#anth: this house is an orchestra

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Ten: Keyhole

Written for day ten (of october) of @remadoramicrofics. 642 words. Also available on Ao3.

Their house could get really quiet and solemn. Teddy, as young as he was, was able to listen close enough to know when it wasn’t a quiet day before stomping down the hallway, demanding breakfast and clashing his toys together. On quiet days, he slid on his socks towards the kitchen, where he found one of his parents (usually mama, but sometimes da), pancake batter in hand and finger up to their lips.

On those days, mama opened all of the cottage’s doors and windows so she could keep an eye on Teddy and an ear on da; da put on the gramophone, soft where it was usually fun, and Teddy ran from the house. He’d take Bongui and Tammuz to Little Forest and spend the times between meals there, making hares sprint and birds fly away. Despite the cicadas, the birds, the cows, the dogs, the crickets, the quiet wouldn’t quite let him go, clinging instead to his sweater, his boots and his hair. So Teddy screamed louder, jumped harder, attempted to make the world shake and wake up. On quiet days, the world was too soft and too adult, like the old ladies dressed in all black or the visits to the cemetery. So when he peeked through that keyhole on a quiet day, he knew he’d grown up, a little. That he’d lost something, or maybe gained something, and now couldn’t go back.

It’d been a quiet day, but it had also been a rainy day. Teddy hadn’t been able to escape the stifling, dusty, timeless silence of it all and he was restless. He’d woken up and da had been there, jazz and candles and finger to mouth and water against glass, and Teddy, who had been looking forward to skipping school, had grumpily thrown himself on the couch and let the quiet settle on his shoulders and his frown. Da had let him have breakfast where he was, had kissed his hair and brushed it back with a warm, calloused hand, and then had taken a tray to the exotic territory of the master bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

Teddy looked at his chocolate milk. Then he looked at the door. An adventure was an adventure, wasn’t it? Weren’t parents’ bedrooms just as mysterious as caves in between a tree’s roots? He got up, quiet as a mouse, and avoided the places where the wood creaked, even on quiet days but especially on rainy days, sliding on his socks. Bongui and Tammuz hid him while he held his breath and looked through the keyhole, hands away from the door just in case.

It hadn’t been the first time Teddy saw blood (with Bongui around, he’d seen his fair share of dead animals and what his mama called “crime scenes.” And she’d know! She was an Auror and one of the best) but it was the first time he saw blood on his parents and he wasn’t gonna cry, because he wasn’t a baby and his mama was the strongest in the whole world, so she’d be fine, but she didn’t look so tough under da’s quiet hands, even as she smiled and tried to make him laugh.

(She did manage to make him smile. His da smiled a lot, especially when mama and Teddy did silly stuff like grumpily throw themselves on the couch or recoil from the medicine with an affronted that’s disgusting!).

They were quiet like an old lady dressed in black and quiet like a secret and quiet like they usually weren’t. The gramophone played on and the rain drummed outside and Bongui and Tammuz’s nails were loud on the wooden floor. Teddy moved away from the door, careful and quiet.

On the next quiet day, he stayed indoors. Maybe the quiet would get smaller, he thought, if there were more people to carry its weight.

[todayclassical]

March 12 in Music History

604 Birth of Pope Gregory, developed the Gregorian chant. 1515 Birth of German composer Caspar Othmayr, in Amberg. 

1655 FP of La Guerre's Le Triomphe de l'Amour. 

1710 Birth of English composer Thomas Augustine Arne in London.  1726 FP of G. F. Handel's opera Scipione at the King's Theater in the Haymarket, London.

