Chapter One: Resurface

"I see the world has folded in your heart
I feel the waves crash down inside
And they pull me under
I would give you anything you want
You are all I wanted
All my dreams have fallen down"

-Save Me, Remy Zero

November 2, 1981

"No."

The man seated in the chair beside hers went rigid.

"No?" The last occupant of the room spoke questioningly, his wizened features pulled in confusion. "I would have expected that, as his godmother, you would want to take him in."

She tensed, eyeing both men nervously, hoping they would accept her explanation.

"I cannot take Harry in. I'm barely holding myself together. I just… I can't do it. Not after losing Lily, and James, and my husband. Maybe if he was still alive I could, but I've lost everything. Everything."

A shaky sigh rattled out of her.

As she had been speaking, the man at her side slowly begun to shake violently.

"You-" both she and the old man seated across from her turned their attention to him, "You think you have lost everything?"

Something in her chest seized.

"What about me?" the man snarled, his eyes shining but fiery, "What about Harry? How dare you act so sorry for yourself when James and Lily trusted you to take care of their son if they- if they died!" His hands clenched into fists. "The only people who could take him are you and- and him! If I could take Harry, I would! I would take him in a second!"

"Well I'm not like you then!" she cried, shrinking away from him defensively.

"Yeah you're not," he sneered at her, standing to loom over her.

"Now, now, there is no need-" the old man tried to say.

"Yeah, you're not," the standing man repeated in a shuddering rasp, "Because I'm not a useless, unfeeling coward."

"Remus." The old man spoke the name quietly, but the tone demanded attention and silence. "That is enough."

"That's right." Tears leaked from the corners of Remus's eyes. "That's right, I've had enough of this." He began moving towards the fireplace and reached into the bag nearby to pull out some floo powder. The man paused just before he threw the powder into the flame. "If you could at least tell me who will be caring for Harry?"

"Lily's sister and her family." Though the old man didn't have to, he went on to add, "I have placed powerful wards on her home. Harry will be quite safe there."

"I suppose that is all I can ask for. Good evening headmaster."

"Good evening, Remus," the old man answered in kind, as the flame roared with departure.

The minute he was gone, the woman put her face in her hands.

"My dear girl."

"He doesn't understand!" she wailed, "It's not that I don't want to be there for Harry, I just can't help that I'm this way. I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't stop crying. No child deserves to be raised by me right now, headmaster, you have to understand, I can't-"

"And I'm not asking you to," the headmaster said, giving her grief pause, "I do not pretend to know what the loss of a husband or wife is like, but I do know loss, and it is a terrible thing to bear, not only once but several times over in such a short amount of time. I would not ask to force yourself to care for Harry if you believe you cannot."

"But Harry-"

"Will be fine with Petunia," he assured her.

Raising her head from her hands, she saw him holding out a handkerchief to her. And if she wasn't imagining it, the ever present bowl of lemon drops on his desk had gotten closer to her. Choking a laugh, she took the handkerchief and blew wetly into it. With a flash of impulsiveness, she also took a lemon drop and popped it into her mouth. The nostalgia of days past visiting this office and eating lemon drops washed over her and for the first time in days, she felt a little better.

"Will I still be able to be a part of Harry's life?" she finally worked up the courage to ask, "When I- When I'm able to?"

"Yes. While I wish for Harry to have a childhood away from the magical world, I think he should have some connection to it. Petunia, as a muggle, won't be able to provide that connection like you will as his godmother and a witch."

She relaxed just a bit more, relieved that she was not completely giving up the chance to have a relationship with her godson someday.

"Thank you headmaster."

"Albus or Dumbledore if you'd like, my dear. I am no longer your headmaster. You may now call me by my name."

"Alright headm- I mean, Albus," she amended only somewhat uncomfortably. She looked around the office, finally noticing it seemed dimmer than when she had first arrived. Looking to the window past Dumbledore's head, she noted it was dark outside. "I should be going."

"Yes, you should." As she stood and began to leave, Dumbledore stood as well, coming around the desk so he stood to face her at the fireplace. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Please take care of yourself. And if you ever need any assistance, do not hesitate in asking me."

"I will," she promised, feeling her eyes watering once more, "Thank you, Albus."

