The Marauders

not in a ~it doesn’t matter~ way but like. molly and arthur used to worry that fred and george might turn out to be squibs because they weren’t doing any accidental magic as children, but they were, THEY TOTALLY WERE, it just wasn’t anything flashy, instead they were just like idly switching bodies all the time

and like sometimes it doesn’t make much of a difference, whatever, wake up in the opposite bed you went to sleep in, but it gets like dangerous and weird if you’re on a broom or in the pond or letting your mum teach you to cook or trying to be mad stealth, so for a long long time everybody presumes they’re clumsy maybe-squibs and that they’re doing their twin lying thing when they try to explain what’s going on, so they learn to handle the issue their ownselves

they just. don’t go anywhere without the other. they start each day deciding which body is going to be which (because at this point they really don’t know which body is technically fred and which is technically george), and they learn to reorient FAST when they switch, and what things set them off, and eventually they learn how to act like nothing’s up even when one of them’s in the air and one’s on the ground or whatever, and then they burn past that til they can finish each other’s sentences — til they can switch midsentence — til they can play beater together — til they can switch in a split second in the middle of a game — til there’s room for other kinds of accidental magic to start showing up

at hogwarts they keep each other awake in history of magic by switching back and forth. in potions they take turns brewing and keeping lookout for the slytherins. in transfiguration and charms they keep their grades up because one of them will always get a spell right on the first try so they switch and make it look like both of them do and then they practice on their own later in private. it keeps the mystery alive.

at first they thought lee was just a lucky guesser but no, lee can always tell one twin from another twin — it’s not exactly telling fred from george, because while they are definitely two distinct personalities neither one of them feels like fred all the time or george all the time — but lee knows who he argued with yesterday or who he lent his notes to or who’s best to ask for help in astronomy and who’s best at runes. 

the weasleys are pretty bad at it for the longest time, but then bill comes home from his first year cursebreaking and he can tell, and over a holiday he teaches his trick to charlie so charlie can tell. alicia and katie and angelina can tell. the twins honestly don’t know if oliver can tell or not; so long as they’re doing what they’re supposed to on the quidditch pitch he doesn’t really care about much else. harry can tell. luna can tell. tonks can tell.

THERE IS INDEED A WAY FOR THIS TO END HAPPILY LISTEN UP

so after fred dies, george hates being trapped in one body, feels claustrophobic, misses fred so much he thinks it might drive him insane

but then one day

george blinks and he’s somewhere he wasn’t a second ago, he’s in a place full of white light and he can’t orient himself, can’t ground himself, feels dizzy and sick and overwhelmed but it only lasts for about thirty seconds.

then he’s back in his own body. 

and he looks down at his chest, his legs, his arms, there’s an ear missing so it’s definitely still his living body, but there’s something written on his arm, scrawled in messy quill ink. 

“i love you. i miss you.”

george flips out, washes off the ink and immediately writes a message in reply— “how’s death going?”

he walks around with that message written on his arm for weeks, always keeping a quill pen somewhere nearby, waiting, waiting, before it finally happens again. the switch. george is alive, so he can’t handle being in the afterlife, he feels dizzy and sick and it’s the worst feeling in the world, but it doesn’t last long, and when he gets back to his living body, there’s a long message from fred waiting on his right thigh, the ink still drying.

this goes on for years, never as often as either twin would like, but it’s enough. fred helps george figure out how to propose to angelina, fred helps plan the wedding. sometimes it’s fred in george’s body when angelina kisses her husband. sometimes she suspects, but she doesn’t mind in the slightest.

it gets easier as george gets older. the times when he switches into fred’s afterlife don’t hurt as much. he almost feels comfortable there, almost feels oriented. he knows he’s getting closer to dying.

then when george is past ninety, lying on his deathbed, he writes a careful message on his palm. “i’m coming soon. where are you?”

they switch, it lasts for almost five minutes this time, and when george gets back into his own body, he sees the instructions fred wrote over his heart.

suddenly, students are barely ever late to classes any more and there are significantly fewer incidents of getting lost around the castle

everything goes wonderfully for a week, all the professors are baffled but pleased

Sirius: *sigh* i wish i could pull that off…

Remus: go ahead

Sirius: what

remus spends the whole series speaking so cautiously, hesitating before he talks, choosing his words so carefully; something i think about a lot is the rarity with which he uses contractions in his speech, i.e. its always “he will” instead of he’ll,” etc. what that says to me is that he speaks slowly, he thinks before he talks, he is measured and careful in his speech. everything he says out loud he has already gone through in his head.

and there’s a reason for that, yeah? he does this on purpose, he does it because he has to maintain this exacted control or else people are going to be afraid. if he loses it, it is going to scare people. anger from remus – a raised voice, an aggressive movement, anything – is going to be perceived as corroboration of every stereotype and prejudice that he encourages people to resist with his constructed performance as a Good Werewolf. he can’t afford to trust that he can drop that emotional wall, because the reality of it is, maybe he can’t. maybe he drops it and people say “here it is, here is the proof that he is a monster, and now we must do what has to be done to monsters.” and so through the entire series, remus is characterized largely by his restraint: what he does not say, what he does not show, what he does not let himself feel.

twice harry (and the reader) sees remus lose control: when dumbledore dies (triggered by grief) and during their fight in grimmauld during deathly hallows (triggered by shame, fear, anger, self-loathing – a lot of things). extreme situations and emotions are the only things that shake him, right, thats when he breaks, that’s when he drops that shield: when he himself is so broken that he does not have the strength to keep it up any longer.

but here is the point in the long-winded rant where i wrap myself back around to the point:

whensirius says ‘you should hear remus talk about her,” there is (to me, anyway) a clear implication that when remus talks about umbridge, he’s pissed. he’s angry. he gives himself permission to be angry around sirius and that is important to me because it means that he trusts sirius. he trusts that sirius knows who he is, and he trusts that around sirius he does not have to maintain this constant charade of being a Good Werewolf. he can be angry, and sirius will think no less of him.  

there is trust there, and that’s important to me, to know that remus does trust sirius again. it’s not a shipping thing or whatever, it’s just, the fact of the matter is that remus does not perform this self-protective act around sirius. that means there is one person who remus trusts himself with, and he needs that, and he deserves that. and i’m glad that it was sirius, for a very short period of time. i’m glad that they had one another back again, that they both had somebody who understood them fully again.

Lily: [turns in full circle]

Lily: I think we lost Sirius.

James: I got this.

James: [cups hands around mouth] REMUS LUPIN SUCKS

Snape was a cruel asshole who got a redemption arc. You cannot change my mind. Draco deserved more. The books wrongfully made Draco look like a villain. Draco DESERVED a redemption arc

Draco deserved a redemption arc

Draco deserved a redemption arc

Draco deserved a redemption arc

Draco deserved a redemption arc

Draco deserved a redemption arc

Draco deserved a redemption arc

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Here’s to everyone fighting their own battles.

Here’s to every brave warrior.

Here’s to you.

It might seem to make more sense to give Ron the precious family heirloom (remember that Molly’s brother Fabian died in the First Wizarding War; Molly has held onto his watch out of sentimentality since then). But Ron is the sixth son in his (canonically financially-struggling) family. He’s been forced into hand-me-downs his whole life. If he’d gotten the watch with a dent in the back, he wouldn’t have appreciated it; he’d only have seen the flaw. And if his mum bought Harry a new watch instead of getting Ron one, Ron would have resented that. A new watch was a worthwhile expense to get Ron a rare taste of the luxury and individual attention he has always craved.