1793 Birth of composer Augustin-Philippe Peellaert.

1826 Birth of soprano Sofia Cruvelli in Bielefeld.  

1826 Birth of composer Robert Lowry.

1832 Death of German composer Daniel Frederik Rudolph Kuhlau. 

1837 Birth of French organist and composer for the organ, Felix Alexandre Guilmant. 

1850 Birth of German musicologist Heinrich Reimann. 

1857 FP of Verdi's opera Simone Boccanegra in Venice.

1863 Birth of tenor Georg Anthes in Bad Homburg. 

1859 Birth of composer Josef Cyril Sychra.

1860 Birth of composer Salvatore Di Giacomo.

1865 Birth of tenor Edoardo Garbin in Padua.  

1869 Death of Russian composer Ernst Haberbier in Bergin, Norway.

1874 Birth of Austrian composer Edmund Eysler.

1875 Birth of composer Julio Garreta.

1878 Birth of composer Joseph Gustav Mraczek.

1878 Death of bass Osip Petrov. 

1878 Birth of bass-baritone Walther Soomer in Liegnitz. 

1879 Birth of bass Vasily Petrov in Alexeyevka, Ukraine. 

1883 Birth of soprano Ester Mazzoleni in Sebenico. 

1888 Birth of German conductor Hans Knappertsbusch. 

1888 Birth of composer Hall Johnson.

1898 FP of V. Kalinnikov's Symphony No. 2, in Kiev. 

1899 Birth of tenor Hans Fidesser in Vienna. 

1900 Birth of tenor Vladimir Toms in Chrudim. 

1899 Death of soprano Mary Anne Goward.

1903 The MET Opera stages Ethel Smyth's Der Wald. 

1908 Birth of tenor Eugene Conley. 

1912 Birth of American composer and conductor Paul Weston.

1912 Birth of Canadian-American composer Theodore "Ted" Norman. 

1912 Birth of tenor Franciszek Arno in Wilno. 

1914 Birth of composer Jan Kapr.

1921 Birth of American composer, conductor Ralph Shapey, in Philadelphia. 

1922 Birth of composer Thomas Hugh Eastwood.

1923 Birth of Austrian-English violinist Norbert Brainin.

1925 Birth of composer Georges Delerue.

1925 Birth of soprano Helga Pilarczyk in Brunswick.

1926 Birth of bass Zoltan Keleman in Budapest.

1926 Birth of American composer Rolv Yttrehus.

1928 Birth of English trumpeter Philip Jones in Bath. 

1929 Birth of composer Francisco Bernardo Pulgar Vidal.

1930 Birth of baritone Russell Christopher in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 

1930 Birth of composer Stanko Horvat.

1934 First complete performance of Paul Hindemith's symphonic suite Mathis der Maler, by the Berlin P. O. Wilhelm Fürtwängler conducting.

1937 Birth of Welsh soprano Elizabeth Vaughan in Llanfyllin, N Wales.

1937 Death of French composer and organist Charles Marie Widor in Paris. 

1937 Death of Hungarian composer Jeno Hubay in Budapest. 

1938 Birth of composer Tona Scherchen-Hsiao.

1938 Birth of composer Dimitri Terzakis.

1938 Hitler takes Vienna. Nazi's force exile of musicians and reduce the Salzburg Festival to mediocrity.

1939 Birth of tenor Veriano Luchetti in Tuscany. 

1941 Birth of Finnish pianist, composer  Erkki Olavi Salmenhaara in Helsinki.

1941 Death of singing coach Isadora Luckstone. 

1943 FP of Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man in Cincinnati. 

1945 WW II continues, allies bomb Vienna Opera House.

1954 FP of Arnold Schoeberg's opera Moses und Aron.

1958 Birth of Italian composer Davide Zannoni in Spoleto, Italy.

1959 Birth of soprano Catherine Dubosc in Lille. 

1964 FP of B. Britten's Symphony for Cello and Orchestra. Rostropovich, cellist; Britten, conducting, in Moscow.

1965 FP of Witold Lutoslawski's String Quartet. LaSalle Quartet in Stockholm. 

1969 Birth of mezzo-soprano Kristine Zadovska.

1970 Death of soprano Grete Merrem-Nikisch. 

1978 Death of composer and conductor Tolchard Evans. 

1985 Death of Hungarian-American conductor Eugene Ormandy. 

1988 Death of mezzo-soprano Gianna Pederzini. 

1991 Death of bass Michael Langdon.

1991 Death of bass Nicola Rossi-Lemen. 

1995 Death of soprano Rita Talarico. 

1999 Death of soprano Bidu Sayao. 

1999 Death of American violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Thirteen: Bones

Written for day thirteen (of october, 2023) of @remadoramicrofics. 174 words. Also available on Ao3. I apologize to the mods for bothering them every few months. I'm not good with daily challenges, but I like going back to the prompts.

Dora ran her hands in-between her husband's ribs, leaving behind a trail of soap and goosebumps. She delineated each bone and ridge and bump, nuzzled into his hair (much to Remus' amusement, who either petted her with a wet hand or tried to headbump her) and thought —ashamedly, the thought squirreling away as fast as a hare— of how easy it'd be to break him. She thought of her hands breaking vases and tearing pages and manhandling men twice her size and wondered if she'd done it before.

It'd taken her too long to realize Remus was someone that needed to be handled with care —someone that needed to be taken care of. And she wished she knew how to take care of people, that she'd ever been taught how to handle fine china and how to not tear dolls' heads off when brushing their hair. She had Remus' bones in her hands, and she loved him, and that love was so big, so overwhelming, how could those bones not bow under the weight?

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Eleven: That's Disgusting

Written for day eleven (of october) of @remadoramicrofics. 320 words. Also available on Ao3.

Living in the countryside with a baby, two dogs, a werewolf and a clumsy Auror meant you got used pretty fast to strange sticky surfaces, suspicious smells, and weird substances. It got worse when the dogs learned how to open doors: their best cleaning spells weren’t enough to vanish the smell, even when they got Molly Weasley on the case (she laughed at their haggard faces. This is just how it is. You’re doing everything right).

It also got worse when Teddy became a teenager. Nobody could deny who he was a son of when he tracked mud and creatures into the house or when he spilled his overly sugared tea on the couch. He liked gross stuff just as much as his parents and every other teenage boy, and “that’s disgusting” had soon replaced “welcome” in their home. However, for a bit (and just for a bit) Remus and Dora still had the ultimate trump card, so long as they managed to keep themselves from laughing. It was guaranteed to make Teddy go, “Oh, ugh, that’s gross” and leave the room or try to hide behind his hair, his scarf or his hands if they caught him before he did.

Noisy, wet, disgusting smooching, just as uncool as being a parent was.

