Firsts and Seconds
Title: Firsts and Seconds
Prompts: Hats, gloves and scarves; "I'm the 'I-don't-mind-pushing-my-best-friend-into-but-am-scared-stiff-if-I-get-anywhere-near-it' kind." --White Christmas
Rating & Warnings: G; Overall Silliness with a Santa Costume, slight angstiness
Word Count: 3891
Summary: The Lupins’ first Christmas after the war becomes a time of firsts, and a time of seconds. Okay, the Lupins’ first Christmas after the war is total craziness and mayhem. But there is Harry goofiness, and small hyper-active children, and a very special Christmas gift.
Author’s Notes: Anyway, the “First” is the first Christmas after the war, and the “Second” is something you can figure out for yourself. : P Oh, by the way, Fred is alive. It’s both to justify Harry’s upbeat attitude and goofiness, and because my friend BEGGED me to have him alive if the Lupins got to survive. Okay, I have spent FAR too much time obsessing over this, trying to make it perfect. Let’s be honest, really: IT WILL NEVER BE PERFECT! D:
The first Christmas after the war came much sooner than expected in the Lupin residence.
With the combined elements of helping restore Hogwarts to its former glory, helping find all of the “Imperioused” spies in the Ministry and eliminating them, Remus taking up teaching again in Hogwarts’ temporary residence at 12 Grimmauld Place, Tonks resuming a desk job in the Auror offices, and Harry offering to stay with them to help care for his godson, emotions were running a bit high. As a result, the Lupins and Potter very nearly forgot about the holiday until they started receiving Christmas cards.
Harry “The Chosen Hero” Potter was currently being pressured by the temporary Head of Wizarding Civilian Cervices to do something significant this holiday season, in order to give the Wizarding populace some hope. Needless to say, the eighteen year old was hard-pressed to find something that truly meant something to him and would also help spread some hope. He didn’t want to just give away money, that wasn’t personal enough; but he also didn’t want to have to spend his entire holiday doing something as boring as a fundraiser when he would have rather been with the people he cared about.
Then, when he walked into the bathroom to find Dora crying quietly into the sleeve of her dressing gown, he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
He wanted to spread more love in the world.
“Hey Remus, I need to do some shopping; could you come and maybe help me out?” he asked innocently as he stepped into the sitting room. Dora looked up at him and paled slightly, her eyes begging the young man not to tell her husband about what had occurred between them the previous week. He nodded inconspicuously before grinning charmingly at Remus. “Come on Remus, you said you wanted me to avoid moping around this Christmas! Help me avoid the inevitable!”
Remus rolled his eyes and chuckled quietly before looking to his wife. “You’ll be alright with watching Teddy until we get back?”
“I’ve done it before, I can do it again,” snapped Dora without thinking about it first. She looked up from the sloppy scarf she’d been trying to convince some knitting needles to produce to see her husband’s eyebrows raised mildly at her.
“Dora, is everything alright?” he asked. Dora blinked innocuously up at him before turning, lightning-fast, back to her pink scarf. Remus looked to Harry for some help, but the younger wizard just shrugged.
There was far too much innocence in that old house to not be suspicious.
Once they were in Diagon Alley and Harry had been far too innocent and chipper to really be Harry Potter (they had been getting lax with their security checks since the war ended…), Remus had the courage to ask what was going on.
Instead of answering, Harry simply beamed at him, looking more like a child than he had when Remus met him the first time.
“So Remus,” he finally said after another five minutes of wandering, when they had finally reached the end of the street in front of a toy store. “If you have had any toy or any gift you wanted as a kid, what would you pick?”
Remus blinked confusedly at him, and after several minutes more of prodding, finally pointed to a blue stuffed rabbit displayed in the nearest shop’s window. Harry then proceeded to grip his ex-Professor’s sleeve and pull him into the shop. “Pick more.”
“What is this all about?” asked Remus, but Harry refused to say anything but encouragements to pick out something else. Remus irritably looked around the many shelves and reached for the cheapest of the teddy bears, thinking endearingly of his own son while he did so. Harry grabbed his wrist.
