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 #2, Mythology Task #7: Write about a wolf or werewolf
Content Warnings: Body image issues
Seawater
He smiled as he watched Teddy splash around in the shallow water, playing some kind of game where he held a bucket of seawater above his own head until he yelled SHOWER TIME and drenched himself. This had been going on for about half-and-hour now.
He was supposed to be reading the latest issue of Defensive Arts Quarterly, but this was far more entertaining.
"I'm so glad he's so easily amused," Dora said from her spot next to him. She'd worn her hair in long curls ever since they'd arrived in France because she liked the way that the smell of sea salt clung to it. At this particular moment, she was also wearing sunglasses and a lemon yellow bathing suit, straps slipped down her shoulders to avoid tan lines.
"That he is," Remus said. "We really lucked out, didn't we?"
"Luck's got nothing to do with it, I did an impeccable job making him," she said. Remus howled with laughter and reached over to take her hand as he went back to his reading.
"You should go join him," Dora said.
"I need to get through this article," Remus said.
"The one you've been on since last night?"
"The one that someone's been distracting me from since last night, yes," Remus said.
"Oh please, I don't recall you complaining," she said. She turned to look at him before sitting up. "Seriously, Remus, you should get in the water and splash around. It's a beautiful day."
"I know," he said. She didn't look away. "Do you have something to say, Nymphadora?"
"Don't think I won't make you eat sand," she said before sitting up. "We've been in France for a week and I don't think I've seen you get in the water once."
She was probably right. They hadn't come to the Black's beachside villa often since it had fallen into Dora's hands, but they'd had consistently bad luck with the weather which had made this week of vacation especially excellent.
Dora pushed her sunglasses on top of her head.
"You know, we're alone on this end of the beach," she said gently. "If you take your shirt off to swim, there's nobody here who hasn't seen it before."
Damn. She'd clocked him. Hard.
"That's not exactly true," Remus said. "I don't think Teddy's ever seen my bite mark or the scars or…"
He recalled wandering the apartment shirtless after Teddy had thrown up on him for the third time in one morning, and laying with a newborn baby skin to skin. Still, Teddy was seven now. He was old enough to understand some things now, including the fact that scars came from injuries and injuries meant hurt. He was also smart enough to ask questions, at this age.
"He won't be afraid of it," Dora said. "I can almost promise it."
"I know," Remus said. But it was the almost that always killed, wasn't it?
"Remus John Lupin," she said strictly, taking the magazine from his hands and tossing it into the sand before throwing one leg over his legs so that she was straddling his hips. "Do you recall one night, when I was especially exceptional after an absolutely awesome day out with our kid, and you said that you couldn't believe that you'd almost been enough of a self-conscious, overanxious, fussy idiot to miss out on all of us?"
"I… yes, I do recall… that," Remus said. He put a hand on Dora's back to stabilize her (she had fallen off of him more times than he could count), but she swatted his hand away.
"And I said 'well you had me around to knock some sense into you' and you said 'yes, please keep doing that,'" Dora asked. She slipped her sunglasses down her nose to shoot him an especially telling look. "Well, I'm doing that now. You're not some monstrous, deformed boogeyman to anybody in this family but yourself. You could have twice as many scars on you, and to Teddy you'd still just be—"
"DADA!" Teddy yelled from where he stood, seawater lapping at his ankles. He waved his yellow bucket around. "Shower time!"
"Are you trying to tell me I smell, Teddy?" Remus called back. Teddy laughed. Dora gave him an even more pointed look.
"Alright, give me one second," Remus said. He kicked off his flip-flops and got up, digging his toes in the sand. He pulled his shirt off and balled it up self-consciously before folding it properly, leaving it by his towel.
"Now there's a view," Dora grinned.
"You're impossible," Remus said, albeit with a smile.
"I'm on vacation," she said, waving her hand and pushing her sunglasses back up her nose before settling back down on her towel.
She looked so self-satisfied and comfortable, Remus could hardly be blamed for suggesting that Teddy should go shower his mother in seawater, now could he? Nor could he be faulted for helping him out.
WC: 823