The more comfortable with each other they grew, the more they did it in public, too, which drove Teddy insane and had him pretending he didn’t know them —including one memorable occasion when he went as far as changing his entire appearance in the middle of Platform 9 ¾ (there were people who knew him there!). Unfortunately, this only led to his parents kissing him noisily and disgustingly and even laughing when he rubbed his cheek so hard afterward it’d stayed red until the train was halfway to Hogwarts.

“That’s disgusting,” he’d say.

“That’s disgusting,” his parents would say, laughing, once he started bringing his girlfriend over.

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Four: Don't Look Now

Written for day four of @remadoramicrofics. 528 words. Also available on Ao3.

“Don’t look now,” Edda said, “but your parents are snogging”.

Teddy, being five, said “No, they aren’t”, because there’s nothing worse than your old, gross parents being loving in public, and proceeded to make sure to loudly express his distaste when he swung around and saw them, in fact, snogging. That, at least, made them laugh, which meant they were no longer snogging.

“Why do you two gotta be gross?!” he loudly proclaimed again when Dora caught him from behind, swinging him and kissing him in that noisy, obnoxious way she saved only for embarrassing him in front of his friends.

“Edda doesn’t think it’s gross, do you, Edda?”

Edda, being seven, said, “It’s very gross, Miss Lupin”.

Dora brought a hand to her chest and gasped loudly enough that a few adults in Edda’s mom’s garden party turned their heads.

“How very dare you. Are you telling me you wouldn’t kiss your husband and son if they were as handsome and sweet as mine?” she declared very dramatically. Edda stifled her giggles when Teddy, still in his mama’s arms, groaned as loud as he could, as if he could hide Dora’s voice behind his. He almost got her to drop him when he went dead weight.

“No, I don’t think I would, miss Lupin. I don’t find them particularly handsome nor particularly sweet, after all”.

Dora gasped again from where she was now almost bent in half holding Teddy’s weight, but then seemed to think it over, finger tapping her cheek.

“I am too good for these goofs, aren’t I?”

A second later, her husband tickled her neck and Dora shrieked. Teddy shrieked when his mom almost dropped him (which she didn’t, she hugged him tighter while twisting away and he screamed again because too tight, mama). Edda, who’d seen Remus coming and who’d also seen the finger he’d raised to his lips, guffawed.

After the party, after leftovers were shoved into their hands and promises of seeing each other soon, isn’t that football game soon?, were made, the Lupins walked home. And they would have spent that time together anyway, but there was something special about the long dirt road, the pink and yellow and orange and purple sky, the chirp of the crickets, the starlings’ and chaffinches’ last flights home, the smell of a summer day gone by. They were quiet, this time, letting time well-spent settle in their bones.

Dora and Remus leaned on each other, swaying, hands weaved together and steps out of sync. Teddy was their little satellite, running ahead or behind his parents and exploring the flowers and bees on the ditches’ banks, the funny rocks on the road. He scared flocks of birds, mooed back at the cows, and swung a long branch around. Sometimes, he looked back at his parents, looked at their hands (knew there was something there warm and safe, something calloused and gentle and strong) and he ran to them, and they caught him (because they always, always did), and they walked home together, their three long shadows stretching to the horizon, melting into one, until Teddy ran off again, being five and happy and careless.

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Twelve: Whisper

Written for day twelve (of october) of @remadoramicrofics. 411 words. Also available on Ao3.

Dora usually returned home with the volume turned up: it didn’t matter where in the cottage or garden they were; they could always hear her trip or stomp or crash to where they were, and she always engulfed them in big hugs and gave them noisy kisses that made Teddy go gross! and made Remus go all shy. She was a whirlwind of energy and words, telling them all about her day or asking them all about theirs. Remus saw the plants perk up when she was around, the sun get warmer, the night homelier. It was easy for him then to keep quiet and let her fill the space —she made it so much brighter!

It was harder to take up that space himself when she came back all quiet and hugged them extra tight (it was this marriage, Remus; I’ll be right back, Remus, I just need to check on Teddy; he was a kid, Remus!), but he tried. He wasn’t Dora —he was beaten down and tired, barely a whisper of a person and not nearly enough to fill that space— but he loved her, he did, so he hugged her back almost just as tightly and made her favorites for dinner or a cup of tea if she couldn’t stand to eat. He followed her around, more like a beaten old dog who had found someone kind than like a puppy, tentative and careful, and touched her shoulder, her arm, her neck, her hair. Dora held his hand in hers, and he didn’t complain about the tight grip (he held hers back, even if he couldn’t bring himself to do it just as tightly).

Late at night, with only the sounds of their cottage around them and their dogs at their feet, Dora would tell him, quiet and careful in a way she never was, about the case, about the slump of her shoulders, about how it wasn’t fair, Remus, it isn’t (and it wasn’t, he knew, and he told her so. He wondered, after she fell asleep, if at times like these he made her feel more alone —if he could truly understand what weighed so heavy on her. But he could offer her a hand and a shoulder and a hug, and he loved her so much, and it scared him so much, but he wanted to choose her, to choose Teddy, and he hugged them a little more often if not all that tightly).

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Seven: Challenge: 100 words

Written for day seven of @remadoramicrofics. 100 words. Also available on Ao3.

