Remus Lupin sat cross-legged on his narrow bed in what could only be described as the most scholarly pretzel formation known to wizardkind, holding up what might generously be called a sock—if one squinted very hard and had an exceptionally liberal definition of both "textile" and "integrity." The thing had more holes than the Ministry's official explanation for why Dementors were considered suitable prison guards, and significantly less credibility.
"You know," he said to the sock, addressing it with the kind of reverent seriousness usually reserved for ancient magical artifacts or particularly complex Transfiguration theory, "I think you've transcended your original purpose entirely. You're no longer mere footwear—you've become a philosophical statement about the impermanence of material possessions." He tilted his head, studying the pattern of holes with the intensity of a professional archaeologist. "Or possibly you're just a cry for help disguised as hosiery. A textile SOS, if you will."
He held it up to the lamplight like a detective examining crucial evidence, turning it this way and that. "The real question here is whether I should pack you as clothing, or submit you to the Hogwarts art department as my first assignment. 'Portrait of Despair in Wool and Good Intentions,' by R.J. Lupin, age eleven, chronic overthinker and part-time sock philosopher."
The late afternoon light streaming through his small window caught the worst of the holes, making the sock look like it was trying to communicate in some sort of textile morse code. Remus squinted at it thoughtfully. "Are you trying to tell me something? Is this some kind of prophetic vision about my future at Hogwarts? 'Beware the boy with the holey socks'?"
"Remus John Lupin!" His mother's voice floated up from downstairs, carrying that particular mixture of warmth and exasperation that only mothers could truly master—part fond amusement, part genuine concern, and one part barely restrained urge to march upstairs and pack his trunk herself. "Are you having another philosophical debate with your wardrobe?"
"Only with the pieces that have particularly interesting life stories!" he called back, grinning despite the nervous energy that had been building in his chest all day. That sideways smile transformed his whole face from serious and studious to mischievous and bright, like someone had just whispered the world's best secret joke directly into his ear. "This sock has clearly survived several major historical events! I'm pretty sure it lived through at least two wars and possibly a natural disaster!"
"The natural disaster," came his father's distinctly dry voice from the doorway, "was your last growth spurt."
Lyall Lupin materialized in the entrance to his son's room like some sort of rumpled academic ghost, still wearing his Ministry robes from the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. His graying hair looked like he'd been running his hands through it all day—which, knowing his father's tendency toward deep contemplation of life's absurdities, he probably had. The expression on his weathered face was that perfect blend of paternal affection and barely contained amusement that suggested he'd been listening to this entire sock soliloquy from the hallway.
"At this rate, son," Lyall continued, settling one shoulder against the doorframe with practiced ease, "you'll miss the Hogwarts Express entirely and have to owl them a formal explanation. 'Terribly sorry, Professor McGonagall, but I was having an existential crisis about my sock drawer and lost track of time. Please excuse the delay in my arrival.'"
Remus looked up at his father with an expression of mock horror, clutching the offending sock to his chest as if it were a precious family heirloom. "Dad! Are you seriously suggesting that I approach the monumental task of packing for my entire Hogwarts career with anything less than the scholarly rigor it clearly deserves? This isn't just throwing things in a trunk—this is my entire life we're talking about here!"
He gestured dramatically with the sock, using it to punctuate his points like the world's most unconventional conductor's baton. "These decisions will follow me for months! What if I bring the wrong books and fall behind in my studies? What if my robes make completely the wrong first impression and everyone thinks I'm some sort of fashion disaster? What if my choice of quills suggests a personality type that's fundamentally incompatible with proper wizarding society?"
His voice was picking up speed now, the way it always did when he was building up to one of his legendary overthinking spirals. "And what if—" he held up the sock with renewed dramatic flair, "—what if this particular piece of knitwear is the thing that makes or breaks my entire Hogwarts experience? What if I'm unpacking in my dormitory and my roommates see this and immediately conclude that I'm not Hogwarts material?"
Lyall stepped properly into the room, and Remus could see the barely contained smile tugging at the corners of his father's mouth. After years of working in the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures—dealing with everything from bureaucratic nightmares to actual nightmares with teeth—Lyall had perfected the art of looking professionally serious while internally laughing at life's more ridiculous moments.
