The Lupin house is almost never quiet at night.
Some nights Sirius or Remus will wake loudly from a nightmare, screaming or cursing and raising his wand. On those nights, the other is always there to calm him down and back to sleep.
Some nights Harry and his best friend Olivia (Ollie for short) will sneak out to meet up with the muggle kids they've befriended during the summer or to steal chocolate from Remus's secret stash in his study.
And, of course, there is always one night a month where Remus and Sirius are not there, and Harry and Ollie sit together in the living room, waiting for their dads to come home.
But then there are some nights (very rare nights) where everything is still and quiet. Harry, Sirius, Ollie, and Remus are all sleeping peacefully for a change. On those nights, it almost looks like any other family's house. There's a fire in the grate in the living room, keeping the house warm. On the mantle, there are family photos. There's one of Ollie and Harry on their first day of their second year at Hogwarts, their arms around each other (their other best friend Draco Malfoy is in that with them, as well, but he doesn't stay all summer like Ollie because he has a family to take him, unlike Ollie). There's another of Harry's parents, Lily and James, on their wedding day. There's one of Remus and Sirius with a Harry who's only about four or five, holding ice-cream cones and beaming at the camera. There's just one photo of the four of them all together, but it's a good one photo.
There are usually dishes stacked in the kitchen sink because nobody in the family likes doing them. There's a jar full of knuts on the counter for every time one of them swears (Sirius and Harry have each lost about ten galleons overall to this jar). There's parchment and books scattered across the desk in Remus's study, unfinished work left for morning. There are muddy shoes and old cloaks hung in the front hall.
On these nights, it looks like the house of any normal wizarding family. It doesn't look like an orphaned hero of the wizarding world lives there. It doesn't look like an innocent man once accused of murder lives there. It doesn't look like a werewolf lives there, and it definitely doesn't look like an abandoned American girl lives there because she has nowhere else to go. Of course, all of these things are true.
Then morning comes, and Remus always wakes first. He usually wakes up Sirius getting out of bed, who rolls over and pretends to go back to sleep but will really be up in just a few minutes. Harry and Ollie will stagger downstairs an hour or more later, yawning and looking for breakfast.
Christmas is the happiest time in the Lupin house. There's Christmas carols to be sung with all the lyrics wrong, cookies to be burnt, decorations to be put up, and gifts to be given. Ollie remembers she's really a member of the family at Christmas, when she wakes up to just as many gifts as Harry has. Draco Malfoy, Harry and Ollie's best friend, usually comes for Christmas. At first Sirius didn't like Draco, because he knew who his family was, but they warmed up to each other. Sirius was finally convinced of Draco's innocence when he saw Harry and Draco fall asleep leaning against each other in front of the fire. At Christmas.
The Hogwarts school year is the quietest time of all for the Lupin house. Ollie, Harry, and Draco are all at Hogwarts. Remus is teaching at Hogwarts. Sirius spent the first half of Harry's first year at Hogwarts alone in the Lupin house, and decided he hated it.
So he started sneaking into Hogwarts as a dog to interrupt Remus's classes and annoy other teachers. Remus decided to deal with this by ignoring him-but Sirius won by turning back into a human in the middle of Remus's class on the Bat-Bogey Hex, shout hello to the class, snog Remus in front of all of them, then bolt out of the room before Remus could hex him, shouting something about true love's kiss turning him human again.
Remus had sighed, turned to his extremely entertained fourth year students and say in an exasperated voice, "Would someone please go tell Professor Dumbledore that there's a mad Sirius Black escaped in his castle?"
Sirius eventually talked Dumbledore into letting him stay on as a "teaching assistant" to Remus, which mostly meant interrupting classes with bad jokes and carrying Remus's things for him. Nobody minded, not even Remus. Remus's students loved Sirius, Harry was happy to have both his dads around, and Ollie and Draco were both delighted when Sirius started showing them Harry's baby pictures.
It was in the Lupin house where Ollie first accidentally called Remus "dad" and Sirius "dadfoot". In was in the Lupin house they realized she was their daughter just as much as Harry was their son.
It was in the Lupin house where Draco would do the same thing a few years later.
It was in the Lupin house where Harry and Draco would kiss for the first time, in the backyard beneath the enormous oak tree.
It was in the Lupin house where Ollie crashed her broom and broke both her arms. The Lupin house was where Draco fled to after his parents were revealed to be Death Eaters that he wanted nothing to do with. The Lupin house was where the first meeting of the new Order of the Phoenix was held as Voldemort rose to power again. In the Lupin house, Draco and Ollie would promise Harry that they would be with him until the end. In the Lupin house, they would meet up again after the war was over and they had lost friends, and the entire family had sat down to dinner and thanked their blessings that not one chair at their table was empty.