"You're welcome Mrs. Pettigrew."

April 7, 1984

Since the blow up in Dumbledore's office, she hadn't spoken to Remus. Maybe in the first couple months, she had waited anxiously, desperately, for any word from the man. The desire to read words of apology and comfort had outweighed the fear of facing more condemnation from him. But as time wore on, the scale tipped. It seemed less likely that he would ever forgive her, and even less likely that she could ever forgive him.

Her grief had blunted her fury then, but the longer she had thought on it, the more she realized that his words to her that night had been uncalled for. As much as she had once cared about Remus as a dear friend, such insults were unacceptable. Though Dumbledore would try to convince her to let go of her pride, she could not. Even when Remus finally wrote and tried to fire call almost a year later, she left the letters unopened and the fire calls unanswered. And that was how their friendship had well and truly died.

It was easy then to sweep Remus Lupin and any other related issues she had with him under the rug, especially in the aftermath of the vanquishing of the Dark Lord. The world was suddenly safe again, though the same couldn't be said about her way of living. With her husband dead, she could no longer be the stay at home wife she had been while she and Peter were in hiding. After facing that reality, she had gotten down to business.

First on Celeste's list had been settling Peter's affairs. That had included organizing his funeral, arranging the care of the ailing elder Mrs. Pettigrew, attending his will reading, and publicly accepting his Order of Merlin award. She'd spent weeks after all of it motionless in bed.

Her second item on her list had been selling their house. Too many memories. And without him to support her, she would need the money to keep her afloat until she had a job of her own.

Third on her list had been moving back in with her father. He'd welcomed her back in his vacantly affectionate way: simply patting her on the head and then telling her that she could have her old room back as long she promised to relocate the piles of books he'd put in there somewhere neat.

The last thing left to do after that was get a job. Even if she was living with her father and living off of her inheritance from Peter, it wouldn't last her forever.

While her NEWTs were nothing impressive, being the poor widow of a hero balanced that out. If there was one thing she was good at, it was keeping books organized. Flourish and Blotts turned out to be looking for a clerk and it had been a great stroke of luck that she had managed to locate a copy of The Invisible Book of Invisibility during her interview. She'd been hired on the spot then and there.

With all matters of business taken care of, it was only then that she allowed herself to think of her godson. It became hard not to think of him when both the Whiz Hard Books and Obscurus Books publishing houses started printing accounts concerning what had happened the night he had been orphaned. Her heart hurt every time she went to shelve a book and Lily, James, and little Harry peered back at her from the picture on the cover. They'd wave, even baby Harry, if they caught her staring too long.

When she could take it no longer, she wrote to Dumbledore.

I'm not ready to see him yet, she remembered explaining, but I'd like to write. So at least he'll know I'd been thinking about him.

Dumbledore had told her it was fine, and that he'd let Lily's sister know about it, so she began writing. It took months to finish writing the first letter. It was almost half a year before she finally sent it. She didn't really expect a response back, Harry was only three. And she expected Petunia Dursley to be suspicious of her. What business did some strange woman have writing her nephew? Even if Dumbledore vouched for her, if she had been in the other woman's shoes, she would be leery of someone who could take away her custody of Harry if she so choose. Surely, the woman must've become attached to Harry in the last two years.

She'd remained unbothered by her next two letters going unanswered for the next couple months, but soon, started worrying. Maybe if Petunia was suspicious of her, she would never give her letters to Harry when he was old enough to see them?

Bothered enough by the thought, she started writing two letters each every month. One to Harry, one to Petunia. She introduced herself as a friend of Lily and James's, apologized for her loss, and even promised the woman that she would never take Harry from her if she didn't want her to. Most of those letters went without replies, just like their predecessors.

That pattern continued until today when, much to her shock, a reply came back in the mail.

It read:

April 6, 1984

My family wants nothing to do with your freakishness.

Stop writing.

Petunia Dursley

Not much to the missive, but that was what finally set the warning bells off in her mind. What had she meant by freakishness? She'd never even met the woman once, not even at Lily's wedding. And maybe, that should've been a clue, if she had actually been thinking. Celeste remembered Lily, a strained smile on her face at her bachelorette celebration, telling her that her relationship with Petunia had been difficult. Since she knew nothing of the woman, Celeste had just assumed that maybe it had been a fight, maybe it had been their parents' deaths, the war, that made things the way they were.