“Ah, ah, ah!” he scolded, even having the mettle to wag a finger at his elder. “I don’t want you to pick what’s the cheapest; I want you to pick what you, in your most childish heart of hearts, would have wanted.” Remus smiled to himself, wondering what the young man was up to, and perused the shelf again; this time he saw a bear that told a bedtime fairy tale when hugged, and grabbed that one (without looking at the price, for fear of flinching).
Half of the day was spent in this fashion, and toward the end Remus worried that he was getting a bit overly enthusiastic. He was scrutinizing model airplanes and even Raggedy Andromeda dolls, taking in every detail, before handing them off to Harry with his approval. He found that he was enjoying himself far more than when his parents would ever take him toy shopping as a child.
At long last, over a steaming mug of Butterbeer, Remus decided it was high time to ask Harry what this surprise shopping excursion was about. Harry smiled, suddenly bashful, into his own foaming mug.
“I’m going to spread more love in the world, Remus,” he said decidedly, the smile fading as he remembered a night that felt so long ago, but in reality had been only two years back. He sighed quietly, forced the smile back onto his face, and met Remus’s eye. “I know that when you were a kid you didn’t have much because of your Lycanthropy, so I want to give Christmas gifts to kids who are going through what you had to, the kids who are somehow directly affected by Lycanthropy.”
Needless to say, Remus was stunned.
“Harry, I don’t think you fully understand what you want to do,” he began to explain patiently. “When one doesn’t have many means for a prosperous life, when pride is all they have, they don’t take charity well-”
“I’m not giving them charity, Remus,” interrupted Harry. “I’m helping their children have a happy childhood. Don’t you think that, if you weren’t able to afford gifts for Teddy this year, you would want some help?”
Remus swallowed nervously at how close to home Harry had hit; he had been extremely lucky to be teaching again.
“You’re right, Harry,” he said roughly before downing the last of his Butterbeer. “But we really should be heading home.”
Harry agreed, swung his cloak around his shoulders, and followed him home.
***
“You two really don’t mind?” asked Harry nervously for about the thousandth time as he straightened his lopsided tie on Christmas Eve. Dora smiled warmly and helped him retie the knot that was currently choking him.
“Not at all,” she assured him, giving his chest a reassuring pat once she finished smoothing out his tie. “Last year was far too quiet; a nice party with some good, unfortunately-circumstanced children will be fun.”
“Remus? You’re sure you’re okay with this too?” Harry asked over Dora’s shoulder, just in case.
Remus smiled tightly and barely managed to nod through his slight horror. Well, it would have been easier to manage if Teddy hadn’t also been smacking at his face with a pudgy fist.
Harry beamed at them as the doorbell rang. “Thanks so much you two, you won’t regret it! I promise!” he called over his shoulder as she ran like a child to answer the door, his tie falling off completely in the process.
Remus and Dora exchanged a nervous smile as the sounds of no less than ten children thundering into the entryway met their ears. This was a good idea. It would be a nice Christmas.
“You ready for this?”
“Obviously.”
“…D’you want to hide in the hall closet as much as I do?”
“Most definitely.”
And that was how Remus and Dora ended up buried under an assorted pile of child-sized hats, gloves, and scarves.
“It sounds like the kids are enjoying themselves,” commented Dora, folding up a scarf that had dancing snowmen across it. The sounds of young children running all around the house, halfheartedly pursued by Harry in his quest to keep order, echoed even to where they sat.
“Quite the party,” agreed Remus, wincing when he heard a childish squeal and the sound of breaking glass. “And there, I believe, goes your mother’s vase.”
“Mum’ll be so disappointed. Ah, it was an ugly thing anyway, and we really did need an excuse to throw it out,” Dora shrugged off as she picked up another thick winter coat. “Wow. Would you just look at how tiny these clothes are?”
Remus smiled endearingly at her. “You know, we do happen to have a small child ourselves; his clothes are even smaller than that.”
