Author's note: 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

Hogwarts: Assignment #8, Care of Magical Creatures Task #1 Write about something happening during a full moon

Content Warnings: NA

Always Some Good

"Do you want to take a break?" Remus said, once they'd finished putting together the Lego greenhouse that Dora had found Teddy for his birthday. He and Dora both had fond memories of playing with their Muggle cousins' Lego blocks, and they were good, colourful, creative toys that could thankfully kill hours at a time with Teddy. It was also good, for Remus's purpose, that they were a quieter toy to play with. They'd spent the morning kicking a ball back and forth, looking for Sir Cadogan throughout the castle, popping by the Owlery to say hello to the owls, and launching a slinky down various staircases. Plus, he'd let Teddy get away with scooping custard, sprinkles, chocolate chips, and whipped cream on his waffles that morning—only granting himself an extra shot of espresso in his morning coffee to try and keep up. With the full moon coming tonight, Remus was absolutely exhausted—but he didn't want Teddy to know. Not on his birthday.

It was already bad enough that Dora's undercover job had gotten trickier as it went (not that Remus knew the details), so they'd realized that she wouldn't be home in time for Teddy's birthday at the last moment. This was also when it'd become a problem that Teddy's birthday was falling on a full moon. They'd always had quite the village with which to raise Teddy, but the timing was terrible and nobody was available to keep an eye on him for more than a few hours at a time. He'd pitched this bouncing-around as an exciting series of sleep-overs and adventures, claiming that everyone wanted to spend time with him on his birthday. So he'd started the day off by decorating the apartment behind his office with streamers and balloons for Teddy to wake up to an explosion of colour and decorations. Later tonight, they'd walk down to Hogsmeade for an early dinner at The Three Broomsticks with Sirius and Harry. Then, Remus would go back to the castle to take his Wolfsbane and Harry would take his godson to Honeydukes and get him on such a sugar high that he wouldn't have time to consider how thoroughly his parents had abandoned him. Since Harry had a screaming infant and hyperactive toddler that he needed to get back home to, Sirius would then take over and bring Teddy back home for a sleepover. In the morning, before Sirius and Kingsley had to show up at some Ministry function, Andromeda would pick Teddy up and they'd have breakfast together. Remus would try to get a few hours of sleep to collect himself before Hestia got off her shift and brought Teddy back to the castle.

It was a mess, but Remus was determined to commit to the bit.

"I have something to show you," Remus said

"Is it another secret passage?" Teddy asked.

"No, unfortunately," Remus said. He'd stopped showing Teddy where those were once he'd realized that if his son was able to run amuck in the castle, it would eventually become his problem when Teddy came to school. There would already be enough hell to pay when Jamie turned 11 and showed up to school with the Marauder's Map in hand. "But I think you'll like it. It involves the forest."

That got Teddy's attention. He was obsessed with the Forbidden Forest even if Remus had made it very, very clear to him that he was not to go in there alone. He'd loved listening to Professor Sprout explain what herbs and magical plants grew amongst the trees before he'd retired, and Sirius was nothing if not a wealth of stories about shenanigans in the forest.

Remus swung by his classroom and fetched a metal bucket he usually lent out to his students when they went to fetch fresh lakewater for the Gridylow. Then they swung by the kitchens and one of the house elves kindly filled it with popped corn.

"Are we going to the cinema?" Teddy asked.

Remus knew that Dora usually brought him to the movie theatre on his birthday.

"No, we'll let Mum do that when she comes back from work," Remus said. "Since you're here for your birthday, let's go do something you can only do at Hogwarts."

"What is it?" Teddy asked, bouncing up and down.

"They're called mooncalves," Remus said.

"What are those?"

"You'll see," Remus said.

"You've gotta tell me!" Teddy insisted.

"You'll see," Remus said with a smile. "Do you want to carry the bucket?"

Teddy nodded as they made their way out of the castle, down towards Hagrid's hut, and into the Forbidden Forest.