"Well," Lyall said in the measured tone of someone delivering an expert professional opinion, stroking his chin thoughtfully as he examined the sock in question, "I'd have to say that particular garment has moved well beyond the realm of mere clothing into what I can only describe as abstract expressionism. It's making quite a bold statement about the fundamental fragility of human hopes, dreams, and laundry skills."
"See?" Remus pointed triumphantly at his father, his amber eyes lighting up with vindication. "This is exactly what I'm talking about! These are the kinds of deep, meaningful philosophical questions that could potentially shape a young wizard's entire educational journey! Do I pack it as a humble reminder of my modest beginnings, or do I leave it here as a symbolic representation of childhood innocence being left behind forever?"
"You pack it," came Mary Lupin's voice, firm and decisive, as she appeared behind her husband like some sort of maternal force of nature, "because it's one of the few pairs you have left, and I spent the better part of an hour mending it yesterday evening while you were reading."
She moved into the room with that particular efficiency that mothers seemed to possess naturally—the kind that could reorganize chaos simply by existing in its general vicinity. Her dark hair was pulled back in a practical bun, but a few strands had escaped to frame her face, and there was a small smudge of what looked like ink on her cheek that suggested she'd been handling correspondence all day.
"And before you make another elaborate joke about its supposed artistic merits, young man," she continued, fixing him with that look that all mothers had mastered—the one that could see straight through any excuse or deflection—"remember that I'm the one who'll be washing and mending your clothes when you come home for Christmas holidays."
Remus clutched the sock protectively to his chest, his expression shifting to one of wounded artistic dignity. "Mum, you can't just dismiss its cultural and philosophical significance like that! This sock has character! It has stories! It's lived a full and meaningful life!"
He held up the sock again, pointing to its various battle scars with the enthusiasm of a tour guide showing off historical landmarks. "Look at this hole here—" he indicated a particularly impressive gap near the toe, "—this could very well be from that time I climbed Mrs. Henderson's apple tree to rescue her cat, Whiskers, when he got stuck during that thunderstorm last month. And this worn spot here?" He pointed to a thin patch near the heel. "This is definitely from all those nights I spent pacing around my room trying to work out the theoretical applications of basic Transfiguration principles!"
"That worn spot," Mary said with the kind of devastating maternal accuracy that could cut through any romantic notion in seconds, "is from you insisting on wearing socks that are two sizes too small because you refuse to admit that your feet have grown."
"I don't refuse to admit anything!" Remus protested, though his cheeks had taken on a slightly pink tinge. "I just... optimize for minimal fabric waste and maximum economic efficiency!"
"You're cheap," Lyall translated helpfully, his tone completely matter-of-fact.
"Economically conscious," Remus corrected with as much dignity as he could muster while still clutching a sock that looked like it had been through several small wars. "There's a significant difference between the two concepts. One suggests a fundamental character flaw, while the other suggests forward-thinking financial planning and resource management."
"You bought those socks from a discount bin at Diagon Alley," Mary pointed out with ruthless precision, "because they were three sickles cheaper than the properly sized ones."
"I made a fiscally responsible consumer choice!"
"You made a cheap choice that resulted in uncomfortable feet and prematurely destroyed socks," she countered, but there was warmth in her voice despite the words. "Just like when you bought that secondhand cauldron that was dented on one side because it was half the price of a new one."
"That cauldron has character! The dent gives it personality!"
"The dent makes it heat unevenly, which is why half your practice potions come out lopsided," Lyall observed. "Remember the Pepper-Up Potion that came out bright purple instead of red because the left side was twenty degrees hotter than the right?"
"That was... an experimental variation on the traditional recipe," Remus said with wounded dignity. "I was exploring the creative possibilities inherent in asymmetrical heating patterns."
"You were too stubborn to admit the cauldron was faulty," Mary said, settling herself on the bed beside him. The moment she sat down, the whole dynamic in the room shifted subtly. The teasing was still there, warm and familiar, but underneath it was something more fragile—the awareness that this was their last evening like this, possibly for months.
"Remus, love," she said more gently, reaching out to smooth down that persistent cowlick that had been defying gravity since he was small enough to sit on her lap. "Look at me for a moment."
