On the day that Remus was set to administer the final exams for his third and sixth year students, he stood on the Hogwarts lawn in the bright June sunshine and felt incredibly proud of himself.
He had built two different obstacle courses. One for his third years to complete this morning, and one for his sixth years to take after lunch. The third year obstacle course had taken him weeks to figure out. They had studied an impressive array of creatures this year, but only five of the creatures were required to be tested on. The standards for third year Defense Against Dark Art students were that they were able to prove their competency in defending themselves against hinkypunks, Kappas, grindylows, Red Caps, and boggarts in order to receive a passing grade in the course for the year.
Remus had drug Minerva up to Albus' office when he realized that there was no way to test a students capabilities against a boggart, aside from forcing them to face it.
"Albus you don't understand," Remus pleaded. "Some of the students have horrifying boggarts. I told you before that Theodore Nott's boggart is his own father. We can't make the students face their possibly abusive parents as a school test!"
"I believe it may be a reach to accuse Mister Nott's father of abuse based on a young boys fear," Albus said gently, repeating the same sentiment he shared the first time Remus immediately informed him of Theodore's boggart.
"It's still cruel," Remus insisted. "We can't expect young children to face their deepest fears and then grade them on it!"
"Are boggarts a part of the final curriculum for the third years?" Minerva asked while Albus just stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"It is, but it shouldn't be," Remus said. "I think it should be pushed back until at least fifth year, if not sixth."
"I'm afraid if it's in the standards then there is nothing we can do about it," Albus said quietly. "I can petition the board for it to be changed at our meeting this summer, but unfortunately there is nothing we can do about it this year. I'm sorry my boy."
So Remus had thought about it for weeks. He'd thought of how group approaches to the boggart clearly hadn't been a good idea. He thought of how many students had been frozen by emotionally gut wrenching fears. And he thought of how some of the students had seemed humiliated to have anyone at all witness their fear.
And he had finally, thanks to an off handed remark from Sirius, come up with a solution.
"Did I tell you about the ghoul that used to live in my mother's trunk?" Sirius had laughed over dinner at his flat one evening. "She'd been so frightened over the damn thing you'd think it was her boggart."
"Wait- what?" Remus blinked quickly at Sirius as the puzzle pieces suddenly clicked in to place. "Pads that's it! You've cracked the code!" he laughed.
"What code? What are you on about?" Sirius asked curiously.
"The boggart problem! A trunk! That's how I can test everyone! Then it'll fit in the obstacle course I told you about for the third years!"
"Oh yeah," Sirius' eyes brightened like they always did at even the vaguest mention of Harry. "So you're going to put the boggart in a trunk and what? Have the kids get in with it?"
"Exactly!" Remus summoned a parchment out of Sirius' kitchen and quickly scribbled his idea so he didn't forget it. "Then it's private, but it's still part of the obstacle course."
"An obstacle course would have been so wicked to have as a student," Sirius grumbled. "How will you fix it in case any of the students need help?"
"Damn," Remus swore under his breath. "I could..." he hesitated while he tried to think of a private way he could be alerted if a student needed help without having to be there with them. "An alarm!" he said with a broad smile. "I can put a switch in the trunk and if they flip it then I can go in and help them. Or they can just accept the grade drop for leaving the trunk without assistance."
"You're brilliant," Sirius smiled at him with the same charming smile Remus has loved for twenty years now. "Those students are lucky to have you."
"Tell them that," Remus scoffed with a pleased grin. "But maybe this will take me off Susan Bone's hit list."
Sirius laughed deeply at that, he seemed just as fond of Susan as he was Harry.
"Amy's niece is a fireball," he chuckled. "Almost makes me wish Harry saw her as more than just a sister."
"Don't let Fred Weasley hear that," Remus shook the quill in his hand at Sirius. "He's been trying to carry Harry's bag around for him and looking like a lovesick puppy ever since he got back from St Mungo's."
"Trying to carry his bag?" Sirius asked. "Does Harry not let him or something?"
"I heard Harry lecturing him that Fred carrying Harry's bag somehow makes him look weak," Remus said with a small grin. "He's worse than James ever was with always trying to seem like the toughest guy in any room."
"Well," Sirius frowned, "Harry's got his reasons."
Remus had felt a pang of remorse for his own thoughtless remark later when he returned to the castle that night. James had been a bit pig-headed as a student, and was constantly trying to impress someone, usually Lily, all for an ego boost. Harry's show of strength probably came from the insecurity he felt after having been a victim during his earlier life.
