CHAPTER ONE
It was a crisp late autumn morning when the two men rolled up outside the little house in Godric's hollow on the big, spluttering motorcycle. The sound of the engine would have been enough to rip the leaves from the trees, were the wind not already doing so. As the motorbike pulled up at speed, aimed right at the fence that separated two houses, a new house sprang, seemingly from nowhere, to accommodate the bike in its driveway. A curtain twitched as the engine idled, its roar audible even over the howling wind, which had been going strong all night. As Sirius dismounted and Remus clambered out of the side car attached, the front door flung open to reveal James standing there, looking rather dishevelled and somewhat ghostly, as he was covered in a fine white dust.
"What happened to you, mate?" asked Sirius, as James moved aside to allow his friends into his home. Remus passed without comment, and only a small smile. "That kid of yours finally get the better of you?"
"Something like that," James agreed with a laugh and a grin, closing the door behind him. "Lily's trying to settle him now, though I told her there was no point seeing as you two were coming."
Remus looked around the room with an amused expression; the house was in such a state of disarray he was not sure where one room ended and the next began. "I didn't know this little project involved tearing down the walls."
"Well, it didn't to begin with, but Harry liked the sound it made..."
"That explains rather a lot," said Remus with a wry smile. "I'm sure Lily was overjoyed."
"That's one way to put it," said James, and Sirius let out a bark of a laugh.
"Where is my godson?" he shouted, the words barely out of his mouth before he was bounding upstairs so fast it might as well have been on all fours.
"Thanks for coming, Moony," said James, turning to him. "Lily's wanted to get this old place fixed up for such a long time. I think she's getting miserable, you know, what with being stuck in here so much, and it is getting to be so dark."
"I understand," said Remus, and he did; he'd spent enough of his life trapped in perfectly pleasant yet still somehow miserable places to empathise with anyone who wanted a change of scenery. Their work for the Order meant that most of the time they were not fighting or patrolling or gathering information was spent in their respective hiding places, and though Godric's Hollow was a quaint and cosy little village, the houses were... historic, and the Potters' could do with a little bit of picking up. Spending all your time indoors with a baby who'd inherited his father's (and his godfather's, come to that) energy would be enough to have you tearing at your hair, he was sure.
James hadn't estimated that their overhaul would take longer than a few days, but having Harry out of the way while they worked on the house seemed like the best idea; there were any number of things that could fall on a child, or that he could step on, or knock over, or swallow. All in all, removing him from the location seemed the best idea, though Remus and Sirius had solemnly sworn they would not take him further than the outskirts of the village.
"It's no trouble at all, you know," Remus added, as Sirius came stampeding back down the stairs with a grin on his face and little Harry on his shoulders, laughing and screaming and waving his arms, followed by a much-harried Lily whose smile spoke more of relief than anything else.
"Moony—" she began, over the screams of both Harry and the wind, and Remus held up a hand.
"No trouble. It's always a pleasure to babysit Sirius whilst he babysits Harry," he said, smiling softly. Lily laughed and strode across the room, avoiding chunks of fallen plaster, to give him a hug.
"I do appreciate it. I'm going to feel so much better when this is all done. The thought of spending the next ten years in a house looking like this... As I was saying to James, the wallpaper is something my sister would approve of." She wrinkled her nose, and Remus gave a small laugh.
"Muggles do have odd tastes, I've found," he said diplomatically, though he had to raise his voice to be heard over Harry's screams, which were growing louder as Sirius tossed him in the air and caught him, dropping him to blow a raspberry on his stomach as he cradled him, then tossing him back up to begin the cycle again. "PADFOOT," said Remus, raising his voice even louder, "shall we let these two get down to business?"
Sirius paused in his game of catch to look at the three of them, while Harry took the opportunity to begin playing with his hair. "Down to business, eh?" he said with a smirk, and James smirked back, though both Remus and Lily looked exasperated. "All right, all right. We'll take the little one out of your hair. Make good use of this time," he said, using his free hand to point at them both, finger waggling between them. "It's not often the four of us are free from Order duty for more than a day at a time and I'd hate to see a young marriage grow stale so soon. Moony and I—"
"—are about to leave," finished Remus, exasperated, pushing Sirius towards the door to the sound of James' raucous laughter, echoed in both Sirius and Harry (who had no idea what was going on, but liked it when they made that noise). "You are going to be a terrible influence on that child," said Remus, and Sirius grinned a very toothy grin as the door slammed shut behind them.
"Just as I've been on you, isn't that right, Moony?"
And Remus couldn't help but grin back.
It was only a short walk from the Potters' house to the village square, and nestled there, in between a hairdresser's and a charity shop, was a small locally owned cafe. Harry made the journey quite happily on his godfather's shoulders, extending a chubby little fist every now and again to grasp at a passing leaf fluttering in the breeze. The gale had died a little now, and the world seemed so much quieter for it. It was not a quiet world they lived in; the war still raged, even if, in this Muggle town, it was not hard to feel detached from it. Remus would take this; he would take these quiet slices of life in which he could allow himself, if only for the briefest of moments, to forget he was a soldier in a war, to forget he was a werewolf. In moments like this, in quiet Muggle cafes, with Sirius lounging across the table from him playing with baby Harry, he felt different. He felt almost human again.