But, even if Petunia and Lily had a difficult relationship, surely- surely the woman wasn't taking it out on Harry. He was just a boy. Just a little boy. Surely she couldn't.

Could she?

April 14, 1984

"Albus, please."

"I understand your concerns Mrs. Pettigrew, but I assure you, Harry is safest where he is."

"It's not his safety I'm concerned about," she said, "At least, I'm not worried about his safety, I believe you when you say he is being protected by your wards. But it's Mrs. Dursley I worry about."

"Petunia and I have an agreement. She has vowed to care for him and she will honor that vow."

A chill went up her spine at those words. Whether it was the words themselves or the tone he said them in, she didn't know.

"Be that as it may," she said pushing on, "Could you please at least check up on him? See how he is doing with her? For my peace of mind?"

She wanted to ask him to ask after what Petunia had done with her letters, but left that part off. It wasn't necessary.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to do so. I am very busy lately, however. I will send a colleague in my stead to check on young Harry. I will inform you of their report as soon as I receive it."

"Thank you Albus," Celeste breathed out, "I'm sorry for my paranoia. I just want to make sure he is okay."

"It is understandable, my dear. And you are certainly not the most paranoid individual I am acquainted with."

Giggling, she wished her old headmaster a good day, before pulling her head out of the fire. Though she still felt some uneasiness about the situation, she pushed it away. Albus had said he would look after Harry and she trusted him to do so. She would be receiving that report on the boy any day, and it would prove that she was worrying needlessly. Shaking her head at her foolishness, she stood up and quickly moved to the closet to put on her uniform robes.

No need to be late to work.

April 30, 1984

My Dear Mrs. Pettigrew,

Here is the report from my colleague on Harry's wellbeing.

Though I have not witnessed many interactions between the child and his aunt and uncle, I have been assured that they are rather respectable individuals. I have asked around the neighborhood, and all of the neighbors gush about the generosity and patience with which they treat the boy.

The boy is a bit small for his age, but healthy. Always getting into scraps with the neighboring children. It seems that the boy has some behavior issues, but with a prankster father, maybe that is to be expected. He seems to like playing hide-and-seek and chasing games with his cousin and the neighboring children quite a bit in their front yard. Hopefully, all that running around will helping with his misbehaving problem.

Does this help ease your concerns?

Yours sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore

.

May 1, 1984

Dear Albus,

It does. It really does. I cannot thank you enough for indulging me as you have.

If it does not trouble you, could I ask you to indulge you me once more?

All of this fuss has finally helped me overcome my fear of seeing Harry. If you could arrange it, may I see him sometime around his birthday? It doesn't have to be on the day exactly. I'm sure Mrs. Dursley and the rest of his family would like to celebrate it together and I don't want to disrupt that.

I know it will be difficult, what with her dislike of me. And I know it will be dishonest to see him without her consent. But I would like to see him, just so he knows who I am.

Forever grateful,
Celeste Pettigrew

.

May 2, 1984

My Dear Mrs. Pettigrew,

It is no trouble. I am proud of you for finally taking this step.

I will arrange a meeting between you and young Harry.

Yours sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore

.

June 10, 1984

My Dear Mrs. Pettigrew,

As luck would have it, Harry will be available to meet with you on his birthday. He will be staying with a friend of mine who is also his neighbor. She has consented to allow you to drop in while he is there.

She also warns that if you are allergic to felines, that you take a potion to counteract such effects.

Does this arrangement suit you?

Yours sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore

.

June 11, 1984

Dear Albus,

Yes. Yes, a thousand times yes. Thank you. Please inform your friend that I will be coming at noon.

Forever grateful,
Celeste Pettigrew

July 30, 1984

It was agony to wait.

Many times over, she checked and then rechecked that she had the right address, that the outfit she had laid out was appropriate, that the present was perfect. If she wasn't sure she would irritate her boss, she would even check to make sure that her request for a day off had been properly filed.

Likely, Celeste wouldn't be able to sleep tonight, too excited for the day to come. Indeed, for over the last month, she'd been befuddling her coworkers and even worrying her typically unobservant father with her mania.

