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It always comes back to his mum, when you think about it. 

“I thought you were supposed to be with Teddy at your mother's?” Harry turns back to Tonks after Neville's Gran leaves, too scattered to focus on the thought of the elderly woman joining the fight. 

“I couldn't stand not knowing-” Tonks looks anguished, her signature pink hair dimmed to a mousy brown. “She'll look after him - have you seen Remus?” 

“He was planning to lead a group of fighters into the grounds,” Harry tells her. Tonks almost speeds off without another word, but then she loops back before Harry can speak to Ginny. 

“Listen, Harry,” Tonks pants as Ron and Hermione approach her instead. “I'm…I came because I've got a bad feeling about tonight. I'm not afraid to die with my life on the line - not for Remus, not for you, not for what matters, but I've had this feeling for a while, actually, and I'm starting to think it might mean something. Tonight.” 

“What are you…” Harry gapes at her, his heart galloping at the very thought of her suggestion. “But Teddy! He’ll be all alone!” 

“Exactly,” Tonks says with a hint of a smile. “Always were more clever than you let on, eh? I didn't agree to make you Teddy's godfather just because you're James Potter’s son, Harry - or, well, not only because of that. Mostly I wanted you to be his godfather because somehow, someway, you've managed to survive the most impossible and mental things the universe can throw at a wizard. And despite the loads of reasons you could have been an arsehole, you're a pretty good bloke with a decent head on your shoulders. I'd trust you with my damn life, Harry Potter. Right now my life is two people. So what I'm saying is…” 

Taking a deep breath, she grabs him by both shoulders and gazes deeply into his eyes. She looks so solemn and un-Tonks-like that Harry feels disarmed. 

“I might die tonight,” Tonks says, pressing on before Harry can do more than recoil in denial. “Remus might too, and that’s alright with me because we'll be doing it together, and Teddy will get to live in a world that's better for him after. But if Teddy has to go to someone because - because we’re both gone, we wanted it to be you. Because you grew up without your parents, you’re a bloody great kid, and you’re a survivor. I might not make it through tonight, Harry, but I’ve got a feeling that it’ll take a lot more than Voldemort to take you down. So if we’re not here, you survive and look out for Teddy, yeah? You don’t have to do anything special. Just…just do what you would have wanted someone to do for you. That’s all.” 

And with one final, heavy smile, she’s gone. Harry doesn’t have time to process her words as Ginny runs out of the room with a grin of her own to Ron's shouting, and then they’re looking for the lost diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw. But he remembers, later. 

“-Right after you’d had your son…Remus, I’m sorry,” he tells the man with a heavy heart as death approaches them all one last time. “Tonks told me why you guys made me godfather, that it was because I was a survivor. I wish I could have proved you right, done better.”

“I am sorry too,” says Remus, his voice soft. “Sorry I will never know him…but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand. I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life. Just like his mum. Just like you, Harry.” 

“You’ll stay with me?”

“Until the very end,” James says. 

“They won’t be able to see you?” asks Harry, just to be sure. He wouldn’t want them to be disturbed by Voldemort even now, in their resting forms. Not now. Not because of him. But - and it should be shameful to admit it even in the confines of his own heart, but all things feel quite far to his heart right now - he thinks he might not be able to do this without them. 

“We are part of you,” Sirius says. It feels like a promise. “Invisible to anyone else.” 

“Stay close to me,” Harry says quietly. And with the only people who’ve ever made him feel safe, Harry Potter walks to his death. 

Death is more confusing that it seems, and certainly brighter than expected. Dumbledore is waiting there for him with answers to every question Harry has ever wondered, and it feels like…a gift, of sorts. As if the universe is making up for all the lies, the games, the stolen times with this moment: you are dead now, Harry, and things are clean and calm and quiet. Ask away, learn as you please, know that you were loved and meant to die but never to stay dead.

“But if Voldemort used the Killing Curse,” Harry starts again, “and nobody died for me this time - how can I be alive?” 

“I think you know,” Dumbledore says encouragingly. “Think back. Remember what he did, in his ignorance, in his greed and his cruelty.” 

Right. Answers can’t always just be handed to him, not with Albus Dumbledore, so Harry thinks. He lets his gaze drift over his surroundings. If this is indeed a palace in which they sit, it’s an odd one, with chairs set in little rows and bits of railing here and there, and still, he and Dumbledore and the stunted creature under the chair are the only beings there. It’s looking at the creature that brings it to him, then, and the answer rises to his lips easily, without effort.

“He took my blood,” Harry says. 

“Precisely!” Dumbledore exclaims, looking as if he might beam. “He took your blood and rebuilt his living body with it! Your blood in his veins, Harry, Lily’s protection inside both of you! He tethered you to life while he lives!” 

“I live...while he lives! But I thought…I thought it was the other way round! I thought we both had to die? Or is it the same thing?”

He’s distracted by the whimpering and thumping of the agonized creature behind them and glances back at it yet again. It feels so wrong to be sitting here having a conversation without any care for the poor thing, wretched and ugly as it might appear. It might hurt to die for some, but surely the afterlife cannot be cruel to such a wrinkled and baby-like thing? To inflict pain, even now. 

“Are you sure we can’t do anything?” 

“There is no help possible.”

“Then explain…more,” Harry says, tearing his eyes away uncomfortably. Dumbledore smiles as if he knows exactly what Harry’s thinking and finds him precious for it. 

“You were the seventh Horcrux, Harry, the Horcrux he never meant to make. He had rendered his soul so unstable that it broke apart when he committed those acts of unspeakable evil, the murder of your parents, the attempted killing of a child. But what escaped from that room was even less than he knew. He left more than his body behind. He left part of himself latched to you, the would-be victim who had survived.” 

“And his knowledge remained woefully incomplete, Harry! That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children’s tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped. He took your blood believing it would strengthen him. He took into his body a tiny part of the enchantment your mother laid upon you when she died for you. His body keeps her sacrifice alive, and while that enchantment survives, so do you and so does Voldemort’s one last hope for himself.” 

Dumbledore smiles at Harry after he finishes speaking, and all Harry can do is stare back. 

“And you knew this? You knew - all along?”

“I guessed. But my guesses have usually been good,” says Dumbledore happily, and they sit in silence for what seemed like a long time, while the creature behind them continued to whimper and tremble. 

In the silence, it’s as if a voice drifts to his ears from the endless white light: the fight will soon be over, Harry, if only you open your eyes and raise your wand one last time. 

It sounds like his mum. It sounds like Mrs. Weasley. It sounds like Tonks. It is the call of life - the call of a mother. It is the voice of every woman that walked along his path by rendering their flesh and blood to bring new life forth. It croons to him in the wake of Dumbledore’s explanation as if Harry needed another reason to go back and fight other than that he should - other than that in doing so, he can finally put those who are gone to rest. 

Harry Potter has died, but is not dead. He cannot die, you see, for despite every moment he wished to be and every moment he almost was, it seems he still cannot give in to death without putting up a fight. 

Survivor, Tonks had called him. Perhaps this is what she meant by that. 

So Harry watches the man who helped make him the person he is today disappear into a creeping white mist and turns on his heel to make good on the promise he made to his godson's mother, to his best friends. He is to head into what might be the final, most fierce battle of his life and death, and he knows not what the circumstances he returns to will be. Harry is not afraid to die fighting, but he's certainly afraid to let anyone else die tonight. 

There's been far too much of that already. 

And now, it seems, he is the only one who can defeat Voldemort. There is no need for training, no great magics involved, no people needed as sacrifices to keep him alive long enough to grow stronger. Voldemort has doomed himself by his own hand, and Harry cannot come to harm from the bastard. Not in the way everyone else still can, because of his mother and her sacrifice that lives on even now. A thick, pulsing greed forms within Harry's chest as that thought summons a fantastical idea in him: Voldemort and his Death Eaters downed without anyone else getting hurt, all because Harry's sacrifice has guaranteed their safety like his mother’s did him. The greed intertwines with determination as the white mist creeps over his feet and moves upwards. 

I'll protect them, Harry thinks fiercely as he heads back into war, I'll keep them safe. Just like mum. 

Casting one last glance at the poor, sniffling waif left alone in the station - for Harry cannot think of it as anything other than an abandoned, battered orphan just like him with no one to care for it - he clenches his jaw and spares a second to regret that he can't change its fate for however much he wants to. He stalks into the mist, a man with a mission, and does not catch the magic in the air that sparkles within the light of his heartfelt wishes; in that moment, this strange, peculiar palace of his own imagining does not grant him opulence or grandeur, but something much more important to Harry Potter. 

It grants him a choice. 

He doesn't know yet that the way in which he will return is not the way he expects, nor is it the one anyone could have predicted; not even Albus Dumbledore. For you see, Dumbledore is often correct about a great deal of things. He is a learned man with a capable mind, has spent decades studying and observing the curiosities of magic, and is - as admitted from his own mouth - quite good at guessing. But even Albus Dumbledore cannot know that while he’s correct about many of the things he’s explained to Harry in this makeshift King’s Cross Station, he’s just a tad off on one particular aspect. There's still sacrifice and a mother's love and arcane, inexplicable magics involved, but not in the way that the storybooks you've read tell.

Harry Potter dies. He wakes up. And he is no longer in the Forbidden Forest. 

His skin feels oddly tight as he wakes up on the floor of the Great Hall, the starry ceiling blurring in front of his eyes. There's the quiet sounds of weeping and rustling making their way to him as he gains his bearings one muscle at a time, and he wonders distantly if perhaps they might be for him. His trembling hands search his robes and neck for the mokeskin pouch or Draco's wand, but neither seems within reach. Maybe Hermione took it? He must have been dead longer than expected if they had the time to bring him inside from the grounds unless Voldemort miraculously deigned to extend his offer of a temporary truce in the face of killing Harry at last. For a moment, Harry fears that his return was all for naught: that the battle is over and his friends dead while he was wasting time away with Dumbledore wanting his blasted curiosity sated, and he will wake up alone in a world with no one left to return to. 

Then the screams erupt from the castle grounds with rage and sorrow like he has never heard before from familiar voices, and he goes limp from relief just before his limbs kick into action. 

Leaping to his feet and scrambling over the body lying just beside him - is it Remus? dear god, they laid him next to Remus - his vision begins to clear up, and a wand clatters to the floor nearby. Harry grabs it and tries to pull out his Invisibility Cloak, but that's gone too; thinking desperately for his next move and figuring stealth is a better card to play than going blasting in when everyone thinks he's dead, he summons the Cloak with the wand he's found. The wood is much lighter than it should be, and there's a long pause where he can actively feel the wand fighting him before it gives in, allowing him to finally realize that it was never the hawthorn wand he expected. The Cloak comes rushing to him soon enough in a warp of light and rustling fabric, and he wraps himself in it before he makes his way to the huge double doors that the other mourners have begun to crowd. 

The wand fights him as he tries to summon Draco's as well to no avail, but he lifts it anyways as he sprints past gasping students and fighters to reach the front entrance of his beloved Hogwarts; Hagrid is carrying something, and Voldemort is booming something, and every one of Harry's senses feel wrong. The world is too loud to his ears, too quiet to his eyes, and for some reason, too slippery for his legs to keep running on as they should. Bits and pieces of the conversation manage to enter his water-logged brain, words like Neville and Dumbledore and Death Eater. He trips at least thrice - once is entirely the fault of the flapping mass that shoots out of the castle's windows and nearly clips him - until he's made it far enough that he can just spot the lone silhouette of someone on their knees at the very front. 

“Oh fuck,” he whispers before he can help it. 

He edges closer while avoiding contact with others in the crowd, too stunned to speak. What else can a boy do when confronted with the image of his seemingly dead body being held aloft in a half-giant's arms while his good friend kneels at Voldemort’s feet, bruised and unbroken? And is that…the Sorting Hat? 

“Neville here is now going to demonstrate what happens to anyone foolish enough to continue to oppose me,” says Voldemort right before a flick of his wand sets the Sorting Hat aflame. 

“No!” 

Harry's furious shout when he throws himself forward to do something, anything, is lost in the gasps and screams of the others as Neville sits there, rooted to the dirt as flames begin to spill over down to his shoulders- 

-and then his friend is rising to his feet among the chaos of centaurs galloping into the fray, Grawp yelling for Hagrid, and a sword glitters in his blood-stained hands just as Neville Longbottom slices Nagini's neck off in one fell sweep. 

Harry's, “YOU BRILLIANT BASTARD!” is cut off as he hurriedly raises a strained Shield Charm between Neville and Voldemort, and then between Voldemort and nearly every direction the bloody Elder Wand so much as twitches in. Masses of people are spilling onto the grounds behind Charlie and Slughorn as Harry is swept into the entrance hall against his wall by the throngs of running wizards escaping the fight outside. It seems like everyone in Hogsmeade has arrived, shopkeepers and villagers and families of students arriving to fight for their loved ones even in the face of You-Know-Who himself. The wand is slowly beginning to accept him better than earlier as he shoots off Shield Charms one after another, but Harry still can't trust it to work properly for a real fight. Likely because he hasn't won it's allegiance, or because the person who already has is running amok somewhere else. 

“Listen to me, dammit,” he hissed at it, “I've got a bloody dark wizard to take down and people to protect, so either help summon the wand I want or do what I ask you!” 

Rather unexpectedly, the wand hums in his hand twice and then lays flat. Blinking back suspicion, Harry figures something happened and tries summoning Draco's wand once more. He hears it before he sees it in the light of the entrance hall that spills out to the grounds outside - a whistle of air as something tiny hurtles towards him, flying high above the battle breaking out in full force. 

“Er, thank you,” Harry says for good measure to Merlin-only-knows-whose wand before he jumps up to catch the hawthorn stick just above the head of a Ravenclaw darting past. 

The hawthorn wand feels strangely big for his hands when he grabs it, but before Harry can frown, he feels a faint tingle run up his fingers and it settles quite nicely. Exactly the way he remembers, even. Tucking the other one away in his back pocket and dashing off, Harry breaks to the center of the fight as it pushes into the hall proper to avoid casualties in the melee outside. Trying to keep eyes on Voldemort, he trips again as a spell whizzes towards McGonagall, the words for a shield falling off his lips too slowly, but then- 

“NO!” Ginny screams, her attention drawn away from Bellatrix as she catches sight of the same thing, her wand instinctively tilting left- 

-and then, to everyone's surprise, the sickly purple spells aimed towards both of them bounces off their robes and leave scorch marks on the nearby stone. 

Stumbling to his knees, Harry doesn't allow the sheer, overwhelming relief to keep him down long. Behind him, the loud voice of Molly Weasley echoes through the hall. 

“GINNY! OUT OF MY WAY, LET - ME - THROUGH!” 

She pushes through and takes over where Ginny, Luna, and Hermione left off, Bellatrix still spouting off curses left and right out of frustration as nothing lands a hit even when they rush past Molly’s counterspells; over by Kingsley, Voldemort is scowling as well, his eyes too wide as he begins to realize what's going on. He aims spell after spell at them, and slowly they, too, begin to realize as well. The Great Hall is filling with scorch marks and bouncing lights every second, dazzling to the naked eye.

“What is this?” he hisses as he slashes his wand. “What have you cast?! There is nothing that can deflect any and all magic, not even the most dark and powerful of rituals! Not without-” 

But whatever it is that's required is never mentioned then, for he waves his wand to send them flying from sheer concussive force instead of a lethal curse. It's too late. Harry watches Bellatrix Lestrange laugh just like Sirius did, that night in the Ministry. It is with a sudden, inexplicable surety that he knows she's going to die before anyone else does to Mrs. Weasley’s roar of, “NOT - ANY - CHILD - EVER - AGAIN!” 

And just like that, Harry understands. Delight glues his feet to the floor for just a moment, swirling up from his toes like flames licking up into his chest; in every direction, battle continues. Yet for every curse and jinx and charm cast, only Death Eaters are falling. His friends and fellow students remain unharmed as anything that touches them is sent away without so much as a sound, safe from all danger. One by one, the fighters are choosing to go on the offensive as the Shield Charms go unneeded, and the tide turns so quickly it's as if a tsunami has chosen to bowl Voldemort's allies over right here, right now. 

“I did it,” Harry whispers, so deliriously happy that he sways on his feet. Just like mum.  

Confidence fills his bones and grants him the strength to run forth while Voldemort erupts from fury and sends everyone within twenty metres of him blasted backwards. Dashing towards Mrs. Weasley at once with a flourish of his Invisibility Cloak to protect her from any attempt at vengeance, Harry reveals himself to the entire castle with a victorious beam. 

All around him, noise erupts: cheers, gasps, astonished shouts of “Harry!” and “HE'S ALIVE!” He feels Mrs. Weasley move at his back as if she wants to throw herself forward in a hug, but she manages to stay in place with a shuddering cry. Beam thick on his face, Harry finds it in himself to turn round and grant the women behind him a cheeky wink. 

“Surprise,” he mouths, to which Mrs. Weasley lets slip a few tears. Luna, to her credit, winks right back, though Hermione looks slightly murderous next to Ginny's pure relief. Oops?

“It's okay,” he reassures them, his beam fading into a smaller but no less confident smile. “I can take over from here. Just me and him - that's the way it's got to be.” 

Voldemort can't die by anyone else's hands, after all. 

“Potter doesn't mean that,” Voldemort says, regaining his slick, superior tone once again. His red eyes widen and thin like a snake's, but Harry feels no fear looking upon him anymore. “That isn't how he works, is it? Who are you going to use as a shield today, Potter?” 

“No one,” Harry says with a laugh as he follows step in this strange dance, wand held aloft and steady. “Don't you see? There are no more horcruxes. It's just you and me, and, well…you won't be here much longer.” 

“Me?” Voldemort jeers, his muscles tensing at the insinuation while he stares. “When you are just the boy who survived by accident, the one who survived because Dumbledore was pulling the strings?” 

“Accident, was it, when my mother died to save me? Accident, when I decided to fight in the graveyard? Accident, when I didn't defend myself tonight and still survived to fight you again?” 

“Accidents!” Voldemort screams as if saying it loud enough will turn the truth into lies - but it wouldn't, and he knew that, for still he did not strike as hundreds of people watched them with bated breath in the Great Hall. “Accidents and chance and the fact that you crouched and sniveled behind the skirts of greater men and women, and permitted me to kill them for you!” 

“Don't you get it?” Harry asks, suspended in disbelief. Voldemort twitches, but does not move again, and Harry cannot help but chuckle. “You can't kill anyone ever again, can't hurt anyone ever again. You saw it with your own eyes, Riddle-”

“You dare!” 

“I dare,” Harry agrees, his eyes glinting with steel. “I dare, Tom Riddle, because I've done something you could never do.” 

“Is it love again?” scoffs Voldemort, his snake’s face jeering. “Dumbledore’s favorite solution, love, which he claimed conquered death, though love did not stop him falling from the tower and breaking like an old wax-work? Love, which did not prevent me stamping out your Mudblood mother like a cockroach, Potter - and nobody seems to love you enough to run forward this time and take my curse. Do you stand here attempting to convince me that love will protect you from me on this night, fool?”

“Yes,” Harry answers softly. “I have loved, and been loved. And because of that, I learned a magic you could never hope to wield. You will die tonight, Riddle, unless you take this chance to think. Love taught me what it means to sacrifice, and in sacrificing myself to protect these people, I've tied your hands. None of your spells are binding, none will hurt them. You can't torture them - you can't even touch them. You don't learn from your mistakes, do you?” 

Voldemort is temporarily mesmerized by the mention of the protection, too eager to undo it and learn the secrets of Harry's impossible feat. It won't last long, he knows. “But you are alive, Potter! You have not died, and no such sacrifice occurred.” 

“To you, maybe,” Harry says as they stare into each other's eyes without blinking. “But I meant to, and so I did. You wouldn't understand, though. You've always sacrificed other people, other magic, other opportunities…never yourself. Never known what it means to give yourself to something or someone entirely. That's why my mom defeated you seventeen years ago, and why I'll defeat you today!”

“You think you know more magic than I do?” his opponent says snidely. “Than I, than Lord Voldemort, who has performed magic that Dumbledore himself never dreamed of?”

So Harry reveals the truth to them, speaks as freely as he pleases. Few will truly understand the meaning of all that he says, but perhaps the most important bits will remain clear to them instead of the mysteries of horcruxes and fabled wands. He explains, mocks, and makes one, final bargain. For the pitiful wretch still stuck in King's Cross with no one to care for it, forever remaining in between life and death. For the mother who drained her life and magic to birth Riddle. For Harry, who recalls the various ways he has made it to today because a man was given a second chance in the form of James Potter, Sirius Black, Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore. Because Voldemort cannot hurt anyone he loves ever again. 

“Think, Riddle. Think about what you've done and try for some remorse. It's your one last chance. I’ve seen what you'll be otherwise…be a man, won't you? Try…deep down within you, try for some remorse.” 

But Tom Riddle was never a man for change, and so he lifts his wand to cast a spell that slips off his tongue like melted butter: Voldemort aims the Killing Curse at Harry, and Harry the Disarming Spell at him. 

As soon as the pale, snake-like man falls to the ground with a soft thump, the silence breaks with a cacophonous roar that washes his ears with joy and relief. Everywhere round him are arms and cheeks and teary eyes, Neville and Ginny and Luna and Ron and Hermione, then the other Weasleys, and then Hagrid, and it feels like wave after wave of claps upon his shoulders, kisses pressed to his cheeks or temples, hugs winding round his arms and back. But he can't celebrate yet, for there are too many questions still left unanswered, and whatever giddiness that had warmed his blood since finding out he's protected everyone he loves is gone. Grabbing Hermione and Ron as soon as he can to slip away outside the hall, Harry feels an odd sense of foreboding creep into his chest instead of relief. Luna catches his eyes as he struggles to leave, and with a sudden shriek she points in the distance so that everyone nearby is immediately distracted. Pulling out his Cloak while Ron uses his swaggering build to shield him from any prying eyes, they follow after him without a word for the explanation they know he'll give them. 

To their surprise, he leads them to the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Now that there are no longer giants or centaurs or house elves roaming about in battle, the area is clear for them to find exactly what’s been troubling Harry most since his return. There, as he suspected, lies the peaceful body of a boy upon the loamy earth.

“Is that-?” Hermione gasps at once. Beside her, Ron goes pale and sways on his feet. 

“Yeah,” Harry says as he stares blankly at a very familiar face. “I think…I think it is.” 

“But…how? You're - you're right here,” Hermione stutters. As if suddenly afraid by the notion that he may fade before their eyes, his two friends crowd his sides to cling onto his arms. “Harry?” 

Fingers trembling, he kneels down and reaches towards the cooled corpse. Feeling his heart drop as the mokeskin pouch reveals itself to them round its neck, Harry can only stare blankly at his own face. 

“Those are your clothes,” Hermione whispers with horror as wandlight illuminates their surroundings. “I hadn't even…” 

“But you're Harry, aren't you?” Ron says with a thick swallow. He looks green round the edges, but holds onto his friend with a firm grip. “Aren't you?” 

“I woke up in the Great Hall,” he tells them nonsensically. “I thought…I figured you brought me in. But you didn't, did you?” 

“No,” Hermione says, squeezing his hands for dear life. “We didn't.” 

The shock permeates through their tired bodies and into the air like a tangible mist while they stand stock-still, minds racing. 

And then, looking at the robes he's wearing with a dawning sense of familiarity, something extraordinary happens to the boy who calls himself Harry Potter: with a gasp, his hair begins to grow pink from the ends up, his features shrinking and morphing, and when he looks to them with fear crossing his face, he isn't Harry at all. 

“Tonks,” he says, his voice softer and higher-pitched. While they scramble back with cut off yelps, he leans over to the side and pukes whatever is left in his stomach. Or - Tonks’ stomach. 

“Fucking - what just happened?” Ron gasps, looking as if he might be sick himself. “Hermione-?” 

“I woke up in the Great Hall,” Harry mumbles after wiping his mouth. Hermione lowers her wand, but only just as she takes in his now brown eyes that are dazed, mouth lax with saliva. “I was - I was next to Lupin. Remus.” 

“Harry,” Hermione whispers before she clears her throat. “Just…start from the beginning.” 

They still don't understand what's happened, but they know their best mate well enough to be sure that even a Metamorphmagus couldn't disguise herself as him this successfully, nor could she have knowledge of the secrets Harry did. Not to mention the fact that she was most assuredly dead before - well, before any of this.  

“The beginning…the beginning?” Eyes stuck on his soft, small hands that look nothing like the ones that've been living out of a tent for the past year, Harry gives a jerky nod. “Right. Okay.” 

So they sit there on the forest floor with dirt clinging to their robes and listen with their hearts in their throats, afraid of the events that have occurred but much more afraid of being separated. Harry speaks of Snape’s memories, of dying, of meeting Dumbledore. He speaks until his mouth has run dry and keeps going until, as he stares at the lightning-shaped scar on the forehead right before him, he gains a vague understanding. He wouldn't have been able to figure it out before, but listening to Dumbledore in King’s Cross has granted him a wealth of knowledge that begins slotting pieces of the puzzle of this most strange, serendipitous occasion on his behalf. To return from death is a blessing in and of itself, he knows, but to guarantee peace and safety upon loved ones….

“Oh,” he says dumbly as he stops in the middle of a sentence. “Oh.” 

“You were hearing your mum and mine, you said?” 

“Harry?” Hermione asks when he doesn't continue. She nudges his elbow carefully. “What is it? Have you figured it out?” 

“I…I wanted to protect everyone,” he rasps as his eyes grow wet. “I thought…I imagined it, when I was coming back. That by dying, I might give you all the same - the same protection my mum gave me. So that he couldn't hurt anyone ever again. I wanted it so badly.” 

“I don't get it,” Ron shakes his head, frowning, but Hermione’s lips wobble as she follows his tracks. 

“You don't think-” 

“I died,” Harry says, the words slow and heavy as the strike of a hammer. “I really died. That's why it worked.” 

Ron gulps down the instinctive denial that rushes up his tongue and looks at the gleaming, pink spikes sitting atop his friend's head. 

“I was thinking of her, when I was coming back,” Harry tells them with tears streaking down his cheeks as the truth settles upon him, cloaking him from the celebration and mourning that echoes from the castle. “She…in the Room of Requirement, Tonks told me she had a bad feeling. That she was going to die tonight, but she was sure I wouldn't. Called me a - a survivor. When I chose to come back, I wished that I was as strong as her…as my mum, both of them gone to keep their kids safe. Tonks asked me to look after…” 

The very idea of it chokes him up, and he buries a sob in his knees as he folds into himself to let loose the grief clouding his chest. His hair darkens into a jet black again as it grows into lengthy locks, irises clouding green beneath shut lids, and his limbs grow wiry and thin where they used to be plump and soft from weight leftover after the pregnancy. 

“Oh god,” he sobs, “The baby. Oh, Merlin.” 

And then, because one sorrow always leads to another in war, “Fred - and Lupin - and…” 

Faces crumpling, Ron and Hermione wrap him in their arms and let loose their own ragged cries as dawn spills light over the castle. The war is won, the dead are gone. And here they remain, hard-won victors, to face the new world left in their wake. People will come looking for them soon enough to share their sorrows, their giddy relief, their thanks and apologies, and they will attend funerals and shroud the dearly departed, and the sun will rise far, far above them as she always does. Harry will wish to fade in the background as the immense reality of life and death sinks into his changed bones, hiding his own body in the confines of Gryffindor Tower, and he will come to make a great many decisions that he cannot be sure of, but feels must be right. 

The point where everything becomes crystal clear to him goes something like this: he'll be asleep in a four-poster bed, Ron and Hermione lying together nearby, and Ginny will come running up the tower. 

She'll throw the door open in a panicked frenzy, shouting, “Tonks is gone! Something's - something's happened, someone's moved her, or - or taken her. Nobody knows where she is! Wake up!” 

And when Ron and Hermione jerk awake, still bleary-eyed and confused, Ginny will throw open the curtains round the bed she expects Harry to be in and will find a mousy-haired woman with a button nose and a heart-shaped face and breasts instead of a jet-black mop's head on a skinny, stubbled young man. She'll stand there, bewildered, until she realizes that the woman's chest is moving up and down, and her scream will jerk the woman up from sleep; brown hair will darken, warm amber eyes will colour green, and any roundness will be lost to gaunt cheeks and dark bags. 

“What's wrong? What's happened?!” Harry will ask urgently, fumbling for his wand, and when he looks up, there will be three identical expressions of horror staring back at him. 

Ginny will remain confused and angry until Harry steels his courage to take down the wards they set up on the last occupied bed in this tower, revealing his body in its cold, dead glory. She'll sway on her feet, looking between them, flinching when he reaches out to hold her hand. But just as soon as she does, Ginny will snatch it into hers and dig her nails into his wrist as if to feel his pulse sink into her fingers, and she'll throw herself into Harry's arms with a sob, and she will surprise them by mourning Harry Potter instead of Nymphadora Tonks. 

“I can't believe you died,” Ginny will say, shuddering from head to toe, and Harry will allow her to press her ears against his chest to reassure herself against his beating heart. “Don't you ever do that again, arsehole.”  

“I won't,” Harry will promise with a lump in his throat. 

When all's said and done, he heads to the Great Hall under the cover of his Invisibility Cloak. Staring down at the body of a man who once held his hand and guided him through casting the Patronus Charm, scarred and greying, Harry feels an overwhelming swell of guilt at his breastbone that even in death, he has taken something from Remus Lupin - has left him without his wife by his side as she was meant to be. As she wanted to be. 

But this is no time for self-hatred or pity: he has a task to carry out. He leaves Ron and Hermione to explain the lack of one Nymphadora Lupin’s body to their friends and family and leaves the grounds for Hogsmeade. The morning is damp and dreary, dew clinging to his robes and shoes. He tries his best to think of what to say when he gets there, but fails to come up with the right words even when he Apparates to his destination. Knocking on the door with a sense of dread, Harry doesn't even have the energy to flinch when it flings open with a bang to reveal a harried Andromeda Tonks. 

“Oh,” she says as she takes him in. Who had she expected, he wonders. Remus? Tonks? Both, even, coming home together to rejoin their son? And then Andromeda processes what his presence must mean, now of all times when the only other time they met was in the middle of an Order mission, and a trembling hand rises to cover her mouth. “Oh.”  

“May I come in?” Harry asks, his voice barely above a whisper. She stumbles back after a long pause and heads into the house without another word, and he follows her in. She teeters and totters to the sofa as Harry remains standing. 

“B-Both of them?” she manages to ask, staring down at the floor. 

“Both of them,” Harry says softly. Eyes growing damp, he wills his gaze to remain on her for the duration of this conversation - she deserves much more than this, but it’s the only he can give her. He might as well do it right. A sincere confession straight from the source, a chance at understanding, a person to blame for her loss. “Mrs. Tonks…I came here to say I'm sorry.” 

She scoffs, raising her eyes to look at him. She looks nothing like Bellatrix to him anymore, with her red-rimmed eyes and hair braided to the side, heartache covering every pore of her face. She looks too old, too sad, too soft. 

“Apologize? For my daughter running off to join a fight she knew would kill her? For my grandson losing both his parents in one night? Don't bother.” 

“No,” Harry gulps, his nerves - Tonks’ nerves - acting up. “I came here to apologize for…for taking your daughter away from you.” 

And with halting, stiff words, he begins to explain to her why there will be no body for her to bury in the coming days, nor for many years longer. He does not hide his death, does not hide his conversation with Tonks before it, does not hide why he believes this happened. She is a wife who lost her husband, a mother who lost her child, a grandmother with an orphaned, newborn grandson. This is the least he can do for tearing their family apart…for leaving Remus without his wife…Teddy without his mother…her without a daughter…and Tonks with none of them…

“I'm sorry,” he repeats, tears streaking down his face. He doesn't even realize that he’s literally shrunk before her eyes to a Harry that hasn’t existed in four years: smaller, skinnier, weaker. Harry's so busy apologizing he doesn't see the way her breath catches at the transformation, an air of truth finally ringing through his fantastical, mad story. “I'm so sorry, Mrs. Tonks. If I hadn't asked for - for both of those things…if I'd only come back or only asked everyone else to be safe, this wouldn't have happened. And I'm not good enough at magic to undo it, so I can't give you her back. As long as I’m alive, anyway.” 

She frowns immediately, her hands jerking for a wand. “That best not mean you’re thinking of - of something you can't undo.” 

“Something I can't…? What - no! No, not like that,” Harry rushes to explain, ashamed to have let her even consider that. “I meant, whenever it is I die, this body…it's not going to look like me, Mrs. Tonks. When I-”

Throat working uselessly, Harry blinks back a fresh wave of tears. “When I'm asleep, I'm…her again. So I'm pretty sure that when I die, this body…” 

“I see,” Andromeda says faintly. She looks paler, suddenly, and sways in her seat. 

“So, um, I'm planning…I wanted to let you know that when I'm gone and this is just her again, I'll - I'll ask to be buried in the grave with the right name. My, erm, body is still out there, so…I'll have a grave of my own soon. That's it. That's the one I get. So I can't give her back to you now, but I will whenever that day comes.” 

Staring at the boy who looks all of twelve or thirteen before her, a mismatched soul living in her dead daughter's body, Andromeda Tonks wonders what her life has become. Only thirty years ago she was his age, running away in the night to marry a man that's now gone, looking forward to a new life free of the rules and poison that she was born into. Here she is now: no parents, no husband, no daughter. Just a middling woman with a newborn grandson and a boy who's apparently sacrificed himself to prevent anyone from getting hurt a little too late for her benefit. For a moment, she almost voices that - but then she takes another breath, looks into his green eyes, and sighs. 

“There are many things you can do with the flesh and blood of a wizard,” Andromeda tells him heavily. “Things you've gone through yourself, I've heard, because of You-Know-Who. I've studied many of them in my years as a Black, back when I was attempting to understand what made the blood in my veins so different from a halfblood's or a muggleborn's. But this…a magic like this can only happen through choice, Harry Potter.”

“I'm…I'm sorry?” he says, confused by her nonsensical response. 

“I'm trying to tell you not to be,” Andromeda says with a grimace. Scratching at a loose thread in her pyjamas, she lets her wrinkled brow loosen. “What I mean is that if you've taken over Nymphadora's body, that you really died and came back as someone else…it can only be that you were allowed to. Whether or not she would have done it if she was alive at the time, I don't know, but. My daughter gave you that body, Harry Potter. Being a Metamorphmagus protected her from a great many things - you couldn't have stolen it from her, and certainly not by accident. So…”

Pursing her lips, she whispers, “...you'd better bloody well take care of her, or I'll kill you better than V-Voldemort ever did.” 

They sit there in silence for a long time as Harry processes those words. He’s not quite sure what to make of the situation until they're startled by the sudden cry of a babe, which is when he realizes they're not the only ones in the house. Of course they aren't. Where else would the baby - would Teddy be? 

He follows her instinctively, torn between wanting just a glimpse and to run away with his tail between his legs for shame, but then he spots Teddy Lupin wailing from his cot for comfort he'll never, ever receive again from either of his parents, and it feels like he's been plucked out of this moment and dropped into a different time, a different cottage, a different life, with a different baby. 

Andromeda picks him up and shushes him, lifting his dummy so he can soothe himself on it, and it’s only as she's bouncing him round the room that she looks up and sees Harry standing there. She gasps, her fingers spasming round Teddy’s hips, and then she swallows her tongue. 

“Sorry,” Harry whispers shakily. “Didn't mean to startle you.” 

“No, it's…” she says, clearly attempting to put out words that won't come. “You aren't…I couldn't tell. That it was you.” 

Terrified he's accidentally reminded her of her daughter in an awful, tragic moment, Harry rushes to apologize, “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to - it just happens, I think, I don't know how to control it! I swear I'm not doing it on purpose.” 

“Not Dora,” she tells him, understanding his panic after a slow blink. “It's, well…” 

Bewildered and curious, Harry creeps over to the mobile above the cot. Catching hold of the little mirror, he lifts it to see his own reflection and then freezes. 

Lily Potter's wide-eyed, pale face stares back at him. 

Wrenching his eyes away from the palm-sized mirror and looking down at his hands - softer, smaller, with pinker undertones than his - he reaches for the hair brushing his shoulders and rubs the dark red strands between his fingers. 

“My mum,” he murmurs, still stunned. “I'm…my mum.” 

Clearing her throat, Andromeda tells him, “Well, Teddy needs to be fed now, so…” 

With a bravado he isn't sure he ought to have, Harry shuffles to the side and then blurts out, “Can I - can I try? Feeding him?” 

She looks surprised by the idea that he might want to in the first place rather than offended, so he presses on hesitantly. “Well, I'm…he's my godson. I'm supposed to help take care of him, aren't I?” 

Studying his determined green eyes in a new, older face, Andromeda sighs. “Have you ever held a babe before, Potter? Fed them? Burped them? Changed a nappie?” 

“N-No,” Harry says, pushing forth while he absently realizes his voice is still coming out of this changed mouth. “But I can learn. For him. I'm not-” 

Running a hand through his long, red hair, Harry borrows courage from his mother's spirit in this look-alike body that makes him feel as if he might be able to do anything and tells her, “I know I can't be like - like his parents, but if I was only going to stick around for the easy bits, I would never have bothered coming here. It might not mean much to you, but being a godfather is…it means something to me. My own godfather was one of the most important people in my life. I made a promise to Remus and Tonks when I agreed to this, and that means that - that no matter what happens, I've got to stick by their son. I know I'm not really his mum, I'm just a kid to you, but…there’s no point in me surviving all this if I let him end up like me. I mean that for any kid, but especially him.” 

