"Don't study all night, love, tomorrow is Christmas Eve day, mind you," Hope Lupin said softly and placed a hand on her son's shoulder. She was heading to bed.

At her gentle touch, Remus suddenly blinked quickly and broke out of his focused trance reading his Alchemy textbook. He looked up at her and smiled when his eyes met her ever-loving gaze.

Strangely, the roles felt reversed in her looking pale and tired instead of it always being him. He dropped one of his hands from the book and grasped his mothers frail hand still resting on his shoulder. Hope lifted her other hand, lightly stroked a lock of his hair, and smiled proudly back down at him.

He was lying on the couch that converted into a pullout bed at the small rental cottage their family often visited on holiday. However, it was usually summertime when they went there in the past. A frigid winter rain now relentlessly pounded upon the roof. For the first time, his parents had decided to spend Christmas and New Years there instead of at home.

Hope had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Lyall had showed no restraint lately in making what time they had left with her as pleasant as possible and made sure to cherish each moment. Muggle doctors had given her 8-months or possibly a year left at most. Healers in the magical world they had consulted with about her condition were unclear about her prognosis. Any kind of divination efforts were heavily clouded in confusion related to the present darkness of the First Wizarding War growing in intensity.

Remus had met them in Hogsmeade village at the end of his fall term instead of taking the Hogwarts Express like all the other students. James, Sirius & Peter had insisted on meeting them although it was a rather brief exchange of greetings as they had to make a hasty exit to catch the train departure back to London.

After his friends departed, Lyall & Hope had also made insistent requests of Remus to show them the Shrieking Shack before they continued out west in their Muggle automobile to the cottage on the Scottish coast of the Highlands.

Remus despised even being near the Shrieking Shack when it was unnecessary timing. But he knew his parents wanted to see what his place of monthly transformations looked like while he was in school so he accommodated their curiosity. Lyall had brought his broomstick along for Hope to ride on as they walked to the location as she had declining stamina.

They decided not to attempt to break through any of the protective spells and enchantments that Dumbledore had placed on the outside walls.

There really wasn't much to see inside the wretched place anyway, in his humble opinion. The interior had become increasingly shabby and in disarray each successive school year as he had gradually torn everything apart within clawed reach while in his loathsome werewolf form.

Remus found it much more enjoyable visiting Honey dukes and nibbling on chocolates on the stunningly beautiful drive in the snowy highlands to the cottage.

Thankfully, the memory charms that Lyall's former Defense Against the Dark Arts Professer, Galatea MerryThought, had cast upon Mrs.Flume, the sweets shop owner of Hogsmeade had continued to hold for many years since he was little keeping Remus's lycanthropy a secret. Therefore, Remus had had no further trouble during his visits there during school with his mates nor the most recent visit with his parents.

Remus chuckled a bit when they left the shop and he had to help his father carry to the car what appeared to be portions of everything in the shop for their holiday, especially an extra large box of his mum's favorite, shimmering pink squares of coconut ice.

Back at the cottage, Remus gave his mom's hand on his shoulder a light squeeze. Then he said assuringly,

"Of course, mum. I haven't forgotten."

Her hand felt weak as he held it, like she couldn't grasp his back very tightly. Her fingers loosened and went limp. Remus set his Alchemy book down completely and jumped up from the sofa bed. His eyebrows furrowed in worry and he asked her,

"Is...is there anything I can do to help you, mum, to uh, help you feel more comfortable?"

Hope still had the proud smile on her face. It momentarily helped Remus's anxious expression relax a bit. She touched a scar line on the side of his right cheek and then slowly rested her cupped hand on the side of his stubbled cheek.

"I'm fine, my sweet son. Don't fret. I just need to … to get to bed now. I'm comfortable now that you are... you are here with us, Remus, it's been so lovely, to see you again…my my, what an accomplished… scholar you've become, like your father."

Remus quietly smiled back at her and noted how her words were effortful. She exhibited a slower rate of speech with gasps of breaths in-between her words. In the past, she didn't used to talk in such a fatigued manner. He felt a burning sensation well up in his throat and he fought to keep back tears. Remus swallowed it away and blinked his eyes heavily. He didn't want to break down in front of her. Not now. He needed to be the strong one to her for a change after the countless times she had been his anchor of strength.

He also observed that she appeared a bit unbalanced on her feet and her body was making small swaying movements. He cleared his throat and without asking her for permission, he slipped one of his arms around her waist. Then he said rather assertively,

"Here, hold on to me, mum, I'll assist you to the bedroom. Please. Don't do it alone. It's really no bother, my Alchemy book can certainly wait."

Despite Hope's initial denial of offered assistance, she seemed to immediately melt into the steady strength of Remus's arm when it wrapped around her. She had lost a lot of weight. Remus felt it more than ever as he supported her withered frame and feeble steps to the bedroom.

