Chapter Text
Remus Lupin walked in the back door of his shop at precisely 10 minutes to 8 on Saturday morning. He went about turning on the lights, checking the till, and ensuring all of the displays were in order before he flipped the sign on the door over to read Open. Certain that he wouldn’t have customers so early he set about making himself a cup of tea to ward off the early morning chill. It was the first week of December and the air had turned brisk as autumn slid into winter.
As the morning wore on the street outside grew busy with bustling shoppers doing their weekend errands – some certainly making a few early Christmas purchases. Remus sat at his desk beside the till and sketched a few ideas for a new flyer to put up at the local cafés. He hoped to do good business with the holidays coming up and supposed the flyers could only help. He stretched and stood to write some notes about inventory before wandering to the back of the shop to make himself another cup of tea.
The bell above the door tinkled, announcing the arrival of a customer. Remus paused in his tea-making and said, “I’ll be with you in just a moment!” before putting on a smile which quickly slipped off his face when he took in the sight of the person in front of him.
Broad shoulders, slim-hips, long black hair and a mouth made for sinning with high cheekbones and clear grey eyes rendered Remus speechless for a moment before he remembered himself and spoke.
“Good morning,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“Do you teach classes?” the stranger asked. “I mean, for absolute beginners, because I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m doing but I really need to learn.”
Remus was puzzled and gave the man a once over. He looked rather out of place in Remus’ shop in heavy black boots, ripped jeans, and a black leather jacket as well as what looked like grease stains on his fingers.
“Well,” Remus began a bit uncertainly, “I do have a new class aimed at beginners but it’s a ‘pick-your-own-project’ kind of class so we’ll be applying the basics to different items.” He reached over to his desk and pulled out a flyer to hand to him.
“What do you plan on making?” he finally asked.
The dark stranger looked down at his shoes and sighed. Then he looked Remus in the eye and said, “Baby booties.”
Remus was a bit taken aback, as that was the last thing he expected to hear, but he softened when he saw the small smile playing on the man’s face. He walked over to his display of baby yarn – soft stuff that held up against wear and tear and spills – and started pulling out skeins of various colors.
“Color preference? If you don’t know the baby’s gender yet you could go with something neutral or…”
“Red,” the man interrupted. Then he grinned. “Gryffindor red.”
Remus smiled back at him, “Of course.”
He put away the yellows, greens, blues, and pinks he had removed and found a skein of bright crimson yarn. He gestured for the man to follow him to a bookcase filled with folders and what appeared to be photo albums and urged him to sit at the scrubbed wooden table. He returned with a single ring-binder and flipped through it until he found what he was looking for.
“Here we go,” he said. “This is the pattern I generally recommend for beginners. It’s got a classic design but it features great things to get you started on basic stitches, casting on, stockinette, basic increases and decreases as well as yarn overs; plus it’s got optional charms written in that keep them warm or cool and can even keep them on little feet when they kick…” He trailed off at the look on the man’s face.
“It’s really not that difficult,” he said gently. “The class starts with the basics and I promise that by the end of the first class you’ll feel confident enough to start working on your project on your own.”
The man looked up and smirked as if accepting an unspoken challenge. “I don’t doubt it,” he said. “When do we start?”
“Let’s get you some needles and I’ll put you down for the class,” Remus said and got behind the till. “Buying materials here gives you a discount on the cost of the class, and you’re also welcome to come in anytime for help.” Remus busied himself with bagging up the yarn, pattern, and needles before giving his customer his change.
“So yarn, needles, pattern, and class all come out to 11 sickles exactly,” he said. “The class starts at noon tomorrow and I’ll need your name to hold your place.”
“I’m Sirius. Sirius Black,” he extended his hand.
“Remus Lupin,” Remus returned, shaking his hand firmly. “See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Sirius answered, and with the jingling of the bell above the door, he was gone.
Sirius grinned to himself as he swung his new bag of knitting supplies and walked down the street. He thought back to the morning, breakfast with James and Lily, and their announcement…
Sirius stepped through the floo into the sunny kitchen in Godric’s Hollow. Breakfast with the Potters was a Saturday morning tradition but Sirius could tell something was… different this particular morning. Lily was seated at the kitchen table with a mug of tea clutched in her hands and while she smiled when she saw him, there was a strain in her green eyes.
Sirius kissed her cheek and said, “What is it?”
Lily was prevented from replying by the appearance of her husband. “Padfoot! Glad you could make it!” James Potter clapped his dearest friend on the shoulder and shifted anxiously from foot to foot. His dark hair was messier than ever and his glasses sat crookedly on his face.
“It’s Saturday, Prongs. I’m always here on Saturday. Now what the hell is going on with you two?” Sirius said.
“Well…” Lily began. She looked at James. Their eyes met and they both looked at Sirius. “James has something to tell you,” she finished.
