The basket was making him a bit nervous. It was one of the wicker kind, with a loop handle. Though Peter was holding it by the bottom, which only made the mystery contents all the more unappealing for Remus. Perhaps it was just his anxiety again, but the grin on Sirius's face matched the one he wore on prank days, and Remus hadn't been told of any prank.
Sydney picked up his hand under the table and Remus felt his shoulders loosen. She smiled to herself and took one last bite of her noodle soup before pushing the bowl forward a bit and turning her attention to Peter and Sirius.
"Delivery!" sang Sirius. He dropped his books flat on the table in his signature dramatic fashion.
Peter tossed aside the cloth atop his basket, reached his hand inside, and pulled out... an egg. He handed the first to Lily.
"What are we to do with it?" she asked, turning it suspiciously in her hands.
"Protect it," answered Peter. He handed Sydney an egg and then Remus. "Keep it alive."
"Raise it as your own!" declared Sirius. He offered Remus a marker, but at Remus's hesitation the pen fell to Sydney.
"We did this back home," she said. She uncapped the marker with her teeth and drew a smiley face on her egg.
"We'll I'm sure that was a rootin' tootin' time!" James said in a practiced attempt at an American accent. "Did'ja grow 'em on yer ol' freedom farms?"
"Peter, are their extra eggs?"
Peter checked his basket and nodded. Sydney smiled sweetly, tossed her egg a bit, stood to her feet, reached across the table, and smashed it in James's hair. Peter passed her a new egg.
"What if we break it?" Dorcas asked.
"You lose," said Sirius. "Obviously."
Marlene promptly splat her egg flat on the table. "I lose." She turned to Dorcas, "Wanna find a broom closet?"
Dorcas smashed her egg beside Marlene's. "I lose too," she said. "I think the one beside that classroom the Christianity Club uses is open."
"You're tarnishing God's good name!" Sirius called after them.
"We're witches, idiot!" replied Marlene. "None of us believes in God!"
"I could believe in God if I wanted to," Sirius huffed, dropping into the spot beside Lily. She pet him on the head.
Remus examined the egg in his hands. He didn't really understand the point of this — he assumed it was some sort of Muggle Studies assignment that Peter and Sirius were bringing to the group. They tended to do that. — but for them it was a grade. Remus had no incentive to protect an egg.
"What are you gonna name yours?" Sydney looked up to Remus with a smile. She had already painted another smiley face on her new egg.
"We're really doing this?"
"Of course we are!" She took Remus's egg from him and drew on a frowny face. "There," she said. "Now your egg baby is as grumpy as you are."
"Two sickles each for the winner," said James with an outstretched hand. Sydney shook it excitedly and then the hand was extended to Remus. He looked down at his frowny egg, over at Sydney, checked his pocket to be sure he actually had two sickles, and then sighed and shook James's hand.
Sirius broke his egg within the hour. It wasn't his fault, really, how was he to know that he had put it on his salad plate (giving "Egg Salad" a fourth chance at being funny)? When he stacked his dirty dishes, Seggs Benedict was far too gone. They gave him a second try, but Seggs Benedict Jr. ended up thrown at Frank, who simply said that it had a strong resemblance to Sybill Trelawny.
"Not like I had much of a shot," Sirius said. "I probably saved that egg baby years of Black family torture."
James peered threateningly around the table. "And then there were five."
"Actually," said Peter. "Since you four are coupled up, I think it only makes sense that two of you discard your egg and then continue on in pairs. It's a foolproof test of parenthood. Might give you some things to consider in the future. Especially you, Syd."
Lily caught James's hand in the air before he could break his egg. "Nice try, Pete."
"Yeah," said James. "Nice try, Pete."
"What do you mean, "Especially you, Syd?""
Peter shrugged. "I personally wouldn't leave Moony alone with a child," he said. "Thought it might be beneficial for him to have a partner."
Remus scoffed. "What do you mean? I'm great with kids."
"Have you forgotten the Potter's summer party?" Lily asked. "You accidentally told that Weasley boy that Father Christmas wasn't real. And then you thoroughly explained the logistics of why it was ridiculous for him to even think that he was in the first place."
"I thought it might calm him down if he knew the science!"
"Remus, he's five!"
James was laughing now. "Remember, too, Molly gave him baby Percy for a bit and we all left Remus to change his nappy."
"That was just evil."
"Well you wouldn't hold him!" protested Sirius. "It was only fair you did something."
"Yeah," said Lily. "And it's not like we expected you to put it on backwards."
"You couldn't even snap shut his onesie," added Peter with a grin.
"Those buttons are so tiny!" Remus insisted. "Plus he was crying the entire time!"
"Yeah, because babies hate you," said Sirius. "Just the facts, mate. But hey, bright side is you'll never have to change a nappy if you have no children!"
