Author's note: I would like an award for posting twice this month. Also, please go listen to Ingrid Michaelson's You and I. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the canon, world, and characters portrayed below and you can tell I'm not J.K. Rowling because #transrights

Content Warnings: PTSD; exhaustion

Camaret-sur-Mer

Remus walked cautiously, even if the French authorities—including an expert in dark magic whose work he greatly admired—had already cleared the house twice. Dora walked even more cautiously, Teddy close to her chest and her currently whisky-brown eyes wide as she looked around. The house looked… well, almost normal. Which was perhaps because no member of the Black family had stepped foot in it for years now. They'd had some concerns that Bellatrix may have used it as a base after she'd escaped Azkaban, since the summer house had been part of her dowry after all. But no; she hadn't. And since she was dead now anyways, the goblins had gone about untangling the gnarly and twisted Black family tree to find out who her next of kin technically was.

Dora looked around the house curiously, like a caged creature being released back into the wild. Remus chewed on his lip, not sure what to say or do.

"I hate to say it but… fuck, this place is nice," Sirius said, breaking the silence. He scratched at his shaggy hair and looked around at the house—which was open, simple, and studded with big windows that let in so much sun it was hard to believe that the same family that had owned Grimmauld Place had had this place built on the French coast. The windows all looked out on lush green lawns and the sea, with comfortable chairs and picnic tables to take in the view from.

"I suspect that's because it wasn't used much," Remus said.

"Bellatrix probably didn't vacation much," Sirius admitted. "What with professional Death Eaterness being a full-time job and so on."

Dora gave a very un-Dora-like giggle that only spiked Remus's concern more. With her hands still cradling Teddy, resting against her chest in a sling and eating a stuffed owl Harry had gotten him, she drifted away from them to look at a framed drawing of the Black family crest on the wall. She took it in with a strange look on her face that wasn't quite as analytical as her Auror look, and a little too serious to be her usual Dora curiosity. Remus supposed she'd never really had to think of herself as a Black before—what with Andromeda being struck from the family tree so decisively and brutally before she'd even been born. But apparently, the Blacks hadn't been clear enough on the matter of Andromeda's children and their inheritances, possibly because they'd hated to imagine such a thing. And so here she was.

"The Aurors took everything out, like you asked Dora," Remus said. "But they said there wasn't much to it. Just spare sheets, cutlery…"

Dora giggled again, this time stifling it behind one of her hands.

"Right, Bellatrix Lestrange kept spare sheets in this house because it was her house and now it's my house," Dora said. "That's just bloody brilliant isn't it? Imagine sleeping on Bellatrix Lestrange's sheets."

Remus shot Sirius a look. He pursed his lips, understandingly.

"I'm going to go outside, turn into Padfoot, run some laps, and maybe find something to piss on," Sirius said before slipping away. When he opened the door, Remus heard the sound of a wind chime as a breeze came in from the sea.

He stepped towards Dora and put a hand on her hip and another on her shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Remus asked.

"Why wouldn't I be okay?" Dora said. She giggled some more. "I own a house. I own a Black ancestral house. In fucking France. Someone doesn't close a loophole and now bam; a mixed-blood heathen of a blood traitor, her werewolf husband and blue-haired technicolour child are just standing in a Black ancestral house right now, because it's my house." She laughed. "And Voldemort's dead!"

"Yes, I understand the humour of it all and I see that it's hilarious, but… well you're not laughing like it's funny, you're laughing like… like I should worry a little," Remus said as kindly as he possibly could.

Dora laughed again and then ran a hand through her hair.

"Oh, man…" she said, deflating. "Bellatrix tried to kill me at Hogwarts and every time she possibly could before that. And now…. I. Own. Her. House. Her fancy vacation house which was part of her fancy pureblood marriage dowry. Remus, the first floor of this place is bigger than our flat. Because it's a house."

"Yes," he said. "Yes it is. I know it's all been a whirlwind—the fighting picked up again barely a few weeks after you had Teddy, then the Auror Department was in shambles, then there were all the trials… And you've been such a rock, you really have, but this house feels like it's tipped the scales for you. Can you… can you do me a favour and take a second to yourself to process all this? Before we look around more, before you think about what you want to do with it."

Dora nodded, and then ran her hand through her hair again. Then she leaned forwards, resting her forehead against his chest and he ran his hands up and down her back, trying to be as soothing as he could be. Teddy went about snacking on his owl, used to being sandwiched like this. When she looked up at him again she smiled—a wicked, trickster of a smile that was familiar to him. She kissed him.

"Remus, we're not going to give this place's address to anybody in the world and swear Sirius to secrecy. And once the trials are done, you and me and Teddy are going to lock ourselves in here, swim in the sea, and do absolutely nothing for a solid month," she said. "We're going to keep this house so fucking hard. We're going to rent it out to Muggle tourists when we're not here, but we're going to escape to this place as much as we want until we're old and grey, and we're going to be so happy it'll piss my ancestors off so fucking much."

Remus smiled.

"There we go," he said, pulling her back in his arms to kiss her forehead. "That sounds much more like you."