James shot her a look of mild betrayal and took a deep breath. “Well, Sirius, the thing is, erm, well… Um, you see…”
“Spit it out already!” Sirius insisted, anxious at his friend’s hesitation.
“Lily’s pregnant,” James said. With the words finally uttered, he cast an adoring smile at the redhead at the table and looked expectantly at his friend.
“Really?” Sirius asked, looking between them in shock. “You’re – a baby? A real baby?”
“No, Sirius,” Lily snorted, “a fake baby has taken up residence in my uterus. Of course it’s a real baby!” she smacked his arm for emphasis. “I’m only about a month or so along so you’ve got plenty of time to get used to the idea.”
“A baby,” he whispered again. “Jamie, a baby!” the words finally began to sink in and he threw his arm around his friend and whooped. “A baby! We’re having a baby!” he shouted.
“Um, excuse me? I believe I will be the one doing the having in a few months,” Lily grumbled.
Sirius swooped down and kissed her cheeks again. “Merlin, Lils, do you need anything? You should put your feet up. Are you hungry?” he bustled around the kitchen where breakfast was already made and piled a plate high with everything he saw and set it before her.
“Sirius, I’m fine. I’m only a few weeks gone and you know I don’t eat kippers so get them off my plate.”
“That’s not all, either, mate,” James started once he’d prepared his own plate. “We um, well, that is to say, erm… I wanted – and Lily agreed! – but I’d hoped, well… Would you be godfather?”
“Me?” Sirius was stunned. First a baby, now they wanted him to be the godfather?
“Of course, you git. You’re my best mate – my brother. I can’t think of anyone who would love the little ankle-biter more or spoil him – ”
“– or her!” Lily said around a mouthful of bacon.
“Or her,” James conceded. “Who would take better care of my kid than my own brother? Please say yes.”
“I... Yes. Yes! Of course! Yes! Wow, godfather!” Sirius was beside himself. Godfather. A baby. James and Lily and a baby.
Breakfast was finished while they discussed potential baby names. Sirius’ contribution was Elvendork.
“It’s gender neutral!” he insisted.
As he left the Potters’, his mind turned to how exactly he would spoil his future godchild. He went to Diagon Alley and his first thought was to buy a toy broom – any child of James’s would be a natural flyer – but as soon as he purchased it he knew Lily would have a conniption if he gifted it to a newborn. He needed another idea and wanted it to be perfect.
Turning down a less-frequented corner of Diagon, he passed some of the newer shops that had opened more recently. He stopped a few doors down when he saw a funny little sign that caught his eye.
The Black Sheep
Fine Yarns for the Magical Minded
Sirius smirked. The Black Sheep? He had referred to himself as such ever since he had been disowned by his family in his teens. He’d been taken in by James’ parents but there was still a great deal of bad blood between Sirius and most of his family. He looked in the window at the displays and his eyes lit on a tiny pair of knitted shoes next to a picture of a rather ugly infant. Baby booties, he thought. That’s it! I’ll knit for the sprog! He walked into the shop and was instantly overwhelmed by the yarns and the colors and felt rather out of his depth.
There was a voice from the rear of the shop which called, “I’ll be with you in just a moment,” before a tall man stepped forward. Sirius had to consciously prevent his jaw from dropping. Tall, lanky, with wavy brown hair and cheerful brown eyes, the man was not what Sirius had expected. He’d imagined an old woman in a floral dress wearing a ridiculous hat, perhaps. Not – oh dear Merlin, what kind of jumper was that? Corduroy trousers and a blue jumper with white sheep on it save one in black. The Black Sheep. Of course. What a wonderfully ridiculous jumper.
The next morning Sirius was running down Diagon Alley to get to The Black Sheep just as the clock near Gringott’s was distantly striking twelve. He hated to be late but he’d overslept and almost forgotten about the class when he finally woke. He slowed down as he approached the yarn shop and vainly tried to straighten his hair before he walked in.
His arrival was met with silence by the abundance of women crowded around the shop’s work table. He put on his most charming smile and found himself a seat and they all began murmuring to one another again.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said with an easy grin around the table. Remus stood from where he’d been sitting at his desk talking with a customer.
“Glad you could make it,” he said. He stood at the head of the table and after introducing himself he dove right into teaching.
“Okay, so I see you’ve all got your projects. This is the first class so today we’re just going to focus on the basics: casting on and the basic knit stitch. So please pull out your patterns and your materials and find where it begins and it should tell you how many to cast on. I’ll go around the table and make sure everyone is holding their yarn in a workable way and then explain the cast-on method we’ll be using.”
Sirius went into his bag and pulled out his red yarn and impossibly small needles. They hadn’t looked that small when he’d purchased them the day before but now they looked positively tiny. He saw the women around him easily finding the ends of their yarn and he looked at the skein of yarn in front of him. It wasn’t in a ball, but rather it was shaped almost like a cylinder. There was a loose end sticking out from beneath the paper wrapper but when he gave it a tug it snagged on the label.
