A/N: Thanks to my beta sort of proud! And to all of my lovely readers!
"Remus Lupin, I am highly disappointed in you," Professor McGonagall said at dinner one night. "I have watched your daughter completely ruin her appetite with desserts all week, and you have not stepped in once to correct her behavior. How do you expect her to grow properly if you don't see to it that she's eating the foods she needs to?"
Even as a grown adult, Emma's dad still squirmed under the older woman's stern look.
"It's okay," Emma said around a spoonful of pudding. "Daddy bribed me, but next week I'm eating normal again."
Her dad buried his face in his hands as his fellow staff members stopped eating to listen in.
"He bribed you?" Professor McGonagall said, aghast. "Whatever for?"
"Ummm, I don't think I'm allowed to say it out loud…"
"No, you're not," her dad said, not looking up from his hands.
"Leave them be Minerva," Dumbledore chuckled. "It's Remus's decision how he wants to raise his daughter, and what he chooses to bribe her over."
"Careful Lupin," Snape drawled. Emma jumped. She didn't think she'd ever heard the man speak at dinner before. "If you give her a taste for manipulation now, you may end up with a Slytherin on your hands."
Her dad looked up from his hands, appearing vaguely horrified.
"There's nothing wrong with being a Slytherin," Professor McGonagall said, but Emma figured she was only saying it to be nice.
Emma looked at Professor Snape curiously. "If I were a Slytherin then I'd be sneaky, right?"
"You'd be cunning; able to get what you want, when you want," he said.
She shrugged. "That doesn't sound so bad."
"Don't get your hopes up. I doubt Slytherin would take her."
Professor McGonagall turned her admonitions to Professor Snape, while Remus sent him a glare, recognizing the underlying barb about Emma being the child of a werewolf.
His glare was broken when Professor Flitwick leaned over to whisper to him. "Really though, what did you bribe her for?"
The small man's obvious amusement made him crack a grin, and he whispered back the answer. Flitwick chuckled, making an 'oh' face.
Emma ignored the adults around her, refocusing on her dessert.
"Why look, it's the little Lupin child!"
Emma turned around, smiling when she saw the twins. "Fred! George!"
"At your service," they said, bowing.
She ran up to them happily, hugging their knees. "I haven't seen you two in forever!"
"Technically, you see us every night at dinner."
"That's not the same," Emma said with a pout. Her pout quickly turned into a smile. "Oh, oh! I think I can tell you two apart now!"
"Really?" they asked at the same time. "Then who's who?"
She pointed at the one on the left. "You're George because you have more freckles." She pointed to the one on the right. "And you're Fred because you have less freckles and your smile is more evil. Oh and Fred is Thing 1 because 'F' comes before 'G.'"
They exchanged a look—Fred appeared particularly delighted to have the more 'evil' smile—before turning to pat her generously on the back.
"Well done little Lupin. You can tell us apart better than our own mum!" George laughed.
"And someone has finally realized that I'm the evil twin!" Fred smirked.
"Now, now, Thing 2," his twin sighed, "it won't do to get ahead of yourself. After all, the most evil one is usually the one who looks the most innocent."
"Then am I the most evil one?" Emma asked.
"What makes you think you look innocent?" George asked.
"I'm little," Emma answered simply.
The twins shrugged, conceding that she had a point; no one ever suspected the little ones.
"Would you like to eat breakfast with us?" Fred asked.
Emma nodded, reaching up to take the twins hands as they made their way to the Great Hall. On the way the twins kept telling Emma silly stories to make her laugh, and several older girls stopped them to comment on Emma's cuteness, and how good the twins were with her.
Emma was starting to think that maybe she had some mysterious magic that gave people the impulse to compliment everyone around her.
Just before they slipped into the Hall, she heard Fred whisper to his brother "Blimey, she's a bigger chick-magnet than a puppy!"
They shared large smiles complete with eyebrow wiggles. When they noticed Emma's stare, they dropped the smiles and adopted morose frowns that made her giggle.
They took seats near the Golden Trio, who all greeted her politely.
"I ran into your dad today," Harry said, leaning over to whisper to Emma conspiratorially. "He invited me to some after-dinner tea and biscuits."
Emma clapped excitedly, practically bouncing in her seat.
Harry shook his head. "You're probably more excited about the prospect of sweets than having me over."
Emma shook her head violently at the teasing, launching into a rant of how happy she was that he and her dad were getting a long since Harry was practically her cousin, and family should stick together, and she could show him her room, and—She abruptly stopped her speech, catching sight of the cover of Hermione's newspaper.
Sirius Black Still at Large! Under the headline was a picture of what appeared to be a skeleton with wild, rolling eyes, and a tangled mane of hair. She remembered the name from the past summer. Her dad had gotten all freaked out about it, but she had never understood why.
"Who's Sirius Black?"
Several eyes swung towards her.
"You mean you don't know?" Ron asked a bit incredulously.
"She's only a child Ron, her father probably didn't want to worry her," Hermione said reasonably.
Inwardly, Emma bristled a bit at being called 'only a child,' but she let it slide since Hermione hadn't meant anything mean by it.