But it's smaller moments that truly make the Lupin house home to the family. Some of them we can share, and some are too personal for that.
One summer after their third year, Remus had wandered into the living room to see drago, Harry, and Ollie sprawled across the couch and armchair.
Drago was sitting up on the couch, one arm flung over the back and one running absently through Harry's hair. Harry was laying on the couch, his head in Draco's lap and his eyes half closed, looking completely relaxed. Ollie was in the armchair, her legs draped over the side and reading aloud to the two boys out of a muggle book called The Hobbit.
"Gandalf sounds kind of like Dumbledore, doesn't he?" Harry murmured, half asleep.
"Sounds more like McGonagall to me." Draco said, trying to smooth Harry's hair. "God, Potter, did you stick your head in a whirlwind to dry your hair this morning?"
"Nah, I use a tornado." Harry smirked.
"Are you two going to hush long enough for me to read, or what?" Ollie said, peering at them over her book. "You two asked me to read, remember."
"Yeah, we're listening, we're listening," Harry nodded, waking himself up a little.
"Um…" Ollie looked down at her book. "Which part were we on?"
"Bilbo was pickpocketing trolls," Draco said. "Which is a rubbish idea, really. I mean, have you ever met any trolls?"
The three of them started to bicker about trolls and the best way to steal from them, and Remus just smiled and backtracked out of the room. It was a little sad, as well, though. For a moment they had reminded him so much of himself with James and Sirius when they were younger that it almost hurt.
He backed into Sirius in the hallway, and from the look on his husband's face he knew he'd seen as well.
"They're adorable," Sirius smirked. "They're like us when we were their age."
"Yes, they remind me of the marauders when we were-"
"No, I mean Draco and Harry." Sirius laughed. "I bet you ten galleons they get together before they leave school."
Remus blinked, surprised. "I'll take that bet."
Or the moment the year before that, when Ollie and Harry were helping to make Christmas dinner. Remus's father Lyall Lupin was there for Christmas, and Sirius's cousin Andromeda, her husband Ted, and their daughter Tonks with her boyfriend Greg (an auror). They were all in the kitchen cooking except for Greg and Tonks, who were out exploring the village.
"Harry, find the treacle tart we made earlier," Remus called, holding pudding up out of Sirius's reach. "No, Sirius. Bad dog."
Sirius pretended to be hurt and went back to his dog form, racing around Remus's feet.
"Ollie, would you please get Sirius out of harm's way before I kick him?" Remus called to Ollie, who had been leaning against the counter chatting with Ted and Andromeda (who were cutting cookies into intricate shapes).
"Sure, dad," Ollie said, then seemed to realize what she'd said and that she'd never said it before. Her face went pink. Lyall Lupin looked up from the potatoes, a little surprised. So were Andromeda and Ted. Sirius couldn't look surprised because he was busy being a dog. Harry and Remus didn't seem bothered or surprised at all, but Ollie was quickly backtracking and stuttering. "I-uh, I m-mean-"
"Thank you, dear," Remus said, smiling at her. "Oh, get off, Sirius," He said, looking down at Sirius, who was jumping up on Remus in his dog form.
"Y-you mean y-you don't mind-" Ollie started to ask, flushing pink.
"Of course I don't mind, why would I? You're my daughter, after all." Remus smiled at her.
Ollie had never worn a bigger grin in her life. Her face was still a little pink, but none of them could remember seeing her happier. Harry grinned, too. He knew Ollie always felt a little out of place in the Lupin house, even though she was definitely part of the family. He also knew she wouldn't anymore. Everyone else just smiled and turned back to Christmas dinner.
After that, Remus was "dad" and Sirius was "dadfoot", a nickname Harry had given him when he was very little. Sirius didn't mind it.
It was the summer after their fourth year that the Lupin house saw the worst fight in it's entire history. Harry and Ollie, best friends who almost always saw eye-to-eye, finally cracked. Draco had just left after his stay to return to Malfoy manor, and Harry and Ollie broke down the day after he left.
Remus and Sirius only heard shouting and insults coming from the backyard for a few minutes before Ollie came storming in, scowling and looking angrier then either of them had ever seen her.
"What's going on?" Sirius asked, worrying already. "What's happened?"
"Nothing." Ollie said shortly. "Everything's fine." She went into her room and slammed the door behind her.