Remus also felt guilty as he hadn't told Sirius about what Severus told him, which he desperately wished he could forget ever hearing, about Harry living on the streets and being assaulted. But he suspected Sirius knew quite a bit already. He said that he'd spent a lot of time with Harry before he was exonerated and had even attended a therapy session with Harry and Severus, and told Remus he couldn't share what he had heard during either time.
"I can't break his trust, you get it right Moony?" he'd pleaded. And Remus did get it. Harry was the most important person in Sirius' life and he'd never want him to do anything to hurt his relationship with his godson.
Of course, Remus still would have given quite a bit to see Severus, Harry, and Sirius talking about their feelings with a therapist. The fact none of them drew blood seemed to be the beginning of a peaceful period for the three of them.
Sirius had never seemed so happy as he was when he recounted his brief Hogsmeade visits with Harry, or when he got an unexpected letter from him.
And Harry had seemed to be happy as well, he had practically bounced around the castle until the night Remus unfortunately had to bust him from a party. Partially undressed. Drunk. Reeking of pot. And with a fifth year draped over his lap.
It wasn't his best night.
Harry, unsurprisingly, got even with Remus the very next morning. While he was sitting at breakfast and felt the map he temporarily confiscated from Harry fly out of his robe pocket and speed towards his classroom.
"Goodness," Pomona gasped. "What was that?"
"That is James' karma," Remus grumbled, mopping up his spilt tea, as he realized what must have happened. "It's just a shame he isn't here to receive it."
Pomona gave him a curious look, but didn't say any more about it.
Sirius had unsympathetically thought the whole thing was hilarious when he vented about it to him that night at Rosmerta's pub.
"Fred was on his knees in front of him Pads!" Remus wailed in to his lager. "And I had to turn Harry in to Severus! Do you know what a hypocrite I felt like?"
"Probably a pretty big one," Sirius laughed loudly as he downed his third glass of bourbon. "Harry'll forgive you this summer, it's going to be brilliant Rem."
Even in his partially inebriated state Remus knew there was something wrong with Harry's abrupt decision to move in with Sirius. Harry was closer to Severus than any other student in the castle. He defended him at any perceived slight and ran to him for any problems he had. Harry hardly knew Sirius. And Harry didn't seem like the type of kid that was comfortable with sudden big changes.
"Harry might feel different later," Remus said gently. "I'm sure Severus punished him for what happened last night and he probably just ran to you to try and avoid being in trouble. You should talk to him and Severus both about it later."
Sirius waved off his concerns and started rambling on about his plans for the summer. Remus listened with his usual loving exhaustion he had when it came to what he called Sirius' 'energetic moods'. The man would talk his ear off, trash his flat as he bounced around, be easily prompted in to a shouting match over the smallest disagreements, and he made rash decisions without thinking. But he also was ravenous and insatiable in bed during these energetic moods as well, so Remus tolerated them with privately mixed emotions. Plus, they were much better than when Sirius used to go in to his 'dark moods'. He hadn't had one since he'd had his name cleared and Remus hoped that maybe he wouldn't have them anymore. He knew it was unrealistic, but a man could hope.
Sirius' energetic mood had crashed hard the very next day when he burst in to Remus' second year defense class and started shouting about Harry being in a coma at St Mungo's.
Remus quickly got Filius to agree to supervise his class so he could follow Sirius to the Wixen hospital in London where they'd discovered that Harry was indeed in a coma.
"Pup... wake up... please... please... I love you..."
Remus wrapped his arms around Sirius as he sobbed next to Harry's bed. Severus and the Healers assured them that Harry would wake up when the poison in his brain disappeared and reduced the swelling but... but Harry looked so tiny and vulnerable in the large hospital bed. His face was pale white beneath his scars and he looked years younger as his perpetual scowl had disappeared in favor of a slack jawed look of peace.
Sirius refused to leave the hospital, which left him sharing a room with an equally stubborn Severus, until Harry woke up.
"You go back," Sirius told Remus. "I want to be here when he wakes up."
So Remus went back and forth between the castle and the hospital for two weeks. He brought Sirius and Severus food and tried to urge them both to rest, not that either of them listened. He also escorted various students to the hospital at Minerva's request.
"If you're going anyway would you mind allowing the students who have permission to visit to go with you?" she had asked softly. "There's quite the line of worried students."
Remus was bemused by some of the students who insisted on visiting Harry, including Roger Davies and Jonathan Abbott.
"Harry's an old friend," Jonathan grinned lazily. "I'd hate for anything to happen to the bloke."
Remus carefully warned Severus to make sure any gift Jonathan left was checked since he was the one Remus had confiscated three baggies of pot off of at the party he'd busted up.
In the middle of the three men fretting over the health of Harry, they were hit with another blow.
