Chapter Text
He never planned on coming here. He never planned on coming to Privet Drive, to the home of Petunia and Vernon Dursley and now Harry Potter. Remus meant to live in shameful ignorance until the universe finally broke him.
But the universe clearly has other plans for him. Or, at the least, Lily Potter has other plans for him.
Remus isn't one to put much stock into dreams and the tales they tell despite the claims all his divination textbooks make. But then the ghost of Lily Potter herself waltzed into his regular 2am nightmare and yelled until her voice went hoarse. Now, he isn't so sure. He woke from his nightmare with Lily's voice still ringing in his ear, painfully aware of just how far he was from Surrey.
Lily was a vision, just the same as she had been in life, fiery red hair whipping around as she berated Remus for his “frankly appalling inaction”, arms waving and stamping her feet. He hadn’t received a scolding from Lily since their days at Hogwarts when she would have yelled after all the Marauders after pranking underclassmen or the Slytherins. Lily was angrier than he ever saw her in life. Her lecture ended with a final stamp of the foot and a warning to fix it immediately or else she wouldn’t be so nice next time. He woke the moment her image faded away, cold sweat soaked his pajamas, and though Lily never once uttered what he so spectacularly mucked up, Remus knew exactly how he failed Lily Potter.
Remus haphazardly lunged from his bed, threw on some clothes and apparated to Little Whinging without a second thought.
But now that he's arrived on Privet Drive, he's more than a little lost on what to do. He can’t charge into Number 4 Privet Drive and demand to see Harry. And if what he remembers of Lily’s sister Petunia and her husband Vernon Dursley is correct, then knocking on the door and politely asking for a visit with Harry certainly won’t work either.
Remus’ gut floods with shame thinking of Harry stuck with Vernon and Petunia Dursley as the replacement for James and Lily though he knows there was little he could do in the immediate aftermath of their deaths. It is nearly five months since James and Lily died and Remus hardly allowed himself a moment to consider how Harry was fairing since his parents’ deaths. He’d practically forgotten Harry, too wrapped up in his guilt and pain over the deaths of three of his greatest friends and the betrayal of the fourth. It’s a miracle Dream-Lily wasn’t screaming at him months ago. He really should have made a point to at least ensure Harry was doing okay. One of Dream-Lily's grievances rings throughout his head on repeat as he paces down the street and back up again-- "you're all he's got left! you're all he's got left! all he's got left!" His mind can't fully grasp the idea that he, Remus Lupin, is all Harry James Potter has left in this world but when he breaks it down, there's no way around it. Harry's parents are dead. Both sets of his grandparents perished before he was even born. His godfather is gone. Uncle Peter- dead. And Remus doesn't have to have met Petunia and Vernon Dursley to know they aren't likely to be the right people to be tasked with raising Harry, the most famous wizarding boy in the world.
It’s nearly half-past nine and Remus has been loitering on Privet Drive for almost an hour when the door to Number 4 opens and a woman he can only assume is Petunia Dursley carries out a pudgy boy in one arm and rudely ushers a second boy onto the porch with the other. Remus is standing a few doors down but there is no doubt in his mind that the second boy is Harry and immediately he is overwhelmed with feelings of joy and guilt all tangled together in his chest. While Petunia locks the door behind her, Harry, now only a few months shy of two years old, toddles down the porch step and onto the pathway leading up to 4 Privet Drive when he stops at the end of the way and looks toward Remus.
It’s then that Remus thinks his heart nearly stops because Harry isn’t just looking at him, he’s staring him down. And then Harry’s whole face lights up and he’s running, running right for Remus. And he is viscerally reminded of how much he loved-loves this boy.
“MOONY!” Harry shrieks. The boy’s glasses are askew and his hair is possibly far wilder than James’ ever was as he races undeterred down the sidewalk. "MOONY!"
Remus is too stunned to do anything other than stand dumbstruck but that’s okay because the rest of his body seems to remember what to do when a toddler is running at full speed toward him. Just before Harry’s tiny legs reach him, Remus crouches down and throws his arms open, catching Harry and holding him tightly to his chest the moment the boy reaches him.
Remus undoubtedly has known love before. He loved his parents who would have done anything for him; he loved his friends who never once were afraid of him and who became animagi just for him; he loved Sirius Black with what he thought was his whole heart; and, of course, he loved Harry from the moment he was born. But the love he feels as Harry’s arms cling tightly around his neck is unlike any other. It fills his chest so tightly it nearly hurts, reminding him of the responsibility he so staunchly avoided the last five months weighing heavily in his gut.