"It's because you're so mean," Peter said. "Really, babies can sense that stuff."
"I'm not mean," Remus said. No one agreed.
"Remember my turtle?" Peter asked. Remus groaned and dropped his head into his hands.
"Not this again, please."
The short story was that Peter's turtle was always in the way and had a sort of smell and always ended up in Remus's bed with that smell. All Remus did was... relocate it. Back to the outdoors. Its natural habitat. Not mean at all. Kind, really.
Peter told the long version.
"Remus, that's horrible!" Sydney cried.
"Whatever, fuck you guys," Remus said, pushing himself to his feet.
"Mean!"
"I'm not mean!" Remus insisted. He took Sydney's hand and pulled her out of the Great Hall with him.
"It's okay if you hate children," Sydney said when they made it to the corridor.
"I do not hate children!"
Sydney put one hand up in defense and shielded her egg baby with the other. "Alright!"
"Let's talk about something else," Remus huffed.
"Okay," Sydney said. "Why did you kill Peters turtle?"
If Remus did hate children (he didn't. But if he did.) it really wouldn't have made a difference. Sydney, it seemed, was great with them. Back in Remus's dorm, she took it upon herself to thread together a basket of flowers for her egg to sit on. It was January. There were no flowers outside. She learned the spell specifically for this.
And she told him stories of babysitting and summer counseling— which she had to stop because the kids loved her so much that they'd want to include her in all the games, like water balloon fights and other events that just ended in her being locked in a bathroom until her scales slipped back under her skin.
"It's a blessing and a curse," she said, holding up her flower bed with a small smile. She set it on Remus's bedside table and then put her egg smiley-side up.
"At least you seem to be good enough for the both of us," Remus said, shifting over so she could lie beside him.
"I'm sure you're not that bad. They were probably exaggerating."
"No," Remus said. "They actually undershot it. They forgot to mention the fact that that Percy kid screamed bloody murder every time I was even near him. His dad had to take him home early, he wouldn't stop."
Remus hadn't a clue why this made Sydney smile.
"But you still want lots of kids?" she asked. "That's what you said at James's."
Remus didn't like where this was going. Her smile was too mischievous. "Yeah, well I was really ill when I said that. Probably just the fever."
Sydney nodded mockingly. "So you don't want any kids then? Like Sirius said at dinner?
"He only said that because I told them a long time ago that I couldn't handle it."
"But you could now?"
"Yeah, I could."
"What's different?"
Remus smiled. "Oh, I dunno," he said. "Economy shift."
Sydney laughed. "Yeah, alright," she said. "You're just a big softie."
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
Sydney sat up abruptly and tore aside the bed curtains.
"James!" she said. "What were we just saying about Remus?"
James momentarily broke the seal of his and Lily's lips and turned toward Remus's bed.
"What, about his fear of butterflies?"
"You told James?!"
"Hush," Sydney said to him. "No, about him being soft."
James laughed. "Oh, yeah. Moons you're so soft now. Ever since you met Syd."
"What? That's not true."
"Is too!" insisted Peter's voice. Remus pushed the curtain beside him away to see Peter at the edge of his bed, cradling his egg in his hand. "You hardly ever yell when she's around. I've been using her as a shield for months."
"I just yelled at her last week!" Remus insisted. "While we were doing the toadstool charm, remember?"
"Okay, but full moon inflicted yelling doesn't count," Sydney said. "Plus you literally broke two minutes after."
"You wiped toad slime on my face!"
"And you didn't set anything on fire?!" Peter cried. "A miracle."
"Wormtail, I never actually set anything on fire."
"Is that right?" asked Lily. She propped herself up on an elbow. "Suppose my Ancient Runes text just spontaneously combusted, did it?"
"Well, you said moon related instances don't count..."
Sirius suddenly burst through the door. "Heard we were on about Moony's little arson problem. Has anyone brought justice to my most recent portfolio yet?"
"You were bang out of line dedicating an entire collection of canvases to me as a wolf!"
"Oh, Remus, Remus, Remus," Sirius tutted woefully. "You have absolutely no artistic interpretation, do you? You were never the wolf you dimwit. You were meant to be the butterfly in the second piece. It was an ode to our deepest fears!"
"You told Sirius?!" Remus cried, turning to Sydney. She hid herself behind a pillow.
"Please don't set me on fire!"
Remus groaned and threw his head back. "I'm finished with all of you. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, my little fire starter!"
"Love you dearly, Trailblazer!"
"Sweet dreams, light of my life... and of my closest belongings!"
"Fuck all of you!"
Sydney kissed him on the cheek. "Goodnight, Remmy J," she said. And then, before he could respond, "Please be quiet a moment while I ask of God that the only spark between us is one of love."
Remus was startled awake by James's high-pitched shrieking.