"HE ESCAPED??" Sirius bellowed in Harry's private hospital room (apparently Severus would settle for nothing less) when Remus immediately brought the two other men the newspaper he himself had spit his tea out over.
"Fucking Merlin damned stupid bastards," Severus growled. "They knew Pettigrew was an animagus."
"He's a sneaking nasty little rat," Sirius snarled.
And then Remus Lupin witnessed his first ever miracle at thirty three years old- Severus Snape agreed with something Sirius Black said.
Finally, after sixteen days, Harry had woken up.
And immediately crushed Sirius' highly held hopes by saying he wouldn't come live with him.
"You tried to warn me," Sirius moped on their way back to Hogwarts the day Harry woke up. "I just... I want him to be happy. But I wish it was with me."
"I know," Remus tried to comfort him. "But he's still your godson love. And if he lives with Severus then you get to be the fun godfather you always wanted to be. All the good times without any of the discipline involved in raising a teenager."
Sirius had perked up at that reminder and his good mood had carried him all the way through to finals week. He had wished Remus good luck the night before after helping him set up the obstacle courses and now Remus proudly surveyed their work as his third years trooped across the lawn towards him.
"Morning!" he called to them all brightly. "I thought we'd try something out a little different for your final exam today."
The students looked curious at the course laid out behind him and Remus hoped it was a good sign.
"Here's how today will work! One at a time you will go through the course and will be faced with five creatures we've talked about in class. Each obstacle will require you to defeat them in order to move on. Grades will be based on how many creatures you defeat. If you defeat all five creatures you'll get an Outstanding. Four creatures will get you an Exceeds Expectations. Defeating three creatures will earn an Acceptable. Only defeating one or two creatures will get you a Poor. And if you don't defeat any you'll get Dreadful. Any questions?"
"What creatures are they?" Ronald Weasley asked after raising his hand.
"I can't give the whole game away," Remus chuckled. "But I can tell you that all five are ones I warned you guys would be on the final exam. Also," Remus waited until everyone's attention returned to him. "I will actually warn you that the last obstacle is a boggart AND anyone who requires assistance should flip the switch to the right of the entrance once you climb in the trunk. I did not want to include it, but rules are rules apparently. Please do your best and if you need assistance, or can't face yours again, understand that there is no shame at all in not laughing in the face of what is meant to be your deepest fear. Okay?"
Most of the students nodded thoughtfully, but Remus saw a handful of Slytherins balk at the idea of facing their boggart. Most notably were Harry and Theodore. Both of whom had incredibly disturbing boggarts.
"Alright, once I call you up you'll take the course then you guys are free to hang around for your friends or leave. First up, Hannah!"
Remus and the students watched as Hannah determinedly fought her way through the obstacle course.
"Only missed two," he told Hannah quietly once she climbed out of the trunk, the green light on the trunk lock indicating she had successfully defeated the boggart. "Susan!" he called loudly towards the waiting students.
Susan strutted towards him, her chin stuck out, exuding pure confidence.
"Good luck," he laughed before she took off. Susan was a force to be reckoned with. Even as much as she'd tormented Remus this year, he thought perhaps Harry had it right when he said Remus himself used to find those same pranks funny when he was a student. Apparently Susan was determined to teach him a lesson on how hindsight is a bitch.
"Exceeds Expectations," he told her when she climbed out of the trunk, pale faced, with the absent green light indicating to him which creature she missed. "No shame in that one Miss Bones."
Susan nodded at him, which he thought was quite an accomplishment since she'd appeared ready to curse him after the first time she'd faced her boggart.
Remus was hesitant when he reached Theodore's name on his parchment. "Theodore!" he called.
Theodore looked quickly towards Harry and raised his brows, as if asking a silent question, that Harry answered with a curt nod.
Remus seemed to hold his breath when Theodore entered the trunk, but after only a few minutes the Slytherin boy exited the trunk with a blinking green light. "Only missed the second creature!" Remus informed him proudly.
Harry and Theodore shared another subtle look once Theodore rejoined the group of lingering and waiting students.
"Harry!" Remus eventually called. Harry swaggered up with a confident strut that made Lupin smile. Harry had seemed much more confident and comfortable ever since he arrived back from the hospital. Remus wasn't sure what the shift was that the hospital stay triggered, but he was pleased to see the return of a more settled Harry.
Remus would probably never forget the night he found Harry after hearing the boy punch a stone wall until his bones cracked and his knuckles bled.
"Good luck," he murmured quietly. He watched as Harry, unsurprisingly, made the best time in the course so far. He'd barely even flicked, waved, and jerked his hand to incapacitate the first four creatures before climbing in to the trunk.