Because he died and came back in someone else's body after promising to take care of their son, and she might be his grandmother, but Andromeda Tonks will never know what it’s like to be this baby - to be Harry, to be Teddy. An orphan whose parents died in war, leaving him behind nothing but a handful of photographs and a house he won't see for years. A little boy crying for comfort from people who will never arrive, his only source of information being a grandmother that never truly knew his father. 

You don’t have to do anything special, Tonks had said. Just do what you would have wanted someone to do for you. 

So Harry Potter sticks his neck out in a situation that utterly terrifies him and tries to do exactly that. 

“I can't be his parents,” Harry repeats, flexing his mother's rounded jaw. “But I can pretend, I can try, and I'll be something.” 

“Okay,” she says quietly. Looking away to blink back tears, she nods, then nods again. “Alright. They chose you, so you're right. Come on.” 

So she teaches Harry Potter in Lily Potter's form how to prepare Teddy’s formula, how to warm it just shy of hot as the babe likes it, guides him through how much force it takes to burp the gassy little thing so that he doesn't get a tummy ache and spit everything up later. Harry stays behind for the nappie change, not quite ready but observing for future reference, and wrinkles his nose at the smell but makes no complaint as he throws it out for her.  

Then he heads to the loo, where he remains for a worrying amount of time before she hears the door crack open again. 

“Erm, I know I've sort of forced myself on you already,” he says, voice thin and reedy with poorly veiled terror, “but…I, um, need h-help. And if you d-don't want to, I can leave and figure this out somewhere else-” 

Alarmed, she flicks her wand and sets up a miniature barrier round Teddy so that he can't roll over and stalks towards him. “What's happened? Is it - is it Nymphadora?” 

“Sort of,” Harry mutters. Pursing his lips awkwardly, he shifts behind the door and opens it just a sliver wider. “Uh, it's just. Do you know how I turn back? To myself?” 

“Turn back?” she asks, bewildered by the notion. “I - well, I wouldn't know. She was never really…decided, as you were. Nymphadora often just changed as she pleased, and sometimes without even thinking of it. What's wrong?” 

Blushing almost as fiercely as his hair, Harry stutters around the answer before he shuts his eyes closed and grits out, “I dunno how to use the loo!” 

For a moment all she does is stare at him, mouth agape. Slowly, so slowly he finds it prudent to sneak a peek, she closes her mouth and makes a peculiar noise that’s not quite a wheeze, not quite a sob. Slapping a hand over her mouth when his humiliation begins to warm into betrayal, she swallows down the staggering swell of grief and delirious laughter threatening to escape and takes a few steadying breaths.

“Right,” she says at last. “The loo. Have you, er, tried…sitting down?” 

“I'm my mum!” Harry exclaims, horrified. 

“Then don't be your mum,” she tells him with a twitch of her lips. “Be someone else.” 

“I've tried that,” Harry grumbles around the bloodless hands pressed round the door. “Didn't work. There was just, erm…nothing. At all.” 

“Do you mean to say,” Andromeda enunciates in her posh, proper way without sounding half as distressed as she ought to, “that you have nothing down there of either kind?” 

“No! I meant - bloody hell, I meant everything stayed the same!”  

“Well,” Andromeda says for lack of anything better. Not much you can say to that when you're sleep-deprived, grieving your entire family, and dealing with a seventeen year old you hardly know living in your daughter's body with no control of it. “You must not have a very good imagination, then. Or poor experience.”

He groans and bangs his head against the door thrice. 

“Maybe, erm, you don't feel much like yourself,” she suggests with a faint hint of pity. “So…think of something that does that. Makes you feel like Harry Potter.” 

Chewing on her words, Harry nods and closes his eyes. With slow, deep breaths, he closes the door and tries to follow her advice by considering what makes him feel like himself - just Harry, with no one or nothing to distract him. Gaze falling on the bathtub at the far end, he feels an idea tug on his thoughts. Lifting his wand, he begins by transfiguring his clothes into the Hogwarts uniform - black robes, red trim, Gryffindor insignia sewn onto his chest, a red and gold striped tie. He folds himself into the bathtub and draws the curtains, closing himself off from the rest of the world and ignoring his desperate urge to pee. Casting a Silencing Charm and covering up the little shower window so that the only light coming through is faint, dim slivers, he holds onto his knees and lets the darkness sink into him. There is no one here but him, and no one to keep him company. He is alone, warm in his skin and cold against the ceramic bathtub. There are no parents, no babies, no dead friends, no godsons, no godfathers. 

“Harry,” he whispers over and over again. “I'm Harry. Just Harry.” 

He tries his best to recall his own features like earlier, but slower. More detailed. The thin, pink lightning bolt scar. The rough, messy fringe of black hair. The other scars he knows too well: from Ripper the dog, from the basilisk, from the blood quill, from the blood ritual. His father's face with his mother's eyes. Harry James Potter. 

He's so focused on his own body in this moment, on the feel of his own skin and the length of his bones, that he feels the magic as it changes Harry from the inside out - it trickles through his limbs, almost itchy. Like little pulses, it pushes further and further until it envelops him down to the furthest fingertip and toe, humming in his ears. When the humming stops and he feels as if he isn't going to transform anything else, he rises to his feet and lights his wand instead of reaching for the switch. 

“Lumos.” 

And there in the spotless mirror of Andromeda Tonks’ loo stands the face he remembers as his own. Bracing himself, Harry tucks aside his robes, counts to three, and then checks his drawers for what he hopes beyond all hope is a fucking prick. 

“Oh thank Merlin,” he gasps, bending over the sink in relief. “Oh, good god, thank you-” 

Recalling that he's left Tonks’ mum outside the door this whole time, he yanks it open and gives her a heartfelt look of gratitude. 

“Thank you,” he tells her after taking down the Silencing Charm. “It, um, worked.” 

Watching him shift from leg to leg with another twitch of her lips, she waves it off and returns to her grandson. 

“Right,” Harry says after he's calmed down and washed his hands. He should probably find Hermione, Ron, go back to Hogwarts, get started on figuring out how to be a Metamorphmagus for the rest of his life. 

But god, that just sounds so hard. Thinking of baby Teddy - his soft cheeks, his oddly comforting smell, the warmth of him pressed against Harry's chest while he was being burped, the way his hair shifts colors little by little and his blinks reveal different eyes - Harry feels loath to leave. He doesn't quite…it's not love, what he feels for Teddy Lupin. Not yet. Even admitting it in the safe confines of his own mind feels wrong enough to whip up a maelstrom of emotions in his chest: guilt, regret, shame, horror, yes, but also a faint wind of relief. The fact that he doesn't love Teddy immediately is just another reminder that he's still Harry, with nothing left of Tonks to his mind but her flesh, his memories of her. He can't rely on any maternal instincts or love to carry him through the difficult bits. The relief - the relief he clings to so that it can lead him to hope. Relief because Harry will be able to form his own, independent relationship and memories with Teddy that aren't coloured by Tonks, and he's certain that the all encompassing love will arrive sooner than later. He can already feel it tugging on his heartstrings, leaving a path open for a tiny, human-shaped thing to crawl through and settle down. He doesn't want to be an extension of Teddy's mum or a substitute that won’t be able to measure up to half of what she was, half of everything she would have done. No matter how hard he tries or how many times he wakes up with Nymphadora Lupin's skin, he'll still be a Potter on the inside. That's what he's always been. What he'll always be, if a tad changed. 

Harry's never had parents, never had siblings, and never been responsible for caring about someone younger than him before in this way; it's terrifying, the thought of becoming an intrinsic part of someone else's life and childhood. He already knows he's going to make mistakes and have regrets, but when Harry thinks about his own childhood - thinks about Sirius, who wasn't perfect but was perfect to him - he feels that thick, heavy, soul-deep greed from King's Cross rise up in him once again. 

Harry is tired, war-torn, grieving. Too young to be a man, and too old to be a boy. He's nowhere near ready to be a parent, nor is he ready to be responsible for someone else's entire life. He's not special. He wasn't Remus or Dora's best friend, won't have the stories that Sirius and Remus could recall about his own parents, didn't go to school or attend more than a handful of Order meetings with them. He's not even worth as much as Sirius was, because Teddy is going to grow up in a house with his grandmother who cherishes him and will give him her very best instead of the drab prison Privet Drive afforded Harry. 

Despite each of those reasons, Harry wants so fucking badly to root himself in Teddy Lupin's life and become more than just Harry. Maybe it's stupid. Maybe it's selfish. Maybe it's just an extension of his stupid saving people thing, born from the fact that no one ever saved Harry from the issues that plagued his life. Even his own mum couldn't protect him from the Dursleys, or being alone, or being hurt. She did her best, put her life on the line, and it was just enough to keep him alive to the very end. 

Being alive doesn't mean you're living, though. Harry doesn't want that for Teddy. He wants to try saving Teddy the way he always wished someone saved him: by living for him. Staying beside him. Loving him. 

And maybe, just maybe, it'll make all the difference in the world to Teddy one day.

“I'm going to love him,” he tells Andromeda when he sits across from her in the sitting room. “I'm going to make sure that even if life is awful and unfair, he'll always have someone to go to, someone to fight for him, someone to think of him first. Dunno if you noticed, but I'm sort of the Boy-Who-Lived. No matter how hard people try, I manage to come out the other end alive. Never mattered much before, but I'm going to - to start making the most of it, for Teddy. So that one day in the future, if he needs more than a hug or stories about his parents…if he needs someone to go to war for him against…the Ministry, or a shite professor, or the world in general…I can make it happen. And if you'll let me, I'd really, really like to do it with your help.” 

Fists clenched in his robes as she sits there, blank-faced and trembling, Harry wonders if maybe he's crossed the line and gotten ahead of himself. He's borrowing a determination and steadiness he imagines his mother would have had when she offered her own life for his. Because even when his mum was terrified and facing down the scariest threat she had ever known, she gave up everything she was to keep him safe. Harry's not his mum, and he's definitely not Teddy's, but...if his mum had lived past that night, he likes to think she'd have fought for him that way. Tonks would have, for Teddy. Now he's got something of them both in him, and he'd like to use it for good. Even if that means he's left having a heart to heart with a woman who has every reason to hate him. It's also not great timing to be mentioning all this when she's only just lost her family and found out he's sort of her daughter, but he's beginning to learn that you ought to say these things when you think them. 

Before the people meant to hear them aren't around to listen anymore, that is. 

“I see why she liked you,” Mrs. Tonks says. Her lips lift into a tremulous smile as she wipes away a few tears. “Damn it, but she-” 

Bursting into an outpour, she hugs Teddy to her chest and sobs, “She's gone and died, and still she remembers not to leave me alone. She's so - so frustrating! Eloping with a man she's known three years, having a baby, leaving us behind for her husband, and now she's gone and brought me a stupid Gryffindor too stubborn to let up and leave me to my misery! And for some reason…for some ridiculous, irrational reason, I think…you might somehow be exactly what Teddy needs. You’re not my Nymphadora, but I can't well do this alone, and - and you're what she wanted us to have. So I'm going to take it as it comes and let you in against reason when you're just a bloody child because there's nothing else. There's no one else! Maybe, just maybe, if we both do it together, this one will ruddy stay alive.” 

Swallowing round the lump in his throat, Harry does the second bravest thing he's managed today by moving next to her and patting her back hesitantly. 

They sit there, a grandmother and a godfather. Broken in heart, broken in love, and broken in life and death, but not yet broken in spirit. They are nothing to each other yet, but they plan to be. There is so little kindness and light in their world at this moment, but they will watch the days pass and the nights grow cold, and when they turn to Teddy because the bitterness on their tongues grows too strong to remember what joy tasted like, they will do so together. 

When Harry gets back to Hogwarts, he's got a list of things to get through. He's still got the mokeskin pouch on him, but it turns out he can't withdraw anything he put in when he was still, erm, Harry Potter alone. So he heads down to the Chamber of Secrets - it was the only place he, Ron, and Hermione could think of where no one else would be able to find it when the castle is overrun with nearly all of wizarding society here - and heads towards his dead body. Trying not to stare at himself as he lifts a cold, stiff hand and opens the mokeskin pouch to jam it in, he sort of makes it rifle around in the hopes that it'll do the trick. No good, unfortunately. Biting his lip, Harry considers the mokeskin pouch for a moment and then comes up with the splendid idea to shove both of his arms into the pouch to see if it'll work. Both meaning one dead arm from the other body and one live arm from the body he's wearing. To his utmost surprise and relief, it works. There's a bit of fumbling when the dead arm keeps slipping out, but after a good struggle he manages to pull out the most important things he's had stored away: his broken wand, the mirror shard, his mum's letter, the photo, and the Marauder’s Map. The Elder Wand is apparently too smart to accept he's dead, so Harry wields it now to repair his original wand. He wishes for just a split-second that he'd had the Elder Wand when he broke the two-way mirror before, for surely if it could fix a broken wand then it could have fixed even a mirror crushed to dust - but he didn't, and the mirror has done more than enough for being so small a shard left. He'll bury the damned wand with Dumbledore again in the hopes that when he dies in this body, it'll become totally useless. Or maybe a normal wand. Whatever happens, he doesn't want it, and he doesn't want anyone else to be waving it about either. Besides, four wands - his own, Draco’s, Tonks, and the Elder Wand - is three too many now that the fighting is over. Tonks’ wand is the one that listens to him least as it swings between total acceptance and malicious compliance, but even that feels a better choice to keep round than the ruddy Death Stick. He tucks the extras away in the mokeskin pouch. Out of sight, out of mind. 

And now…now, he has to take care of the body. A bit unsurely, Harry casts a Preservation Charm on it and prays that it does the job until he can find a place to bury it. Him. Whatever. Preparing his own funeral is perhaps one of the most bizarre things Harry's ever had to do, but as Ron would say: better that than dead, eh? 

His last task in the castle finds him traipsing through Hogwarts under his Invisibility Cloak with the Map in hand. He's done this so many times over the last year that it feels comforting, almost, to find her name amongst the hundreds filling the parchment. 

“Ginny,” Harry pants as he creeps to her side amongst the dozens sorting through rubble. “It's me, Harry. Come with me?” 

And though she jerks at his voice, she leaves the Great Hall and follows him behind a tapestry so that they can meet in private. Throwing off the Cloak, Harry thinks of the tumultuous, absolutely insane week he's had, firms his resolve, and meets her square in the eyes. 

“Listen,” he says with an urgency that wells from deep within his heart, “I know we didn't get to talk about this before, and things are still mad, and I'm not who - er, what - I was before, but I wanted to tell you that…I still care about you. Every day this past year, I've thought of you. I'm not very good at this and I know you could probably have anyone you want, someone without my issues or even someone who doesn't turn into one of your dead friends when he's asleep but…bloody hell, Ginny, I'm in love with you-” 

Before he can finish the speech he's rehearsed for the last fifteen minutes, Ginny jumps and kisses him right on the mouth, her arms looping round his neck. She kisses him like they're both drowning, starved for air and affection and god knows what else, but when she pulls back with glittering eyes she's not crying. She's scowling, actually. Harry wants to lean in and snog her silly, but even he knows that's a dangerous idea right now. 

“Don't be fucking daft, Harry Potter,” she grits out between clenched teeth. “If I put up with you when you were a stupid, sulky arsehole who couldn't figure out the difference between me and Hermione, I can well put up with you coming back from the dead a changed man! So what if you’re also Tonks now? So what if you're a Metamorphmagus?! The only way to get rid of me was to stay dead, you dolt, and that's long beyond you now!” 

Laughing wetly, Harry leans in and kisses her again so that their bodies are lined up against one another from head to toe, her hair brushing his cheeks when he switches angles. 

“Have I told you I'm in love with you yet?” Harry pants against her red mouth, his eyes dancing. He feels more alive now than he likely ever has before, his heart thumping a merry tune in his chest while he presses their foreheads together.

“Don't think so,” Ginny mumbles, a bit dazed. “Good to know, though. Anything else you'd like to spring on me?” 

After some thought, Harry adds, “I'm, er, a godfather. Teddy’s. Teddy Lupin.” 

“Oh,” says Ginny. Her hazel eyes widen right before she gives him a small, sad smile. “So you were…” 

“At Tonks’ mum's,” Harry says quietly in agreement. “I'm…he's really, really important to me, Ginny. I'm going to be putting him first a lot, and I don't want you to think I don't care about you, but…I want to be there for him. Even if he won't remember it.” 

And because she's Ginny Weasley, she just rolls her eyes and kisses the thumb sweeping near her lips. “What have I said about being daft? Tonks and Remus were my friends, too, Harry. Not like they were yours, but still. Between sharing you with their kid and sharing you with Voldemort, I'll take the ruddy kid.” 

So Harry kisses her again, feeling like the luckiest man in the world for it, and keeps kissing her until someone comes looking for them. 

True to her word, Ginny sticks it out with him through thick and thin. It’s weeks before she learns the depth of what Teddy Lupin means to Harry, months before she can get used to watching him morph into loved ones when the loss catches up to him, and years before she grows accustomed to waking up next to Tonks in bed instead of the man she's married. But she loves him, he loves her, and they've lived through too much loss to let this break them apart. 

She gets used to watching Nymphadora Tonks slowly melt into Harry Potter every morning, loans Harry her panties and bra when he gets too stuck in his head to become himself again, accepts that sometimes he needs to sit down and lock himself up before he remembers what it's like to be Harry Potter.  She holds him through the panic attacks when he looks in the mirror only to find a lost soul staring back at him. Ginny does all that and more, for it seems only right when Harry holds her hands through the nightmares, kisses her scars so that the faint pain searing through them fades, looks at her with stars in his eyes and believes she can do anything so long as she wants. They're a balancing act most days, and a shipwreck together some others. Little by little, they work through their wounds and fury and strange, disembodied grief until they are more than what made them. 

They're more than all of that, you see, for they're alive and together, and that's quite the blessing. 

Harry finds out that being in places his current body associates with Tonks alone often leaves him pink-haired and rounded at the hips; too often he'll arrive at Andromeda's cottage as himself and leave in another form. She accepts it better than he expects, though he thinks perhaps it might be because holding Teddy as Tonks makes him happier than as Harry Potter. Somewhere between scaring the life out of Molly Weasley by transforming into Fred at the Burrow and finding Sirius staring back at him from the bathroom mirror in Grimmauld Place, Harry learns to stick to places he doesn't associate with the dead. Or avoid his reflection. That also affects his career choices, unfortunately. Kingsley's offered every member of the D.A. who fought at the Battle of Hogwarts the chance to become an Auror without the need for training - while Ron jumped at the chance, Harry had turned him down after some consideration. Kingsley had told them it could wait for anyone wanting to finish Hogwarts properly or take some time off to recover from the battle, but Harry knows that no amount of time will be able to prevent him from accidentally triggering flesh memories on the job and becoming a dead woman instead of Harry Potter when being an Auror is so integral to his idea of Tonks’ existence. He's just as likely to be walking round the Ministry and suddenly become her as he is within her own home given the amount of time she spent there, and he's rather comfortable with only a handful of people knowing the truth of his current condition. Ron and Hermione are taking off to Australia to search for her parents before she comes back to finish her education and Ron begins as an Auror, but Hermione encourages him to rethink not returning to Hogwarts. 

“There's still three months left to change your mind, Harry,” she tells him softly. “And if you aren't going to be an Auror, you ought to have credentials for - for whatever else you plan on doing later. We all know you aren't the type to stay home and twiddle your fingers.” 

“I'm not doing nothing,” Harry says, clenching his hands round his knees. “I'm spending time with my godson, Hermione. And even if I want to be out and about again, I need to get used to-” 

He stops then, licking his lips. She and Ron nod in understanding. 

“Whatever you wanna do, mate,” Ron says after he claps him on the shoulder. “If anyone deserves a bloody break, it's you.” 

So Harry says his goodbyes, only a little off-kilter at the idea of the three of them separating, and returns to Andromeda’s to catch one more hour with Teddy before bedtime. As much as he feels unsure without either of them by his side, he feels better off with fewer witnesses to his acclimation of…well. Of his new body. He's taken to spending every waking moment by Teddy's side for something to do that isn't staring at walls for wonder at the fact that he's just as much Nymphadora Tonks as he is Harry Potter. Fifty-fifty. Half and half. Not one, but not quite two. He used to worry that Andromeda would take badly to him inserting himself so blatantly into her home all the time before it became obvious that she was as desperately in need of company as he is. She doesn’t even mind when George shows up at the doorstep, useless as he is with anything that isn’t enchanting socks to fight each other into the laundry. Losing your husband, daughter, and son-in-law in short order probably works a number on you. Anything is better than nothing to her, likely. Harry’s inclined to agree some days. 

Seems like the only thing to ever bring smiles to their faces again is little Teddy, with his round cheeks and ever shifting hair. Harry swears his nose used to be shorter, but Andromeda doesn’t agree. She teaches him how to soothe Teddy to sleep, how to hold through his wriggling, how to wash his little rompers and dummies, how to set up charms that monitor his sleep and keep him in place. She's even beginning to trust Harry enough to lock herself in her bedroom when things get to be too much, an honour he doesn't take lightly. 

It's tough going, raising a baby. They figure it out by putting in whatever the other person can't and moving on from there. 

“I have to drop by their house,” she tells him after ten minutes of staring at doilies during naptime. “Teddy's running low on clothes, nappies. He wasn't meant to stay with me for long, when she…” 

Right. Yeah. Makes sense that there would be more than three revolving rompers for a baby to wear. 

Harry gulps and chances a glance at her dazed expression. “Do you, erm, want me to go instead?” 

Startled by the question, she turns to him with her lips parted. She must see something in his face that makes her purse them together in a stiff nod. 

“Why not?” And with that, Andromeda abandons her tea to begin preparing a few boxes for him to take. 

Harry only realizes once she gives him the Apparition coordinates that he's never been to Remus’ home in all the years he's known the man. It's a cottage not unlike Bill and Fleur's, though there are fields of heather and gorse surrounding it instead of sharp bluffs leading into the sea. The door is worn and creaky when he walks in, but Harry flinches from the malodor wafting from deeper inside. Leaving the door open in the hopes of airing the place out, it only takes a few steps to come across what must be the moldy, rotted remains of a meal and some tea cups littering the dining table. Harry pauses then, his heart falling as he takes in the house. He can almost imagine it with crystal clarity: Remus receiving notice from Fred and George, abandoning their meal to join the battle. Tonks hugging him farewell, immediately heading over to her mother's until they're certain the worst is over. Their brand new home they were building together sitting here filled with soft throws and patchy quilts, a few toys discarded on the sofa. A gramophone sits in the corner of the main room, chairs pushed aside as if they'd been dancing to a record sometime before dinner. Despite the obvious differences from his parents’ home in Godric's Hollow, it feels much the same to Harry now: a broken home destroyed by Voldemort, leaving a baby orphaned and two young people murdered in cold blood. Remus and Nymphadora Lupin, gone in one night. Teddy Lupin, left behind with his mother's ever-changing looks. 

A chime jingles softly in the wind to his ears, and Harry steps back. Back and back he goes until he stumbles on a loose floorboard and falls onto his arse, shaking. He only realizes he's crying when the wind blows in from the door onto his wet cheeks, and he bowls over on his knees gasping. 

“I'm sorry,” he chokes out to the scratched wooden floor that blurs before him. The chimes continue to ring throughout the empty moor. “I'm so sorry, I'm sorry-” 

Harry cries until his knees are sore and his mouth dry, his eyes blurred such that they don't take in the locks of brown hair falling over his shoulder. They're a lighter, caramel sort of brown instead of the mousy brown he associates with Tonks now; it's Remus’ colour, but on a feminine body. When he unfurls from the ground and notices he's grown softer, rounder, the fury that wells up within him has him punching the floor for an outlet. He punches down as if the wood might open up beneath him to swallow Harry before spitting the real Tonks, the one who ought to still be standing here matching her husband’s looks as she plays with their newborn babe. He screams and heaves and only stops when pain ripples up from his clenched fist. Hand raised halfway, he spots a smear of blood against the grain. 

Just like that, his fury vanishes. Harry turns Tonks’ small hands over to see the skin cracked open. Bleeding. He’s promptly overcome with so much horror that he nearly keels over right then and there. Fumbling for his wand, he immediately casts the basic healing spells Hermione’s drilled into them and wheezes with relief when the skin begins closing up as if nothing happened in the first place. He runs fingers over the fixed skin to double-check nothing was missed, the sudden lack of rage or sorrow leaving him hollow.

A sense of cold that has nothing to do with the weather falls over him, like a blanket of glittering ice fluttering crystal by crystal to swallow Harry until he is frozen. No longer human, no longer himself. He is cold and wind and an empty, gaping hole where there used to be a heart, because one can only break so many times before it can't be put back together. But Harry forces himself to move from his perch on the ground, forces himself to push into the bedroom just past the kitchen. His limbs are leaden as he drifts into the bedroom where a cot lies just beside the bed. He pulls open drawers and closets and fills the boxes with Teddy's belongings while ignoring the endless number of jumpers, maternity dresses, Auror's robes. The bibs, rompers, dummies, bottles - anything and everything he can find related to babies, he packs away. It's only when he's moving a few books on the nightstand to reach the dummy caught underneath that a leatherbound journal slips off the pile and falls open at his feet. The pages are blank right up until his fingers brush across it, at which point he flinches and draws back. When nothing happens, he slowly releases the breath caught in his chest and hesitantly reaches out to the journal again. 

It takes two more attempts for Harry to convince himself it's not a horcrux and pick it up properly; words shimmer across the leather to declare it Dora's and amongst the once blank pages in a vaguely recognizable scrawl. Pausing, he furrows his brows and then, with enormous effort, flips the journal open to satisfy his insatiable bloody curiosity. 

Andromeda finds him still sitting there hours later, no longer brown-haired or mousy or a woman. He is Harry Potter in the most raw, humiliating, god-awful of ways, stuck reading the same passage over again as if one more time might change how the words make him feel. Might change the reality of what his life is, now. With Teddy on her hip, she pauses in the doorway and sighs. 

“If you were going to end up like this, I would have just come myself from the start.” 

Harry tears his eyes away from the journal like it physically pains him, his eyes puffy and red. Though his face is dry now, there’s no denying it must have been sopping wet some point earlier on. Setting Teddy down in the cot while she busies herself packing the last of the things he’s missed, Andromeda doesn’t turn back to the young man until she’s done shrinking them for transportation. There are likely things outside this room that were meant for Teddy, but she knows herself well enough not to tempt the violent storm of desolation just locked behind her ribcage by sorting through the rest of the house. 

“What’d he leave, then?” she asks Harry when moves to stand next to him. “He was your father’s friend, wasn’t he? And yours.” 

To her utmost surprise, when she looks down at the words scrawled upon the lined pages of the book he’s holding, it's not Remus Lupin's hand that's undone the boy. Breath catching, she slowly reaches out to trace her fingers over the black ink and makes to tug the journal away. It doesn’t budge. 

“You can’t read it,” Harry croaks, his shoulders curving in. “It goes blank. It’s only showing up because I-” 

He cuts off abruptly, biting his lip hard just shy of drawing blood. Flipping the book round so that she can read it right side up, he whispers, “She...she wrote about me.” 

Greedily roving her eyes over the familiar handwriting, it takes Andromeda a moment to process the words left visible round his fingers. 

…and Remus managed to see Harry when he shared the news with Bill! They’re alright, him, Ron, and Hermione. Best news I’ve gotten in months other than Teddy, you know. Of course that means he asked the poor bloke right on the spot if he wanted to be godfather without any of the stuff he was supposed to say, but I’ll let it go because he’s so adorable when he’s excited. Puppy-ish, not that I’d ever say so to his face. But I’m glad! Remus kept saying over and over again that Harry would never agree as though he’s some random stranger, but I told him that it would be Harry or no one just to force him into it. For a man so grown, Remus can be quite daft when he wants to be. As if Harry isn’t already family!! Really he's my cousin if you think about mum and Sirius being his godfather, and he'd have been like my little brother if Sirius had him from the beginning. Even if he isn't godfather, he'll be Uncle Harry! We both know there was never going to be another option, but as always I have to bully Remus into everything proper. 

Can’t wait to take our first photo with all of us together when this fighting is bloody over. Remus takes nearly a dozen a day of Teddy, the sod. He was always so upset he never got any with Harry before this mess, so hopefully that makes up for it. Pouted, even, when I mentioned I have one of us with Ginny from Grimmauld. You know, this lockdown that You-Know-Who's put me on is starting to grate on my nerves. Going back to work would be fantastic, but also! Going outside! Meeting friends! Eating takeaway! Finally getting to spend time with Harry so we can convince my dearly wedded numpty that it’s not all one-sided caring on his part, idiotic as he can be sometimes. It’s a never ending battle with Remus and his poor sense of…

“Oh,” she says quietly. She’d told Nymphadora to take up a new hobby while she was stuck at home, pregnant, and Remus had to leave often for Order missions to protect who he could, when he could, but it’s only now that Andromeda’s finding out she took up journaling. It's much better than talking aloud to herself with the house empty except for the baby most nights. Probably took after Mad-Eye’s paranoia and spelled it so that others couldn’t read it. 

Funny how things turn out. 

Harry’s fingers press down so hard on the journal that they’re white to the very knuckles, and he gives her a poor approximation of a laugh. 

“Oh,” he agrees dully.

He almost wishes he hadn't read anything at all because then he wouldn't have known how much Remus and Tonks wanted him to be part of their lives. To be part of their family. How Tonks already considered him that long before Teddy was born, long before Remus explicitly told her, because she decided that she quite liked Harry even though he grew sulkier by the year and was going to dislocate his jaw from the endless clenching one day. I miss his smile, from before Sirius left. Almost forgotten what it looked like, honestly, but I can hardly blame him for the shite hand he's been dealt, she'd written, so we'll just have to give him new cards to play with. Me and Remus together, now that we're all a proper family. I hear I'll have to thank him for getting my husband's head out of his hairy arse about this baby business. Maybe I'll pay it back by getting him and Ginny together again. Aunt Ginny has a ring to it, eh? Molly'd be thrilled.

Harry's read the the entries before it twice over, guilt growing at every happy mention of the baby she was so excited for and her new marriage. It’s no surprise that a majority of it is about the war and her home, but Tonks had written more than just or twice about Harry throughout. These pages, though - these ones, he keeps coming back to as if possessed. 

“I told you she liked you,” Andromeda mumbles for lack of anything better to say. More fool her for not realizing what that’d do, really. 

Face crumpling at once, Harry surprises her for the nth time today by burying his tears in her waist and clinging to her blouse. Taken aback by the sudden intimacy, she can only swallow down her shock and place a hesitant palm on his quivering head of black hair as he sobs, his whole body shaking with the force of his cries. Patting him gently and letting her eyes drift off through the bedroom window, she stands there until the wind slows to nothing but the gentlest kiss and the chimes outside fade into a tiny rustle. 

“She said I was like a brother,” Harry mumbles into her damp blouse. “I didn’t even…until that night, I thought it was just Lupin. That he was the one who thought of me, that he only did it because of my…” 

Because Harry loves - loved - Remus Lupin, but wasn't ever certain how much he was loved in return until the very end when the man was walking beside him as a spirit. Admired him, respected him, clamored for his attention. Professor Lupin had been the first grown up, the first teacher even, who had genuinely cared for Harry with the air of a responsible, sensible adult who has nothing to do with you and yet still ends up being better for you than most others in your awful life. Professor Dumbledore had at that point only done so twice, after all. Professor Lupin did not have the expectations of Harry that the rest of the school did, did not particularly treat him as anything special or different except when begged for help with the Patronus Charm, and though he could have swung into either the extremes that Sirius or Snape chose before they ever met, he mostly drifted along the middle. Harry might have hated him if he knew from the get-go that his professor had been best friends with his parents - someone who was originally to be his family, even - and chose to pretend they were nothing more than passing strangers, but he did not know, so he could not hate. His relationship with Remus Lupin began not with the predetermination that they were to be close, but with the thrill and wonder of his qualities that must have made his parents so dearly fond of him a lifetime ago: his gentleness, his wit, his unique way of explaining things as if they were much simpler than anyone else though, his skill in defeating monsters that Harry never knew existed before, the way he laughed as though every one of them was an unexpected surprise to even himself, his tendency to ramble on subjects he was intrigued by. Harry Potter did not meet his Uncle Moony, but he met a man that, despite his broken heart and worn feet and scarred body, was funny and kind and smart and saw Harry as something other than the Boy Who Lived. To a little boy who had lived that far without a single adult with the power to actually make differences in his life choosing to wield it for good instead of abusing or neglecting it, that was already quite massive. Lupin did not love him unconditionally as Sirius had, but neither did he hate Harry unconditionally as well for who his parents were. He was cool and fun and Harry'd wanted rather desperately to be seen as his star pupil or his favorite student more than he had family.

He'd wanted the admiration and respect of this man, yes, but he hadn't needed him to be anything different after Sirius arrived. Sirius was…he was light and warmth and love and hope, and all that mattered was that someone wanted to be that for Harry. It needn't have been Remus. It wasn't. That was okay. 

In the first place, Harry had only been a baby when they both met him. Busy as they were in the midst of war, it seemed likely that they might not have even seen each other more than a handful of times in the one year he had before Voldemort ruined everything. The difference between those two men, though, was that Harry had rather low expectations for anyone labelled an Uncle, and did not have any idea whatsoever of what a godfather might be like for no one he had met before had one to draw as comparison. Sirius had promptly defined what a godfather was with all the surety and passion of a man willing to scour the ends of the earth for Harry; a godfather was someone chosen to take care of you. Someone who accepted at the very beginning before they ever knew you that they would give you everything in their power to guarantee your happiness. A godfather was to take care of you when no one else could, love you better than anyone else could, and stay by your side when others could choose not to. Godfathers were everything Harry had ever wanted in his miserable life: someone who could take him away from the dreadful Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, someone who would tell him that he was strong and lovable instead of weak and cursed. Godfathers were an entirely different sort of family from parents or uncles, and so he adjusted his expectations accordingly. 

On the other hand, Remus Lupin had rather gone above and beyond the previously established standards of an uncle Harry'd set by virtue of simply being a good man who proved he sincerely cared about his wellbeing. Even at thirteen Harry could count the number of good men he'd met on his hands, much less the number of good men that specifically cared about him. There'd been three, at that time. Mr. Weasley, Professor Dumbledore, and Professor Lupin. With the new knowledge that there was someone to save him from the Dursleys, it had never occurred for him to be upset with Professor Lupin for never attempting to take him in before that. It was only the wonderful images of a happy future where he would live with Sirius and have a newer, nicer uncle to drop by occasionally that filled his mind then. One who read him books instead of swatting him with them. An uncle who gave him sweets instead of stuffing himself full of them while Harry slaved away behind. He would have a godfather who did all the things parents ought to do, and an uncle who did all the things a regular uncle ought to do. No more beatings, no more aching stomachs, no more being locked up in rooms he could barely breathe in, no more listening to incessant rants about the plethora of ways Harry was a mistake that the respectable bits of family had to pay for.

It was a combination of things that made Harry love the werewolf, and a combination of things that allowed him to accept Remus Lupin remaining just out of reach for the majority of his life. Remus was his professor first before he was an uncle, then a member of the Order before he was a friend. Harry likened him a great deal to Mr. Weasley, for whom he had a bottomless well of affection and appreciation for, but who did not have the time or means to properly spend time with Harry. It didn't mean that whatever time they did share was worth anything less. Just…that it wasn't guaranteed. Or quite as intimate as real family. To him, there was still a layer of difference between the likes of family which Sirius, his parents, Ron and Hermione were firmly cemented in, and the likes of family of which the other Weasleys, Remus - and if he's being honest now, even Tonks - found themselves in. Bill, Charlie, and the twins for another example were great people he enjoyed spending time with, but Harry didn't expect them to go out of their way to hang out. They simply fell into whatever moments they had as they came, supported each other when they could, and kept on with the fighting. They were more than friends but not quite family, yet. Not then, anyway. He found it acceptable to slot Lupin in that category as well. 

“I couldn't afford to blow my cover,” Remus had told him when they met again after Sirius' death and he was apologizing for not sending letters. 

Harry had only nodded in understanding, for he was never expecting any. Mr. Weasley and Professor Dumbledore weren't exactly sending him letters, either. It seemed clear to him that besides Ron, Hermione, and Sirius, the whole world tended to fall away when he was staying at Privet Drive. Whether it was by choice or command of Dumbledore didn't matter much anymore. Besides, he already knew Lupin wasn't the type. Sirius had already joked plenty of times that Moony was only ever the type who read and wouldn't write, for he rarely sent his fellow Marauders any correspondence over the summers they were apart. If even Padfoot and Prongs weren't going round getting mail from their Moony, Harry found it highly unlikely to receive anything despite the circumstances then. 

