Chapter Text
Aurora woke in a strange room, in a strange bed. The walls were blue with clouds painted on them, like the sky. There was a strange little boy sitting up in a bed across the room. He had dark hair that tumbled around his face in soft curls. His cheeks were a deep rosy red and his eyes were very dark, almost black. He was glaring at her fiercely.
“That’s Harry’s bed,” he said in a high childish voice as Aurora opened her eyes.
She looked back at him narrowly. “Who’s Harry?” she asked.
“He’s my brother and he doesn’t like girls sleeping in his bed,” came the reply.
“The man called Moony said I could sleep here,” said Aurora defensively.
“He’s my dad,” said the little boy territorially. Aurora was pretty sure the man called Moony had said he would be her dad from now on, or at least it had been implied, but in the face of this strange boy’s fierce possessiveness she held her own counsel and ducked her head back under the covers until the man called Moony came in to get them up.
**********
The man called Moony was very kind. That was what Aurora thought when he poked his head into the sunny room a few minutes later.
“Good morning Leo, Good morning Aurora. Ooff!” he said as the boy hurtled out of his bed and into Moony’s arms. “She slept in Harry’s bed!” Leo said in a loud and complaining voice. “He won’t like that!”
Moony picked up the boy called Leo and kissed him on the forehead. Leo squirmed. Moony sat down on Leo’s bed with the little boy on his lap.
“She did,” Moony said. “I did ask him, you know.”
“You did?”
“Well, not last night, but I owled him first thing this morning.”
“What did he say?” Leo demanded.
“We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we. I asked him to supper tonight.”
“She can’t play with my trains.”
“All right.” said Moony. He gave Leo a narrow look but said nothing further to him. “ Would you like a bath before breakfast, Aurora?”
Aurora peered shyly up from the nest of blankets. “Yes,” she said.
“She can’t play with my dragons,” said Leo. He had dragons that swam in the bath and spat water at him.
“Not even one?” asked Moony.
Leo thought. “The purple one,” he conceded.
“Purple all right with you Aurora?” Moony asked. Aurora nodded solemnly. Moony set Leo down with another kiss to the top of his head and stood and extended a hand to Aurora, who slid out of bed and grasped it. She was wearing a borrowed nightdress that was too big on her. “Come along Aurora,” he said. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Pads is making eggy toast and there are strawberries.”
************
It was a house, Aurora observed, that was not set up for girls. The nursery was full of trains and blocks and a toy broom that could be ridden about a foot off the ground. All the stuffed toys were dragons or snakes or bats. The bed she had slept in - Harry’s bed - had light blue sheets and the comforter on Leo’s bed had a cartoon of Marvin the Mad Muggle. The towels all had Thomas the train on them, the boots by the door were bright red - another boy color Aurora thought disdainfully. Still Aurora liked it there. She had never cared much for girlish colors anyway. The promised eggy toast and strawberries appeared for breakfast, along with a choice of cocoa or tea (Aurora chose cocoa, of course) served by the other man who was called Pads. He had a big laugh that filled the room and eyes that crinkled when he smiled.
Leo spent the morning vigorously protecting his toys from Aurora until she took refuge in the study where yet another man lived. This one was old, like a grandfather in a story book, and he told her she could call him Taina, which was an old wizarding word for grandfather.
“Does that mean you are my grandfather now?” she asked, wide eyed. She was finding the relations in this house very confusing.
”I am Remus’ father,” he said. Remus was Moony’s real name. She had worked out that much on her own. “So if you will be coming to live with us, and I do believe that is the plan, then yes, I will be your grandfather.”
Aurora had never had a grandfather and she liked this one very much. His hands were dry and papery, his back was stooped but his voice was soft and gentle and his eyes were very kind like Moony’s. His room was full of interesting trinkets and the cat , who was called Indigo, was stretched in a patch of weak November sunshine on the floor. She liked to be petted behind the ears, Aurora discovered. She found plenty in this quaint room to entertain herself with. There were some picture books on a low shelf and some funny animals carved out of wood that Taina allowed her to play with. When she grew tired of these he brought out a brightly colored box that had a family of toy mice in it. They were dressed like acrobats in a circus. He touched them with his wand and they started to twirl and do flips and other tricks. He took some string and arranged a tightrope and some trapezes with his wand and Aurora was set for the rest of the morning.
*******
“Our son is being a right little bastard,” Sirius announced, entering the bedroom and and flinging himself, belly down on the bed where Remus was sitting up, reading, glasses on his nose and quill in hand, taking notes from an article in Transfiguration Today.
