Hope Lupin had held her four-year-old son in her arms as he wailed into the night, his skin feverish and bloodied as they waited for help to come. Even then, before she understood any of it, before the words werewolf and curse and full moon entered her life, there had been a terrible certainty settling in her chest.
Her son would never be the same after that night. For seven years afterward, Hope sat on the stairs leading down to the basement every month. A hand pressed over her heart and prayer on her tongue. Sometimes she prayed to God. Sometimes to nobody at all. Then dawn would come, and she would rise with aching knees to dismantle the protective wards and carry her exhausted son upstairs, tucking him back into bed as though he were still small enough to fit against her shoulder.
Hope had smiled the day he received his Hogwarts letter. Smiled when he ran circles around the kitchen waving the parchment over his head. Smiled when he talked about moving staircases and magical libraries and centuries of witches and wizards who had walked those halls before him. Then she had gone upstairs and cried behind the locked door of her bedroom. Because Hogwarts meant full moons away from home, it meant strangers learning what her son was. It meant rejection.
And then there had been the stories. Three boys in his dormitory. Three boys who somehow saw Remus Lupin and loved him anyway. Their Moony.
Hope still remembered the afternoon years later when her teenage son sat at the kitchen table while she stirred soup on the stove. He had been pretending to read. She had been pretending not to notice, giving him the time to come to her.
Hope had turned to see Remus staring firmly at the table.
Her heart had clenched, not because of the boy. But because her son sounded afraid. Because he sounded ashamed. Because he looked so much like the little boy who had once hidden fresh scars beneath oversized jumpers.
"What if..." Remus had swallowed hard. "What if it's because of... the thing?"
Neither of them had needed him to say it.
"What if that's why I'm like this?"
The memory still hurt, the way his voice had broken, the way his hands had clenched in his lap, the way he'd looked at her as though bracing for disappointment. Hope had crossed the kitchen in three strides and pulled him into her arms.
"No," she had whispered into his hair while he cried against her shoulder. "No, sweetheart."
Her fingers carded through his curls.
"You are loved because of who you are." And then, softer: "And whoever that boy is, if he's worth loving, he'll know that too."
Years later, Hope had opened her front door on Mother's Day to find Regulus Black standing awkwardly on her doorstep. A bouquet of daisies in one hand, and a cinnamon cake box in the other.
His shoulders were drawn tight with nerves, and Hope remembered blinking at him in surprise.
"Happy Mother's Day." His voice had come out almost too quickly.
Then, before she could respond, he'd thrust a small card into her hands.
"I'm sorry if this is out of place."
Hope had looked up, but Regulus wasn't meeting her eyes, a small habit she had noticed over the years he resorted to when he was being sincere.
"Growing up, I never really knew that mothers could be mums," a weak laugh escaped him. "But then, my family isn't exactly something to compare anything against."
The laugh faded. And for a moment he looked heartbreakingly young.
"You make silly jokes, you dance around the kitchen with Remus to those Muggle bands he likes," a smile pulled reluctantly at his mouth. "You cook his favourite foods whenever he comes home, and mine too."
Hope could already feel tears threatening.
"You write me letters asking how my music is going," his fingers tightened around the cake box, "every week."
The words seemed to embarrass him.
As though kindness itself was something he still wasn't used to receiving.
"I think..." He swallowed. "I think if I looked up the word mum in the dictionary, it'd be your face there instead."
His laugh came out nervous and breathless.
Hope immediately looked away.
Just for a second, just long enough to blink back the tears burning behind her eyes. Because nobody had ever accused Hope Lupin of being particularly composed when it came to her boys. And somehow, impossibly, Regulus had become one of them.
Then Regulus shifted awkwardly.
"And..." His voice softened, "thank you for bringing Remus into the world so I could love him."
"Thank you for making him the softest person I've ever met."
His eyes finally lifted to hers.
"And thank you for opening your home to me too," his smile wavered, "even though you had every reason not to."
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Hope simply stared at him. At the boy who had arrived in her son's life carrying years of hurt and loneliness hidden beneath expensive jumpers and practiced indifference. The boy who always hesitated before entering their house, as though expecting someone to tell him he wasn't welcome.
The boy who never left without washing the dishes even if he had never known where the kitchens were in the mansion where he grew up.
Who sent her pressed flowers in letters, different magical kinds that he developed potions for just so he could surprise her with a new one ever single time.
Who pretended not to know she slipped extra food into containers for him to take home.
Who loved her son with every piece of his battered heart.
Hope set the card down, then she reached forward and cupped his face between both hands.
Like nobody had ever done it before.
Hope remembered thinking, as she stood there on the doorstep with flowers crushed between them and tears on her cheeks, that motherhood was a strange thing.
Because she'd spent years praying for Remus, for his safety, for his happiness. For someone to love him exactly as he was.
She had never expected that one of the answers to those prayers would show up carrying daisies and cinnamon cake and quietly ask if he could belong, too.
Ever since then, every Mother's Day, Hope has opened her door to find the same thing waiting on the other side.
No longer asking for a place in the family.
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