Harry was still standing in the backyard, fuming. After a minute he turned and scowled up at Ollie's bedroom windows, in time to see her make a face at him and pull the blinds closed.
The next few weeks were very awkward for Remus and Sirius in particular, because Harry and Ollie weren't talking to each other. They would barely be in the same room as each other. They wouldn't look each other in the eye. They would refuse to say the other's name even when they were talking only to Remus and Sirius.
"If you'd just tell us what you're fighting about," Remus was almost begging, one night. "Maybe we could help."
"You can't help. It won't be done until she's apologized." Harry said stubbornly, polishing the handle of his broom.
In the other room, Sirius was having a similar conversation with Ollie. "It's silly for you two to still be fighting," Sirius tried. "What's the fight even about?"
"We aren't fighting. He's just being stubborn." Ollie replied, stirring sugar into her tea. "And we won't be done until he's stopped."
Harry and Ollie continued like that until the week before the end of their summer holiday, when Harry finally turned to Ollie and said, "Okay, fine."
Everyone looked up from their eggs and toast, surprised. Ollie glanced behind her as though she thought Harry must be talking to someone else.
"I'm sorry," Harry said bitterly. "You were right, okay?"
"Apology accepted." Ollie grinned. "But you're still a bitch."
"You're still a jerk."
"So we're good?"
"Yeah, of course we're good." Harry nodded. They both went back to their eggs.
Neither ever told Remus and Sirius what they had been fighting about. It had actually been about the war with Voldemort-Harry wanted Ollie to stay out of it, he would go after Voldemort alone. Ollie flatly refused this and told him she was going with him no matter what, and she was sure Draco was as well. Harry insisted it was too dangerous for his friends, and Ollie insisted that there was no way in hell he was going off to save the Wizarding World without them.
From a historical perspective, it's very fortunate that Ollie won.
There's also the story behind Ollie's rat, Spoingo. He's always proved unnaturally intelligent for a rat, and he's normally very friendly towards other pets. That is, except for the rat "Scabbers", who belongs to another school friend of Harry's.
"Stupid Scabbers," Ollie muttered, fussing over Spoingo. He was sitting on the kitchen table, a nick in his ear from fighting Scabbers on the last day before they'd returned home for easter break. "I hate that rat. Spoingo does, too,"
"Though it is normally Spoingo who starts the fight." Draco reminded her.
"Maybe," Ollie admitted grudgingly. "But Spoingo's a good rat, aren't you, Spoingo?"
Spoingo squeaked appreciatively and went back to his food.
"Ollie, please keep rats off of the table," Remus said, walking in and noticing Spoingo on the kitchen table. "We're about to eat dinner on that."
"Spoingo isn't dirty," Ollie defended. "He's just not bath-tolerant."
Remus smiled tiredly, knowing there was no arguing with his daughter about her pets. "At the very least, put him on a napkin."
During the summer after their sixth year, before Harry, Draco, and Ollie left school to find Voldemort's horcruxes, Harry found Draco sitting on the back porch, holding a piece of parchment in his hands and staring at the ground with empty eyes. The sun had set, the night outside was cold and dark.
"Draco?" Harry asked cautiously. He knew something was wrong, of course. He sat down next to his boyfriend, glancing sideways at the parchment in his hands to try and see what it was. "What's wrong?"
"It's from my parents," Draco muttered, not looking at anything in particular. "It's not important." He crumpled the parchment in one hand, and stood to go.
"Draco, wait," Harry grabbed his arm. "Come on, what's wrong? What did they say?"
"They said that I'm not part of their family anymore-that I never really was. They said that if they see me again, they'll kill me. Or they'll capture me and take me to You-Know-Who and let him kill me." Draco laughed coldly, but whether it was from anger or fear Harry couldn't tell. "I mean, it's not like this should come as a surprise. They've hated me ever since I started hanging out with you lot, and they've gotten even worse since we started dating, so I don't know why-"
"Draco, hey," Harry said, standing up to be even with him. He grabbed both of Draco's hands, to make him listen instead of turning away. "They're wrong about you. They're wrong about everything. And… if you could go back, if you could make yourself never sit in my compartment on the Hogwarts Express, would you? Would you change any of this?" Harry hesitated, but he had to ask. "Would you change us?"
"No," Draco hadn't hesitated. He was still frowning. "I hate them, I have for years. I don't know why this bothers me, I've always known it."
"Then don't let them get to you," Harry told him. "They might not let you be a part of their family, but you are a part of ours."