There were plenty of reasons he could have chosen to hate Remus. It would have been all too easy, really. But Harry didn't, and doesn't, and now he's sitting here and realizing that it might have seemed to the man this whole time that Harry truly had. Yet still he would pat Harry on the back, still he worried for him, still he would tell him stories of his parents and godfather when there was no one but them left round, still he wondered how to make Harry forgive him for mistakes that he wasn't being held accountable for. For all his cowardliness and self-hatred, Remus had found it in himself to attempt carving out a little place for himself in Harry's life despite the certainty he spoke to Tonks of how Harry could never love him back. 

The fact that he can look into Harry’s eyes and not see how much that boy respects him is concerning to me, Tonks had written in one of the earlier pages. He might be older than I thought if he's losing his sight already. Waa, waa, I'm just a professor that tried to kill him my arse. Merlin, like Harry Potter could ever go around hating someone without it showing all over his face! Or has a lack of professors that ACTUALLY tried to kill him. 

It had almost, almost made him smile to read it. She was very good at doing that, Tonks. It's what must have allowed Remus to fall in love with her. To get married. She was brave and strong and kind and fun just like him, and she could always see things in a different way that made you feel things were certainly much more exciting or boring than you originally thought. It felt fitting that two of the strongest and most wonderful people Harry'd ever known could find joy in one another, when they told him. Odd, to imagine them married so quickly after he finally understood their feelings, but very fitting indeed. She made Remus afraid, yes, but she also made him a great deal braver in other ways. 

Now Remus is dead, and Harry is Teddy's godfather instead of his uncle. Because Remus and Tonks had genuinely, wholly loved him as one of their own, because they believed he could do everything that godfathers are meant to do, and not because they in any way wanted to honour the long dead James.

Godric, they'd - they'd fucking loved him. Really and truly, as more than a friend. He'd been their Harry, apparently, and now he isn't anything at all except alive where they are dead. He’s hardly even Harry Potter as things are, right now.

“Well,” Andromeda says after she clears her throat. “Apparently you’re just as thick as he was.” 

Harry makes a stifled cross between a snort and a sob, slowly pulling back. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she says. Her voice is just above a whisper. “I’m glad that there’s someone else to miss her with me.” 

The faint smell of heather mixes in with the stench of rot from the table, but Harry hardly has the presence of mind to be bothered by it while trying to catch his breath. 

“Can I…would it be alright if I keep this?” Harry asks her, scrubbing his face clean with his sleeves. “I just want to-” 

Hiccuping, he tries again. “-to finish, erm, reading it. And, for the parts that aren’t so private...maybe I can rewrite them for Teddy? For later, I mean.” 

“That would be very kind of you,” Andromeda says softly. Harry gives her a jerky shrug and runs his thumb round the journal’s lining. 

“She told me to do what I would have wanted someone else to do for me,” he says after a moment. “So that’s what I’ll do.” 

He'd wanted Sirius, back then. When he learned that there was a word for the things he wanted and that there was a person to that word, anyway. Someone who would love him until the ends of the earth, would make him laugh, would hug him, kiss his head, give him affectionate nicknames, cook him food, give him birthday presents, tell him that he was special and handsome and beloved, would play with him, would help him with his homework, would take his pains seriously, would comfort him when he was upset, would rather kill than ever let someone harm him. Someone who would teach Harry what it was like to be a normal boy that lived in a nice world where kids don't get hurt, hunger is just your imagination, and there is no such thing as a child who deserves to be hated or punished for their existence. Because someone loved you, wanted you, and would never let you know a life otherwise. 

Suddenly exhausted, he looks to the cot and feels his chest warm at the sight of Teddy blinking at them. 

“I think I’d like to go now,” he whispers, and she smiles ever so faintly back around her frown lines. 

“Come on, then. Let’s go home.”

The sky is cold, the night long, and his body emptied of anything but heartache. Harry rises to his feet, tucks the journal into his pocket, and follows her back to the Tonks cottage with the shrunken boxes in hand. He does not return to Grimmauld Place for the night, nor does Andromeda question it. They busy themselves with turning her spare bedroom into a nursery for Teddy, which is when Harry realizes she's even shrunk the cot to bring. Of course. Teddy can hardly go sleeping with her every night under constant supervision of magic, can he? 

“It was Nymphadora's,” Andromeda tells him when she pulls the toy-like cot out of her pocket for unshrinking. “From when she was a baby. Kept it in the attic ever since, then gave it to her when…” 

Harry just nods. They set up the room, make a list of everything that they might need in the future, and eat dinner with a sort of still, gentle air hanging above them. The cold leeches from his limbs as time ticks by in the soft, warm air of the Tonks cottage, Teddy eagerly spitting bubbles at them with a wonky face that can't help but summon a weak laugh from deep inside Harry's chest. 

He makes no move to return to Grimmauld. Andromeda doesn't question it. She simply heads into the last, untouched bedroom in the house, opens the windows to let some of the stale air circulate outwards, and shuffles a few belongings onto the desk by the bed. 

“Didn't know if you'd get much sleep tonight,” she says when he stands in the doorway silently. “Figured you'd be her type, make use of these.” 

When Harry pads inside, he notices the pile of books on the bed. There are a few muggle novels - Sherlock Holmes, dozens of Agatha Christie - beside a stack of books on various subjects. As he scans the titles, he realizes that the entire selection is likely related to Auror work. Or becoming an Auror, at least. There are books on the most common poisons, survival guides, extensive bestiaries, and the book on extremely specific charms for odd purposes that he remembers Hermione rifting through in fourth year when they were attempting to keep him alive through the Triwizard Tournament. There are notebooks, too, the muggle kind with paper round metal rings, but much larger than the journal he'd found at Remus’ cottage. The Lupin cottage. Because he wasn't the only Lupin there, except now the only Lupin left isn't at that cottage at all. Reaching out with an odd, sudden compulsion, Harry flips open one to a random page and takes in the handwriting he's beginning to grow accustomed to seeing as it details the various practical ways that impractical charms can be used in the field. 

Tonks’ notes. Likely the books she used during her trainee period and during school when preparing to become a full-fledged Auror, with all her wit and fascinating perspective few could ever match. 

“Thank you, Mrs. Tonks,” he murmurs automatically. 

For a moment, he thinks she might smile. “I think we’re far past the point of me being Mrs. Tonks to you, Mr. Potter. Just call me Andromeda. Though…I suppose if you’re anything like that cousin of mine, you’ll end up calling me Andy.” 

Andromeda leaves him standing there with a quiet, “Goodnight, Harry.” 

“Goodnight,” he says, feeling, strangely, as if he is simultaneously out of place and there is nowhere else in the world he ought to be right now.

Instinctively, he checks the mirror on the dresser in the far corner of the bedroom. His hair isn't the bubblegum pink spikes he expects, but it isn't a jet black mess either. When he peers closer with confusion, he realizes that his once-black hair is slowly but surely growing pink streaks instead. His once gaunt cheeks have filled out, his chin rounding just enough to make a difference. Most of his features remain unchanged, but there's a noticeable oddness that separates this face from the one he's used to. It's not quite Harry Potter, but it isn't Tonks either. Just…someone in between. Feeling a strange mixture of terrified, pleased, and guilty simultaneously, Harry turns his attention back to the desk and settles on a Miss Marple to tide him over. He's about a quarter of the way through before the incessant noise in the back of his head wins, forcing him to pull out the journal he's been avoiding ever since leaving the Lupin cottage. He reads it over and over again in the flickering light of the lanterns hanging above, the Tonks cottage an odd mishmash of muggle and wizard; candles and lanterns for lighting, a telly in the sitting room, an electric kettle in the kitchen, colorful throws on the sofa, moving and still pictures both on the walls. Harry traces the loops and jerks of Tonks’ writing as he reads through her excitement for Teddy, the list of names she and Remus were considering, the spells and wards she'd helped him come up with for protecting muggles and muggleborns while he was out on Order missions and she was left to busy herself at home. She mentions once or twice the times she stayed with her mum early on in her pregnancy due to Remus’ fear kicking in, writes about how some days the loneliness even made her miss Grimmauld with its many mysteries and challenges to tackle. He blushes when she gets into some of the intimate parts of her relationship with Remus, skipping over to the next entry when anything worse than innocent flirting pops up. She talks about Harry, of course, but she also writes about Charlie, Bill, Fleur, Molly, about the twins’ joke shop, about losing one of her dear friends named Ellie in a Death Eater attack. She talks about a great deal of things in such a Tonks-like fashion that it's as if Harry can see the words lifting off the page and being spoken out loud in her voice, lively or sad or fierce. The very last entry written in her hand before a series of blanks is exactly three pages long. 

I hardly know who I am some days, between Teddy and the war and staying inside the house all the time! It feels like only yesterday I was fighting on the front lines as an Auror, as a member of the Order, and also like years ago. My days are full of nappies and half-arsed laundry in between listening to news from Remus or Potterwatch. I've hardly lifted my wand to do anything heavier than a Patronus in months, and even that was only to pass on a message once or twice! Not that I'd want dementors anywhere near Teddy, obviously. I love being a mum, love looking at my baby boy and watching him grow bit by bit in front of me, but…it just feels so stupid that I'm sitting here doing nothing to help, sometimes. Me, a full fledged Auror who’s also a bloody Metamorphmagus! All those years of working my arse off and training and fighting only to sit at home doing nothing with it. I dunno. Mum says sometimes your head gets mucked up from the pregnancy hormones and YKW isn't doing me any favors with his buggering war on everything good in the world, so maybe it's just that. Or maybe it's me going stir-crazy. Or maybe it's this stupid, niggling feeling that something's going to happen and I'm not prepared for it. 

At least I have Teddy and Remus. Mum's alone. She won't agree to stay with us because of her stuffy pride, so I ought to make sure I don't end up doing anything stupid to leave her or Teddy behind just because I'm itching for a fight. But…either way, I expect one will be coming. Soon. So I'll make the most of this while I've got it. 

And there'll always be Harry. Bless that mad, mad man. I hope he does in YKW and lives at least thrice as long as the wanker does, even if it's not with me and Remus round anymore. And hey! If I make it out the other end fine, I'll be the first to take him in as my Auror trainee. If he still wants to fight, anyway. Merlin only knows he deserves a break for a while. Maybe Remus and I could make him an au pair? Imagine: Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Cleans-Nappies. 

Just below, in an unnecessarily skilled doodle, is an image of a tiny, frazzled Harry in a frilly apron holding up a nappy with horror. There are even little wiggles coming off it to suggest the dreaded stink while a lightning bolt scar stares out between the black ink of his fringe, leaving no question as to the identity of the person being pictured. 

“Honestly,” Harry mutters in disbelief. “Did it have to look so realistic?” 

The doodle doesn't respond, running across the page with one hand pinching its nose. Harry traces his fingers over it, blinks back the odd burning behind his eyes, and flips to the first page of the journal again as if possessed. He's genuinely interested in some of the other books, yes, but right now…for tonight, at the very least, he wants to remember the woman who made him smile so often as she was before her final, brave moments. Before he took the last of her from the world. Not just Tonks the friend, Tonks the Auror - Tonks the wife, Tonks the mum. Harry wants to bridge his memories of her with the stunning realization he'd had in the Room of Requirement that she was well and truly a mother to a baby boy, that she had someone to protect that wasn't Harry anymore. She was Nymphadora Tonks Lupin, for however much she would have hated being referred to by her first name. He wants, in the depths of his fuzzy, burdened consciousness, to remember the whole of her and not the individual parts. 

In her short life as a Metamorphmagus, it seemed that she never truly lost sight of herself. She might have talked about losing her sense of identity in motherhood or the war, but he knows perfectly well through reading her entries that it wasn't two identities she was torn between: it was two desires. She was always Tonks at the heart of it, even in a body that was constantly changing and never allowed her the stability of a basic form, a basic shape. Returning to battle would never take away her status as a mother, and becoming a mother would never wrench her desire to fight and investigate as an Auror from her. He's confident enough to bet every galleon he owns on that. She would have figured that out with time, if she'd gotten it. 

Harry's not sure he ever knew who he was. He definitely doesn't now. He wishes they could have figured it out together. Being an au pair wouldn't have been half-bad, really. Not if it was with Remus and Tonks and Teddy, their voices filling that cottage in the moor with life. Heather in the breeze, music in the sitting room. Family, however patched and worn out. 

The sudden epiphany that he's basically an au pair in Andromeda's house anyway makes his eyes fly open later when he attempts real sleep. Then, shoulders shaking, he'll slip under the covers of a bed with hair that's completely given way to bubblegum coloured spikes to laugh hysterically with grief. 

When Ron and Hermione return from Australia flushed with success a month later, Harry throws himself at them with a vehemence they stagger under. They'd already sent word in the post about finding her parents and returning most of their memories, but there’d never been a specific date they could give when asked about coming home. 

“I missed you two,” he tells them from between their coats. “And I need your help.” 

“Big surprise there,” Ron says over his head while Hermione laughs. 

“Probably not your help, actually,” Harry says just to spite him, but he’s beginning to smile. “I was thinking about what you said, Hermione - about going back to Hogwarts?”

“Oh, I see,” Ron nods knowingly. “You’re taking your N.E.W.T.s. Definitely not my area of expertise then.” 

“Oh, are you? That’s wonderful, Harry!” Hermione gushes, wrapping him in another hug. “I’m so pleased, it wouldn’t have been the same doing it alone-” 

“Now hold on a minute,” he says, pulling back with exasperation. “I never said anything about N.E.W.T.s! Or, I mean - I might have to, I dunno? That’s not what I wanted help with exactly.”

Taking a deep breath, Harry lets it get stuck in his throat when he realizes they’re all still standing at the doorstep. Rolling his eyes, he tugs them inside Grimmauld Place and begins explaining on the way to the kitchen. 

“It’s just…I’ve been thinking since I’m not going to be an Auror and I can’t play Quidditch on account of my, er, condition even if I wanted to go to the leagues, what else is there? What do I even like? What can I do without the, um, transforming getting in the way? And - well, a lot happened while you two were gone that made me think really hard about my, um, my life-” 

Hermione perks up instantly, shedding her gloves and coat as they sit down. Ron just nods as if that’s answer enough and plops onto a chair without the same fuss. 

“-and I want to spend time with Teddy, really getting to take care of him and caring about him, but. I’ve noticed that the longer I spend in these other places, the more I can’t find my face in a mirror. I want to be in his life as Harry Potter, not some knock off version of his mum. So I’ve got to find what I am - who I am, even - before I can go around being involved without fucking it all up. But when I want to be Harry again, look like me again, there’s sort of only two things that bring me back. One is useless, really, because it’s the Dursley’s house but the other one…the other thing is Hogwarts. Just, it always felt like home to me. You know, the one place I…I had stuff. People. Just, things. And now I think that if I’m going to be figuring out who I am, it’ll have to be there.” 

“But not as a student,” he adds hurriedly when Hermione opens her mouth. “Not to make up for seventh year. That's too much for me now. I can't go back there and pretend…that's not my life anymore, Hermione.”

“Then what else could you possibly be?” Hermione wonders, bewildered. 

“Well,” Harry hedges, avoiding their eyes. “In the, er, pretty short list of things I thought I liked and might be good at…you know, things I might like to do that have nothing to do with anyone else…the D.A. was one of them. So I guess what I’m asking is-” 

Clearing his throat with pink cheeks, Harry whispers, “What do you suppose a bloke’s got to do to become a professor?” 

“...you’re fucking insane,” Ron says after a long moment of wide-eyed gaping. “I mean, makes sense, but you can't seriously be trying to become a real teacher-” 

“Of course he is, and he'd be wonderful at it! How many people know as much as he does about Defense Against the Dark Arts, Ron, much less actually have experience teaching? Harry, that’s brilliant! You did so well training us in the D.A., I can’t believe I hadn’t considered this before-”

A small grin blooms on his cracked lips as they grow excited, Hermione babbling on about the regular requirements while Ron suggests he hardly needs any more qualifications than taking down bloody Voldemort, and it’s only when he asks about her parents that she finally stops planning the next ten years of his life. 

“A professor,” Ron repeats when they circle back later on. “Blimey, who’d have thunk it! I’m the Auror, you’re the professor, and Hermione’s the school flunkie.” 

“I have NOT flunked school, Ronald Weasley, I’m simply returning to take full advantage of the opportunities offered to me after a haphazard education due to a ruddy war!” 

Ducking the shoe she throws at him, Ron continues shaking his head. “Merlin. You just never know, do you?” 

Harry doesn’t realize until they’ve left that he hasn’t transformed into Sirius even once in the entire time they were here. Catching sight of a familiar beam in his reflection on the silver decor lining the walls, he pauses. 

“Good to see you, mate,” he whispers. 

It’ll happen again before long. It'll keep happening, too, until the impossible day he feels nothing but peace when he lives in this house, thinking of Sirius. It might be years or decades before he finds himself rooted to the ground the way he used to be - before he can find himself in the mirror every day instead of someone else. But Harry's used to change. For now, this much is progress. 

For now, this much is enough. 

He can’t wait to tell George. 

May 2nd, 1988 is a Monday. The week that follows it is one of the most bizarre, incomprehensible periods of time Harry Potter ever lives through. Tuesday, he tells a woman her family is dead and he's possessed her daughter's body. By Wednesday, he's smuggling corpses out of the Chamber of Secrets and into Grimmauld Place because Hermione’s reminded him Hogwarts won't stay open to the public for long. Thursday he attends funerals from dawn to dusk with his best mates clinging to an arm each and taking him aside as soon as the slightest shift in physical appearance occurs. Once or twice, they rearrange his fringe that's grown out over the months of camping so that his missing scar isn't so noticeable when Harry falls into the ever-present longing to be Just Harry instead of Harry Potter. Not everyone's funeral is held at Hogwarts, for most of their families wish for them to be buried elsewhere, but there's still a fair number to run through before night falls. People come to tug on his hands, hug him, kiss his cheeks, pleading with teary eyes and trembling shoulders to attend the ones they plan on holding outside the grounds. Harry instinctively wants to say yes, but Ginny runs interference. All it takes is one quiet conversation to be spread amongst the crowd to accept that Potter's got to busy himself with getting rid of Voldemort's body, which is clearly cursed or made of Dark magic the likes of which only he may be able to handle. 

“The sooner the better,” someone says, clapping a hand on his shoulder. 

“Dreadful, dreadful thing to do, but it must be done,” an elderly grandmother sniffs as she wipes her tears. “No need to chance anything else happening!” 

“If he really stole Potter's blood, the lad's the only one who can do it,” one of the Hogsmeade residents sighs. Murmurs ring out in assent. 

Harry isn't going to destroy it, of course, but they don't need to know that. Ginny goes with him to bury the bastard in his muggle father’s grave - it's a move that somehow feels respectful as much as it does revenge, to lay him to rest but with the man he hated so much. He doesn't give it too much thought when he's standing in a graveyard that brings much more horrible memories to occasion, really. Ron had argued they should burn it to ashes, but Harry feels almost as if Voldemort's snake-faced body is another reminder of his mum's sacrifice. Another reminder of how he's still here today because his mum loved him, and Voldemort could never beat that. It's only after Ginny jumps next to him and he pulls out the odd, owl-shaped pocket mirror Luna loaned him to see that he's transformed into his mum again, though he feels much less surprised this time. 

“It happens,” he says dully. Slowly, as if she might frighten him off by moving too quickly, Ginny slips a hand through his and squeezes. 

Harry doesn't bother mentioning that he's relieved it's not someone else. He's not sure how well he'd have taken looking into the mirror here, surrounded by graves and wilting grass and awful memories, to find Cedric Diggory in his reflection.

Saturday, Harry attends Remus and Tonks’ funeral. Fred’s is Sunday, to give the other extended Weasleys time to attend. They're among the number of dead that aren't to be buried at Hogwarts, and he certainly wouldn't miss these for anything in the world. There are no speeches, no elaborate shows of magic, no dirge music playing. Just coffins and dirt and headstones that feel too stark and too heavy, the sound of them sinking into the ground like gavels on Harry's ribs. He stares and stares at the names engraved on the stone until someone tugs him away, and he hardly has the presence of mind to feel sick when they sigh and Side-Apparate him along to the Burrow after nothing enters his ears. There's quiet mutters and soft clinking as Mrs. Weasley sets about getting tea into them, laying out biscuits, some toast, a jam or two. Likely she knows no one will have the appetite for much else even in this house. The gurgling sound of boiling water fills his head as he sits on the kitchen table and listens to her pouring out cups in their usual array of colorful, mismatched mugs. Most of the others are ambling their way round: Ron and Hermione are in his bedroom, Bill and Charlie are with Mr. Weasley by the garage, Ginny and Percy talking to each other in soft whispers by the garden, Fleur and Luna helping in the kitchen. George is…somewhere. Harry doesn't know. He hasn't been able to look at him much today for fear of losing whatever semblance of control he has. 

It's thinking of George that does him in, in the end. Thinking of George, inevitably, leads to thinking of Fred. Of how there ought to be two of them, always together, and now there's just one . Of how it's Harry's fault for not finishing off Voldemort sooner, for not moving quicker, for focusing on himself and not the people he loves. Loved. Of how George has lost an ear and a shadow for him, and Harry can't do a damn thing that would mean anything half as important to make up for it. Of how he's sitting here in a house that he saw for the first time because they dared to drive a magic car to his house and break him out, stealing scones in the dark of night and defending their choices to kidnap Harry because he was being hurt, starved. 

Only a year they'd known him. Only a year, and they were better to him than most people he'd ever known in his whole life. Seven years since they helped him lift his trunk on a train, found out he was Harry Potter, and did absolutely nothing with that knowledge but have a laugh. Six years since they walked him round the school to fend off the shouts, the shoving, the whispers of Harry being the Heir of Slytherin. Five years since they gave him the Marauders Map, a spectacular piece of magic that carried more of his father than anything else he'd ever known. Four years since they fed his cousin a Ton-Tongue Toffee for being a bullying git and went round hexing anyone wearing flashing badges. Three years since they spent Christmas with him in Grimmauld, helped run the D.A., and got banned from Quidditch together. Two years since they slipped him a book on how to get girls, told them he was one of theirs, and started their new life as the most brilliant pranksters to ever walk Diagon. One year since they were at a wedding, swaying and laughing, and Harry was sitting there with red hair and freckles feeling for a fleeting moment as if he might really be one of them. Only a few months since Fred's voice played over the wireless and made Harry laugh for the first time in ages, bringing light and warmth to him in a tent that seemed to swallow up everything good in the world and spit it out hollow. 

Days. Days, since he saw Fred's cold, lifeless face in the Great Hall and felt the world begin to end. 

Now he sits here in a house that should be filled with laughter and shouting and chaos, staring at a clock hand that will never, ever move from ‘lost’, as stupid, pathetic Harry Potter instead of the man who deserves to be here, who needs to be here because nothing in the world will ever feel right without Fred Weasley here snarking and snooping and-

“Oh!” Mrs. Weasley gasps, her hold on the serving tray falling loose to send everything crashing to the floor. Sugar, tea, milk, and broken shards of glass scatter at her feet as the noise echoes through the house, and Harry jumps to his feet with his wand raised for a fight. 

“What is it,” he asks right before he trips on his robes. “What…?” 

Looking down in confusion, he takes in the oddly large robes that fit him only moments ago, the hands covered in tiny scars from nicks and burns but without the glistening, familiar scrawl of his own writing carved into the back. With a terrible, growing dread, Harry looks up to Mrs. Weasley's bloodless face as she gasps for breath around her panic and knows beyond a doubt that he's done the unforgivable: he's made her look into the face of the son she's buried today. In her own home no less, amidst the thickest of mourning airs. The house is beginning to blur round him as the others are drawn to the sitting room from the noise. Suddenly, before he can do anything but choke for air, Ginny and Luna are coming and there are steps on the stairs and the back door is opening and then - as if things aren't awful enough, as if Harry needs any more reason to disappear - someone lets out a concerned, “George…?” 

Harry runs. He rises to his unfamiliar feet and heads out the front door as fast as his legs can take him, refusing to look at anyone or anything else until he's safely removed himself from anything he knows. He stands up no matter how many times he falls and runs until his lungs threaten to flatten from overwork, his breath stuttering and eyes flashing with light behind his lids. For the first time since Tuesday, Harry lets loose a wave of tears in the desperate hope that maybe he will drown in them and never have to face them again as punishment for his actions…except that when he bends over to sob, it is Fred's pubescent voice that escapes him, Fred's young fingers that dig into the dirt as if they wish to climb inside and rest in the darkness. It stops him short at once, voice catching in his throat. For a moment, Harry wildly considers tearing out his vocal cords or permanently deafening his ears. But then he remembers that the body betraying him today is not entirely his own, and he shakes with the impossibly fury, the agony, the guilt, the feeling of his soul being dragged out by a Dementor to be flayed bit by bit as all kindness and love in the world flees so that only the worst of memories stay behind - a cold, dark, gluttonous beast that craves for the warmth of what used to be and never will. Not again. 

Harry wants to scream. He wants to scream, but it won't be his voice, and this won't be his body, and he's only seventeen, and the desire to stop existing hangs as a sword above his neck so heavily that he can feel its cold edges digging into the skin. He doesn't want this anymore. What, he thinks deliriously, is the point of surviving if all it does is make you want to die? What, what, what, is the point of living if your existence only continues to further pain and suffering? 

The joy of overcoming death had been fleeting after the battle. There isn't any room for joy now. 

“It should have been me,” Harry mutters, shuddering from head to toe with a viscous longing at the familiar voice that escapes him. Just hearing it makes his head swoon. He thinks of Harry James Potter, his father's son with his mother's eyes, thinks of being called a specky git in a room full of people Polyjuicing as him, and says to the boy who feels as if he no longer has a place in this world: “It should have been you, Harry. Not me.” 

The relief of being scolded, of being hated for surviving, for living, for being too greedy to know when to stop, is short-lived. He has hardly enough time to relish it before the grass behind him rustles with the arrival of company. 

“I'll thank you to shut that bloody fucking mouth if you're not gonna use it for good,” someone says hoarsely from just behind. Scrambling backwards with horror, Harry dares a glance and then shoves his head into the ground to avoid being looked at. 

“I'm sorry,” he chokes out, “you don't - you should go, I didn't mean to-” 

“I think I'll do whatever I want,” George tells him from above. “Just because he was the ugly twin doesn't mean he deserves to have his face thrown in the dirt like that.” 

Twitching, Harry shifts until he's curled up in his knees instead. He refuses to lift his head for fear of causing even more harm than he already has. George doesn't seem to care. 

“Let me see,” he says. Harry shakes his head and makes a cut off noise. “Dammit, look at me!” 

“No!” 

“If you're going to go round wearing my brother's face without warning then I deserve to be able to see it!” 

“Please,” Harry begs from the confines of his arms, his breath stuttering against the thick black mourning robes. “I didn't mean to, George-” 

“I don't give a damn whether you meant to or not, Harry,” George says with a sort of exhaustion to him that feels like sinking into a swamp. “I just want to see his face.” 

It's only because he hears the note of longing in the words that Harry stops wallowing in self-hatred long enough to lift his head the barest amount. Enough to peek over his arms at the dragonhide boots George is wearing, exactly as ridiculous and colourful as the day he saw them in King's Cross. 

“Please?” George whispers. Harry feels a rush of fat tears drip down and raises his head as if bewitched by the sound, unable to reject the request. 

When he finally meets George's brown eyes, it's not disgust or hatred he finds there. Mostly, surprisingly, it's…befuddlement. 

“Can't say I expected that,” George mutters. Clearing his throat, he leans in for a moment and takes in Harry's new, borrowed face. “What is it, third year? Fourth?” 

“W-What?” Harry asks, his lips wobbling. 

“You aren't him from now,” George clarifies. He reaches out a hand filled with calluses and tiny scars to brush fingertips over Harry's cheek, then his brows. “You're...Merlin, you're just a kid. Can't be older than fourteen, that's for sure. Too small for the growth spurt we hit in fifth year.” 

Searching his eyes carefully, Harry-as-Fred asks, very softly, his throat thick with misery, “You don't…even though I…?” 

“Nah,” George tells him. He studies Harry for a moment before he takes off the glasses on his face. His cracked lips twitch, then. Not a smile. But it could have been. “Never one for specs, Fred. Made him look too much like a git, unlike me.” 

Unbidden, the words slip out of him as if they're younger, haler, untouched by war. Still safe, trading quips by a fireplace over ten inch essays on the uses of mugwort. “You're identical, George. He looked as much a git as you did.” 

“Wrong again, Harry,” George sighs before he crouches to sit down beside him. “Only an idiot would ever believe that. Then again, you're one of the biggest idiots I've ever known.” 

Harry doesn't bother responding to that. 

“So who else have you turned into this past week?” 

Eyes following the tufts of grass that George tears out and throws into the air, Harry swallows round the lump in his throat. There's a pause long enough that someone else might have given up or asked another question, but George does no such thing. 

“Tonks,” Harry whispers with dry lips. “My - my mum. Sirius. Colin Creevey.” 

That had been at the castle, back when Dennis handed him a photo after they retrieved his body. 

"It was his favorite," Dennis said hoarsely. "He'd have wanted you to have it, Harry." 

Harry'd stared at the dozens of teenagers laughing and swaying as the D.A. took their first group photo right before Christmas break. Colin had sworn he'd give Harry a copy later, but later never came. Later was just Harry sitting in a corner of the castle under his Cloak, feeling numb, as he watched a dead boy grin happily back at him from between Ginny and Luna. That was one of the only times he knew the transformation was going to come before it did. He could feel it sweeping over him as little Colin Creevey flushed with pride in the photo. He'd just cast his first successful stunner that day. 

Harry tries not to think of it too much. He's not ready to handle anything else today. 

George hums, tearing out another handful with perhaps a tad more aggression than required. “But not Fred. Until now, anyway.” 

“Until now,” Harry echoes.

“Mum’s not mad at you, you know,” George says. He's talking like they're discussing breakfast, or the weather, or something else completely inane that isn't Harry's newfound ability to transform into anyone he likes that culminates in him walking round as their dead. “It's not as if you can control it yet.” 

That only makes him feel worse. 

“I saw you, running,” George tells him offhandedly. “Thought I was hallucinating. Went inside to Bill asking what was wrong with me. Ron and Hermione wanted to come. I told them I'd do it instead. Didn't feel fair to let anyone else see it before me.” 

Harry's knee jerks, his eyes shooting from the palm hanging in the air to George’s pale, drawn face. His eyebags have only grown starker since Monday, and it's likely they'll stay that way for the months to come if not the years. His hair's been freshly cut, his robes pressed, and his boots stick out like a sore thumb against the composed picture the rest of him presents. But for some inexplicable reason, he looks oddly at peace compared to when Harry first saw him this morning. 

He notices Harry's confused stare and turns to smile at him. It's a faint little thing, but it brings a relief to his face that makes him seem more like the George from before everything went to hell. 

“You're not gonna like this,” he tells Harry, “but - thank Merlin you're a fucking mess, Harry Potter. Honestly. Thank Merlin and Morgana and Godric himself because if it weren't for you, I'd be the only wanker seeing dead people in the mirror. Instead there's two of us to go about being called the wrong name because we've got the right face. Two of us stuck being…being us and not. Win-win, in my opinion.”

“Oh.” He hadn't thought of that. Of the idea that he might not be alone in this, one specific experience that feels so disarming and impossible to relate to. For a split-second, Harry recalls sitting in Grimmauld, sure that he's a danger to everyone he loves, as his friends surround him. Recalls Ginny's fierce reminder that she, too, had faced Voldemort as a child and been touched by his evil. 

“Well, that was stupid of you,” she had said, all flashing eyes and flaming red hair, “seeing as you don't know anyone but me who's been possessed by You-Know-Who, and I can tell you how it feels.” 

It feels a bit like now, looking at George from a face he's sure isn't his own, and being told that someone else might wake up wondering who they are. If, upon looking in the mirror, they will be themself or the shadow of someone else who will never return except in memories. 

“Oh,” George agrees. He picks up a pebble and tosses it between his hands, tired of pulling grass. “Welcome to the club, mate.” 

“I'm not special,” Harry mumbles under his breath. It feels like something Ginny would tell him if she were here. Fred, too. They were never the type to get stuck in their heads like him. 

George snorts so violently that he nearly falls onto his elbows, shaking his head with a spiteful laugh. “You're plenty special, Harry - just not the way you think. Especially mad, especially stupid, especially specky and scrawny and hideous-” 

“I'm not even me right now,” Harry protests half-heartedly. “I'm…” 

“-and most of all, especially troublesome,” George finishes, flicking the pebble at his shoulder. “But that's why you're one of us, I s'ppose.” 

Harry doesn't bother flinching. He lets the last sentence sink into him not unlike an anchor, holding him down in the middle of this broiling ocean of thoughts and emotions that threaten his calm. George finds another pebble while silence reigns over them. Chewing his lip, Harry tentatively reaches for the pocket mirror sitting in his robes and pops it open like it might release a monster to jump out at him. When he braves the reflection inside, he stares at the pale, miserable face of a fourteen year old Fred. 

“Told you he was the uglier twin,” George says when Harry winces at the distressing image he presents. “What were you thinking of, anyway? To...you know.” 

Touching the freckles sparsed across his cheeks, Harry traces his new features one by one. It takes him a moment to process the question. 

“When you broke me out,” he says quietly. “With the car. Second year.” 

George nods, then, and looks off into the distance with hazy eyes. “One of our better tricks, eh?” 

“It was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Harry says, his words pregnant with an unintended, raw, honesty. “Not - not just that. The…” 

Fred’s tongue trips in his mouth, but Harry pushes on because…because George is sitting here next to him the day of Fred's funeral, in his stupid, flashy dragonhide boots that Fred would have wanted to see him in, worn and sad but still George; few things in his life have ever made him feel as simultaneously relieved and threatened as the Weasley Twins, and Harry's desperate need for support is latching onto the admission of That's why you're one of us, I s'ppose. Because George has lost a piece of himself he's had his whole life, so has Harry, and the world is never going to be the same for them. Harry isn't alone. Isn't special. 

“The both of you,” Harry says, his voice breaking. “One of the best things that ever happened to me.” 

George's hands freeze mid-throw. The pebble clatters to the ground between them while he makes an odd, soft sound. He doesn't move for a long, long time. When he finally speaks up, his voice is unusually cutting. 

“Doesn't seem like it to me.” 

“What?” Whipping his head to stare at his friend, Harry feels his ribs ache with betrayal. “Why would you-?” 

“Because if you thought so, you wouldn't be sitting here wanting to die so I'm stuck doing this bit alone,” George says. His voice is rising with the combination of wrath and loneliness that comes to you in moments of mind-boggling sorrow, a line of white, high-pitched noise striping through a sea of blackness to point out just how far you've drifted into unknown waters. “Alone, when I’m just barely hanging on as is, thinking - at least Harry’s not going to treat me like everyone else, because he’ll be going through this buggering mess with me. Because you haven’t looked me in the fucking eye once. Because even though you went and died once on us, you’re trying to die again. Because now you're Fred, I'm George, and he'll never get older, and that's all I'll ever do, and you're sitting here moping and cussing out our dullard of a little brother instead of doing the proper thing Fred would have done while wearing his bloody face!” 

Harry doesn't ask, but he doesn't need to. George takes out his wand, aims it at the nearest tree, and promptly blows it up with a firm, “Bombarda.” 

It's madness. Every bit of this - the dying, the surviving, the transforming, the grieving, the sitting down and pretending they're normal people having a normal conversation instead of fools at the end of their rope, the random destruction - is utter madness. It's so mad, in fact, that when Harry watches the wood splinter apart and the sound fill the air as if a gunshot has just rung out, the only thing he can do is snort. Then snort again, tears still streaming down his face, as George continues to hit everything nearby with as many spells as he can think of. 

“That's your advice? Blow shite up?” Harry asks incredulously. 

“Set fires,” George adds, pointing his wand left. Another tree goes down. “Punch a bloke. Thought this would be right up your alley, Harrikins.” 

It sort of is, to be honest. Unsurely, Harry pulls out his holly wand and, with the sort of last-minute hunch that either gets him in immense trouble or exactly where he needs to be, he aims it at George. 

It turns out to be the right thing to do. 

Bill is the one who comes looking for them, an hour later. He sprints as soon as he hears the sound of battle, legs only slowing when his disbelieving eyes take in the sight before him. They nearly crumple beneath him, truth be told, when he watches the two identical figures twirl round each other with snarks and quips escaping their mouths between jinxes. He knows that one of them must be Harry; one of these ridiculous, frenzied twins is not Fred and instead a Metamorphmagus with no control over his powers. Even so, he cannot help the immense relief that swims through his chest at the sight. They're yelling and throwing spells and jeering at each other like Bill's known his brothers to do their whole lives. Familiar faces, familiar places. The difference between the endless arguments before and now is the tears streaming down both their cheeks and the ear missing from George's head. 

Bill stands there and watches, helpless to the surging memories in his mind, until the two of them are collapsing onto each other with sobs that's just as much lament as it is liberation from it. They're sweating, crying, shouting, red-faced and ghastly and not the brothers he wants them to be. But. Brothers. 

