Remus is not a morning person.

It didn’t help that the curtains let the sunlight in. That his alarm clock was obnoxiously difficult to turn off. Or that the flat’s paper-thin walls had to be charmed every morning so he didn’t hear the neighbours’ telly, the barking dog next door, or the thudding footsteps of the postman on the stairs.

He didn’t care for the birds, if it were to happen miraculously in the streets of North London. He didn’t care that his building was filled with early-rising working-class families, clattering through the corridors like a stampede at half-past six.

Oh, he wished he were back at Hogwarts, telling James and Sirius and Peter to shut up and leave him be.

A simpler time, really. Why did he complain so much back then?

Anyway, Remus didn’t care about a whole heap of things—especially if they involved waking up to start the day.

That’s what he would’ve thought, in another life.

But he had you now.

And like every other morning, the door creaked open just enough to let a fresh spear of sunlight slice through the gloom. He didn’t need to look to know it was you: dragging a blanket, soft little feet padding across the floorboards, breath shallow like you were sneaking. You didn’t crawl into bed. You just stood there. Watching. Waiting.

Then—

A poke.

Another.

And another.

“Cub,” he mumbled, voice rough as gravel, eyes still closed. “Quiet with the poking.”

He knew he should get up. Feed you. Dress you. Comb out the snarls in your hair and try to remember where he left your shoes. But he felt like a deflated balloon, really. And the poking...

Why did the poking stop?

You didn’t just stop because he told you to. That wasn’t how this worked.

He cracked open one eye and lifted his head from his beat-up pillow.

You were gone.

Shit.

Either you'd managed some accidental magic, or—

Yeah. There it was. The sound of his records being shifted. Soft scraping. Cases nudged out of the crate by little hands. Not a tantrum, not really. Not in Remus’ eyes. But still, he didn’t want to lose his Bowie collection to the whims of a curious toddler.

So he groaned, threw off the blanket, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. No time for making the bed. He reached for his cane with muscle memory and limped down the narrow hallway.

There you were. Sat on the floor, flipping through his records with intense concentration. And in your hands, of course—the one Bowie album he couldn’t bloody stand.

“You want Peter and the Wolf, cub?” he asked gently, already taking the record out of your hands before it could get smudged with jam or fingerprints. “Let’s eat first. Then we’ll listen to Bowie tell the story, yeah?”

He ruffled your hair with a kind of tired fondness, steadying himself with the cane as he bent just a little closer.

“What do you want to eat, {{user}}?”