The Rewards of Hope

The Rewards of Hope

It took Remus until the following morning to completely overcome his anxiety about my pregnancy.

"Sod Voldemort!" he cried, juggling toast and scrambled eggs and juice at breakfast. "We'll live. We'll manage. This is just so incredible! When is the baby due?"

"Early May, I think."

"May!" he blurted. "That's an eternity!"

"It'll probably be here before we know it," I said encouragingly. "And there'll be a lot to do in the meantime."

Remus left the kitchen long enough to enfold me in his arms. "A baby," he whispered, and then, "I'm going to live, Kailin."

"I certainly hope so," I replied, having no idea what he meant.

"I'm going to live," he repeated. "Through this war, I mean. I had reason to live before, but now, more than ever. I have you, I have a son or daughter... I'm going to survive."

*****

The matter of Lucius Malfoy was handled discreetly.

So discreetly, in fact, that there was no public trial – not because Malfoy didn't deserve it, Albus Dumbledore told me, but because the Ministry had a bigger fish to fry in the form of Lord Voldemort. Rufus Scrimgeour, the new Minister of Magic, chose to downplay Malfoy's arrest, saying only that the Ministry had been negligent in releasing him from Azkaban a year earlier and displayed further carelessness by allowing him to ascend into a position of power. Nevertheless, Scrimgeour assured everyone in a Daily Prophet interview, a Death Eater had been caught and imprisoned, and Voldemort's supporters were now depleted by one.

I read between the lines, and when Albus Dumbledore visited Remus and me a week after the attack at the hospital, I brought the matter up.

"Tell me," I said carefully, "if I were a witch instead of a Muggle, would there have been a huge public outcry over the whole thing?"

Sitting on our sofa, still incongruous in his riot of robes, Dumbledore regarded me over the teacup poised in his hand. "Sadly, that would be my opinion as well. Not that they've swept the affair under the rug, mind you. Malfoy got what he deserves. But the wizarding population tends to worry first and foremost about its own, Kailin. That's neither right nor wrong. It's just---"

"---human nature," I finished for him. "It's all right, really. I don't want the publicity."

I sincerely meant it. I was perfectly happy being the anonymous Muggle woman who sent Lucius Malfoy up the river. That didn't mean, however, that there wasn't fallout from the entire debacle.

First and foremost, the Order of the Phoenix officially commended me for my role in getting rid of Malfoy. I was made an honorary member, earning a round of applause from the diverse group of witches and wizards at the very next meeting.

Secondly, while the final Aurors' report indicated that my plan was basically successful, it was strongly recommended that I continue to maintain a low profile – and worse yet – change jobs.

"What?" I was appalled. Changing jobs was the last thing I wanted to do. I liked my job and had no plans to leave it.

Nymphadora Tonks, obviously not pleased to be the one relaying this news, tried to look as though she commiserated with me. "I'm really sorry, Kailin. But now that it's public knowledge that Malfoy went after someone at London Heart Hospital, anyone could probably find out who with just a little detective work. It would be safer if you found a job elsewhere."

"Does this mean she's still in danger?" Remus wanted to know, and I could sense the old issue of me returning to the States rearing its ugly head.

"Not necessarily. It's just a precaution. After all, you're expecting a baby now. You don't want to take chances, do you?"

"No..." I trailed off. I was fighting a losing battle here. If I changed jobs, there was a chance that Remus might be pacified.

For after his initial dejection, then absolute elation, over my pregnancy, my husband had turned back into a very obsessive worrier.

His basic concern was housing. Though we lived in a two bedroom flat, Remus was adamant that we find something larger. There was absolutely no way, he told me, that he could continue to transform in the second bedroom once it became a baby's nursery.

"But that won't be for a while yet," I pointed out.

"It doesn't matter," he insisted. "It makes me ill just thinking that our child will be sleeping in there someday."

I couldn't blame him. No matter that Remus was fastidious when it came to cleaning up the room once the moon began to wane. No matter that the baby could be moved into our room for that one night each month. The very idea of our child sharing a room with a werewolf was unthinkable to him. To be brutally honest, the idea didn't sit well with me, either.