Harry isn't Fred, Bill knows. He knows George is aware of that more than any of them. It doesn’t change the fact that Harry's still their brother, still one of theirs, and he might be the only one in the world who understands a portion of what George is going to spend the rest of his life living through. Harry will know better than any of them what it’s like to die, and then survive. What it is like to lose something as intrinsic as a piece of yourself, your own flesh, to death, and to see those pieces staring back at you in every reflection. Bill’s job here isn't to tell them how to make sense of the world. His job, as their older brother, is to make sure that they'll get whatever help they need when necessary. He keeps watch over them with his feet rooted to the ground and sore eyes, working through the lingering ache in his bones and wondering how he might make any of this easier. George catches sight of him from afar soon enough. Chest heaving, he meets Bill's eyes and then, ever so slowly, shakes his head while Harry clings onto him like a limpet. 

Bill knows him well enough to understand. They don't need him here, then. His place is elsewhere today. He starts by making sure to ward off everyone else’s concern long enough for the two to have time for themselves. 

“I can’t do this alone,” George tells him woodenly, his arms still loosely wrapped round shoulders that don’t belong to anyone alive. “I can’t - I’m going mad, Harry.” 

Fred’s eyes look up at him, but he knows it’s not Fred. Fred would never have been this obvious with his grief, this despondent. He was always anger, brimstone and fire, ready to lash out when afraid or upset. Not unlike Harry, to be fair. But not exactly like Harry, either. Fred wouldn’t lay here in his arms, sobbing, and listen to George mope. 

“He’s everywhere,” George whispers, his voice breaking. “Everywhere except where I want him to be.” 

“It's not just you,” Harry mumbles. “I’m going mad, too. I don’t…I’m not even me anymore.” 

“I don’t think I am either,” George says with a hitch in his breath. “I’ve never - never been me without him, before.” 

“It’s not because I’m seeing him,” Harry says nonsensically. “I’m not seeing him, in you. I just-” 

Taking a deep breath, he says, “-can’t look at you without thinking he should be with you. Next to you.” 

“Yeah,” whispers George. “Me too.” 

It turns out neither of them are very good at this being alone business. They sit there, murmuring quietly, and only stand to their shaky knees when the sun begins to dip below the horizon. Bill catches them outside the Burrow while everyone else sits inside anxiously, a bag in his hands. He makes no mention of their bedraggled appearances, of their tear-streaked faces. He just hands George the bag, claps a hand on both their shoulders, and says, “Go on, then. I’ll take care of the rest.” 

George swallows him in a brief hug before he and Harry Apparate away from the Burrow and onto better, more glorious pursuits of destruction. 

Harry takes George back to Grimmauld Place, where they happily smash every mirror in the house until there's nothing left to reflect their faces but the gleaming decor. It's cathartic, the smashing. Lifting the mirrors above his head and throwing them down with every bit of his strength feels like an exercise in releasing his thoughts. There's a pile of broken glass and debris sitting on the floor that he whacks into dust the best he can with one of the iron pokers by the fireplace, but Harry's not satisfied. 

“Your place next,” he says with a feverish glint in his grey eyes. George doesn't bother pointing out his shift to Sirius, just nodding. They Apparate to the Wheezes in a swirl of giddy limbs, clambering up the stairs from the shop into the private residence above. George borrows the poker to bash in the ones they charmed to the walls while Harry summons the others one by one. By the end of it, they're lying flat on the floor flushed with success. 

“Can't sleep here now,” George pants, his fingers twitching with residual adrenaline. “Dunno about you, but I’m not cleaning any of this up.”

“I can't go back to the Burrow,” Harry says immediately while his lungs stutter to catch proper breath. 

“Well, what else are you gonna do? Get a room at the Leaky?” 

Thoughtful silence. 

“There's no room, you twit,” George tells him with a huff. “It's completely full.” 

“Oh.” A pause filled with disappointment. Then, tentatively, “...I might know a place.” 

Which is how they find themselves knocking at Andromeda Tonks’ cottage just before midnight, her alarmed expression fading upon meeting Harry's sheepish green eyes. 

“What in Merlin's name were you two doing to end up looking like this,” she asks while taking in their dirty, creased robes. Glass tinkles off their clothes onto the floor as they squirm on her doorstep. George has a cut by his eye, though she notes with relief that Harry’s body seems untouched by harm. “I thought the fighting was over?” 

“Funerals,” Harry says by way of explanation. She absorbs that with slowly pursing lips and then spreads the door open wide. Clearly, she's remembering the one she hosted not long ago.

“Well, come on in then,” she orders. “Though I hope you aren’t expecting dinner.” 

Behind Harry, George hefts the bag of leftovers Bill shoved upon them earlier. They dig through the sandwiches and homemade pudding in total silence. George goes plenty wide-eyed at the sight of Teddy like he can’t quite understand the concept of a baby, but it's the revelation of their relationship that makes him truly astounded. 

“Godfather?” he asks, dropping his fork while Harry mumbles an explanation. “You've got to be joking.” 

He must not have been in quite the right state of mind if he somehow missed that during Remus and Tonks’ funeral, but Harry doesn't blame him. Pot, kettle. He's lucky he wasn't spewing sick when they only buried one coffin that morning, Nymphadora Lupin’s grave untouched but for the headstone awaiting its eventual occupation. The coffin Harry will eventually lie in, when this is over. 

“Godfather,” Harry confirms. He stares at the half-eaten corned beef sandwich in his hands and sets it on the plate wearily. “Since the night he was born, actually.” 

“Harry,” George says while taking in the violet, spiky hair on the other man's head. “That's absolutely mental. I mean…mate, that's beyond fucked up.” 

Bursting into wheezy laughter, Harry manages to say, “Isn't it just?” 

“Fucked up,” George repeats blankly. Harry thinks that about sums everything, really. 

They spend the night camped in her guest room, one on the floor and one between the sheets. There’s still mirrors in the bathrooms here, unfortunately. None in the bedroom. Fresh mint is wafting from the scented sachet hanging by the window throughout the bedroom, diffusing the tension building behind their puffy eyes. Sleep tugs his lids. Even so, fear is not among the many things Harry’s spent the week laying permanently to rest. 

“Listen…when I wake up,” Harry begins. 

“I don't care,” George sighs. “I really...I don't give a fuck, Harry. Whatever it is, whoever you are. It's better than doing this shite alone.” 

If he sounds more worn out now than he has all day, Harry makes no mention of it. 

“Okay,” he croaks. “Okay.” 

They get what sleep they can, comforted by the presence of a warm body by their side. The faint sound of someone else’s breath echoes through the room, soothing them. Neither of them is used to silence or being alone. They’re unlikely to ever be. 

“Morning, Harry,” George says when the sun's risen again, his side profile including a perfectly whole ear. He could almost be mistaken for someone else. He isn’t. 

“Morning, George,” Harry says in return, mousy brown hair brushing his narrowed shoulders. 

Loss still hangs over their heads. Smiles are hard won in the coming times, sleep even harder. George will see Fred in spoons and glass displays and the lake by the Burrow dozens of times before he spots the missing ear, but he’ll remember that someone else, in a way, has it worse. That works enough to dull the edge most days. 

“Worse? Me?” Harry will ask, pointing a disbelieving finger at his own chest. Er, his mum’s chest. 

“Died, didn’t you?” George will say matter-of-factly. “Besides, I only see one person. You see…well, loads of them. Plus I didn't even have to kill myself to look this good - I was born with it."  

And despite the fact that it will take a much longer time for the rest of their world to recognize the difference between them and the faces that overlap theirs, the two of them will never, ever, fail to recognize one another. Not even on the worst of days. Should one of them ever tire of being someone else, they will know without a doubt that the other is in the exact same position. George will know Harry. Harry will know George. In the end, they’ll walk out of the shadows of their past - however cherished, however lovable, however vital to their character it may be - because they cannot carry those who are gone by standing in place. 

They are the sum of the people who loved them, and they must now carry those gone by moving forward. 

“You’re interested in becoming the Defense Professor?” McGonagall asked, eyes widening behind her lenses. “Well. I must admit that isn't exactly what I expected this to be about.” 

“It's just - I asked Hermione about the, er, qualifications to become a professor, and she gave me the ones for other posts, but we both figured it would be best to ask if anything is different for DADA since it's had such a…” Pausing, Harry tried to think of the best words. 

“Colourful history of employees?” Her lips twitched. Harry shrugged and then nodded, though he looked less tense than before. “Well, Mr. Potter, while it's true that the standards for hiring a Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor in past were forcibly lowered due to the extenuating circumstances that caused every new hire to leave and the dwindling application pool, it has come to my attention from a certain portrait that the position may now be free of those…risks.” 

Dumbledore winked over at them from the wall. Harry nodded, understanding that the curse Voldemort had placed on it was gone now that he'd died. 

“As such, we will be reinforcing the standards that align with all our other current positions,” McGonagall finished, taking a sip of tea. “That would mean an Outstanding on your N.E.W.T. for the subject of your preference, two recommendation letters from established individuals in your field, a minimum age of twenty-two, and a published work under your name.” 

Harry had expected the first three, but the last one surprised him enough to earn a jolt. “A published work? Like a book?” 

“Not necessarily,” McGonagall said with another sip of tea. “It can take a variety of forms, though whatever you publish must be somewhat related to Defence Against the Dark Arts and reviewed by your peers or the Ministry. The N.E.W.T. and age requirements might be waived off in the face of your…accomplishments over the years that serve as evidence enough of your capabilities, but the others cannot.” 

Harry'd been lucky that Snape had left his portrait to fuck off somewhere else, or he'd have suffered ceaseless complaints about privilege and rotten, useless, arrogant children. It might have even been McGonagall’s doing that he wasn’t there to rave at Harry, but he wasn’t inclined to bring up the topic without an explicit need. The further off Snape was, the better. Just avoiding Dumbledore’s portrait was difficult enough. Even so, he'd wrinkled his brows to helplessly ask, “What even am I supposed to write about?” 

“Take your pick,” the Headmistress said dryly. “Basilisks, dementors, the Patronus Charm, resisting the Imperius Curse, defeating Voldemort - any one of the many things you've come across in your exciting life. I don't care what it is or who reviews it, just get it done. Even Mr. Longbottom was only excused from obtaining letters of recommendation given that he wishes to teach Herbology in the future. It needn’t be complicated; a few sheafs resembling an essay the likes of which you’d have grown familiar with in your N.E.W.T. classes should you have taken them will do. You rather have the luck of this, all things considered. It’ll have to be completed and submitted to me by August 15th at the latest-” 

“Oh, no,” Harry had interrupted with a pale face, “I'm not applying for this year. I can't…there's…” 

Her eyes softened as he struggled to explain himself, looking the worst he had since walking into the castle. 

“I'm still…recovering,” Harry decided to say, his expression conflicted. “From the, er, battle. I don't think I'll be fit for anything public or tiresome for, um, for a while.” 

Growing concerned at his wording, she'd looked him over twice with a frown. “Do you mean to say you were injured…?” 

“Sort of,” Harry muttered, staring at the grimy shoelaces in his trainers. “I guess you can say that what happened that night has consequences, anyway. I'm hoping to get a handle of things before I go out working any jobs, that's for sure, but - if I can't, I suppose you'll have to know. Anyway, I meant to apply when I meet the age in the first place.” 

Catching the fear flashing in her eyes, he hurried to add, “It's nothing bad! Nothing dangerous to me or anyone else! Just…complicated.” 

Reassured, she leaned back in her chair again with a faint sigh and smiled for the first time since he walked in. “Mr. Potter: everything is complicated with you.” 

“Don't I know it,” Harry'd muttered. 

“But I must inform you that if you aren't planning on joining the staff for the upcoming year and we fill the position, there may not be an opening for you in the future to apply for,” McGonagall said almost sympathetically. It was certainly the softest way she could have broken the reminder. “Professor Sprout has already determined that she would like to retire from teaching to focus on being Deputy Headmistress in the coming years, so Mr. Longbottom is her designated successor. Despite being a senior member of staff, Professor Slughorn is not quite…hale enough to handle more work than currently assigned. He will be Head of Slytherin House and Potions Professor starting next year.” 

He stared at her blankly for a moment before he understood what she meant. Neville was guaranteed the job as long as he did the work because Professor Sprout chose him to take over for her, but there was no reason for a new DADA Professor to retire or quit without the curse hanging above them. 

“How long were you the Transfiguration Professor?” Harry asked, biting his lip. 

“Almost forty years,” she sighed. Fuck. “Rarely do professors leave Hogwarts except for retirement.” 

“Maybe I'll try Beauxbaton instead,” he muttered glumly. She didn't quite laugh, but he could tell she wanted to. 

Peeves had caught him on his way out, cackling as he spun in circles through the air. “POTTY! Good to see you're still alive! Back for more fighting?” 

“It's been two months since I saw you,” Harry said with an incredulous expression as he dodged the candle thrown at him. “How could I have possibly - nevermind. I came to apply for a job, actually.” 

“Oohhh, giving old Filch the boot? I'll have to throw him a retirement party!” Peeves had looked positively gleeful at the idea, hands rubbing together while he began plotting. “Oh yes, oh yes, I'll need to nick some dungbombs…” 

“For Defence,” Harry sighed, mildly confused when Peeves continued to trail along behind him. “Turns out there might not be an opening by the time I can apply.” 

“YOU want to become a professor? Here? At Hogwarts? To cause more trouble and chaos?” Peeves had asked, coming to a dead stop with a gaping mouth. “Little Scarhead walking these halls in charge of nasty little students?” 

And then all at once, an eerie glow passed over the poltergeist's translucent face. It was as if something very peculiar and very amusing had occurred to him at once, and he began to cackle even louder than before. 

“POTTY THE PROFESSOR! POTTY THE PROFESSOR!” 

Before Harry could defend himself - ha! - the poltergeist took off through the walls with a screech of delight, far out of sight. 

It's only when he finally publishes his thesis on the applications of a corporeal Patronus Charm that he realizes what that was about. 

“The job's still available?” Harry asks, his mouth falling open. “But…how?”  

“You haven't heard?” Neville asks as he rifles through the cupboards. His lips begin to twitch into a smile as he holds back a laugh. It's a relief that his face is hidden while looking for tea bags or else he might break. “Peeves has been chasing off the new professors every year, mate. As soon as the students found out he was trying to make an opening for you, they joined in. This year's DADA Professor didn't even bother signing on for more than a year - everyone just expects you to take over when September rolls around again now that you're of age.” 

“Why on earth would Peeves do that for me?” Harry asks with such bewilderment that Neville has to snicker into his sugar jar. “He's never given a flying fuck about me before unless it was to take the piss!” 

“Oh, he likes you,” Neville informs him matter-of-factly. “Part of it is the killing Voldemort thing, of course, but the rest is…what did he call it? A kinship with a fellow troublemaker. Apparently he expects that you'll bring back some sorely needed chaos to Hogwarts.” 

“And he couldn't have come to this realization when he was chucking dungbombs or locking me in abandoned classrooms?” Harry mutters under his breath. “I bet the first thing he does when I walk back in is douse me in unicorn shite, the wanker.” 

“Of course,” Neville says, pouring out their tea with a knowing smile. “Wouldn't be Peeves otherwise, would he?” 

“So…” Clutching at his cuppa in disbelief, Harry does the math. “Does that mean he's run off four people since I asked about the position?” 

“Six,” Neville corrects. He dips a digestive into his tea while Harry blanks out. “The Gryffindors got ahead of themselves when they found out he was, er, helping you, shall we say? They did three in a row that year before I told them we've got to be twenty-two to start teaching. You're going to be their Head of House, by the way.” 

“What! Why?! Don't they already have a Head if McGonagall's been Headmistress this whole time?” 

“Only temporarily,” Neville says with a shrug. “The first DADA hire agreed to take over, but, well…only person willing to do it after that fell through was Hagrid, but everyone knows that's not going to work long term. He’s getting by mostly with mine and Professor Sprout’s help, to be honest.” 

Bless his soul, Hagrid. That really was never going to work out. 

“Bugger,” Harry whispers, still clasping his mug like a dainty Victorian madam in distress. “I'm not getting out of that, am I?” 

“Nope! But hey, I'll be Head of Hufflepuff,” Neville says cheerfully. “We can figure it out together, mate.” 

“That's not the same and you know it! Nothing ever happens in ruddy Hufflepuff, you tosser, you'll be sitting jolly every night with your little plants while I chain down reckless idiots that think fun is - I dunno, jumping off towers and hexing Slytherins!” 

If the excited grin overtaking Harry's face is any indication, he's not actually that upset about it. Neville lets him rant anyway. They reminisce on their D.A. days, fill out their official applications together, and trade ideas for the curriculum they'll have to prepare for the upcoming school year with a sort of terrified anticipation. The air is fraught with nerves not because they're worried about rejection, but because this is the beginning of the rest of their lives: free from war, from battle, from constant loss. 

Harry is twenty-one going on twenty-two, and he's about to return to the first real home he's ever known.

Hogwarts is magic and magical both, but there's no magic as powerful as the overwhelming sense of belonging that sweeps over him the second he walks up the grounds to the Entrance Hall. Of comfort. Holding onto his trunk with one hand and his wand with the other, Harry pauses just to inhale the thick, refreshing scent of pine, damp earth, dusty stone, and old wool from the tapestries lying about. Tears prickle at his eyes instinctively, but there's nothing left by the time he opens them again. He's asked permission to come ahead of the other professors and students just to make sure of his initial guess, and he takes advantage of the empty corridors to remind himself of the endless paths one may cross in this enormous castle. He passes by the courtyard, by the Great Lake, by the kitchens, by the Quidditch pitch, by the classrooms he used to study in, by Gryffindor Tower. He's fairly confident until he reaches the Room of Requirement, at which point he pauses. 

Slowly opening the door to reveal an exact replica of the room everyone walked through all those years ago for the final battle, Harry makes his way to the center and takes a scrupulous look. He recalls meeting his friends, exploring the Ravenclaw Common Room, the Fiendfyre, Remus and Tonks and everyone he's ever known slipping in one by one. Harry stands there and reminisces until his heart is thoroughly battered but still whole, and then he makes one last request. 

When the mirror shimmers along the far wall, it is not Colin Creevey, Fred Weasley, Remus Lupin, or Nymphadora Lupin's face that greets him. It is Harry James Potter, with his father's looks and his mother's eyes. He has survived Voldemort, has survived death, and has survived life after both. Nodding at his reflection, he turns on his heel and leaves to find his quarters.

There may yet come a day or time where he cannot overcome the memories. Grief and regret stay many a year with survivors, you see. But there will come times past those - times where he is more than loss, more than the people who died, more than everyone who has rooted themselves into his soul as part of his journey here. Nothing will ever be perfect. Very little will ever be easy. 

But he's Harry Potter, and he's made it this far by enduring much worse. 

“I'm home,” Harry whispers to the castle. Despite his famously poor imagination, he likes to think that Hogwarts might have, just possibly, hummed a greeting back. 

It's nothing compared to what he gets at the Welcome Feast, of course. 

“As you may be aware, there have been some changes in staff from last year. Professor Sprout has chosen to focus on her duties as Deputy Headmistress from this point onwards, while Professor Flitting has chosen to move onto…greener pastures, shall we say. Please join me in welcome Professors Longbottom and Potter as your new Herbology and Defence Against the Dark Arts Professors-” 

Thunderous applause breaks out across every table at once. Even the other staff at the High Table clap passionately, Hagrid's enthusiasm nearly knocking half their plates off. Gryffindor House has not a single student left sitting as they stomp and cheer, setting off confetti and streamers in every direction to welcome back their alumni in the form of their new professors. There are roaring lions present in multiple forms: on robes, on scarves, on banners they've snuck in, and even on a wireless radio that someone's charmed to be heard above the racket. Someone's handed out sparklers to every House so that there are golden fizzles of light filling the room no matter where you look - even the Slytherins have deigned to wave them about. Harry and Neville try not to fall over laughing at the bedlam, but even the threat of an irate Minerva McGonagall can't dispel the beams spreading from ear to ear across their faces. She seems surprisingly unbothered by the fuss for the first few minutes; it's only when she realizes they don't plan to stop that she takes action. 

“Yes, yes, thank you all very kindly for the warm welcome,” she says with a wand to her throat, her eyes slicing across the Great Hall like a knife. It's the only way she'll be heard over the din. “As I was attempting to say earlier: Professor Longbottom will also be taking on Professor Sprout's role as Head of Hufflepuff House, while interim Head Hagrid will be handing over his position to Professor Potter permanently. While we as staff always encourage you to seek out your professors for help regarding your school work and any issues you may face along your path as students here, I must remind you not to abuse this by interrupting their classes, attempting to break into their quarters, hounding them during their office hours, or distracting your classmates by discussing their personal lives during classes. Anyone found to be doing so shall be assigned appropriate punishment.” 

Pausing to take in the plethora of sighs and groans echoing across the vast room, the Headmistress softens the folds of her face in a small smile. 

“Welcome back to Hogwarts,” Professor McGonagall says warmly. If she means more than just the students, no one's foolish enough to suggest it out loud. “Now, we feast!” 

Amidst the endless chatter, the thousands of candles lighting the room under a ceiling of stars, the fine company, and the plentiful delicacies piled up before him, Harry Potter thinks with a fierce, aching wrench of his stomach: I missed this.  

“Still planning on terrifying your Gryffindors?” Neville asks with a grin as Harry just takes in the room. “Feels a poor thanks for everything they've done so far.” 

“Of course,” Harry says, finally lifting his fork. “Got to start the year off with a bang, haven't I?” 

Neville shakes his head at the smirk beginning to cross his friend's lips and sighs. “Never a simple time with you, is it.” 

When dinner ends and the prefects are leading the students back to the dorms with the expectation that their new Head of House will arrive shortly behind, they don't notice Harry following along. They couldn't, you see, because he's shrunk himself to a fourteen year old that can still be completely covered by the Invisibility Cloak, and there's a Silencing Charm to shuffle his footsteps as he plods in their shadows. He's a bit out of practice climbing over the portrait into the Common Room with the Cloak flapping round his legs, but he makes it in with none the wiser - not even the Fat Lady. To his mild surprise, none of the older students have left to head up to the dorms yet. Must have missed when the prefects announced he wanted them to stick around for a bit. 

Harry watches the Gryffindors cast curious glances at the portrait and shift anxiously for his supposed introduction as their new Head of House, with only the first years paying any attention to what the prefects are saying. They're all so tiny, these kids - even in his fourteen year old body, they seem like they're just babies to his eyes. 

“Does anyone have questions they'd like to ask?” Joanna Davis says to the little firsties, her smile a bit nervous. Harry takes that as his cue: he brings forth the image of his proper form to the mind in order to transform back, dispels his Silencing Charm, and whips the Cloak off to dozens of gasps and a few screams. With one hand hidden behind his back to flick his wand with years of familiarity born from doing his own laundry, the Cloak folds into a neat little square and tucks itself in his back pocket. 

“Hullo,” Harry says with a smug smile. And then, because it only seems right, he adds, “Constant vigilance!” 

None of them know what that means, of course, but it still amuses him to say so. 

“P-Professor! When…” Stuttering with bright red faces, Joanna and her partner for the year, Christopher, turn to the older prefects as if they must have planned this. 

“Oh, don't look at them,” Harry chuckles. “They're just as surprised as you are. I don't suppose anyone managed to spot me even once from the Great Hall to here?” 

The dozens of students before him shake their heads mutely, still awestruck by his sudden appearance. Harry turns a curious look to the poor boy that fell on his arse with a yelp, who pales and then scrambles to stand up again with the help of his friends. Green eyes notice something move in the periphery and he casts a glance at the Common Room entrance but finds nothing. 

“Well,” he says rather grandly with an air of confidence that would make his own friends scoff, “as you might have heard if you were paying attention to the Headmistress’ speech, I'm Professor Potter, your new Head of House. I know you're all excited to be back or tired from the long trip, so I won't take too much of your time.” 

Quite a few faces fall immediately. Harry pretends not to see. He continues to borrow Andy's posh way of speaking that delivers the impression she's in charge, she's sensible, and her tolerance for nonsense is limited. 

“My office hours will be announced during class, so you can wait until then to find out. Obviously, I was a Gryffindor, so I know how most things go over here. As your Head of House, I'll be responsible in the future for looking over how you do in class, how you behave, and how to help you when you find yourselves in need. I'm not the type to go on about my own life much, honestly, but I do want you lot to know without a doubt that if you sincerely need me, I'll do everything in my power to help you out. Schoolwork, fights with your friends, bullies, something going on at home, career advice - come by for anything and everything you can think of that bothers you. Not everyone will feel comfortable doing that in person, of course, so I'll be setting up a mailbox where you can write to me anonymously or otherwise. Every Saturday morning from seven until twelve, I'll be in my office for you to visit while responding to any of those letters.” 

A hand shoots up in the air, leading down to a fidgety second year who's biting her lips. Harry nods at her, “Yes?” 

“H-How will we get your letters back i-if they're anonymous, sir?” 

“Oh, don't worry about it,” Harry says vaguely. He spent four years studying Tonks' books on top of doing his Patronus research; while he might not be the pinnacle of knowledge Dumbledore was, he's nothing to scoff at anymore. He'd more than likely give Snape a go for his money as long as Potions isn't involved. Or the dark arts. There's about a dozen spells he can use and always the help of the house elves, but the less they know the better. Too much information like this in the hands of a Gryffindor is just tempting someone to find loopholes. “I'll manage. The mailbox will be heavily spelled to prevent others from stealing, breaking in, or changing any of the contents put inside, by the way. If you decide later that you don't want me to read something you've put in, visit me Saturday morning and we'll talk about getting it back to you. Please note that Sundays are my off day, which means I will be returning home and thus completely unavailable to you. I will also spend three dinners a week in Hogsmeade, so anyone sneaking out without permission is much more likely to get caught than before.” 

Andromeda's argued that if Harry wants to take his job seriously, he can't spend half the year Flooing between her house and the school just to catch dinner with them. It took almost a month of tense discussions and one breakdown, but they've worked out regular meals in Hogsmeade instead with the agreement that he can come back every Sunday to make up for lost time. Harry also plans on getting at least one Floo call in per day while he's away for work. For all his joy at returning to Hogwarts, he’s loath to give up the hours and hours of time he's used to spending with Teddy every day. Hermione and Ron had coaxed him out of sending a resignation letter the moment he realized how much of his godson's daily life he might miss out on as a professor who has to spend nine months a year living away, and it's only thanks to Professor McGonagall’s promise to let him head out to Hogsmeade whenever he pleases to see them outside of classes that Harry's calmed down. He's made it explicitly clear that nothing will prevent him from being an active, constant part of his godson's life, and he'll be damned if he lets silly pranks or obsessive fans get in the way of that. 

“I thought the professors just lived here,” a freckle-faced boy mutters incredulously. “You can leave?” 

“Yes,” Harry replies with a laugh. He thought much the same when he was their age too.  “Professors can, in fact, leave the grounds and have personal lives, though not everyone makes that choice. Mine is very, very important to me. If by any chance you should do something ridiculous enough that the Headmistress decides to summon me in on a Sunday, you will not only have ruined my week, but also yours. Am I understood?” 

As if this next bit has occurred to him spur of the moment and not a month ago when he was discussing how to successfully browbeat his Gryffindors with Ron and Hermione to guarantee his Teddy-time, Harry blinks twice and then gives them a slow, malevolent glare. He just barely holds back from an evil cackle or rubbing his hands, instead crossing his arms. 

“Oh, and I should make this explicitly clear now: if you get into trouble, I will know. If you are somewhere you aren't supposed to be, I will know. If you do something stupid that can potentially harm your fellow students or members of our staff, I - will - know. Just like tonight. There'll be no warning, no hints, and none of you any the wiser, but I'll find you. There are eyes and ears everywhere, kiddos, and as a former Gryffindor myself…” 

Leaning forward with a predatory grin, Harry slowly enunciates, “I'm very good at finding out things people don't want me to know. Isn't that right, Professor Longbottom?” 

The crowd is filled with gasps and startled jumps as they scan the Common Room for Neville with the expectation that he'll pull a surprise appearance just like Harry. When they grow confused at the lack of one Professor Longbottom within the room, they turn to Harry with great confusion as mutters spread from every corner about his possible madness. Harry only raises his brows expectantly. 

To their utmost alarm, a sigh escapes a completely empty spot near the portrait where the Fat Lady had quietly snuck someone in during their distraction at Harry's speech. Dispelling his Disillusionment Charm by taking a step forward, Neville wonders, “How'd you notice?” 

“Please,” Harry says with a roll of his eyes. “As if I'm not the one who taught you how to do that in the first place. You could have just asked to come along, you know.” 

Harry’s more surprised that none of the seventh years were capable of detecting a Disillusionment Charm. He’ll have to fix that, of course. 

“Eh,” Neville shrugs. “I didn't want to steal your thunder. I talked to most of my Hufflepuffs on the train and had nothing to do.”  

Likely story. It would have been believable if Harry didn't spend six years living with the man in the same dorm. For someone who likes peace and quiet, Neville can be quite the gossip when the occasion comes by. He swears up and down it's just a hazard of being raised by his nosy grandmother, the liar. Which one of them was spreading rumors about fainting in the train their third year again?

“So?” 

“So?” Neville repeats, blinking. “So what?” 

“Do I or do I not have the spectacular ability to find out secrets no one should know?” Harry clarifies with his same cocksure grin. 

“Oh,” Neville says, his face clearing up. With a sudden, pitying look to the Gryffindor students still attempting to keep their heads straight with all the odd, fantastical events taking place, he coughs into a fist. “It's unnatural, honestly. Even Dumbledore and Voldemort couldn't keep secrets from you in first year, and you barely knew how to hold a wand then.” 

He’s a good friend, Neville. He’s even played it up for Harry despite saying it’s a poor thanks for keeping the position open! Though…whether that’s because he loves watching drama or because he’s trying to divert the spotlight forced upon him is a different matter. 

More kids fall on their arse or cling to one another at his words, though whether it's from the weight of the information or the use of Voldemort's name Harry isn't sure. Either way, it helps prove his point. Sending an appreciative look towards his fellow professor, Harry decides to wrap up. 

“And I've only gotten better at it ever since,” Harry finishes with a smug nod. “Well, I suppose that's everything! Anything you'd like to say to your fellow Gryffindors before we leave them be, Professor Longbottom?” 

Every head turns to him but one. Scratching his cheek, Neville offers, “Er, most of you have probably seen me round these past few years as Professor Sprout’s assistant, but it’s nice to meet you. I'll usually be in the greenhouses if you need me?” 

Good enough. Invisibility Cloak wrapped round him again successfully, Harry lets them scream and break out into excited chatter when the kids realize he's disappeared before he follows Neville out of the portrait into the castle a few minutes later. 

“Nice of you to give me cover,” Harry says cheekily as he pops his head out of the Cloak to be seen. “How well do you think that went on a scale of one to ten?” 

“Fifteen,” Neville says dryly. He's hiding a smile, though, which means it's a sincere response. Harry smirks at him and folds the Cloak away. 

“How’d you sneak in so quietly?”

“I asked the Fat Lady to just swing open the tiniest bit and let me through,” Neville says as though Harry can’t see his cheeks warming in the moonlight. “Had on one of those Notice-Me-Not bracelets George started selling. Worked great since there were dozens of other people round to blend me in.” 

“And…?” 

Neville tries to fake confusion, but he's not very good at it. Again: terrible liar. 

When Harry just continues to stare at him without giving, he folds with a slightly embarrassed huff. “I promised to read her a novella next Monday if she didn't give me away.” 

Laughing so hard he nearly trips onto his arse, Harry clings to his friend's broad shoulders and gasps, “A novella! With Neville! Tell me, is it a bodice-ripper?” 

“Oh, fuck you,” Neville groans before he shoves the man away and awkwardly stalks off. “Just for that, I'm telling Ginny the mailbox is for love letters and fan mail only.” 

“Come on,” Harry protests as he chases him down the corridor, “you know she won't believe that!”

“Of course she won't. She'll still tell near everyone to make fun of you though.” 

It is unfortunately rather true. He spends the next month receiving flowery envelopes with pink, scented parchment from a delighted George and Ginny about how much they admire Mr. Harry Potter The Boy Who Lived in the morning mail, the two even going so far as to make up their own fake identities as secret admirers. Harry is simultaneously horrified and amused. Just the thought of those two snickering over a table while writing the letters makes him roll his eyes, but he finds a satisfactorily empty drawer to shove them in despite his many claims that they’ve been burned to ashes. 

It's the mail from Andromeda that gets him, though. Breath caught in his chest as he pulls out the doodle she slipped in from Teddy, Harry blinks back tears when takes in the brown haired, green eyed man holding hands with the little blue haired and purple skinned boy in the picture. It's quite good for a four year old, really, with eyes and lips and proper robes instead of giant blobs. All of a sudden he remembers the endless doodles scribbled into Tonks journals and the dozens of sketchbooks amongst her belongings in the cottage. Teddy must have inherited her talent, then. Harry hasn't seen him draw much before because the boy couldn't sit still for more than two seconds in all these years, but he supposed the fun colors might have become more interesting now that he has no one to play with anymore. Thumbing the corner of the paper where Teddy's signed his doodle in humongous, wonky letters that seem nothing like English, Harry clears his throat and begins placing as many protective spells as he can think of on it. 

He sticks it on the wall of his office so that everyone who comes by can know that he's got an amazing, talented godson that he loves very much, and it's only when he grows to have too many for the walls to hold up that Harry begins saving the older ones in a specially dedicated box. There are only two picture frames hanging in his office: one of Teddy from his third birthday, looking smart in an itty bitty baby-sized suit that Andromeda couldn't help herself from buying, and one of himself with Ginny. There are dozens more inside his quarters, of course, but these are the ones he keeps out to look at when he's working. The ones he can't go too long without looking at for fear of the longing tearing him apart. 

When he sees Teddy for their first Hogsmeade dinner, he near sprints to swallow the little boy in a tight hug. 

“You can't just go about carrying him everywhere,” Andromeda says with exasperation when Harry refuses to set his godson down. “He's gotten too big, for one, and he'll have to sit on his chair to eat for another.” 

“He's not heavy at all,” Harry says immediately despite the building strain in his arms from carrying Teddy. “Besides, what else is magic for?” 

As if she'll tear him away the next second, Harry fumbles for his wand and casts a hurried Feather-light Charm. While not as light as a feather, exactly, Teddy does grow exponentially less heavy. Watching as two identical faces beam at her from the dim light of the village lanterns, Andromeda just shakes her head fondly and gives up. 

“I missed you so much,” Harry tells Teddy in a heartfelt whisper. “Did you know that? I missed you so very very veeery much, teddy bear.” 

“I missed you too! When you gonna come home?” Teddy asks, his arms still tightly looped round Harry's neck. “Don't go to Hogwerts, Harry, come with me! I have colouring books and new blocks and we can play together!”  

Pressing a kiss to Teddy's fringe with an overwhelming surge of affection, Harry says, “I'm sorry, Teddy, I can’t come home with you. I have to work like Ginny does. But I'm still going to see you all the time, alright?” 

Pout fading as he takes in Harry's suddenly damp eyes, Teddy wriggles to place his hands on clean-shaven cheeks and asks with faint worry, “You okay, Harry? Don't cry! It's okay, it's okay, Teddy and Grandma are here. We're gonna take care of you! You dun have to be sad, Harry.” 

“You promise?” Harry asks while the beginnings of a smile twitch at his lips. 

“Promise,” Teddy swears. “Don't cry?” 

“Alright, Teddy, I won't cry. Just for you.”  

He almost breaks when Teddy realizes once again that Harry isn't coming back with them and begins sobbing, but he reminds himself that he's a grown man. After endless promises that they'll see one another tomorrow and a small sweet slipped into his tiny hands, Harry manages to send off the two without much damage beyond the wounds of his own aching heart. 

Ginny takes one look at him through the Floo that night and sighs. “That bad?” 

“Worse,” Harry groans while he flops into an armchair. “Why did I ever take this stupid job in a stupid castle in stupid bloody Scotland?” 

“Because you love it,” Ginny reminds him. “And you're great at it. And because you need something to do that isn't sitting round a house moping.” 

“Moping? When was the last time I ever moped?!” 

“Oh, I dunno…now?” 

“I'm not moping! I'm...I’m just…” Searching for words while she smirks at him, he glares at her. “I'm understandably upset at a distressing situation!” 

“Right,” she says undeterred. “Moping. It's okay, it's nothing new. You look better doing it now than you did years ago anyway - or you would, if you turned your chin a little more left…” 

Harry throws another log into the fire just to scatter the flames forming her face. Laughing with her head thrown back, Ginny finally begins to comfort her poor little boyfriend with the promise of joining them for dinner on Friday after Quidditch practice.

“I’m, er, not entirely unattracted to birds,” Ginny explains one day over tea while they lounge round in their pyjamas. 

“Huh,” Harry says, considering that. He's got marmalade smeared on his upper lip from his toast. Fucking adorable. “Uh…good to know?” 

She laughs and tosses a crumpled napkin at him. “I'm saying if you ever get too stuck being a girl, you might as well just try staying a girl! It's not like I'll mind, you dolt.” 

“You know I'm not good at making up things like that,” Harry grumbles into his tea.

It's a rather sore point that even after all these years, he's too boring to make the most of his newfound Metamorphmagus abilities. As it turns out, his creativity can only go so far as to transform him into people he already knows. Even attempting to change his own form with thoughts of being taller or broader don't last for long, reverting back to standard as soon as he grows too conscious of it when grabbing something or catching a glimpse in the mirror. 