He did, those unusual amber eyes that seemed to hold too much knowledge for someone who hadn't even started his first year of proper magical education. Sometimes Mary looked at her son—really looked at him—and wondered exactly when he'd stopped being her little boy and started being this oddly wise, deeply funny, occasionally heartbreaking young person who thought entirely too much about absolutely everything.
"Are you nervous about tomorrow?" she asked quietly.
The question hit him like a pin puncturing a balloon. All the theatrical energy and elaborate wordplay deflated out of him in a single moment, leaving behind just an eleven-year-old boy holding a damaged sock and trying to figure out how to be brave enough for whatever came next.
"Terrified," he admitted, his voice suddenly much smaller than it had been just a moment before. "Absolutely, completely, existentially terrified in ways I didn't even know were possible."
He set the sock down carefully on the bed beside him, treating it like it was made of something infinitely precious rather than wool and disappointment. "What if they notice, Mum? I mean, I've gotten reasonably good at the whole 'mysterious monthly illness' routine over the years—I've practically turned it into a form of performance art at this point—but what if someone's really paying attention? What if someone starts keeping track and realizes that I disappear every full moon and come back looking like I've been wrestling with something significantly larger and more aggressive than my homework?"
His hands were starting to move as he talked, gesturing in quick, nervous patterns that his parents recognized as a sign that his mind was racing faster than his mouth could keep up. "And what if I make friends—which is probably overly optimistic, but let's say hypothetically I do—what if I make friends and then have to watch them slowly figure out that there's something fundamentally different about me? What if I have to watch their faces change when they realize I'm not just the weird kid who makes terrible puns, but the weird kid who makes terrible puns and also turns into a monster once a month?"
Lyall moved to sit on the edge of the trunk, completing their small family circle in the cramped room. "Remus."
"I know, I know," Remus continued, running both hands through his sandy hair and making it stick up at even more impossible angles. "I'm overthinking everything. I always overthink everything. I overthink my overthinking, which is probably a clear sign that I should think less about things, but then I start thinking about thinking less and suddenly I'm thinking more about the process of thinking less than I was thinking about the original thing before I started thinking about thinking about it, and then I'm trapped in this recursive loop of—"
"Remus," Mary interrupted gently, reaching over to still his restless hands with her own. "Take a breath, sweetheart."
He took a shaky breath, then another deeper one, his shoulders gradually relaxing from where they'd crept up toward his ears. "Sorry. I just... what if I'm not good enough at hiding it? What if I make friends—real friends, the kind you read about in books—and then have to watch them decide that I'm too dangerous, or too weird, or just... too much?"
The silence that followed wasn't empty—it was full of all the conversations they'd had over the years about being different, about belonging, about the particular cruelty of secrets that felt too large for one person to carry alone. It was weighted with worry and hope in equal measure.
"Do you want to know what I think?" Lyall asked finally, and there was something different in his voice—not the careful, measured tone he used at the Ministry when dealing with difficult cases, but the voice he used when he was about to say something that really mattered.
"Always," Remus said quietly, looking up at his father with complete trust.
"I think," Lyall said slowly, choosing each word with deliberate care, "that you're going to meet other young people who are just as scared as you are. Maybe not of exactly the same things, but scared nonetheless. Worried about fitting in, about being accepted, about whether they're smart enough or brave enough or good enough for the place they find themselves in."
He leaned forward slightly, his expression serious but warm. "And I think that some of those people are going to look at this brilliant, funny, slightly ridiculous son of mine—this boy who can find philosophical significance in a damaged sock and make puns about literally everything that crosses his path—and think, 'Here's someone I'd very much like to know better.'"
"But what if they—"
"And I think," Lyall continued, raising his voice just slightly to override Remus's automatic objection, "that if someone can't handle the fact that you're dealing with something difficult—something that requires courage and resilience and strength—then they weren't worthy of your friendship in the first place. But Remus, and this is the important part—you might be genuinely surprised by how much other people can handle when it comes from someone they care about."
Mary nodded, still smoothing that stubborn cowlick with automatic maternal precision. "Your father's absolutely right, love. The world is full of people who are going to see that extraordinary mind of yours, that generous heart, those absolutely terrible jokes about everything under the sun, and think you're exactly the sort of person they want in their lives."