“He’s just feeling territorial,” Remus replied. “He’ll settle down. Are they asleep?”
“Nearly. That Aurora’s a quiet little thing isn’t she?”
“A bit overwhelmed I expect. Do you see the look in her eyes. She’s taking it all in.”
“I don’t know Moony. I’ve been thinking we were a bit daft, thinking we could manage a girl.” Sirius ran his hand through his hair, making it stand up and givng him a slightly wild air.
Remus looked up from his reading. He took off the glasses and folded them and set them on the bedside table. “What do you mean?”
“I dunno. With Harry, with Leo, I know what they need, don’t I? I remember what it felt like to be three, to be fifteen. With Aurora….. I just can’t tell. She’s so quiet, and she looks so scared all the time….. And how are we going to know what to buy her? Knickers and things. We don’t know anything about girls, Moony.”
Remus looked down at Sirius fondly. He remembered the angry, defiant child he had been when they first met, at age eleven. How had that proud little boy somehow grown into this man that he had been in love with all his adult life? Who could still take his breath away with his charm, his intelligence, his passion. With his …..vitality. He reached out his hand to smooth down the roughed up hairs. “I think we’ll figure it out, Pads,” he said gently.
“We need pink things,” Sirius said glumly.
“Aurora’ll tell us what she needs. All we have to do is listen. And she doesn’t care for pink, she’s all ready told me.”
“Doesn’t care for pink?”
“Yes, that’s just how she put it. ‘I don’t care for pink, Mr Moony.’ She’s very polite.”
“A bit too polite.”
“She’s quite gifted magically,” said Remus. “I don’t know as you’ve noticed.”
“How do you mean?”
“Little things. Like she dropped the flannel in the bathtub this morning and levitated it out. I don’t know if she even noticed she did it, it seemed so natural. And this afternoon, in the garden, she was pressing two leaves together and having them fly off, like butterflies. And tonight, she didn’t like those beans we gave them? She vanished them off her plate when she thought we weren’t looking.”
“I always wished I could do that when I was a kid!”
“See, not so different,” said Remus. He scritched Sirius on the head, and felt him relax under his fingers. “We’ll figure it out, Pads. This is a big adjustment for all of us. If all goes well Aurora will realize that she can trust us and Leo will realize the world doesn’t revolve around him and maybe learn to share his toys. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing.”
“You’re not worried?”
“Oh Pads,” Moony sighed. “You know me. When am I not worried? I’m worried about everything. I’m worried about your hearing before the ministry coming up. I’m worried that we can’t afford another child. I’m worried about Dad and what we’re going to do when he gets too weak to get to the bathroom by himself. I’m worried about the leaky roof and the foundation on the west side of the house. I’m worried that Ginny isn’t good for Harry and that he’s jumping in too fast. I’m worried that some full moon night our beautiful son is going to turn into a wolf and I won’t be able to keep him safe. I’m worried that some day that beautiful little girl we just adopted is going to grow fangs and crave human blood. There’s plenty to worry about.” He put up his hands. “I’m not so worried we won’t know how to buy knickers or teach Leo to share. I think we can handle that much.”
Sirius looked up at him with an indulgent smile, “You worry too much, Moony,” he said fondly.
“I know.”
“Anything else?”
“I worry about Sev.”
“Snape? Really? Not worth your time, Moony. What’s your worry about him?”
“He’s lonely.”
“Because he’s a greasy git.”
Remus looked at Sirius and sighed in exasperation. They would never see eye to eye about Severus.
“Sometimes I think he doesn’t believe the war is really over,” Remus said. “That he’s free of Voldemort and can go live his own life now. He’s helping us a great deal, you know.”
“Don’t remind me. I can’t stand the thought of him digging around in my memories.” Sirius shuddered.
“His testimony is going to make your case much stronger.”
“I know. I still don’t like it, all right?”
“He’s wounded too, Pads. Why can’t you see that?”
Sirius just looked at him and shrugged. It was an old argument, and didn’t hold much charge. It was an area they had long ago agreed to disagree.
"Anything else you’re worried about?” he asked Remus at last.
“Oh, probably.”
“You need to get laid, Moony.”
“All right.”
And Sirius took Remus in his arms and kissed him, knocking his copy of Transfiguration Today to the floor. “Stop worrying so much,” Sirius whispered. And for a little while, neither of them worried about anything at all.