spinning stories out of daydreams & caffeine

Harry Potter enthusiast occasional Sherlock & other obsessions

[moonyafterdark]

The Little Girl in the Garden

Technically part 2 of 'What they never dared to hoped for, but got anyway...' Remus and Sirius finally got to meet the little girl they saw from the gate.

Wolfstar fanfiction

Pure Fluff <3

The orphanage sat at the edge of the village like an old photograph. The sign out front was chipped, the paint nearly gone, and a crooked line of daffodils fought bravely to bloom along the path. The walls were wet, the kind of moldy wet that never really left, no matter how sunny it was.

Inside, the place smelled of soap, porridge, and rain seeping through the old wood. The floors creaked like they were sighing, and yet there was warmth. Someone had tried to make it bright with paper garlands and hand-painted stars. Children’s drawings were pinned to the joyless walls. Some just finger painted, adorable nonsense, some actually advanced. A child's voice echoed faintly somewhere, singing a tuneless rhyme about a cat and a spoon. Others laughed and some had a fight over the favourite teddy bear down the hall.

Sirius and Remus followed the matron down the hallway. Her name was Mrs. Landon. The typical matron they'd imagined and somehow she looked a lot like Molly Weasley. Motherly and exhausted at the same time. Like a women hugging first, asking questions later. Her cardigan was patched at both elbows, her hair escaping the neat bun it had once been forced into.

“Mr. Lupin, Mr. Black,” she said, smiling as she led them toward her office.

“Thank you for coming. I know the Ministry’s process can be rather heavy-handed these days.”

Remus returned her smile. “We’re grateful to be here. We’ve read about this place. You do a remarkable job with ... very little.”

She gave a dry little laugh. “That’s a poetic way of saying underfunded, Mr. Lupin. But yes, we manage. The children help one another more than you’d believe. We're trying our best to make it look like a home the children deserve.”

They entered the office. It was small. Two mismatched chairs, a teapot that had long since stopped steaming, and a window overlooking the back garden. Through it, sunlight touched a patch of wild daisies.

The matron folded her hands. “The Ministry told me you were interested in a young boy. Eliot Mayhew?”

Sirius nodded vaguely. “Yes. Though…” His eyes drifted to the window, where a blur of golden curls flashed past. “We saw someone outside. A little girl.”

Matron Everly’s expression softened immediately. Knowing exactly who was sitting in the garden, supervised by the older children.

“Ah. You mean Willow.”

Remus’s head lifted. “Willow?”

“She’s one of our youngest,” the matron explained. “Just turned two last month. Came to us as a baby after her parents… well, they didn’t survive the last of the war’s chaos.” Her voice gentled. “She’s done remarkably well despite it. Quite independent for her age. She insists on brushing her teeth herself. I have to pretend not to watch or she’ll scold me.”

Sirius smiled, picturing it with a slightly wistful feeling in his chest. “Scold you? At two?”

“Mm-hm. Says, ‘I do it! Big girl!’” The matron chuckled. “She listens well, picks up words quickly, talks when she’s comfortable. Whole conversations, if she likes you. When she first came, she barely made a sound. Now she won’t stop narrating her day. She’s… a light, that one.”

Remus felt something warm stir low in his chest. “May we… meet her?”

The matron hesitated. Looking at the file on her desk. "Well, you were originally authorised to meet Eliot. The ministry is quite sensitive when it comes to any deviations." Sighing softly as she looked at the men. And something in their eyes made the prior hesitation vanish and she nodded.

“She’s in the garden. Try not to crowd her, she likes to come to people on her own.”

They followed her through the narrow hall, out into the small walled garden. The sun met them kindly. A patch of grass, a crooked apple tree, and a handful of children tumbling around a rickety swing.

And there, at the edge of the daisies, was Willow.

She sat cross-legged in the grass, curls glowing pale gold, her tiny fingers busy arranging daisies and dandelions into little circles. Her pale yellow dress was faded and the hem a bit frayed, but she wore it like something grand. Like she already knew the dress wasn't what people would see when looking at her.

“That’s her,” whispered Matron Landon. “She won’t notice you at first. She’s in her own world until she decides you belong in it.”

They stood quietly, not wanting to break the spell of a little girl so focused on the flowers in her hands. After a few moments, Willow looked up sudden, alert. Blue eyes, impossibly bright, locked onto them. She blinked, curious, then beamed. The dimples that showed, could melt even the sternest wizard.