"What will you have?" he asked, pursing his lips as he browsed the admittedly rather short menu. He'd settle on a hot chocolate himself, as he always did, and he'd get a chocolate milk for little Harry too, who was still too young for tea or coffee, for there was no pumpkin juice to be seen on the menu.
"Tea," said Sirius lazily, performing origami with the napkin. Remus was sure it was not purely his skill at folding paper at play here; he could see Sirius' other wrist twitching in his pocket, but it was keeping Harry entertained, as the baby clapped his hands and shouted, "Birb! Birb!" at every shape Sirius made, whether bird or not.
Remus chuckled and made his way to the counter, where he placed the order, paid with Muggle money (he didn't often use it these days, but he still had a better understanding of it than Sirius, who had the tendency to simply dribble a fistful of coins onto the counter until he was asked to stop), and the young girl behind the till told him she'd bring it to his table presently. Giving her a smile, Remus walked back and took his seat next to Sirius once more. "She was quite an attractive young woman," he mused, quietly.
"So go after her, Moony," said Sirius, passing him the baby. "I'll even let you have this one." Remus scoffed (though he was certain that if Sirius had wanted her, Sirius could have got her), and shook his head. "I'm not going after anyone. Not during the war."
"Or before the war, or after the war..." said Sirius, putting his boot-clad feet up on the table while Harry grabbed at Remus' stray chin hairs. "Face it, Moony, you're going to die an old bachelor if you don't do something about it soon."
Remus give him a reproving look, which said get your feet off the table more than it did keep your nose out of my love life, but neither, he knew, was likely.
"Look," said Sirius, pointing behind Remus' head. "Someone's looking for a dog walker." There was a noticeboard there, Remus saw when he turned, and pinned beside an advertisement for a car wash and wax, and under one offering a reward for the return of a missing brooch, there was sheet of paper with a grainy black and white Muggle picture of a dog on it, offering a small fee for whoever would submit to the challenge of walking it thrice-weekly. "You should send them an owl, Moony. Give you something to do in between waiting around for the next full moon."
"Keep your voice down!" said Remus, startled, but Sirius only laughed. Harry laughed with him, and Sirius leaned over to give him a tiny high-five, causing Remus' eyes to narrow. "Taught him that last week," said Sirius. Remus rolled his eyes.
"Dogs tend not to like me, with the exception of you... and you don't send owls to Muggles, in any case, Padfoot. You send it by Muggle mail, or call them on the telephone..."
Sirius shrugged as the waitress approached with a tray, setting their drinks out in front of them – a frothy hot chocolate for Remus, a little glass of chilled chocolate milk for Harry, and a steaming teapot with a white ceramic mug for Sirius.
"Oh, your baby just adorable!" she gushed, as Harry reached up to grab at her apron strings. She gave his cheek a little tickle, which he seemed to appreciate greatly, as he squealed with glee. "How old is he?"
"Just over a year," said Remus, smiling up at her. Sirius waggled his eyebrows at him, and Remus frowned.
"And when did you adopt him?"
"Adopt? Oh! No, we're not—"
"As soon as he was born," said Sirius seriously, shifting closer in his seat to sling his arm around Remus' shoulder. "Our friend carried him for us, but he's been ours from the moment he came into this world."
"That is so sweet," said the waitress, whose name tag read 'Jenny', and Remus had to take a deep breath to stop himself from protesting. Sirius was overselling, he thought, but after a decade of friendship, he knew there was really no way to curb the dramatics, and once again he found himself dragged into another of Sirius' impulsive ideas. The waitress put a hand to her chest, as though this was just too much sweetness for her heart to handle, and Sirius smiled and nodded, as though the fond memories were almost too much for him, too.
"His name is Harry," Sirius told her, and she gave the baby another little smile as she gave him a little tap on the nose (eliciting another excited squeal).
"You better get Harry back home before it gets dark," she said, in a voice that suggested she was talking to Harry himself, though her words were directed at his 'parents'.
"Why's that?" asked Remus, and Jenny the waitress laughed.
"Oh, just something we've taken to saying lately. Everyone's running round the village saying it's haunted these days, that there's a werewolf or a demon or something living in the woods."
"But it's not the full moon," said Remus, before he could stop himself, but Jenny the waitress didn't seem to think anything of it, and shrugged.
"It's just what they've been saying, since the nights have started getting darker. You know Mrs Morris from down the road?" They both shook their heads, but she continued regardless. "She comes in here every day and every day she has another tale to tell me about some ghost or other that's haunting her back garden. Yes she does," she added, tickling Harry's cheek again. "I think folk are just getting a little too excited for Halloween, but you know. Better safe than sorry!" She laughed, and turned to head back to her station. "I wouldn't want to see little Harry in the clutches of a werewolf."
"You'd be surprised," Sirius muttered, eyebrows raised, as she walked away. Remus looked at him, rather bemused.
"What do you suppose all that's about?"
"I don't know, do you sense any other werewolves here? Smell them, or anything? You can all find each other, can't you? Do you use some sort of werewolf Foe-Glass or...?"
"No," said Remus, in answer to his first question, and disregarding all the others. "And I haven't seen any ghosts floating about either. James and Lily would have mentioned if they knew of any other magic in the village."
"Well, then," said Sirius, removing his arm from around Remus shoulder, swinging his legs off the table and looking them both in the eyes, with a fire in them and a grin that Remus knew implicitly meant trouble. "It seems we have a mystery to solve."