The first night they spend with Teddy after the Battle, they push their mattresses together on the floor and cling to each other, their baby safe between them. They notice each other’s tremors, wet breaths, and the desperation in their hold, but there’s not enough left in them to reach out, to comfort.

Dora thinks it should be quiet. They’re mourning, and it should be quiet, but Manchester United won a match today, so it isn’t. She sees Remus’ hand on Teddy’s chest, hears the revelry outside, and thinks how dare they, and feels Remus’ tender, knowing eyes on her.

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Nine: Candy

Written for day nine of @remadoramicrofics. 831 words. Also available on Ao3.

Teddy loves weekends because Dora’s home all day and they can do anything they want. Remus and Dora know this, so Remus will make sure there’s tea ready for her when Teddy, who tries being patient but is still a tiny child, inevitably wakes her up. In a show of maternal love, Dora matches Teddy’s energy even before getting out of bed. She swings him around, wastes no time scarfing down her tea and toast so they can go to the village or the pond or the neighbor’s house with the newborn calf.

Sometimes they will all go together, and Remus and Dora will swing Teddy between them, or Teddy will point at every plant or animal in the way so that his parents will either tell him its name or make it up. Other times, most times, only Dora and Teddy will go, because they know he loves his family, but they also know he loves it even more when he gets to spend time alone with his mama.

"He gets his da every other day of the week, Dora," Remus tells her once or twice. "Go have fun".

On weekends, Teddy gets Dora. They get to race each other on the dirt road, feet stomping on the ground, sun biting at their skin, screaming and scaring off hares and starlings and chaffinches (but only after Remus gets to kiss and hug and fuss over Teddy as if he’s leaving for Hogwarts instead of a trip to the village, or the pond, the neighbors’, always back in time for tea).

Every time, Dora cheats, sprinting down the path before Teddy’s even out of his da’s arms. She never lets Teddy win their races, even after all the teasing she’s been subject to, and Teddy loves it. He never laughs or screams louder than when he beats her, because he knows it’s real. Sometimes he’s quicker, or smarter, or sneaky enough to use the dogs when he sees them sliding under the wiring. He runs straight towards them, encourages them to run with them or after them, to bark and play and get between Dora’s feet. You cheater!, she yells, laughing, and Teddy runs even faster. Every time, with no fail, they reach the village sweaty, dusty, and covered in dog hair and grass stains. They’re gasping and panting and Dora tries catching him, but Teddy knows to aim for the edges.

Teddy shows Dora all his favorite places, like the bakery where the old lady sneaks candy to children or the creek where I did too see a Plimpy! Ask da!, and he looks so proud when people in the village give them odd looks. He knows it’s because they’re weird and loud (after all, they have bright pink hair and mismatched clothes, and they laugh until they run out of air, and they speak so loudly his da says he can hear them from the back garden when they go back home), and he loves it. He introduces Dora to everyone as “my mama, the detective”, as if they haven’t known her for years now, as if he’s daring anyone to say anything, just so he can say that she’s the coolest.

(The village is very lovely, but it’s also very strange about Teddy’s da picking him up from school or about Teddy’s mama being a detective, but Teddy learned quickly, so quickly you could be forgiven for thinking he was never ashamed, to be proud of being different, of being odd. And anyway, he much prefers for people to look at his hair and his mom than for people to approach him and tell him, very solemnly, “You take care of your dad, now, alright?”, as if his da could die that easy, could go that easy, because these people know nothing. Da carries Teddy on his shoulders and cleans him up when he makes a mess and can even make their big golden dog Tammuz take a bath, despite Tammuz being bigger than Teddy and fighting him much more about it, no matter what his da says).

Dora loves the weekends as much as he does, he knows. Her smile takes up her entire face, and she’s loud, and she forgets herself (and sometimes she buys candy just for the two of them, because da would eat it all, she laughs with a wink and a secret). They don’t get this during the week (she’s tired, and Teddy asks for Monky Loco instead of races, and he learns fast that tired means blood, and be careful, Teddy Bear means I’m hiding bandages from you, because I don’t want you to worry), and that’s part of his family being weird, he knows, so he doesn’t mind. He can be quiet and he can spend a sunny day inside, cuddled up to his mama, just as much as he can fall in rotten water while exploring and befriend Grindylows, even if he’s not allowed to keep them at home.

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Two: Cat

Written for day two of @remadoramicrofics. 785 words. Also available on Ao3.

Teddy had learned how to stand by clinging to the fur of their long-suffering probably-mix-with-a-German shepherd Tammuz, who also took on the job of teaching him how to walk, stepping carefully and barely wincing at the little hands tugging on his hair or the little feet stepping on his paws. Once, when Remus and Dora had been cuddled up on the sofa, hands intertwined, Remus' face in her hair and muscles at the ready in case Teddy slipped or Tammuz shook him off, Dora had made the obvious joke and, having caught him unawares, got a belly laugh out of him.

Teddy and the dogs played together, slept together and, much to Remus' dismay, jumped into every puddle and muddy surface they came across together. He was often covered in dog hair and slobber, and dogs in the village approached him to sniff or growl at him. Teddy did it back to them, which resulted in endless teasing from Dora ("that's all you, that's your son"). Remus laughed and chuckled and playfully pushed her towards a trough or swung Teddy between them, happiness prickling his eyes, squeezing his chest.

