them with magic, and Remus will have to wait until his skin knits together again. He’s just thankful that he didn’t scratch himself deep enough to need Muggle stitches. 

“You should be a Healer,” Remus murmurs. Sirius is rubbing an ointment into his back that instantly numbs the pain, and he’s feeling a bit loopy with relief.

“Is that right?” Sirius sounds amused.

“Mm. Always were good at this.” Remus swallows hard. “Good at taking care of me.”

Sirius’s hands still for the briefest of moments, and then continue their ministrations. “Well, someone has to.” 

Remus turns around. Sirius tilts his head, giving him a quizzical look. He wipes his hands on his t-shirt, which already has bits of dried food stuck to it from feeding Teddy earlier. 

“You’re always so good to me, Pads,” Remus says softly. 

“Well, sure, that’s what friends are—” 

Remus kisses him. 

Sirius tastes of sunshine and coffee. He makes a tiny, startled noise in the back of his throat when Remus’s lips meet his, but he doesn’t pull away. His hands come to rest on Remus’s back, his touch so light that Remus almost misses it. Remus knows he should pull away, knows that this is a mistake. His brain is screaming at him—Sirius is straight, Sirius is straight!—but he can't bring himself to break the kiss. All he wants to do is sink into the kiss and lose himself entirely to it.

But then Sirius pulls away, and Remus’s heart plummets. Sirius touches his lips wonderingly, like he can’t believe that Remus’s mouth had touched his, and the look he gives Remus is alarmed. 

“We shouldn’t—” he says, taking a step back. “We can’t, Remus. I—we can’t.” 

He slips out of the bathroom before Remus can say anything, his footsteps quick as he hurries away. 

*** 

Harry seems to know at once that something is off between his guardians. He gives Remus a puzzled look when he comes into the kitchen and says, “Alright?”

“Alright,” Remus says automatically, giving Harry what he hopes isn’t a strained smile. Teddy is sitting next to Harry at the table, tongue between his teeth as he colors in what is obviously a birthday card for Remus. 

“He went off on his bike.” Harry then notices Remus looking at Teddy’s drawing and says, “Oi! No peeking!” 

“Yeah!” Teddy exclaims, putting a tiny hand on the card in an effort to cover it up. Remus snorts. 

“You know how your godfather gets,” Remus says, patting Harry’s shoulder before going off to make some more tea. “He has his moods.”

“Well, he better get over his mood before—” Harry stops abruptly. “Er, well. He just better get over it.” 

But Remus has happened to glance out the window into the garden, and he notices that several tables and chairs have sprung up seemingly overnight. He sighs. 

“He’s throwing me a party, isn’t he.” 

“In my defense, he was supposed to distract you so we could put up all the decorations and get out the food,” Harry says, and Remus chokes on a laugh. Distract him. “Not my fault he stormed off and you discovered your own party.”

“I would never dream of blaming you.” Remus finishes making his tea. “How about I go back upstairs and we pretend this never happened? Although, hypothetically, if you were to be throwing me a party today, what time should I expect the guests to start showing up?”

“Hypothetically, in about an hour.” 

An hour. He supposes it’s probably a good thing they’re arriving so soon. It gives him less time to brood. Though he really doesn’t want to face a house full of people in an hour. He doesn’t want to have to face them at all, truly.

Remus retreats upstairs to drink his tea and nurse his bruised ego. Not that he’s a catch in any sense of the word, but he also doesn’t think that a kiss from him warrants storming out of the house. All Sirius had to say was that he wasn’t interested. Remus knows he isn't interested, knows that what he did was a lapse in judgement. All Sirius had to do was let him down quickly. It’d hurt like hell, sure, but Remus would never press the issue again. Surely Sirius knows that?

Tonks and Andromeda are the first arrivals. Teddy, utterly delighted at the presence of his grandmother and favorite aunt, immediately abandons his birthday card for Remus. Harry snorts and cleans up Teddy’s scattered art supplies before taking the card and tucking it into an envelope. 