He helped her lie down next to his father who was facing them on the other side of the bed with his eyes closed and loudly snoring. He pulled up the feather duvet wrapped in a fresh, soft clean sheet cover. The print on the sheets had bright orange splashy flowers with avocado green leaves. Once he had tucked her in, he noticed her eyes blinked heavily at him. She was clearly struggling to keep them open in her extreme exhaustion.

She managed to grab one of his hands and kissed it once in gratitude for his assistance. Then she nearly dropped his hand and passed out asleep at once. Remus watched her body relax into the bed, then he leaned over and kissed her forehead.

"Night mum, sleep well, I love you," he whispered.

For a while, Remus crouched down next to her bedside and watched her sleep. A bedside lamp illuminated her thin face and he watched her wide-eyed with an uneasiness like she could just disappear at any moment.

His fingers drifted down and futilely touched the rounded knob end of his cypress wood wand tucked into the waist of his trousers. Oh how he wished he knew some healing spell he could simply wave over her sweet head and make the awful brain tumor be gone forever.

Suddenly, Lyall sat up on the other side of the bed. He glanced quietly down at his wife to check that she was still asleep. Hope continued to sleep despite his abrupt movement on the mattress. He looked directly at Remus and pointed at him.

"You ready?" he silently mouthed.

Remus nodded affirmatively back at his father and a mischievous grin spread across his face as he remembered their earlier plan. Both of them crept stealthily out of the bedroom. Remus paused for a moment, turned back around at the doorway and pulled out his wand. He deftly made a quick wave in the air and whispered, "Nox." Then the bedside lamp light beside Hope instantly turned off.

Lyall was grabbing two heavy waterproof rain jackets on a rack by the front door when Remus crept back out to the living room area. Lyall held one up and asked,

"You need an anorak, yes?"

"Yes, indeed. Accio jacket."

One of the anorak jackets flew to Remus and he grabbed it quickly out of mid air. Then Lyall said intently, "Stand over there by the fireplace, Remus."

Remus obliged and gazed back at him with a questioning look. Then his father glanced at him up and down. He asked, "How tall are you now… nearly 183 centimeters?"

Remus nodded and replied, "Yes father, spot on. I've passed up all my friends and am about 1.83 meters now."

Both of Remus' parents were tall. Lyall nodded and said with amusement, "Well, it's not a big mystery where your height comes from."

His father then squinted his eyes a bit, looked from the top of Remus's head to the ceiling, and nodded quietly to himself as he adjusted the cuffs of his jacket.

Remus still stood obligingly where his father had asked him to stand. He asked, "Am I done being your measuring stick?"

Lyall looked up from his sleeves and replied, "Ah yes yes, carry on."

Then he swished and flicked his wand over a pair of rubber rain boots by the front door. He muttered quietly, "Wingardium leviosa."

They floated to Remus who grabbed them before they nearly bonked him in the head and he said, "Thanks for packing the Wellies, Dad."

As Remus sat down on the sofa bed to get them pulled on, he gave a quick glance towards the bedroom. Then he asked furtively, "Are you certain mum won't wake up while we're gone?"

Lyall's eyes flicked once toward the bedroom and then back to Remus. Hope seemed to still be fast asleep.

He exhaled a mournful sigh and said, "Nothing feels very certain these days, Remus, but the usual pattern has been when she first goes to sleep at night, she's out for at least 2-3 hours like she's been rendered unconscious by a stunning spell."

Remus replied, "Alright, then. It sounds like now is our best bet. Nevertheless, I'll scratch out a quick message for her on a piece of parchment, in the rare chance she might wake and find us gone. I don't want to make anything more... more difficult on her."

Lyall's face scrunched into grimace of pain thinking about Hope's deteriorating health condition. For a few moments, Remus stared at him patiently waiting for words to come flowing out but they never did. He had not talked much to Remus about it yet on their holiday. But Remus silently concluded to himself that his father would talk about it when he was ready. Clearly, it wasn't the proper time. His father simply nodded approvingly in agreement and continued preparing for their flight in the perilous weather.

While Remus worked on the note to his mother, Lyall located their broom sticks and dug out goggles he had packed they would surely need to protect their eyes against the intense weather conditions outside. Icy rain pounded the thatched roof and they faced the unpredictability of it changing to snow flurries at any minute whipping into their faces.

Gusts of fierce wind howled hauntingly through the aged windows of the cottage. As the ghostly howls of wind drifted into Remus's ears, it triggered a disturbing desire somewhere deep within himself to join in the howls. Stop it, he told himself willfully working hard to suppress down the revolting urge; then continued determinedly writing the note for his mother.