(His friends had been like that, too. A joke, a wink and a laugh, a furry little problem or the moon making him go a little loony. Dora made him feel fifteen again, made him reckless and loving. She also made him feel the laugh lines, the crow's feet, the delight in knowing they were there because he'd been happy and was happy now and that, if James and Sirius and Peter couldn't have them, had died too young, too troubled, he at least could keep their memory alive in this happiness engraved on his body, in the mischief and love he found in Dora and Teddy).

One day, after a storm much like the one that had led Tammuz and his sister to the cottage, they found a family of cats that had made the shed their home. The mom had been feeding her kittens when they moved the rake and she had hissed at them, looking exhausted but ferocious. Remus had frozen and Dora, who had spent the night pouring over files of a recent case and was running on coffee and her husband's goodwill, had hissed right back at her. They took the rake and the stairs and didn't take the gardening gloves the cat had made her nest on, and left her to it with a charm to keep the dogs away.

It was nearing noon, the sun on their backs and Teddy raiding the fig and mulberry trees, trying to find a fruit the parrots or the rain hadn't gotten to yet, when Remus brought it up.

"You hissed."

"Of course I did, was I supposed to let her get away with it?"

Remus chuckled, Dora faked offense and Teddy shook the branch he had a hold on, raining mulberries on them.

They forgot about the cats until it started nearing sundown and the wind began to pick up, howling through the trees. The cottage creaked around them, all doors having already been slammed, and they stood close to the hearth, a brilliant fire snapping and sputtering, snip-snap-whoosh, as if defying the wind outside. Teddy, Tammuz at his back, seemed hypnotized by it, so Remus crouched next to him, big hand on littlest back, to make sure he wouldn’t get too close. Dora, with their probably-mix-with-Greyhound Bongui (neé Bongo) at her feet, kept looking up from the files on the living room table and towards the windows, through the shutters.

Remus’ soft “Dora?” got her out of her seat, wand in hand and out the door, Bongui on her heels. His first instinct was to follow them, but Teddy’s “mama?” stopped him, had him feeling for his wand. He kept his hand on Teddy’s back, looking out the black hole of their door. Tammuz had stayed too, and Remus was glad for his loyalty. He jumped when he heard clatter —that had come from the shed, hadn't it?— and was about to Apparate when he saw Dora running back, a bundle in her arms that Bongui kept trying to get to and words she should definitely not be teaching Teddy echoing in her steps. This time he did get up and lead her inside, closed the shutters against the wind before turning towards her. Bongui was circling her, excited about their adventure. Remus held her back when she jumped and, from Dora’s arms, mama cat, cozy on their gardening gloves, hissed and growled and spitted at her and at them, her nails and her kittens’ destroying Dora’s sweater.

Close to the fire, Teddy hissed back at her.

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Eight: Guts

Written for day eight of @remadoramicrofics. 236 words. Also available on Ao3.

There were guts all over their garden.

Dora slammed the door in Teddy’s face (“Sorry! Please go get da, honey, alright?”) and surveyed the scene. A hare’s carcass was strewn about, half of it under the plastic table and half of it hiding in the clovers. Bongui, their probably-at-least-Greyhound-mix, was laying in the middle of it all chewing a bone, tail wagging, looking very proud of herself.

The door rattled and banged as it always did, and she heard her husband’s whistle before she felt his hand on her waist.

“I blame you for this one,” she said. Remus startled.

“What did I do?”

“You’re the one who found and brought that vicious murderer home. I could bring you in for housing a criminal, you know?”

“You wouldn’t dare. Who would clean this up for you if I wasn’t here?”

“I’d move houses. I’m seriously considering it right now. Teddy, get away from the window!”

Remus tried to hide his chuckle in her hair. Dora, figuring her husband wasn’t about to make himself useful anytime soon, took her wand and attempted to clean up the bloodbath.

“I was never any good with household spells,” she said, the hare’s head now looking straight at her on the bloody clovers. Remus kissed her cheek. A loud crack and crunch came from Bongui’s direction. “You clean this up, and I’ll wrestle that bone from her before she hurts herself.”

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Six: Sticky

Written for day six of @remadoramicrofics. 927 words. Also available on Ao3.

Teddy’s too young to play chess, but he loves the chessboard and its pieces. His grandad got him a muggle one, thinking it safer for a kid, and his parents taught him how to move the pieces, but he prefers to give them names and make them make noise against the board, to take them with him on battles and adventures through the garden (they've have to Accio more than one knight late at night, muddy and with marks of a dog’s teeth). He leaves them all sticky with candy and clementines, Dora grimaces when she picks them up, and she rubs her hand against Remus' cardigan. He retaliates, and, more often than not, they wake Teddy up.

He’s still small, so they expect it when he forgets all about it and gets into bugs (and no, Teddy, please don't eat the snails after you pick them out of the leaves, that's not how you eat snails, you'll get sick), but it still makes Remus kind of melancholy. He remembers sunsets with tea and his dad, a chessboard between them, chirps and buzzes filling the air, and his parents' efforts to make his lonely childhood less heavy on his shoulders.