Knowing that seeing the boy exhausted wasn't a good idea, she went to the bathroom and took a dose of dreamless sleep potion to put herself to bed. Once she was settled in and starting to doze off, she smiled to herself.

"Tomorrow, Harry."

July 31, 1984

Celeste Pettigrew had had many worst days of her life.

There had been the day her mother left her and her father back when she was little. There was the day she was rejected and humiliated by the boy she had really liked at Hogsmeade.

And for the longest time, the worst day of all had been when her best friends and husband died within a week of each other. Worse still that their deaths had been because they had trusted the wrong man. A man she herself had once considered a friend as well.

But what took the cake as the worst day of her life was the day every terrible thing Remus Lupin had ever said about her was proven true.

The day had started out well. Even with the dreamless sleep, she'd been awake just before the sunlight had started to stream through her bedroom window. To balance that out, she took an extra-long shower and made herself and her father a very large breakfast (and even committed herself to wrangling him out of the library to actually sit down and eat it).

By ten-thirty in the morning, she deemed it a good enough time to be getting there early. Thus, Celeste stepped out the door precariously juggling her purse, a home baked cake, and Harry's present as she summoned the Knight Bus. It was only by luck that she remembered to secure her packages as she boarded. If she had not done so, she may have lost all of them on the ensuing ride. They arrived in Little Whinging by eleven.

With nothing to do and thinking better of trying to knock on the door too early, she went to the park and sat on a bench and stared at the front page of the Daily Prophet (charmed to be still and inconspicuous) for what seemed like forever. There was a group of little boys roughhousing like puppies with their parents looking on, but it didn't really catch her attention. None of them was dark haired or green eyes like the child she was looking for, so she paid them no mind.

When it was finally eleven forty-five, she folded her paper up and walked over to the house of Arabella Figg, Albus's friend and apparently Harry's occasional babysitter. With surprising confidence, she rapped the door three times.

She'd expected the woman to answer the door, but when it opened, all she saw was empty space over her parcels.

"Hewwo?" she heard a small voice say, out of sight, "Hewwo? C-Can I hep you?"

Shifting her bag and other miscellaneous items to one arm, she was able to look down at the person addressing her. It took a lot of self-control not to drop everything she was holding and take the boy in her arms. There was no questioning who this was.

Green eyes peered warily up at her.

"Miss?"

Blushing, she finally recovered, coughing a bit before introducing herself with what she hoped was a smile, "Hello, my name is Celeste Pettigrew. Is this Arabella Figg's home?"

"Um, yeah," he answered, as a cat suddenly appeared and started slinking figure eights around his ankles.

"Great," she just about shuddered out, "I'm here to visit. You're Harry, right?"

The little boy's eyes went wide before his brows furrowed.

"Yeah. How'd you knowed me?"

"I knew your parents. I even knew you when you were even littler than you are now."

"You knowed my mommy and daddy?"

"Yes Harry, dear," she said softly.

"Were dey nice?" he asked, a strange intensity in his childlike voice.

"They were the nicest people I've ever known," she answered, feeling like she was soaring at being able to tell Lily and James's son all about them.

It all came crashing down when Harry started crying.

"Harry, dear, what's wrong?" she begged, no longer caring about her things and she knelt to his level, shoved them away, and placed a hand on either of his forearms.

To her horror, the boy flinched away from her.

"Liar!" he yelled, "Your a meanie and a liar. Aunt 'Tunie said tat tey were fweaks and dwunks and that lyink is bad."

Celeste felt cold. She reached for the crying and struggling boy, even as he tried to fight her.

"No Harry, no. I'm not lying. Your mommy and daddy were good people, I swear. They were nice, they loved you so much Harry, it's not a lie."

His sobs only continued to grow louder, attracting the attention of a jogger and some of the cats, all of which glared at her for causing the child distress.

"Mrs. Pettigrew, I presume?"

Glancing away from the crying four year-old, she found an older woman standing over them, her face stony.

"Mrs. Figg?" At the nod, she launched into an explanation. "I didn't mean to upset him. I don't know what I did."

"It isn't your fault, girl, at least not really," the old woman told her, taking a hold of Harry and setting about calming him in a way that made her immediately jealous, "Harry, be a dear and go finish feeding my babies," she whispered to the now sniffling boy.