"My jokes aren't terrible," Remus protested automatically, though most of the fight had gone out of it. "They're... sophisticated. Intellectually challenging. Layered, like a really excellent pun—you have to think about it for a moment before you fully appreciate the brilliance of the construction."
"They're terrible," Mary said with a laugh that was equal parts fond and despairing. "Wonderfully, brilliantly, absolutely terrible in the most charming possible way."
"The sock jokes alone could probably get you expelled for crimes against comedy," Lyall added with complete seriousness. "I'm fairly certain there are Ministry regulations about that level of concentrated punnery in educational environments. It could be classified as a form of intellectual assault."
Despite everything—the fear, the uncertainty, the weight of secrets he wasn't sure he was strong enough to carry—Remus grinned. That crooked, slightly lopsided smile that made him look simultaneously younger and older than his years, like he was carrying jokes and wisdom in equal measure.
"I prefer to think of them as raising the bar for wizarding humor," he said with mock dignity. "Someone has to elevate the discourse. Someone has to introduce proper wordplay standards to magical education."
"God help us all," Mary muttered, but she was smiling too, the kind of smile that said she wouldn't change a single thing about her ridiculous, wonderful son.
"The professors have no idea what's coming," Lyall said solemnly. "I should probably owl ahead and warn them. 'Please be advised that incoming first-year Remus Lupin considers puns a legitimate form of academic discourse and will attempt to incorporate wordplay into every subject, including but not limited to Potions, Transfiguration, and Ancient Runes.'"
"Ancient Runes would be perfect for puns!" Remus said, perking up considerably. "Think about the possibilities! The historical wordplay! The linguistic connections across centuries of magical development!"
"You haven't even learned Ancient Runes yet," Mary pointed out.
"But when I do, I'll be ready," Remus said confidently. "I'll be the first student in Hogwarts history to make Ancient Runes genuinely entertaining."
"You'll be the first student in Hogwarts history to get detention for making Ancient Runes too entertaining," Lyall corrected. "Professor Babbling will probably ban you from class for disrupting the solemnity of ancient magical languages."
"That's a risk I'm willing to take," Remus declared. "Some causes are worth fighting for."
They settled into comfortable silence for a moment, the late afternoon light gradually shifting toward evening as it filtered through the small window and painted everything in warm golden tones. Remus reached over and picked up another item from his carefully organized pile of belongings—a well-worn copy of *Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them* that looked like it had been read approximately forty-seven times and possibly used as a pillow on several occasions.
"I've been thinking," he said, turning the battered book over in his hands and examining the familiar cover, "about what Newt Scamander would write if he ever had to catalog me for official magical creature documentation purposes. You know, purely for scientific accuracy."
"Oh no," Lyall said with the resigned tone of someone who recognized the opening notes of an extended Remus Lupin theoretical ramble. "Here we go. Should we settle in for the long version or the extended director's cut?"
"Classification: XXXXX," Remus began, settling into his best professorial voice and completely ignoring his father's comment. "Highly dangerous to unsuspecting social situations, not due to any inherently aggressive tendencies, but because of chronic compulsion to overthink absolutely everything to the point of existential crisis."
He flipped through the book's pages as he spoke, as if consulting actual research notes. "Natural habitat: anywhere with adequate lighting for reading and sufficient monthly privacy for, er, personal maintenance requirements. Dietary preferences: primarily chocolate-based, with supplemental intake of books, philosophical anxiety, and whatever vegetables can be successfully hidden in other foods."
"You forgot the compulsive joke-making," Mary pointed out with scientific precision.
"Notable behavioral characteristics," Remus continued solemnly, holding up one finger as if delivering a lecture to a classroom full of eager students, "include excessive use of humor as a primary defense mechanism, chronic inability to pack efficiently despite extensive planning, and an unhealthy emotional attachment to damaged clothing items."
He paused dramatically, looking up at his parents with complete seriousness. "Warning for potential handlers: approach with extreme caution, as subject is prone to lengthy philosophical discussions about the nature of identity, belonging, and the sociological implications of magical education. Additionally, subject creates weapons-grade puns about literally everything and considers wordplay a legitimate form of intellectual discourse."
