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The 10th of March, 1999, began with a very coordinated lie.
"Remus, honestly, you have to go," Dora said, her voice reaching a pitch that usually indicated she was either lying or about to trip over the umbrella stand. "Mum called. It’s the gnomes. They’ve formed some sort of organized militia in her back garden. She said they’ve occupied the hydrangea bushes and they’re throwing pebbles at the kitchen window. She’s distraught!"
Remus Lupin, leaning against the doorframe of their small cottage, looked at his wife. He was thirty-nine today. He felt the weight of the years in his joints—a lingering gift from a lifetime of moons—but his mind was as sharp as ever. He noted the way Dora’s hair was a jittery, frantic shade of electric violet and how she was holding Teddy, their eleven-month-old son, a little too tightly.
"Gnomes," Remus repeated slowly. "In March. At your mother's perfectly manicured house."
"They’re very early bloomers this year! Global warming! Magical interference! Who knows?" Dora pushed him toward the door with one hand. "Just go. Be the hero. Throw some gnomes. I’ll see you at six!"
Remus sighed, a small, knowing smile tugging at his lips. He kissed her cheek and then leaned down to kiss the top of Teddy’s head. Teddy, whose hair was currently a soft sandy brown to match his father’s, let out a cheerful gurgle and tried to grab Remus’s ear.
"Six o'clock," Remus warned, his eyes twinkling. "Try to keep the house standing, love."
"I’m an Auror, Remus! I can handle a kitchen!"
The door slammed. Remus was gone.
Dora stood in the sudden silence of the hallway and let out a long breath. She looked down at the small boy in her arms. "Okay, Teddy. The wolf has left the building. Now, it’s just you, me, and the most terrifying enemy known to wizardkind."
She held up a thick, grease-stained Muggle cookbook.
"Dinner."
Dora wanted today to be perfect. She wanted to be the kind of wife who could provide a "normal" life—the kind Molly Weasley made look so easy. She wanted the house to smell like roasting meat and home, not potions and old parchment.
"First, we prep the vegetables," Dora announced, setting Teddy down on the kitchen floor. "You stay there, son. Be a good boy. Do some... baby things."
Teddy looked at her with wide, amber eyes. He crawled immediately toward the bottom cabinet.
Dora turned to the counter. She had bought a massive bag of flour for the dessert—a chocolate cake that the book promised was "fool-proof." As she reached for a knife to tackle the onions, she didn't notice Teddy’s stealthy approach. He had discovered the "Tupperware Graveyard." With a triumphant clatter-bang, he began pulling out plastic lids, drumming them against the floor tiles.
"Nice rhythm, Teddy," Dora called over her shoulder, her eyes already stinging from the onions. Her hair had shifted to a sharp, frustrated shade of crimson red.
She turned to move the flour bag, but her foot caught on a stray lid. Her center of gravity vanished. Her hand caught the corner of the flour bag as she fell. It didn't just fall; it exploded.
A white mushroom cloud rose into the air. Dora blinked, her eyelashes coated in white powder. Teddy stopped drumming. He stared at the white world around him, and his hair snapped from brown to a brilliant, snowy white. He let out a shriek of joy and began to pat the floor, creating little puffs of flour with every strike of his palms.
"It’s fine," Dora wheezed, coughing a cloud of flour. "It’s just... seasoning. The floor is now seasoned."
By 4:00 PM, the "sear" part of the roast had gone catastrophically wrong. The pan was far too hot. When the meat touched the oil, it hissed like a cornered beast.
"Teddy! Back away!" she yelled, lunging to move him.
Teddy, however, had found a rogue potato and was trying to use his two bottom teeth to peel it.
"No! No eating the dirt-apple, son!"
She snatched it away. Teddy’s lower lip trembled. He prepared to unleash a tantrum, but then he saw his mother’s face. She was covered in white powder, her hair was sticking out at ninety-degree angles in a shocked, burnt-umber orange, and she was currently trying to fend off a smoking pan with a damp tea towel.
He decided she was the funniest thing he had ever seen and started to laugh—a deep, belly-shaking giggle that made his nose transform into a tiny pig snout.
"Oh, you think this is funny?" Dora gasped. She grabbed the bottle of red wine. Her hands were slippery with flour. Glug. Glug. Glug. Half the bottle disappeared into the pan. A massive cloud of thick, purple steam erupted, filling the kitchen with the scent of burnt grapes.
"Teddy? Where are you?"
A small, purple-tinted hand reached out from the mist, waving a stolen wooden spoon.
By 6:00 PM, Dora was sitting on the kitchen floor. She had given up. The roast was a charred lump. The cake had collapsed into a chocolate crater. The kitchen was a disaster zone of white powder and purple stains. Her hair was now a flat, exhausted shade of slate grey.
The front door opened.
"Dora? I’m back. Your mother held me for a suspiciously long time. I think I’ve thrown every gnome in her county twice."
Remus stepped into the kitchen. He stopped. He looked at the flour on the ceiling. He looked at the purple streaks on the walls. He looked at his wife, who was sitting on the floor with a sprig of parsley behind her ear.
"Remus," she said, her voice cracking. "I tried. I really, really tried."
Remus looked down at Teddy. The boy was blue-haired, flour-covered, and triumphantly holding a potato.
Remus didn't say anything for a long moment. Then, a deep, warm laugh started in his chest. It was the sound of a man who realized that for the first time in his life, he was home.
"Love," Remus said, his voice dropping into that low, affectionate tone that always made her heart melt. He reached out his free hand and pulled Dora up from the floor.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I'm a disaster."
"No," he murmured, cupping her face. He didn't care about the flour or the soot. "You are exactly what I need."
He leaned in and gave her an intense, lingering kiss—a kiss that tasted of salt, wine, and the sheer relief of being alive. When he pulled back, his eyes were glowing with a quiet, steady happiness.
"Let’s order pizza, sweetheart," he whispered against her lips. "The greasiest one they have."
They ended up sitting on the living room floor, leaning against the sofa. A box of pizza sat between them. Teddy was wedged between their legs, happily chewing on a crust, his hair fading into a peaceful sandy brown as he grew sleepy.
Remus took a bite of pizza and looked at Dora, whose hair was finally back to its soft, contented bubblegum pink.
"You know," Remus said, leaning his head against hers. "I spent years thinking my life would be nothing but shadows. I never thought I'd have a wife who would fight a kitchen for me, or a son who thinks he's a part-time baker."
He squeezed her hand, his thumb tracing her knuckles.
"Sitting here on the floor with my family, covered in flour and eating pizza... this, and only this, is what a perfect birthday looks like to me. I wouldn't change a single thing."
Dora smiled, closing her eyes and breathing in the scent of her husband and her son. "Happy Birthday, Remus."
"Happy Birthday to me," he whispered.