She knocks on the door for the millionth time this year, the action feeling so natural yet so hesitant as she knows it's the last time.
"Come in," he calls from inside.
She releases a breath she wasn't aware she was holding and pushes the heavy door opened only as far as she need to slip in.
As she steps inside, there's a sense of uncertainty. The air was colder, the walls were emptied, his things were packed in the corner, and it all just felt... very dull and detached.
He turns from his case set on top of a window sill and a soft smile pulls at his lips once he sees her. "Evelyn..."
She gives him a saddened grin. "Hi... erm— Harry told me you wanted to see me."
He nods. "I did— I do." He clears his throat and he gestures to his desk. Evelyn takes a seat, smoothing over her skirt as she crosses her ankles. "I feel like... you deserve some answers," he explains. "Maybe some your father didn't quite get to answer in what short time you got with him a few nights ago—"
"Why didn't you tell me?" She asks immediately. "Why couldn't you have just... said it there, the first time I ever came to you after class."
He looks down at the toes of his loafers, his hands folded behind his back as he sighs out a knowing breath. He knew that was coming first, the weight of holding it in the whole year damn near drowning him.
"When your father went to Azkaban," he begins, "and your uncle and grandfather passed... I helped your mother move you and her out of the Wizarding World. She then asked that I stay... aloof from your life." He looks at her with such a sorrowed gaze, everything in his expression almost begging for forgiveness that he doesn't need, not even realizing it wasn't his fault. "She asked, after I'd told her that I'd gotten this job, that I keep my role in your life to myself."
"So she kept me from my own God Father?" Evelyn asks. "She left you, the only chance of a real father figure I ever had, out of my life?"
Lupin tilts his head. "Don't look at it like that," he tells her. "She just wanted to keep you from anything bad, she didn't want anything to hurt you, and this year with the escape, none of us having known about Peter's scheme, she just didn't want you getting into anything dangerous." He leans his back against the trunk just feet from Evelyn and rubs the bridge of his nose almost in frustration. "You-Know-Who's reign in the war took too much from her, the last thing she needed taken away was you."
Evelyn folds her lips in on one another and glances down at her black docs.
"Evelyn," Lupin pulls her eyes back up to his. "I need you to know that I missed you. Very very much." He tries for a smile, only for it to go crossing his expression in a painful manner. "Your father is my best friend. I care for him very deeply and I care for you just as much... even though your mum asked me to keep my distance, she still sent me all kinds of pictures and letters and updates—" He stands from the trunk and walks back over to a bag sitting under the window, a buff, leather synch bag, and he kneels down to open it.
"I remember the first time she wrote me a letter longer than 'we're fine, Evelyn is in this year and doing good in this class and has three friends now' was when you met the Weasleys," he pulls out a stout booklet with a thin cover and takes it back over to her. "You were about to turn 8... and she sent me the letter explaining the day you and her had spent with Molly and the kids," he passes her the book and pockets his hands when she takes it into her lap. "That and this picture," he nods as she opens up to the first page.
The live picture moves for only a moment; a dark haired girl in a pretty, sage-green sun dress races around in a grass clearing with a little girl holding her hand tightly, a stampede of red-haired boys at their heels.
She can practically hear their laughter, feel the sun on her skin and the wind thorough that thin cotton skirt that ripples around her legs.
She begins flipping through the pages, watching herself grow right in front of her own eyes, parts of it near the end of the line making her cringe.
"After that visit, your mother was much more inclusive with her letters," Lupin reveals. "I loved hearing about you, watching you grow to look more and more like your mother, but somehow still remind me even more so of your father..."
She pauses at a more recent picture. It was taken last summer at The Burrow, before the Weasley's left for Egypt, and it was of her and George.
George...
She was clinging to his back as he spun them around the center of the living room, Fred and Ginny and Ron counting loudly as Percy held out a green bandana in front of him (they were trying to see how straight she could walk after having been spun around so many times) for Evelyn to try and grab.
Looking at it gave her a joyous flutter.
It was pushed aside by that uncertain gnawing that's been stalking around inside her. It was the tense feeling from the other night's conversation that she couldn't shake... not that she had let it change anything; and, evidently, Fred hadn't spoken a word of it to George because he hasn't changed his behavior either.
Which was good, she decided. The last thing she needed was for her strongest bond to fray at the edges. She couldn't stand the thought of trying to tackle another set of intimate feelings... it scared her.
"I— I had no idea," Evelyn whispered.
"That was the plan," Remus says. "I keep a careful, quiet eye... teach you some magic, let you live your fifth year here in peace." He almost chuckles. "It got a little harder once you started visiting me," he admits, "and even more so once you started opening up about things— hell, it was hardest of all to keep from calling you 'Miss Black' when I started seeing how much you bloody act like that father of yours."
"Do I really?" She asks hopefully, almost shyly.
"So much," he tells her with a smile.