"The puns should definitely be listed under 'dangerous magical abilities,'" Lyall agreed gravely. "They're powerful enough to cause actual psychological damage to unsuspecting listeners."
"They're intellectually stimulating!" Remus protested.
"They're terrible," Mary said with finality. "Remember your Ollivanders appointment? You spent twenty minutes making increasingly elaborate jokes about wands while poor Mr. Ollivander was trying to find your magical match."
Remus had the grace to look slightly embarrassed, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the grin threatening to break through his attempt at contrition. "I was nervous! Excessive punning is a completely normal response to social anxiety! It's a well-documented coping mechanism!"
"You made the poor man laugh so hard he nearly dropped an entire box of phoenix feathers," Lyall recalled with vivid detail. "I think he was actually crying by the end of your performance. He had to sit down."
"Those were genuinely good jokes!" Remus insisted. "They were clever! They were topical! They were perfectly calibrated to the wand-selection experience!"
"They were terrible jokes that happened to be extremely funny," Mary corrected with the precision of someone who had spent years analyzing her son's particular brand of humor. "There's an important distinction there."
"I still maintain that the pun about 'wand-ering' into the right magical partnership was absolutely brilliant," Remus said with wounded dignity. "That was quality wordplay! That was linguistic artistry!"
"It was awful," Lyall said with deep, paternal fondness. "Absolutely, completely, wonderfully awful. Which is precisely why it was perfect."
Remus beamed at both of them, that transformative smile that lit up his entire face and made his amber eyes sparkle with mischief and affection in equal measure. "See? This is exactly why I'm going to miss you two so desperately. You actually understand and appreciate my comedic genius."
"We understand that you have absolutely no sense of proper comedic timing and an alarming enthusiasm for wordplay in completely inappropriate situations," Mary said with loving exasperation. "That's not quite the same thing as appreciating genius."
"But you love me anyway?" The question came out slightly smaller than his usual confident declarations, with just enough vulnerability to remind them that underneath all the jokes and philosophical rambling, he was still just their eleven-year-old son who needed reassurance.
"Despite your jokes," Lyall said with mock solemnity, then reached over to ruffle Remus's already disheveled hair affectionately, "not because of them. Though I have to admit, they are growing on me. Like a particularly persistent fungus."
"A very charming, intellectually stimulating fungus," Remus corrected with dignity, leaning into his father's touch despite his attempt at indignation.
"The most articulate fungus in the wizarding world," Mary added, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.
As the afternoon properly settled into evening, they worked together to finish the last of his packing. But it wasn't really about folding clothes and organizing books and making sure he had enough quills and parchment—it was about filling the small room with as much warmth and laughter and love as they could possibly manage before morning came and changed everything forever.
The golden light grew longer and softer, painting familiar shadows on the walls as Mary carefully folded his school robes (mended but clean), Lyall sorted through his collection of books with the serious attention of a professional librarian, and Remus continued his running commentary on the philosophical implications of choosing the right socks for one's inaugural magical education experience.
"You know," he said thoughtfully, holding up his Hogwarts letter for what was probably the hundredth time that day, reading it as if the words might have rearranged themselves since the last time he looked, "Professor Dumbledore really, truly believes I can do this, doesn't he?"
"Professor Dumbledore," Lyall said carefully, setting down a stack of carefully organized textbooks, "is many things. Brilliant, certainly. Eccentric, absolutely. Prone to cryptic statements and an genuinely alarming fondness for questionable confectionery that could probably be classified as magical in its own right. But he's not careless with people's lives, Remus. He doesn't make promises he can't keep, and he doesn't extend opportunities he doesn't believe people can handle. If he says you belong at Hogwarts, then you belong at Hogwarts."
"Even with..." Remus gestured vaguely at himself, a movement that somehow managed to encompass all the things they rarely talked about directly, all the careful planning and monthly precautions and whispered conversations about safety and secrecy.
"Especially with," Mary said firmly, turning from where she'd been organizing his trunk with military precision. "Do you honestly think you're the first student with secrets to walk through those castle doors? The first young person with fears, with something that makes them feel fundamentally different from everyone else around them?"