And so I began to hunt for a new job. Nursing jobs were plentiful enough, but choosing one was dictated this time by location. Was the job in a decent, affordable neighborhood? Or was there an easy commute from a decent, affordable neighborhood? It was altogether frustrating, because one thing hinged on the other, and nothing ever seemed to pan out.

And if that wasn't stressful enough, the ultrasound report from the doctor indicated that I was carrying twins.

I'm sure I spent at least a full sixty seconds spluttering like a fish out of water. Remus and I were sitting in the doctor's office, across the desk from a man who had delivered this news before and was waiting to see whether it would blow up in his face or be met by rousing cheers.

"Do either of you have twins in your family trees?" Dr. Whitman asked as the Stunned Silence finally moved in the direction of Thoroughly Strained.

I shook my head wordlessly. Remus still looked as though he'd been hit in the head by a two by four.

"Uh...yes..." he managed shakily.

I stared at my husband, all the while trying hard to bat down a rising hysteria. "You never mentioned that there were twins in your family," I said in a panicked tone of voice.

"Well, I forgot, Kailin," Remus turned to look at me, his eyes wide with shock. "That is – well, we weren't close to that branch –"

The doctor was speaking, but I could understand little of what he was saying. I'd tuned out his voice completely. There was a recording playing in my head, one which was repeatedly issuing little warnings of doom. Twins? How were we supposed to afford twins? How could we manage the logistics? How was I supposed to keep my sanity? What if it was a boy and a girl? Did that mean we needed four bedrooms instead of three? One for a boy, one for a girl, and one for a wolf?

I remember nothing from the rest of the doctor's visit. On the way home, neither Remus nor I said much until suddenly – abruptly – he blurted, "This is wonderful, Kailin!"

"Wonderful?" I echoed weakly. It kept me from screaming, Are you crazy?

The look of shock on his face had been replaced by one of pure joy. "Wonderful," he repeated. "Don't you see? They'll always be there for each other. They'll never have to wonder if they'll have friends!"

Remus fell silent again after that, but it was a telling description of his own childhood.

The doctor's news, however mind-blowing and earth-shaking it might have been, at least marked the turning point of our fortunes.

We received a message from Minerva McGonagall the very next day. Her sister Miranda – she of the Kent cottage which Malfoy had set ablaze – had decided not to rebuild on that site; she wanted to move farther north, where there was more room for her massive dogs to run about and fewer Muggles to ask questions. The land, some six acres in all, was available. Were Remus and I interested?

My first inclination was to turn it down flat. I'd only spent a matter of hours in Miranda's cottage, but they were hours I'd sooner forget. It was Remus who pointed out that the asking price was fantastically low. I had to trust him on this one, as I had absolutely no idea what wizarding property sold for. And so we made the trip out from London to see it, Remus with his high hopes and me with my low expectations.

I fully expected to be struck with horrific memories the moment we approached the place. After all, I'd nearly died there. In my mind's eye, I could see the sealed windows and doors, the flames, the dog door which had been my only hope for escape.

What I found was a lovely little piece of land. The cottage was no more, razed to its very foundations. There was even a small pond nearby – something we hadn't noticed that dark night in March – and a smattering of fruit trees and flowers. The day itself was lovely: leaves were changing into their autumn colors, and there was a crispness in the air that reminded me of school, warm baked goods, and bright yellow Number 2 pencils.

"What do you think?" Remus was looking at me anxiously. He'd been in favor of buying the place as soon as Minerva had broached the topic.

I honestly hadn't expected to consider living here. Out in the country? Me?

"The cottage was so small," I reminded him, looking back towards the stone foundations of the house. "There wouldn't be enough room."

"We don't have to use the existing foundation," he said at once. "But if we wanted to, we could build up. Two stories, you know."

And I had a vision of two little Lupins running through the grass to throw rocks in the pond or wiggle their toes in the water, and I was hopelessly smitten.

I changed the remainder of my bequest from Marvy from pounds to Galleons and handed a considerable sum over to Miranda McGonagall.

That done, we started looking for a builder, and I began searching for a job in Kent.