“He’s out back,” Harry says casually as he passes Remus, and Remus glances out the kitchen window to see that Sirius has returned. Tablecloths cover the tables now, and everything is set up under a large tent that’s lit by floating lanterns. Sirius is enchanting some colorful balloons to inflate and then hover around the tent. Remus feels like someone is squeezing his chest as he gazes at this man, this man who has known him for fully three-quarters of his life, who knows every one of Remus’s deepest secrets and hasn’t walked away from him.

Not yet, a nasty voice in the back of his mind says.

More guests arrive—some by Floo, others by Apparition. There are soon enough people in the cottage that the party naturally spills out into the garden. Remus is kept busy for a few hours, drawn into conversation after conversation with various clusters of guests. 

The enchanted lanterns provide enough light that the party doesn’t show any sign of slowing down once the sun sets. Hermione appears at his side with a slightly-weepy Teddy, and Remus feels a sharp stab of guilt that he didn’t realize how late it was for the boy.

“I think it’s time for bed,” he says, setting his drink on a nearby table and taking Teddy into his arms. 

“No,” Teddy protests feebly, even as he rests his head on Remus’s shoulder. 

“Yes, darling, I’m afraid it is. Come on, I’ll read you a story.” 

“No,” Teddy whines again. “Want Siri.” 

Ouch. Remus kisses his forehead even as his stomach ties itself in knots. “Alright, let’s go find him.”

Sirius isn’t difficult to find. He’s always been a beacon at a party—people are naturally drawn to him, and he always stands out, even when he isn’t trying to. He’s chatting with Harry and George Weasley, who are both red in the face from laughter. Remus wonders what story of the Marauders Sirius had been regaling them with.

“Sorry,” he says apologetically, joining the group. “It’s Teddy’s bedtime, and he wants a story from Sirius.” 

Teddy is already reaching for him, and Sirius accepts him readily enough, though Remus notices that Sirius won’t quite meet his eyes. “Of course. Be right back, boys.”

Remus continues to circulate, but he’s acutely aware of when Sirius comes back out. Sirius doesn’t even look his way. Remus is irritated now. It was only a kiss. Sirius made his feelings quite clear on the matter, and he should know that Remus isn’t going to push it. Remus doesn’t think that what he did warrants Sirius ignoring him. It’s his birthday, and his best friend won’t even acknowledge him. 

He goes into the kitchen for another drink. The party is entirely outside now, and the sudden silence is a relief. There’s no one he has to chat with, no one he has to put on an air of false cheer for. When Remus finishes making his drink, he pauses at the door to the back garden. He really, really does not want to go back out there and face the party. He doesn’t want to continue to pretend that everything is alright, that he isn’t dying a little bit inside at the thought that he’s ruined their friendship forever, that Sirius will never want to talk to him again. 

Remus turns on his heel, and goes upstairs. 

He stops by Teddy’s room first, just to look in on the boy. He’s sound asleep and doesn’t even stir as Remus runs light fingers through his hair and kisses him on the forehead. Then, Remus takes the steps two at a time up to the attic. 

Of course, it’s Tonks who finds him there, long after Remus has finished his drink. He’s standing by the open window, swirling the melting ice in his glass, debating whether getting another drink is worth the possibility of running into a party guest in the kitchen. 

“What did you do?” she asks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Tonks gives him an unimpressed look. She pulls a packet of cigarettes out of her pocket and offers him one. Remus hasn’t smoked since Teddy’s birth, and for a moment he considers refusing—but fuck it. It’s his birthday, his best friend has trod all over his heart, and he’s earned this.

“You and Sirius,” she says as Remus snaps his fingers to light first his cigarette, then her own. “The two of you are acting really bloody weird today. What happened?” 

Remus sighs. “I kissed him.” 