She crossed the room and cupped his face gently in both her hands, the way she had since he was small enough to fit entirely in her lap. "Sweetheart, you're going to meet other children who feel just as lost and hopeful and absolutely terrified as you do right now. And maybe, if you're very lucky indeed, you'll help each other figure out what it means to be brave."
"What if I'm not brave enough for any of it?" The question emerged smaller and more honest than he'd intended, carrying all the weight of his fears about the future.
"Then you'll fake it until you figure out how to be," Lyall said simply, with the kind of straightforward wisdom that came from years of facing difficult situations with nothing but determination and hope. "That's what most of us do, son. Real courage isn't the absence of fear—it's deciding that something else matters more than being afraid."
"Like what?" Remus asked quietly.
"Like friendship. Like learning who you're meant to become. Like having the chance to make terrible jokes about magical creatures in front of people who might actually appreciate them," Lyall said, his eyes twinkling with familiar mischief.
"The jokes are a crucial component of my personal identity," Remus agreed with renewed seriousness. "They're integral to my character development."
"Your personal identity is 'overthinking teenager with an unhealthy relationship with his sock drawer,'" Mary pointed out with devastating accuracy. "The jokes are just a bonus feature."
"I don't have an unhealthy relationship with my sock drawer!" Remus protested. "I have a perfectly reasonable appreciation for the complex sociological and economic factors involved in textile maintenance within a magical household!"
"You've been talking about that one sock for over an hour," Lyall observed mildly.
"It's a very philosophically significant sock!"
"It's a very tragic sock with delusions of grandeur," Mary corrected. "But we love you anyway, and we'll love you just as much when you come home with stories about new friends and new adventures and probably a trunk full of laundry that needs proper attention."
Remus looked around his small room one more time—at the carefully mended clothes now neatly packed in his trunk, at the precious books he'd managed to collect over the years, at his parents who had somehow managed to raise him with such love and hope and unshakeable confidence despite everything that made their lives more complicated than most families had to manage.
"I'm going to miss this so much," he said quietly, his voice carrying all the weight of impending change. "I'm going to miss us. The terrible jokes and the philosophical discussions about socks and Mum trying to convince me that vegetables are actually edible food rather than decorative plants."
"Vegetables are food," Mary said automatically, with the long-suffering tone of someone who had been fighting this particular battle for years. "You just have the dietary preferences of an extremely particular five-year-old."
"I have a sophisticated palate that appreciates the finer things in life," Remus corrected with dignity. "Like chocolate. And books. And more chocolate."
"And that," Lyall said with a grin, "is exactly why we're sending you off with three emergency chocolate bars and strict parental instructions to consume at least one recognizable vegetable per week."
"Three bars?" Remus perked up considerably, his expression brightening with genuine delight. "I thought the official count was two bars!"
"I may have convinced your father that you require emergency chocolate provisions for legitimate medicinal purposes," Mary admitted with the satisfied air of someone who had successfully negotiated a complex diplomatic arrangement.
"You see?" Remus grinned at both of them with pure joy. "This is exactly why I love you both so desperately. You truly understand my priorities and my essential needs."
"We understand that you turn into an absolute nightmare when you're chocolate-deprived," Lyall corrected with practiced paternal accuracy. "Providing adequate chocolate supplies is purely a matter of self-preservation for everyone involved."
"I prefer to think of it as managing my nutritional requirements for optimal academic performance," Remus said with mock pompousness.
"You prefer to think of everything in the most unnecessarily complicated way possible," Mary observed fondly. "It's simultaneously one of your most endearing and most exhausting qualities."
As the evening properly settled around them like a comfortable blanket, their conversation gradually shifted from philosophical chocolate discussions to more practical matters—remembering to write letters regularly, keeping up with his studies, managing his monthly situation discretely, and not hexing anyone unless it was absolutely necessary for self-defense.
("But what if they really, truly deserve it?" "Remus." "What if they're being terrible about something genuinely important?" "Write us a letter first and explain the situation." "But what if there isn't time to wait for a response and they're being—" "Remus John Lupin.")
But underneath all the practical advice and parental warnings was something infinitely more precious: the absolute knowledge that this room, this family, this particular brand of loving, chaotic, joke-filled warmth would be waiting for him whenever he needed to come home.