“Hi!” she chirped, waving a tiny daisy-covered hand.

Sirius crouched instinctively, heart already a puddle. “Hello, little one.”

Willow tilted her head, studying him. “You tall,” she announced matter-of-factly, pointing at him. Then, with a giggle, she pointed at Remus. “You soft.”

Sirius glanced at Remus, trying not to laugh. “She’s observant.”

The matron covered a smile. “She likes to assign names to people she meets. You’ll be ‘Soft’ and ‘Tall’ now until she decides otherwise.”

Willow stood, wobbling slightly on her small legs, and toddled closer. Her curls bounced with each determined step. She stopped right in front of Sirius, holding out a daisy chain that looked like it had been made with great seriousness.

“For you,” she said proudly. “Pretty.”

Sirius took it as if it were made of gold. He didnt mind that it was technically only squished flowers, clumsly put together. “Thank you, sweetheart. Did you make this all by yourself?”

She nodded, a quick, decisive bob. “Willow do it. Willow big now.”

Remus crouched beside them, voice warm. The typical warmth and softness he used only for moments which mattered. “You’re very clever, Willow. Do you like flowers?”

Her eyes lit. “Uh-huh! Daisies talk. Say hi.” She bent down to whisper something to one, then looked back up. “They like you.”

Remus’s breath caught. Not just at her words, but at the utter certainty behind them. The openness of such a small girl who had lost everything, but was still too little to understand that the world wasn't all flowers and sunshine.

Sirius smiled softly, still kneeling in the grass. “Do they now? Guess we’re lucky then.”

Willow giggled, covering her mouth, and leaned against his knee like it was the most natural thing in the world. “You stay?”

Remus felt something shift inside him. Small, quiet, irreversible.

The matron watched from a few paces away, her eyes kind. “That’s the first time she’s asked that of anyone new,” she said quietly. “She usually says goodbye before she says hello.”

Sirius looked up at Remus. There wasn’t much to say. Only that shared look that had carried them through battlefields, prisons, and long empty years. The one that said 'Merlin, were done for. Absolutely, utterly done for'. This time it wasn't laced with pain or grief, but something completely different. Something too beaut iful no name yet.

Remus whispered, more to himself than anyone, “We’re not going anywhere.

[moonyafterdark]

What they never dared to hoped for, but got anyway...

A Wolfstar fanfiction of Remus and Sirius through denial, war, loss and Azkaban and the unspoken wish for a real family. The beginning of parenthood, toddler tantrums and the start of my crazy imagination of many small or big moments in their life as a family.

○ Golden trio era(ish) later on

○ fluff/heartbreak/nostalgia/hope

(Part 2✨️)

Sirius/Remus

It had taken them years to find peace.

Years of storms and bars and ghosts and way too much loss for one lifetime.

Years of believing that love was something you buried, not something that could bloom again. Something they didn't dare to wish for.

But it had begun long before the silence.

At Hogwarts, they had been sunlight and shadow. One bright like the stars. One calm like the moon. Sirius Black, reckless and full of mischief, and Remus Lupin, quiet and aching, far too careful with the world and always with the fear of never being enough. They’d found each other not in the grand gestures, but in the in-between moments. Ink-stained hands brushing when they passed notes, laughter echoing under the invisibility cloak, the way Sirius always waited for Remus to finish speaking before teasing him. James teasing, because they all saw what the two of them didn't dare to see.

Love came to them sideways. Too dangerous to name at first. But it grew roots in hidden places. In days of reckless pranks, Remus always tried to escape, but ended up being involved anyway. Nights in the dormitory when the others were asleep, Sirius would trace the scars on Remus’s hands like constellations and whisper, “You’re not what they say you are, Moony. You never were.”

Remus never answered, not with words.

But once, when dawn spilled over the castle and the boys stirred, Sirius woke to find Remus’s hand in his. Fingers tangled, like they’d been holding on for years. Sirius the one making Remus see the best parts of himself. Remus the one looking out for Sirius, so he'd never burn too fast. The most perfect, imperfect balance none of them knew they needed ... until it was too late.

Then came the war.