“You've never tried?” Ginny asks with curiosity glittering in her mischievous eyes. “Imagining if you were still Harry, but…a girl?” 

“You know I haven't,” he rolls his eyes. “What would that even look like?” 

“Fit, I bet,” Ginny murmurs into her mug. Then she brightens up with an idea. “I've got to talk to George!” 

Half a year later, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes releases a potion that allows one to temporarily transition to another sex. 

“Figuring out how to make it temporary without any side effects was a nightmare,” George tells them with a long sigh. “I mean, no matter how I tried to reconfigure it going by the permanent one, things would still get iffy. Had to make our testers sign contracts they wouldn't come kill me if they ended up with the wrong bits for life...but that's all in the past now! I look proper fit as a woman, let me tell you-” 

“Permanent one?” Harry asks Ginny at the dinner table. 

“Well, yeah,” she says as if it's obvious. “You know, the one for if you want to go from bloke to bird or the other way round. Not that they'd work on you though.” 

Hermione shakes her head with an amused smile when Harry just stares at her slack-jawed. “It was in the sixth year Potions curriculum, Harry, honestly!” 

“You can just do that?” he asks incredulously. “I've never heard that before!” 

“Best ages to do it are right before Hogwarts or much later,” Hermione explains while Ginny laughs at his clueless expression. “Before you've started practicing magic or you're adept at it for the most part is the safest time. There isn't the stigma around it in the wizarding world like there is with muggles, you see. There have even been documented cases of children doing it on their own with accidental magic depending on how strongly they felt about it…” 

“So why are you interested in this potion, then?” Harry asks his girlfriend when he's finished listening. Hermione's already promised to give him a full list of books and memoirs about this business to help with his, er, Metamorphmaging, so he's alright switching topics after covering the basics. It'll come in handy again when Teddy's older, so he’s actually invested in the bloody research. 

“To see what you look like as a girl,” Ginny laughs, “or what Tonks looks like as a boy. Take your pick - not actually sure what'll happen if you drink it.” 

Nothing, as it turns out. Absolutely nothing. 

“Damn,” Ginny says wistfully. “We were almost onto something great, you know.” 

“Do you want me to have boobs that badly?” Harry asks her with a bemused shake of his head. “Don't you get sick of them after seeing your own all the time?” 

“Why, do you?” she snipes back, raising her brows. Harry snorts and leers at her. 

“I think I answered that well enough last night, unless you need more proof?” 

Laughing, Ginny busies herself with snogging him and figures they can try again some other day. 

A year later, Harry fingers the felt box in his robe pocket and thinks of the news Hermione gave him a week ago. He'd already bought the ring by then, and it'd taken him over three days just to internalize her words before he could bear speaking them out loud. But he's come to terms with it, now, and terribly saddening as it might be, it feels appropriate in a way. Harry is as alive as he is dead, and he's growing to accept everything that means. 

He just hopes Ginny can too. 

“So what’s the big news, then?” Ginny asks when she sits down at the table. Sliding his morning cuppa down and curling up onto the chair, the redhead tucks her chin onto her knees and blinks owlishly at him. 

Sighing as he wraps his hands round the steaming mug, Harry figures that being romantic and dreamy isn’t as important as being honest. It's better to just get it out and be done with it. “Hermione dropped by yesterday to update me on some of the research she’s been doing about me being - you know.” 

Ginny nods, curious. “And?”

“And, she figured out something kind of important. It’s, um…well. It turns out that because this isn’t actually my body, and I’ve got a shite imagination and poor understanding of muggle biology-” 

Ginny snorts at his grimace and dunks a digestive into her tea with amusement. “Right, of course.” 

“I can’t…change my insides,” Harry says awkwardly, squirming in his seat. He doesn’t bother looking up from his tea, too afraid to look at her. 

“Afraid you lost me there,” she tells him, her voice still amused. “Insides meaning you’re still a daft prat-”

“Insides meaning I can’t have kids with you,” Harry blurts out, mentally slapping himself for the lack of tact. Good job, you dolt. Whatever happened to a mature, thoughtful discussion? “Unless we start making magical clones or something.” 

Silence. 

Wincing as it goes on longer and longer, Harry chances a peek from under his lashes and blinks when she just stares at him with mild confusion. 

“So is this some sort of kinky suggestion…?”

Laughing despite himself, he sits up straight and commits to the explanation as he should have from the very beginning. “No, it’s not a bloody suggestion, Ginny. I’m saying that I don’t have the, er, equipment? To have kids with someone else. And the reason I’m bringing it up is because I’m sort of famously, stupidly in love with you, and I want to be with you for the rest of my life - but I don’t want you to be in a relationship with me where I can’t give you something you really, really want. So, basically…if, um, if not being able to have kids with me is a deal-breaker, then…” 

Setting her mug down so she can walk over and clamber into his lap, Ginny wraps her arms around Harry’s neck and forces him to meet her eyes. 

“I want you to listen to me very carefully, Harry Potter, because I’m only going to say this once: I don’t give a damn. I want you in all your idiotic, poorly dressed, reckless, professor-like glory, and I've never noticed you to be lacking equipment where it matters. We both know that between the two of us, this hurts you more than it does me. But that's alright because I won't let you be alone through it. Besides, we already have a kid.” 

“We do?” Harry mumbles, blinking back the peculiar burning in the back of his eyes. It wouldn’t be tears, of course, because he’d never give her the ammunition to call him a sod for the next year. But it might be something close. 

“You’ve got Teddy, haven’t you?” Rolling her eyes like it’s obvious, she leans in for a soft kiss. “So if we’re together, then he’s mine too.” 

And yeah, he thinks of Teddy as more than a nephew, more than a little brother, more than a charge, but-

“Really?” he asks one last time. Just to be sure. “You’re really okay with just Teddy?” 

“Just Teddy,” she repeats mockingly. “As if that boy’s ever been just anything. You bloody Metamorphmagi!” 

Frowning while a delighted beam spreads across his face, she wriggles in his lap. “Hang on. What’s in your robes?” 

“Maybe I’m just happy to see you,” Harry murmurs as he kisses her again thoroughly. 

“I think I’d know what that feels like by now, Harry-” 

“If I told you right now, your mum would kill me,” he tells her matter-of-factly. “So either you lose a fiance right now or we get back to snogging.” 

“Fiance?” Ginny asks, taken aback. “You can’t be serious. This is how you-?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll make it up to you later,” Harry says, cutting off her incredulous complaint by sucking on her bottom lip. “Snogging now. Roses and wine later.” 

“You’re lucky I’m invested in you,” she tells him with a gasp when they pull apart. “I’d never take this cheek from someone else!” 

“Lucky me,” Harry agrees. He means it with every bone in his borrowed body. 

The student population learns very quickly that Professor Potter is a man of his word. Maybe it's because he's the strongest wizard today, or maybe it's because he knows Hogwarts like the back of his hand, or maybe there's some sort of strange magic to him that makes him different from the rest of people, but- 

-he really does know everybody's secrets. 

If Professor Potter is on patrol, there's no doubt that any students out of bed will be caught. Whether you hide or head out onto the grounds or try to slip away to Hogsmeade, he'll always catch you. He casts spells over all his food and drink so that no one can ever slip a prank product or love potion in, and he somehow manages to figure out who's done it every single time a red flag comes up. He almost always knows where everyone is, he can find things you've hidden no matter how many spells or books or clothes you try to stow them under, and he's terribly skilled at sniffing out lies. One can only get caught with contraband or their hands down someone's pants so many times before getting caught by an amused Harry Potter begins leaving scars on your teenage psyche. But for all that, Professor Potter is also fun. He plays music through many of their practical classes, he encourages silly answers, he doesn't assign much writing for homework, he's not very strict with his punishments unless you do something foolish like getting caught in a fight, and sometimes he slips in a story or two in class whenever he comes across something that reminds him of his youth. He's witty and smart and strong, and he sincerely replies to every letter or concern brought to him on Saturdays. He takes jokes quite well, his tongue is sharp as steel if you catch him slipping up against his better judgement, and he understands muggles just as much as he does wizards. He's not very good at making tea, but he has the best biscuits. And, if you've had the most horrible day and you're upset enough to cry, you'll find that he has the softest way of patting your head or shoulders while he comforts you in the practiced way one learns from caring for toddlers. If you can't find the means or any family to spend your hols with, you'll be welcome to join his Christmas or Easter party just before break begins for a bit of holiday cheer.

On top of that, he has no prejudice against Slytherins and makes a point not to be biased towards his Gryffindors despite the loads of bad history he's got with so many of them becoming Death Eaters in his time. 

“If I was going to be playing favorites and picking sides just because of my own opinion instead of the facts, then there was no point in fighting for everyone to be treated fairly,” Professor Potter says firmly when asked about it. And really, there isn't much they can say in response afterwards when he looks so determined and imposing. 

He's rather quickly the number one beloved teacher at Hogwarts - followed typically by Hagrid or Professor Longbottom now that Professor Sprout is relegated to Deputy Headmistress duties - but as much as one might admire or adore Professor Potter, everyone knows not to truly upset him. Bullies of any kind are not tolerated under Professor Potter’s watch, regardless of whether it's by word or wand. But no schoolyard bullying quite matches up to Timothy Barclay’s spectacular idea to ride the Giant Squid that ends up with the grounds completely flooded and five people sent to the Hospital Wing on none other than a Sunday afternoon. 

As soon as they're safely ensconced inside the tower to avoid the flooding, Gryffindor House explodes into a frenzy. 

“Oh, Merlin, Tim's fucked!” 

“No way. The Harpies had an away game yesterday, so it's not like the professor could've been on a date. It's probably one of the only times someone can get away with this if you think about it.”

“Has McGonagall called the professor already? It can't wait until tonight?”  

“What do you think he'll do?!”

“I can't tell if him being disappointed or angry is worse…” 

“Angry, definitely. I've never seen him angry, but Hagrid says it's no joke.”  

“Do you think he'll blame us for not stopping it?” 

Everyone pauses at that, exchanging worried looks. 

“No…he couldn't.” 

“Right? Of course not.” 

“It's not like anyone knew Timothy was going to be a bloody idiot.” 

“Well, he's always an idiot.” 

“Yeah, but not like this!” 

The ensuing arguments are only broken by the bang of the portrait swinging open to reveal a panting Joanna. 

“He's here!” She squeaks. The entire room rises to their feet to pepper her with questions and take a look. “He's bringing Tim back, they just finished up at the Headmistress’ office-” 

Yelping and tripping over themselves to right the Common Room in preparation for his arrival, the students’ attempt to soothe some of Professor Potter’s anger and hide their curiosity falls short as the man himself stalks inside with Tim in tow. Tim's head hangs quite low as he shuffles in first, Professor Potter glaring behind him. 

They all flinch when the portrait slams shut, fingers twiddling and throats busy gulping while their Head of House shoves Tim into the center of the room with an aura about him that could fell anyone he so much as looked at twice. 

“Now,” Professor Potter says quite softly as the air grows cold and still, “you are going to explain yourself to me in front of the entire House as to why one of my best students has nearly ruined my good opinion of him by forcing me in on my day off because he's sent not one, not two, but five peers to the Hospital Wing for a lark. And maybe - just maybe - if you seem sorry enough, I won't call your parents in for a discussion about your behavior.” 

Blanching at the idea, Tim opens his mouth to blurt, “Please don't be upset, Professor, I can - I can definitely explain…” 

Flapping his mouth uselessly as everyone watches with bated breath, he says, “Um, just…everyone knows the Giant Squid's a softie, really-” 

Many students make faces that suggest they were in no such possession of this knowledge. 

“-and Hagrid was telling me that when the mermen play with him, sometimes he lets them bounce round his tentacles or go for rides-” 

Professor Potter's lip twitches, but he remains quiet while Tim tries to excuse the mess he's caused. 

“-so I thought…if I ask very nicely in Mermish…he'd let me do the same,” Tim finishes lamely. 

“You asked him in Mermish?” Professor Potter asks, clearly disarmed. For a second they see hope in poor Tim's future, but any such ideas are dashed when Professor Potter scowls. “So you had enough sense to ask the squid for permission but not enough to ask any of your professors? You’re a sixth year, Mr. Barclay-” 

Sympathetic winces and tiny gasps of shock run round the crowd as they take in the use of his last name. Professor Potter never uses anyone's last name. Not unless he's royally pissed off, apparently. 

“-and by next year, you're going to be an adult according to wizarding standards. Having good grades can only get you so far if you don't have the good sense to apply everything you've learned in the real world. What on earth made you think that doing this without a proper plan when the Giant Squid is giant, I don't know, but I do know for a fact that you didn't intend for five other people to get hurt. One of them a first year, no less. Or did you?” 

“No, Professor,” Tim whispers, shame-faced. “I definitely didn't want anyone to get hurt.” 

“And what about you?” 

Blinking in confusion, Tim peeks a questioning glance through his lashes. 

“You,” Professor Potter repeats. “Did you ever stop to think that you, just like those other students, could have gotten hurt? Did you stop to wonder if your friends and family would be worried if something happened to you?” 

“I…” Taken aback by question, Tim swallows. “N-No, sir. I didn't. I just thought…I thought it would work.” 

“But it didn't,” Professor Potter says flatly. “And now multiple people are paying the price for your actions in the Hospital Wing while the people who care about them are frightened. Can you imagine the responsibility of that, Mr. Barclay? Of going to their friends and family one by one and apologizing because you acted without stopping to think? Can you imagine, with the same brain of yours that allowed you to imagine playing with the Giant Squid, the strength it takes for a parent to send their children to a school far out of their reach for the entire year only to receive notice that your eleven year old son has been hospitalized with no way for you to come visit them yourself? I have half a mind to take you to their home to experience it yourself!”

“Oh fuck,” someone whimpers. Despite the secondhand horror and shame welling through them, no one takes their eyes off their Head of House for even a second. 

Running a hand through his hair as his eyes flash strangely in the light, Professor Potter sighs. 

“You're a good kid, Timothy,” Professor Potter says after a long moment. “A good student, and a good friend. But even good people make mistakes if they don't stop to think about their actions. Gryffindor isn't the house of the foolish and reckless - it's the house of the brave and bold. That means taking risks sometimes, yeah, but in no way means that every gamble is worth the risk. It isn't wrong to make mistakes. What is wrong is to think that every mistake can be fixed with some magic and a bit of time. Magic can do a great many things, but it has its limits, and so do people. This applies to everyone here.” 

Turning to scan the crowd of stiff, pale-faced students, Professor Potter does not raise his voice, but his voice carries throughout the room all the same. “Being a Gryffindor isn't about charging ahead without thinking of the consequences. It's about understanding the consequences of your actions and being willing to pay that price because the end result is worth it. There is no point to courage and bravery without honour and loyalty, and no honour or loyalty without taking into consideration the people you love, the people who love you. Without accountability. Remember that. Be curious, be bold, and be proud - but never forget that your adventures affect more than just you. Nor, may I add, that you're alone. I'm not your Head of House to tell you to follow rules and discipline you when you don't, you know. I'm your Head of House because I'm here to encourage you to make the most of yourselves without being punished for it. If you want to do something, no matter how ridiculous it might seem, it's my job to seriously consider your options and how to make that possible.” 

Turning back to Tim, Professor Potter adds with a severe frown, “If you'd had the sense to come to me before about this idea, Timothy, then there are dozens of things that could have gone differently without anyone being hurt. Instead you've made a huge mistake, you've dragged innocent students into your plans, and I've lost the trust placed in me as a professor from not preventing this as well as some of my trust in you.” 

Tim flinches as if he's been struck, swaying on the spot. Joanna jerks instinctively to catch him before he rights himself firmly enough to stand straight. 

“Let this be a reminder to not only Mr. Barclay, but the rest of you too,” Professor Potter says with finality. “The rest of your punishment will be decided once I’ve figured out the total damage of today's mishap. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to visit the Hospital Wing and then explain to my godson why one of the last family he has left won't be able to celebrate his fifth birthday with him anymore.” 

There's pin-drop silence as he leaves the Common Room in a whirl of black robes and clenched jaws. When the portrait closes behind him, Tim crumples to the floor. 

“You alright?” Joanna asks tentatively as she inches closer to the fallen boy. 

Blinking back obvious tears, Tim gives her a slow nod. He's one of the Gryffindors that attends every Saturday session without fail and engages heavily in DADA to spend as much time as he can with the professor. It's clearly taken a toll on him to be seen with such disappointment and anger from a man he so deeply respects, much less in front of a quarter of the school. For all their ribbing about Timothy before he arrived, none of the other students make fun of him for getting in trouble or being so shaken. Tim's an idiot, yes, but he's cheerful and friendly and always ready for a laugh. The one big flaw is just that he's too curious to keep his head on straight. If he sets his mind on something, there's no one who can convince him otherwise. It never really mattered until now because he's never once meant harm to anyone with his silly shenanigans. Not even jokingly. The worst thing he's done before this is accidentally stick all the desks in the Charms classroom to the ceiling because he wasn't paying attention to what he was saying while casting a spell. Everyone knows he's the one most likely to become Professor Potter's teaching aide next year. Or was, anyway. 

“I think he might hate me,” Tim says with a wooden voice. 

“No, of course not! He's just, er, upset, that's all,” Joanna hurriedly says when she tries tugging him onto his feet. “Come on, let's get you out of those clothes - you must be freezing after the dip in the lake.”

“I'm not,” Tim tells her, his lower lip trembling. “He dried me up and used a Warming Charm as soon as he saw me.” 

There isn't much she can say to that. Casting desperate eyes to his best mate Michael, the two students force him into his bed for some rest before the inevitable comes. For once, most of Gryffindor House remains subdued in the aftermath of Professor Potter's scolding. They amble around in small clusters while they discuss the day's events in hushed whispers, passing along rumors through the school one by one. 

It's only when he's summoned into the Headmistress’ office before dinner that Tim learns why Professor Potter hasn't come by to deliver his sentence. The announcement that he's lost his House one hundred fifty points is awful enough, but even worse than the punishment of personally apologizing to each student he hurt and being banned from Hogsmeade visits for the rest of the year is the horror of what Professor McGonagall tells him after. 

“But…it's Sunday,” Tim says faintly with a loose jaw. “It's his day off.” 

“Yes,” the Headmistress says with a stern glare behind her lenses. “And now Professor Potter will be spending the entire day apologizing to their families on your behalf in person. Given that little Allen Bosworth is a muggleborn, I assume he shall be out long after dinner is over.” 

Allen Bosworth, the first year Ravenclaw who got his legs broken from slamming into a tree when the Giant Squid flailed its tentacles everywhere after Tim's botched attempt at climbing it had tickled too much. 

Wilting in his seat with a despondent look as she prattles on about the detentions he'll be spending for the next month, Tim only looks up at the end to ask, “Um, Professor…” 

Paused mid-dismissal, she snaps her mouth shut with narrowed eyes. 

“Do you…do you know his godson? T-Teddy?” 

Seemingly taken aback, she purses her lips and nods. “Yes, Mr. Barclay, though I must confess I find myself curious as to how you've come across the knowledge.” 

“He's got drawings in his office,” Tim replies with an uncomfortable shrug. “They're, er, signed. Sort of. Anyone who visits him enough on Saturdays knows about Teddy. It's one of his favorite things to talk about over tea.” 

Her face softens visibly at that, and he almost swears she looks teary just before she begins frowning again. “What of it, then? Surely you don't plan on using the boy as an excuse-” 

“No! No, not at all,” Tim blurts out at once with a rapid shake of his head. “Just - he said today's his birthday. Teddy's. And that because of me-!”  

Tugging a stray thread off his sleeves while he avoids her eyes, he whispers, “I was wondering if, um, if I wrote an apology letter to his godson, you'd be able to get it to him, ma'am. Seems fair that if he's apologizing for me, I should apologize for him.” 

Just the thought of Professor Potter personally Apparating to everyone's homes to apologize for Tim's mistake is enough to make his inside churn with sick, but there's no use in sitting round waiting for everyone to forget he's bungled everything up for a simple lark. Might as well do something useful that shows he sincerely regrets this to make the Professor less angry at him when he comes back. To prove that Tim's more than a dolt who doesn't know better and isn't worth the time Harry bloody Potter's put into him this past year. 

He can hear the Headmistress sigh, then, but it doesn't sound like disappointment or frustration. In fact, it rather sounds like acceptance. 

“I can make no such promises on their behalf, Mr. Barclay. If you truly wish to do so, you'll have to convince Professor Potter yourself.” 

With a final dismissive wave of her hand, she shoos him out of her office. He heads to the Hospital Wing, makes his sincere apologies, and skips dinner to trudge back and begin writing a letter for a five year old whose birthday he's just ruined. It's only when he realizes that a child will hardly be able to read the letter that he asks for help from Professor Flitwick in the morning, who positively beams when given a sheepish, stuttered explanation. 

“Very considerate of you,” Professor Flitwick says, “very considerate indeed. I'm glad to see Professor Potter's efforts on you haven't been for naught. The spell to make a letter read itself aloud without being a Howler…ah yes!” 

Tying the letter onto a small package holding chocolates - the most he could manage to scrounge up as a belated, apologetic birthday present on short notice and all his privileges revoked - Tim shuffles into Professor Potter's office hours on Tuesday morning with his heart in his throat. When the other students see him fidgeting by the door, they exchange unsure looks before standing aside to let him through for a moment. They don't head too far, of course, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to eavesdrop on the conversation, but it's a far nicer gesture than Tim expects. Swallowing round his heavy tongue when he meets the professor's perfectly blank green eyes, the sixth year holds out his offering without a word. 

Eyebrows rising, the Defence Professor leaves him hanging there to say, “If this is a bribe, it won't work. I've got no intention of reducing any of your punishments-” 

“It's not a bribe,” Tim mutters while his cheeks flush. “It's, um, to say sorry. To your godson. For…for ruining his birthday. If you'll allow it, I mean. I dunno if he can read but it's spelled to speak so he doesn't have to.” 

Taken aback, Professor Potter considers him for a long moment. Then, so slowly Tim begins wondering why he was ever so stupid as to think this would be a good idea and how of course the professor will hate this and it's too intimate and too personal and too disrespectful, his Head of House begins to smile. 

“Thank you,” Professor Potter says softly. “That's - that's real kind of you, Tim. Not many kids would think of doing this, even if it doesn't exactly make up for what happened. I'm sure Teddy will appreciate the gesture.” 

Face brightening at the use of his first name even though there's no promises of forgiveness or other praise, Tim hardly has the chance to hand the package over before the others are swarming the desk and pulling out gifts of their own for Professor Potter's godson. 

“That's no fair, Tim!” 

“We'll send something too, Professor!”

“I've got some cauldron cakes, let's put those on top.” 

Nerves fading as Professor Potter grows overwhelmed by the overwhelming number of sweets and prank products being shoved his way as the eager students attempt to make up for his horrible mood that's left him stone-faced since Sunday, Tim laughs and begins stacking them up properly to avoid everything falling to the floor. 

Before he leaves, he lingers by the door and asks the most pressing question on his mind. “Professor?” 

“Yes, Tim?” Still attempting to fit his grading onto the desk filled with last-minute presents, green eyes don't bother looking up at him. 

“Was I really one of your best students?” 

Scoffing, the professor scribbles a note on one of the essays. Before Tim can wilt again at the obvious derision, he hears, “Don't be stupid. You still are, even if the sight of you makes me glad next week is off for Easter. If you don't get an O on your N.E.W.T. next year I'll eat my shoe. Hurry up and get to Herbology before you land yourself in even more trouble, yeah? Gryffindor's lost enough points already.” 

Tim beams at him and runs off with a skip in his step for the rest of the week. The next time he attempts to ride the Giant Squid, Professor Potter is standing right by the edge of the lake with nearly a dozen spells set up to prevent any familiar incidents involving a whirlwind of tentacles or grindylows being pushed along through the floods. 

“See? That wasn't so hard, was it,” Professor Potter asks when Tim finally slides down the squid's back onto solid ground again. “All you had to do was ask.” 

“Oh, Professor, it was brilliant! I mean, I kept thinking I was going to slip off but I didn't and it was so high up and of course I couldn’t speak Mermish anymore when we were above water just now but I swear he was trying to tell me something-” 

Laughing with a shake of his head as Tim rambles on and on about the gillyweed being a big help and the great fun of his adventure, Professor Potter just hands him a Pepper-Up Potion and reminds the sixth year to write a twelve inch essay on his experience for Headmistress McGonagall's approval by Friday. 

In the end, even the seventh years who've just gotten to know him grow weepy as their final days at Hogwarts approach. Taken aback by the sudden sobbing that fills his classroom when he asks his seventh year N.E.W.T. students what they're looking forward to most after graduating, Professor Potter hurriedly passes round a box of tissues. 

“Come on, now,” he says with a laugh. “I've only had you for a year. There's no way it can be that awful to say goodbye to me?” 

“It's not fair,” Elizabeth tells him with a sniff. 

“I w-wish you were he-ere b-before,” Amanda stutters sadly. “Everyone e-else gets m-more time wi-with you.” 

“Well, there's no reason you can't send me letters after,” Professor Potter says, blinking at them with a rather awkward look about his face. He's not very good at comforting people when they're crying over him, it seems. It makes Elizabeth hiccup a laugh to see. “It's not like I'll drop dead as soon as you're out of sight, you know.” 

At once, half the classroom perks up. 

“Do you mean that?” Matthew asks eagerly. 

“I'd like to send some too!” Jacob nearly falls flat on his face after he jumps at the offer, but he looks rather delighted for someone who's just bashed their head against a desk. “When I get through my interviews!”

“Oh, Professor,” Amanda cries out, distracted from her sobbing now, “would you really let us? Even if we aren't from Gryffindor?” 

“I don't see why not. Obviously I'll have to save writing back for when I've got time since I'll have to focus on the students still here, but-” 

To his utmost surprise, three of his students throw themselves at him in a hug before he can finish. 

“Thank you, thank you!” 

“We're gonna miss you, Professor!”  

Lifting his head from the floor to stare at them with a combination of confusion and concern, Professor Potter just clears his throat and begins clumsily patting them on the back. 

“Well,” he mutters a tad hoarsely, “I guess I might miss you lot too, after you're gone.” 

They don't get much revision done in that class, really, but most of them hardly need it. No one wants to disappoint Professor Potter and ruin his fresh start at Hogwarts, after all. It's the first class in decades where every single student passes the DADA N.E.W.T.s, but it's certainly not the last.

Teddy Lupin is an odd child with an equally odd childhood. Why yes, he's a Metamorphmagus, but it mustn't be forgotten: he’s raised under a grandmother who's used to living in hiding from most of the world, he is an orphan, he has a godfather that's unusually involved in his life to an astonishing degree, and his godfather is an entirely impossible existence. When you're a child and you have the most peculiar way of seeing the world around you, understanding it - don't quite know all the things you should because you're simply too young or have nothing for comparison - this makes things seem quite different from what they are. 

For example: you might grow under these circumstances to think that everyone in the world was a Metamorphmagus.  

He'd just assumed, really, and somehow nothing had ever come up to dissuade him of the notion until it did. He grew up in the same house with the same people, never particularly going out much. The only other child he knew in the first few years of his life was Victoire Weasley, and even that was only once or twice. His world was this little cottage and the three people who spent their days there. A little slice of home in a big, big world he didn't know. Harry was always changing from person to person around Teddy - black hair, stubble, short, to red hair, green eyes, taller. And then again to spiky pink hair, a heart-shaped face, or the same face with different types of brown hair. Less often he might become someone with a light brown, green colour to them, the oldest and tallest looking of them all. Teddy knew two of those faces by heart of course. He'd seen them plenty enough in the pictures they showed him to know those faces were his mum and dad's. At least the faces they wore most often, just like how Harry and Gran liked having one face over the rest of the ones they could wear. Gran tried to pretend she was so perfect and never tripped up, never changed before him - but Teddy knew she must be doing it when he closed his eyes and went to sleep, for some days she would have silver streaks in her hair and some she wouldn't, or some days her hair would be curly before it was straight before it was curly again, or her face would change in this little thing she called wrinkles that grew day by day. For so long it seemed to Teddy that only he and Harry struggled to keep themselves from constantly changing and everyone else did just fine, but that was alright. Ginny and Ron and Hermione and Bill and Fleur and his gran didn't look bad, after all. They just weren't as fun as Teddy and Harry must be if they only changed teeny tiny little things. 

Which is why when he found out other people weren't Metamorphmagi, he was completely flabbergasted. 

“They really look like that? All the time?” Teddy had asked, eyes bugging out. “Don't they get tired of looking the same?!” 

Harry had laughed until he was choking, his head falling onto Teddy's shoulder as he interrupted his godfather's studies. Standing there with a pout as he waited for the giggles to fade, Teddy asked again, “Other people just stay the same, Harry? Really really?” 

“Really really,” Harry said, leaning back on the sofa again with a bright grin. “It's just you and me that're always changing on the outside, Teddy. We're, er, different. It's called being a Metamorphmagus, and only one or two people other than us in the world can do it.” 

Teddy had sat down next to Harry for the next three hours trying to make sense of that before he decided he'd have to ask Gran. Just to double-check. Because…well, honestly speaking, he'd been quite sure his whole life that Harry was his father and Ginny his busy mum, and that musn't be the case at all if Ginny couldn't change appearances. 

It seemed obvious to him until then. Harry was usually there when Teddy fell asleep, when he woke up, and did everything with Teddy. Harry read him bedtime stories, played with him in the bath, bought him sweets and books and toys, hugged him and promised he would never leave Teddy's side. He read books just like everyone said his dad did, he was a boy more often than not, and he always went round saying he was Teddy's godfather. Teddy had figured that was a different way of saying dad the same way he was called Teddy instead of Edward unless his Gran was cross. They had mentioned names a few times when they showed him pictures, yes, but only as often as his Gran would sigh and tell Harry, “Dora again,” or, “Lily, Harry, you're going Lily.” They spoke almost as if Harry had named his different faces instead of them being actually, truly different people he was just transforming into. Teddy had thought that just as he never looked the same in his own pictures, Harry had been in those pictures and simply changed since then in name and looks. 

It threw him for quite the loop to find out Harry was neither his father nor others a revolving door of appearances. But he was four and a half, then. He bounced back quite quickly, and his tiny, underdeveloped neurons with their fascinating leaps of childish logic decided after a discussion with Andromeda - who'd told him in the most peculiar tone that both Harry and Teddy had gotten their abilities from his mother Nymphadora, which was one of the people his godfather tended to walk about as - that if Harry wasn't his dad, then Harry must be his mum instead. Nothing else made sense otherwise: his abilities, how he became just like the pictures when he was asleep, how he could read books that had the name Dora written all over but Teddy couldn't even when he did his best to morph into that same face. 

But even when he spent two years confirming his guess through observation, he made sure to ask later. Just in case. 

“Harry’s Dora, right?” Six year old Teddy asked his grandmother. 

Tea sloshed out of her cup as she froze. “Pardon?” 

“Harry,” Teddy had repeated patiently. “He’s Dora, right? And Dora’s my mum. So Harry’s my mum, isn’t he?” 

When his grandmother set her cup down, her breath coming out in little gasps, he’d grown concerned that maybe he’d asked a bad question. He’d long learned there were good questions and bad questions: good ones made people smile, and bad ones made them grow quiet and sad, maybe even cry. Teddy didn’t mean to make her cry. He hated seeing people sad when they looked so much better smiling. 

“That…well-” Shoving back a few curly wisps of hair, his grandma covered her face for a moment before she nodded. “Yes, well. Harry is Dora, but he’s also Harry. It’s better to - to say that once upon a time, your mum was here, and then…she had to leave, so Harry came in her place. Your mum left so that Harry could be here instead, love. Do you…does that make sense?” 

It was a confusing answer, but Teddy had thought he understood it well enough. Dora was his mum and could change just like him, but perhaps she didn’t like being Dora anymore. Maybe she didn’t like being a girl, or being a mum, or maybe she had to follow one of those rules grown ups seem to have for everything that made it so she had to be someone else. Anyway, it seemed to him that his mum had become Harry instead, and Harry occasionally slipped back into old versions of himself if he wasn’t concentrating. Just like sometimes Teddy’s fingers would grow before he could think it, or one of his legs would be longer than the other at any moment, or how his lashes could be different colours from his hair at one time. 

“So…should I call him dad instead?” Maybe he’d had it right the first time after all. 

Grandma had almost laughed at that - Teddy’s sure of it even now. “You can call him whatever you like, love, but. I think he might prefer just Harry. Do you…do you think of him that way? As your, um, father?” 

“I dunno anymore,” Teddy said quite honestly. Mum was still on the table. “I think I’ve gotten things all mixed up. It’s very confusing, this parents stuff.” 

Face twisted, his grandma just wrapped her hands round the cup of tea and swallowed thickly. “Yes. I suppose it might just be, for you.” 

So Teddy nodded, patted her on the knee as an apology for asking a bad question, and trotted over to the room that Harry liked to keep the photo albums and journals and other bits and bobs in that made him go quiet. 

“Hey, Harry?” Teddy asked upon sticking his head through the door. “You’re my mum, right?” 

Harry fell out of his chair as he was reading a journal and onto his bum as if the question was a lightning strike, completely dumbfounded. “I - sorry?” 

“You can be whatever you want, Harry, I don't mind,” Teddy told him earnestly. “If you don’t want to be my mum-” 

“I do!” Harry had blurted, paling immediately and then flushing red hot. “Fuck, that’s not - I mean, I wish I was your mum? Or - I’m sorry I can’t be your mum, Teddy. And I wish I could make up for her not being here, but-” 

Flailing as he tried to figure out the right words to say, he settled on asking, “Do you - do you miss your mum?” 

“Not really,” Teddy had said, bewildered by the notion. “I never knew Dora, just Harry. But I like Harry a lot! As long as you're around what would I even need to miss?” 

Teddy didn't particularly care whether his mum was pink-haired and girly or black-haired and boyish or brown-haired and moustached. As long as someone was still tucking him in at night, hugging him every day, eating food with him, sneaking him sweets, playing with him, reading books to him, dancing with him when music came over the wireless, building fortresses out of pillows, and - oh. That was quite a bit of work, now that he stopped to consider it. But as long as Harry was willing to do all of that and love Teddy just the same, it didn't really matter what he wanted to be called or looked like. 

Harry had gone still, then, his eyes wide and glazing over with a sheen, and he'd made an odd, almost hurt sound. “Really?” 

“Why would I miss my mum when I've got you right here?” Teddy had wondered aloud. “I mean, you do the same things as a mum does even if you don’t look like the pictures anymore. I just call you something different. But if you want to be my mum as Harry I don’t mind - mostly I just wanted to make sure whether or not I have parents. I sort of thought you were my dad, before this.” 

Harry’d swallowed so thickly it looked like he was working down cement. He looked torn between horrified and touched, which made for quite the peculiar expression to watch, and he also seemed as if at any moment he might begin to cry. Teddy hadn’t thought this would be such a bad topic as to make everyone so upset, and he’d begun to regret ever being curious when the only thing he needed to know was that he had a Harry and a Gran and they both loved him very much. 

“I’m sorry,” Teddy said immediately, his face falling as he ran to throw himself at the man. “I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. You can be anything you like Harry, I don’t care. I don’t need you to be my mum or my dad or anything, you can just be you and I can just be me! That’s all!”

Wrapping his arms round the boy at once, Harry’d buried his head into Teddy’s shoulders and shook for a long time before he managed to come up with a response. 

“I’m sorry I can’t be the mum you should have had,” he’d said, his voice hoarse, “I’m sorry she’s not here, Teddy, I really am. Just as sorry as I am that I’m not your dad, because you deserve to have both your parents round to take care of you. But I can only…I can only try making up for it as me.” 

“I never wanted you to be someone else,” Teddy said, wishing he could take back all the silly things he’d already said. “I just…” 

Squirming with embarrassment, he’d whispered, “I just thought…since you take care of me and you’re always here, and you’re changing all the time like me…you’re one of my parents, like the ones in stories and things. You do all the things they do, so I thought it's the same thing. But even if you don’t want to be one of them, I'm still your Teddy!”  

“Kiddo,” Harry said with a fragile smile that made him look as if he might shatter without someone to hold onto, “I’d love nothing more than for you to be my son. I wish - I wish I could tell everyone in the world that you’re mine. My little teddy bear. You’re one of the best things in the entire world to ever happen to me, d’you know that? But I would never take that away from your real parents. As long as you live, Teddy Lupin, you’ll be the son of Remus and Dora Lupin.” 

“Can’t I just be all your sons?” Teddy’d wondered, still confused by this whole situation. It felt as if every time he asked a question, he got answers that just made him need more questions again. “I mean, you love me the same, don’t you?” 

For a moment, Harry went stock-still. And then, so quietly he almost missed it, his godfather said, “Of course I do. Always. To the moon and back.” 

He always said it that way. It was never just I love you, Teddy. To the very end, Harry Potter would say, “I love you to the moon and back, Teddy Lupin.” 

It was one of the things he'd later learn his mum wrote in her books, the words scratched in with the endless affection and yearning of an expecting mother. His first mum, that is. Before Teddy had a name, or hands, or even a heart, his mother had begun thinking of the ways she planned on loving him wholly. Harry'd taken up saying it on her behalf as soon as he could. 

