Resolutions

By Neurotica

Five

A few mornings later, Remus sat alone at the kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee and flipping through the Daily Prophet with a deep frown. For months now, the added section of the missing or dead at the hands of dark wizards and Voldemort had been missing. The paper had gone back to their usual pre-war commentary on how the Ministry was being run, pointless articles on new self-stirring cauldrons, and downright ridiculous clippings about kneazles learning to dance. Remus suspected the paper believed they were only keeping the morale of the wizarding world up, but what they were really doing was giving people a false sense of security. The war had not ended; Voldemort was still out there with his followers, plotting. Often, Remus wondered about the intelligence of his fellow wizards—surely they knew they were still in terrible danger, right? It would only take one horrendous attack to remind them. Though Remus, like the rest of the world, hoped it would never happen, he was certain that it would, and when it did, it would throw them all off their feet once more.

"Morning, Remus." Harry yawned, his hair in its usual state of catastrophe. The boy stumbled exhaustedly over to the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee before joining the other wizard.

"Morning," Remus responded, closing and folding his newspaper. "Since when do you drink coffee?"

Harry shrugged, blinking sleep out of his eyes. "Since fifth year, when we were taking O.W.L.s. Hermione turned me on to it. Ron hates the stuff, though."

Remus chuckled. "That's when I started drinking it too. I'd gotten up early one morning and went down to the Great Hall to study, expecting to find it empty. Your mum was sitting there with a book propped up against a bowl of apples—she'd been there for hours cramming for our Transfiguration O.W.L. By the time I'd gotten there, she'd had a pot and a half of coffee already and offered me a cup."

Harry smiled. "What about my dad?"

"Thought it was the most disgusting drink ever created, actually." Remus grinned. "Said Muggles were mental for drinking it."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Muggles aren't the only ones who drink it."

"Yes, but nobody told James that."

Harry laughed.

"Morning, gents!" came the cheerful voice of the one and only Sirius Orion Black. The other two raised their eyebrows at one another. Sirius was never this happy before noon... "Ah, coffee! Bloody brilliant."

Harry turned to his godfather who was grinning widely over the brim of his coffee mug. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked flatly.

Remus snorted a laugh into his own coffee. "Harry," he said, trying and failing to sound stern.

"Language, my dearest godson," Sirius said, still grinning as he sat on Remus' other side, Harry muttering something to the effect of, "you started it." "To answer your question, absolutely nothing is wrong with me. It's a beautiful Saturday morning, the birds are singing—"

"You used to hex birds for singing in the morning," Remus interjected coolly. "Now, really, why are you in such a good mood?"

Sirius sighed happily before replying. "Last night, Naomi and I finally decided what we're going to call our baby."

Remus smiled. "That's wonderful. What did you settle on, then?"

Sirius looked at him as though he'd grown two heads. "I can't tell you that, Moony! You'll have to wait another month, just like everyone else. What makes you so special?"

Harry raised an eyebrow to match Remus'. "We're your family, for one. Remus is going to be her godfather and I'm going to help change her diapers. I think we're very deserving."

Sirius chuckled. "Right, well, let's at least wait for Naomi and Emmeline to wake up first. Who wants breakfast?"

Remus and Harry rolled their eyes at one another as Sirius stood whistling, and started gathering things for breakfast.

A half an hour or so later, the witches were up, and down in the basement, drawn by the smell of food. Once Emmeline returned after being sick and settled for some toast and oatmeal, Sirius and Naomi happily told the others what they planned on naming their daughter.

Remus smiled thoughtfully. "That's a wonderful idea," he said softly, watching Sirius' face for any signs that he was hurting over the decision. But his best friend seemed positively thrilled over the name he'd helped choose for his baby.

"It's a beautiful name." Emmeline smiled at them. "Now if Remus and I could just agree on what to name our boys, we'd all be set."

"You could always name one of them Romulus," Harry suggested.

Remus threw a piece of toast at him.

Remus' plan was to have a nice, quiet day with his family. He wanted to find a good book, curl up in an armchair in the library in front of a roaring fire—despite the outside summer temperature, Number Twelve was always quite chilly—and just relax. But in the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, things just didn't work that way; instead, Remus only found stress and more work to deal with.

Until just after noon, life was running smoothly—no owls had flown into the house from the Ministry, Dumbledore hadn't contacted them needing their assistance with anything pertaining to the Order and everybody was in a good mood. It wasn't until Sirius began making a pot of tea did everything fall apart.

Though he'd been granted the weekend off, one of Sirius' Aurors popped into the fire to tell his supervisor that he was needed at the Ministry immediately. (Emmeline had rigged their fire so that, though there was a Fidelius Charm over the house, all one had to do was say the name of one of the residents of the house, and they would be connected to the kitchen fireplace after a short screening process that lasted ten seconds. The screening was unique in that it only allowed certain people on a list the Order had made up into their fireplace, and blocked others.) The Head Auror skipped his temper tantrum over his day being ruined and went to change into his robes before kissing his wife and Apparating to the Ministry Atrium.

