It Meant Family

19th of September 1993

"fact: there is nothing more beautiful than a black woman on the way to whatever she considers church" - regular black, Danez Smith

Hogwarts, Scotland

He felt himself wake up, consciousness came back to his body slowly, as he began to feel the soft cotton bed sheets against his right arm and the warm duvet on his left. He enjoyed the peaceful silence in the room, the smell of the firewood burning, the dim light that managed to push through the curtains and the warmth of protective magic filling the air.

The ancient stone walls failed in preserving the heat from the fireplace and the cold tended to creep inside in the early hours of the day, but the spell that kept him company at night put the room in a perfectly pleasant temperature. He had yet to find out how his godfather maintained it in his sleep, though he had noticed it grew weaker over night, appearing as only a floating silvery blue sphere when he woke up in the morning, it remained without fail.

Harry turned on his back and felt the pillowcase ruffle his hair into a wilder mess, he pulled in all the air his lungs could hold and let it out at once through his mouth. With his eyes still closed he reached for his glasses on the nightstand to his left and yawned as quietly as he could manage. He still had to blink a few times to bring the world into full focus after putting on his glasses.

Remus' room felt much more pleasant than his own, it lacked the mess and smell left by unsupervised teenage boys. Without the noise and commotion of his roommates moving around, he tried to work out what had woken him up, but it all seemed in perfect conditions to fall back asleep, but before he could close his eyes again and move to remove his glasses, a voice greeted him from the bed across the room.

"Morning, cub." Remus ended the spell with a wave of his hand and the orb of silvery blue light was snuffed out without a trace, its comforting warmth vanishing along with it.

"Morning, ren." Harry pulled the duvet up to his neck as a reflex to protect him from the sudden cold, he stared at the high ceiling searching for patterns and shapes on the stones.

"Do your friends still not know you're coming here?" Moony sat up rubbing his eyes and pushing hair out of his face, still only half awake.

"And how exactly am I supposed to explain it to them?" Harry yawned again, but loudly no longer worrying about bothering anyone, his body sank further into the bed and he wished that comfort and warmth could simply swallow him, keeping him away from the rest of the world. But it couldn't, so he satisfied himself with still being in bed and alone enough. "'S not like I can just tell them the truth... about any of it."

He'd been consistently sleeping over in Remus' room since the start of term. He had been leaving Gryffindor Tower at night wrapped in his Invisibility Cloak after all his friends had fallen asleep, he would cast a spell on his bed curtains to keep them shut until morning when he made sure to return early, before anyone had woken up.

Even with the reduced hours of sleep, he felt extremely well rested, not having been forced awake by his nightmares or stayed up all night flooded with guilt and soul sucking thoughts in over two consecutive weeks for the first time since the end of his first year in Hogwarts.

"Then you should go." Remus walked over and stood by the foot of his bed, watching him empathetically.

"But it's Sunday." He closed his eyes again, refusing to accept he was no longer asleep, he stirred his body searching for a position that would allow him to drift off again.

"You'll miss breakfast." His godfather sat down, sinking the mattress next to his feet.

"I can't believe you're kicking me out?" Harry whimpered with fake resentment, removing his glasses and opening one of his eyes just enough to catch the shape of Moony's body in the dark.