Remus, and most of the crowd of third years, watched quietly as Harry spent four... five... six minutes in the trunk. Just as Remus had decided to pull Harry out of it, red light be damned, the trunk exploded.
Remus threw a hasty shield over the students who were closest to getting struck with the debris and hurried forward, yanking Harry backwards as soon as the dust cleared and Remus saw that Harry was still cowering in front of a sneering Severus Snape.
"Riddikulus," Remus said quickly, causing his newly formed moon to deflate to the ground before he moved it back to the box that also survived the explosion of the magically expanded trunk.
"Are you alright?" Remus asked Harry who jumped to his feet as Susan and Theodore both rushed to his side.
"Brill," Harry grit out with a nervous glance towards the waiting students.
"I don't think they saw," Theodore whispered directly in Harry's ear. "I think there was too much dust."
Theodore's assurance was almost immediately proven false as Seamus Finnigan, the Gryffindor boy whose boggart was Harry, started laughing loudly.
"He's afraid of Snape? What's wrong Potter? Does Daddy Sev lock you up in the summers or something?"
Remus grimaced both at Finnigan's juvenile taunt and at the implication that Severus had somehow replaced James as Harry's father.
(Which, when Remus considered it that night in private, wasn't far off the mark. As sad as it was that Harry didn't get the opportunity to know James, Severus had stepped up in a way Remus never would have considered the man would have. And he clearly cared for Harry, just as much, if not more, than Harry's own godfather did.)
But the moment the jeer left Seamus' mouth, Harry turned a fierce look of accusation at Remus. The two held eye contact for a long moment as the other students started whispering about Harry's boggart.
"Lupin's a fuckin werewolf," Harry eventually said coldly and loudly, still staring at Remus with narrowed eyes lit by a furious fire.
Remus was so shocked as he stared at Harry that he hardly noticed the quiet yelps from the watching students. Even through his haze of shock Remus could recognize the tightly coiled muscles, trembling hands, and red rimmed gaze that all pointed towards Harry reacting and not thinking in the moment.
"Harry... I..." Remus was honestly lost for words.
"Can I go?" Harry asked.
"Exceeds Expectations," Remus all but whispered, still shocked to his core that his carefully guarded secret had just been announced to the entire third year class.
His career at Hogwarts was over.
Harry snorted and pointed a finger at the box the boggart was in and caught it on fire.
"Is it outstanding now?" he drawled as the boggart screeched from the box.
Remus nodded absently and watched as Harry and his friends, aside from Blaise and Ronald, quickly left towards the castle. Susan looked over her shoulder once and smiled sweetly when Seamus' skin immediately broke out in painful boils that had Remus sending him to the hospital wing.
"I don't get it Pads," Remus moaned as he tried to drown his remorse in whisky that night at Sirius' flat. "Seamus taunted him, but Harry still blamed me. It's not my fault he blew up the trunk and everyone saw the boggart!"
"Harry's... well... Harry thinks about things different than you do," Sirius said softly. "It's like..." Sirius trailed off while he tried to sort out what he wanted to say in his godsons defense. "It's like, adults can be blamed for most of the problems he's ever had, you know? So when things go wrong I think he just automatically blames the closest adult. And it wasn't fair, but I doubt if he even thought it through before he said it."
"Are we talking about Harry or thirteen year old you?" Remus asked wryly.
Sirius had rarely ever looked so solemn when he replied;
"Sometimes it's one and the same Rem."
And, when Remus thought more about it, he could see Sirius' point. Harry and Sirius were a lot different, but any person with a working set of eyes could see the similarities in behavior between the two. Which wasn't really comforting considering Sirius' childhood had been a horrifying nightmare that Sirius still scarcely speaks about. Remus wondered once again what all had happened to Harry before he came under Severus' care.
"It doesn't matter now," he sighed. "The damage is done. I gave Albus my resignation right before I came over."
"It'll work out," Sirius said, returning to the bright eyed optimism that Remus' own cynicism needs. "We'll have the best summer ever together, and then maybe when Harry goes back to school next September you and I can go on a trip like we always talked about."
Remus unwittingly smiled fondly as he remembered plans whispered under covers while the war raged on all around them and they worried that every night together might be their last.
"Harry is never going to spend any time with you if I'm around," Remus said with a mournful sigh as he returned his thoughts to the present. "He hates me."
"You both just doesn't understand each other," Sirius said. "The two of you can spend some time together this summer and he'll get to know you and hopefully love you just as much as I do."
"Or he'll actually kill me," Remus said.
Sirius laughed and wrapped Remus up in a hug, apparently believing that his very real fear was a joke.