Chapter Text
That night remus wasn’t going to sleep, full moon still a week away, unfortunately the wolf that day was restless. Lupin finds his way to the top of Astronomy Tower. The night is cold, he swears under his breath, if only he wore another sweater. His breath making little white cloud dissipating in the clear starry night. So he sits, back against the cold stone wall and waits, for something. For someone.
Not long after his arrive, the door openes again, starting remus, a dark figure approaching him. Remus knows who he is, he can always tell when Sirius Black is near, his smell so recognizable: leather, hair product, a faint reminiscent of wet dog, and tobacco. Even now and then he needs to recognize his lycanthropy has its own perks.
“Merlin Moony, it’s freezing out here” after that he holds his wand up casting a silent warming charm, taking place near the taller boy.
“How did you…” Remus doesn’t have to finish the sentence before the other boy answers.
“The map, you should take it from Prongs if you don’t want to be found”
Lupin is silent for a moment and with just a whisper says “maybe I wanted to be found”
Sirius looked at him, on his face a question.
Remus chuckles, playing with the hem of his sweater “I knew, if I wasn’t in the dorm you were going to freak out and trying to find me, I don’t want you to worry about nothing, about me. I just… I wasn’t going to sleep, and I didn’t want to listen Peter snoring all night.”
Sirius grins shaking his head “there you are” he looks at the sky, eyes searching in the night “me too, tonight isn’t a good one, innit?”
“mh mh, the wolf is restless, and with my mum letter this morning I just can’t stop thinking about home…” remus glaze at Sirius trying to understand if he can talk about it or not.
“go on, you never tell me about your family, I would love to hear some story”
“I know, I think it’s not fair talking to you about my life at home”
Sirius looks at him, cupping his face with his hands “Moony, stop, my experience with my family should not make you think your emotion are less valid then mine, just because my parents are blood supremacist and all the other bullshit, doesn’t mean you should not be angry, or melancholic, or whatever”
“also, I’m at the potters now, that life is behind me.”
Remus isn’t really convinced “right well, I was thinking about home, mum found some photos of me when I was very little… some of them even before all of” he waves his hand pointing at himself “the werewolf stuff”
“let me see toddler Remus John Lupin” says Sirius grinning wider.
“fuck off” but Remus is smiling back “are muggle photos so they don’t move” he slips from his back pocket of his jeans an envelope pack with papers and photos. “mum said she didn’t even remember she took them, but there are years in the back” as he opens the envelope Sirius sees a dozen polaroids and kodak stamps in there. He snatches out a couple where Remus was smiling, with a hose in his hands, the same garden of his home in Wales in the background.
“how old were you here, you are so tiny, I never thout of you so small”
Remus mutters “of course I was tiny, I was five, what you think I came out of the womb as a 6” 2’ bloke”
“yes, absolutely, when I saw your mother the first time I wondered how that worked out for her, you are twice her size.”
At that point Remus laughs “stop it, shit Sirius, don’t think about my mum like that!” he shoves him with his shoulder. After a couple of minutes, the laugher stops. Sirius looks at the sky while trying to find something in his pocket.
“so, what were you thinking?” he says as he lights a fag.
“that night, the night I was bitten” Remus said as he took the cigarette from his finger having a long drag at it, then giving it back to Sirius. As he smoked the other boy asked “you want to talk about it? Moony, it’s okay if you don’t”
Remus is silent, then “no, I think I want you to know about it” he looked back at the photo “mum still has those flowers”
“mh?”
“the flowers in the background, mum still has a couple of bushes, but I think she might have planted varies of them thru out the years”
“you know the name of the flower?”
“’course I know, they’re bluebells, dark fairies flower. I explained to my mum we should not keep them, but she likes them. For her I’m just paranoid, but I don’t want my garden invaded by pixies when I’m not home, or when my dad is not there… but I think I scared away fairies and pixies, good or bad, and what not since I’m a werewolf” Sirius puts again the cigarette in remuses mouth, and his shoulders relax as he took another drag.
“what do you mean?”
“when I was very little I had an encounter…
***
… That year spring was late, winter lasted until the very last weeks of April. One early day in May, a Tuesday to be precise, Remus looked outside from his bedroom window looking at the backyard and an ocean of flowers bloomed overnight. The colors were beautiful, blue, red and orange. He stared at the garden with wide eyes and his mouth open in a silent “o”. When Hope Lupin, twenty minutes later, climbed the stairs and opened the door of his bedroom to wake him and help him wash and dress up for the day, she witnessed something never seen before in the house: Remus completely still with is nose glued on the glass looking out. She crept inside trying not to break the spell fell on his son.
“Cariad, love, what are you looking at?” she asked stroking his hair too long to keep neat.
Only at that point, the spell gone, the young boy looked away the window and with the same wide eyes he embraces his mum in a hug and almost shouting “the garden! All the flowers are there!”
So she lifted him in her arms “I see, and you like all the color and flowers?” hope asked as she looked down. Remus nodded. His mum deep in her thoughts remained silent for a couple of second “well, what you think about going out in the garden this afternoon, when is warmer, and play outside?” remus looked ecstatic, and gripping her mum shirt nodded “yes, please!”
And so that morning the time passed extremely slow in Remus opinion. Hope made breakfast for him and Lyall.