Tonks smacks his shoulder, grinning suddenly. “You didn’t. Fuck, mate, it’s about time. Good for you.”

“And then he ran away.” 

Her brows furrowed in confusion. “What?”

“Yep,” Remus says, taking an unhappy drag on his cigarette. “Apparently it was such a bad kiss that he high-tailed it out of the house and flew off on his bike.” 

“Well, that was rude. You’re not that bad a kisser.” 

“Cheers.” They smoke in silence for a moment, and then Remus adds, “And now he won’t even speak to me.” 

He knows that he sounds petulant, but it rankles. They’re both bloody adults. He doesn’t think that what happened warrants Sirius ignoring him. 

Tonks nudges him affectionately with her shoulder. “You know he loves you, yeah?” 

“He’s doing a bloody terrible job of showing it,” Remus mutters, trying to ignore the sudden stab of pain in his gut at the idea of Sirius loving him. It’s only as a friend, he tells himself. Sirius doesn’t feel anything more than that for him, and it’s fine. 

“You probably caught him off-guard, that’s all.” Tonks vanishes the remains of her cigarette with a snap of her fingers. “Although how you managed to do that, I’ll never know. It’s obvious what you two feel for each other. Merlin, the tension whenever you two are in a room together. I don’t know how Harry stands it, honestly. Although that boy’s about as observant as a sack of potatoes, so.” 

It’s a moment before Remus can find his voice. “Sirius doesn’t feel anything for me.” 

Tonks lets out a huff of laughter. “Sure he doesn’t.” 

“He doesn’t.” 

“Merlin,” she sighs. “You’re both unbelievable. How can two people be so brilliant and yet so stupid?” 

She pats his shoulder and leaves. Remus briefly mourns the fact that he didn’t think to bum a second cigarette from her before she left, and resigns himself to having to go back downstairs and face the party again. But then he hears the stairs creak as someone mounts them, and he turns around just as Sirius steps into the attic and shuts the door behind him. 

They stare at one another for a beat. Then, Sirius says, “Tonks wanted me to see if we—if you had any more chairs squirreled away up here.” 

Behind him, the door gives an audible click as it locks. Remus closes his eyes. 

“Tonks,” he says. 

“Yes?” she calls through the door, perfectly innocent. 

“Unlock the door, please.” 

“It will unlock itself in an hour. Enjoy, boys.”

Thanks to his heightened senses, Remus can hear Tonks as she goes downstairs, crosses through the kitchen, and goes out the door to the garden. They’re all alone now. Sirius stares at him, and he stares at Sirius. Neither of them say anything. Remus is acutely aware of the sweating glass in his hands, of the multitude of conversations that drift up to them from the open window, of the smell of Sirius’s aftershave undercut with sweat from the hours he’s spent in the sun today. 

“Sorry,” Remus says finally. “I didn’t think she’d—well, I didn’t ask her to—” 

He breaks off. Sirius considers him for a moment, and then gives a slow shrug. “Well. I suppose that’s Tonks for you.” 

“Is it?” Remus asks before he can help himself. 

“When she sets her mind to something,” Sirius says, and then trails off. “She cut off all my hair when she was six.” 

Remus does the math. They’d been nineteen, then. Living together in the loosest sense of the term. Remus had often been off with the werewolf packs, and Sirius had been off on missions he couldn’t talk about. 

“Why?” he asks belatedly, aware that the silence has stretched on for too long. 

“She’d got it in her head that she wanted to give me a makeover.” Sirius shrugs. “It grew back, like it always did.” 

Remus remembers that, too, how Sirius always came back from the summer holidays with his hair cropped close to his skull, and how it always grew back overnight until it was at his usual preferred length. The night that Sirius ran away from home, Walburga had shaved off all his hair—in-between bouts of the Cruciatus curse—and Remus remembers James telling him how it had grown back while Sirius sat on the Potters’ sofa with Euphemia tending to his wounds and James holding his hand. 