She laughs, closing the book and looking back up at him. "I'll miss having you around next year," she tells him. "It won't be the same."
"You can always write me," he says.
She slides off of the desk and looks up at him now. "Okay... but will I ever see you again? See him again?" She asks, feeling her eyes suddenly well.
She's endured so many different emotions in the past week alone that she doesn't even know how to control them anymore.
Remus tilts his head gently at the shake in her voice. He reaches a hand up and cups the side of her head. "Evelyn," he swallows, trying to minimize the poignant tone carrying his words. "I'm not sure..."
She nods, dropping her gaze from his and sniffling slightly at the thought of it; she was going to watch this slip through her fingers, never even having a chance to have grasped it.
"Hey," Remus picks her head up again, "we will always care for you. You will always be important. It's just that... sometimes the best ways to keep you safe is to stay away," he explains, "and I have a feeling that until all this dust settles around your father, that's going to have to be his plan."
She nods quietly. Tears clump her long lashes together and highlight the green in her eyes, they even make her face flush.
Remus was going to speak up, try again to calm her down and comfort her, but he's caught off guard when the girl leans in and gives him a soft embrace.
He can't help but grin at the gesture, his heart warming in the brightest form of affection, and wrap his arms around her in return of the hug.
"Thank you," Evelyn whispers against his shoulder. "For everything."
"Of course," Remus says. "Thank you."
She pulls back and furrows her brows. "For what?" She asks.
Remus grins softly, looking down at her now in every way that felt true and right... this young woman who's grown so much just in his presence that he finds it unearthly to believe that she'd done so so much before him, before Sirius.
It's so hard for him to believe that he was looking at his God Daughter, the girl of his best friend, the man who he'd missed for 12 years— both of them... somehow time was easier to dwell on and forget about when it was passing. Now that she stands in front of him, his bones and his mind and his heart ache like they've aged a hundred years.
"Thank you for letting me in," he tells her.
+++
"Last prank of the year!" Fred announces. He jumps onto his bed and looks down at his brother. "Are you ready Big G?"
George gives his counterpart a toothy grin and leaps onto his own bed. "Born ready, Big F!" They then look down to the girl they're towering over more so than usual. "Little E?" George asks excitedly.
She crabs her head back and gives him a pouted lip glare. "Why do I get 'Little' as my title?"
Fred kicks his feet out from under him, landing onto the mattress so abruptly that Evelyn leaps up and off the comforter, landing a few inches from where she once was. He smirks at her. "Because you're our tiny little buddy," he teases.
"Travel sized for our convenience," George adds, hopping off his own bed.
"We can just plop you in our pockets and carry that cute little face anywhere we please," Fred teases, poking her nose.
Evelyn shakes her head in a burst of giggles, getting away from Fred by laying back onto his bed. "So I'm just a little pixie tied to the two of you for the rest of my life?" She questions. "Fantastic."
Fred and George look at each other, grinning— as per usual— and they lie back on either side of Evelyn to look in at her.
"You're our third musketeer," Fred tells her.
"You just happen to be much tinier than us," George teases. "And much more ticklish," he chuckles, reaching a hand over to the strip of her exposed stomach and tickling it. It's light, but it still makes her squeal and turn away from him and into Fred, who wraps an arm around her shoulders in amusement of her sudden movement.
"George!" She laughs into Fred's chest as she's attacked. In order to get away from him, she has to roll over top of Fred and fling herself off the bed. "Alright, alright," she gives them a goofy grin and a twinkle-eyed look. "Well, c'mon! The professors won't be in Dumbledore's forever," she waves them off the bed.
"And you triple checked on them—"
Evelyn gives him a sterner glance as he stands. "Fred, I quadruple checked. Promise."
"Can never be too careful," he reasons with a raise of his hands.
"But we trust you," George tells her.
"You better," she turns away from them, rolling down the sleeves of her block-colored cardigan. "There were four of them, by the way," She says as she opens the door.
Fred tilts his head walking through and asks. "Four what?"
"Musketeers," Evelyn says, watching George pass her before stepping out of their dorms herself. "D'Artagnon was the most famous musketeer," she shuts the door tight behind her, "but the story kind of mostly begins when he meets the trio," she walks between them mindlessly onto the spiral steps, "Athos, Porthos, and Aramis," their eyes trail her, "and he's the fourth musketeer..." and she doesn't look back as she continues her little traipse down the case in her explanation, "but I guess we can be Athos, Porthos, and Aramis."
Fred shakes his head and looks over at George as they follow her steps. "She's too smart for us."
+++
The breakfast hall was packed. Every student in Hogwarts was sat down and eating, chatting, laughing, and padding the time they had left with their friends before the train left at noon.
Everyone was in The Great Hall, everyone except the 'three musketeers'.
They stood in the hall outside the hall with three large, rattling cages, squeaking rather vehemently, covered in a thin sheet in each of their hands.
