23 April: Making a Magical Clock Who: Remus Lupin and Molly Weasley What: Making a Clock When: 23 April Where: The Burrow Warnings: None
“Okay. I think that I have the ‘hands’ built.” Remus leaned back in the chair, taking a moment to breathe. He had underestimated his energy levels today and the chaos of six little ones underfoot. He was hungry and could probably use a nap, but that was pretty much business as usual. At least it wasn’t all for nothing. He now had eight metal spoons that were inlaid with pieces of hair from each family member with engraved initials.
The brief moment of rest was interrupted when Fred wanted to climb up into his lap and help. “Not sure we have much that you can do right now.” Still, Remus didn’t stop him when he reached for the G spoon.
Molly couldn’t help but smile fondly at Fred as he made himself at home in Remus’ lap, nor could she help but notice how tired and worn out Remus looked next to her son’s bright face. It tore a little at the mothering instincts in her, but she’d said that she wouldn’t press him again so that was what she was going to do. She could only hope that Sirius knew how to help his friend better than she did.
“Freddy, thank you, but Mummy and Remus have to work on this alone for a moment, alright? We’ll come get you in a bit when we need your help.” Though he seemed downtrodden at this news, he set the spoon back down and went on his way while Molly used the temporary distraction to magic some more sandwiches and pumpkin juice onto the table near Remus without a word.
“Will we be able to just add to it once the new one arrives? What if he is born without any hair?”
Remus didn’t need to be invited to eat and picked up one of the sandwiches. “If this works, I don’t see why we couldn’t add more. And if he doesn’t have hair, we can figure out other things.” His first thought had been teeth, but hair seemed like an easier path especially accounting for so many of the family still needing their baby teeth. “However, we still need to see if the enchantment will work.
“I have inlaid the parameters, but this is your part where you’ll need to enchant the items.” He picked up the Ron spoon. “We had first tried enchanting objects after ourselves, which was met with some moderate success.” Remus smiled at the thought of the menace MiniPadfoot still running around Hogsmeade. “We then realized that the quite literal power of love when it came to doing so.” After all that was why MiniPadfoot was still going strong. “And there is something to be said about a mother’s love, so that’s what we’re going to build the enchantment around. Not unlike a patronus, but also different.”
Molly listened intently as Remus explained. Though she knew very well that Sirius and his friends were incredibly intelligent, it still floored her to hear it spoken aloud. And she was in awe of this entire project -- that they had wanted to do this for her. It was enough seeing it all laid out in front of her to make her tear up. She tried to cover it up with a cough.
“Okay. I think I can handle that.” If there was anything Molly was good at, it was loving people. Possibly too much. She picked up Bill’s spoon, already reminiscing back when she and Arthur had become pregnant with him and she’d been the most terrified she’d ever felt at the idea of being someone’s lifeline. “Maybe,” she amended her previous statement as she felt herself trembling a little from emotion.
Remus placed a hand on her shoulder. “That emotion, that’s good. It’s deep and strong. Now focus it to something that is undeniably Bill. And then-” He demonstrated the gesture required to cast the enchantment. More of a complicated dance than most charm work.
This might be the first time Molly was actually asked to be emotional so she should probably take advantage of it. Taking note of Remus’ explanation, she closed her eyes and focused on her firstborn son and all the challenges she and Arthur faced with him but also how bloody brilliant it had been to watch him grow older. He was the only one of their children that they had real time alone with and it was going to be hard to see him leave for Hogwarts next year. With a watery sigh, Molly raised her wand and performed the enchantment over Bill’s labeled spoon.
“Alright. Well done.” Unlike their little figurines there was no immediate feedback to determine success or failure. Although it would have been something to see a spoon come to life in the spirit of Bill. (Remus might have watched it a moment longer just to see if anything would happen. Stranger things and all that.) “Now, we just have six more to sort out, and then we’ll have to wait for Arthur for yours.”
Remus walked her through the creation of the rest of the spoons. Comparatively he had the easy part. Although he still devoured three sandwiches and successfully redirected four little sprog interruptions.
