Chapter Text
This summer felt different than any Remus had experienced as a parent. In fact, it felt rather like the first summer after he and his friends graduated from Hogwarts and joined the Order of the Phoenix. He didn’t ever fully settle, even when he lay down to sleep, because he was constantly jittery from a heady mix of fear and excitement.
But unlike that long ago summer, Remus and Sirius were now in charge of parenting two teenage boys. It was probably the biggest challenge they'd ever faced, and they'd both fought Voldemort.
Although the boys were friends, they were clearly quite different people. Draco was generally quiet and helpful aside from the occasional outburst and tendency to gossip. Harry--who, as a child, had always seemed like a little adult--was now prone to moodiness and a temper that erupted at the slightest provocation.
Remus had a feeling that Harry's transformation was related to his traumatic experience in the tournament, especially since he seemed to be having nightmares most nights.
"How do we help him, Pads?"
"I expect he mostly needs time to heal."
"I think it's more than just that. He needs to talk about it."
"But he won't talk to us! We wouldn't even know about the nightmares if Draco didn't tell us about them."
"I'm going to write to Petunia. Maybe her husband can recommend someone we can take Harry to."
Regulus had offered up number twelve Grimmauld Place as a headquarters for the Order to operate out of since it was large and already magically protected. Remus spent several days helping Arthur Weasley, McGonagall, and Alastor--thankfully recovered from his year locked in his own trunk but now twice as paranoid--beef up the magical security and anti-muggle defenses a bit. The most important new defense, of course, was that the building would be placed under a fidelius charm. Dumbledore acted as the secret keeper.
At the beginning of July, the Order officially took up residence in the aging townhouse. The place that had once been a gloomy bastion of pureblood-supremacy now boasted a motley group of muggleborns, half-bloods, and blood traitors fighting to bring down the system the house had once upheld.
And, firmly barred from the secret meetings, it also held a raucous bunch of teenagers who were set the task of removing the last traces of evil from the house. Aside from Remus’ little family, the Weasleys and Hermione had also moved in.
“Why can’t we know what’s going on in the meeting, Remus?” Draco asked one night at dinner.
“Yeah!” Harry and Ron chimed in.
“Because it’s adults only. For your own safety.”
“But we’re adults!” Fred scowled, pointing between himself and George.
“In name only! You’re still at school!” their mother shouted from down the long table.
“Sirius and Remus were seventeen when they joined the Order!”
And on it went. Every time the subject of meetings was brought up near the kids, everyone talked themselves into the same circular arguments. Once, Remus might have supported Fred and George’s argument that they should be allowed to join up. But now, as a parent and their former teacher, he saw how terribly young they were. How young he had been during the last war.
When he wasn’t conducting Order business or still trying to track down the last elusive horcrux, Remus helped the kids in the final stages of cleaning up the place. Regulus had been living there for a year and a half, and in that time the heavy clearing out of dark magical pests, cursed heirlooms, and faded gloomy wallpaper had been mostly completed, but some things had been trickier to remove. Fred and George were incredibly inventive, however, and their joke products--secretly financed, Remus knew, by Harry’s triwizard winnings--proved effective at shifting a surprising amount of “permanent” curses and sticking charms.
The test case was Sirius’ childhood bedroom. His charms had been mostly benign, the unorthodox decorations affixed to the walls in perpetuity purely to piss off his parents, so everyone felt safe trying to undo them. After a week of beavering away in the locked guest room they shared, in which time Harry and co. pulled down the remaining wallpaper and polished crested silver, the twins produced a giant purple eraser that made short work of the mid-70s muggle posters.
Remus was secretly glad to see the posters go. As much as he admired the teenage Sirius’ courage, he preferred sharing a bed with the adult Sirius--who had mildly better taste--and hated the feeling that the posters were watching them. They kept one Gryffindor banner, though, and the photograph of the Marauders circa 1974.
After proving that the eraser worked, Fred and George duplicated it and set Harry, Draco, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny on the house. Regulus occasionally intervened to prevent them from destroying something he actually wanted to keep, but all in all it was a miracle cure. The only wall decoration that still refused to budge was Mrs. Black’s portrait, which Sirius eventually just cut out of the wall with a handsaw. Remus greatly appreciated the irony that muggle technology was the old hag’s downfall.
Cleaning was not enough of a distraction to keep the kids out of trouble, however. They were constantly underfoot and it was hard to keep ahead of the twins’ efforts to eavesdrop on the Order meetings. So Remus and Sirius took them on occasional trips into muggle London, always heavily disguised.
Harry, who appeared to be improving somewhat now that he was seeing a therapist once a week, especially seemed to enjoy these outings. He and Hermione had a lot of fun at the natural history and science museums, where they dragged Ron and Draco around to educate them about dinosaurs and the moon landing.
All non-essential travel out of headquarters by underage wizards crashed to a halt, however, in early August. Remus and Harry were walking home from his therapist's office, which was in a muggle office building a mile or so from Grimmauld Place, one evening when the world went cold.
The streetlights disappeared. Remus recognized the signs of approaching dementors, but what they were doing in this part of London he did not know. He grabbed Harry's wrist with his left hand and drew his wand with his right.
"Remus what's going on? I feel so cold."
"Nothing good. Try to think of something happy."
"I-I can't. Remus help!" Harry was shaking like a newborn calf.
Remus turned to see two dementors gliding right at Harry. He gathered his wits and tried to focus on a happy memory. He settled on the first time Harry'd ever called him Moony.
"Expecto patronum!" he yelled.
A silver wolf burst from his wand and chased the dementors away. The cold dissipated and light returned to the cloudless evening.
"Are you all right?" he asked Harry.
"No." Harry was pale and shaky. He looked a bit like he was on the verge of passing out.
"Let's get you home."
Upon returning to headquarters, Remus made a huge pot of hot chocolate and sent Harry up to his room with a large mug. He told Sirius about the incident, then went to check on Harry.
"Are dementors always that scary?" Harry asked when Remus entered the room.
Remus sat on the edge of Harry's bed. "Pretty much. They feed on your happy memories and bring the awful ones to the surface. I imagine they affect you worse than most kids your age."
"It was awful. When you told me to think of something happy all I kept seeing was Cedric's face after...after Wormtail killed him."
Harry shivered. Remus gave him a one armed hug to avoid spilling his cocoa. "That must've been terrifying."
"Why were they here anyway? I thought they never left Azkaban."
"I don't know, but it's not a good sign. We'll have to be more careful from now on."
"You used that spell again. The one you used to send a message to McGonagall second year. You promised to teach me then, but you never did. Can you teach me now?"
"I can, but not tonight. You won't be able to practice until you get back to Hogwarts, but I can go over the theory with you here."