Meanwhile, Lyall strolled into the kitchen and sat down at the table across from where Remus was seated finishing up scribbling on the parchment. His father set a gift on the table with a surprising solid, whack sound as it hit the surface of the table. It was a fairly thin, rectangular wooden box with a hand-sewn, orange and green colored Harris tweed ribbon tied across the front.

The sound of the box hitting the table startled Remus as he was writing and his hand jerked creating an odd jagged scribble away from the words. He looked up curiously from his piece of parchment and then neatly set down his quill. He gave his father a puzzled look and before he could ask, Lyall explained,

"I was going to wait until Christmas to give it to you but I think it would be right for you to open it now. You'll need them tonight.

Remus hesitantly took the wooden box and just peered down at it with one raised eyebrow.

"Go ahead. Open it," Lyall coaxed.

Remus carefully untied the ribbon and opened the box. Inside was a pair of unusual, midnight black dragon-hide gloves.

"Oh wow, Dad, these are lovely. The color of the dragon scales... is it from where I think it's from, from over the Minch?"

Remus made a little nod with his head toward the ocean when he referenced the Minch. Lyall smiled slyly and replied,

"Yes indeed. You guessed it. Do you remember the other day when I told you and Hope I had to mind to some top secret work business? I actually took a day trip over to the Hebrides to the dragon reserve run by the MacFusty clan over the Minch to purchase those gloves for you."

"Oh Merlin, Dad, that was... extraordinarily kind and thoughtful of you to go to all that trouble, thank you. I will treasure them always," Remus told him as he eagerly tried them both on wiggling his scarred fingers into the holes. They fit well.

Most dragon-hide gloves were sold in Diagon Alley and a requirement for a part of the Hogwarts uniform. Hogwarts students needed the hand protection for a variety of courses including herbology, potions, and Care of Magical Creatures. Dragon-hide was extremely tough, imperviously resistant to spells, and spared many students burn or bite injuries during the course of their studies.

The dragon scales on typical dragon-hide gloves students bought were nearly always a dull, muddy brown color. They were definitely not as elegant as these gloves which clearly had been expertly hand crafted and stitched. The Hebridean black dragon scales on this pair of gloves were mostly solid black except for when they would catch the light just right, they gave off a stunning iridescent beetle-green sheen to the scales. Remus had never seen another student wear another pair like these gloves and although he was generally not one to relish the spotlight among others; there was a small part of him that was looking forward to showing these gloves off a bit.

After removing the black gloves and setting them both on the table, he opened the top of his anorak jacket. He unbuttoned the top of his shirt and reached under the material next to his bare skin. He pulled out a thin, leather cord necklace that had one pointed tooth threaded through it. He held it up towards his dad. Lyall's eyes momentarily grew wide with recognition.

"That trip over the Minch and back again was one of my favorite childhood memories, Dad. I figure it can't hurt to wear it close to bring me good luck. Merlin knows someone like me needs all the help I can get in that regard."

A shadow of guilt crept over his father. Lyall looked downward crestfallen and replied, "I'm sorry that potion didn't due you any good."

"I'm not sorry, Dad. Not at all. Yes, the potion was unsuccessful at curing my lycanthropy but there are many other memories from the trip that were truly grand. It's not everyday one gets to see Hebridean black dragons flying about in a reserve or a Jarvey shouting profanities while pissing in the sand dunes."

They both laughed at the latter memory. Remus popped a piece of chocolate in his mouth from a bar tucked into his pocket and they finished suiting up head to toe for the miserable weather outside.

Outside they mounted their broomsticks side by side in front of the cottage.

"Light your wand!" Lyall shouted at Remus over the roar of the pounding rain. Lumos. Remus's wand lit instantly. Then Lyall continued,

"Hold it next to the top of your broomstick!"

When Remus put his wand parallel to the top of his broomstick his father waved his own wand in a movement like a pretzel, pointed it at Remus's wand and commanded loudly, "Incarserous!"

Small cords suddenly shot out of the end of Lyall's wand and propelled swiftly across the air towards Remus's wand and broomstick. It was as if they were drawn quickly across the air like strong magnetism. Once the cords smacked into the broomstick they wriggled like snakes. They began tightly binding Remus's glowing wand to the top of his broomstick forming forward illumination like a car's headlight.

Much to Remus's relief, the moon phase was currently waning plus the stormy cloud-cover did not provide much lunar light. Lyall continued waving his wand around the two of them with protective charms and invisibility before he bound his own luminous wand to the end of his broomstick.

"Follow me! Are you ready?"

"Yes, let's crack on, Dad."

"I've got a couple of places in mind I've scouted out already."

"Okay. You lead on then!"

They kicked off the wet sand into the air and headed east away from the coast. As expected the brutal rain and wind slammed against them as they flew along through the night sky. It was truly miserable flying conditions but at least there was no thunder or lightening threatening to strike them.