“Moony! Moony! It’s Moony!” Harry says on repeat as Remus finally finds the strength to stand.
Distantly, Remus is aware of Petunia Dursley yelling from the porch, demanding Harry come back at once, but he could not care any less what she’s going on about, all of his attention focused only on the toddler safely nestled in his arms.
“Harry,” Remus croaks upon realizing that he still hasn’t said a word. Harry leans back in Remus’ arms to look up at him with a massive smile upon hearing his name. Remus doesn’t know what he’s done in his life to deserve Harry’s reaction to his arrival on Privet Drive but he resolves right then to spend the rest of his time on earth ensuring he does.
"Moony," says Harry once more as he throws his little arms around Remus' neck.
Remus straightens up and begins walking to where Petunia is still squawking.
“Harry! What will the neighbors think! Harry, you can’t be seen with a man so clearly homeless! This is a good neighborhood, we do not associate with people like that! Harry!”
He frowns upon realizing it isn't Harry running off to a strange man that has her worked up. As Remus gets closer to where Petunia stands on the porch, her shrieks only grow louder.
“Get away from me and my son!” she yells shielding the other boy with her body. “Take that boy if you must! But leave us!”
Remus holds out an arm in what is meant to be a placating gesture but all it accomplishes is louder shrieks from Petunia.
“Don't get closer! I’ll call the police!” she says.
“Mrs. Dursley please calm down,” he says. “I’m only a friend of Lily’s.”
Petunia promptly stops the squawking, drawing her lips into one thin line. She hikes the boy on her hip up closer to her and clutches him tighter still.
“Your kind aren’t welcome here. Give me Harry and leave here immediately before my husband returns home. He won't be as polite as I am.” Remus is momentarily stunned, wondering how on earth Petunia Dursley came to know about his condition before realizing it is wizarding kind she is referring to.
When Remus makes no move to hand Harry over or set him back down on the ground, Petunia reaches for him with the hand not holding onto the other boy. Remus spent almost all of his formative years learning to expertly avoid whatever prank James, Sirius, or Peter cooked up and dodging Petunia’s weak attempt at grabbing Harry is done practically on autopilot.
Harry whimpers even as Remus dances out of Petunia’s reach and tucks his face further into Remus’ shoulder. If Petunia’s reaction to Remus’ arrival when she’d still thought he was a vagrant passing through wasn’t enough to unsettle him, the fear emanating from Harry certainly is.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’d like a look around where Harry is living now,” he says calmly.
Petunia’s face contorts into something akin to rage as she snarls, “absolutely not!”
Gently, he shifts Harry in his arms, resting one hand under his legs and the other across his back before drawing himself up to his full height and giving Petunia the most unnerving smile he can muster. He doesn't make a habit of trying to intimidate little suburban women but desperate times call for desperate measures.
“Petunia,” he begins as he takes a step closer to her. “Lily was a great witch, I’m certain you knew that,” Remus says coldly.
Petunia swallows before nodding once.
“You’re right. She was,” he says.
Remus takes another step.
“Lily and I were neck and neck with each other for top marks at school. I suppose you could say we were at the top of, as you so eloquently put, our kind, so certainly you understand the magic I am capable of. The things I can do.”
Remus shoots her a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes and pats Harry soothingly on the back before continuing.
“If I were you, I would invite me in so I could see with my own two eyes what a fantastic life you are providing for my best friends’ son in the wake of their untimely deaths.”
In another life, Remus would feel horribly guilty for so unfairly intimidating a young muggle outside her own home. Sirius, James, and Peter probably would have laughed until they cried watching his performance while Lily would have told him off for his cruelty. Somehow he doesn’t think Lily would blame him now.
Petunia fixes him a dirty look before hiking the other boy up in her arms again and begrudgingly unlocking the door.
“Hurry up then,” she says. “His door is the first on the right.”
Remus shuffles inside and frowns when the first door on the right turns out to be underneath the stairs of all places.
“This one here?” he asks.
She nods.
He pulls open the door with one hand and is utterly appalled by what he sees. A crib is shoved unceremoniously into the tiny alcove closet with a single light bulb hanging from above to illuminate the room. There is not a single stuffed animal or toy; no family photos of Lily or James, nothing other than a faded baby blanket and a ratty pillow. Remus throws the door shut and his stomach sinks when he catches sight of a lock on the outside of the door.
The absolute joy of seeing his best friends’ son for the first time in nearly half a year is swiftly replaced by cold fury.
“Do you- lock -him in here?” he says.
