Chapter Text
Harry woke up screaming- again. He was panting heavily, having just watched Sirius fall through the veil for what felt like the thousandth time in the nightmares that haunted his sleep. He looked at his own godchild, ensconced safely in his arms, the silencing charms he expertly crafted in an intangible layer between himself and Teddy keeping him from waking the infant. As he tried to calm his erratic breathing, he looked down at the little boy, who used his metamorphmagus abilities to look like a tiny version of Harry himself, with thick raven hair forming some sort of haphazard half-curls and macchiato skin and big green eyes that were currently closed as he sucked on his thumb in slumber.
If Sirius hadn’t died, you wouldn’t have Teddy, he reminded himself, trying to reduce at least marginally the terrible grief that sank its claws into his throbbing heart every time he thought about that night, which easily tied with maybe two others for the worst day of his life. If Sirius hadn’t died, Remus wouldn’t have tried to rebound with Tonks, and you wouldn’t have Teddy. Maybe it was cruel of him, calling the marriage of someone who he’d loved so much a mere rebound from the relationship that Moony had had with his godfather, but it was true. Tonks hadn’t been expecting anything; she’d only been offering comfort sex one late night after far too much firewhiskey on each of their ends, and Remus had taken it, because why not have it where you find it when the love of your life is dead? But then there’d been a baby, and a marriage because of it. And now they were both dead, and that was just the cold hard truth.
And Teddy would have been happy with his parents- they may not have been in love, but they were good friends, and Theodore Lupin would have grown up in a house full of laughter and pranks and would have maybe even had siblings that were adopted war orphans instead of being an adopted war orphan himself. But because of the war (because of you, Harry’s treacherous mind reminded him), instead of growing up like that, he was being raised by a seventeen-year-old soldier with PTSD and no idea what he wanted out of life in a house that too many had suffered in before.
But Harry had been determined that he should be the one to do it, the one to raise his godson. Remus had trusted him with this, and although Andromeda had offered, Harry had refused. She had lost her husband and her daughter and was tired and grieving, and he knew that asking her to raise her grandson would have been too much to put on her. She deserved to be the one to feed him cookies and spoil him rotten, not the one responsible for all the difficult, heartbreaking parts of raising a child. Harry wasn’t going to let her be the one who had to listen to Teddy ask, one day when he was old enough to realise that something was missing, why he didn’t have a mummy. That was his burden to bare now.
So instead of going back to Hogwarts for an eighth year like the rest of his friends, Harry had decided to do an independent study for his NEWTS so he could be the godfather for Teddy that Sirius had been robbed of the chance to be for him. Even though, as the heir to both the Potter and Black estates, he could have easily afforded to buy a new house without really feeling any financial strain at all, he decided to redo Grimmauld Place. He felt he owed it to his godfather to turn it into a place where happy memories could be made, where Harry could give his own godson everything that Sirius had ever wanted to give him. Ron and Hermione respected his decision; the war had been hard on all of them, and they understood that this was what he had to do, because they’d all done things that they probably would have put off until later if the war hadn’t happened. He and Hermione had eloped over the summer, spontaneously in Australia with only ‘Mione’s parents (memories newly restored) as witnesses. Mrs. Weasley had been rather upset, making them redo the ceremony in the backyard of The Burrow the moment they’d returned.
“Merlin,” Fred had said, “I don’t think I’ve heard her scream that much since I barely missed that killing curse.”
Dean and Seamus had taken a similar course, as had Lavender and Parvati and Hannah and Susan- there were quite a few newly-married couples among the returning eighth years. The only thing that had kept Ginny and Luna from doing the same was Mrs. Weasley’s stern protests that they’d only been going out for three months, and besides, wasn’t it kind of rude to get married so soon after she and Harry had broken up?
“I don’t mind, Mrs. Weasley, really,” Harry had told her, chuckling for the first time in days. “When you know, you just know.”
Nevertheless, Molly had managed to convince her daughter to wait until she could sew her and her bride-to-be a proper set of dress robes, and Ginny had reluctantly agreed.
“It’s alright dear,” Luna had said softly. “We’ve always been married in the eyes of the snorklacks, and isn’t that really all that matters?”
Merlin, Harry loved Luna, and he had to admit that she was really a far better match for Ginny than he had been. She was wonderful, and he loved her deeply, but theirs would always be more of the devotion shared between two best friends, and he was more than alright with that. Besides, even if she had still had feelings for him, he couldn’t have given her what she needed with all of his focus on Teddy.
