Teddy knows that his parents died to make sure the world he grew up in was nothing like theirs but he can't help but resent the fact that they left him before he could even form any proper memories of them. Sure, he remembers vague things: strands of shiny pink (purple, turquoise, red, blonde, black) hanging above him and chocolate hidden in secret pockets, but there are no real memories for him to remember. He'll never have the memory of his father teaching him to ride his first broomstick or his mother buying him his first Hogwart's robes. He doesn't know what it's like to have his parents watch proudly as he boards the Hogwarts Express for the first time or see them waiting for him on the platform to take him home. And although he doesn't know it yet, in years to come his heart will break a little every time he realises that there is no mother or father to write home to.
And Harry knows exactly what that feels like.
So Harry makes sure that someone is always there to meet Teddy on the platform to wave him off and take him home. Teddy gets an invitation every day to the Potter's dinner table where James and Albus fight over who sits next to him and Lily passes him the desert before everyone else and sometimes when he's too tired to Floo home to Grandma, Harry offers him the guest room (Teddy's Room they call it now) and brushes his hair off his face while Ginny tucks him in and kisses him goodnight exactly the same way they do for their own children.
And when he is old enough to understand Harry tells him about the mischief his father was famous for and the courageous man he became and the way his father helped save the world. Then Ginny fills his mind with images of his vibrant mother and her sparkling smile and the way she used to change her nose in the middle of dinner just to make them laugh. And together they tell Teddy how much his parents loved him and the way Tonks practically glowed when Teddy was growing inside her and the jubilation on Remus' face when Teddy was born and he couldn't wait to tell the entire world that this little baby was his everything.
Sometimes Teddy wonders what it would have been like if his parents hadn't been so brave, hadn't given up their lives for the sake of the wizarding world. Harry recognizes that look of longing that passes over Teddy's face, the number of times he's seen it on his own, so he hugs him round the shoulders and Lily climbs onto his lap and Ginny laces her fingers through his while the boys fight over who Teddy loves best and in the middle of all this Teddy feels like this is this just as good as having his own family, no this is his family.
