School/Theme: Beauxbatons: Underdog Rising
Year 2
Mandatory Prompts:
[first line/last line] "Once upon a time, the world ended"
Additional Prompts:
[Dialogue] "I need you to understand that I am not emotionally involved in this situation."
[setting] A new house
WC: 2000
Beta: beawrites, Ash Juilett, x Hemlock x, Lady Sloane, Paceso
C/W: Child manipulation, racist talking points, violence
Once upon a time, the world ended. At least that's how it felt when Fenrir made the decision to destroy a friendship, in return for something much more important that holiday.
Fenrir grinned as Lyall Apparated in front of the already opened door, looking exhausted from having to travel so early in the morning; Remus let go of his father's hand and ran to Fenrir. It had been weeks since Fenrir last saw the Lupin family and he had, in fact, missed them.
For Fenrir, it was only fitting that they be his first guests in his newly built and furnished house. The boxes scattered across the floor indicated that he had moved in recently. His furniture was still covered in plastic wrapping and the walls smelled of fresh paint. The carpet floors looked pristine and the kitchen held a bunch of new appliances.
Fenrir caught the boy and turned to face the sitting room window. He pointed outside and grinned. A moment of silence passed between them as Remus' eyes grew wide. Remus let a scream of pure joy. Fenrir had to fight the urge to cover his ears at the excitement that Remus showed.
"Sea!" the child said. Remus looked pleased, he scooted further forward in Fenrir's arms.
"Yes, that's the sea. You're going to love it," Fenrir said, throwing Remus in the air and catching him.
"Careful, Fenrir, just because he's magical does not mean he is immune to a bad fall," Lyall said, watching anxiously as Fenrir threw the boy up in the air again.
Fenrir chuckled. "I'm a Squib, not incompetent. Although I'm sure that's not what your Ministry reports said."
Lyall huffed but set down the suitcase on the sitting room floor. Lyle took out his wand out of his trouser pocket. "I'm assuming you had the foresight to build your home in a magic friendly way?"
"No magic in the house, please. This place is new, and I can't call the electrician again with another issue," Fenrir said, as he put Remus down. He ignored Lyall's comment about foresight and about magic. "This is a holiday and you promised me that it would be a magic free one. Otherwise, we could have just spent the holidays camping in one of your fancy wizard tents."
It didn't take much for Lyall to look overwhelmed. However, this was one of those moments, where Fenrir knew why. He had been good friends with Lyall for years; in fact, Lyall was one of the few people in the wizarding world with whom he still kept in contact. But there were parts of Fenrir's life that Lyall would never understand and one was Fenrir's aversion when it came to trusting magic.
"But what if I need it when the lights go out? Or to clean up a mess Remus made?" Lyall asked. Fenrir could see his friend's eyes running through a list of unsavoury characters that Lyall had pissed off because of the nature of his job "Also, you've barely unpacked, and I'm sure magic can help with that."
Fenrir scratched the back of his head. "It's okay, there aren't any other magical folk around here, and you know how unreliable the Trace can be. Besides, candles and a little elbow grease never hurt anybody. Right, Remus?" Fenrir said, catching Remus' attention again.
There was an unspoken: you're safe here and I promise I won't let anything bad happen, exchanged between the men.
The blond-haired boy yelled, "Right!" He then proceeded to run away with a good chunk of the plastic covering the sofa in his fists. His blonde hair shone in the sunlight and the plastic dragged along the carpet. Remus looked delighted. Lyall attempted to grab the boy, as he zoomed past, and lifted his wand to mend the damage.
Fenrir shook his head. "It's okay, the covering was meant to come off anyway."
Fenrir was not a person who allowed himself extravagant indulgences. He had good friends and a stable career. That was all that mattered. The world had predicted he would be worse off, after all.
But Fenrir had proved them all wrong. He had applied himself at Muggle school and sought out opportunities to make his life better. While Fenrir sure as hell did not believe in luck, he did acknowledge that he was lucky to be living the life he had.
This new house on the beach proved it. No longer was he the Squib son of the Greybacks. He no longer needed to be pitied by a society that didn't want him. He did fulfilling work as a harvester of potion ingredients and was currently working with Damocles Belby on a potion that would have his name in the history books.
"I hate new houses; have I ever told you that?" Lyall said, purposefully dragging his suitcase to make as much noise as possible across the sitting room floor.
Fenrir rolled his eyes and took the suitcase and carried it to the guest bedroom. "You just need a reason to complain. It doesn't even have to make sense."
"Do you want me to give Remus a crayon to colour the walls with? White makes a very interesting canvas to a toddler," Lyall threatened.
Fenrir turned to Remus and crouched down to the child's level. "You won't listen to your daddy and colour my walls, will you?"
Remus looked at Fenrir seriously for a moment and tapped his hands on Fenrir's cheeks twice, mesmerised by the way the flesh moved under the pressure. For a minute Fenrir could see that Lyall looked hopeful. Remus was the angel of the family after all. "No!" Remus looked pleased with himself when Fenrir gave him a thumbs up in response.