Teddy- Harry’s heart rate gradually slowed as he reminisced about happier memories and watched the baby’s chest rise and fall. Six months old, and only four of those spent with him, and already Harry loved him more than he realised it was possible to ever love anything. Had anyone known the true depths of the horrifying events that formed his own childhood- the beatings, the starvation, the cruel words and crueler hands and lack of anything remotely resembling love that he received from the Dursleys- and not just the vastly watered-down version he’d fed all his loved ones… well, they might have been reluctant to let him raise a child, might have worried that the violence he’d experienced in his own infancy might have created an unstable parent figure that could have perpetuated the cycle of abuse. But nothing could be further from the truth- even at only seventeen and traumatised by a lifetime of loss and suffering, Harry was the gentlest parent figure that Teddy could have asked for.
It was healing and therapeutic for the young man to pour into this helpless vessel every ounce of the love and affection that he himself had never received, and every day that the little boy spent with his godfather was full of soft words and softer touches and never for even a second a raised voice or an ounce of irritation, not even when the little boy screamed and cried for absolutely no reason, or when Harry had gotten little to no sleep for days on end because of a demanding infant combined with the nightmares and his demons and thoughts of Oh God, you’ve killed them, they’redeadandit’sall yourfault. Everything that Teddy ate was healthy and delicious and homemade, even though Harry hated cooking because it reminded him of Aunt Petunia holding his hands to the burners whenever even the slightest thing didn’t meet her standards. The days were spent with him playing with the boy and reading to him and following to the letter all the instructions in the parenting books for everything that could possibly be done to stimulate his healthy physical and mental development. He would study while Teddy was napping or playing quietly in his playpen, and every night he would rock him to sleep in front of the fire while singing in a voice that was surprisingly melodic.
Teddy had a nursery, one that Harry had painstakingly painted by hand and not with magic and had decorated with everything a baby could possibly want, but the first night he’d gone to put him into it, the infant had clung to his chest with tiny hands, so he’d taken him to his own bed and wrapped him in his arms and the crib hadn’t been used since. In fact, not since the day he’d picked him up from Andromeda had his godson left his sight. His friends at Hogwarts were always inviting him to come have a pint in the village on the weekends, and Fred and George tried to convince him to come to every big promotional event at the store, but he’d always declined politely. He was just getting settled down, he’d say. Maybe next time, he’d say. He refused any offers for help as well; he’d chosen this and it wasn’t their burden to bare. On his better days when the dark circles under his eyes weren’t quite so bad, he’d floo his friends in the eighth year common room, Teddy in his lap as they talked quietly. And he managed to convince them that he was okay, managed to convince himself that he was okay, because as long as Teddy was loved and taken care of, then what did it matter how he was doing? He belonged to Teddy now; Teddy got everything he had and Teddy was more than he deserved, and he believed that with all of his tired, broken heart.
__________
Harry tried to do as many things muggle with Teddy as he could; he took him to the healers as often as required for tracking his magical development or if he needed a certain potion, of course, but for the little everyday things like checkups he preferred to go to a pediatrician. He liked seeing Teddy’s weight on a physical scale instead of a number from a wand that he couldn’t be certain he could trust, liked hearing Teddy’s heartbeat through the stethoscope when the doctor held it up to his ears. Besides, muggles vaccinated for a lot of things that wizarding communities didn’t bother with, and Harry knew better than anyone that wizards were not infallible.
“Well,” Dr. Smithson announced on a Tuesday when Teddy was six and a half months old, snapping her bag shut at the end of the appointment, “Teddy is as healthy and happy as a baby can be; you’re doing a fine job, Mr. Potter. You, on the other hand, look like you’ve seen better days.”
“I’m fine,” Harry replied with a tired smile, stifling a yawn. “You know how it is, raising a baby.”
“Of course,” the doctor agreed kindly, pulling her gloves off. “Just don’t forget to make time for yourself once in a while- get out and enjoy the fresh air and all that. You’re barely eighteen, after all.”
Harry just forced himself to smile again. “Don’t worry ma’am; I get out plenty. In fact, Teddy and I are just now heading to the grocery store, aren’t we big guy?” he cooed, kissing his godson’s nose. “I’ll see you in six weeks, Dr. Smithson.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she sighed, shaking her head after he’d left. She’d never seen a teenage parent take such good care of a child- normally, there was the opposite problem where they didn’t give them enough focused attention- and in her eyes Harry was still just a child himself. She wondered what kind of circumstances he’d grown up in, that he’d been so willing to take on responsibility for a baby that wasn’t even his, that he was so much more mature than everyone else his age. She honestly worried far more for him than for her actual patient; he was far too thin, and sometimes she caught flashes of a haunted look in his beautiful green eyes. There was such a thing as giving too much of oneself to other people, and she was afraid that that was exactly what he was doing.