Reflexively, he takes a swallow of his drink, remembering too late that it’s now mostly water and melting shards of ice. Sirius sticks his hands in his pockets and looks down at his feet. 

“I’m sorry,” Remus says finally. Sirius looks up at him.

“Sorry for what?” 

Remus glares at him. So Sirius wants him to grovel, is that it? 

“You know what I’m apologizing for,” he says stiffly. He chews the inside of his cheek for a moment, and then says, “Earlier. Kissing you. I’m sorry.” 

“Right.” Sirius doesn’t look appeased by the apology, but he shrugs. “It’s fine. I know how you get.” 

“How I—what?” 

“Close to the full,” Sirius says. “I know what the wolf does to you. It’s no big deal.” 

“You—you thought that I kissed you because the wolf makes me horny ?” 

Sirius raises his eyebrows at him. “Well...it does.” 

“Only sometimes!” Remus says heatedly. He feels himself flush. It had been more of an issue during his Hogwarts years, as it turned out that puberty for a werewolf is several times more insufferable than it is for a human. Remus had needed to find an outlet for it, and that outlet sometimes involved doing questionable things like hooking up with one of the Prewett twins in a broom cupboard and with the other twin in the Astronomy Tower. “For Merlin’s sake, Sirius, you thought I would actually use you like that?” 

“Well, I don’t know why else you would have done it!” 

“Because I’m in love with you!” 

Sirius stares at him, open-mouthed. Under any other circumstances, his expression would be downright hilarious, but Remus doesn’t feel much like laughing right now. He cannot believe those words have left his lips, that he’s just admitted to Sirius a secret he’s held onto longer than any other. His friends all figured out he was a werewolf within two years of knowing him, but in over two decades, Sirius has never known this. 

“You’re—what?”

“Nothing,” Remus says. He drags a hand over his face. It’s one thing to be in love with a man who will never love him back; it’s quite another to confess that love and then be rejected on his birthday. He could have borne it at any other time, he thinks, but not today. “Nothing, I’m—forget I said anything.” 

He can’t go back and deny it. Now that the words have left his mouth, he won’t. He won’t go back to pretending he isn’t in love with Sirius. But he can ask Sirius to forget it, to pretend that none of this happened, and maybe they can go back to the way they were. 

“You said you’re in love with me,” Sirius says, his voice curiously blank and devoid of emotion. 

“Yeah, can we drop it? Just...pretend it never happened. Blame it on the drinks, if you want.” Remus holds up his glass. 

Sirius licks his lips, and then says, very quietly, “What if I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen?” 

Remus feels his jaw tighten. “Then I’d call you an arse for going out of your way to reject a man on his birthday.”

Sirius shoves his hands in his pockets, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. “I didn’t say anything about rejecting you.”

Remus’s brain grinds to a halt. What. 

“Oh, come on, Moony.” Sirius huffs out a half-hearted laugh. “You must know. I wasn’t exactly subtle about it.” 

“Subtle about what?” Remus manages. This isn’t happening. He must be hallucinating.

“Well, I’ve wanted to snog you since we were fifteen.” 

“No, you haven’t,” Remus says automatically. That wasn’t possible. He would have known. And he can’t bear to contemplate it, the idea that Sirius has been in love with him for as long as Remus has, and they never did anything about it. 

“Yes, I have.” Sirius takes a step closer to him. He gives Remus a tentative, crooked smile. “I would know, wouldn’t I?”

“You’re just—you’re only saying it—” 

Now Sirius looks hurt. “You think I’d confess my undying love for you just to be nice ? Why would I say something like that if I didn’t mean it?” 

Remus licks his lips, uncertain. No, that isn’t something Sirius would do. He’d never hurt someone like that. But how could he want someone like Remus? 

“But Sirius,” Remus says finally, grasping at the last straw he has, “you’re straight.” 

Sirius gives him a frankly offended look. “I am not.” 