Not a month back, as you may recall, Emmeline's office in the Department of Magical Transportation had been broken into, and confidential files on the Floo network had been stolen. Sirus and his Aurors had worked for weeks trying to identify the culprit, hoping to retrieve the stolen documents, but they'd been highly unsuccessful as of yet. Now, it seemed another break-in to a different department head's office had been committed and discovered that morning. The Auror wouldn't say what department head had become the latest victim, but Remus was sure the young Auror's eyes had darted to him more than what was normal. Naomi told him after Sirius left he was being paranoid; why would someone want to steal something from the head of the Magical Creatures department? Remus kept nothing of real importance in his office except Little Bastard—his grindylow, which Sirius named—and all the case files he'd been working on were open to the public. Harry had suggested Voldemort might want to start using an army of attack-grindylow, with Little Bastard as their general, in battle. After Remus stopped laughing at the image that had brought to his mind, he resigned himself to the fact that he was being a bit over-paranoid, and allowed his wife and Naomi to drag him and Harry to the nursery Sirius had designed to finish preparations for the coming babies.

Though he was not yet aware of it, Remus had been quite right to be paranoid. Sirius stood in the doorway of his best friend's office, his former excellent mood forgotten, staring in at the destruction. The door had been blasted of its hinges; Remus' desk had been set on fire and then put out as though the person who'd done it had had second thoughts; photos had been knocked off the walls and shattered, the sofa had a large burn mark in the middle, and the tank containing Remus' grindylow had been smashed, the water now soaking through the once-beige carpet. At the thought of Remus' pet, Sirius looked closer around the office, searching for the spiny, pale-green water demon.

"Proudfoot!" Sirius called over his shoulder when he didn't find the creature. "Where's the grindylow that was in this tank?"

Sirius' new second-in-command flipped through a file he'd received from the Auror who'd discovered the office. "Dead," Proudfoot responded, pointing to a spot on the parchment. "Johnson had one of the juniors take it out of here."

"Smashing," Sirius muttered. Remus would not be happy to hear about this... "Do we have anything of use? Charmed video, foot or fingerprints, residue from a sneeze?"

Proudfoot shook his head. "Nothing. I don't understand how there could be no magical traces in here when it's more than obvious magic has been used."

"I don't know, either," Sirius said. "But this is the second time a head's office has been broken into in a month; we're going to look like a joke if we don't find something."

"Well, get Lupin in here and see if anything is missing," Proudfoot suggested. "Maybe he can give us a hint or two..."

Running a hand through his hair in frustration, Sirius nodded. "Yeah, but I'll contact him; I don't want him finding out about this from someone else."

"Er, too late for that, boss," Proudfoot muttered, looking out the door.

Sirius turned and raised an eyebrow as Remus approached with his jaw slightly open and Tonks just behind him. "What in the name of Merlin happened here?" the werewolf breathed, entering what remained of his office. "Who did this?"

Sirius sighed. "We don't know, Remus. It might have been the same people who busted into Emmeline's office, but we're not sure. Whoever it was, they seem to really hate you..."

"Where's my grindylow?" Remus asked sharply, pointing at the shards of glass that remained on the base of the formerly large tank.

"Er," Sirius said. "He died, Remus. Don't know if it was from the tank being destroyed or some spell, but we got him out of here earlier..."

"Who would kill a grindylow?" Remus asked incredulously. Sirius could only shrug. He personally hadn't terribly fond of the creature—it had bitten him numerous times—but Remus had become rather attached to it.

"Remus, we need to know if there's anything missing in here," Sirius said, watching his best friend look around sadly. "Maybe that will give us a lead."

Remus nodded silently and began looking through his office for anything he could think of that would be worth stealing. Meanwhile, the Head Auror questioned his cousin as to why Remus had come so soon. She told him that she'd gotten word from another Auror that Remus' office had been subject to a break-in, and at the time no one had been able to contact Sirius. So Tonks had gone to Number Twelve herself looking for her cousin, not knowing that Remus wasn't yet aware of what happened, and told him. Remus hadn't listened to Tonks' suggestion that he should wait for word from Sirius, but muttered something to Naomi about him not being paranoid, grabbed his cloak, and rushed out the front door.

"...and here we are," the young Auror finished.

Sirius raised his eyebrows at her. "Right," he said slowly. "You know it takes time to get through those screenings on our Floo." He sighed. "You must have just missed me, then."

Ten minutes later, Remus finished his search and announced he couldn't spot anything missing. All the files he'd been working on, though scattered all across the floor, were there, and he couldn't think of anything that somebody would want to steal from him. "It's not as though I've got expensive possessions or anything," he said as he and Sirius left the department. Proudfoot said he'd take care of getting the place cleaned up and would finish what was left of the evidence gathering—there hadn't been much to begin with.