Evelyn struggles slightly to hold hers still, her body still aching and tired from repairing itself, but it didn't matter because soon, they would be empty.
Fred peaks over the corner and grins wildly at the crowd before him. "Alright... looks like we have a full house."
"Good thing too," George pipes from behind him, "means no one will go running to Dumbledore's."
A sharp rut to the side of the cage causes Evelyn to tip in her place, almost dropping the cage. George reaches out instinctually, checking to be sure she's still balanced, and she nods to him in assurance she's sound.
"These things are so bloody annoying," She mumbles.
Fred turns back to them, "then let's relieve ourselves of their pestering, shall we?" He flips the cover from his bent-wired cage to reveal a tightly packed fleet of Doxies... well, fake, de-venomized Doxies; nasty little bugged eyes and moth-skinned bodies the size of a farm egg with brown wings stemming from their heads, just on either side of their lidless eyes and covered in patchy black fur, and eight rather spider looking legs. Their pointed fingers gasp and wiggle at the wire trapping them and their slender tales flick back and forth in their agitated state.
George reels back slightly at the sight of them. "Fucking Hell those things are nasty!"
"I dunno," Fred shrugs, "they're kinda cute... You did a fantastic job, as always, Live-Wyre," Fred praises jovially, eying the creatures in the cage. "How did you even do it?"
Evelyn shrugs, "I may or may not have consulted Remus..."
George gives her a funny look. "First name basis now?"
Evelyn shoots it right back. "He's my God Father, George. I figured it was only right... besides, he and my dad used to run this school the same way we do," she reasons. "If anyone knew how to pull this off, it'd be him."
"Well, they look really real," Fred says.
Evelyn gives him a prideful grin. "And you were doubting me."
Fred scoffs, "was not."
"Was too," Evelyn claims quickly.
"Oi, alright," George blocks the bickering before it gets too loud and flips the cover from his own cage, only in the front, and lets the crackers in disguise rock the cage back and forth, "are we letting these things off or not?"
"Let's," Fred confirms with a nod, the most curious and wicked of Weasley grin's plastered on his face. George mirrors it and steps into place with his brother, followed by Evelyn.
"What's the spell to set them off again?" George asks.
"Confringo," Evelyn tells them.
"Okay," Fred sets his cage down, door towards the hall, and George follows. Evelyn moves as quick as she can to the other opened end and sets her heavy cage down just the same, the cloth of hers flipped up like George's. Fred holds up his hand and counts.
one...
The hold up their wands.
two...
They step back just a bit.
three—
"Alohomora," they all mutter, letting the rusted gold of the cages crack open.
The Doxy-clones take flight as quick and cluttered as they possibly can. Their wings flap flatly like bats and they break free into The Great Hall, brining the most massive jumble of screams as they shoot in every direction above the students in the student body.
Every face that laid upon them was terrified, skin paled and jaws hung, lungs dispelled by shrill screams.
And Evelyn nearly falls on the floor from laughter.
The three gather in the middle of the doorway and fall into one another in laughter. Their stomachs ache from it, their eyes well from it. Evelyn trips over her own feet in her docs and Fred catches her by the thin flannel over her arms. Their laughter would've echoed through the halls like church bells through a small town if it hadn't been for the confused screams overflowing from The Great Hall.
"Blow 'em up!" Fred shakes her shoulders, "blow 'em up!"
She lifts her wand, covering her mouth with the other hand, and opens her mouth. All that can escape is laughter. She struggles to even get the first syllable out. Falling back into George's chest, she has to be propped to her feet and she just bends back over in her laughter.
The students start fumbling, their eyes staring up
"Confri—" She cackles shortly, "Confringo!" She pushes out, followed immediately by a heavy giggle as an orange spark twists from the tip of her wand and into the air where the Doxy-clones are swarming like a ratty-cloud over the students.
In an almost mesmerizing ripple, each of the Doxy-clones burst into an array of sparks and colors and making a loud BANG with each disperse of the flock.
It makes a few of the students jump, but some of them look amazed.
Fred wraps his arms around her shoulders while the both of them fall out in their laughter. George celebrates with them, his own laughter blending with theirs as he grabs Evelyn by the waist, steals her from Fred, and spins her around in a tilted, scattered circle.
— A/N —
haha yeahhh this was a shorter chapter and so is the next one but like... we in the home stretch here besties
i'm so excited for these last few though, and even more so for what comes after so stay tuned; like, share, comment and all that jazz if you so please because i appreciate every one of you :) everything has been SKYROCKETING recently and it's unbelievable
ALSO THIS IS NUMBER ONE IN #GEORGEWEASLEY SO THANK YOU SO MUCH🥺
also, if you wanna look up Doxy on the hp wiki page, don't; they're seriously so damn ugly it's frightening
soon
xox, g🤍💋