“What?” Remus’s head is spinning. “But—but I would have known.” 

“I don’t know why you didn’t!” 

“Sirius, you had all those half-naked Muggle girls on your walls!” 

“That doesn’t mean anything! Honestly, Remus. I only did it because it annoyed my mother, you know that.” 

It doesn’t change anything, Remus tells himself firmly. So Sirius isn’t straight—while that gives them something else in common, at least, it doesn’t change anything between them. Sirius is the most eligible bachelor in the wizarding world right now. He’d never want to be with someone like Remus. 

They stare at each other for a moment. Remus doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what Sirius wants from him. 

Sirius finally closes the rest of the distance between them. Remus’s senses are instantly overwhelmed by the scent of his aftershave and his brain stops working entirely, so he doesn’t react when Sirius lifts his hands and cups his face. 

“You can tell me to stop,” Sirius says quietly. 

Stop what? Remus thinks stupidly. What could Sirius possibly do that Remus would want him to stop? 

And then Sirius leans forward and kisses him gently.

Remus is so surprised, he doesn’t react for several seconds. Sirius’s mouth moves against his, and it’s all he’s ever wanted, and he can’t manage to get his brain in gear so he can kiss back. Sensing his hesitation, Sirius pulls back.

“Did I—” 

Remus grabs him by the front of his shirt, hauls him in, and seals their mouths together. Sirius kisses back, and it’s sloppy and it’s wet and it’s glorious. Remus’s back hits a wall, and then Sirius is pressed up against him, and oh , that’s even better. 

“Rem,” Sirius mumbles against his mouth, “we should—mmph—the party.” 

“Hang the party,” Remus says fervently, trying to chase after Sirius’s mouth as he pulls away.

Sirius laughs. “Afraid not, darling. They’re going to notice if the birthday boy goes missing for the rest of the night.” 

“So?”

“Besides, you know how much I love a good party.” Sirius gives him a smirk. “Party first, and then you can ravish me.” 

“Cruel, you are,” Remus says, but he’s smiling as he tangles their fingers together. “How much time is left on that lock, do you think?”

Sirius checks his watch. “About fifteen minutes.”

“Good,” Remus says, and pulls him in for another kiss. 

***

Everything changes, and at the same time, nothing does. 

Sirius moves out of the spare bedroom and into Remus’s—now their —room. He’s usually in charge of breakfast, while Remus, never a morning person, handles dinner. He goes flying with Harry, has weekly tea with Andromeda, and playfully rough houses with Teddy as Padfoot whenever the boy asks for it. 

He and Remus divvy up the childcare and household duties more equally now that Sirius is his partner and not a guest. They trade off giving Teddy baths and tucking him in at night, doing the dishes and laundry, going to the shops and fixing the odd thing around the house.

They debate for a while when they should tell Harry, and how, but in the end it doesn’t matter. Harry shuffles out of his room earlier than usual one morning, knuckling sleep out of his eyes, at the same time that Sirius leaves Remus’s. Godfather and godson stare at one another for a minute, each at a loss for words, before Harry mutters, “Could’ve told me, y’know.” 

“We wanted to figure things out first before we broke the news. Make sure that it’s going to last,” Sirius says, even though that’s absurd. He’s known since he was a teenager that Remus is the only one for him. Of course it’s going to last. “You’re okay with it?” 

“Dunno why I wouldn’t be. I like blokes, too.” Harry’s still half-asleep and the words tumble out of him without him apparently even thinking about them. His eyes widen as he realizes what he’s said, but Sirius merely laughs and slings an arm around his shoulders, leading him downstairs to the kitchen.

“Really? And who is this bloke who’s stolen my godson’s heart?” 

“Shove off, Sirius,” Harry says, but he’s laughing. “Does this make Remus my step-godfather now?”

Sirius considers this for a moment. “He’d never admit this, but I think he’s been thinking of himself as your godfather for a while now. Not in place of me, just...you know, an extra one.” 