Love was a dangerous luxury in wartime, but they held it anyway, tight-fisted and trembling. They fought, lost friends, doubted, forgave. And when Sirius was taken to Azkaban, something in Remus died. The world went grey, and the years passed in a kind of living sleep. Remus lost himself in grief and regret for waiting too long. For not saying something earlier. For being to careful.

He had never thought he'd ever see his brightest star again. But the day came. It was loud, messy and full of pain. It didn't take long for the feelings to bloom brighter than ever before. And all those years of pain and war turned into the most beautiful thing in the world. Love. Real, brillianly reckless love. Over the years it turned quiet. It wasn't the loud kind anymore. It was the kind that mends. The kind you knew would stay forever and no one could ever take from you again.

Now, years later, the war was only a scar on the horizon. The little stone cottage they’d bought in northern Scotland smelled of pinewood, tea, and parchment. Books were stacked everywhere. Sirius’s motorbike gathered dust by the shed. Their wedding rings were simple, but still shone brighter to them than anything else and the world was finally gentle. And yet ... something was missing.

It began as a whisper on sleepless nights. A tiny though, born from horrible childhoods and the wish to give what they had missed. To a child. Their child.

At first, Remus laughed it off. Softly, as though afraid to disturb the idea. “Me? A father?” he’d say, eyes fixed on the fire. “What if I… what if I hurt them, Sirius? What if I’m not enough?”

And Sirius, sprawled beside him, would grin that crooked grin. “You're already enough for both of us. You'd be a brilliant father. You had decades of practice with me."

But later, when the house was quiet and the clock ticked, Sirius’s fears came too. He’d turn on his side, voice barely above a whisper. “What if I ruin it, Moony? I always ruin things. What if I’m too much, too loud, too…”

Remus would hush him. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known. You burn brighter than any star. You're not too much. You're the best thing that ever happened to me and you're going to be theirs as well.”

And after many nights of doubts and dreams knotted together, they couldn’t wait any longer. They wanted a family. Were they ready? No. We're they scared? Yes. Did that ever stop them? Not at all.

So they spent months tangled in ministry paperwork, interviews, evaluations and inspections. Many meetings where Sirius nearly hexed officials over the werewolf law and got thrown out more than once. But against all odds and better judgement, the hope inside them won.

Giving them the opportunity to get what they deserved and so much more.

And finally, one early spring morning, the day arrived.

They apparated to the outskirts of a small, tired-looking orphanage on the edge of Devon. A place that smelled faintly of old rain and lilac. Sirius squeezed Remus’s hand as they approached the gate, trying to hide the tremor in his own. The big house wasn't anything children needed. Underfunded, cold and somehow still the best place they had ever visited.

They’d come to meet a boy. Five years old, wild hair, loved brooms. Sirius had imagined teaching him Quidditch in the garden, hearing laughter ring through the hallways again. They had pictured the room. Planned it. Pictures of Quidditch players and Bowie posters (Sirius idea. Obviously).

But before they even reached the door, fate interrupted.

Through the crooked iron fence, they saw her. A tiny girl, maybe two years old at most, sitting in the grass with a group of older children. Her curls glowed like morning sunlight, and when she looked up, just briefly, her eyes were the purest, most startling shade of blue. She smiled at a daisy, then at the sky, dimples deep as magic itself.

And Remus stopped walking.

Sirius turned to him, confused for half a second

... until their eyes met.

And both knew. Whatever they had planned or hoped for, was never what the universe had planned for them.

It wasn’t a decision. It was gravity. It was fate, wearing golden curls and grass stained knees.

Remus felt it like a heartbeat returning to his chest. Sirius, for once, had no words. Only a soft, trembling laugh as he whispered, “Moony… she’s ours.”

And Remus didn’t argue. He only nodded, eyes shining. Both of them knew, that little girl was everything they ever hoped for and more. It wasn't her looks. It wasnt the fact that she was a girl. It was that strange, deep feeling that overwhelmed them in the most surprisingly beautiful way. A feeling they couldn't come back from ever again.

That was how their story of home truly began.

[moonyafterdark]

Delusional idiots in love in a marauders group chat.

[moonyafterdark]

What if there had been a marauders group chat in 1976...find out!

[moonyafterdark]

Two 17 year old idiots in love. One regretting all his life choices. The other one finally feeling seen.

[moonyafterdark]

A little chat between Sherlock and his girlfriend.