“Then I can just have three,” Teddy said at the moment, simple as that. “Harry and Dora and Remus.” 

He still wasn't sure what the difference between all those people was, or why Harry couldn't be his mum or dad if he wanted to, or why it seemed to upset everyone to talk about this - but one thing had always been very clear to Teddy. Nothing he’d learned so far had changed that. Names and faces have never mattered more than the heart behind them.

Harry loved him. And Teddy loved him back. 

He didn't doubt that when Harry began working at Hogwarts and had less time for him, he didn't doubt that when Harry married Ginny, and he didn't doubt that even when he finally understood that his parents were well and truly different people that had died, leaving him behind. 

Maybe he should have if this was going to happen from the very beginning, Teddy thinks with a building dread as he hides under the window and listens to Mrs. Weasley prattle on about poor Harry not being allowed his own children. 

“Poor lad,” she's sighing over the dirty dishes, “he's always wanted kids. At least three, he used to say - three so that they can have their own Ron and Hermione at home to play with. And one girl, if he could. He's been in desperate need of proper family ever since he was a babe himself, and now…” 

“It's alright, Mollywobbles,” Mr. Weasley says comfortingly. “We're his family now, aren't we?” 

“It's not the same, Arthur. He'd be such a wonderful father, just look at him with Teddy! I've told them that there's always adoption, you know, or surrogacy, and of course Hermione's still working on seeing if we can fix him up so that he can have his own as he likes because she wants Harry to have options, but. Even though it must have broken his heart to admit it, he's still pretending to put on a brave face for the rest of us. Ginny said they'd have held off on having kids anyway for work so there isn't a need to rush. As if he hasn't wanted his own family since the day he could imagine one, and now he's got to live with knowing he might never get that! Oh, Arthur, why is it always Harry? Why can he never be allowed peace and, and happiness?” 

She stifles a sob, the sound of clothes rustling drifting through the open window as sunlight warms the island for what must be the first time in months. But the warm sunshine and gentle breeze do nothing to prevent the cold that sinks into Teddy Lupin while he sits there, stunned.

Harry isn't really his mum or dad, of course. Teddy knows that by now. But even so - even so, he's never stopped thinking of Harry that way. It's never occurred to him before that Harry might have other children, might grow his own family with kids and a wife and a house without Teddy being included. It turns out this whole time that Harry wanted them and just couldn't, which is entirely different from not needing any more family. If Mrs. Weasley really convinces him to adopt someone...or Hermione fixes whatever's wrong with him...or they get a baby through that sirrogussy thing…Harry mightn't want Teddy at all after that. Teddy's not really his son. Just a godson. 

“Just a godson,” he whispers, the realization raising every hair on his body. Harry will still love him, of course. He knows better than to doubt that. But not the same way. Never the same way, because Teddy won't be his child and the others will; others who'll get to grow close to him while Teddy fades in the background. Others who get to live in the same house as him year round, who get to call him dad instead of Harry. 

Maybe that's what Harry meant when he said he can't be Teddy's mum or dad. 

Ginny calls for him from inside the house. Her voice is filled with laughter from whatever joke George's just made, but he doesn't find anything funny right now. Scrambling to his feet with the desperate need to be somewhere else, anywhere else, a place without these people that claim to know his Harry so well and want him to have kids that aren't Teddy, the little boy of only nine runs as far as he can over hills and under foot until he's exhausted his legs. Twisting his ankle as he slips down one of the knolls, Teddy sobs and sobs until he can hardly breathe from the lack of air. Fingers of all different lengths than expected dig into the dirt below as his emotions send his appearance into a shifting mottle of colours and shapes, none of them worthy enough to grant him the title of Harry Potter's son. He's just Teddy Lupin, Remus and Nymphadora Lupin's son. His parents are long gone, and the man they left to take care of him could soon replace him with someone else. Someone who carries Harry’s name or blood, acknowledged as his without a doubt. Little Teddy cries until he's drained every last drop of water and energy out of his body, eyes falling closed and knees curling up to protect his bruised heart while fatigue pulls him into the sweet nothingness of sleep. 

But that doesn't last long as he would hope because every minute the clock ticks without his presence in the Burrow is another minute his godfather grows uncontrollably agitated. Teddy's too far to hear them calling his name out, searching every nook and cranny with loud demands to know who saw him last. He misses the way Harry grows frantic with worry, casting spells and running over hills and to neighbor's homes to plead for help because he's lost his little boy. He misses the swarms of people leaving their homes with torches and wands to find him, the summer heat fading as evening approaches. He misses the dozens of people attempting to reassure his godfather that he'll be alright, he needs you calm, don't start thinking the worst. 

He only awakens when there's shouting right by his ears, light flooding the now dark knoll that Teddy hid behind. 

“TEDDY! Teddy, oh Merlin-” 

Blinking his swollen eyes open at the shouts of “WE'VE FOUND HIM!” and “HE'S OVER HERE!”, Teddy jolts up at the sight of a sweaty, panicked Harry sliding down the knoll towards him. He can hear dozens of relieved sighs and gasps as a redhead - he can't tell which one from here - begins thanking the search party and dispersing them. 

“Harry - ow!” Clutching his knee with a wince, Teddy only realizes now that he's scraped it quite badly. It must have been from falling down earlier. His throbbing ankle hurt much more until now, though it's decided to subside enough to make him aware of his knees now instead. 

“Oh my god, Teddy, Teddy,” Harry is chanting as he scrambles closer, “are you hurt? What happened? No, no - don't move! I'll come to you, just-” 

Swallowing the boy in a fierce hug as soon as he's within reach, Harry takes deep breaths in the dirty, icky gray hairs upon Teddy's head. He begins pressing kisses to his godson's temples, cheeks, and eyes before he finally feels comforted enough to lean back. Harry looks…he looks like a wreck. His glasses are off-kilter, his hair is flying in every direction, sweat stains cover his body from head to toe, he's got mud on his pant legs, there's a jagged tear in his shirt by the shoulder where it must have caught on something, and his eyes are bloodshot. He looks as if he just tore through every house and hill in all of Ottery St. Catchpole to find Teddy, honestly speaking. Never in his life has Teddy seen his godfather fall apart like this; even Dominique Weasley almost falling off the cliff by her house hadn't made him this frantic. Harry'd just leapt forth with a wand in hand to save her, a little wide-eyed and breathless but not…not distraught, like he is now.  

“What hurts, sweetheart?! Did you fall? I'm sorry, I should have found you sooner, I'm so sorry, Teddy, but I'm here now…Oh, look at you! Merlin, your ankle is the size of a quaffle! And your eyes, they’re all puffy…oh, I’m so so sorry.” 

Distressed by Teddy's appearance, Harry completely forgets to ask why the boy came so far out of reach without telling anyone and fumbles for his wand to take a gander at Teddy's wounds. The scrape is easy enough to take care of, but Harry doesn't want to assume the bone is broken right off the bat and potentially cause more harm than good. All he can do is mutter a spell to dull the pain while his godson stares at him with a trembling bottom lip. Brushing a hand over the boy's head repeatedly while he takes stock of any other injuries, Harry makes sure to keep adding, “You'll be alright, don't worry, everything is going to be okay.” 

“H-Harry?” 

The man looks up immediately. His brilliant green eyes filled with nothing but concern while he tries to smile reassuringly. “Yeah?” 

Teddy wants, rather contrarily, to ask him questions, to be confronted, and to pretend today never happened all at once, but nothing comes out however many times he opens his mouth to speak. Face crumpling at the idea that he could one day look at his Harry and see something different in those eyes, he begins to sobs again. 

“Does it still hurt? Fuck, I thought I did it right - I’m sorry, love, it'll be alright,” Harry soothes, his face covered in guilt. “Hold on, let me-”  

Casting a Feather-light Charm with enough power to make a ballerina out of an elephant, Harry reaches out to wind careful arms round Teddy. It takes an extra load to make the spell apply to humans, but he's gotten enough practice over the years that it's almost nothing to him. Children may long outgrow the size and weight to be carried everywhere, but he's never let that stop him before so long as Teddy wanted it. Harry keeps an eye out on the swollen ankle so that he doesn't knock it against anything and lifts the nine year old right onto his chest, one arm supporting him from underneath and the other wrapped round Teddy's back. His mouth never stops moving once. 

“There we go, I've got you, you'll be okay soon,” Harry whispers in Teddy's ears, “it must hurt but I promise you'll be okay. We're going to get you to Ginny's mum right away, and she'll fix you up faster than you can blink!” 

Teddy just winds his small arms around Harry's neck and continues to sob. Harry is so, so warm, and if he stops crying for just a moment he can almost hear the man's heartbeat through the fabric of their clothes. He can hear Bill and Ron asking about him as Harry walks up the knoll, but he avoids their concern in favor of digging his face into Harry's shirt. His godfather smells like a curious combination of sweat, lavender, and…metal?

Teddy almost causes them to fall from how suddenly he jerks back to study the torn fabric that's darker than the rest of his shirt even in the faint moonlight. 

“You're h-hurt,” he whispers. Then louder, with horror, “Harry, you're bl-bleeding!” 

“What?” 

Letting his hands approach the small scratch that still sluggishly pulses with blood, Teddy feels the fright stop his hiccups in their tracks. “Right - right here.” 

For the first time since he was found, Teddy feels terribly guilty. Harry hates being hurt. It isn't necessarily the pain that bothers him, but the mere idea of being hurt: every papercut, every bruise, every stubbed toe. Even things like a cold will ruin his mood, a sort of gloomy frustration sitting over him until he's all better. He's careful about wearing lotion in the cold to avoid cracked skin, wears that ring with a Cushioning Charm on it so he never gets banged up after tripping. Heals cuts and bruises immediately, dodges first in every practice duel or spat he gets into, and never skips a meal. Endless little things that circle around taking care of himself. Teddy’s learned to help take care of Harry too, because he's begun to loathe the look of guilt and shame that comes over the man whenever he isn't in tip-top shape. 

“Oh, that. It's no big deal,” Harry says as if he hasn't spent Teddy's entire life making these things big deals. “I bet it'll be gone by tomorrow. Your ankle on the other hand…” 

“You're hurt,” Teddy repeats, offended by the blasé attitude. As if the man hasn't spent years learning whatever Healing he can to take care of completely normal injuries that would fade on their own with no effort involved! “You need to heal it!” 

“I'll do it after Mrs. Weasley gets a look at you,” Harry says appeasingly with another comforting stroke down his back. “Be good, sweetheart, don't move too much. You might have broken a bone, we've got to be careful-” 

Frustrated with a great number of things that really aren't anyone's fault at the mention of Molly Weasley, Teddy shouts, “NO! Let - me - go!” 

“Teddy!” 

“I'm not going back with you! Let me go! I'm never - I'm never going back! Just leave-!” 

Struggling to knock himself out of Harry's arms with a nasty glare sends them both careening to the floor. Twisting halfway so that Teddy falls on top of him instead of hitting his head, Harry flinches at the pebbles digging into his skin and the newfound throbbing of his feet. “Teddy! Are you okay? What's gotten into you-?” 

“I'm not going with you,” Teddy cries with a fresh wave of tears. “Y-You're going to g-give me up! I h-heard, and I'm a b-bad kid, and you'll ne-ever love me because I h-hurt you and now you - now you're go-going to replace me-” 

“Woah, woah, hang on,” Harry interrupts incredulously, his mouth falling open. “Who said anything about giving you up or replacing you?! Wait…is that why you ran all this way here?”

His shock transforms into anger so quickly it frightens Teddy, who hiccups and slides off Harry's abdomen with a shiver. 

“I h-heard it,” he insists, twisting his hands in his shirt. “You w-want kids, y-your own kids. And I-I'm just your god - godson, so, so…you'll take care o-of them instead! And then I'll b-be all a-alone with just G-Gran-” 

“Who told you that?” Harry demands to know with a fierce scowl. “Was someone picking on you? I'll bloody-” 

Stopping in the middle of his threat to take deep breaths, his godfather slowly lets the scowl drop off his face to look at Teddy with only the tiniest frown. 

“Okay,” he says like he's just held off a tantrum of his own. “I dunno who's been talking nonsense or trying to upset you, and we’ll talk about why you thought you should run away instead of coming to me about it, but let's make one thing very, very clear: there's only one Teddy Lupin, and no one will ever be able to replace him. Not to me, not to your parents, and not to your grandmother. No one's getting rid of you, no one's sick of you, and no one thinks you're a bad kid. I got hurt because I wasn't being careful, which has everything to do with me and nothing to do with you. Your mum and grandma will let this one slide given the circumstances. No point in anyone beating themselves up for that, especially you. But if it matters to you, then we'll take care of it now.” 

Two spells later, the cut is completely gone. Harry even tears the gap in his shirt wider for Teddy to see the unblemished skin. It's strangely comforting, for some reason, and makes the tears slow down. 

“Right, now that's over with,” Harry says all business-like, “I'm going to explain something to you while you listen, and then we can talk. But first…” 

Spreading his knees open so that he can tug Teddy into a loose embrace, Harry gently pulls his swollen ankle out to view. “...does this actually hurt, or were you crying because of this, er, kid stuff?” 

“It doesn’t h-hurt,” Teddy sniffles. He rubs an arm against his nose to wipe off not and earns a disgusted purse of lips for it. “What? I don't have a h-handkerchief.” 

“I know, your grandma gave me yours when you forgot it,” Harry sighs. He pulls it out to clean Teddy up like he's a little kid again, coaxing him to blow his nose and then dampening a clean bit to wipe off the dirt smudged round his face. “Glad that's settled. If it starts hurting, tell me. Now: kids.” 

Teddy flinches, but Harry just hugs him tighter. 

“Yes, I want them,” he says calmly, meeting Teddy's red-rimmed eyes. “I've always wanted to have a happy family, Teddy, because I never had parents or grandparents, and the only family I had hated me. I hated them, too, obviously, but that's not the point. The point is: family is something really, really important to me. When I married Ginny, I found out that I probably wasn't ever going to have any babies. I can't make my own kid like others do, you see. But when I told Ginny that because I didn't want her to be upset later, d’you know what she told me?” 

Realizing Harry is genuinely expecting an answer when he stares without another word, Teddy offers a mute shake of the head. 

“She said that it's okay,” Harry tells him, his voice softer than Teddy’s ever heard it. “Because I already have one, and that's all we need. And by that she meant you.” 

His breath catches in his throat, then, as a shudder runs up and down Teddy's spine from surprise.

“Me?” he asks, scarcely able to believe it. He even points a finger at himself like there might be someone else Harry's talking to here. 

“You. Because you're my family, and Ginny’s known that since before she ever met you. That means that as soon as she married me, you two became family also. Teddy…there are other ways to have kids other than making them, but we weren't exactly looking around yet, love. We talked about it a little, yeah. No hard decisions. If, big if here, we were going to get kids it would have been in a few years. I like the idea enough, but I never would have done it before asking you. Because like I said, you're our family. So we make decisions like these together, alright?” 

Teddy processes that for a long, long time, his breath slowing and hiccups fading, as Harry just continues to hold him in a loose hug. Twiddling his fingers, the nine year old swallows round the lump in his throat and whispers, “So…if you asked me, and…” 

Harry nods at him encouragingly without the slightest hint of impatience. 

“...if I said I don't want you to have other kids…” 

“Then I wouldn't,” Harry says, simple as that. He doesn't seem bothered in the least by the suggestion. “We won't be upset with you for it either. Do you understand, Teddy? I chose you. So did Ginny. We're not your parents, but you're our godson. I might have liked more family, yes, but all I need is you two. I wouldn’t - couldn't - give you up for anything in the world, not even if it was my own parents or godfather.” 

Teddy's eyes, quite literally, grow two sizes larger and wider. “R-Really? Really really?” 

“Really really,” his godfather agrees. 

“Because…you always said you can't be my mum,” Teddy hesitates. “Or dad. You can only be my Harry. Is that still…” 

“Yeah,” Harry says softly, pressing a kiss to the boy's brow. “I still can't be your mum or your dad. That hasn’t changed. But maybe, just like you and I can be anyone we want, we can be something else. Something we come up with on our own. Does that sound good to you?” 

Deliriously giddy all of a sudden, Teddy leans forward to hide his flushed cheeks. He doesn't notice the glowing golden hue to his hair that makes his godfather smile, too busy delighting in the rush of joy swirling through his blood. “Y-Yeah.” 

“Hey, Teddy?” 

“...Mm?” 

“You know I love you to the moon and back, right?” 

“I know,” Teddy mumbles. “I just…didn't want you to love someone else and not…not have enough for me after.” 

Harry tousles his hair with a laugh so damnably affectionate that it almost makes Teddy cry anew. “No such thing, teddy bear. I'll never run out of love to give you!” 

Slowly but surely, he’s beginning to realize that. 

They'll have to get up again to be fussed over, chained to bed rest until the next day. Harry and Ginny will sleep next to Teddy in the room they've carved out of their home for him, hands linked and their hair brushing against his cheeks. Harry will explain to Molly and Arthur in no uncertain terms that he’s decided against adopting children because Teddy is more than enough for him, and though Molly will feel troubled on occasion that Harry won’t get to have more than this, concerned that he’ll forever be living in the shadow of Teddy’s parents, she’ll accept it readily enough. Teddy will eventually learn the truth of his mother's death, of Harry's body. He will listen patiently to Harry while he explains why it's important to draw a line between Nymphadora Lupin and Harry Potter, reluctant to taint her memory with his actions. How to him motherhood means strength, kindness, intelligence, overwhelming love, and sacrifice, but Harry never wants Teddy to experience being left behind safe just to be alone. How he struggled for a long, long time to find himself in the world again, and how other people can never know about what happened. Teddy will learn about the horrible, sick people that raised his godfather with nothing but the worst of intentions, clinging to Harry like a limpet with every new word, and his godfather will whisper of all the things he wished for when he was a child - the things he plans on giving Teddy. 

“I'm going to give you everything I never had,” Harry will say, the sheer excitement making his skin gleam from within. He won't have even the tiniest smidge of sorrow or yearning in his face, overjoyed to give his happy ending to someone else. “Everything I wanted! And I'm going to do it as just Harry.  Not The Boy Who Lived, not some random blood relative you would have never met, not anyone or anything else. Harry, your godfather.” 

“You've never been just Harry,” Teddy will tell him with the complete honesty of a young child. “You're my - well, you're sort of my everything, really.” 

He'll mean that Harry's not just a godfather; Harry's his brother, his father, his mother, his best friend, a combination of everything a child ought to have so that they grow up in a loving, complete support system. Harry will blink at him, disarmed, before he recalls what his own godfather meant to him, and thinks that maybe he's not done half as bad a job as he fears some days.  

Teddy Lupin is an orphan. His parents died before he ever had the chance to know them, but they made sure to give him a fighting chance at the life he deserves by giving him a godfather in one Harry Potter. Because of their choices, he will never know a life of pain, of suffering, or of loneliness. 

And he will spend the rest of his days thanking them for it. 

“It's okay that you went,” he tells his mum's empty grave when Andromeda takes him for the first time. “I'm not mad at you. Dad shouldn't have gone alone. Now - now you two have each other, and I have Harry. That's not bad at all.” 

He lays roses on their headstones, black-haired and green-eyed to match the man who calls Teddy his own, whispering, “I love you to the moon and back, mum, dad. Thank you.” 

He knows now without a doubt that he comes from warriors, from lovers, from the brave, from the kind. From people who cared enough about him to guarantee a happy life even if it meant it had to be without them. He isn't afraid to be their son, and he isn't ashamed of it either. Teddy just hopes that even if he isn't as good as they were, they'll be proud of him. Being everything they were - kind, proud, funny, smart, brave, loyal, reliable, lovable - won't be easy, but he's not afraid to try. 

“Home?” Andromeda asks as she splays a hand for the taking. 

Despite his continuous claims of no longer being a child anymore, Teddy reaches out and grabs onto it.  

“Yeah,” he says, his throat thick. “Let's go home.” 

When they return to the cottage, there are lights on inside. Pausing to give his grandmother an uncertain look, the little boy feels curiosity bubbling in his chest when she just gives him a small smile. Recognizing the gleaming red hair that darts through the glass only seconds later, Teddy perks up and dashes up the path to the front door. 

Throwing it open with the sure knowledge that it's unlocked, he announces, “I'm home!” 

“Oh, look who it is!” 

“Welcome back,” Harry shouts from behind George, his arms straining under the weight of an enormous dish filled to the brim with freshly seasoned chicken. “Sorry, had to borrow your oven, the one at home's gone wonky again-” 

“Harry?!” Eyes bugging out, Teddy throws himself forward to hug his godfather and gets snatched round the waist by George. Sheepishly realizing it would be smart not to tackle the man setting an enormous baking dish filled with food into a hot oven, Teddy thanks George with a smile and then asks, “It’s not a Sunday! How’ve you come back?” 

“How many times have I told you to get that properly fixed, love?” Andromeda sighs from the open doorway when she catches up just in time to hear about the oven. 

“I know, I know, I’ll have someone take a look at it,” Harry says with resignation. “Sorry, you’ll have to wait a while longer for something to eat.” 

“Pity,” George adds as he accepts a hug from Teddy and ruffles the boy's hair. “I showed up at Harry's planning to sponge dinner off him and ended up here chopping veg, sneaky little git that he is. Nasty business, ovens. Thank Merlin I've never touched one. Been a while, eh?” 

“Ages! Is Freddy here with you?” Teddy exclaims as he sheds his coat in a hurry. “Who else is here? Is Roxie still staying at her grandma's? Where's Angelina and Ginny?” 

“Ange’s got some kind of emergency, one of her players got hurt on a bender in France,” George says with a roll of his eyes. “Couldn't be bothered to figure out dinner on my own and figured there's got to be someone in this family who's made too much food that could do well in our stomachs instead. Ginny and the other sprogs are in the back, they've skived off cooking duty. Wanna join us?” 

Teddy hesitates for a moment as he glances between George and Harry, who laughs without even looking behind. 

“Go on and play,” Harry tells him over his shoulder as he shuts the oven to let the chicken roast. “I’ve got to finish cleaning up over here so your gran doesn’t chop my head off in a tizzy.” 

Stumbling forward while shrugging off his shoes, Teddy picks himself back up and grins. “I can help!” 

“Kids are supposed to be playing and having fun, not cleaning up after grown ups,” Harry reminds him. “Again: your grandmother. Me: headless.” 

“Yes, well, my butchering days are behind me,” Andromeda quips while she grabs Teddy's coat and ushers him further inside. “They don’t make knives good enough for the job anymore.” 

“I'm begging you to stop driving away the free labor,” George sighs as he heads back from the trash to the cutting board where he begins slicing cheese. “Is it so hard to make someone other than me help out?” 

“Yes,” Harry and Andromeda say in tandem as she kisses his cheek in greeting. 

“Between your mother and Ronald, I should think that you freeload meals off others a little too often,” Andromeda says with a smirk. 

“And I know better than to leave your hands free for too long while I’m distracted,” Harry rolls his eyes. “Go on, get back to slicing.” 

Muttering complaints under his breath, the redhead simply tosses something into his mouth for snacking and moves along. Teddy knows that he might have had a fighting chance against Harry alone, but both Harry and Gran? Better to give in and take the loss. He’s had to learn it the hard way himself. Well - that's not true, exactly. Being grounded and shouted at is probably much better than being hexed by Harry. Or Ginny. Or Harry and Ginny. Poor George. 

“You've brought me wine and cheese! …What've you done wrong?” Taking in the cheese platter George is in the midst of setting up and the bottles of wine beside it, Andromeda’s smile turns upside down. 

“What? Nothing! I just figured it'd be rude to promise dinner and end up making it in your kitchen instead without - well, a bribe,” Harry protests, his shoulders bunching up. “Then this berk came over begging for food on top of that. I swear everything was going fine before the oven started acting up. I’ve not torched anything either!” 

“The brie was already yours,” George says helpfully, “we just brought some cheddar. And the wine, obviously.” 

“So you've broken into my home completely innocuously, with wine and a proper roast, for no reason other than that your oven is useless?” Andromeda asks with an arched brow while Teddy creeps closer to the still warm treacle tart cooling on the kitchen windowsill. “What happened to takeaway?” 

“Yes, the key you gave me was terribly sorry to be put to use in a break in,” Harry says dryly. “I expect the Aurors will be coming for the arrest soon now that you're here to tell them all about it. How completely dastardly of me to come earlier than expected in your perfect, prim home. Shall we reschedule until they’re done processing me? Gin can order the Chinese to make it up for you.” 

Giggling when his grandmother swats Harry for the cheek, Teddy takes a peek through the oven’s glass to note the wide dish filled with plentiful veggies and chicken, and another baking dish underneath on the second rack. 

“Bread and butter pudding in there too,” George whispers as Teddy greedily inhales the warm, delicious scents escaping from the oven. “Fear not, m'lad: I've thrown in extra sultanas to make up for your godfather's light hand.” 

Teddy shares a solemn nod and high fives him with appreciation. Harry’s not one for soft raisins and sultanas much, preferring them dry. It’s a constant struggle convincing him to add more whenever the rare occasion he’s up to making sweets pops up. He’s got some sort of thing about mushy food - Ginny says it’s from eating the wrong things as a kid. Glancing again at Harry and noticing the lack of tension in his grandmother’s shoulders as she talks to him, Teddy fidgets in place while waiting for the right moment. 

“What’re you still doing here?” Harry asks a moment later when he spots black hair in the corner of his eye. “I thought you went to find the kids.” 

Cheeks flushing, Teddy whispers, “...You haven’t given me a hug yet.” 

Taken aback, Harry wastes only a few seconds on surprise before he lets a fond smile cross his face. Pulling away from the stove and crouching down to share an expectant gaze, he tugs Teddy into a proper hug. 

“Are you staying tonight?” Teddy asks, his voice muffled in the folds of Harry’s jumper as he buries his face deep into the man’s shoulder. 

“I can if you’d like to me to,” Harry’s reply falls in his ears gently. “I’ll have to leave before you wake up to get back to Hogwarts, though. I’ve only managed to get today off because it’s all third years and below. If I’m not back in the morning, Neville will kill me for making him deal with my fifth years.” 

“I’d really like it,” Teddy whispers, his hands fisting in the jumper instinctively. “Can - can Ginny stay too?” 

“You’ll have to ask her yourself,” Harry laughs. “But I’m guessing the answer’ll be yes.” 

Before Teddy’s forced to part from the warm, heavy embrace that he didn’t even know he sorely needed until now, shouts echo from the garden. 

“IT’S SNOWING!”

“Fred, slow down - it’s snowing! Can you believe it?” 

“Snow, snow, there's snooooow!”

“Godric, the lungs on those two,” George mutters when his children come barrelling in with shouts of glee. Then he processes what they’re saying. “Oi, if you’re going to be making up stories, go with something believable!” 

Harry turns to look at the screaming children while Ginny follows behind, panting, but Teddy turns towards the window eagerly to confirm their words. 

“It’s snowing! It’s really snowing,” Teddy exclaims while Ginny begins explaining to her husband. 

“We were coming down from the brooms because the Warming Charms were fading off,” she says with cheeks red from the weather. 

Freddy cuts her off with a bounce of his heels, “Only it wasn’t the charms, it’s just that it was getting too cold because the wind was going and then we saw it!” 

“It’s coming not like an itsy bitsy bit,” Roxie adds, gesturing with her arms. “It's gonna be loads!” 

“Snow? In October?” Alarmed, Andromeda heads to the window and squints her eyes to get a good look. “I don’t believe it!” 

“I don’t think I ever remember it snowing this early,” George marvels as he joins her. “Not here, not at Hogwarts.” 

“I wouldn’t think so,” Andromeda says, her eyes still wide as she takes in the drifting flakes scattering outside. “It’s been nearly twenty years since it happened, and it was a surprise even then. Snow in October…what in the world?”  

“It’s really going,” Harry muses from the other window he, Teddy, Fred, and Ginny have squeezed into. Roxie's head cranes this way and that, unfortunately too short to get a proper view. “We might even be able to make something out of it after dinner at this rate.” 

“Can we have a snowball fight later? Please, please, please?” Teddy asks immediately, looking to Harry and Ginny first before he remembers Gran is at the other window. “I'll wear as many layers as you want, I promise! And we've got Pepper Up in the cupboard, I definitely won't get sick no matter what-” 

“Dad, dad, daddy, dad,” Fred begins chanting as he dashes over to George's side. “We can’t NOT have a snowball fight, this might be the only snow we get all year!” 

Roxanne joins him to yank George’s free hand and pleads, “Daddy, let’s play in the snow! Together!” 

“Alright, alright,” George laughs as he uses their hold on him to jerk them to and fro in revenge. “But if you catch cold, I’m telling your mum you two snuck out while I was making dinner.” 

“She'll believe you can make dinner?” Teddy asks curiously, referring to his earlier remark about making up lies. George fakes a scowl at him. 

“I’ll keep an eye on Teddy,” Harry and Ginny tell Andromeda simultaneously, well aware of her protective tendencies. Blinking at each other, then grinning, Harry rephrases, “We’ll three keep an eye on Teddy.”

“Please, that one has his hands full already,” Andromeda smirks, her shake of the head releasing a few curls from her bun. 

“I didn’t mean George,” Harry says, grinning wider. “I meant you.” 

Gaping, Teddy stops clinging to Ginny’s leg and whips his head round to stare at his grandmother. “Gran?!” 

“Me?” Andromeda asks, eyes wide. “Whyever would I do that? I’m perfectly content to watch from the window, inside the house, where everything is warm and good, thank you very much.” 

“Come on, Andy,” Harry wheedles, “When’s the last time you played in the snow? Or with Teddy in general? You ought to be keeping limber these days-” 

Ignoring the narrow-eyed glare she sends his way, he gestures to her grandson. “-and I’m sure he’d love to throw a few Weasleys down with us. The three of us versus the three of them, how’s that sound?” 

“We can be the Tonks-Lupins! And Ginny can be a referee, like they have at Quidditch practice!” Bouncing on his heels, Teddy eagerly glances between the three of them with a beam. “Please, Gran, won’t you? Remember you’ve got that one spell that-” 

Lowering his voice so the opposition doesn’t hear, he creeps closer and mutters in her ear before enlarging his eyes to soften her up. 

“Darling, I’m nearly thirty years too old for a snowball fight,” Andromeda sighs while meeting his gaze. “Look at me: I’m your grandmother. It isn’t very grandmotherly to be out in the snow lobbing it at children, is it?” 

“Says who?” Teddy asks while George jokes, “Depends on the grandmother, really.” 

“Harry says Neville’s grandma fought in the war before,” Teddy adds with a stubborn set to his jaw that leaves Andromeda feeling dizzy with how much he truly resembles his godfather at the moment. “If Neville’s gran can help fight Voldemort, mine can help me fight George!” 

Rolling her eyes and shooting Harry a withering look when he snickers unrepentantly, Andromeda throws her hands in the air. “Comparing me to Augusta Longbottom of all witches…yes, yes, fine! I’ll join! But only to cast the one spell, and then you two will do the rest by yourselves.” 

“Maybe two spells?” Teddy asks with clasped hands. Laughing despite herself, his Gran nods as if she might as well. 

“Perhaps two,” she agrees. 

“What’s this special spell you lot keep muttering about?” George wonders while his two kids fall to the floor from his aggressive swinging of their arms. 

“You’ll find out after dinner, won’t you?” Teddy says loftily as his nose sharpens to a point and tilts into the air. 

“That’s bloody genius,” Fred says after dinner, breathless with shock, when a spiral of Andromeda’s wand gathers the drifting snow straight from the air into a perfect little pyramid of child-safe snowballs. There’ll be no packed snow bruising anyone here on her watch, that’s for certain. “I’ve never seen that before!” 

“It’s not over,” Ginny tells him with amusement from the sidelines where she’s holding onto a transfigured whistle. 

Before George, Fred, and Roxanne can even finish the snowballs sitting in their hands, Andromeda flicks her hand and begins animating the snowman Harry and Teddy spent their first half of the agreed upon planning period building. Popping off the ground with a wide grin, the thick, unevenly shaped snowman begins leering at the three Weasleys. 

“Oh, that’s just unfair,” George finally complains when it hurtles towards them in odd waddles. “That’s basically an extra person! And it's moving during prep time!” 

“Tough luck, mate,” Ginny says cheerfully. “No rules against it.” 

“How are we supposed to make rules against magic snowmen?” Fred complains. 

“Don’t worry,” Andromeda mumbles with a casual wave of her hands. “I won’t be moving from my chair, so it’s still three against three.” 

“You’re going down, Forge!” Harry shouts from their end of the yard. 

George, still pulling up his sleeves and assembling his ammunition, yells back, “Cheat! If I see you pull out your wand, you’re done for, Tarry!” 

“Don’t need magic to make a mess out of you,” Harry taunts while he and Teddy stack snow into a defensive wall. 

“Yeah! You’ll be begging for mercy soon enough!” Teddy adds, to which Roxanne makes a face and Fred shouts, “I’ve never begged for mercy my entire life!” 

“You should think about it,” Ginny tells him offhandedly as she checks her watch. “Your mum might take that better than excuses, you know. Oh! Would you look at that?”  

With a gleeful whistle, Ginny calls out, “Aaaand three minutes is up! Let the battle commence!” 

Sure as he guessed, George’s little family of three is busy being whipped bout the head by the spindly little branches it has for arms while Harry and Teddy load up on snowballs behind. 

When the six of them line up at her back door an hour later, snow up their coats and down their pants and Merlin only knows where else, Andromeda just sighs and begins doling out Pepper Up for them to warm up with. 

“Not a word to your mother about me partaking in this nonsense, do you hear me?” she tells Ginny snappishly as she begins drying the children with a gentle warmth instead of the fierce blaze the other adults are likely to attempt in the process. “I’ve a reputation to keep.” 

As one, the lot of them exchange looks, nod, and drag pinched fingers across their mouths solemnly to promise their silence. 

“So,” Harry says as soon as they’ve been deemed clean enough to enter the cottage again, “who wants dessert?” 

Swinging his legs while he digs into the bread and butter pudding, Ginny absent-mindedly fixing his fringe so that it doesn’t get in his eyes and Harry saving the crust of his treacle tart for Teddy because it’s the bit he likes best, Teddy meets his Gran’s eyes across the table and beams. Face softening, she reaches out to pat his cheek before turning her attention back to the story Roxie’s telling. 

Right as Ginny’s about to tuck him in that night, Teddy pauses and leaps out of bed. 

“Hang on,” he says hurriedly, “I forgot something! I’ll be right back!” 

He heads towards the sitting room where his grandmother is still on the sofa, looking at the family photo album. 

“You ought to be in bed, young man,” Andromeda warns him with an arched brow when she spots the boy approaching. Where he might usually join her in the perusal, Teddy only spares it a peek before he leans round it to hug her without a care for her stern appearance. 

“Thank you for taking me today, Gran,” he whispers in her ear. “And for calling everyone over. I hope they cheered you up as much as they did me.” 

Pulling away to smile at her, his hair bright yellow and eyes a delightful blue, Teddy whispers a shy, “Goodnight!” and runs back to his bedroom. 

Turning back to the album, Andromeda spends a long moment staring at the same picture before she finally smiles at the baby baring his gums inside. 

Back inside his room, Teddy eagerly slips under the covers and waits for Harry to finish brushing his teeth so they can all lay down together. Ginny’s already spelled the bed bigger; two of them might fit in his bed well enough, but certainly not all three of them without a bit of magic to ease the way. 

“Goodnight, Harry,” Teddy mumbles between their warm bodies as he drifts off to sleep. “Goodnight, Ginny. Goodnight, mum and dad.” 

His parents beam back at him from the nightstand in the photo Harry found in the Lupin cottage, Tonks’ belly slightly rounded as she threads her arms through her husband's.

Smiling at each other in the faint moonlight piercing through the curtains, Harry and Ginny echo, “Goodnight, Teddy.” 

Harry isn’t there when he wakes up in the morning, but he’s left a hastily scribbled note reminding Teddy that it’s his turn to choose the takeaway for Sunday’s lunch this week. Last week dinner was at the Burrow, so this week the Potters will be eating at the Tonks cottage - and everyone knows Andy doesn’t entertain cooking two large meals in a single day. Not even with extra helpers round the house to pitch in. 

“Are you coming this week?” Teddy asks Ginny over breakfast when he reads it. 

“No, but I’ll make it in time for dinner,” Ginny says after a sip of tea. “Why? Don’t tell me: you want to try something odd and new again, don’t you?” 

“Kebabs aren’t that odd,” Teddy says with pursed lips, “or new. It’s just you don’t like them, that’s all.” 

“Oh,” Ginny blinks. Reaching out to tousle his hair with a smile, she says, “Thank you, Teddy, but you can get whatever you like for takeaway even if I don’t particularly fancy it.” 

“I know,” Teddy says as he shovels some bacon in his mouth, “but I’d rather we all like it together than just me. It works out since you can’t come, though!” 

Finishing the last of his food with a big bite, he carries his plate to the sink and begins searching the drawers for the menu of the kebab place they tried out a while back. 

Letting her face fall onto the table with a sigh, Ginny only lifts her head when Andromeda nudges her with a chuckle. Puffing her cheeks and sighing again despondently, Ginny whines, “I don’t want him to grow up anymore! He should just stay like this forever.” 