The job turned out to be the easiest part of the equation. A doctor from the London Heart Hospital was moving his practice to Gravesend. As soon as he heard I was moving east as well, he approached me and asked if I would be interested in working at his clinic. It was an opportunity falling directly into my lap from parts unknown, and I would be foolish to pass it up; once again, Marvy was looking out for me, and I was grateful.

Wizarding builders, it turns out, are people who literally function in No Man's Land. They use magical techniques to build a house, but the materials are strictly Muggle. Some magical contractors deal strictly with new goods; they go to a builder's supply store just like any other Muggle. Others use a combination of new materials and salvaged supplies from demolished houses. The shadiest of the lot manage to acquire their supplies by a vast array of illegal means.

Mundungus Fletcher, that dodgy con-man who had somehow found his way into the Order, was determined to steer a number of his acquaintances our way once he learned that Remus and I planned to build. Remus constantly had to invent reasons why we couldn't use his friends' services. Still, that didn't prevent an assortment of building goods – some which obviously had been taken fresh out of someone's home, and without permission – from appearing at the building site.

The absolute limits of our tolerance were reached one day in October, when Fletcher offered us an entire house, provided we could come up with enough wizards to dematerialize the thing where it sat and rematerialize it in Kent. Remus dropped any pretense at politeness and told Mundungus just what to do with his house.

The real blow, however, was when I realized that our wizarding house, on wizarding property, was not on the Muggle grid. I may be able to adjust to a good many things, but giving up my hair dryer is not one of them. I don't know exactly how the builders managed to get the Muggle authorities to hook us up, but I'm sure they learned a lesson about dealing with a hysterical pregnant woman that day. We were soon wired from top to bottom.

As our new home took form, it was easy to sit back and pretend that life was normal and all was going smoothly when in fact, things were difficult. Attacks on Muggles related in some way to the wizarding community occurred with horrifying frequency. Scrimgeour was deposed and Voldemort's shill, Pius Thicknesse, replaced him. Although Scrimgeour, during his brief reign as Minister, had cleared Remus' name along with a host of other 'undesirables' that Malfoy had managed to eject from the country during the summer, Remus felt anything but secure. The Order of the Phoenix was now so far underground as to be virtually non-existent. And Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley had gone missing.

Our concerns took various forms as winter headed toward spring. I had begun the new job in Gravesend, which meant a commute from London each day. Remus was haunted by the idea that my train would be attacked by Death Eaters one day, and while I repeatedly scoffed at the notion, I couldn't quell my own private fear: that that as one of the Marauders, Remus would meet the same fate as his friends – leaving me alone with two children to raise.

Work was no respite from the wizarding war. It wasn't that the job itself was difficult; the hard part was working everyday with people who viewed the random deaths or persons gone missing as an inevitable part of the evening news. They were in a war, though they didn't realize it. And while I realized it, I could discuss it with no one.

The house was completed in February, a two-story stone cottage with three bedrooms for humans and a garage which could house a monthly half-human. Remus was ready to burst his buttons with pride at the thought that he, a werewolf, owned a home.

I was merely ready to burst.

I'd done amazingly well with the pregnancy, having none of the complications which often accompany multiple births. Moving was taxing, but it would have been taxing even if I hadn't been pregnant. There's nothing quite like having a group of wizarding friends who can transport all your worldly goods by magical methods.

I bought a small car to drive back and forth to work in Gravesend. I'm sure I looked a sight: enormously pregnant, squeezed behind the wheel of a tiny automobile. I made the comment that I felt like a whale. Remus kindly said nothing.

Just as babies are not always conceived according to plan, they are not born according to plan either. I went into labor two weeks early, just hours after Remus had closeted himself for the full moon.

And so I paced the floor hour after hour, timing contractions and cursing at life in general for the fact that he was unavailable to me when I needed him most. I sent Amelia with a message to Molly Weasley, hoping that my friend might be able to be with me through the rest of labor. By early the next morning, I still hadn't received a reply, and when the contractions were close enough together that I could finally venture a trip to the hospital, I waddled to the car and drove myself.

I can laugh about it now, but I'm sure the nursing staff didn't buy my story that my husband couldn't be with me because of illness. I noticed the nurses whispering a lot, and I suspected that they believed him to be at a pub, too drunk to make an appearance at the hospital.