Dora laughed and shook her head. “But Teddy’s clothes still look like baby clothes; these are, like, little people!” She looked at him with earnestly wide eyes, and he couldn’t help but still think her just as adorable as the day he met her. To prove it, he leaned forward and kissed her. She beamed at him as he picked up a thick woolen jumper and folded it neatly.
As he picked up a bright turquoise scarf, he remembered the clicking and flashing of knitting needles and hearing Dora swear for hours over a swatch of pink yarn.
“So may I ask who the scarf was for?” he asked. Dora didn’t answer him. “…Dora? Hello? Dora!”
His wife had been hunched over where she sat, staring intensely at the little pink hat in between her hands. She suddenly looked up at him at the sound of his voice, almost looking surprised to find him sitting there across from her.
“Pardon?”
Remus’s brow furrowed with concern, and his eyes roved slowly over his wife. “Dora, are you alright? You’ve been acting a bit…off…lately.”
Tonks fidgeted in her seat, biting her lip as she gave the pink hat a squeeze. For a few moments Remus thought she wouldn’t respond, but then she laughed nervously. It was a high, jittery thing: quite unlike the Dora he was used to.
“It’s so stupid, really,” she said through her nervous laughter. “It’s just…Harry and I had a little heart-to-heart the other night, and I just…” She twisted the hat in her hands as she let out a small sigh through her nose.
“Oh, Godric, no! Not the tree!” came Harry’s frantic voice as a crash sounded above them.
“We should really finish this up if we want to join the festivities,” said Dora briskly, changing the subject too hastily to ease Remus’s mind. She dropped the pink hat onto her knee as she scooped up three multicolored scarves at once and folded them as if she was angry at the accessories. Remus watched her do this with two more scarves until the third was wound too tightly and wouldn’t come off of her hands. She pulled and tugged viciously until the thing finally came off, and she then threw it across the closet and dropped her face into her hands.
“Dora.” Remus crossed the closet from where he had been sitting on the floor, and sat down on the little bench next to his wife. “Dora, tell me.”
“I can’t,” whined Dora into her hands. Remus grasped her thin wrist in his hand and pulled her hand into his lap.
“Dora, look at me,” he said gently. Dora kept her eyes on the pink hat that was still on her knee. “Dora, please just look at me.”
“No.”
“Dora.”
“No.”
Remus grasped her chin in the hand that wasn’t grasping hers, and brought her eyes up to meet his. “Dora, please tell me what’s bothering you. Is it serious?”
Dora’s lips tightened. “It’s quite serious.”
Seeing Dora looking so strained and solemn made Remus want to shudder; he still had nightmares about the woman she had been when he abandoned her before Dumbledore’s death, and the look on her face made those memories come to the forefront of his mind. He had to distract from the gravity of the situation.
“Dora…are you and Harry having an affair?” he asked through a face so straight he had to be joking. The side of her mouth twitched. “Is that what this is all about?” asked Remus more sternly, even though a smile was creeping across his face.
“Because I must say,” he continued, dropping a kiss onto her forehead. “If you were sleeping with one of my old students, it really would be simply insulting. I mean, the schoolboy isn’t nearly as naughty as the Professor.” He kissed her nose, and then her lips, and by the time he finished she was smiling slightly.
“Feeling a bit better?” he asked after a moment of simply looking at her. She gave a small nod that was just barely visible. “Now, will you please tell me what’s wrong?”
The smile slowly slid away, and she seemed to hesitate for the very longest time possible before blurting out: “What would you think about having another baby?”
The look on Dora’s face strongly discouraged any joking at the moment, but, of course, this was the one time that Remus didn’t read her very well.
He chuckled, looked to the mayhem above them, and replied with: “Harry can’t throw a Christmas benefit every year, you know.”
Instantly, he knew that he had done wrong when Dora slowly placed her head back into her hands. His amused smile faded until it was a grimace.
“You’re pregnant again, aren’t you?”
Dora nodded glumly into her hands.
“And I mucked it up again, didn’t I?”
She once again expressed her agreement.
