Children of the Eighth Day

~Thornton Wilder

"He saunters down the cobblestones towards the warm light of The Leaky Cauldron and wonders at the fact that somehow, after all these years, it seems as though Remus Lupin has finally learned how to live. Again."


* * * * *

Lessons Learned

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.

~Gilda Radner

Two identical pops echo in the empty shop, and Remus barely looks up from his accounts.

"Hullo boys. Back so soon?"

"Watch it Fred!" George snaps as Fred almost walks into a rack of novelty Howlers. His twin is clutching an enormous box and practically overbalances when he tries to shift directions. Remus has, over time, learned to tell the boys apart most of the time, though if pressed he would never be able to exactly say how. But sometimes, even the boys themselves get confused as to who is who. George whips his wand out of a specially designed holster at his hip and quickly levitates the box towards the back stairs.

"Lupin!" Fred cries, as though he has only just noticed him. He saunters across the little room shedding bags and parcels as he goes and ends up leaning heavily on the counter, smiling up at Remus from under a scraggly ginger beard. It suits him in the rugged explorer persona he and his brother are currently trying out. "How's business?"

"Slow," Remus says with a shrug. "But things will pick up once the Hogwarts letters go out and the school shopping begins. How were the Galapagos?"

"Brilliant," Fred answers with a wistful smile. "Bloody amazing tortoises."

Remus raises an eyebrow at him, but he has learned not to ask. The answers would at best give him a migraine and at worst make him an accomplice. Fred runs a hand through his hair, which is so badly in need of a trim it would give Molly fits, and begins rummaging about in one of the many pockets in his trousers, producing a growing pile of odd objects including three dungbombs, a packet of Droobles Best Blowing Gum, a compass with the letters Q, R, L, X, and P on it, a small polished stone, two Muggle paperclips, a wad of string, and a vast quantity of little scraps of parchment all covered in Fred's unmistakable chicken scratch.

Remus steals one of the paperclips, sucks thoughtfully on the end of his quill, and tallies up another column. Another thing he has learned is to sneak his work into any lull that presents itself. Such moments are few and far between when the boys are around.

"Got it all squared away," George says, coming down the stairs like the entire drum line of a marching band. "Gave it some lettuce as well and -- er... Hullo Lupin."

Remus smiles innocently at George and pretends not to have heard anything out of the ordinary. "George. Does your mum know that you're back?"

"Not yet," George replies, hopping up to sit on the edge of the counter. "She'll want to have everyone over, and we'll need several pints and a good 18 hours of sleep before we can even think of facing up to that."

Remus chuckles in agreement as he carefully moves his inkwell away from George's drumming fingers. Molly's "get togethers" are infamous among the Weasleys and their extended clan; seven children, four spouses, and six grandchildren of various ages, not to mention all the strays that the family has adopted over the years. Himself included.

There had been a time when he would have shunned being taken in as a charity case, a cause celebre, adopted, as it were, because Molly thought he was underfed and underloved. There had been a time when he had found her mother hen routine grating and out of place, no matter how well meaning. He had learned, however, that family could mean a great deal more than blood -- and one of the things it meant was putting up with Molly-coddling.

He has been a part of the Weasley clan for nearly ten years now, he muses. He was, in fact, most probably a part of it long before he even realized it; before he had used his power as executor and invested a large chunk of the bequeathed Black family fortune in Weaselys' Wizard Wheezes under Sirius' name, before he had taken over the management of the storefront for the boys, before the war, before Harry was out of school, even before the Department of Mysteries and Grimmauld place...

"What are you--"

"I can't find the--"

"In your pocket, you daft--"

"No shit, Salazar. Can't you see that I'm--"

"Third pocket down on the -- your other left!"

"Oh. Right then."

Having located the correct pocket, Fred extracts a globe a little larger than a tennis ball from its depths and sets it gingerly on the counter. It is made of glass and filled about half way with crystal blue water. Floating in the middle is a tiny island; a speck of green and brown, of hill and valley, forest and shoreline, stone and sand. It is perfect in every minute detail from the infinitesimal white-capped waves lapping lazily at its shore to the impossibly small plants and trees and the microscopic specks circling above that might possibly be birds. Remus stares at it in fascinated wonder.

"It's a replica," Fred says proudly.

"Of Wolf Island," George finishes. "We saw it..."

"And thought of you."

Remus picks up the globe with reverence and holds it closer to his face, trying to make out every tiny detail. "Thank you," he murmurs.

The twins grin triumphantly at one another and slap him heartily on the back.

"You're welcome!"

"Least we could do."

"For minding the store."

"And for all the pints you're going to buy us."

Remus laughs easily. "Don't tell me. Let me guess: all your money is still in --"

"Magoros" George says with a nod, pulling out a handful of strange Ecuadorian wizard gold and letting it spill onto the countertop.

"Don't make us go to Gringotts, Moony," Fred says with baleful puppy dog eyes. "The goblins frighten George, so." He and George are the only ones who call him that any more, and only in private. Harry still gets a slightly pinched look about him when he hears the old nicknames. But it seems fitting somehow, that these two hooligans should be on a first name basis with the last of the Marauders, and Remus has learned to look at it as a sign of the world coming full circle.

"Get this junk off my clean counter top and let's go," Remus says with a grin and a shake of his head. "And you two are buying the pints next time." Fred begins scooping the unimaginable detritus back into his pockets and George leans forward to tousle Remus' silver hair like an affectionate older brother, despite the difference in age.

"Last one to the Cauldron is a wet noodle!" George shrieks, leaping off the counter. Fred shoots out a foot and trips his brother who falls with a spectacular lack of grace into the display of Howlers. Several red envelopes slide out of the bottom rack and begin shouting as soon as they hit the floor. The familiar voice of the Minister of Magic booms out across the shop in chorus.

George stomps on one while Fred freezes another and Remus vanishes two more.

"Oh, shut up, Dad!" George groans, muffling the last with a silencing charm and a sigh. "He had entirely too much fun helping us with those."

The boys scramble out of the shop ahead of him like a ginger tornado while Remus flicks his wand at the door to lock up. He glances up at the purple and gold sign and sighs deeply. In the next few days he will be back around a table with all the people he loves. He will not worry tonight that there will be an empty place at table. He will not spend hours fretting over the safety of his friends' children, nor making plans for what might happen when... or if... He saunters down the cobblestones towards the warm light of The Leaky Cauldron and wonders at the fact that somehow, after all these years, it seems as though Remus Lupin has finally learned how to live. Again.