Remus felt glad his Dad was in the lead as he had many more years of flying experience. He also found that when he flew behind him, Lyall cut away some of the pushback of harsh wind against him much like some formations of migratory birds. However, Remus snickered to himself thinking how they were more like two directionally-challenged migratory birds in December who somehow missed the rest of their flock that had already flown south for the winter.

Lyall directed them to stop in a dark grove of woods in the vast highland hills. After they landed, Remus became the measuring stick once again standing next to trees. They tried one after the other.

"How about that one?"

"Stand next to it!"

"No, it's still past my head. It'll push through the thatched roof, Dad!"

Finally, they found a Christmas tree that was a suitable height.

"Diffindo! "

Lyall called out as he pointed his wand to the base of the chosen tree which severed its trunk.

They decided to lay it across both brooms behind where they both sat. From a birds eye view, the configuration of their brooms with the tree roped across both ends formed a letter 'U' shape.

Before they were about to both lift off at the same time, Remus asked,

"Have you ever attempted to carry something in this manner before, Dad?"

Lyall gave him an impish grin.

"Never!"

Remus smiled back with rain dripping down his cheeks. He shook his head a bit.

"This is bonkers!"

Lyall shouted in reply, "I know... but she's worth it!"

Thankfully, as they flew pretty well parallel to each other with the tree roped to the back of their broomsticks, the weather lightened up to a mere drizzle. Lyall signaled to land before they arrived back to the cottage near one of the many freshwater lochs of Scotland. They landed awkwardly together and Remus watched his father scramble quickly off his broom.

"Why are we stopping?"

"I thought I saw something near these woods! Let's just leave the tree here tied to our brooms for a few minutes. It should be fine. I need to see if... it's what I think it is..."

Lyall crept away after his vague words hunched down with his wand pointed at the ready. Remus recognized his father's careful stance as he had spent countless hours of his childhood shadowing his relentless expeditions in pursuit of magical creatures as well as Non-Human Spirituous Apparitions. His father examined a wet leaf turning it upside down.

A cloud shifted in the dark sky. A foggy view of the waning moon appeared. Remus shuddered in dread when he caught a foggy glimpse of what Boggarts used to frighten him the most.

Thank Merlin, I haven't had to fight a Boggart in any of my Defense Against the Dark Arts in front of any of my classmates. That sort of embarrassing mishap could've easily ended my time at Hogwarts if a clever fellow student figured out my so-called "furry little problem" beyond my Marauders mates. Peter is finally getting close to a complete rat transfiguration now.

He turned his face away with a triggered, grimace of pain. It's waning. It's waning, Remus, not waxing, he told himself to settle his nerves.

Suddenly, Lyall cried out excitedly with a welcome distraction. He thrust the wet plant specimen towards him,

"Ah HAH! Do you see what's under this leaf, Remus?"

"Underneath here?"

"Yes!"

"Fairy eggs, right?"

"Right. That's why I had us stop. I caught a glimpse of fairy lights in this area. I've brought some containers in my rucksack we can use to trap them. Then back at the cottage I figure they'll make the perfect lights for the tree."

Lyall used the fairy eggs underneath the leaves as a food offering and to win the trust of a hungry bow truckle on the trunk of a nearby tree. Then he was able to coax it to show them where the fairies better.

Usually, it was very difficult for witches and wizards to spot a camouflaged bow truckle on a tree trunk; much less on a dark and rainy night. However, Lyall had a talent for spotting them and knowing how to negotiate with them well so they wouldn't scratch one's eyes out with their sharp claws. Fairy eggs seemed to be their favorite food. Following the bow truckles lead, they successfully stupefied the glowing fairies and collected a sufficient amount for tree lighting.

When they made it back with the tree, they were relieved that Hope was still sleeping deeply and didn't seem to notice their absence. Lyall had snuck along some boxes filled with bright, shiny typical 1960s reflector bulb ornaments and long strips of metallic tinsel. Lyall cast a spell upon the tree that make it appear as if snow was falling around the tree but it wasn't actually snow, it was just an illusion.

The fairies appeared to be delighted to provide light to the Christmas tree. They danced in swirls around the bulb ornaments and some even picked up the pieces of tinsel waving them like they were in a parade.

Remus made a small pot of hot chocolate while Lyall went to wake Hope up to surprise her with the tree. When she first walked slowly into the living room her face transitioned from being riddled with fear something was terribly wrong... to a gasp of utter delight.

"Holy smokes...it's outta sight, you two!"

Tears of joy welled up in her eyes. She hugged them both and thanked them profusely. Then the three of them sat and sipped hot chocolate taking in the marvelous sight of their best Christmas tree ever.