"Did you piss off a vampire or something?" Sirius asked as they walked to the Atrium.

Remus shook his head, not catching the joke Sirius was trying to make. "Not that I can think of. All of the Magical Creature groups I've dealt with have been relatively satisfied with everything I've said and done for them. Well, maybe not the werewolves so much," he added when Sirius raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "But they would have done a lot more than destroy my office if I'd offended them... Again."

Sirius chuckled darkly. "Yeah, you haven't exactly been their best friend, have you?"

"Sirius, they don't like me, because I've made something of myself, and I don't spend the full moons ripping throats out. I've got an excellent job with good pay, a wife, and a family who loves me, and twins on the way. If any one of the werewolves in Greyback's pack wanted what I have, they could have it."

"But Greyback's convinced them they'd be traitors if they did."

"Not only that, but they're afraid of Greyback. For the most part, the werewolves in the underground have been with him since they were children, since they were bitten or born. They've been brainwashed to believe wizarding society had made their lives what they are—they won't believe it was Greyback's doing. They're all far too loyal to him."

"If they did start to believe it was Greyback," Sirius said, "do you think they'd turn on him?"

Remus shrugged. "I suppose it's possible—if it was possible to convince them Greyback was their enemy, and not wizards. But it would take a lot to convince them, and I for one, am not willing to attempt it again."

"That's good to know," Sirius said lightly as they approached the fireplaces. "Now I won't have to club you over the head if you ever suggest going to the underground. I'll just remind you of this cheery conversation."

Remus chuckled. "That is definitely not something you've ever got to worry about, Padfoot. See you at home."

Along with the investigations break-ins in the Ministry of Magic, Sirius also had the added stresses of Harry's seventeenth birthday and the full moon. He was the last person who wanted to admit that his godson was about to become of age. Every year since Harry's eleventh birthday, Sirius wondered where the years had gone—it seemed like only yesterday he and Remus were taking Harry away from his Muggle relatives. This year, though, Harry didn't want a big party—all he wanted was a night with a few of his friends and his family. Sirius was reluctant to obey the boy's request—after all, it wasn't every day a wizard became a legal adult in the magical world. But Remus had forced him to keep the celebration to a minimum; the full moon was the night before Harry's birthday, and Remus usually wasn't up for too much excitement after his transformations. Luckily for him, he still had the Wolfsbane.

After the incident involving Severus Snape and Emmeline's older brother, Michael, Remus said he would rather go without the potion than to be forced to be thankful to Snape for preparing it for him. It hadn't taken much to convince him that not taking the potion would produce far less desirable results, not to mention it would put Remus' wife and unborn children in danger. The werewolf finally went to Dumbledore and made the Headmaster promise that somebody else, anybody else, would deliver it to him every month. But after the last term at Hogwarts had ended, Snape hadn't been making the potion for him anymore; Horace Slughorn had, and Remus found himself able to take his bitter potion much easier knowing Snape hadn't been involved in its brewing.

According to Harry, Snape probably wouldn't be teaching at Hogwarts much longer. There'd been a rumor floating around the castle that the Defense teacher had resigned from the post. This news—though still a rumor; Dumbledore had yet to confirm it—was met with very mixed emotions from Harry's guardians: Sirius had cheered, quite pleased that the greasy git was finally leaving the school, while Remus began questioning Snape's motives. He was supposed to have been placed at Hogwarts by Voldemort many years ago to act as a spy on the Headmaster. Had the Dark Lord decided a spy was no longer needed? And if so, why? Snape was also of great use to the Order, as much as it pained Remus to admit it—over the years, he'd grown to loathe Snape just as much as Sirius did. What would happen to the Order's only remaining source of information to the Dark Lord's activities if he no longer had a legitimate reason to cross paths with Dumbledore?

Sirius' only response did nothing to comfort to Remus. "Dumbledore's old, but he's a smart bloke," the Auror had said. "He'll figure something out."

But before an Order meeting a few weeks back, Dumbledore had told Remus confidentially that he'd not heard from Snape since the school term ended. Apparently, Snape's private quarters in the dungeons had been cleared out, as had his office and classroom. And when Dumbledore had gone to Snape's home in a rundown Muggle neighborhood, the younger wizard was nowhere to be found. In fact, there were no signs that he'd been there in many months. Remus had always had a gift for knowing when the old Headmaster was worried, and Remus had never seen his mentor more concerned than he was that night. Snape's disappearance only added to the mystery of Voldemort's sudden pause in the war—had Snape finally grown tired of his double-agent role and gone back to his master fulltime? Or had Voldemort discovered Snape, like Naomi, had betrayed him?

