Chapter Text
The war was finally over, and the smell of blood and smoke lingered in the great hall. He’d never be able to come back here, not without remembering the bodies strewn all over the place.
The bodies he stood in front of were lined up clumsily. He didn’t really notice that, though. He didn’t notice the shattered benches or broken stone, couldn’t hear the voices mourning their own losses all around him. His eyes were fixed on the still forms of Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks. Their hands, close but not touching, their faces slackened in what might’ve been relief. Their pain was finally over.
Flashes of green light burned bright behind Harry’s eyelids. He didn’t know whose death it belonged to anymore. Maybe his?
People spoke around him, distant and muffled. Kingsley’s voice—calm, commanding—was directing anyone not currently bent sobbing over a body to help take back the Ministry. Madam Pomfrey, off somewhere to his right, was a flurry of activity and soft, heartbroken sobs. Someone was calling his name. He didn’t know who, and he didn’t care.
Finally, Harry knelt. He reached forward and placed Tonks’s cold hand into Lupin’s.
He didn’t cry. He couldn’t. So instead, he made them a quiet promise.
“I’ll try to take care of Teddy.”
Then he rose, turned on his heel, and apparated away before anyone could stop him.
-----------------------------------
The air outside was colder than it should’ve been in May. Harry left without telling anyone. No goodbyes. No explanations.
He’d probably pay for that later. He didn’t care.
Now he stood in front of a small cottage tucked into a quiet hillside—a safe house, for now, where Andromeda Tonks was staying.
He knocked quietly, half-hoping she wouldn’t hear. So he wouldn’t have to be the one to break the news.
When the door opened, the hopeful look on her face shattered him.
Her face crumpled. Her spine bent. She dropped to the floor, doubled over and sobbing.
“Both of them?”
“Both of them.”
She just wailed louder for her daughter, her son-in-law, and her too-gentle husband. All the people this war had stolen from her. She broke for the second time in her life—but this time, there was no Ted to break her fall.
Harry stood there and finally let the tears come. He cried into his hands, shaking and sobbing over all the lives he’d failed to save. Remus. Tonks. Fred. Dumbledore… so many others who died because he’d taken too long to destroy those stupid fucking Horcruxes.
They wept together for what could have been years, until a short, sharp wail cut through the air.
Teddy.
“Can I—?” Harry gestured toward the sound of crying, his voice raw. “I’m… I’m his godfather. I’d like to be involved… if that’s alright.”
Andromeda looked at him critically. Even collapsed on the floor, with a tear-streaked face, she still looked intimidating.
She eyed him for a few long moments, then nodded sharply.
Harry rushed past her into the house, following the sound of high-pitched crying until he reached what must have been her bedroom. He walked right in.
Beside the large double bed—one side still neatly made—stood a wooden bassinet. Harry sat down on the rumpled side and got his first full look at a small, red-faced Teddy Lupin.
Wow, his hair really did change colours every few seconds.
“Hello, Teddy. I’m Harry. I’m your godfather. I hope you don’t mind the state I’m in—it’s been a long couple of months.”
He was rambling now. “Actually, when I first met my own godfather, he was in a similar state.” He chuckled a little, despite himself.
He sat beside the bassinet and gently rocked it side to side, murmuring anything that came to mind until Teddy finally fell back to sleep.
When he looked up, he caught the slate-grey eyes of Andromeda Tonks watching him carefully from the doorway. How long had she been there?
-----------------------------------
They’d done it together for a while—Harry and Andromeda. But when she’d fallen ill, everything he hadn’t known how to mention finally came to a head.
She pushed Teddy—freshly a year old—into his arms. Told him to take good care of her grandson. Told him not to let the boy forget where he came from.
Harry had just nodded quietly and stayed until Andromeda closed her eyes.
Then he took Teddy to his house. It was a small place in the middle of Muggle nowhere. Quiet. A little empty. But of course, there was room for Teddy.
Teddy fussed in his arms, small fists flailing.
“Hey, I’ve got you,” he murmured, swaying side to side. “I’ve got you, little cub.”
He let the silence settle over him, this house wasn’t like the Burrow, which stayed loud even after Fred. Harry spoke without thinking, the words pulling themselves loose. “I’ll do it right. I swear I will.”
Magic shimmered faintly around him, recognising the vow—despite the fact that the person he seemed to be taking to wasn’t there.
How weird.
Teddy settled, cheek pressed to Harry’s shoulder. The wind blew, rattling the chimes Luna had gifted him. He didn’t know what spell she’d used to hang them, but he didn’t know how to take them down. The sound seemed to settle Teddy. So maybe he’d leave them be.
A faint flicker of warmth. A breath of grey and black. A ghostly hand on his shoulder—too light to be real, too familiar to be imagined.
He didn’t turn around.
“Thanks for trusting me,” Harry whispered, eyes distant. “I’m scared out of my bloody mind. But thanks.”
The hand was gone.
But the warmth stayed.