Six enchantments later and Molly was tear-stained and feeling rather exhausted, if only emotionally. If she had known how sodding ridiculous it would become she would have asked to do it on her own while Remus wasn’t there, though to be fair he had been deflecting children from the room while she worked. She glanced over the seven completed spoons in pride, though she had no idea if they were even going to work properly.
“Congratulations, I think you’ve seen me cry enough to last a lifetime,” she bemoaned and when Ron pulled up on her chair she lifted him into an unnecessarily tight hug before setting him in her lap. The small boy’s eyes looked wide as he surveyed the collection of spoons in front of him like it was a treasure trove. It was almost as if he were looking for the right one while his pudgy hand hovered over them before he finally selected the A. “Da!” he exclaimed happily before banging it on the table and then quickly dropping from Molly’s lap to crawl away with it.
“I wouldn’t tell a soul.” He even managed to finish the mouthful of sandwich before he spoke so at least one of them could pretend to have dignity. Remus wiped his hands before coming around the table to give her a hug. She seemed like she could need it and Remus was never one to deny another person a simple physical comfort. (If only because he often needed it just as much.)
That did allow Ron to escape with the Arthur spoon. “But hey, I think if the rather motivated toddler is right, we may have actually figured this out.” Luckily Charlie was coming back in for a snack and scooped up the wandering child before he got too far.
Molly was certainly not a person to refuse a hug when it was offered to her. She held him as tightly as she dared considering she always worried he might break in half. When she pulled back she nodded at him. “It does seem like some sort personal transference happened. We’ll have to keep it out of reach or he may just rip them all off the clock.” And try to flush them down the toilet, with her luck.
“Oh!” She looked at the spread of spoons. “What about Sirius? And Gideon and Fabian and you? I need more spoons!”
Remus chuckled, trying to override the tensing of his body at the suggestion that other people be added to the clock. “Well, my working theory here is based primarily off a mother’s love. Which does count myself and Sirius out.” Of course there were other types of love, but this felt like the easier option. Any argument for privacy while viable at first, was ultimately a moot point. Afterall, how did those ethics hold up against creation of the Hogwarts or Hogsmeade maps?
Molly raised a confused eyebrow at that. “What do you mean? You are my children.” While they weren’t exactly that much younger than her or Arthur, she’d always seen them that way. There wasn’t even really a question in her mind that they were.
Remus gently shook his head with a sad smile. “I mean that you did not actually give birth to me. Or teach me to draw. Attempt to teach me gardening, and a handful of other things.” Like fighting with his father over the proper care and keeping of your werewolf pup. “And I honestly I haven’t really taken my … condition into account for the clock. So I might not be a good candidate.” Setting the parameters for mortal peril was difficult enough without having to worry about lycanthropy.
A sad smile crossed Molly’s face as well as she heard him list things that his mother had obviously done with him. But it was rather obvious that she’d over-stepped again and she felt like that was becoming a theme with him. Things with Sirius were easier for her to manage because they were very much alike, but she’d never been quite as good at it with Remus. “Right. I’m sorry. It’s not my place to… I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No harm done.” He shrugged off the comment. It wasn’t really of much importance and he didn’t need them to linger there. “Why don’t we see if what we have now works before we consider any sort of expansion projects?” That seemed like the easier thing to focus on that navigating the boundaries of preferring to keep Molly Weasley at a slight distance.
Molly nodded to that, maybe a little too eagerly to pass up the awkwardness of the situation. “Of course! There’s already plenty to deal with now.” Especially seeing as she now needed to watch the children but also check the clock to see if it was functioning as they hoped. Adding whatever trouble Sirius was getting into on a daily basis would best be left for a later date.
Remus took the spoons and set to carefully laying them into the clock face. The face held nine different states and was an impressive piece of magic in and of itself. Of course it was a lot of theoretical complicated magic that could go wrong at any step along the way. “Well, Molly, which of your children do you want to see battle a garden gnome first?”
Molly laughed at that absurd question. “Well, I suppose Ron has become the little expert at it, hasn’t he?”