“Yeah,” Harry says with a small smile. “I think that, too.”  

Sirius squeezes the arm he has around Harry’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get an invite to the wedding.”

“An invite?” Harry says indignantly. “I better be your best man!” 

Teddy’s three going on four, and doesn’t remember a time in his life when Sirius wasn’t part of it. They don’t explain the shift in their relationship to him, because for him, nothing has changed at all. He has his Da and his Siri, and they both are raising him, and they both love him very much. He’s starting to socialize more with children his age now that he goes to nursery, and he’s learning about the makeup of other families. One evening, he’s sitting on the couch between Remus and Sirius, and in the middle of Remus reading him a story, he pokes his dad in the stomach. Then, frowning, he turns to Sirius and does the same thing.

“What’s that about, kiddo?” Sirius asks, amused.

“Baby?” Teddy asks. 

Harry, who had been sitting in the armchair opposite writing a letter to one of his friends, has a sudden coughing fit and has to duck into the kitchen. Remus shares a bemused look with Sirius. 

“No, Teddy Bear,” he says gently. “We don’t have a baby in our stomachs. Did someone tell you we did?” 

“Ruthie’s mum has one,” Teddy says, and Sirius vaguely remembers one of the nursery parents, a blonde-haired woman who was at least six months gone the last time Sirius saw her. 

“I see.” Remus runs a hand over Teddy’s purple hair. “That’s very exciting for Ruthie and her mum, but not everyone is able to have a baby like that, love. Some of us don’t have the right parts for it.” 

“No baby?” Teddy asks.

“No baby,” Sirius says, feeling as though he ought to contribute something to this frankly bewildering conversation. 

“Good,” Teddy decides, and Remus huffs a laugh.

But later that night, when they’re in bed, Remus fixes Sirius with a look and says, “ You’re giving him the sex talk when he’s older. I had to do it for Harry, so now it’s your turn.” 

And, well, Sirius supposes he deserves that one. 

***

Remus leans back on his hands, basking in the warmth of the midsummer sun. The remains of their picnic lie strewn on the blanket around him, and a few feet away, Teddy’s hard at work on a coloring book. The pink tip of his tongue pokes out the side of his mouth while he colors, and it’s so adorable, Remus thinks he might melt. 

He turns his gaze to the sky, where Sirius and Harry are tossing a Quaffle back and forth. Teddy had been up with them earlier, first on Harry’s broom and then on Sirius’s, but much to the dismay of both men, he takes after Remus when it comes to flying. It’s fine for a bit, but he’d much prefer to have his feet on the ground.

“Da, look.”

Teddy plops down in his lap, coloring book in hand, and Remus wraps his arms around him. “What’ve you got there, Teds?” 

The page Teddy had been coloring depicts a small family--two men holding hands with a child. Remus sees that Teddy has given one man Remus’s golden curls, and the other has Sirius’s long black hair. The child between them sports blue hair. Teddy has taken it upon himself to draw a third person, one with wild black hair and a lightning-bolt on his forehead, as well as a shape that Remus can only assume is a giant black dog. 

“What’s this?” Remus asks around the lump in his throat.

“Family,” Teddy says. 

Remus kisses his cheek. “It’s beautiful, baby.”

Sirius and Harry eventually join them, sweaty and windswept and delighted. Remus wants nothing more than to kiss Sirius, and then remembers that he can now, so he yanks Sirius over to him and seals their mouths together. Harry groans about being scarred for life, and Sirius makes a rude gesture at him behind his back while still kissing Remus. 

“Just wait until you bring someone home, sprog,” Sirius says as he breaks away, and Remus smugly notes that he’s a little breathless. “I am going to prank them so much.” 

“Oh, I dunno,” Harry says, smirking. “I reckon George can hold his own against the two of you.” 

It takes a moment for those words to sink in. When they do, Remus can only gape at him. 