"Should we tell her then?" Ron whispered back to Hermione. His voice was faint, and Emma had to strain to hear it. "I mean, isn't that her dad's job?"
"Sirius Black is an escaped criminal," Harry said in a hard voice, startling everyone. "He is a dangerous man, who did very bad things. He's the reason the Dementors are here."
Emma glanced back at the newspaper. She couldn't imagine someone that frail looking being dangerous. "What did he do?"
Here Harry paused. He didn't want Professor Lupin mad at him if he scared his daughter—not that he wanted to scare Emma—but he knew what it was like to have facts sugar-coated for him because he was young. Though he was a teenager whereas Emma was, as Hermione had said, only a child. Still, he felt she deserved to know the truth, if only so she understood why she needed to follow the safety rules. But how could he make a mass murderer seem less scary?
"Black…he… well… Have you ever heard the story of Snow White?" Harry asked.
Emma nodded. It had been in the book she'd gotten from the library.
"Well you know how the evil queen sends the huntsman to kill Snow White?"
The twins and Ron were staring at Harry as if he was crazy, but Emma's eyes slowly widened.
"He tried to kill somebody?" she asked.
She looked around at all of the solemn faces, a horrible sinking feeling seizing her gut. "He did kill someone," she said, eyes glued to Black's photograph. "He wasn't nice like the huntsman…."
"No," Harry said softly, "he wasn't. But you don't need to worry about him. Hogwarts is the safest place in the world."
Emma nodded, relaxing a little. Her daddy was there to protect her, along with all of the other teachers. Even the Dementors, scary as they were, were there to protect her. Besides, what would a criminal want with a school anyway?
"That's enough of this depressing talk," George said, reaching up to get a plate of eggs. "If you lot don't hurry and eat, it's going to get cold."
The tension at the table released itself, and a lighter conversation began to flow, and Emma nearly forgot all about Sirius Black. None the less, Emma began to carry her stuffed Moony with her even more than before.
Remus leaned against the door-frame, watching in amusement as Emma gave Harry a tour of her room. The poor boy seemed a bit unsure of how to handle the five-year-old (which wasn't that uncommon. Most people who weren't around small kids often were that way). To be fair, Harry seemed unsure about himself in a lot of things. It made him sad to think of the confident little baby he'd once held suffering from an unnecessary, and even baffling, lack of self-confidence.
Harry was a bright student in the majority of his classes, and had already accomplished amazing things in his young life. Frankly, Remus couldn't see where this insecurity was coming from. Harry was still a teenager, he reminded himself. He supposed hesitance probably came with his confusing age.
"If you're done monopolizing Harry's attentions, Emma, there are fresh biscuits in the parlor."
Emma broke off mid-speech, giving her dad a strange look. "Monopoly-izing?"
"Monopolizing. It means to dominate or take complete possession of."
Emma nodded, racing towards the kitchen, and muttering the word 'monopolizing' under her breath. She liked that one; she'd try to remember it.
Tea with Harry was fun. He and her dad had begun talking about things that she didn't really understand, but they were both smiling, and the happy atmosphere made her happy. Eventually though, her dad began telling familiar tales of his school days.
"So James and Peter both had a bet going on how long it would take the Ravenclaw seeker to catch the snitch against Slytherin—they'd never acknowledge that Slytherin also had a chance at the snitch—and the looser had to streak through the Great Hall during supper. Normally James was more Quidditch savvy, but for once, Peter won."
"Did he actually do it?" Harry asked with a sort of embarrassed awe.
"Oh yes, he did. He was only supposed to run up to the staff table and out the Hall, but on his way, he slipped on, if you'd believe it, a banana peel of all things. So he began running in circles, flailing his arms to try and regain his balance, till he finally landed, bottom up, on top of the staff table. Merlin, the pictures that went around haunted him for the rest of the year."
The three laughed, and Emma smiled widely, feeling like Harry was officially part of the family now.
Emma smiled proudly, looking at herself in the mirror. It was Halloween, and she may not have been going trick-or-treating this year, she wasn't going to let anything stop her from dressing up. Her costume was very simple: a pale green dress, flower jewelry she'd made herself, and lots of makeup. She was going to be a field fairy today, and her dad had helped her paint her face brown and green, and apply glitter galore.
She spun upstairs to her dad's office. He'd gotten a new creature in today called a Grindylow. It snarled at her as she passed, but she ignored it.
"Are you busy Daddy?"
He shook his head, giving her a fond smile. "I was just about to have a cup of tea. Would you like some too?"
She nodded, sitting in one of the chairs near his desk. Her dad stood, and suddenly walked to his office door, a curious expression on his face. "Harry?" he called out.
Emma turned too. Within seconds, the teen had appeared in the doorway and had been invited to tea. When he saw Emma, he laughed softly.
"And what are you supposed to be?"
"I'm a field fairy. Daddy helped me."
"He did a good job. You hardly look like yourself. And who's your surly friend in the corner?" he asked, pointing towards the Grindylow.
Her dad launched into 'teacher mode.' Emma couldn't help but notice though that Harry seemed a bit down.
