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 #5, Computer Applications Task #1: Write about someone that's high spirited.

Warnings: On the citrusy side; nothing explicit

In a Jam

"Dora?" Remus asked, hand gliding against the staircase railing, leading down to the Burrow's basement. "Dora, you've been gone for jam quite a while now…"

"I'm fine!" he heard. He followed the sound of her voice, navigating around boxes of clothes that the Weasley children had grown out of, toys that were no longer played with, and what he assumed were bins of Muggle bits and bobs that Arthur kept around for… well, for whatever reason. He found her in the back, standing on a pile of boxes that someone far more coordinated wouldn't have had business standing on.

"Dora!" he chided. "Dora, you are going to break her neck…"

"She said strawberry, but it's orange marmalade for days down here," she mumbled unhappily as she kept scrutinising the shelf. "Wait, maybe there…"

He knew she was going to fall the second she stretched up to try and reach a new set of jars, which was why he was there to catch her. She was a mess of stripes in his arms–between the striped sweater she'd stolen from his wardrobe and the pleated olive skirt that swirled around her thighs.

"Oof!" she said when she landed in his arms.

"Are you okay?" he asked. She had shapeshifted last night to avoid a squad of Daily Prophet reporters when she'd had to pop into the Auror Office, and hadn't completely changed back. Not only was she shorter than him, for once, but she fit neatly in his arms.

"Fine," she said. The smile that spread on her face told him that whatever was about to come out of her mouth would be rotten, but even he couldn't prepare himself for: "See? Finally proven myself right, after all those years telling you I was a catch."

She laughed before stifling his groan with a kiss, looping her arms around his neck.

"What are you, a search party?" she asked.

"Molly thought you may have gotten lost in her pantry."

"And got myself in a jam?"

He knew he shouldn't even dignify that with a groan but he couldn't help himself, so she had another excuse to kiss him. And then she kissed him again, and got the corner of his lips, and then his jawline, and then that one spot on his jawline…

"What are you doing?" he asked, gently lowering her down. One of her hands stayed put on the back of his neck, the other glided down his chest.

"Maybe I am getting myself into something," she said as her fingers brushed dangerously low, dangerously lightly. His hand caught hers.

"The entire Weasley clan is upstairs, along with miscellaneous strays and misfits," he reminded her.

"I know," she said. "They are historically very good at keeping themselves, and our beloved screaming infant, occupied for… well, we can make this quick."

"Quick?" Remus repeated with a frown.

"Remus," she said, pressing her chest to his and looking up at him very seriously. "How long has our son been on Merlin's green earth?"

"Nine weeks," Remus said.

"And how long has it been since we..?" she arched an eyebrow, letting her pause reinforce her meaning.

"Ah," Remus said. "Yes, I know, I see. But the timing…"

"The timing of our lives right now is run by an infant with no sense of time, a range of postpartum hormones that are still settling down, and the very stupid amount of work it takes to dig the world out of a war," she said. Her hands were furrowing with the buttons of his shirt as she spoke, making it very hard for him to keep up or mount a counter argument–not that he particularly wanted to, since she was biting her lip with concentration in that endearing way of hers.. "I'm more worried about the timing existing than the timing being good. And, well… I think I'm ready now, at least."

"Yes, at least," Remus said almost in one breath as his hands made their way back to her hips and his lips crashed down to hers. Frankly, he was on thin ice already–after a taste of her lips, he usually slipped under quite quickly. Oh how quickly he had changed his tune. Even if he wasn't the high-spirited one in their relationship by any stretch of the imagination, she was good at drawing out that younger, bolder, carefree part of him. Something about the spontaneity of it all that was also becoming increasingly… well, appealing.

Despite her surprised yelp, she wasted no time in hopping up to wrap her legs around his waist. She pushed herself against him, and it was his lips' turn to go wandering down her neck, which she rolled her head back to offer him, tugging at his hair.

"I love what you do," she whispered in his ear as she started pushing the shirt off his shoulders. Part of Remus's brain remembered that there had been baby vomit on it a matter of hours ago, but they seemed to be past that–at least she seemed to be, since she was rearranging her skirt for him.

"I'll be gentle, but I need you to tell me if…"

"I will," she said before crushing her lips to his again. Her hands were resting dangerously low on his stomach, which was almost all he could think about until he heard the–

"Whoa! Whoa, alright, I see, I see…"

Never had they bounced away from each other so quickly. Absolutely never. But it was critical that they take stock of who had found them out, so Remus pulled his cardigan back up over his shoulders and wrapped himself in it just as frantically as Dora smoothed down her skirt–in front of George Weasley.

Well… that was unfortunate, but it could be worse. Remus didn't think he would ever have been able to recover had, Merlin forbid, Harry walked in on them. Or worse, Molly…

"Wotcher?" Dora asked, feigning casualty as she tugged the sweater that had slipped over her shoulder back into place–covering what was almost certainly going to be a mark.

"Thought you two were supposed to get some jam, not get yourselves into one," George said with a half-hearted grin on his face.

"If I didn't laugh when she said it, I won't laugh at it coming from you," Remus said.

George looked taken aback for a second until he exploded into laughter. Remus took a hold of the opportunity to go about rebuttoning his shirt.

"Accio strawberry jam," George said when he had finally recovered enough to string together the words. A jar came whizzing between the two of them and George caught it, not-so-subtly whistling a pop-y Muggle love song to himself as he walked up the stairs.

"I can't believe I lost a shoe without even getting some," Dora muttered to herself as she slipped her shoe back on.

"Dora," he chided.

"Oh, relax," Dora said. "I have enough dirt on George that he won't even think of telling anyone."

"What dirt?"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Dora said, clapping his shoulder. She leaned in to whisper. "Worry about how I will finish what I started. You know, if the timing works out."

Before he could think of something equally quippy to say, she marched back upstairs.

It took him longer to make his way upstairs, on account of all the buttons and how red his cheeks had gotten, and he brought another jar of jam to Molly because it would have felt too incriminating to go up there empty-handed. She was standing at the stove, transferring freshly baked biscuits to a cooling rack.

"Oh, thank you love," she said, wiping her hands on her apron when she saw him. "You can just set that down on the counter."

And ten she wrapped her arms around him in one of those warm, motherly hugs she specialised in. She took a deep breath.

"I don't know what you and Tonks and George talked about downstairs," she said. "But thank you."

The blood drained from his face.

"Whatever for, Molly?" Remus asked.

"That was the first time in weeks that I have heard my son laugh," Molly said. She took a deep, shaky breath. "I missed that sound."

Remus had never in his life deserved a hug less, but he hugged Molly back–happy that at least some good had come out of this.

WC: 1394