(He can't recognize, sometimes, a childhood in the way Teddy is growing up. And that's lovely, it's lovely to see Teddy having such a different childhood from his own —he approaches the children in the village without shame or fear, he explores the world like all it has to offer are wonders and magic and love. He's so unreservedly himself, so proud of who he is and who his parents are, so sure of his place in the world, what more could Remus possibly ask for him—, but it's, sometimes, a little lonely).

The chessboard soon becomes the adults', the gentle taps and slide of the pieces a comfortable sinfonietta in sleepless nights, when their thoughts run away from them. They play it the day Teddy leaves for Hogwarts, unused to the silence surrounding them. Remus, those first few days with Dora at work and Teddy at Hogwarts, gets used to playing against himself, to moving the pieces between chores and Teddy's letters. He’s lonely, he knows, and it takes him a while to find a new rhythm, to go down to the village more often, to start waiting to read Teddy's letter at night with Dora, snuggled up together in their bed with her cold hands around his waist and their dogs at their feet.

The cottage around them still feels too big, too quiet, and the years will find them in Teddy's room more than once, looking at the books and toys and rubber bands he'd terrorized them with during the summer, but they learn to live around it, to not poke at the absence too hard, to keep their baggage in the other room. They love him always, but they love him extra hard during the holidays, just because they can, and Teddy lets them because they didn’t mean to teach him this, but he learned it anyway, to take care of his parents as much as they take care of him. Sometimes it's the three of them against the world, and Teddy knows it, and he wants to do his part.

There's still this one day where he doesn't let them, and they remember it because they remember the fear. Teddy locks himself up in his room, with his books and toys and rubber bands, and the most they hear from him is a ball bouncing against the wall. They don’t know whether to sit next to him in his room or if it’d be better to leave him be and prepare his favorite food for when he’s ready, and is this what having a child is? Loving them so desperately and being so scared and wanting so painfully to give them the world?

They go to him with offers of food and tea and a warm hand on his shoulder, but he doesn't want to talk and he doesn't want to be comforted and they know they're being too much, that he needs less, and being unable to help scares them in a way they haven’t felt in years.

It's sunset when Remus thinks of the chessboard. He enters the room with it and two mugs of tea floating at the end of his wand, and Teddy hides under his pillow. He comes out, slowly, like a turtle out of its shell, when he hears Remus setting up the board.

"Black or White?" his da asks. Teddy shrugs and Remus claims White, because he's gotten used to the London System.

The game is silent. Teddy seems to unwind with the gentle taps and slides of the pieces, and he doesn't talk, but he wants to play again when he loses. He doesn't talk, but he joins them for dinner.

It becomes something they do. A game after a bad moon, when their thoughts get the better of them, when they want to spend time together but have nothing to say. He does it for his da, they know, but he also does it for himself, approaches Remus on the clothing line or the flowerbed or when he's reading next to a roaring fire, chessboard under his arm, and starts setting up the pieces, hair blue and frazzled from his hands running through it (Remus’ reaches out to fix it for him, but stops before he gets there and claims White instead, even if Teddy complains about getting Black again).

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Five: Midnight

Written for day five of @remadoramicrofics. 795 words. Also available on Ao3.

They didn't often see midnights with a little kid that dropped off at eight, but they managed, sometimes.

Some of them lacked flair: a trip to the loo that became hazardous when Teddy didn't pick up his toys or when some wretched creature —a cranky bat, an uptight owl— got lost in their cottage and flew straight at them, talons first, shiny and deadly (once, after such a night, Remus woke up to find Dora, who'd been unwilling to face the bat in the corridor without her wand at who-know-what-hour-of-the-morning, sleeping in the living room's sofa with a chair barricading the door).

Others were less funny, never brought up in a Christmas dinner to make people laugh. Those were the nights of the full moon, when time trundled on, each minute a win, midnight only one moment more, and they were the nights they woke up in cold sweat, a scream stuck behind their teeth, and they were the nights Dora brought her work home, case files and notes all over their tables and chairs and desks and night time novels.

Those days, they ate on the coffee table next to the books, Dora was the one to tuck Teddy in, and Remus was the one to tell him a story, even if it was Dora's turn. Afterward, when he went back to the living room, he saw her with her hands tugging her hair, scratching her shoulders, her arms, her hands, teeth gnashing, leg bouncing.

Remus carefully (tenderly) brushed her hands off her skin, kissed them, healed her scratches, made her tea.

"There's hot water in the kettle if you want more" (if you want some more warmth in your hands, some more kindness to your body, if you'd only be kind to yourself), he'd say.

Sometimes, Dora asked him for help: a fresh set of eyes, you were in the Order twice, Kingsley trusts you, damn it, Remus, I just need you to tell me I'm not insane, tell me this makes sense, tell me I can crack this case, because the cases that followed Dora home were gruesome (if they weren't, they wouldn't have followed her home, overlapped themselves on her family, squeezed tight around her heart) and, now and then, she needed something to remind her that life could be good and tender and warm.

Sometimes, Dora could be found in Teddy's room at three, four, five in the morning in a sleepless night, scared of approaching him lest she bring misfortune with her, checking his windows, closing his binds (sometimes, if she felt safe enough, she'd dare hold his hand, trace his brow with her finger, barely a butterfly's kiss on her son's skin, wand in hand).