Draco looked at Harry gratefully-the kind of vulnerable look he so rarely let himself wear, even with Harry. "Really?" He asked, and wanted to kick himself for letting his voice sound so weak.
"Of course, you wanker," Harry told him, smiling. And then, "I love you."
Both of them froze a little. Harry had never said that before, not to Draco. Draco had never said to to Harry, either. They stood on the back porch of the Lupin house, staring at each other, and Harry realized he meant what he said.
So he said it again. "Draco, I love you."
"I…" Draco quickly pulled himself together. "I love you too, you daft idiot."
Harry grinned. "Thanks, love, that warms my heart."
"Shut up, Potter." Draco mumbled, smirking back. "I'll have you know, I'll leave you as soon as I find someone better-looking."
"Don't know what I'd do without you," Harry said, and both of them realized that Harry was no longer teasing. "I mean it," Harry said, squeezing Draco's hand. "I need you, we all do."
"It's possible-" Draco said, and Harry started smiling again, knowing what was coming. "Just possible, that I might need you, too. Don't let it go to your head."
"Wouldn't dream of it." Harry laughed and kissed him.
The Lupin house sat silently for a while, after that. Without Harry, Draco, and Ollie to fill it with noise, it became a very lonely place. They were gone to fight Voldemort himself, and had left Remus and Sirius behind.
Remus and Sirius wanted to go after their children, of course, but knew they couldn't and shouldn't. They were needed by the Order, and Harry, Draco, and Ollie had to find the horcruxes. But Remus almost decided to go after his son anyway the day after the trio had left, when he found the note Harry left for him in his room.
Dear Dad and Dadfoot-
I'm leaving this for you as a way of saying goodbye. I don't know when I'll see you next, and I don't know the circumstances when Draco and Ollie and I will have to go. We're going to try to stay for the Weasley wedding, but just in case I can't say goodbye then, you'll have this.
Thank you for everything you've done for me. You're amazing dads, and I never felt alone even though I can't remember my real parents, James and Lily. You're my real parents, too.
I'm going to do everything I can to stop Voldemort, and Ollie and Draco are here to help. Ollie says to tell you that she won't let her favorite gormless savior of the wizarding world get himself killed. Draco says to tell you not to worry, he won't let anything happen to any of us.
Please stay safe as well. I don't see much point in winning the war if there's no family to come back to at the end of it. I know the Order needs you, but if they tell you to do something you think could get you killed, don't do it. Draco, Ollie, and I have enough danger for the whole family to be covered.
For what it's worth, I think you'll be proud of what we're going to do. I'll explain everything the next time I see you, when this is all over.
Love,
Harry
P.S. Please feed Spoingo while we're gone, I thought he shouldn't come along I left him in a shoebox in the basement so he couldn't follow us. Love, Ollie.
P.P.S. Also feed my iguana-you don't know I have an iguana, because I've kept him hidden, but he should be somewhere in the house you can find him with a spell. His name is Smaug, he doesn't answer to anything else. He only eats live crickets. Love, Ollie.
P.P.S. And thanks, dads. Love, Ollie.
Remus almost broke down reading the letter from his kids. It made him start to cry, something he almost never did. Something he could never afford to do, not in war.
Sirius heard him and came running.
"They'll be alright, Remus, they'll be alright," Sirius tried to reassure him, but he didn't believe what he was saying and Remus could hear it. "They're smart kids-they'll be okay." Neither of them really meant it.
The Lupin house waited silent and empty after Remus and Sirius left as well. It sat alone during the war, while a battle raged at Hogwarts. It was months before someone opened the front door again, and five very tired people trooped inside.
Remus was first inside, turning on the lights and hanging his cloak on the hooks by the door. Ollie limped in after him, her arm around Sirius' shoulders to walk properly. Her leg had been broken in the battle of Hogwarts, but she was just thankful to be alive. Draco and Harry walked in last, holding hands because Draco felt as if Harry would disappear as soon as he let go of him.
Remus lit a fire in the hearth. Sirius deposited Ollie on the couch. She cradled her rat, Spoingo, in her hands and then tucked him into her pocket.
"It's good to be home," Sirius said, looking around at the dusty house. "It's good we're all home."
They had lost friends in the battle. They had seen Harry's dead body, and for a few terrible minutes they had lost him, too. But he was alive, their little family was alive, and the war was over.
"Y'know, guys," Ollie said, relaxing on the couch. She propped up her leg on cushions. "I think this calls for celebration pizza."
A/N: Thanks for reading! I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters except Ollie. This was just a really long one-shot, so there probably won't be any more chapters of this story.