“be good with your mum, pinky promise?” Remus took his father pinky in his hand and vigorously nodded. Lyall smiled and ruffled his hair. As his dad was putting on his jacket his wallet dropped on the floor, he hissed “shit” between his teeth. With a stern look on her face Hope looked at him “lyall”.
His father leaving home for work immediately after giving the two of them a forehead kiss.
With Lyall at work and hope doing housework Remus often played with his wooden and plastic toys, Meccano or with some toy car. Other times he liked to color in some picture in a booklet his mum bought him at the newspaper stand in town, but that day, seemed Remus had a hard time focusing on his toys. His mind drifted to the garden. He always loved to play in the inflatable pool his father brought home the year prior in the summer, in winter when the weather was nice Remus would ask Hope until exhaustion to build snowmen, they always used the same garment for them, an old brown beanie, a red and black checkered scarf and mismatched buttons. This time the garden was interesting because it’s the first year they have so many flowers, and Remus thought is with such beautiful color he will see the neighbors giant red cat who liked to hiss if messed with. And so, he was sat on the living room carpet with all his toys spread in front of him, but he wasn’t interested in them. He sat and looked out the sliding doors that overlooked to a dark wooden patio and the garden full of greenery, plants, and pots.
That morning was boring also for Hope, who had to do the laundry and fold it, washing and peeling various type of vegetable and nursing the pot with apricots for some homemade jam. When she finished, she sat on a kitchen chair taking a little smoke break. Hope Looked over to see her Remus with a playmobile horse figurine midair with his head turned to the patio, seeking something in the garden, not paying attention to his toys or cardboard books. She smiled, her son was happy, and curious and most important of all, healthy. After having Remus, she knew she would do anything to keep his baby safe, Hope loved him with all her being.
At lunch they eat some grilled cheese toast with some carrots, star shaped for Remus, who ate everything bouncing in his highchair in anticipation.
And so afternoon arrived. Hope struggled to put Remus in shoes and jacket but at the end she opened the sliding doors. The boy ran outside till the very back of the garden where all the flowers were looking for Oscar the Cat. Unfortunately for remus, but luckily for Oscar, he wasn’t in the garden. Remus crouched in the grass looking at the sea of flowers.
Hope was a little further away from him, looking to a tomato plant that needs more support, but she always kept an eye on Remus, as the back garden didn’t have a fence, bordering with a small oak forest, but was very dense. Hope was terrified that one day Remus would run and enter the forest and loose the way home. On the other hand, Remus was not bothered entering the forest, Lyall explained to him why he should not ever enter the forest, it was not safe and if something would happen to him, he or his mother could be not in sight and help him.
Remus played with the flowers making soup with rocks and sticks and small pieces of blades grass. He even encountered a grasshopper and run to his mum when this jumped on him. Hope smiled and took out of him the insect and put it in the garden again “they are very important for us, you know, you should not disturb the little inhabitants of our garden” she stroked his hair, as Remus was gripping her pants fabric tight in his hand.
“They don’t bite, they may be even more scared of you that you of them, you are a big man, they are just tiny creature”
At that Remus looked again at the grass “it wont hurt me?” he said as he loosened the grip at the pants. “Yes exactly.” The boy was not convinced but he returned at the very edge of the garden when he left all his finds and his soup.
Hope was taking out some dead weeds from pots she was going to reuse for new plants that summer, when the doorbell rang. She sighed and looked over Remus “are you going to behave while I’m going at the door?” Remus answers was a very loud yes from the back waving his sticks above his head. His mum smiled and returned inside answering the door.
Left alone Remus wondered a bit within the flowers and sat in the middle of them, as he did so he brushed with a bluebell flower. He looked at the bright light blue flower and smiled, so he picked it up and shook it. As he did so he heard a ringing sound. He looked again inside the house, it wasn’t the door again, so he shook it again, the same sound, but this time near the forest he saw something moving, a small creature with shiny translucent wings. Remus stood up looking in the dark of the forest, eyes wyde open triyng to capture again the creature. He shook again the flower. And in front of him there was, a little fairy hidden behind a tree trunk, looking curiously at him. The tiny creature was like an image his dad shown him in one of his fancy heavy books.
With green eyes and golden shimmery clothes, the fairy was looking back at the little human. They knew he was a son of a wizard, so they never dared to bring him in the forest, but they smiled at him, if he wanted to walk alone to the forest, they would not be the one to blame for the recklessness of the boy. They did nothing.
The moment was not long, Hope walked again outside, and she raised her voice so Remus could hear her, “cariad, my love, come inside, miss Jones brought some new clothes for you, do you want to see them?”
Remus startled jerked his body toward his mum, before running to her he looked back at forest, now dark and silent as nothing was ever there. He ran back inside.
***
Sirius eyes lost in the dark of the night, as he listened to the story.
“so you think you saw a fairy?”
“I don’t think, I’m sure that was a fucking fairy in the back of my garden” Remus answers as he puts away the photo.
“did you saw her again?” Sirius asks amused looking at the other boy.
Remus shakes his head. “no, it wasn’t long before the day he bit me”
“as I said, you don’t need to tell me” the dark haired boy put one of his arm around the other ones shoulders and kisses his head.
“but I want to” he takes a really long breath “it’s just, it will take me time I think”
“well we have time, or at least we have until the sunrise”
At that point remus chuckles “yeah, until the sunrise then.”