It didn’t really occur to Harry that people outside of his closest friends would worry about him, so he had put the doctor out of his mind as he wrapped Teddy’s little scarf around his neck and put his mittens on his hands and his hat on his head. He’d forgotten his own cap today, but he had his long, loose-hanging coat, so he wasn’t terribly bothered. The Dursleys used to put him out in the cold for a few hours without anything remotely warm enough as punishment for his perceived wrongdoings, so a coat was more than enough for him as long as his little godson was warm enough. He bounced the little boy on his hip as he entered the Tesco’s, buckling him carefully into the cot.
“Oh, what a cutie!” exclaimed an old woman comparing two peaches with a critical eye, putting the fruits down and approaching the two of them. “Is this your son?” Kids were having children younger and younger these days, but it was so nice to see one that took care of his…
“Godson, actually,” Harry said graciously, grinning slightly. “Just a lucky accident, really, that we look so similar.”
“Oh, how precious,” she declared, tickling Teddy’s chin as the baby giggled. “So you’re watching him for the day, then?”
“No, longer than that…” he sighed, the look in his eyes bittersweet. “His parents were murdered, so I’m raising him now.”
“Oh, how sad,” she cried. “Poor thing, barely more than a child yourself. Your parents couldn’t help you?”
“They’re dead also,” Harry informed her, wanting desperately to end the conversation but too polite to walk away from a kindly old woman who only meant well.
“Oh, what a sad world we live in,” she clucked, putting a hand on his arm maternally.
“I suppose so,” he agreed, ready to be just about anywhere else as he looked for something, anything else to talk about. “Oh look- these zucchini are nice…”
______
As soon as Teddy had learned to crawl, Harry had baby-proofed the house, and anything remotely dangerous was far out of reach, so it was quite safe to put him in the playpen after lunch while he read from his charms textbook out loud, knowing how good it was for children to be read to.
“While the mending charm itself is a fifth year spell, it is much harder to perform nonverbally than other spells, although the reason for this is as yet unknown…” he narrated, before looking up to see how his godson was responding to his voice. When he did, all the blood drained from his face.
Teddy had somehow managed to wiggle open the door to his playpen, and although he was absolutely fine-smiling, even- all Harry’s mind could focus on was that he had crawled into the cupboard under the stairs. Harry wasn’t sure how or why the door was open, and it really shouldn’t have been a big deal anyway; there was nothing dangerous under there- nothing at all, in fact- but all Harry could focus on was that that was his godson, in the cupboard under the fucking stairs. It didn’t matter that he had crawled in there by choice, had decided to explore it out of mere curiosity; Harry couldn’t stand to see him in there, and oh, how easy it would have been for someone to close the door and lock him in, or for the wind to shut it on him, and then he’d be trapped and screaming and crying and what if Harry wasn’t there to comfort him, what if no one was there for Teddy like no one had been there for Harry?!
No, Harry decided, the memory of countless dark and lonely nights in the cramped space pounding in his brain, Teddy simply couldn’t be in there. He scooped the boy up almost frantically, pulling his wand out of the sleeve of his oversized jumper and banishing it, banishing it forever. The baby looked up at him in confusion.
“Dada?” he gurgled, a lock of his hair turning pink as he studied Harry’s face. It was his first word, coming at a time when Harry was already emotionally overwrought, and he burst into tears as he held Teddy to his chest. He tried to hold them back, because it was clear they were distressing the little boy, but all Harry could think was that Teddy’s real Dada was dead because of him. Part of him was happy, of course, happy that Teddy had thought of him this way, but the larger part of him was terrified. Could he be the father that Teddy deserved? In his limited experience, fathers were people who loved their children enough to die for them, and although Harry would absolutely die for Teddy, would lay down his life in a heartbeat, he wanted to stay and be around for him. And hearing the child’s first words, hearing out of his innocent mouth in the clearest of terms what Teddy really thought of him, the horrible thought struck Harry for the first time that he had no more control than Remus did of whether he could always be there for this child of his that he loved so very much.
“Dada?” Teddy tried again, touching his cheek with gentle fingers, and Harry sniffed and put on a smile. He couldn’t think about that now, not when he needed to start preparing dinner.
“Dada’s fine, sweetheart,” he soothed, and despite everything, the feeling the word gave him when he said it back to Teddy was one that filled his heart with warmth and tasted better even than treacle on his tongue. “Dada will do everything he can to be there for you.” He kissed Teddy’s forehead and put him in his highchair as he waved his wrist to chop the potatoes, not bothering to reach for his wand. “Dada loves you very much.”
“Dada dada dada!” Teddy cheered, clapping his little hands, and Harry laughed as he wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his jumper. It didn’t matter that he was giving up the last years of his youth, the ones that he could have used to relax and be carefree after the war; this was more important. There was nothing more important than this.