“Wait, what?” Sirius says. Harry flashes him a grin, then mounts his broom and shoots off in the direction of the house. “Harry James! You get back here! What do you mean, George?” 

***

Sirius is outside in the garden with Teddy one evening. Ostensibly, they’re planting some vegetables, but the last time Remus glanced out the window, he saw Padfoot rolling around in the dirt with the toddler. They’re both going to need a bath later, and knowing Sirius, he’s going to stay as Padfoot and splash around in the tub with Teddy.

Merlin, Remus loves them. So much. 

Harry has come downstairs with a book and is sitting in the armchair opposite Remus, trying to read. But Remus knows his boy’s tells by now, can tell from the silence alone that Harry is distracted this afternoon.

“What’s on your mind, Harry?” he asks finally.

Harry takes a deep breath, and then says, “I think I’m going to move out.” 

“Oh.” Remus would be lying if he said that the words weren’t a disappointment, even though he’s always known that this day would come. He shakes off his melancholy—there will be time for that later—and gives Harry a bright smile. “We’ll miss you, of course, but that’s wonderful news. Where to?” 

“Nowhere at first, actually,” Harry says. “I want to travel. I’ve been talking about it with Ron and Hermione, and they do, too. Hermione’s going to take a sabbatical from the Ministry. We thought we’d maybe travel for a year, and then when we come back we’ll get a house. Probably something that’s halfway between here and London.” 

“That all sounds like a wonderful plan to me,” Remus says. “We can keep your things here while you travel. You can come back for them when you’re ready. And I meant what I said. That bedroom is yours. It will always be here for you whenever you want to drop by, or even if you want to move back.”

“Thanks, Moony.” Harry’s eyes are overbright.

“Have you told Sirius yet?” 

Harry shakes his head. “Wanted to tell you first. And I know it’ll make him sad.” 

“Of course he’ll be a bit sad,” Remus says. “I am as well. But I know he’ll be happy for you, too. Just like I am. I think all any parent wants is to see their kid happy and thriving.” 

Harry picks at a loose thread on the arm of his chair.

“I’m glad I have you two,” he says finally. “And Teddy. You didn’t have to take me in, but you did, and I’m—I’m really grateful.” 

“Oh, Harry.” Remus closes his book and gets up to cross the room to him. He bends to drop a kiss on top of Harry’s head. “It’s no hardship. It never was. You’re the easiest kid in the world to love, you know that?” 

“Thanks, Remus,” Harry says softly.

“I know I tell you a lot that your parents would be proud of you, and they would. But I’m proud of you, too.” 

Harry hugs him tightly. It’s the hardest thing in the world, Remus thinks, letting your kid go out on their own. But also the most rewarding. 

“Love you,” he whispers into Harry’s dark mop of hair, and the boy sniffs.

“Love you, too, Remus.” 

Harry tells Sirius later that night after dinner, and there’s another round of hugs and tears and well-wishing. Sirius then immediately starts planning Harry’s trip with gusto, making him a list of all the places he needs to visit around the world and all the sights he needs to see. It’s heartening to see those two dark heads bent over an enchanted atlas, godfather and godson conspiring together. 

“I’m not ready for him to go, Rem,” Sirius admits later that night, when he’s wrapped in the circle of Remus’s arms and they’re both drifting off. 

“I know. Neither am I.” Remus tightens his grip on Sirius. “He’ll be alright.” 

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“I know.” Remus brushes his lips against Sirius’s forehead. “But this will always be his home. He’ll come back to us for holidays, or whenever he needs to. It’s not like he’s leaving forever, Pads.” 

“Just wait until Teddy leaves, too.” 

Remus groans. “I take it back. They’re not allowed to leave, not ever.” 

Sirius chuckles and tilts his head up for a kiss. “Least we have each other, yeah?” 