"Hold my hand," Remus said. He wasn't afraid of the forest; he remembered it well from his nights with the Marauders and he was aware that some of the creatures in the woods recognized him as something that had once gone bump in the night amongst the trees. But he didn't want Teddy running off or making a habit of thinking that the forest was safe, so he held on tightly as they made their way to the meadow.

"Alright, let's sit down here," Remus said. His knees protested as he lowered himself down but he ignored the familiar array of aches and pains that made themselves known on the full moon. He focused on Teddy instead, and put a handful of kernels in the little boy's hand before tossing a few out into the grass.

"We're going to say hello to some very shy creatures," Remus explained quietly. "So we want to let them come to us and stay quite still and quiet, so they know we're friendly."

"Okay," Teddy said, his voice a whisper. Remus smiled and tossed another few kernels out.

"Do you see that big gap, near the roots of that tree?" Remus whispered. "Keep your eyes on it, that's where the mooncalves live."

Soon enough, the creatures sniffed out the popcorn kernels and ventured out of their burrow. The stubby, long-necked little creatures wandered out carefully on webbed-feet, their tiny ears bobbing as they scanned the woods for danger. Their blue eyes, set widely apart, fixated on Remus and Teddy. Remus squeezed Teddy's hand.

"Let's keep staying very still," Remus said. Mooncalves were shy, if they felt a hint of pressure from their observers they might scramble away and hide for another whole month. Remus had only realized that there was a gaggle of them on Hogwarts' grounds when he'd come back as a professor himself.

The bravest of the creatures, probably the youngest one in the gaggle, successfully ate a few kernels of popcorn without being disturbed and so wandered forwards. Teddy gasped, even before the creatures fanned out to feast. There were a dozen of them that had come out.

"Let's try tossing them some kernels," Remus said quietly once he reckoned that the mooncalves were comfortable enough.

Teddy nodded and so Remus tossed a kernel of popcorn out. It startled the mooncalf it landed next to, but the mooncalf decided to focus on the miracle that was popcorn dropping from the sky instead. When Teddy tossed a kernel out, it landed by the young brave one which looked up at Teddy as soon as it'd snatched the kernel off the ground. Then, when Teddy tossed another one, it caught it out of the air. Teddy laughed into his cupped hands to avoid scaring off the calves, and then went right back to tossing his new friend popcorn.

"One for you," Teddy whispered. Then he tossed some popcorn in his own mouth. "One for me."

Remus bit his lip to stop himself from laughing.

"Why are they called mooncalves?" Teddy asked Remus in a whisper.

"Because they only come out of their burrows on the full moon," Remus answered. Most other wix and magizoologists assumed that that meant they only came out at night. It took a werewolf to know that the full moon had an effect on the world even before it rose. Perhaps Remus should write to Newt Scamander and let him know…

"I thought nothing good ever happened on the full moon?" Teddy said.

Remus frowned.

"Where did you hear that?" Remus asked.

"You told Uncle Sirius when you called him last night to make sure he was coming to dinner," Teddy said matter-of-factly. "Also I'm not a baby. I know what happens on full moons to you."

Remus nodded. Well, there was no denying that, was there? Remus couldn't remember saying it, but it did sound like him.

But at the same time, the idea made him uncomfortable. He'd had an entire lifetime, for all intents and purposes, of dealing with the full moons as they came and went. It had been exhausting, painful, lonely, thankless, and ostracizing. But that was Remus's to bear. He didn't like the idea of his tired self-deprecation trickling down to Teddy. He had, after all, put in quite some effort into building a better world for the little boy.

"I was wrong," Remus said. "Your birthday's on a full moon, isn't it? And that's good. I'm happy get to spend your birthday with you, because it's my favourite day. Your very first one was the best day of my life, actually."

Teddy was about to reply when the brave little mooncalf stuck its head in the pail and started eating directly from there. He couldn't keep it together anymore; the little boy burst out laughing. The mooncalves tripped over each other and themselves as they scrambled back to their burrow, which only made Remus join in on the laughter.

WC: 1595