The Marauders: Year Three | #Wattys2016

How Did You Know

How Did You Know

"Master Remus is to be careful with the sewing needle!" Tizzy said worriedly, watching Remus push the needle through a cranberry he was making a garland with. "I is not wanting to be fixing Master Remus's bleeding fingers!" She looked nervously on as he strung up a bit of popcorn next.

"I'll be careful Tizzy, I promise," Remus replied, smiling as the teeny-tiny elf stood on the table, clutching a dust cloth to her heart.

Lyall was working on getting a Christmas tree set up in the corner, whistling to himself as he struggled with the old muggle tree stand, getting sap from the branches stuck in his hair. Remus looked over, watching as his father fought with the screws that drove into the trunk of the tree to secure it standing up. The tree kept trying to loll to one side or the other. Remus had already suggested he magic the thing together, but Lyall was stubborn. Hope had always insisted they set the tree up the muggle way, like her family had always done."Christmas is magic enough as it is," she'd always said, "There's no need in adding more to it." It was one of the few times she'd insisted on doing things what she called the old fashioned way.

Remus smiled to himself, thinking of how she'd always said that stuff at this time of year, ever since he was a little boy. He pushed another couple bits of popcorn onto the string, then ate two or three himself. Tizzy had gone back out to the kitchen to check on the supper she'd been preparing.

Remus was glad he'd come home. He felt much better about it this time. The place was clean and void of the pub chicken wrappers that he'd found everywhere on his last visit. It had smelled of delicious food and warm cookies and pies and Tizzy had met him at the door with thick potholders on her hands, nearly as large as she was, and a little apron tied about herself. Lyall had given it to her, and Tizzy had whispered in Remus's ear, "Technically that is be making Tizzy a free elf, but Tizzy is not saying anything to Master Lyall because Tizzy loves her job so, so much!"

Which was good because it was clear that Tizzy was the best thing to happen to the Lupin family in quite a long time. Lyall had not smiled so wide in nearly two years - since before Hope had been murdered.

Remus looked across the room at a photo on a small table by the couch of his mother and father on their wedding day. He put down the needle and thread and went over to sit beside it, taking up the frame and staring down at the glowing joy in their faces. Lyall was grunting, still struggling with the tree, his legs all that Remus could see as they extended out from beneath the low hanging boughs. He studied the photo for a long moment, looking at the way the lines curved around Hope's lips and the joyous expression in Lyall's eyes as he held onto his bride-in-white. Remus ran his fingers across her cheek in the picture.

"Dad?" he asked.

"Yeaahh?" Lyall's voice warbled as he fought with the stand.

"How did you meet Mum?"

Lyall crawled out from under the tree, having finally succeeded at his job, and wiped his sap-covered fingers across his knees. "I literally walked right into her," he answered.

"Yeah, but... c'mon, tell me the whole story."

Lyall stood up and went over to the chair where they'd put the box of decorations and he sifted through it a moment until he came up with the string lights with the big colored bulbs. He plugged the lights in so that they glowed all blue and red and green and he turned to the tree and started draping them on. "I was a junior assistant at the Ministry for Magic, fresh out of Hogwarts and eager to become the Minister for Magic. I was just pompous enough to believe it would happen within a few years. Really, I was a bit of an arse. Very, very snooty." He studied the tree a moment, artfully putting the lights on with a strategy that he'd learned over years of doing this with Hope watching and telling him "you missed a spot"every now and then.