Sometimes, (other times, other cases), Dora could be found in the master bedroom, sitting on Remus' side of the bed with a dog at her side and her hands buried in its fur, unwilling to let her husband out of her sight. She filled the silence with everything she planned to do when she next got free time, with her coworker's gossip, with her plans for their garden (maybe some roses?).

Remus let her talk while he changed and bathed and brushed his teeth, and filled in her silences with Teddy's adventures, with this interesting creature he's attempting to study, with the gossip the little old ladies of the nearby village brought to their doorstep when asking if they could borrow a cup of sugar. Then he'd join her on the bed, on what was usually her side, and she’d only lay down after he did. She'd pretend, sometimes, to sleep just so he would, his warmth so near and so dear.

Those nights, after he'd fallen asleep, she'd consider making herself a cup of tea, so she could watch over her husband the way she did on full moon nights, but she wouldn't because that would mean leaving him, even if it was only to get the tea bags, and she wouldn't, she couldn't. She'd fall asleep eventually, anyway, even if it was only after she'd heard the first birds chirping outside, and she'd only know it because she'd wake up to a gentle shake, to mugs of tea on her nightstand, to her files in her husband's hand.

"Explain them to me, alright?" he'd say, because being a professor had never really left him, and he'd sit next to her on the bed, all stubble and old flannel pyjamas and bedhead, and he'd hand her her mug (and it was awful, because he'd make her laugh, make her Tergeo her files, and she'd attempt to push him off the bed, a smug smile on his face, and she'd try to hide hers behind her hand, even if he knew it was there).

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day Three: Cellar

Written for day three of @remadoramicrofics. 961 words. Also available on Ao3.

Their cottage didn't have a cellar. Dora absolutely refused. Even in those hazy days immediately after the Battle, she knew this was something she wouldn't budge on. It meant that their cottage wasn't the most practical thing for full moon nights, but it was also a statement she wouldn't back out of.

It also meant that Remus refused to transform in their home, in a house with a baby in it, Wolfsbane Potion or not (and, more and more often, as the years went by, it was not). In the push and pull between them, those nights became one of those "compromises" and "adult decisions" that Dora was still learning to make gracefully (her husband shouldn't be kicked out of his own home, she insisted. She was more than strong enough to ward a proper room, she said and proved and tried to guilt-trip with), so, instead of protecting a room or a cellar or an old barn, her wards and his were applied to Little Forest, a crowding of trees in their own back garden. Teddy loved it (there was always a hare sprinting away from him or a crooked tree to climb or gnomes swearing from their holes at their dogs) and Dora could see it from their windows under the light of the full moon, but not any other night.

(Remus thought it was a crazy idea, but he was used to crazy ideas, felt comfortable with them, felt at home when carrying one out).

Soon, much too soon, came the first full moon in their cottage, and wasn’t that something she’d have to get used to. There were still unpacked boxes; they still jumped, wand in hand, at the animals that surrounded them; they still hadn't thought of laying down rugs to prevent the morning cold from seeping into their bones. Remus was terrified, she could tell, but it was the sort of terrified he knew how to push through (if all else failed, after all, he could always trust the moon would be there, right on time, month after month, year after year).

She was terrified too, which is why she consented to Teddy spending the night with his grandmother and why she held tight to her wand all night, but she was headstrong and she loved him, and if she couldn't spend the night with him in Little Forest, she could at least spend it in their cottage, tea in hand.

(And that was Remus' compromise, because he'd learned early on to hide, to put out of sight, to bury and stow away and conceal and bury deep down under. Now he had to share this part of his life, too, as much as he could. Share the parts of himself he didn't enjoy as much, he found shame and fear in; he’d have share the burdens as much he shared his warmth or a hand on someone's shoulder or a trick, a wink and a smile).

The only warning he gave her was of the screams, of the howling ("It'll echo through the hills and the valleys. The neighbors will hear"), but she didn't think she could get through the night hearing only hoots and crickets and the rustle of leaves, so she told him to try, this one time, this one first time, without the silencing charms. It won't be suspicious this one first time, she said.

She heard, and she’d expected agony even if she didn't know what it sounded like, she’d expected the hairs on her arms to rise. She was embarrassed when they didn't. It wasn't as loud as she thought it'd be and she doubted the neighbors would hear when they didn't even drown out the persistent buzz of the fly she hadn't been able to kill yet. There was agony, there was a shriek and a scream and pain and howling, but it was muffled, kept safe and secret within the canopy in Little Forest.

She saw the hare before she saw the wolf. It was sprinting out of the trees, probably just woken up, its home invaded, determination on its little face. Dora jumped when the wolf appeared a second later, wand in hand because their spells hadn’t worked, they should have known, the land is too old and too itself, it couldn’t be charmed that easily, she should throw up a shield or move the hare or...

The wolf was stopped before she had to think about or. Little Forest was but a spatter of trees, but it folded gently into itself, branches swaying, trunks and stems and grass coiling and curving towards the wolf, holding it with care, gently guiding it back to their careful fold. Dora, heart going thump-thump-thump in her ears, hands shaking, squatted next to the window, face to the glass.