“Dora, I am so sorry…”
“No, it’s fine,” said Dora sarcastically, raising her head to glare at him with wet eyes. She let out a slow shaky sigh and kneaded her forehead with her knuckles, her voice losing its sarcastic tone. “I was going to wait to tell you, but when I took the test I started panicking, and then Harry came in…”
“Harry came in?”
“I was in the bathroom. You weren’t home, and I started crying a little bit…”
“You were crying?” asked Remus, scooting even closer to his wife. “Why in the world were you crying?”
Dora lowered her eyes again, a disgraced flush creeping up her neck. By the way she was suddenly twisting the little pink hat in her hands, Remus didn’t need her to answer to know why she had been so upset to find out about another pregnancy.
“You thought I would leave again.”
Dora buried her eyes in the soft fabric of the pink hat. “I’m so ashamed,” she moaned miserably. “I know that you’re perfectly trustworthy Remus, I do, it’s just…I can’t get over that old irrational fear that you’ll leave me again if anything ever changes!”
Remus stared down at his trembling wife, and felt suddenly sick with himself. Why did he always have to be the one who broke others? First he broke his mother’s heart, his father’s resolve, his friends’ brotherhood, and now Dora’s self-esteem. He had broken her, and made her afraid of him abandoning her every single day. Molly had tried to tell him how much confidence she lost after he had left for the Ferals, but he hadn’t really believed her until now.
“Remus, are you angry?” whispered Dora because he had been silent for too long.
“What?” asked Remus quickly, snapping back to attention. “Well, no, of course not! I mean, we’re having another baby, Dora, that's absolutely wonderful, rea-!”
“No, I mean at me,” interrupted Dora, lifting her face and looking at him desperately. “I mean, here I was, convinced you'd leave, even though you obviously wouldn’t with Teddy and everything, but…” she sighed again, and was about to put her face back into the hat, but Remus stopped her by pulling the hat out of her grasp.
“Why should that make me angry?” he asked gently, pulling her into his lap comfortingly. “You had perfectly legitimate reasons for feeling that way.”
“No I didn't. Not really. You're the sort of person who never would… I mean, I trust you, and…” She huffed and shook her head, obviously frustrated. “We’re getting nowhere with this argument, are we?”
“I do believe we are repeating ourselves, my dear.”
Dora managed a half-smile and looked up at him hopefully. “I was going to tell you later rather than sooner, really, but Harry pushed me into it when he found out! He was so excited and wanted to tell Teddy so badly (even though I don’t think Teddy would have that great of a reaction); he somehow managed to sweet-talk me into telling you by saying how happy a Christmas this would be for him, when his last was so terrible.” She shuddered, remembering the mayhem of the year before. “You know I can’t resist that boy’s charm.”
“…Which is why you had an affair with him?”
This time Dora snorted and smacked Remus’s shoulder. “Bloody prat. So you really are happy?”
Remus smiled softly, and ducked his head down to kiss her. “I am ecstatic, my darling.”
Dora only hoped he was telling the truth this time.
A soft knock sounded at the door, and Harry stuck his head in the door. He looked as if he hadn’t brushed his hair since the day they’d met him, several buttons had been detached from his shirt, and his glasses were sitting lopsidedly on his nose. “Hey, you two are missing a jolly good time out here!”
“We’ll be out in a few minutes,” Remus assured him. “We were just sorting out the coats.”
“Tonks did you…?” asked Harry with anticipation, turning to look at Dora. She smiled softly and nodded.
Harry beamed at them as if he himself were one of the unfortunate children on the floor above. “Wicked, innit?” he asked Remus. Remus merely shook his head and laughed. “Anyway, Remus, I have something for you!”
At Remus’s questioning look, Harry pulled a Father Christmas costume from behind his back.
Dora desperately muffled her laughter at the sight of her husband’s horror. “Harry, why can’t you give out the presents?”
Harry made several loud: “Pshh! noises, as if the answer was obvious. Then, he faltered and hesitated, looking like the epitome of an awkward teenager. “Well, they’d notice if I left and then Father Christmas came out!”
Remus and Dora stared him down, until he cracked.
“Alright, quite honestly, I just can’t take another kid peeing on me tonight!” he exclaimed with a wildly desperate glint in his eye.
