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 #4, Horology Task 10: Write an Everyone Lives!AU

Warnings: NA

On the Back of the Door

She woke him up as gently as she could on the day after the full moon, just to prompt him to take a sip of water. Remus melted against his pillow and under her hand when she smoothed down his hair. She shimmied out of her jeans and crawled into bed in her t-shirt, giving him space like she always did when she didn't know where exactly he was hurting this month.

He reached out and offered a hand, resting on a pillow, which she took.

"How are you?" he asked–his voice so croaky, still, that she knew better than to ask him the same question.

"I'm okay," she said quietly. "Do you need anything else?"

"No," she said. "Tell me about your day."

"Just a lot of paperwork, ahead of Rabastan Lestrange's trial," she said. "Witness training and stuff like that; a waste of all of our time when there are still Death Eaters running amok…."

"It'll be over soon," he said quietly, giving her hand a squeeze.

"Soon," she said.

"And Teddy?" Remus asked. He had been with Sirius all day–so he'd inevitably been spoiled rotten. Sirius always had the decency to return the children he babysat absolutely exhausted after a day of running after Padfoot.

"I gave him a goodnight kiss for you," she said, a smile creeping on her lips. "For now, he's sleeping so soundly, we won't hear a peep from him until morning."

"I thought I heard some giggling," Remus said. He hadn't been sure if he was lucid or dreaming at the time, but the laughter had made him think of both Sirius and his happy, thriving 18-month-old boy.

"Harry also swung by after work to hang out with them," she filled him in. "There's dog fur and pizza boxes everywhere in the flat."

"I'll clean it up tomorrow," he said.

"That's not why I was telling you," she said. The piercing through her left eyebrow made their furrowing especially clear.

"I know," he said. "I know."

She had been telling him so he would know that Teddy was okay–since he always worried on the days he slept away the full moon's toll on him instead of watching Teddy himself. He trusted Harry and Sirius with his son as he'd trusted them with his life, but guilt still swirled in his stomach at the fact that he hadn't been there to chase Teddy around the flat, help him pick his clothes for the day, make him lunch, read him his afternoon stories, or even kiss him goodnight…

"You'll make him pancakes tomorrow morning, like you always do the day after the full moon," she reminded him, her thumb tracing circled against his hand. "He will be so, so happy to see you–and see you when you're well."

"I know," Remus said. He'd even picked up some berries at the store, so Teddy would be getting blueberry-studded pancakes in the morning. "I just… I can do so little that when I can't even do what I usually do, I…"

"Hey," she said, sitting up in bed, eyebrows furrowing further. "Hey, you're going to the bad place again."

"Hmm?"

"You do this when you're tired," she said. "You forget that you matter."

"That's not what I–"

"Maybe it's not what you meant, but when you start thinking these things it all goes downhill so quickly. And then you start thinking silly things like maybe you'd be more use to your son if you got yourself killed in a war," she said, crossing her arms. "I've seen it before, I—I—"

"Dora," he said quietly, pushing himself upright, joint by aching joint. The guilt that lingered in his stomach even on the best days started bubbling, now.

"No," she said. "No, no, don't get up, just…"

She ran her palms over her eyes and dug her fingers into her hair.

"I'm not mad," she said. "I'm not mad and I'm not bringing this up to hurt you or play a card, I just… I hate seeing you hurt yourself. That's all."

She had told him not to, but he sat up anyway.

"And you're scared that I'll spiral again," he said. "That I'll panic and run."

She didn't say yes right away but she also didn't lie to him and say no. It was, all things considered, the most honest course of action.

"I…" she took a deep breath. "I wasn't trying to play some kind of card."

"You would have deserved to."

"I wasn't," she insisted.

"Okay," he said. "I believe you."

It wasn't like they hadn't talked about it before. It was just different to look at a scar than stem an open wound, that was all.

"I trust you with my life," Dora finally said. "With my son, with everything. But I don't trust you with yourself."

He took a deep breath.

"We don't have to talk about this when you're tired," she said quickly.

"Maybe we should," Remus said. "This is when I have the most trouble with the… with the anxiety and the nightmares and everything else that makes up the… what did you call it? The bad place? It's just easier to go there when I'm too tired to get up or move or think straight and all I can do is just… lie here and stare at the door, listening to Teddy's laughter through it, but I can't be the person I want to be for him–for you, for both of you…"

Dora turned to look at the door for a second before lunging over to her bedside table to turn on the light at her bedside table and rummaged through her drawers.

"No quill, no pen, no ink," she muttered to herself. "Okay, eyeliner… Gotta be flexible here, close enough."

She pushed herself off of bed and towards the closed door. Her t-shirt rode up as she eased herself on her tip-toes so she could scrawl on the top of the door, in her surprisingly meticulous but round penmanship:

We are loved and love each other

Rest is important

We have to take care of ourselves and our family

We all matter

Patience is important

Not everything is personal

Remus split his attention between the words she was scrawling on the back of her door and the way she bit her tongue as she focused. Then she looked over her shoulder.

"Anything else?" she asked him.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Is there anything else that's hard but important to remember?" she asked. "When we wake up in the morning, when we're laying in bed and staring at the door, when we're tired…"

"Bad days don't last forever," Remus said. He couldn't sit up much longer, so he settled back down on the pillow. He could see her handwriting. "Change takes time."

"Change takes time," she repeated as she took her eyeliner to the door again. "Bad days don't last forever."

She tapped the eyeliner to the corner of her lips before going back to writing.

Everyone is allowed to take up space

"It is okay to be scared and hurt, if we are honest and sharing," Remus said. He took a deep breath. "It is important to take each other seriously."

"Yes," she said.

"Even when we don't understand each other," he specified.

"Yes," she said–adding his addendum. She looked at her handiwork before looking over her shoulder again.

"Anything else?" she asked.

"We have a good life together," Remus said, letting himself sink into his pillow.

"That we do," she said. She added his words to the door. We have the best life together.

His eyes were fluttering by the time she put her stick of eyeliner away and curled up in bed with him again. She rested her chin on his shoulder for a minute, to look at the back of their door. Satisfied with her handiwork, she nodded before settling down again–wrapping a hand around his waist and burrowing in the blankets as she always did. Remus looked at those words until his eyes fluttered shut.

He realised at some point that they definitely weren't going to get their rental deposit back, but he decided that was worth it.

WC: 1335