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

Content Warnings: NA

The Grocery Budget

Her arms looped around his shoulders and she propped her chin on the top of his head. She had already slipped into the grey sweater of his that she'd co-opted as sleepwear as of late.

"What are you working on so late?" she asked. "You know, when you could be lounging around in bed with me?"

"Tempting," Remus said with a small smile as he scribbled a note on another receipt and copied some numbers over to his spreadsheet. All those hours spent studying for Arithmancy with Lily and going batty were paying off; there was magic woven into the table he'd drawn so that it tallied up numbers in the different squares he had enchanted.

"Seriously," Dora said, kissing his ear. "What are you working on?"

"The family budget," Remus said. "We were over on groceries last week."

"By how much?" Dora asked.

"Not much," Remus said. "About ten quid, we pay at the grocery store with Muggle money, so I'm just looking over the receipts now."

"Oh, well ten quid's nothing," Dora said. "That's fine."

"Yes, there's a cushion for that at the end of the month," Remus acknowledged. "But still, I don't want to make it a habit. It's alright; I've figured it out. Next week I'll put Teddy down for a nap earlier in the day so that we have time to go to the supermarket where the meat prices are better—that'll do it, and next time olive oil is on sale I'll grab some so that we don't pay full price for it..."

"You know, it's just ten quid, Remus," Dora said gently. "And, like you said, there's extra money at the end of the month. That's what it's there for. You don't have to run to four different stores or make life harder than it has to be. Hell, we could even get some more take-away so that you don't have to cook all the time because Merlin knows we don't want me stepping up to that particular task."

Remus smiled.

"I like cooking," he said.

"I know," she said. "But the point is that you don't have to worry about this stuff as much… Aurors are paid well, for the bullshit we put up with. Like, I'm not saying that there'll be mounds of Galleons in Gringotts if we just go absolutely bonkers, but we're okay."

"I know," Remus said. "I know, I looked at the numbers, I did the math."

"Thank Merlin, someone has to," Dora muttered under her breath.

"So I know that we're alright, but… well, there were times where ten quid was all I had to my name," Remus said. "Or when it could have really, really changed my day or week or… or month, frankly. So I worry."

"I know," Dora said gently, tightening her arms around him. He appreciated the pressure around him.

"Old habits die hard, but I am trying to bury them," Remus said. "This might just have to be one of my strange things that doesn't make sense for a while because it's only real to me."

"We've had some of those before," Dora said. She kissed his ear. "I've learned my lesson about respecting boundaries and giving you space."

"Thank you. I might need to ask for your patience again."

"I have some of that to spare," she promised. "As long as you work on it. I don't know what to say except that that's not where we are, now. There's two of us taking care of each other, and things are… Well, things are stable for once. They're pretty good. Don't get caught in your own head and forget that."

"I would give us more than a 'pretty good,'" Remus said, bringing one of her hands to his lips so he could kiss her knuckles.

"Does that mean you've done enough math for tonight and we can go snuggle now?" she asked.

"It does," he confirmed with a smile.

WC: 657