(When they told Teddy, years later, he was delighted. "Of course, Little Forest would take care of da!" he exclaimed. Wild things, after all, took care of each other).

Dora spent that first night next to the windows, every single one that faced Little Forest, wand clutched so tightly it hurt, catching glances of the wolf (and was that a gnome shaking its fist?), watching with worry every sway of the trees. She stepped outside when the light changed, straining her ears, and sprinted towards the trees when a pink line appeared on the horizon.

To her relief, the trees let her in. To her relief, her husband was safe, barely harmed, kept warm by Little Forest itself. She managed to Accio a quilt —old, worn and faded, but so well-loved, like all of Remus’ things— before the tremors took over, the trees (tall and imposing and threatening in a way she’d never seen them) the only witnesses to her fear.

[locatislunaticolupin]

Day One: Haunted

Written for day one of @remadoramicrofics. 997 words. Also available on Ao3.

In the early days after the Battle of Hogwarts, their home had felt like a haunted house.

The heaters sounded as loud as thunder, the doors of the cottage creaked as if answering each other. You could hear the wind whistling, the leaves rustling against each other, the bats in the blinds and the steps of the birds on the roof. Remus and Dora had woken up more than once, wands in hand, back to back, to something stepping on the crunchy leaves outside or to the mooing of cows far away or to a train whistle they had, so far, never heard during the day. Teddy, blessed Teddy, the apple of their eyes, cried when a door slammed, babbled while he picked up sticks and stones and grass and snails, laughed when a bird fell through the chimney and slammed against their bookcases while trying to find a way out, his parents trying to direct it towards an open window or door. Remus and Dora were frazzled, unable to sleep through the night, finding respite in Teddy's crying because then they had something to focus on, someone they could help (that sometimes they could help. They cried, too, when they couldn't figure out what Teddy needed, wanted, asked for).

It was scary when Remus was outside playing with Teddy and he'd hear a waterfall of metal against porcelain against glass against wood because Dora was doing the dishes and something slipped against something or out of her hands. He'd grab Teddy on one hand, his wand in the other, and peek through the window. They'd laugh, sometimes, at her clumsiness and at his paranoia; mostly, they'd look at each other as if memorizing their faces, their home, the brown and red and yellow leaves around them.

It was doubly scary when Remus arrived home and he was so quiet she'd only realize he was there because of his coat on the rack. In the multitude of sounds that were part of their daily lives, he went unnoticed, slid through the hallways like a ghost. (He did, funnily enough, always warn her when he was going out —just a walk around the hill; I'll drop by the village; I wanted to check out the pond; Little Forest; the pasture; the neighbor's cows, sunflowers, fields—. She didn't think he was overcorrecting or she'd have a talk with him —this was their happily ever after, their fresh start, it wouldn’t do to walk on eggshells around each other—. It was the war, it always was: let others know where you'll be so they'll know where to look for you, let someone know when to expect you back, reassure people that Death Eaters didn't get you when they don't find you at home).

Soon, though, there were even more noises to wake them up at night, and it was Remus' fault, and oh, didn’t Dora find it delightful. She returned from the Ministry one day, mud up to her knees, only to find that Remus and Teddy had adopted the puppies that had found their way to their cottage (they had walked through the storm and everything was wet and cold and they were crying and he'd only meant to give them some warm milk but they'd started playing and Teddy loved them, Dora) and they were now yipping and barking in her living room, their nails stumbling over each other against the wooden floor and catching on the sofa’s upholstery. They played with Teddy and snuggled up to Remus and they jumped on her when she returned home (and woke them up with slobbery kisses up their noses and lay beside them at night, a line of warmth against their backs, stealing their spouses and their bed, and scared them out of their minds when they got lost in the fields).

They were out in the garden, enjoying the autumn sun and bemoaning the mess that was going to be bathing Teddy after all the mud he was getting on his hands, under his nails and in his hair, when they heard it. This one was the neighbors' fault: they lived far away, enough to ask just how long the definition of neighbor stretched, but the echoes of their football games could be heard throughout the hills. Remus and Dora looked at each other, a spark of warmth and joy and mischief in their eyes, in their complicity. They'd moved somewhere where they could have privacy, but they enjoyed people a little too much to keep away from them.

The Lupins were too charming for their own good. They popped into the village often enough, and had charmed them enough, that after they started joining in their games (and if those got a little more magical, if the ball made a sudden turn towards Edda, who never had a chance to kick it, well, nobody had to know), their neighbors started walking or biking or driving the long dirt road to their home to have tea with them, scones and pies and sweets in one hand and a request for help on the other —"I insist you take this food, this money, this toy for little Teddy with you, you've helped us so much!"—, because the family didn't have a lot, and it was a pity that Dora had to work instead of her husband, he was so sick, but didn't they make the most of it, weren't they so loving, wasn't Remus so helpful, so kind, so warm? They were too proud for gifts, but surely not for a thank you, a payment, for the cookies they’d baked too much of because they were still not used to not having Little Jimmy in the house.

Their haunted house soon started sounding more like an orchestra, steps on the floor, bowtruckles in Little Forest, a neighbor yelling hello from the gate. Laughter soon started ringing through it as easy as pie, as if it had never left at all.