"Right then," he said finally, looking at his properly packed trunk and then back at his parents with a mixture of determination and lingering nervousness. "I think... I think I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be."
"Are you?" Mary asked gently, studying his face with the careful attention of someone who knew him better than anyone else in the world.
Remus considered the question with the kind of serious philosophical attention he usually reserved for particularly challenging Transfiguration theory or especially complex puns. "No," he said with complete honesty. "I'm absolutely not ready at all. I'm terrified that I'll mess everything up completely, or that I won't be smart enough to keep up, or that someone will figure out my secret and everything will fall apart in spectacular fashion."
He paused, looking down at his hands, then back up at them with that familiar crooked smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners. "But I think I'm ready to not be ready, if that makes any kind of sense whatsoever. I'm ready to be terrified and excited and probably make a complete fool of myself at least twice per week. I'm ready to try my absolute best, even though I have no idea what I'm actually trying to do yet."
"And that," Lyall said quietly, his voice carrying all the pride and love in the world, "is probably the bravest thing anyone can possibly be."
Mary leaned over and kissed his forehead with infinite gentleness, the same goodnight kiss she'd given him every single evening since he was small enough to need tucking in. "We are so incredibly proud of you, sweetheart. Whatever happens at Hogwarts, whatever you discover about yourself or about magic or about the world, we are proud of you."
"Even if I come home with terrible grades and a collection of detention slips for making inappropriate jokes during serious magical instruction?"
"Especially then," she said firmly. "Because it will mean you were brave enough to take risks and be yourself."
"What if I come home with excellent grades but no friends because I somehow managed to scare everyone away with my personality and my excessive enthusiasm for wordplay?"
"Then we'll work on your social skills over the summer holidays," Lyall said practically. "Though I suspect the much bigger problem will be keeping track of all the new friends who want to come visit and meet the parents who raised such an interesting person."
"You really think so?"
"I think," Mary said, settling back against the headboard and looking at her son with eyes full of love and absolute confidence, "that any school lucky enough to get Remus Lupin is in for quite an extraordinary adventure. And I think the other students are going to be very, very fortunate indeed to meet you."
Remus carefully latched his trunk shut and looked around the room one final time—at the patched quilt his grandmother had made with her own hands, at the shelves lined with books he'd read dozens of times until he could quote entire passages from memory, at his parents who had somehow managed to make him feel like the luckiest person in the entire wizarding world despite everything that made their lives more complicated than most.
"Tomorrow," he said quietly, the words carrying the weight of impending transformation, "I become a Hogwarts student."
"Tomorrow," Mary agreed softly, "you start the next chapter of your story."
"Tonight," Lyall added with gentle finality, "you're just our son, making terrible jokes and overthinking absolutely everything."
"The terrible jokes are definitely coming with me to Hogwarts," Remus warned them with renewed determination. "I can't abandon my personal brand now, not when I'm so close to achieving true comedic greatness."
"The other students have been properly warned," Mary said with complete solemnity. "I sent an owl ahead to Professor McGonagall. 'Caution: incoming first-year student possesses dangerous levels of enthusiasm for wordplay and will attempt to make puns about everything. Proceed with patience and possibly earplugs.'"
"You absolutely did not!"
"She absolutely did," Lyall confirmed with a grin. "I helped compose it. We included a comprehensive list of topics that trigger your longest and most elaborate philosophical rambles."
"That list would be longer than my entire Hogwarts acceptance letter!"
"Exactly why we had to use very small handwriting and request extra parchment," Mary said with satisfaction.
Remus laughed—that bright, joyful sound that had carried them through so many difficult nights and uncertain moments over the years. And as he settled down to sleep in his childhood bed for the very last time before everything changed forever, he carried with him the absolute certainty that no matter what happened at Hogwarts—no matter what he discovered about magic or friendship or himself—he would always, always have this: a family who loved him exactly as he was, complete with terrible jokes, philosophical sock discussions, and all.
He closed his eyes and whispered a small prayer to whoever might be listening—that maybe, just maybe, Hogwarts would be ready for Remus Lupin and all his wonderful, terrible, brilliant complications.
After all, they'd been warned.
---
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