“I’ve tried and failed that already,” Andromeda tells her with a tinkling laugh as she finally sits down with her own plate of buttered toast. “No stopping it, love. I’m more hoping we skip the sullen, moody phase that comes with puberty and he’ll come into it later. When I’m not living with him, anyway.” 

“Don’t say that!” Ginny gasps, shooting up with horror. “Don’t you dare say that! He’ll never!” 

“Ginny, darling,” Andy sighs. “His parents are dead. He’s a Metamorphmagus that’s totally different from most his peers. He was raised by a runaway Black and Harry Potter. I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time.” 

There’s nothing she can say to that, unfortunately. 

The next time Ginny sees Harry, she punches him in the arm. Can’t exactly go about blaming Teddy for being a child or his parents for dying, so she takes it out on her husband instead. 

“Trunk?”

“Check.”

“Wand, holster?”

“Check!” 

“Money pouch?”

“Check.”

“Spare set of-”

“Andy! He’ll be fine,” Harry interrupts, looking as if he might roll his eyes if this goes on any longer. Gran wouldn’t take that well, Teddy thinks. He’s halfway between mum and himself again, not bothering to fully transform since they’ll have to avoid attention at the train station anyway. “You’ve packed his trunk, I’ll be on the train with him, and we’ll both be fine. He’s one of the only children there who’ll have a professor keeping an eye on him the whole time - what trouble could he possibly run into that’s too much for me to handle?” 

“As if you don’t come with your own troubles,” Gran sniffs. “But I suppose you’re right. Finish eating, then! We don’t want to be late.” 

Teddy grins when Harry really does roll his eyes then.

“What’s for lunch?” Teddy asks as he sneaks an extra pinch of sugar into his oatmeal while Gran isn’t looking. “They look great!” 

Busy wrapping the thick sandwiches he’s just finished making in cling film for when they get hungry later, Harry answers, “We’ve got a few options, just in case - tuna mayo, ham and cheese, some jam, and one or two cucumber sandwiches. I’ve packed some cream soda in the bag already, I know you’ll miss them while at school. Let’s see…” 

“I don’t know how you stand the taste of those things,” Gran mutters while she sets the dishes to wash themselves. “Surely if you’re going to have something so sweet, you might as well choose a pudding. Or a milkshake, even, if you’re feeling terribly in the mood for something to drink. Or a Butterbeer!” 

“You said I’m not allowed to have Butterbeer ‘til I’m thirteen,” Teddy pipes up with a curl of his lips. “So does that mean if I give up cream soda I can have Butterbeer?” 

“Absolutely not,” Gran says, whipping her head round to glare at him. “Nothing of the sort! You’ll wait the same as everyone else to get one or you’ll end up stunting your growth, young man.” 

“But I’m a Metamorphmagus! I can grow however I like whenever,” Teddy argues, his lower lip jutting out. 

“So was your mother, and she didn’t have a single sip of Butterbeer until the day of her first Hogsmeade visit in third year,” says Gran loftily. With a few more mutters and flicks of her wand, most of the clutter formed from the morning rush begins sorting itself out round them, jam slotting back into the cupboards and dirty utensils floating over to the sink. Ginny’s plate of eggs and bacon remains untouched as it waits for her to finish showering, Harry having finished his portion ages ago. “Have you finished your breakfast?” 

“Almost there,” Teddy lies, hurriedly shoving a large spoonful into his mouth. He’s halfway through the bowl when the sound of feet running down the steps fills the entire cottage. 

“Good morning, Teddy!” Bounding down with a grin, Ginny presses a quick kiss to his messy fringe and laughs when he makes a noise of complaint at the slide of her wet hair slapping him in the face. “Sorry, sorry. Have they been driving you crazy so far?” 

“Not as bad as I thought,” he says honestly. 

“Oh,” Ginny blinks. “Guess I did this for nothing, then.” 

“Did what?” 

Before he can get an answer, Gran turns round to say good morning and stops mid-way with a frown. 

“Ginevra Potter,” Gran nags as soon as she catches sight of them whispering together, “how many times have I reminded you that you ought to dry your hair after a shower? You’ll make yourself sick like this. Surely you haven’t forgotten being stuck with the sniffles for an entire week the last time this happened?” 

Waving her hand over red hair to dry it herself and then forcing her into a seat, Gran summons one of her fancy hair oils and a brush to begin fussing over Ginny like she does every Harpies game when Ginny’s too lazy to tie it back. Snickering into his fist when Ginny just winks at him and nods obediently to all of Gran’s half-hearted scolding, Teddy realizes she came down like this on purpose to distract his grandmother in case she was getting overbearing. Giving Gran someone to take care of other than him so she can settle down despite hating this sort of attention is exactly the thing that makes Teddy adore Ginny.

“She doesn’t even let her own mum do that, you know,” Harry whispers to Teddy with a smirk when he passes by. 

“But I've played with her hair loads of times,” Teddy says bemusedly as he scrapes his bowl clean. 

“I mean the fussing,” Harry laughs, ruffling Teddy’s colourful locks. “But now that I think of it, I don’t think she lets her mum anywhere near her hair either.” 

“I don’t,” Ginny says from across the table. Fork busy with her eggs as Gran begins twisting her hair into braids that pull from each of her temples, she adds, “Mum’s dead awful at fixing up hair in the first place unless it’s a regular braid. You know, the kind with three sections. She says it was always trendy to have short hair when she was my age, so she only knows how to floof it up with pins and curls and things.”  

“Yes, it was. Furthermore, I’d imagine your mother was rather busy handling seven children at once and had little time to worry about fixing up your hair as long as it was presentable, dear,” Gran mutters from behind distractedly. “You’ve been blessed with easy, straight locks, just like my younger sister. My curls wouldn’t last a day without proper care. Meanwhile, Dora never particularly enjoyed having long hair. I only got to display my skills for the five years it took her to learn how to keep her hair above her shoulders, and then of course came the cropping and the spikes.” 

“I guess mum was an old soul, since she liked short hair like Ginny’s mum,” Teddy jokes. Gran levels him with an amused look before she finishes her work and pats them both on the head. 

“I suppose she might have been, indeed. Quickly now, finish up with your food. We’ve about an hour if we want to make it in time for you to to get settled without squeezing into someone else’s compartment.”

“Mum and dad are meeting us there,” Ginny reminds them after she swallows a bite. “They said not to worry if they’re late, they’ll definitely make it in time to say goodbye.” 

“Your mum and dad are coming?” Teddy asks while wiping his mouth. “Why?” 

All three of them stop to stare at him. 

“To say goodbye,” Ginny repeats like he might be slow in the head. 

“Well, yeah, but to who? I thought Victoire can’t go for another two years,” Teddy says, bewildered. “Or it is some other cousin I don’t know about?” 

Lips twitching, Harry leans over the table to ruffle his hair again. “Come on, teddy bear, you’re smarter than that.” 

“No,” he gapes, jaw dropping when he takes in the looks on their faces. “But I’m not a Weasley!” 

“Definitely not,” Gran smiles. “But I highly doubt that matters.” 

Sure enough, both of Ginny’s parents are there at King’s Cross when they arrive at the train station just before the rush grows heavy. But even more surprising than that is the fact that just behind them stand Bill and Ron with their families. Teddy hadn’t even guessed they’d be here too!

“It turns out it’s much easier to be on time if you're not rushing about to take care of your own kids,” Arthur jokes when he leans in to hug Ginny and Harry in greeting. “Who could have known!” 

“What are you guys doing here?” Teddy asks with wide eyes as he bounds up to the group of them, Rose clutching Ron’s hand while Victoire hides behind her mother. “Don’t you have work and things?”

“Came to see you off, ‘course,” Bill grins while Fleur leans down to press a kiss to his cheek. 

“I like your hair,” Victoire tells him, admiring the blue and pink streaks to his jet black hair. “It’s so pretty.” 

“Thanks!” 

“What kind of person doesn’t take off the morning to come see their kids off for their first year at Hogwarts?” Ron snorts, amending it to, “Well, er, sister's kid. Brother's kid? You know what I mean.”

Cheeks flushing with a combination of embarrassment and squirmy delight, Teddy flings himself at Ron for a hug. 

“George couldn’t make it with Fred and Roxie since I’m here,” Ron says in apology when he reaches out to hug back. “But he and Hermione said you can send letters anytime you like, whether it’s for getting in trouble or help with schoolwork. George for trouble, Hermione for schoolwork obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Teddy echoes with a grin. “Thanks, Ron. I’ll definitely take them up on it if Harry’s no good!” 

“He usually is,” Ron says with a mock-sigh, earning a swat to his head from his best friend. “What! Like I’m wrong?” 

“Oh, shut up,” Harry sneers before turning a gentle smile to Rose. “Hey, Rosie. You came with Daddy to say goodbye?” 

Laughing when she breaks into nonsensical babble in response, Teddy finds himself being patted on the shoulder by Bill. Looking up to meet the man’s blue eyes with a curious tilt of his head, Teddy feels his breath catch when Bill says softly, “I’m sure you’ve already heard it, but your parents would be so proud of you. I know we are. Don’t be too nervous, yeah? Hogwarts is going to be great.” 

“Thanks, Bill,” Teddy whispers after a moment, glad that most of the others are caught up in conversation without paying him attention. “I’ll - I’ll try not to make you guys disappointed.” 

Laughing loudly, Bill just squeezes Teddy’s shoulder and says, “I don’t think we’d ever be disappointed in you, Teddy.” 

“Not even if you end up in Slytherin,” Ginny adds when she pops up from behind. “As long as you lose them a few hundred points every once in a while, that is.” 

“Ginny! Don’t be ridiculous,” Molly snaps when she finishes up with Gran. “You should be encouraging him to earn points for his House through good behavior and habits instead of this nonsense. Besides, his own grandmother was in Slytherin!” 

“I keep forgetting that,” Ron mumbles under his breath nearby. “How do I keep forgetting that?” 

“Because you're an idiot,” Ginny says, dodging the elbow he aims at her. 

“He’s got all four Houses in the family,” Harry says as if it’s just occurred to him. “Remus was a Gryffindor, but he said his dad was a Ravenclaw. Both Tonkses were in Hufflepuff, and Andy’s a Slytherin. Teddy could go any which way, really.”

“I don’t think I’m a Ravenclaw or a Slytherin,” Teddy says with a wrinkled nose. “Or at least, I don’t think I’d make very good ones. Being a Gryffindor or Hufflepuff seems like less work.” 

“And how would being a Slytherin be more work?” Arthur asks, intrigued. 

“Well, I’ll have to be loads more patient because it’s going to be full of stuck up purebloods and fancy rules, won’t I? I’m no good at that stuff,” Teddy replies innocently. “I can’t even remember half the rules Gran gave me for school!” 

Feeling rather pleased with himself when they all burst out laughing - “They’re much better than they used to be, I swear,” Harry promises him in between gasps - Teddy is only allowed to bask in the accomplishment for a short moment before Gran reminds them of the time. 

“Let’s hope this isn’t the year Slughorn catches you, eh?” Ron teases as he slaps his hand against Harry’s one last time. “See you at Christmas.” 

“Let’s hope,” Harry agrees. After waving goodbye to Rose and Victoire from his crouch, Harry and Teddy get swept up in a whirlwind of final hugs and kisses. 

“We’ll Floo you in the morning,” Harry promises Ginny when she grabs the both of them tightly. 

“I’ll see you soon,” she whispers in Teddy’s ear. To his surprise, her lashes are damp when she pulls back from the embrace, though her face remains dry. Tucking a lock of hair behind his ears, Ginny presses a kiss square in his forehead and says, “I’m going to miss you, you know.” 

Squirming in place, he whispers back, “I-I know.” 

After all, there won’t be anymore dinners at Hogsmeade or home together until he’s a third year with permission to leave the grounds. Harry can go because he’s a professor, but Teddy won’t be allowed to leave the castle as he pleases. That means no more seeing Ginny and Gran all the time, no visits from George, no dropping by Grimmauld or Ron and Hermione’s house or the Burrow. Just Hogwarts, with Harry. It’s not exactly a bad trade, but it’s definitely one he’ll have to get used to. 

“I’ll come back every break,” Teddy promises her. Fun as Hogwarts might be, he can’t stand the idea of celebrating the hols alone with Harry while everyone else is together. 

“You’d better,” Ginny says with an exaggerated scowl, “or I’ll drag you out of that castle myself!” 

“Make sure she doesn’t get too bored?” Teddy asks her, gesturing to his grandmother secretively. 

Long gone are the days where she and Harry used to hole up in their bedrooms all quiet-like and stuck in memories, but he worries that not having someone round to keep her busy might allow a bit of that gloom to return to their little cottage. He might not be very old, but Teddy’s unfortunately familiar with the things grief can do to a person if they’ve not got someone to help them out. Growing up an orphan in the aftermath of war gives you little leeway to avoid the reality of these things, and he’s already had time to realize the whys and hows of his family’s habits after the truth of everything was explained to him by Harry. You know: back when he was learning his parents are dead, Harry’s taken over his mum’s body, that his grandpa died in the war, and that the reason George comes over in the middle of nowhere is because sometimes he’s missing his twin brother who’s gone too badly to be alone. Gran won’t get to do that with Teddy at Hogwarts now, so she’ll need other people to make her feel better while he’s busy at school. At least until he can come back during the breaks. 

“Mum’s signed her up for a crochet competition,” Ginny tells him as if that’s supposed to mean something. 

Teddy figures it’s something good from the way she says it, but he has no time to ask questions before Gran switches over to him from Harry, leaning down to swallow him in a hug tighter than anyone else’s. He swallows down the complaint he was going to make about being unable to breath when he realizes she’s shaking the slightest bit. 

“Keep an eye out for the moving staircases, mind your manners, listen to your godfather,” Gran reminds him for the umpteenth time. “And most importantly…” 

Leaning back to cradle his face, she smiles tremulously. “...remember to send me letters whenever you can. You don’t have to Floo me, but if you can at least try to think of your old grandmother while you’re out and about Hogwarts having fun-” 

“I will,” Teddy says quietly, cutting her off. “I’ll send so many you’ll get sick of them. I’ve got practice from sending loads to Harry, remember?” 

Smile growing, she nods. Then, so quietly he almost misses it, she murmurs, “If only they could see you now.” 

Teddy supposes everyone’s thinking of his parents because they’d want to be here too, sending him off, but the multiple mentions of them leaves him feeling wrong-footed and oddly embarrassed. He tries not to make it too obvious, patting his fringe down to catch a peek and make sure it isn't an odd colour. 

“Quick, cover me,” Harry tells Ron and Bill while he ducks. “I forgot to change before coming here…” 

“Who’ll you be this year, then?” Bill asks as Harry begins shrinking before their very eyes into a young boy with thick blonde hair and watery blue eyes. He's also, rather alarmingly, three times the size of Teddy. 

“Blimey, haven’t seen him in years,” Ron remarks, peering down at his friend’s new disguise from the wall of human shields the grown ups have formed to prevent anyone from watching. “Slughorn can’t possibly know this one.” 

Busily shrinking his robes to the right height and expanding them round the waist a tad, Harry scoffs. “If he does, I can’t be held responsible for what I do to him after.” 

“He has not given up after so many years?” Fleur asks, her nose wrinkled in disgust. 

“I wish,” Harry says darkly. “At least at Hogwarts I can come up with excuses and hand someone a detention or something. How am I supposed to run away from him on an eight hour train ride? He’s mental! You know, last year he saw Ginny at the station because we came late and searched the compartments one by one to try and get me alone.” 

Ron shudders and pats him on the back. “Tough luck, mate.” 

“You could always just walk up to the castle from Hogsmeade like the other professors,” Ginny says, holding back a knowing laugh. 

“I like taking the train! Starting a new year without coming on the Express feels wrong,” Harry argues, his multiple chins jiggling aggressively. His godfather’s no good at making people up, so he’s got to be pretending to be someone he already knows - but who? Teddy still can’t figure it out. 

“Teddy, you ought to change to something more…normal,” Gran reminds him while he tries to figure out why this disguise looks vaguely familiar. “He might not have known your mother in school, but any fool could guess the boy with two-toned hair and purple eyes might be the Metamorphmagus.” 

“I know Professor Slughorn bothers Harry because he’s the guy who took down Voldemort, but why’ve I got to hide from him too?” Teddy wonders aloud. 

“He likes shiny things,” Harry replies with a sour tone. “Not many people shinier than a Metamorphmagus who’s also my godson, is there?” 

Well, when he puts it that way…

“If you’d prefer to eat fairy eggs and dragon bollocks, be my guest,” Harry smirks. Gran hides her laugh behind a cough, but the very idea makes most of them shudder. 

“No thank you,” Teddy says, decisively shutting his eyes to concentrate. When he opens them again, Harry and Gran are shaking their heads. 

“He’d remember your dad,” Harry says apologetically. “I learned that the hard way when I came as Sirius before.” 

“Right, that’s what kickstarted his thing about you having a secret stash of Polyjuice for members of the Order,” Ron recalls with a snicker. “Well, better than him knowing the truth I guess.” 

Thinking about it for a moment, Teddy elects to darken his hair to a thick, fluffy red that’s much darker than Ginny’s, leaves his eyes be, thins his lips, and wills his legs to grow a bit longer. 

“Oh, very nice,” Bill says with a clap of his hands. “Smart thinking with the bottom half. You look like a third year now instead.” 

“You should be ashamed, really,” Ron tells Harry with a sad shake of his head. “Look at him! He’s so much better at you than this, it’s humiliating. You’ve had the same amount of time to figure it out, Harry!” 

“He’s a natural, of course he’s better,” Harry says without offense, proudly standing next to Teddy. “Anyway, we’ve got to go before everyone else starts pouring in. No point in all this if Slughorn spots me because I’m surrounded by a bunch of Weasleys, is there?” 

So Harry and Teddy make their way to an empty compartment, their trunks floating behind with help from Harry’s wand. 

“This one,” Teddy says, picking one at random based on his gut. Happy enough to follow his lead, Harry heads in and begins packing away their belongings. 

“Hang on, let me pull out my bookbag now,” Teddy says hastily, scrambling to search through his trunk for a few of the novels he’s brought from home. Even Harry can’t come up with much to do when they’re stuck in a little square for eight hours straight; determined to keep entertained, Teddy’s packed his sketchbook, some pencils, a few novels, and a pack of cards for the trip. “I’ve stuck everything in there together, don’t worry.” 

“Am I that boring?” Harry asks, his eyes dancing as he takes in the multiple supplies tucked away in the worn satchel with R. J. Lupin sewn into the front. 

“Hermione and Gran said better be prepared than left with nothing to do,” Teddy explains while he releases the trunk to be put away. “Don’t you bring things with you when you come?” 

“Sometimes,” Harry admits. He gestures to the mokeskin pouch he usually carries. “I can’t exactly afford to nap on the ride, so I’ve got to keep busy. I talk to other students, go over some lesson plans for the year, catch up on letters from the students that graduated and mailed over the summer that I never got to before. The first few years, I'd spend time with Neville when he’s done talking to his prefects. He took care of most things on the train with the older students so that he didn’t have to introduce himself in front of the whole House - it let him skip the loads of questions and fussing from firsties. Now he heads straight to the castle so he can check up on the greenhouses before school starts up again because he isn't a new professor anymore. Slughorn doesn’t bother keeping him for the parties anymore after he accidentally got stinksap over everyone a few years ago talking about his research. And the food. Twice!” 

“How come you didn’t get caught if Neville ended up in the same carriage as you?” Teddy asks curiously. “Wouldn’t Professor Slughorn think it’s weird that he’s hanging out with a student for the whole ride?” 

“That’s what this is for,” Harry grins, fumbling to pull a Foe-Glass out of his mokeskin pouch with fingers thick as sausages. Teddy’s well used to the sight of them lining the windows at home and in Grimmauld; leftovers from the war, Gran said once. Not the perfect defense, but nice enough to give you warning on most occasions. “Funny enough, it turns out both Neville and I hate those parties so much that Slughorn shows up in the glass. When he finally decides to stop sending other students and investigate himself, anyway.” 

Laughing out loud, Teddy guesses, “So when you see him coming, you transform again? Or wear the Invisibility Cloak?” 

“Exactly,” Harry nods, looking pleased. “It’s worked out so far! By the way, Teddy…if you don’t want to be stuck with me for most of the ride or you want to find some other kids to spend time with, you know you can, right? I don’t want you to think you have to stick around just because I’m your godfather.” 

“Are you joking? What’s the point of going to Hogwarts if I don’t get to hang out with you more!” 

“I’m fairly sure the point is that you learn magic there,” Harry says, but he just smiles after. “Well, you let me know if I end up getting in your way.” 

He doesn't, of course. Getting Harry all to himself for a few hours is basically a holiday in and of itself, which is why Teddy plans to make the most of it. Pulling out a muggle journal and a pen because he can't be fussed with parchment and quills on the go, he cracks open the brand new spine and says, “So: when've you not got classes?” 

“Oh, don't bother writing it down,” Harry tells him with amusement. “I'll just give you a copy of my timetable when we get to the castle. Hand it over to anyone else and you’ll get detention straight away, you hear me?” 

“Aye, aye, Professor,” Teddy salutes, quite pleased. “I know you leave your Saturdays for Gryffindors, but can I still come by if I'm in a different House?” 

“Course you can,” Harry says, his brows pulling together. “You can come to me any time you like or need me, Teddy. Well, any time that I'm not teaching. Whether or not you're a Gryffindor, you'll always be my godson. And I'll still save my Sundays for you long as you want them.” 

Why wouldn't he want them? Reassured, Teddy puts down his pen and wonders, “Do you really think I could be in Ravenclaw or Slytherin?” 

“I don't see why not,” Harry says simply. “You know Ginny was just joking about the points? No matter where you end up, we'll be proud of you. I’d love to have you in Gryffindor obviously but your House doesn't mean everything. Just look at me and Neville - I was almost a Slytherin, and he's a Gryffindor who's Head of Hufflepuff.” 

“You were almost a Slytherin?” Teddy asks at once, having never heard of this before. 

Given that the time-honoured tradition of hiding the secret of the Sorting Hat flew out the window the day they put it on Neville's chocolate frog card, Harry shrugs and tells him, “The Hat said I could go either way. I asked for anything but Slytherin.” 

Before Teddy can ask why, Harry smirks. “I couldn't bear the idea of living with a specific prissy pureblood and his friends who seemed like right bullies to me for the next seven years. But you know…if the first Slytherin I met was your grandma instead of him, or even you, then I might not have cared much about it in the first place.” 

That makes sense, actually. Teddy thinks about all the mad, horrible stories he's heard of his Gran's family and the Death Eaters his parents fought against and figures he wouldn't want to be in Slytherin either if they were stuck-up prats who hated muggleborns. He's more surprised that Harry got to turn down a House for another than the fact that it was the house of snakes specifically. 

“Huh,” Teddy says. Then, “So who was the prissy pureblood that ruined Slytherin for you?” 

Smirk growing, Harry replies, “Your mum's cousin, actually.” 

Mouth falling open, Teddy stares at his godfather for a long minute before he breaks out into peals of laughter.

“Please tell me Gran knows,” he begs, stomach aching.

“Well, she might not know I was almost a Slytherin, but she definitely knows how I feel about her sister and nephew,” Harry hums. There's so much pudge at his throat that it comes out sounding extra thick. “Anyway, point is: being put in Slytherin isn't going to suddenly change who you are or mean that you're a different person now. It means that the Teddy we've liked all along was always a Slytherin, or a Ravenclaw, or a Hufflepuff, or a Gryffindor. Your mum and dad wouldn't have cared either, though I bet they'd be thrilled to have you in one of their Houses.” 

“Bet Gran’d be happy if she wasn't the only Slytherin in the family anymore,” he muses in reply. “I dunno, though. Just because most of them don't believe in the blood pureness thing anymore doesn't mean I'd like staying there very much. If I get a choice like you did, then…” 

“Then?” Harry prompts. 

“I think I'd like Gryffindor,” Teddy says honestly. “So I can have something of you and dad. I've already got so much of mum in me and at home.” 

“You've got plenty of your dad and me in you,” Harry snorts without hesitation. “What, you think just because you're a Metamorphmagus that you're just like your mum only? Don’t be silly. Your parents got married because they had loads in common, you know: they both liked reading, they both had a penchant for sweets, they were both thoughtful and kind and smart and plenty mischievous people who liked books, and they were both stubborn to a fault. The biggest difference between Tonks and Remus was - well, I guess that your dad liked sticking to the same things, same ideas, same people, same places, but your mum liked exploring everything new and different. The more different something was, the more she liked it. Sticking to just one or two things wasn't her style.” 

Catching Teddy's eyes and smiling, Harry reaches for his mokeskin pouch again. “Listen - I know that from the way everyone talks about Remus, he always seems so…mature, and responsible, and proper and all. But your dad only seemed that way because he was much older than us kids, and he went through a lot that sort of took the happiness out of him. He was a Marauder in school, remember? He liked pulling pranks, he was sarcastic, he liked muggle music with loads of guitars and heavy drums, he was awkward and embarrassing and a kid, just like you. But fighting for so long took…it took some of that from him, in a way. It's your mum and you that brought that happiness back in his life, Teddy. He wasn't boring or prim or stiff in the least. Even now, when I think of some of the best times I've ever had at Hogwarts, they were with your dad. And I know he can't be here to give you those same experiences in the way we both wish he could, but…” 

Pulling out a tattered piece of parchment from the pouch, he holds it out to Teddy with a smile. Despite the watery blue eyes, the round face that looks as if it's being swallowed by his fat, and the stubby, thick fingers holding onto the parchment, Teddy feels as though he can see Harry's real face and smile looking at him right now. 

“...you can still have a piece of him to remind you that he was more than just Professor Lupin, who fought in the war or taught us as DADA Prof. He was Moony, and Remus, and for all his flaws…Remus was pretty bloody awesome, Teddy. Even if I knew him long enough to tell you what he was like when he was your age, I still wouldn't be able to find the words for everything he was as a person. Hopefully, this makes up for it.” 

Heart in his throat while something hot itches behind his eyeballs, Teddy hesitantly lifts his hand to grab onto the parchment. He might not have seen it before, but he knows without a doubt what it is. He also knows that no matter how wonderful it would be to have this for his own use at Hogwarts, even without the added fact that it'll give him the chance to talk to a version of his dad - Messr Moony, purveyor of mischief - it means more to Harry than it ever will Teddy. Harry's own dad and godfather were Marauders too, and his dad was friends with Harry. That's three whole people he'll never get to have again if he hands the map over versus one person Teddy never had in the first place. 

It's silly to think this way, but even lending Gran mum's stuff sometimes makes Teddy feel awkward. He can't imagine actually giving her all the journals and sketchbooks to keep without feeling terribly lonely and sad afterwards, and he loves his Gran loads. So as much as he wants this, Teddy wants to avoid Harry feeling that sort of way much, much more. He doesn't even want to think of what it might feel like to have only one or two things left of Gran and Harry and still pass them on to someone else. 

“Are…are you sure?” Teddy asks, his fingers just lightly pinching the worn ends of the parchment. “I mean, you use it for professor stuff, right? And keeping your office safe? I don't have to have the map, I can just borrow it from you sometimes-” 

Pushing it towards him without a care, Harry shakes his head. “It's alright, Teddy. I can do just fine without the Map. Besides, I've been using it longer than you've been alive. I know the castle perfectly well, and there are plenty of spells to help me catch students past curfew or up to trouble. And…well, the people who made that map in the first place are more than just Marauders. They grew up, they changed. It wouldn't be right to hold onto just this bit of them instead of remembering who they were later on too. Honestly, me using it as a professor is against the Marauder's rules in the first place. It was always meant to go from one mischief maker to another: it went from them to Fred and George, then to me, and now…now I'm giving it to you. So you can have your own adventures and remember a piece of your dad that no one else left can. You'll have to cause twice the chaos to even out all the rule-following I've used it for these past few years. Think you're up to the challenge?” 

Accepting it with both hands, shaking, Teddy hurriedly says, “D-Definitely! I'll make sure not to hurt anyone else in any pranks, and I won't get caught with it, and I'll give it back whenever you want, and-” 

Laughing, Harry waves off his promises with a grin. “Don't bother giving it back! Everything of mine is going to you eventually, so just think of this as a gift for starting Hogwarts.” 

“What do you mean everything's going to me?” Teddy chokes, crumpling the Map in his shock. 

“Well, who else would it go to if not you? You're my only kid,” Harry says matter-of-factly. 

Teddy knows that. Teddy asked for that. It shouldn't be so embarrassing to hear out loud. The casual, direct way Harry can just talk about it as if it's totally natural that Teddy will inherit all of his possessions right after handing him a heirloom that carries a piece of both their fathers is mad. It's completely bonkers! It's - well. 

It's probably what it feels like to be a normal kid with parents who say these sorts of things as a given. 

Some memories stick with you because you think of them often as time goes by. With embarrassment, perhaps, or joy, or sorrow. Occasionally with anger. Some stick with you because you're so aware of everything in the moment that you can never forget it, however meaningless or simple the memory itself may be. Teddy has many of both. He can recall with perfect clarity the random summer day Harry took him and Fred out for ice cream at Diagon Alley, sprinkles stuck in his teeth while whipped cream ran down his hand in the sweltering heat. He can recall the night Harry told him that he'd never have another kid as long as Teddy said so, the night muggy and his cheeks tight from crying while green eyes stared at him without an ounce of anger or blame. He can recall braiding Harry's hair out of boredom one evening while the locks were brown and shoulder length from his godfather’s nap, Ginny and Gran chatting in the kitchen to the smell of lamb roasting in the oven. The smell of nuts and lambs in the air while he played with the soft, thin strands couldn't have been any more ordinary, but he can still summon the experience without effort. He can recall the uncomfortable warmth of Harry and George on either side of him as they watched a cartoon film when he was barely five, George asking why muggles were so obsessed with King Arthur when Merlin was right there as butter melted onto Teddy's tongue from the popcorn. Too many things fall aside in the memories formed from living every day with the same people; he'll likely never remember the first time he rode a broom or ate a chocolate frog, never remember the day he spilled spaghetti bolognese all over the floor that Harry and Gran still recall so fondly. But even as he's sitting here living through this experience, only eleven years old, Teddy feels that he will never, ever forget it.

The soft, worn parchment rubbing against his palms. The warm sunshine filling the compartment as the train begins to leave, bells ringing and steam hissing. The pale blue of Harry's temporary eyes, the sweat itching at Teddy's collar. Harry’s idle chatting of how the mokeskin pouch and Invisibility Cloak will come later when Teddy's older and he's gotten used to going without them slowly falling into his ears. 

There'll be nothing particularly special about this moment to his senses in a few years. But he'll remember it. 

Suddenly, impossibly, with a surety that roots him in his seat, Teddy comes to the inescapable realization that there may never be another person in the world who loves him as much as Harry does, nor as easily. No one will ever try so hard to love him and make it known in every way, nor will they ever be able to understand him the way Harry does. He lets his godfather ramble away while processing this, his chest feeling as though the sun's crept into his ribs from behind his back and poured warmth and light right into his chest. It scorches his bones a bit with its intensity, but he holds onto it greedily. 

It shouldn't matter so much to be presented with the confirmation of Harry's love in this way - the Map, the pride in his voice, his declaration that son or not, Teddy is his - when his entire life has been filled with every other kind of affirmation that Harry can give, but it does. Because Teddy’s parents are dead, he's eleven, and he's about to become a real Hogwarts student this year…but he isn't doing it alone. He had family to send him off at the station, he has company here to comfort him on the way over, and he'll have a godfather to run to whenever he's scared or angry or happy all year round now. He can be Sorted into any House he pleases without needing to be worried about how his family will see him, and he can be anyone or anything he wants to be. 

Because he's loved. 

Instead of crying, Teddy Lupin smiles. 

He stops worrying that there'll be too many students for Harry to pay him any attention, or that other students will be more likeable and get better grades. There's no more anxiety at the thought of falling below the standards the other kids and professors might set upon him after knowing he's Harry's godson, and no fear of failing to meet whatever praise was heaped upon him before. The faint concern that Teddy might let down his parents by becoming his own person instead of doing his best to carry them in himself every which way fades into a sense of peace. Teddy's not sure what adventures and mysteries are waiting for him at Hogwarts or how long it'll take him to grow into someone worth everything his parents, Harry, Ginny, and Gran put into him…but he's sure that no matter how long it takes or how many mistakes he makes along the way, Harry won't mind holding him up through it. 

When the hat calls out, “HUFFLEPUFF!” from above Teddy's head as hundreds of students whisper about Professor Potter's famous godson, Harry leaps to his feet to clap with a beam from ear to ear. Though Gryffindor slumps with disappointment, most of the students join him in cheering for Teddy out of appreciation for their favourite professor. 

“That's my boy!” he shouts at Neville from the High Table proudly, his palms turning red from effort. “You're lucky to have him!” 

Harry’d said on the train, jokingly, that he worried about accidentally transforming into someone else while watching Teddy get sorted. He hasn’t. He stands there, black-haired and green-eyed, completely himself while he laughs from joy. Hogwarts is astoundingly beautiful with the thousands of candles lighting the Great Hall and the night sky hanging just above them, suits of armor and ghosts lingering round the edges. Teddy’d nearly got a crick in his neck from trying to take it in everything at once when they were coming inside. 

But even the endless candles hold nothing to the way Harry looks at him now. Like - like Teddy’s his everything, his skin trembling to hold in all the affection just itching to burst out of him. 

Remus and Nymphadora Lupin died here to make a better world for their son, eleven years ago. Now he stands in a castle filled with people he gets to make friends with, study with, and grow to love over time while their friend, a man they trusted with their son’s life, keeps a close watch over him. Here in this castle where everything began, four boys who became friends in the same House, Harry Potter and Teddy Lupin are more than orphans; they are more than their parents, more than legacies and prophecies and reminders of the past. They’re family. They’re each others. And they’ll never, ever know what it means to be lonely ever again. 

Harry never knew what it meant to be loved unconditionally at that age. He’d hardly known what it was like to be loved at all outside of daydreams. Now his godson sits at a table in Hogwarts, the first home he ever knew, and gets to smile with the confidence of a boy who’s never known what it’s like not to be loved. 

“Hullo,” Teddy says to the crowding students peppering him with questions in welcome, “I’m Teddy Lupin. Yes, Harry’s my godfather, yes I can change how I look - it’s called being a Metamorphmagus - yes I know Ginny. How would I know Harry but not Ginny? Oh, and before anyone asks: I don’t give autographs. Anything else?” 

To Harry Potter, the strongest existence in the world - the one that might grant miracles and defy all logic out of love, that can defeat even the most wicked of evils or cross the highest of barriers - is a mother. 

To Teddy Lupin, it is his godfather. To him, Harry is something secret and special the likes of which has never been seen, something that’s both at once. Because Harry can't be wrong, of course, when he says that mums are the most magical and powerful people in the world, so it must mean that in his own special way, Harry is a mum too. A godfather and a mum combined, his Harry. Always more, never less. He lets it slip the day he introduces Harry to his first son, flushed with pride and joy. 

“Come on, bubba,” he whispers to the precious little bundle in his arms as he steps out of the birthing room to greet the others. To Harry’s obvious surprise, he walks straight past Andromeda, past Bill and Fleur, past Molly and Arthur, and arrives right in front of him. “Say hi to grandpa.” 

“Me?” Harry whispers, taken aback. 

“Course,” Teddy says, his beam so resplendent that it nearly puts Fleur’s Veela charm to shame. “Grandpa, meet Sirius Harry Potter.” 

Hands halfway round the babe as Teddy transfers his son, Harry shakes heavily enough that Ginny has to stabilize his hands. When Teddy only beams wider at their incredulous looks, they scan the room for any sign of a prank. There won’t be any, of course. Teddy’d told Victoire long before he ever married her, and the others along the way.  

“I’m in love with you,” he’d told her straight to her pretty, flushed face the year before he proposed. “And when I think about wanting to wake up next to someone in the morning, making a home with someone, and being able to trust someone to want the same things out of life that I do, I think of you. We're too young, obviously, but one day - one day I'm going to marry you, Victoire.” 

Breath caught in her throat as he tangled their hands together, she blinked her wonderful blue eyes at him. “What-?” 

“I want to marry you,” Teddy said, bulldozing past her confusion. “But before I can do that, I have to let you know something important. About me, and about Harry.” 

Holding her tongue because she could tell this was sincerely important to him, Victoire just pressed a kiss to his hands the way her own parents had done her whole childhood and smiled. She'd come a long way from the temperamental girl who thought she had to prove good looks didn't mean you were inept. Round at the once sharp edges, patient, more willing to believe in his earnest attempts to communicate. “I'm listening.” 

Smiling back at her because he was a besotted fool and she was the most beautiful, sweet, loving woman he'd ever met, Teddy tried not to forget what the point of this talk is. “Some parts…they're not mine to tell. Not really. But you know that Harry and Ginny never had kids. Part of it is that Harry can't have them, yeah, but he wanted them badly enough that there were other options he could have - could have used. Adoption, for one. But he didn't.” 

“I never knew they wanted kids,” Victoire whispered, stunned. “I thought they were too busy with work, didn't have time for them. Like Uncle Charlie.” 