The Dark Lord would not make the same mistakes he had with Naomi by allowing her to live long enough to attempt an escape. If Snape had been found, he was probably long dead by now. Naomi had been lucky she'd made it out of the Death Eater castle when she had, there was no other way around it. Somebody had been looking down on her that night.

Remus smiled slightly at the thought of James Potter being Naomi's guardian angel—it'd make sense; James always had been very protective of her. Remus tried not to think much on Wormtail's alleged role in Naomi's escape—every time he did, he received a very painful migraine for his trouble. One thing was for certain: if Wormtail had somehow gotten Naomi to safety, he was the reason for Sirius' current happiness. It was a very ironic thought, considering all that Wormtail had done sixteen years ago, and one that Remus would never speak aloud for fear of being skinned alive by the Head Auror...

"Is there a reason you're being so antisocial, my love?" asked a teasing quiet voice from behind him. A second later, a pair of very familiar hands began massaging Remus' very sore shoulders. He groaned and leaned back into his wife's chest.

"If this is my punishment for being antisocial," he murmured with his eyes closing on their own accord, "I'll be doing it a lot more often."

She chuckled and slid her hands down his collarbone, kissing his cheek. "So what's with all the deep thoughts? You're supposed to be relaxing before the full moon, and instead I find you in the library."

"You seemed surprised by that," he said, turning his head to kiss her lips. "I've too much on my mind to sleep during the day."

Emmeline smiled sympathetically and moved around the sofa to sit beside him. "Anything you feel like sharing?" She'd learned over the course of their relationship that there were some things Remus preferred to keep to himself. It got on her nerves every so often, but she had to remind herself that she'd kept things from him as well—like how her father had died.

He shrugged. "Nothing too unusual—Voldemort, the war, the full moon, you, the babies, Harry, Sirius... all those fun, happy thoughts. And of course there are the added joys of wondering how my transformation into a raging monster will effect my wife and unborn sons," he added in a mock-light tone.

Emmeline slipped her arms around his waist and leaned her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. "We'll be fine. And the only time you turn into a raging monster is when you and I are—"

"Emmeline!" cried a disgusted voice from the door. "None of us need to hear that!"

"I was going to say when we're playing chess. You shouldn't be eavesdropping, should you, Sirius?" Emmeline called back, grinning widely at the blush rising on Remus' cheeks. "Is there something we can help you with?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, there is," Sirius said, approaching the couple. "You can start by getting that grotesque image out of my mind."

Remus threw a pillow at him. "What do you want, Padfoot?"

"Thought you'd want to know that your office is back to normal. I just got the owl from Proudfoot."

Remus nodded. "Any idea who did it?"

The Auror shook his head regretfully. "I'm doing my best, Moony, really I am. But right now it's looking like we'll get as far as we did when Emmeline's office was broken into."

"Has anyone thought that maybe it was the same person both times?" Emmeline asked.

"Yes, that was one of our first thoughts, actually. But that still does us no good since we've still got no idea who the hell it was."

"Well, I know you'll do everything you can to find whoever it was," Remus said. "I only wish they hadn't killed my grindylow..."

"He was a violent little sot, but I liked him," Sirius agreed. "How would you feel about a hippogriff?"

Remus and Emmeline stared at him. "A Hippogriff?" Remus said flatly.

Sirius nodded excitedly. "Yeah," he said, "I was talking with Hagrid the other night, and he says two of his hippogriffs have mated and are about to have little hippogriffs."

"Where in the world would you put a Hippogriff, Sirius?" Emmeline asked.

The wizard shrugged. "I could make it a nest in my mother's room..."

"You're not getting a Hippogriff," Remus said.

"Who's getting a Hippogriff?" Harry asked, entering the room. Sirius raised his hand. "If he gets a hippogriff, I want the phoenix I've wanted since I was five."

Remus rolled his eyes. "Sirius is not getting a hippogriff, and you are not getting a phoenix, Harry. I've already got enough to clean up around here between the two of you without adding wild animals to the picture."

Harry turned and looked thoughtfully at his godfather. "He used to be a lot more fun."

"Before he went and got married," Sirius agreed. "Marriage changes everybody—"

"I heard that, Sirius Black!" Naomi's voice said from down the hall, getting nearer.

"But you didn't let me finish, love," Sirius called back without skipping a beat. "Marriage changes you for the best, Harry. You'll do good to remember that."

Remus looked at his wife. "I could have gone to Ravenclaw when I was a first year. I could have made normal friends. Friends who don't give me grey hair, but this is what I get."

Emmeline's lips twitched. "But you wouldn't know what to do without them, so don't act like they're such a burden."

Remus looked over his shoulder to where Sirius and Harry were arguing about whose hair needed a cut most. "Just don't tell them that," he begged his wife.

Emmeline chuckled and kissed him before saying quietly, "You're secret is safe with me."