"I've killed them!" he was saying. "I've killed them all. Oh, my poor little yolksters!"
And Lily, in addition, was shouting. "James, move aside so I can clean it, for goodness sake!"
It appeared that Peter's tactic of placing the eggs in a more realistic light had taken a toll on James. He insisted it best for their babies' neurological development that they sleep between he and Lily. Of course, James Potter was the least still sleeper on the planet and so he rolled onto them in the night.
"I can't believe you don't have a spare set of sheets!" Lily cried, on her feet and thoroughly disappointed.
"Forget the sheets!" cried James, devastated. "Our precious children! Alfred! Girl Alfred!"
"And you said my flower bed was ridiculous," Sydney muttered.
"Literally all of this is ridiculous," Remus replied, shutting the curtains. Sydney grinned and kissed him quickly.
"That's just your morning grumpiness talking," she said.
"I'm not—"
"Oh, save it." Sydney rolled her eyes and slid the curtains aside to get ready.
Remus was conflicted. On the one hand, he didn't want to be known as "The Mean One" who everyone was scared of and who no one ever felt truly safe around. He hadn't known that Peter was hiding from him all this time, and it made him wonder who else was hiding. Were the first years really doing well this year, or were they just too scared of Remus to go to him with problems? Was anyone comfortable with him? Was Sydney? He thought she was, but could he be sure?
And that brought on the other hand: Remus didn't want to be soft either. A part of him liked being excused when Peter was whining or when James wanted to go on a run before sunrise. He liked that he could have a moment alone if he needed, all he had to do was give them a look. He didn't want to lose that edge, but he also knew things with Sydney were going well, and he didn't want that to change if he tried to reinforce his harsher side.
Lily would say it was his fear creeping back up on him. She'd say he was a firm believer in his incompetence, and this was just another excuse for him to try and isolate himself for the betterment of everyone else. She'd remind him that he had done this countless times before, that not telling Sydney how he felt sooner was an unconscious variation of this same feat. And maybe she'd be right. So Remus didn't ask her.
He did spend the rest of the week monitoring his actions, though. Every thought was tallied as either mean or soft; every action backtracked to its reason; every interaction carefully analyzed until Remus's brain felt as if it were compressing in on itself. He had legitimately made himself ill as he searched desperately for his true self.
"Eat this, please," Sydney said. She held out a bowl of soup for Remus to take and felt his forehead with the back of her hand. She said she didn't understand, that the January moon had already passed. Remus pushed the bowl away — he was too warm for soup. Sydney frowned and he mentally noted that action as a mean one.
"Can I just have some water?" he asked, in hopes to make up for it. Sydney nodded and took the bowl back.
"Do you want ice or no ice? I've got both."
"You're too good for me," Remus said. Sydney breathed a laugh, but Remus wasn't kidding. "Ice please."
Sydney reached for one of the glasses on Remus's bedside table and then gasped as a small crack was heard. She passed him the glass and then frowned at the floor.
"I've just killed Fr-egg-y Mercury." Remus took a sip of the water and then took her hand.
"Sorry, love," he said. Sydney turned to him and then smiled softly. She brushed some hair off his forehead and her hands felt so nice against the fever on his skin.
"That means you win," she said.
"What?"
"Yeah," Sydney said. "Peter used his egg to make brownies with Dorcas. You've got the last egg standing."
Remus had forgotten about his egg. He reached across Sydney and opened the top drawer of his bedside table where he had so rashly stashed it when this assignment began. It frowned up at him.
"Not sure I deserve it," Remus said. Sydney put her hand over top of Remus's.
"Of course you do," she said, kissing him on the forehead. "They're all wrong, you know. I think you'll be a great dad."
"What if I'm too mean?" Remus asked. "Or too soft?"
Sydney took Remus's unnamed egg from his hand and placed it back in the drawer. She ran her fingers along his forehead and then cupped the side of his face.
"I think you're the perfect mix of both," she said. "And besides, even if things go completely and horribly wrong, you'll always have me to trade off with."
"True," Remus said with a small smile. "Except by the looks of it, you'll be just awful as a mother. I mean really, how could you let our child fall to a tragic death like that?"
Sydney scoffed. "Oh, and I suppose you think you're better, do you? Shoving our kid in a drawer for the entirety of his life?"
Remus grinned and lifted his head a bit to kiss her. "I'll never be better than you, my love."
Sydney smiled. "Glad you think so, you big softie."
_____
A/N
the burn vibe is consistently sadder than the swim vibe... but for some reason that makes sense for the remus vs syd pov so it doesn't look like that's gonna change!
song: outrunning karma - alec benjamin
how it applies: has the sound-vibe of this chapter w the fun parts, but also applies to remus thinking he deserves nothing and is just narrowly escaping his inevitable end... fun!