He disappeared into the house before Celeste could say anything more. The cold feeling only worsened as she stared off into the woman's house.

"I suppose I am no longer welcome?" she asked dully.

"Now don't be like that," Mrs. Figg said, yanking the distraught woman to her feet, "I told you, it's not your fault. This is just a misunderstanding I'm sure we'll all be able to resolve once we've calmed ourselves and had a cup of tea. Please come in Mrs. Pettigrew. We have much to discuss."

And discuss they did.

While Harry was busy with the cats, Mrs. Figg - call me Arabella - cut to the chase with her over a cup of tea in the kitchen. She had been assigned by Dumbledore to keep an eye on the boy, and so she had for almost three years now. This entire time, she had suspected the Dursley couple of neglect and abuse of their nephew, but had been unable to find solid proof to send back to Dumbledore.

"The boy is tightlipped. I believe that girl has forbidden him from ever speaking to adults about what happens in that home."

There was no way to confirm if they were hitting him either, because he was always publically seen tussling with the children in his neighborhood, so that could be where the bruises came from.

"Not really play from what I've seen," the woman snorted, "More like terrorizing is what those little beasts are doing."

She had only just managed to convince Petunia to allow her to babysit. Apparently, the woman didn't like people asking many questions after Harry. She did, however, approve of Mrs. Figg giving him chores to complete.

"'Keep him busy,' the twit always says," Mrs. Figg snarled into her tea, spiked with some ale she had pulled out of a cupboard, "I never let him do more than feed and play with the cats."

As guarded as both Harry and Petunia were, Mrs. Figg was careful to act rather absent minded and strange, so that they just thought she was a dotty old cat lady.

"They underestimate me that way. Petunia sends him over more often because she thinks me harmless, and Harry slips up and mentions things he wouldn't if he thought I was listening that closely."

Through the entire conversation, Celeste had felt an icy storm brewing in her gut.

"And Albus never knew anything?" she finally asked.

"I voiced my concerns twice. The first time he promised me that he would speak with Petunia. When things seemed bad once more and I spoke to him again, he responded the same way. I realized that he wasn't taking me seriously, and that I would need more evidence to prove to him what was going on," she explained, looking older and more resigned than she'd seemed before, "Albus is a good man, and he does care for the Potter boy. But he has always had too much to take care of to be able to invest time in the wellbeing of one little boy, even if that little boy is the Boy-Who-Lived."

Celeste winced at the moniker.

"Today though, that was the first time I have ever seen Harry react in such a way. You are the first person to get that reaction out of him."

"I am?"

"Yes. And what he said confirms at very least for me that they are verbally abusive with the child. Even that much is abhorrent to me." The woman frowned as she scratched between the eyes of the Russian blue at her elbow. "Albus told me you are the boy's godmother."

"Yes, I-"

"I don't care what the reasons were for you not taking custody when his parents died. What I want to know is whether you would be willing to retake it now?"

"Retake custody of Harry?" she murmured.

"Yes, are you willing?"

Was she? Celeste was still a wreck, even years out from losing Peter. Only months ago had she even started seeing a mind healer for the depression she'd been suffering with for years. Was she any more stable now, emotionally and mentally, than she had been the first time she'd been asked to take Harry?

A useless, unfeeling coward.

Maybe Remus Lupin was right. Maybe she had been a coward to refuse Harry back then. Maybe she was unstable, but better unstable than whatever Petunia was to Harry.

And that was it, it seemed.

"Yes," she finally answered, "Yes, I'm willing."

AN: What am I doing with my life? This is the second story I've started in a month and I've already got several others. Ugh. Okay, well, this one, I'm not going to lie, this started strictly as an HP OC fic with the purpose of her getting into Remus Lupin's pants. Somehow, plot and Harry Potter getting adopted and her being Peter Pettigrew's widow happened, too. But that's the byproduct of giving into your plot bunnies at 4 in the morning. Let me know if I should keep going with this, because I'm not totally sure.

Btw, if I do keep writing this, would anyone want to beta for me? I'm not very great at finding betas.

Oh, and most important question of all: Did Remus seem OOC to you?