Happy Birthday

Chapter 15: Siriusly Good Parenting

[A/N: Following up on Chrysicat's question from an earlier chapter, my headcanon about wandlore is that wands, especially the bloodthirsty Elder Wand, can only be won from their owners if there's genuine Killing Intent on the part of the person who takes them. Otherwise, the Disarming Charm would have been described very differently in the books due to its massively OP affects. Unrelated: I think Remus has spent enough time on the fringes of the Wizarding World by now that he would know what a telephone was, which is why he doesn't get confused by something Sirius does later in this chapter. Poor Neville has no idea, but he's too embarrassed and shy to ask.]

A moment later, Harry, Hermione, and Sirius returned from the depths of the children's section in the far back of the shop. Harry and Hermione both looked profoundly sad in a way that Luna had never seen on anyone her own age before, but before she could ask them what had happened, Sirius spoke up.

"Moony?" he asked, disbelief in his voice.

"Padfoot?" Remus responded.

"Uncle Moony?" Harry asked.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing here?" Sirius asked. "Where have you been?"

"I..." Remus fell back against the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf behind the desk and put his hands over his face. "I'm sorry."

"I needed you!" Sirius shouted. "The Prongslet needed you!"

Remus's only response was to start sobbing.

"It was the books," Luna said. She nearly flinched when everyone but Remus turned to look at her. "He said he talked to people named Mary and Reg, and they said they'd been following Harry, but what they really described was what was in those books."

"Those bloody books." Hermione's hair frizzed out even further than it usually did. "Those bloody stupid books. Is Lockhart dead yet?"

Harry threw his arms around Hermione from behind. "Yes, he is. It's OK, really."

"No, it isn't! You could have had a decent childhood instead of a God-damned parade of horrors but for that vain, exploitative arsehole!" At the last word, the cash register on Remus's desk popped open its cash drawer and began spitting up random numbers up on its analogue display.

"But I might never have met you," Harry said.

The witch in his arms froze for a moment before sinking slowly to her knees, crying quietly all the while. Harry followed her down, still holding her. Luna sniffled and felt a few tears fall at that, and Hestia and Sirius seemed to be crying, too. Neville looked sad, confused, and supremely awkward.

The silence held for at least a minute before Harry finally spoke. "I feel like I should be mad at you, Uncle Moony." The boy was still focused on the witch in his arms and wasn't even looking at Remus. "I'm not, though. I have a wonderful family now and great friends. I don't want anything to be different. It's just...did you ever care about me at all? I mean, I guess you didn't help murder my parents like Wormtail, but you didn't exactly lift a finger afterward, did you?"

Remus flinched again at the comments, though Harry couldn't have seen him do so. "I was on a mission for Headmaster Dumbledore on the Continent when your parents died, Harry," he said. "I didn't learn what had happened until the spring of 1982, and when I came back to Britain, Headmaster Dumbledore warned me that my condition might make it dangerous for you to be near me. I thought Sirius had been the Secret Keeper, so there was nothing left for me in the UK. I occasionally checked in with Mary and Reg, but that was it."

"Your condition?" Harry turned around just enough to see Remus with one eye.

"I'm a werewolf, Harry," Remus said.