"I'm offended," Lyall said. "Five minutes in, and you've already converted my offspring."
Fenrir dropped Lyall's suitcase on the clean floor. "I'll leave you to it. You probably need a break."
Lyall nodded and immediately flopped onto the bed. It was the only piece of furniture not covered in plastic. Fenrir let Remus go and watched in amusement as the child crawled all over his father. "Yell if you need anything, there. Supper is in an hour."
Fenrir loved meal times. As a child it was the only part of his day when he felt heard. However, suppers during this particular holiday had circled around a few topics that Fenrir usually avoided with Lyall.
Fenrir knew he shouldn't have started the conversation, but Lyall's work in the Magical Creature department in the Ministry was stuff of legends. The kind of legend that made Fenrir want to hide under a blanket like the scared Squib he had once been.
"I need you to understand that I am not emotionally involved in this situation," Fenrir said. Fenrir's hand gripped Remus's, indicated otherwise to Lyall. "But I do strongly advise you to reconsider your position on the matter."
Lyall slowly nodded, leaned back in his chair and prepared a pipe. It was an awful habit that Fenrir detested but tolerated. "That's not what it looks like to me or the Ministry. They are concerned with the plans made for Wolfsbane."
"They are concerned that people will have rights," Fenrir retorted. "This is the same point they bring up when we Squibs ask for more."
Lyall struck a match and lit his pipe. "But they have a place. Why do they need more?"
It was always the same arguments with Lyall. The man could never understand why people would want more or aim for above their means. In his eyes, everyone had a place in life, and on that almost divine hierarchy, wizards were at the top, creatures at the bottom and Muggles somewhere in the middle. Fenrir bit his tongue hard, tasting the blood. It wouldn't do either of them any good to continue this argument to go in the same circles that they had for years.
Remus had ice-cream smeared across his face and, with sticky hands, handed his dripping ice-cream cone to Fenrir. Fenrir knew that there was a parenting handbook somewhere that would tell him that this was a bad decision. However, Remus had desperately wanted the cone and it was one of the last days in the beach house. Which, thanks to Lyall, looked more like a home than a project still in motion.
The child carefully pressed against the wall, making sure that his open palms left behind a sticky residue. Remus looked at Fenrir, waiting for the man's reaction.
"Shhh," Fenrir said, bringing a finger to his lips.
"Shhh," Remus repeated in a much louder tone.
There was a time in his life when Fenrir wasn't sure whether this was something that he should do. He wasn't sure he could handle it when Lyall had asked him to become Remus' godfather. While he didn't always agree with Lyall, this was something he had to do to make Lyall see his side of the argument.
As usual, Fenrur noted, Lyall had gone straight to bed after a day at the beach and running after Remus. Fenrir knew how he saw this holiday; for Lyall, it was a break and sanctuary away from his life at the Ministry. There was no one else Lyall would have trusted with his son. Besides, Fenrir had been the perfect godparent.
Still, it took Fenrir a moment to come to terms with the act that he was about to commit. It wasn't that Fenrir wanted to hurt his godson. However, Lyall would never advocate for werewolf reform as something that general wizarding society needed. Fenrir and Damocles had thrown way too much money into the research and creation of this potion not to see any traction with it.
"Let's go out, shall we?" Fenrir asked Remus, after getting rid of the ice-cream and carefully wiping down Remus's hands.
"Daddy?" Remus asked, giving Fenrir a confused look.
"Your dad wants some quiet."
Remus didn't question Fenrir any further, but dutifully held out his hand so that Fenrir could lead him further away from the pristine house on the beach. It was only fitting that a new beginning start at this place.
A part of Fenrir was excited. This was the first month that he had been on Wolfsbane, and honestly, it had been the best thing to ever happen to him. As a Squib, all Fenrir had ever been was tired and weak. It was exhausting to always be told that he would only amount to so much and then try to prove to the world otherwise.
However, getting bitten (and surviving) had opened up his world. He felt like he was a part of something. He felt strong because he knew that not everyone survived the bite and the fact that he had said something about him. Selfishly, he wanted Lyall to see that this was not a death sentence for Fenrir. That being ordinary Squib had been much more difficult for Fenrir to handle.
The nearly moon bathed the beach with silvery light, and the further they got from the beach house, the tighter Remus gripped onto Fenrir. Tomorrow night, Fenrir would show Remus what it meant to be powerful.
The question Fenrir seemed to ask himself these days, years later, was something along the lines of, "Should I have felt bad for the situation I had caused?"
Truthfully, he didn't. It had been a betrayal of his friendship, and the vows he had taken when he became Remus's godfather. But Lyall wouldn't have changed his mind otherwise, and Fenrir would remain convinced that he had made the child's life better.
Was Fenrir a monster? In his eyes, he had sacrificed one child for the greater good of an entire species. Which, in a rational person's mind, was a small sacrifice to make.