Petunia rolls her eyes. “What else are we supposed to do? The idiot boy figured out how to get out of the crib months ago and crawled to our room wailing. How were we supposed to get any sleep?” she says. When Remus continues to scowl uncomprehendingly she continues, “How was our precious Dudley supposed to get any sleep!”
"You locked up Harry-"
Petunia nods.
"In. A. Closet." It's not a question.
Petunia nods a second time. They could have this conversation all day long and Petunia would never come to see the frank cruelty of her actions. He could threaten her- with magic, without- and she would still find some way to justify the barbarity of locking an orphan in a cupboard. Remus doesn’t need to hear any more. In one swift step, he is back at the front door and yanking it open.
“Goodbye then. I’d say it was nice meeting you, but then I’d be lying.” He pulls the door shut behind him and stalks down the front porch, stomping right through Petunia's perfectly prim garden. He can scarcely remember being so angry in his entire 21 years of existence. Locking a child- a baby- in a broom closet, who even so much as thinks to do that?
Harry is clutching tightly to his sweater with one hand and sucking on the fingers of the other, apparently unperturbed by the entire situation folding out in from of him and Remus is so desperately grateful for his childhood ignorance to the greater world.
He hears the door to 4 Privet Drive open and grimaces.
From behind him, Petunia yells, “if you take him, you better not bring him back! We’ll send him straight to child services next time!”
Without turning around Remus throws one hand in the air, making a rude gesture he's sure would have James and Sirius howling with laughter and Petunia appalled.
“Don’t worry. You’ll never be seeing him again.” And Remus means it. He'll move heaven and earth if it that's what it takes to ensure Vernon and Petunia Dursley will never so much as see Harry James Potter again, let alone be his sole care providers.
There's another loud pop, then Remus and Harry leave Little Whinging for good.
Remus’ little cottage isn't prepared for the addition of a toddler in the least. Before Harry was born, Lily's relatives threw her a muggle baby shower which Remus, Sirius, Peter, and James were all required to attend. Sirius and Peter put up a big fit about it but Remus hadn't minded in the slightest. They played games Remus had never heard of and ate at least seven different kinds of baby-themed food. The partygoers brought gift after gift of all the various bits and bobs they assured James and Lily that they would need to properly raise a child: baby bottles, bibs, clothes so tiny that it made Remus dizzy to think anyone alive could be so small, toys upon toys, and so much more. Remus doesn't have any of that. He doesn't even have a place for Harry to sleep when night falls. Remus briefly considers transfiguring one of his two kitchen chairs into a crib but thinks better of it. After what he saw at the Dursley's, putting Harry into a crib for the night feels far too much like putting him into a baby-sized prison for his liking.
In the month before Harry was born, Sirius bought a myriad of baby books- muggle and wizard published- more than one of which he forced into Remus or Peter's hands and insisted they read. After the second book came home, Remus asked why they were the ones needing to read the baby books when neither himself, Sirius, or Peter was pregnant Sirius said, "We're about to be uncles! Uncles! We can't take this lightly. We've got to know what to do if James and Lily aren't about." And that was it. Sirius was right and Remus dutifully read every single book Sirius brought back to their apartment. He knows more than one of those books went over whether or not a grown-up could safely sleep in the same bed as a baby but for the life of him he can't remember what they said. He left those books behind, just the same as he left everything else that was Sirius' or given to him by Sirius or even jointly owned between him and Sirius, when he moved from their shared apartment and into his family house in Wales after the war ended.
At eighteen months, Harry is far from as helpless as a baby; he can move, hit, and yell and Remus hopes that will be enough to keep him from suffocating at night sleeping with him in his own bed. Harry is more than content to sleep beside Moony and he gleefully tells Remus no less than five times before he finally succumbs to sleep. Remus lies awake far after Harry, splitting his time between watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest in his sleep and considering how very different the life woke up to in the morning is from the one he's living come evening.
Eventually, Remus too goes to bed; he dreams of not of an angry, yelling Lily Potter but of standing on a foggy street eerily reminiscent of Godric's Hollow and holding Harry at his hip. Across the white fog blurring the world around them stands James and Lily. James smiles and waves at the two of them while Lily blows a kiss and laughs.
In the dream, Harry points to Remus and yells “Moony!” just as he had upon spotting him earlier that day. His heart swells and he can't keep the smile off of his face.
“Moony will take good care of you, Harry,” James says. “He practically raised me and Padfoot.”
Remus wakes with a start to find Harry kicked off the covers and curled up beside him at some point in the night. Gingerly, he pulls the blanket up under Harry’s chin and gives him a pat on the back.
He’s barely 22 and nearly alone in the world, but Remus Lupin will be damned before he lets down Lily Potter again.