Certainly no one had ever made mention of this over their Sunday dinners or any family reunions while she was growing up. 

“No,” Teddy whispered. Clearing his throat and playing with her fingers to distract himself from the familiar swell of love and guilt that churned his stomach when the memory of that night came back to him, he admitted, “I asked him not to.” 

Victoire's hand twitched in his own, a half-bitten gasp escaping her lips. “You what?” 

“I asked him not to,” Teddy repeated, his blue hair unintentionally shifting into a jet black. “Because even though he wanted them, I was terrified that he would love them more than me, and I wouldn't be important to him anymore. I - Victoire, I used to think he and Ginny were my parents! And then I found out they weren't, and that technically he wasn't my family at all, and that was fine until…until I realized he might be able to have his own family that didn't include me.” 

“Oh, Teddy,” she choked out. Before he knew it, she left her seat to come hug him, her hands carding through his hair gently. Inhaling the scent of lavender wafting off her clothes, Teddy blinked back tears and slipped his arms round her waist. “Of course not. He loves you more than anything! Everyone can see that! And Aunt Ginny thinks of you the same, obviously.” 

“Well I know that now,” he muttered into her blouse. “Hard to know for sure when I was just a kid. But that's not the point! The point is that Harry never got to have kids because he chose me over them. But I…I know how much it means to him, how great a dad he would have been. Because he was mine too, really. So when I realized how important that was, what he did for me, and how there might not be anything left of him to remember when he's gone because-” 

He cut himself off, not quite ready to explain the truth of Harry surviving in his mother's body yet. It wasn't his place to do so, not even to Victoire. That was Harry's secret to tell. 

“I'm his family,” Teddy said instead, “so when I have kids in the future, they're going to be his family too. And when I say that, I mean that - that I want one of our kids to have his name. Do you understand?” 

Looking up to search her face, Teddy felt the clench in his stomach furl loose as she leaned down to kiss him. 

“Just because you're a Hufflepuff doesn't mean you're the only one who does things like caring, you prat,” Victoire whispered against his lips with a smile. “He’s my uncle, Teddy! And your - well, your Harry. I think that's a wonderful idea.” 

“I love you,” Teddy told her. She tosses her hair over her shoulder, smug and gorgeous and his, and said, “I know. Is that all you were worried about?”  

“Pretty much,” he said honestly. 

Victoire rolled her eyes, kissed him again, and then said, “As long as we don't name one of our kids Nymphadora, I'm fine with nearly anything else.” 

Bill laughed so hard he fell out of his chair when he heard that bit later, Fleur giggling wetly. 

“Tonks would have loved her just for that,” he chuckled with a shake of his head. “Damn. I still can't believe it - her son, my daughter, getting married. Time flies by, huh?” 

Teddy shifted awkwardly under their warm, nostalgic gazes and double-checked, “So you're alright with that? For when we have kids?” 

“Alright? I think it is the best idea I have heard!” Fleur declared with a smile from ear to ear, her lashes glittering with sentimental tears. “Oh, it will make so many people happy, Teddy! I cannot wait for the day. Imagine!” 

“Your parents would be among them, if they were here,” Bill added with a warmth to his voice that made Teddy's cheeks hot. “They'd be bloody proud of you for everything, but especially this.” 

Well. That was that, then. Relieved, embarrassed, and touched, Teddy just nodded around the lump in his throat and let them babble on about Fleur's experience being pregnant with Victoire all those years ago. They weren’t married yet then, but he’d wanted her parents to know that this was something important to him he wasn’t going to compromise on. He only told both sets of grandparents when Victoire found out she was pregnant, and they’d had much the same reaction. Ginny’s parents were thrilled, obviously, but it was his Gran who’d surprised him then. 

“Sirius,” she’d said suddenly, her hair white with age and wrinkles littering her worn face, “if it’s a boy. You ought to name him Sirius.” 

Ginny’s mum had paused, then, and grown even more teary than before. “Yes, that - that sounds perfect.” 

“He’ll be overjoyed,” Ginny’s dad said, his smile soft and nostalgic. “I know if he - if he’d had more than you, Teddy, that’s a name he would have chosen. Remus would have entertained it, too.” 

Teddy had already considered it by then, but it felt reassuring to know they felt the same way. 

“Lily, if it’s a girl,” he whispered, and they beamed at him. Even Gran. 

Here they are now, still beaming, as Harry and Ginny hold onto Sirius in the corridor outside the delivery room. 

“I’m your kid, aren’t I?” Teddy tells them softly. “So he’s your grandkid. Thought I might as well give him a name that showed it. I’ve got it approved, legally, Bill and Gran helped. He can be yours just as much as he is mine as long as you want it. I know I’m a Lupin, but - I’m proving you right, Harry. For choosing me. So now…I’m choosing you back. It’s not exactly the same, but. Yeah.” 

“I never doubted it,” Harry whispers, his voice catching. “Not once.” 

Eyes burning, Teddy shuffles his feet and mumbles, “Well, don’t start now then.” 

“Oh, Teddy,” Ginny warbles, and then she’s throwing her arms round him with a face full of tears as she smiles. “Thank you!” 

It’s only much, much later that Teddy gets time alone with Harry again. There’s hugs, kisses, messages to be sent, congratulations to be had, a newborn to be cooed over. Teddy helps feed Victoire some soup, cleans her up, and leaves the great-grandparents to watch over Sirius while the mediwitch begins recording his information for the paperwork. Harry and Ginny are sitting together on one of the benches just outside the room, talking in soft, quiet voices while she leans her head on his shoulder. She smiles when she notices him and squeezes Harry’s hand before she leaves to find Fleur. Before the redhead goes, she wrangles Teddy in one last hug. 

“Proud of you,” Ginny tells him with a radiant glow to her skin. “And thank you, Teddy. This means a lot to the both of us, of course, but - especially him.” 

Leaning back, she grins from ear to ear and laughs. “Can you believe it?! I’m a grandma!” 

Her face twists with distress then, too suddenly for him to understand. “Dear Merlin, I’m not even forty. A grandma?!”

She leaves Teddy behind to burst into laughter while she searches for her mum, clearly struggling to process the realization. 

“I was gonna name her Lily, if she was a girl,” Teddy tells Harry after, when he stands right in front of his godfather. “Lily Ginevra Potter.” 

Appearing dazed, Harry just swallows round his tongue and meets Teddy’s eyes with a helpless sort of joy - the kind that simply screams he isn’t sure he’s allowed to be this happy, to deserve these blessings - that makes Teddy throw himself at the man without hesitation. Harry reaches out to hug him back instinctively as if they’re not two grown men, his chin digging into Teddy’s shoulder while they cling to one another. 

“This is my thank you. Thank you for choosing me,” Teddy whispers, voice frayed with emotion. “Thank you for being mine, for sticking by me. Thank you for - for surviving, even if it meant you had to do everything the hard way. You…when you talked about our mums, you always said that a mum is someone who can do anything for their kid. Anything, even if it doesn’t make sense how. I get that now. You did that for me, Harry. You’re not just my godfather, you know. Whatever your mum and godfather were to you, whatever mum and dad were to you, you are to me. All of that.” 

Harry makes a distressed, gutpunched noise that compels Teddy to pull back, but the man isn’t upset. He wraps worn hands round Teddy’s cheeks and says, fiercer than any moment ever before, “I love you, Teddy Lupin.” 

“I know,” Teddy says, smiling brilliantly. He does. “To the moon and back, always.” 

His godfather studies him through a long, drawn out silence before smiling with unshed tears, confident that he’s telling the truth. To the very end, that conversation in the corridor remains the greatest compliment Harry ever receives in his long life. 

The call comes for her, not long after. She drifts into consciousness slowly, her last memories of flashing red light and Remus' voice in her ears. There'd been a cackle as the spell hit. Bellatrix, she remembers. A sound rings through her mind again like a gentle bell pleading her to rise. She ignores it. The sounds come closer, ever closer, until all she can hear is it begging her to stand up, to return one last time. 

For the Master, it whispers. He beckons. Come. 

"Master? I've got no master, thank you." 

Harry Potter. He is coming. He is coming. Rise! Rise, and go to him. Do not let him walk alone. The Master, the Master! 

"Of course he won't be alone! But it's not time yet. I know it isn't. Ring all you like, I'm not going. Mark my words - he'll not be here for long." 

The noise leaves her with a curious sigh, but she doesn't care. Lifting her heavy lids, Dora thinks for a moment she's been blinded before she realizes that the blame lies in what she's looking at. Leaning up on her elbows, she observes the endless white space that surrounds her in every direction. 

"Huh," she says. "Not what I expected, that's for sure." 

She makes to stand but stops halfway when she notices the rather embarrassing fact that she hasn't got any clothes on. Staring at her own breasts and bare legs for a long moment, she sighs. "What's a witch got to do to get some robes round here?" 

Ask, apparently. Familiar brown robes her mum gifted her not long ago wrap round her limbs within seconds, leaving her proper for company once again. Not that there seems to be any company to be had in this odd place. She doesn't have her wand either but that's alright. Dora's got a feeling she won't need it here. She walks through the clean, white space with its rather refreshing air for any sign of what to do from here on out. Surely there ought to be someone or something here for her? Remus, if anything. But walk as she might through this endless nothing, it's just more of the same. Not a single soul or object appears to stand out. Distracted by her thoughts of Remus and the sure knowledge that she's dead, Dora nearly misses the vague shift of light in the distance that suggests there's something in here other than her. When she quickens her pace, it turns out there are pillars popping up in the distance. They're just off enough from white that she can barely make them out, and she realizes belatedly that they’ve no shadows. Craning her head round and lifting her limbs, she blinks rapidly when she realizes she's not had a shadow all along either. Huh. Something to note for later, then. Still, the pillars are a sign of - not life, exactly, but something. And something, Dora knows, is always better than nothing. She breaks into a jog with the gut feeling that running far enough into this place might reveal more to her. Sure enough: a gleaming white bench appears just a ways down from the first pillar, the kind that looks like a metal grate with no arm rests. Confident that she's heading in the right direction now, Dora picks up her pace. She jogs past the pillars, past the seats, past the endless nothing as the bell from before accompanies her every step. 

Come, come, come, it tinkles. It sounds awfully like the wind chimes hanging outside her home, now that she thinks of it. Come, come. Keep going. Help. You must help. Go forth and grant his wish. 

“I think I'll do as I please, thanks.” 

As she moves through this endless space, her mind rather calm and still, she spares a moment to think on why this place feels familiar to her. She lets her eyes rove over the walls, the floor, the seats, the solid pillars of white with no bricks, no shadows, no noticeable traits except that they're obviously solid. A mist begins curling round her feet as she nears her destination. Pausing when she notices it creeping from under a plain glass door just ahead, Dora feels a spark fly in her mind's eyes and claps her hands with satisfaction. 

“King's Cross! It's ruddy King's Cross! How did I miss that?” Spinning on her heels as if the announcement will suddenly summon dozens of people waiting to board or the tracks one ought to see here, Dora grins. “King's Cross…suppose I'm here to catch a train, then.” 

She follows the mist through the glass door and into another long space, but she knows what to expect this time. Just a few metres down lies Platform 9 and ¾; the signboard hangs next to a plain pillar, whitewashed and lacking the typical black print she's used to. Not that it ever had one on the muggle side. It's no matter. Dora's sure this is her stop. 

Breaking into a run and dashing through the pillar with a whoop leaves her stumbling just after passing through. Lands her right on her face too. Typical. 

“Fucking unbelievable,” she mutters nasally round her sore nose while picking herself up. “Why does that still hurt?” 

Someone laughs then. It would sound rather pleasant if it didn't startle the daylights out of her at first, but alas. Auror training and years of Moody's incessant nagging has Dora leaping into a battle crouch with a hand held out for a wand that doesn't exist, which is of course when she falls on her arse again. From shock this time, though it's no less embarrassing. 

“Hullo,” the woman says with a bright smile. She's - bloody hell, she's fucking gorgeous is what she is. Her long, glossy hair fans over her shoulders, familiar eyes set under long, thick lashes, and her smile is…well. Dora's sort of beginning to understand that pictures really don't do justice for some folk. And why you'd go to war over a woman just for her looks. Dora's not even sure she could have ever made up a woman so pretty with Metamorphmagus abilities on her own. “I'm Lily, but you probably knew that. It's nice to meet you.” 

“You've got Harry's eyes,” Dora blurts out from the floor. She ignores the hand held out to lift her with a slack jaw, unable to piece together more than one thought at a time. 

Lily Evans Potter blinks those green eyes at her and then bursts into laughter that makes Dora's stomach warm and her ears redden. “I think you're supposed to say he got mine, actually!”

“Right,” Dora says, her jaw working while she tries not to get distracted. “Just, er, knew him first and all. But they're still very pretty! Always liked his eyes. Um, your eyes. You know what I mean.”

“I think I do,” Lily agrees with an amused hum. Still smiling, she holds out her hand again towards the Metamorphmagus. “I thought we'd meet earlier, when he called for everyone. Funny how things work out, eh?” 

“Who all is everyone?” Taking it and lifting onto her feet properly, Dora searches the area as if she might find someone else waiting here. 

“Oh, you know,” Lily says with a dismissive wave, “family. Us, James, Sirius, Remus.” 

“Family?” Dora asks, her face contorted in confusion. “Whose?” 

“Harry's, of course,” Lily says matter-of-factly. “Who else's?” 

Oh. Seems a bit obvious in hindsight. 

“Huh,” Dora says a little wondrously. Her thoughtful face blooms with a wide grin, eyes glittering with joy. “He thinks I'm family, then?” 

“Dunno about that bit,” Lily tells her with another laugh. “He's not very good with family, you see. But you're certainly family to the rest of us! And I know you made him feel safe. That's why he wanted all of us, you know.”

Lacing her arm through Dora's and leading them down the platform along the line of thickening mist, Lily begins chatting softly as if they're taking a stroll in the park. “We thought you'd come with Remus in the beginning, but he showed up on his lonesome. No one's upset in the least, though, don't you worry. This whole affair is terribly confusing no matter how long you've been dead. The boys have just gone ahead now that they've finished their jobs. I suppose you came because you heard Harry asking for help?” 

“Help?” Dora asks with surprise. “What help does he need?” 

Lily Potter's whole face changes then: her brows soften, eyes warm, and her smile melts into something so delicate and gentle it feels too precious to look at. Her every pore is filled with a simmering love and pride; it isn't the kind of love that's fierce, passionate, burning hot with determination and overwhelming power. It is the kind of love that slowly soaks into your bones like the sunlight that warms you up from the inside out after peeking from behind the clouds. It's cozy like a warm bath, comforting like a humongous hug, and so stunningly affectionate that for a moment Dora stops in her tracks. 

She wonders if she ever looked the same when talking about Teddy. Dora hopes so. 

“He's going back,” Lily murmurs as her eyes drift off into the distance. “And he wants to keep everyone safe like I did him. But I'm afraid I can't do much anymore. It'll have to be you who does this bit, love.” 

Dora follows her gaze to the blurry silhouette on the far end of the platform walking away from them. The mist they've been walking along floats higher and higher around it as if to give it cover, and she knows without a second thought that it must be Harry. She doesn't bother calling out to him. She's said all she needs to him before the battle began, and he never belonged here in the first place. Dora hasn't been dead long, but she understood that ages before she ever died. A last hug would be splendid to be sure, but she knows Harry well enough to leave that alone. He was never very good with them. 

“Can he do it if I help? Protect everyone?” 

“He can,” says Lily. “Depending on what you're willing to give.” 

“Why me?” Dora asks, turning her head to meet those same green eyes she used to admire in a different face. “I'm already dead. Aren't I?”

Lily laughs again, her arm squeezing around Dora's. “Of course you are! There are likely other reasons neither of us are quite sure of, really, but if you must know - if it's for the reasons that make sense, the reasons he'd give you - I suppose…because you're a mum. Because you're strong, you're smart, you're loving. Because three times now, you've protected him: at the Department of Mysteries, on the Hogwarts Express, and the night you helped him leave his aunt's. Because you can be anything you like, and he believes that you can do anything you put your mind to. Because to Harry, you're like me. Because like him, you walked into this knowing that you were going to die.” 

“So…will you do it? Will you help him one last time?” 

“Of course I will,” Dora says immediately, her lips turning up as confidence strengthens her bones. “I always would have! I just wanted to make sure. Not that I, er, doubted you or anything. Still learning how this stuff works and wanted to double check…well, everything. So how do I do it? Is it the train?” 

“Train?” Lily asks, taken aback. 

“Well, this is King's Cross, innit? And I helped him before on the Express. Maybe I'm supposed to do it like that again,” Dora reasons as she cranes her head round for any changes in their surroundings. “Seems odd to be in a train station if we're not catching a ride or sending someone off.”

Lily blinks in confusion and matches her movements to study the space with furrowed brows. Only a moment later, she shakes her head wryly. “I don’t see it. King's Cross, you said?” 

“Oh, you think it's something else?” Dora asks curiously. “What've you got then? I was mostly working on my gut until I saw the sign for the platform, but you'd probably know better than me what with you having been here way longer than I have.” 

She's firmly learned that not everything is quite as it seems. Dora isn't, given her abilities, and certainly most of her work as an Auror wasn't either. And most importantly: there's always one more way to understand the same things, people, and events. This place is definitely King's Cross, but maybe it's also something else. If everything was only one thing at a time, there'd certainly be much less fun in this whole living business. 

“Sign?” Lily repeats with interest. She peers behind as if it might still be waiting there for her to look upon. “What did it say?” 

“Platform 9 and ¾,” Dora says slowly, her confusion evident. “What else could it say?” 

“I wouldn't know,” Lily says rather cheerfully. “I've actually never been here! But I think you're quite right. King's Cross…sounds like something Harry would come up with.” 

Staring at Dora with admiration, Lily nods to herself. “I suppose one can only be a Metamorphmagus if they can see things the way you do…no wonder Harry likes you so. He's never particularly preferred things being clean-cut. Takes the fun out of life, doesn't it?” 

“I'm sorry, I think you've lost me,” Dora says with sincere bewilderment. “Did I miss something? You really can't see any of this around us: the pillars, the seats, the train tracks?” 

“Not a bloody thing,” says Lily with a smirk. “Honestly, I thought only Harry would. He made this place, you know. Even Dumbledore couldn't figure it out without being told!” 

“Well,” Dora says, her mouth flapping wildly. “I'll be damned.”

“You're probably right,” Lily informs her, unbothered by apparently walking in a sea of nothing with a random stranger. Happen to her often, does this? Dear Merlin, maybe death is less boring than Dora had thought before. “If this is King's Cross, seems we ought to board a train. Shall we sit and wait?” 

It takes Dora an astoundingly long moment to realize Lily's waiting to be guided onto a seat before she hurriedly finds them the nearest one. 

“Right,” Dora says faintly. “Right.” 

What else can she say? This is rather a lot to deal with when you've just died. Usually she prefers to investigate things herself instead of being told, but there's an unfortunate lack of anything to investigate and only Harry's mum here to give her any clues. Not that Dora minds talking to her of course, but…it's just so boring to be handed answers instead of figuring it out yourself. And surely even the dead don't know the answers to the universe simply because they've popped their clogs? 

Chewing her lip, Dora asks, “Is that - is that all I have to do, do you think? Board the train?” 

“Well, what do you think? You're the one who figured this all out. You're the one Harry's asking for help from. I would think it's up to you, Mrs. Lupin,” Lily reasons while an automatic, silly grin breaks out on Dora's face at the address. Tucking a lock of dark red hair behind her ear, she curls up her pretty lips into a smile. “He wouldn't take anything unless it's willingly given. So what is there that you, Dora Lupin, can give him? What do you want to give him, do for him? I, er, gave him my life but…doesn't really seem an option for you. No offense.” 

“None taken,” Dora shrugs. Her life wasn't wasted either, even if it wasn't for Harry or Teddy specifically. 

Turning her eyes to the fresh tracks that appeared as soon as she entered the platform, already waiting for her, she thinks of her friend as she saw him last. Harry, with his flashing green eyes and stiff jaw in the castle before the battle began true. She thinks of the first time she met him in his aunt's house, only fifteen, and how even still he'd spent just as long fighting dark wizards as a kid as Dora had as an Auror. She thinks of his laugh that grew rarer and rarer, thinks of his mouth that was always quick as a whip. Thinks of how Lily said Harry believes Dora can be anyone and do anything, and that some part of him must think of her as family if he wanted her there when he died. She thinks of how he's always had to be Harry Potter - The Boy Who Lived, The Chosen One - instead of just himself. 

Dora and Harry share a great many things, honestly. More than he might ever understand. Curiosity, kindness, courage. The same values of justice, determination, and skill in magic. A good sense of humour, even if one of them was better about using it more often. But there are a few things she has that Harry doesn't: her family, though it's just mum and Teddy left now. Her ability to be anyone she wants to be, to be seen however she pleases. Her ability to look - as silly as it may sound given where they are - on the brighter side, or simply a different side. It seems that in the face of dying and fighting, he'll need all of those. Just offering one isn't enough. Harry's a good sport, and he'll do her proud regardless of what he's given to work with. So maybe - maybe Dora just gives him something that comes with every one of those attached. 

“Sacrifice,” she whispers. “What's what made it work, yeah? That you chose to sacrifice yourself for him.” 

Remus had mentioned it to her once when he was attempting to explain why Harry's blood had been taken to revive Voldemort again. He and Sirius had spent an entire night interrogating Dumbledore to understand whatever they could of the ritual that had been undertaken in that graveyard and how it might affect Harry's safety in the future. Harry’s mum - Lily, sitting here - gave up her life willingly to keep him safe. Now he wants to do the same for the others he loves. 

“Yes,” Lily says softly. “I had a choice between me or him. I chose him.” 

“Wasn't really much of a choice, was it?” Dora replies with a purse of her lips. “Of course you'd choose him. He's your son!” 

Lily smiles at her wordlessly and squeezes round their linked arms. 

“Sacrifice,” Dora repeats. “Well, I dunno what kind of sacrifice he'd have to make to get that going or how it'd even work, but I do know this: I'm giving it back to him. That, and everything else. Won't have much use for it here, will I? It ought to stay behind and give him a reason to - to not regret anything. Or make the next bit easier.” 

All together it should make a difference. At least, she hopes so. Harry's wanted quite a lot of things that Dora's never been able to guarantee, but she plans on handing him a few gifts now. It'll be much more valuable and useful than a broomstick model or some sweets, that's for sure. A proper gift that sticks with him through the times. 

As soon as she draws her conclusion, a faint sound echoes in the distance down the tunnel. Lily is the one who jumps, startled, before she turns to Dora. 

“Was that-?” 

“Our ride? I'd think so,” Dora grins. Noticing the wide-eyed stare and still gaping mouth on Lily’s face, she makes a curious noise. “Have I got something on my face?” 

“Not really,” Lily says after clearing her throat. Blinking, she leans in for a better look. “I'd say something's got your face, to be more specific. Sorry, it's - it's my first time seeing a Metamorphmagus transform.” 

Reaching up to her scalp instinctively and feeling a distinct lack of bristly spikes, Dora follows the strands of hair down to her shoulder and lifts them up for inspection. When the plain brown locks fall into view, she rolls her eyes before she can think twice. 

Then it hits her. 

“Oh,” she gasps, hurriedly pushing forth more hair into the front to peer at. “It’s stuck again! That must mean…” 

Beaming for the first time in her entire life - er, death - at the idea of being an average, normal, and horribly boring woman, Dora laughs round her handfuls of mousy hair. 

“Do I look dreadful?” She twirls eagerly with her robes fluttering outwards. Brown eyes widen as every inch of her seems rather commonplace. “I look positively ordinary, don't I!” 

“I’m sorry?” Unsure of how to respond to that, Lily has little time to answer or even ask a few questions back before the whistle of steam grows much, much louder. The train is rapidly approaching now, its wheels chugging along the tracks while Dora jumps to her feet with a squeal. 

“It's worked! It must have! Oh, I'm brilliant, I really am, I can't wait to tell Remus-” 

“I'm very confused,” Lily says apologetically. “Er…” 

“I've given it to him,” Dora tells her nonsensically, her beam stretching from ear to ear. “I mean, I don't know how much but at least one of them's gone - mind, he should be bloody grateful that I've gone and given him the one thing nobody else could have pried from my cold, dead hands-” 

Twirling again with a hop, Dora draws Harry’s mum in for another spin and laughs loud enough to echo through the entire platform. 

“Oh, he's going to be so bad at it,” she sighs happily. “Just rubbish! I bet Teddy'll throw him in the dust by the time he's talking, you know, Harry's just dead awful at anything harder than colouring…even his Astronomy homework can't be better than a kid’s, and that's just straight lines! With tools! But I'm sure you knew that, obviously, because you've probably been watching over him-” 

Following behind as Dora tugs her onto the newly arrived train, chattering the whole way, Lily manages to get a word in just as they reach the nearest open door. 

“What exactly's just happened, then?” 

“What?” Turning back to blink at her, Dora smacks her own forehead. “I've left you totally in the dark, haven't I?” 

“I wouldn't say totally,” Lily jokes, “rather bright in here, innit?” 

Snorting, Dora tugs her onto the train and grins. 

“If you must know, Mrs. Potter, I've just given your son the one thing in the universe no one else could!” 

“And what's that?” Lily asks, eyes growing wide with interest. “I must confess I haven't seen much of you before today. No offense.” 

“None taken,” Dora says with a fond roll of her eyes. “I'm sure Harry's adventures keep you busy enough as it is. Hang on, are we the only ones on this entire train? That seems-” 

“Ahem!” 

“Right, sorry.” Grinning as Lily draws her attention back with a pinch, Dora Lupin throws open a vaguely familiar compartment, takes a look inside, and nods. Close enough. 

“Well,” she begins as soon as she flops onto the seat with Lily just across, “I'm dead, aren't I? Not much I can do with whatever I've left behind there. Figured it might as well go to the bloke who needs it most. Of course, he'll never be quite as good at me with the transforming and I doubt he'll ever even be as good as Teddy because we're a different sort, you know, but-” 

“Merlin's saggy balls,” Lily whispers, her face blank with shock. “Did you make my son a Metamorphmagus?” 

“Probably,” Dora hums. “Isn't it brilliant? Best gift ever! Not, er, to belittle your very meaningful sacrifice and the gift of life you gave him…” 

“The gift of - Dora, screw that! You made him a Metamorphmagus! Holy-” 

Standing up to pace the carriage and jerking as the train begins to set off, Lily's entire face collapses with envy. 

“I didn't get that! How come I sacrifice myself to become an awkward, forever twenty-one year old ghost and save just one kid, but he sacrifices himself and gets to save everyone and become a METAMORPHMAGUS!” 

Hands tangled in red hair while she complains, Lily sinks to the floor with a despairing groan that rather throws the composed, angelic air to her out the window. 

“It's not faaaiiir,” she whines between her knees. “Harry won’t even use it because he's so stupidly full of guilt and shame for things he shouldn't be and he's just going to be regular old Harry his ENTIRE LIFE like it's some kind of punishment-” 

“Harry Potter,” Dora says so slowly and forcibly that Lily can't help but meet astonished brown eyes, “has never in his entire life been regular. Not even once, no matter how hard he's tried. Merlin, can you even imagine?!” 

“I mean, you're not wrong,” she admits when Lily continues to stare, jaw agape. “He won't do half the things someone else like me or you would with it…but I'll tell you this: no matter how hard I tried or how much I wanted it, I wouldn't be able to hand my abilities over to someone normal, or - Merlin forbid! - boring. I could swear it on my soul, you know. If this works, it's because there's something in him that wants to…” 

Frowning, Dora chews her lips and decides to change her choice of words. “...no, because something in him knows he's not ‘just Harry’. Maybe there aren't a load of things he'd like to try or become, but even magic itself would never be able to make a Metamorphmagus out of someone who was fine being the same person forever.” 

Absorbing this with a thoughtful furrow to red brows, Lily straightens up and places her bum safely on a cushioned seat. All her complaints have fallen away in the face of Dora's explanation as she considers the weight of that in conjunction with her beloved son. Jealous as she is that he'll be returning flush with success and the newfound ability to morph his body entirely as he pleases, Lily suddenly finds that she isn't thinking of things quite as she ought to. Putting aside her intense interest and the swell of disappointment that Harry might waste the gift given to him out of a poor sense of debt he doesn't actually owe anyone, she begins thinking of what it means that Harry would be able to receive the gift in the first place. 

After all, it's not Dora's blood running through his veins. It's Lily's. 

“I suppose,” Lily says with careful deliberation, “that happens when you die. It doesn't seem very likely that you come back from that as the same person you were before.” 

“I wouldn't think so,” Dora agrees. 

“Maybe,” the redhead surmises as she raises her head to look out the window, “maybe it's not that he's someone else. Maybe he's just…someone more. Instead of just Harry, he's more than Harry. The same way this whole place isn't just a blank space, or just a train station.” 

“I like the sound of that,” Dora says with a growing light to her brown eyes. “More, eh? Not quite everything and definitely not anything, but…better than less. Or nothing.” 

“Or nothing,” Lily echoes, turning her smile on the woman across the compartment. 

“You've got a special kid,” Dora tells her warmly. “One of the best.” 

Blinking back hot tears, Lily clears her throat. “Right you are, Mrs. Lupin. Yours isn't so bad either.” 

“You're only saying that because I've charmed your pants off,” Dora laughs with a dismissive wave. “But you'll mean it soon enough! I wonder how they'll turn out, our Harry and Teddy.” 

“Wonderful,” says Lily as that overwhelming love from before returns to her face. “Absolutely wonderful. They'll be alright even without us, I promise.” 

“I know that,” Dora sighs as if it's obvious. “If your kid is one of the best and he's left in charge of mine with my own mum, what else could they be?” 

Tugging at her mousy locks of hair somewhat sadly, she sighs again and says, “I hope Remus doesn't mind too much…it was one thing to look like this for a few months, but forever seems a bit much.” 

That earns a snort from Lily, who nearly folds in half to hold back her ribs from exploding in laughter. “Please! That man's head over paws for you!” 

Delighted by her casual joke about his lycanthropy, Dora realizes something that hasn't occurred to her even once until now. This is Harry's mum, yeah, but…she's Lily Evans Potter. The Lily who ran circles round James Potter, who was prefect with Remus, who was supposedly just as witty and fierce and wicked strong as Dora knows Harry to be. Lily Evans as much as she is Lily Potter. A badass who managed to reflect Voldemort's own Killing Curse back at him at the age of twenty-one and changed the shape of the entire war for her baby boy. She's more than pictures, more than stories, and she's right here for Dora to pester for however long this journey of theirs is. 

“Bloody hell,” Dora murmurs, awestruck. “You're Lily. You're one of the most brilliant witches in the last century!” 

Only everyone in the ruddy Order had said as much, including Dumbledore himself. Speaking of the Order...

“Erm, not to completely diminish your very wide array of strengths or intelligence or the fact that you did magic literally no one's ever heard of because I definitely want to ask about that and I'm really quite fond of your work in making Harry Potter what with him being a great bloke and a menace to wizarding society, but,” taking a deep breath with hot cheeks, Dora blurts out, “was Snape actually in love with you since you were kids? Because I never thought he could know emotions other than disgust or anger if I'm being honest but Remus and Sirius used to say he was obsessed with you and I really can't imagine the arsehole who became a Death Eater and you together even as just friends-” 

Disarmed by the babble filling up the compartment and the totally new direction this conversation's taking, Lily flounders at Dora's ceaseless speech and then breaks into laughter again. 

“Each and every one of you,” she gasps, “always with Severus! Those boys are worse gossips than any Hogwarts student in history!” 

“I’m not a gossip! I'm an Auror,” Dora shoots back, affronted. “There's a difference, thank you.” 

“Do tell,” says Lily dryly. 

Before Dora can explain the clear distinction between an idle gossip and a proper Auror, soft chimes begin ringing through the train. Instinctively, Dora turns to look out the window and leaps to her feet with a bitten off gasp. 

There, in the distance, no longer stands Platform 9 and ¾. The scenery outside the window has transformed into a moor filled with abundant heather and gorse, a blue sky spreading wide above with sunlight the likes of which she hasn't seen in ages. The dreary clouds and rain she's spent the last month avoiding are nowhere to be seen as May shines down gently on the flowers dotting the moor. The train ambles down the tracks as the moor passes them by, a blurry shape down the way growing increasingly familiar. Breath caught in her throat, Dora watches the cottage approach and throws the window open to inhale the green scent of spring's seeds blooming while the chimes grow louder yet remain ever so gentle to her ears. 

A warmth appears to her left when Lily joins her at the window wordlessly. One of her hands creeps up to cover Dora's, as much comfort as it is a search for some. Together, they watch as a winding path paved from endless pacing appears, leading up to the cottage. And there, as they half-expected, lies a young man walking hand in hand with two little boys. Their dark heads seem especially mismatched in this colourful field of green and purple and yellow, but in an amusing way. Confused, Dora can only feel her chest tighten as all three seem to notice the train and look behind. 

Lily's lungs stutter beside her, her hands clenching round Dora's. Dora hardly pays her any attention, eyes stuck on the little boy whose black hair and green eyes immediately leech into turquoise blue locks and grey irises. He grins at her, then, this little boy, and tugs on the young man's hands to bring him down. Harry - because it must be Harry, with that messy black hair and sharp jaw, with that familiar roll of his eyes - leans down and listens as her son whispers in his ears with an unheard giggle. The other little boy follows along so that they're all bent over to whisper between themselves, making faces and sharing skin. After a moment, just as they're beginning to lean right while the train chugs by, the three look to the train with matching grins. Harry's hair grows bubblegum pink, but retains its usual shock of long, messy locks while his features soften about the nose and jaw. The last little boy remains the same, but the familiar lightning-shaped scar that ought to be on Harry's head is on his instead. Arms wrapped around their small shoulders, this newly pinkened Harry mouths something to them just before they whistle past. 

“D'you think…it was the real ones?” Dora mumbles after her eyes have given up on searching them out. "The real them?" 

She doesn't know how, doesn't know why, and doesn’t know when - but Dora knows without needing to question someone else that their sons have just passed them by. What she doesn't know is if she made them up on her own to make herself feel better, or if that's what they'll actually look like in the future. 

She really, really hopes so. 

Smile tremulous, Lily squeezes their hands fiercely and whispers, “I think so. You've got a beautiful baby boy there, Dora.” 

“Yours isn't half bad either,” Dora says, her throat thick. “I reckon a good bit of that is you, eh?” 

“No,” Lily says, her voice barely audible under the lingering chimes. “That's all him, love. Him and the work he's put into himself.” 

“Maybe,” Dora swallows, “maybe that's what more looks like.” 

“Maybe,” Lily repeats with damp lashes. 

They stand at the window for a long time, hands intertwined and hearts beating heavily in their chests, as they think of their children. A series of whistles erupts from the front of the train. Steam billows over the moor, the plants swaying slightly as the wind rustles through their flowers and stems. The chimes fade away little by little until all that's left is the memory of them, of Harry's lips moving soundlessly under their force. 

Dora wishes she'd thought to thank him back when they were still in sight, but she's sure he'll figure it out eventually. She wonders if he made this happen to reassure her that they'd be okay, the both of them. It seems like the sort of thing Harry would do. He's always been good like that. Caring, even, for a bloke who's quite thick. He'll do a great job with Teddy. Maybe even better than she could have by herself. 

“Do I really count as a mum?” she asks suddenly. “Even though it was hardly a month, and I left him behind?” 

“You loved him, didn't you?” Lily asks back. “Enough to make the decision to leave as long as it meant he was going to grow up safe?” 

“Is that enough?” 

“It might not be to you,” Lily says with a gentleness that feels as comforting as her own mum's hug, “but it is to him. It will be. And as long as he thinks so, what else matters? He seemed to like you enough just now.” 

“He did, didn't he?” Somewhat unsure as she peers down at her plain appearance, Dora bites her lip. “I didn't seem particularly…boring, or embarrassing?” 

“Not even a little,” Lily reassures her. 

It's odd, this whole being unremarkable thing. She seems almost entirely like someone you could pass by without thinking of twice, especially in comparison to the sort of looks she used to favor before kicking the bucket. Dora's only been like this a couple of minutes and she's already floundering - she's no clue how other people do this their whole lives. But it's for a good cause, a good friend. Maybe it's time that Dora learns who she is without the part of her she loved best, just as Harry ought to learn how to be himself without the bits of him that have died tonight. 

If Harry can be more even after everything he's lost, then so can she. 

“I'll come with you,” Dora says inexplicably. Meeting Harry's eyes in his mum's face, a new friend in an old place, Dora begins to truly accept everything that's happened. “When we've got to pick him up again, I mean. Whenever the next time comes and whether he asks for me or not.” 

“I’d like that very much,” says Lily. “I think he would too. But if you'd like the first go at him then, you'll have to fight for it. There's quite the list. Your husband's there, for one. We've got a Weasley too, dunno if you've ever met him - he's rather fiery.” 

“Pssh, forget the first go! I'd prefer to go after all the weepiness, you know, I'm too much of a crier to even see where I'm heading when I get started. It's actually quite hard to make me cry, just so you know, it's only that I've got trouble stopping…”