“You’re really that afraid of being urinated on after being around Teddy this long?” asked Dora, still stifling her laughter.
“I don’t even want to be touching this thing right now, I’m so petrified,” responded Harry immediately, his eyebrows raised to emphasize the seriousness of the situation. “So come on Remus, get cracking!”
“So, because you don’t want to do it, you think I’ll be willing to do it?”
“…Pretty much, yeah.”
That was where Dora lost it. She laughed so hard she was clutching her stomach and tears were streaming down her face. It really hadn’t been that funny, but the suppressed laughter from earlier had built up too much for her to laugh appropriately. While she was lost in the hilarity of the situation, Remus had begrudgingly taken the costume in hand and bid Harry to rejoin the party. By the time the cheers of children upstairs told the occupants of the closet that they had been told of Father Christmas’s impending arrival, Dora had calmed down somewhat.
“I suppose I should go-” Remus grimaced as another whooping shout rose above the others: Harry’s. “-change.” He hung the red suit over his arm, and delivered a soft kiss to Dora’s forehead.
“I love you.”
Dora smiled and watched him go. Once he was gone, she finished up folding and sorting the hats, scarves, and gloves. She occasionally lifted up one item to ponder when Teddy would be wearing clothes this size, or simply doing the math to find out when their soon-to-be baby daughter would arrive. She found herself planning the nursery from the office she never used (she did all of her paperwork in bed, much to Remus’s distaste), in shades of light purple. It was certainly too soon to be thinking of such things, but it calmed her frequently jittery nerves to plan things around the house ahead of time.
Suddenly a cheer louder than all the others erupted from up above, and Dora simply had to see Remus dressed as Father Christmas. And take numerous photographs to blackmail him with later. She snuck up to the cupboard under the stairs where she kept the camera, and then tiptoed up to the party.
The Christmas tree had fallen over sometime during the party, but it hadn’t put a damper on any of the children’s spirits. There were little girls in pink fluffy party dresses, and boys in smart-looking jumpers, and the clothes were certainly not appropriate for the wild playing that was going on. Harry was currently at the bottom of a dog-pile, crying out that he had no air or some other such silliness.
Suddenly a little girl of around five or six separated from the pack, and ran full-tilt at Remus/Father Christmas. She collided with his midsection and hugged him so fiercely that what little face that was visible through the artificial beard turned red with lack of oxygen. Then a high-pitched (and obviously sugar-fueled) voice rang out, excitedly shrieking:
“Santa, I knew you were real and Mummy was telling the truth because she said that, she said, if I believed strong enough and-and-and I was a good girl I’d see you this year, and I did, and you’re real and I love you, Father Christmas!”
Without hesitation, Remus scooped the girl up into his arms and started a long speech about how Father Christmas would be real so long as she held love in her heart and kindness in her spirit, and Dora was so swept away she only managed to get one picture of the girl kissing “Father Christmas” on the cheek as he presented her with a Raggedy Andromeda doll.
Looking over the many heads of the children who had by now noticed Father Christmas giving away gifts, Remus positively beamed at her.
“Come over here, young lady!” he shouted to her in his most Father Christmas-like voice. Dora carefully waded through the sea of youngsters only to be pulled onto Remus’s lap. “I know just what to give you for Christmas!”
Dora waited patiently, but Remus refused to give her her gift until she closed her eyes. Once her eyes were closed, Harry placed a squirming Teddy into her lap.
“Oh, I’ve always wanted a baby!” she exclaimed as if she’d never seen her own son before. Several little girls cried out that they wanted a baby too. They had apparently spent most of the night fawning over the little 8-month old and giving him kisses.
Dora leaned over to kiss “Father Christmas’s” cheek, and when she did so, Remus whispered “I hope we have a girl,” into her ear.
She carried a fussy Teddy up to bed and tucked him into his crib. As she gazed out the window into the snowy night, she couldn’t help but tear up with relief and happiness. She couldn’t rid her inner eye of Remus’s beaming smile when he said he hoped for a girl.
He was telling the truth this time.