Molly arrived at the hospital around nine in the morning, apologizing profusely for having been unavailable sooner. I was never so glad to see anyone in my life, and I told her so. For the next eight solid hours of labor, I was either in tears or ranting to Molly about the injustice of Remus missing the birth of his children.

My aggravation was the motivation I needed to finish bringing my two little boys into the world. Sirius James Lupin and William Mitchell Lupin were born in the late afternoon of April twenty-third.

Molly Weasley sighed happily as she cuddled one of the little bundles. "They're so beautiful, Kailin. It reminds me of when Fred and George were born. Of course, to look at the big lumps now, you'd never know how precious they were when they were small."

Arthur Weasley brought Remus to the hospital that evening. I knew that he would come the moment he had the least amount of strength to do so, although he clearly could have used another twelve hours of sleep. I'm sure the nurses took one look at his haggard post-werewolf appearance and decided that their assumptions about the pub were correct.

The look on his face, as he held Sirius and Will in his arms for the first time, was one of a man richly blessed by fortune and scarcely able to comprehend it. He studied their tiny faces and their perfectly formed features while tears of joy streamed silently down his face.

"They're perfect," he whispered in awe. "So tiny and so perfect. Can you believe it? I have two sons, Arthur!"

Arthur stroked one of the fuzzy little heads gently. "Now we need to get rid of Voldemort. These boys need a safe world in which to grow up, don't they?"

* * * * * *

December, 1998

It's been six months now since Voldemort was defeated – mortally wounded by Harry Potter, the last of his wretched souls destroyed. Many were lost: Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, and Mad-Eye Moody were counted among the dead. I would always remember Moody in the bedroom next door to ours at Grimmauld Place.

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley are beginning Auror training, while Hermione Granger is planning for a career in wizard law. She intends to take on discrimination in the wizarding world, and I believe that if anyone can make a dent in it, she can.

Emboldened by my support and that of his friends, Remus has written letters to the editor of the Daily Prophet, complaining of the pervasive prejudice that exists. Others who have been discarded by wizarding society have joined with him in protest as well, and I think he sees a glimmer of hope that someday, opinions will change. A new magazine called Magical World Times was recently started up; it's sympathetic to our cause, and Remus has been asked to contribute a few articles on the subject of tolerance.

We have finally convinced Grandpa Billy to get a passport and come to Britain. I think he decided that seventy-eight really wasn't too old to fly around the world, and that he should get a first-hand look at these new great-grandsons of his. He'll be here in a week, spending the Christmas holiday with us, and I can't wait to see him.

Sirius and Will are fat and sassy, sitting in their high chairs and watching as Remus and I put up our Christmas tree. Remus is like a kid himself this Christmas: fatherhood fits him like a glove, and he knows it. There aren't a lot of stay-at-home dads in the wizarding world, but he's enjoying the role thoroughly. While I work, Remus takes care of the babies. He takes them for long walks in their pram, plays with them, feeds them, puts them down for their naps. During the full moon, Molly watches them if I'm unavailable.

"It's so lovely to have babies in the Burrow again," she sighs, pleased to get back into practice before Bill and his wife Fleur welcome their first child in the spring. And as well, it distracts her from the loss of her beloved Fred.

Sirius gurgled happily from his baby seat, drawing my attention by alternating a goofy little grin with blowing spit bubbles. I pointed it out to Remus.

"Wait until he gets older. He's going to be a little dickens," I said, shaking my head.

"Well, we did name him Sirius," Remus reminded me soberly. "Be scared."

But scared is not a word in my vocabulary any longer. I am living a full, wide life, richer than I ever thought possible.

All because I married a werewolf.

A/N: A million thanks to my faithful reviewers. I was always anxious to read your comments, and they've been 100% encouraging. I guess that means I did something right.

I also want to thank Jo Rowling for inventing this marvelous universe of Potter and then generously allowing us to play in it. I was overjoyed when she allowed Remus to find some happiness with Tonks, but needless to say, I was less than happy with the outcome. So I will continue with my private little rebellion and allow Remus to live happily with Kailin.