Remus’s heart swells. “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Chapter Text

Remus pauses in Teddy’s doorway and raps lightly on the door jamb. “All packed, Teddy Bear?” 

Sirius had packed the boy’s suitcase the night before with all of the essentials he would need for a week, but they had left him in charge of packing his own backpack. It’s a bright pink monstrosity covered with Muggle fictional princesses that Sirius had found for Teddy in London one day, and Remus swears it’s Teddy’s favorite and most precious belonging. Right now, it’s bulging at the seams. 

“Yes!” Teddy exclaims. “I’m ready!” 

A quick glance at the contents of the backpack shows Remus that he’s done a decent job of packing. He’s got his favorite books, some toys, and a frankly alarming number of socks. 

“Siri already packed socks for you in your suitcase, you know,” Remus says, amused. 

Teddy sticks out his lower lip. “But these are my favorites.” 

“Alright,” Remus says, stifling a laugh. “Are you ready, then? Harry’s waiting for us.” 

“Harry!” Teddy crows, like he hadn’t spent most of the reception yesterday glued to his godfather’s side, eventually falling asleep propped on Harry’s hip while Harry tried to clumsily dance with Hermione, Ron, and George all at the same time. 

“Sure you don’t want to come with us, squirt?” Sirius swoops into the room and hoists Teddy over his head. The five-year-old giggles madly, and his pink hair morphs into Sirius’s long black tresses.

“No!” he shouts. “Want Harry!” 

“I’m wounded, Moony,” Sirius pouts. He turns Teddy upside-down, and Teddy squeals. 

“Harry is far cooler than you are,” Remus says, just to get a rise out of him, and Sirius gasps dramatically. 

“Betrayed by my own husband! I don’t believe this. Teddy, will you defend my honor for me?” 

Remus rolls his eyes even as a smile tugs at his lips. “Be serious, please. If we don’t leave soon, we’re going to miss our Portkey.” 

“I’m always—”

“If you finish that sentence, I’m divorcing you.” 

Teddy is still a bit too small to manage the Floo on his own, so Remus lifts him into his arms and settles him on his hip. He’s shrunk down Teddy’s luggage so that it fits in his pocket. Sirius has their own suitcases in the pocket of his traveling cloak. He goes through the fire first, and Remus and Teddy follow.

Harry’s already waiting for them in the main room of the house he shares with Ron and Hermione. Teddy squirms in Remus’s arms, and when Remus puts him down, he runs immediately to Harry for a hug. 

“I missed you!” he declares.

“You saw me yesterday at the wedding, remember?” Harry says, amused. He ruffles Teddy’s hair. “I missed you, too. Where are your things?”

“Oh, right.” Remus pulls the miniature luggage out of his pocket and resizes it. “If there’s anything we forgot, feel free to pop over to the house and pick it up. We’ll be back next Saturday.”

“And I’ve got the mirror if you need us,” Sirius says, patting his traveling cloak. 

“We’ll be fine. Right, Teds?” Harry says, and the boy nods enthusiastically.

Remus has never left Teddy for any extended amount of time before, and he’s surprisingly nervous about it. He knows Harry will look after the boy just fine, but it feels strange to be going somewhere without him. And he’s going to miss his boy, just like he still misses Harry even though he’s only a Floo call away.

It’s only for a week, he tells himself firmly.

"Well, boys, we've got a Portkey to catch." Sirius slides an arm around his waist. “Ready, husband?”

Remus grins. He’s never going to get tired of being called that. “Ready.” 

“Be good, kids.” Sirius winks at them both. “See you in a week.” 

“We will,” Harry says, and he ruffles Teddy’s hair. “Say goodbye to your dads, Ted.” 

“Bye!” Teddy shouts gleefully, clearly excited to be rid of them so he can have Harry all to himself. Remus snorts. 

“Enjoy your honeymoon,” Harry puts in. 

Remus winks at him. Then, Sirius’s magic wraps around them both, and they Disapparate with a pop.