"Emma," her dad said, "would you mind going back to our quarters and getting some sandwiches from the kitchen? I believe I left them in the chilled cabinet."
Emma, in fact, did mind, but mostly because she suspected he was purposely sending her out so he could talk to Harry about something. Regardless, she nodded and went off to get them.
To her indignation though, there were no sandwiches. She checked every shelf, and even banged on the table to see if the house elves would deliver some (that's how her dad always summoned food. But it probably helped that he used a wand instead of his fist), but none were to be found. She couldn't even find bread to make sandwiches. Emma marched back to her dad's office a little miffed. If she was going to be sent away to do an errand, it should at least be a real errand.
When she came to her dad's office, Harry was gone. She pouted, sending her dad an evil look. "That wasn't very nice Daddy."
"What wasn't very nice, dear?"
"There were no sandwiches."
"There weren't? My mistake."
"Where's Harry?"
"He had to run-off. Why don't you finish your tea in your room? I'm afraid I have rather a lot of work to do."
Emma's eyes narrowed. She had an awful feeling that she was missing something important. "I'm going to the owlrey."
"Alright. Have fun."
Emma had been mad at her dad all day, but her anger waned at the sight of the Halloween feast. She didn't think anyone could stay mad within the presence of that much sugar. Even though their bribe had ended, her dad pretended to ignore the large amount of sugar she was consuming, which further pacified the young girl.
Soon though, her belly was full, almost painfully so, and she was beginning to feel sleepy. She jumped when her dad suddenly picked her up, but relaxed into his arms as he carried her to bed.
"Can I sleep in my costume?" she yawned.
"Only if you scrub extra hard in the morning."
"Kay."
She closed her eyes, settling in bed for a long night's sleep. Despite her tiredness, sleep never found her. Her throat was uncomfortably dry, and all they had in the house was water. Emma wasn't picky, but she didn't see the point in drinking water when a quick trip to the kitchens could get her pumpkin juice (and more candy).
She snuck out, not seeing her dad. He must have turned in early. As she was making her way down the hall, a cloaked figure ran in to her—literally.
She looked up at him from her place on the floor.
Sirius Black could only stare dumbly at the green child in front of him. His instincts were urging him to run, but at the same time, he felt frozen.
She merely looked up at him innocently. "Are you dressed as a Dementor?"
Relief flooded him; she couldn't see his face. He nodded.
Emma stood, brushing herself off. The Dementor-man was tall. He was probably a seventh year student. It was a bit creepy how he wasn't talking, but she figured that was part of his Dementor-disguise.
"I like your costume," she offered. "Happy Halloween!" She quickly continued her walk to the kitchens, glad to be away from the silent stranger.
Sirius watched her go, breathing a sigh of relief. She wouldn't be having nightmares over meeting an escaped murderer in a hallway. While he'd hate to be the face of anyone's nightmares, the idea of terrifying the sweet child who played with him as Padfoot sent a wave of revulsion through him. Shaking his head, he continued his run from the castle.
Emma had barely settled back into bed when her door burst open. She sat up, yelping in surprise as her dad burst in, looking half-crazed. He scooped her up and began walking out of their quarters.
"Daddy? What's happening?"
Her dad took a deep breath. "There was an intruder spotted in the castle. As a precaution, we're rounding everyone up and having them sleep in the Great Hall."
An intruder? Who? What did he want?
The Great Hall was buzzing with students. Her dad seemed reluctant to set her down, when a familiar voice called out.
"Professor!"
Her dad turned to see Harry come up to him, quickly followed by Ron and Hermione.
"You have to leave Emma here, right? We can watch over her."
"Thank you," her dad said. He gave Emma one last squeeze, before handing her off to Harry. "Don't worry Emma-Lily, everything's going to be fine. I'll be back soon."
Emma watched his retreating back, filled with fears and questions. All around them, people were gossiping; it didn't take her long to figure out who the intruder was.
Sirius Black. The murderer. She clung tighter to Harry's robes. He walked over to one of the sleeping bags and sat down with her in his lap, patting her back.
"It's alright. We're safe here."
"Completely safe," Ron added.
"Lights out!" Percy's voice rang out. "Lay down!"
Emma didn't want to let go of Harry. The image of Black's photograph kept flashing across her mind. She wished her dad were there or at least Moony. But Harry was family, and she knew he would take care of her.
Hermione must have noticed her reluctance. "Here," she said softly, and transfigured two of the sleeping bags into an extra big one. "I don't think anyone will mind."
Emma gave her a weak smile, and slid off of Harry so he could lay down. She fell asleep curled to his side; head a swirl of scary thoughts.
Despite the bone-deep jumble of tiredness and anger Remus felt, he couldn't help but smile when he looked down at Harry and Emma curled up together. Out of all the things that had gone wrong in his friendships, this was right. James and Lily's son comforting his daughter was how it was supposed to have been. In a different life they would have been raised like cousins or maybe even siblings.
His resolve to catch Black strengthened. He refused to let that man cause any more harm to his pack.
A/N: As always, feedback would be much appreciated!