“You should really try to pull the end from the inside,” a soft voice said next to him. Sirius looked up and saw friendly brown eyes and blonde hair smiling at him, gesturing at the yarn. “I’m Alice, by the way,” she said. She showed him how to feel inside the skein to find the end and after resisting the urge to say something crude and inappropriate he successfully pulled out the end – along with what seemed like half of the entire skein.
“Oh, bad luck, that,” Alice laughed. “Happens to the best of us, though – yarn vomit, we call it.”
Sirius scowled and fished the end out of the mess. Alice showed him how to make a slip knot while Remus worked his way around the table correcting the way people were holding their yarn and needles. Sirius had to adjust his hands around the small needles to achieve the grip Remus demonstrated. The yarn seemed impossibly small in his hands and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do this after all.
Remus stood at the head of the table once more and showed the group how to cast on. Sirius referred to his pattern and replicated the stitch 17 times. When he looked at what he had done, the loops on the needles were large and uneven but there were 17 of them and he was pleased. He glanced around the table and caught several sets of eyes staring at him. He smiled at the women around him, and knew that a man in a knitting class was an oddity. He knew how to be charming, though, and usually he liked the attention.
After Remus had got the class through casting on he explained how to perform a basic knit stitch. Sirius liked that it was very similar to the cast on stitches he had already done, but he had a hard time getting the stitches off of his needles. He persisted but the “yarn vomit” as Alice had called it was still a mess on the table beside him and his fingers felt too big for the tiny needles and slender yarn and it was getting harder and harder to pull the stitches off after he knit them! He huffed a bit in frustration until he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Let me,” Remus said, and took the knitting from him to inspect it more closely. “Ah,” he said. “You're holding the yarn too tightly. Your tension is too tight so your stitches are actually coming out too small. You either need to loosen your grip or go up a few needle sizes.”
Sirius looked down at the mess of yarn in his lap. “I’m not sure I’m holding the string right,” he said. “I feel like it’s going to fall out of my hand if I don’t pull it tight enough but then I can’t get the loops off the needle.”
“Here,” said Remus. He placed the knitting in Sirius’ hands and leaned over him to place his hands on top of them. He worked Sirius’ hands in the appropriate motions and the yarn flowed through his fingers much smoother and his stitches came out looking less mangled and more even. Sirius watched in awe as the yarn slipped through Remus’ fingers and his own with grace and speed he could not accomplish on his own. After a few moments the feeling of Remus’ hands on his made his face flush a bit and Remus smiled.
“Think you’ve got it?” he asked, stepping away.
“Yeah,” Sirius said. “Yeah, thanks. I’ll, erm, I’ll keep working on it.”
“Make sure you refer to your pattern and don’t just keep knitting for miles or you’ll have to tink it out.”
“Tink?” one of the girls a few seats away asked.
“Tink,” Remus repeated. “T-I-N-K – it’s ‘knit’ spelt backwards. So tinking is knitting backwards or un-knitting.” He moved through the people around the table, adjusting their grip or tension and making sure they understood the mechanics of the stitch they were working on.
The rest of the class went relatively well and Remus was pleased to see the progress people were making, especially since they were all beginners – and a few (including Sirius) had never even picked up knitting needles before.
“I think that’s it for this week. If you want to practice I recommend starting a swatch. You can cast on about 25 and then knit several rows if you get to a point in your pattern that involves stitches we haven’t covered yet. And of course you’re all welcome to drop by anytime throughout the week if you have questions or want a little more help.” Remus smiled at the group as they began to pack up their things until his eyes fell on Sirius again.
The man had struggled through the class and looked incredibly frustrated. His movements were clumsy and Remus remembered keenly how he’d felt the first time his gran had placed yarn in his hands and tried to show him how to turn it into something beautiful. Remus walked over as the other students trickled out and took the seat next to him.
“I hope you’ll stick with this and come back next week,” he said as Sirius struggled to untangle the yarn from his fingers.
“I didn’t think it would be this hard,” Sirius answered. “You don’t have any trouble at all.”
“Yes, well, I’ve been knitting a long time. I was terrible when I first started, too, you know.”
“It’s just…” Sirius ran a hand through his hair. “This is important, you know? I want it to be special.” He turned his grey eyes on Remus and hoped he didn’t sound like a whinging baby.
Remus put a hand on Sirius’ and smiled. “It will be,” he said. “Just don’t quit. Besides,” he added, getting up, “I could use another bloke in here. Give the ladies someone else to fawn over for a change.”
Sirius grinned and put away his things, but didn’t say that he had barely resisted fawning over the tall man himself. With a wave, he headed back into Diagon with plans to floo James as soon as he got home to tell him and Lily about the new bloke who may have taken his fancy.