Note: Hello! This is The Dark Creature's Child, which is the fourth story in the Blood 'ficverse, (the previous stories being, in reading order: Blood, Lies and Letters and Without a Trace) but it can stand alone – any references to previous stories will be explained. This 'ficverse is AU in that Remus and Tonks survived the final battle; Remus is back teaching at Hogwarts and Tonks is Head of Aurors. For those of you who have not read any of the other stories and can't be bothered to either, you may well encounter a couple of new characters: Chester Burton and Orion Lynch. Chester Burton is Teddy's best friend, whilst Orion Lynch is essentially to Teddy what Draco Malfoy was to Harry. This fic contains major spoilers for Without a Trace! Consider yourself warned! We rejoin Teddy just after we left him at the end of Without a Trace, so...I hope you enjoy reading and thank you in advance if you are kind enough to leave me a review! Here goes...

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I making any profit from this piece of writing.

1: The Marauders' Handbook

Tick...tick...tick...

Teddy Lupin fidgeted in his seat, eyes glued to his wristwatch as Professor Binns continued to drift back and forth at the front of the classroom, droning on about...well Teddy had no idea what.

A soft snore drew Teddy's attention, and he glanced sideways to find his best friend and fellow Gryffindor student Chester Burton slumped over the desk, arms folded into a pillow and eyes firmly closed. Teddy pursed his lips firmly together against laughter as Chester's snoring grew louder. Once glance to the front of the room confirmed Teddy's suspicions that the teacher was completely unaware of Chester's nap, Teddy wished he could follow Chester's example, the lesson would surely pass quicker that way.

The young metamorphmagus returned his gaze to his watch. He glared at it and fidgeted again.

Hurry up, he thought furiously, gripping hold of his quill pen and stabbing at the corner of his set of notes in a vain attempt to vent his frustration. The quill's nib snapped, sending a splatter of ink across the parchment and before he could stop himself, Teddy cried:

"Bugger!"

At the front of the room, Professor Binns' mono-tonal monologue paused for the first time in over half an hour, and as heads turned to stare at him, Teddy hastily aimed a hefty kick in Chester's direction under the table.

Chester gave a small jump, eyes snapping open as he sat bolt upright in his chair. The Slytherins in the back row gave a collective snigger as the teacher looked up at the two boys.

Teddy opened his mouth to make a mumbled apology, only for the ghost to murmur:

"Five points from Gryffindor." Then he turned back and continued to pace the room, resuming his speech as if he had never been interrupted.

"Did you have to kick so bloody hard?" Chester hissed irritably as Teddy went back to staring at his watch, unconcerned at having lost some house points. After a particularly disorderly and downright shambolic party that the Gryffindors had thrown some two weeks previously to celebrate the appointment of their new Head of House, the house's chances of winning the House Cup at the end of the year had been near on obliterated. The Headmistress, Professor McGonnogal, had been unimpressed to say the least. Indeed, Teddy recalled, she had been furious enough that losing a few more points was not going to make all that much difference.

The lesson wore on and Teddy struggled to find himself a suitable distraction that would make the hands on his watch tick a little faster. He was much too excited to concentrate on anything at all, and he had been this way ever since he had caught a glimpse of the front page of that morning's Daily Prophet.

HIGEST PRAISE FOR HEAD OF AURORS AFTER MASS ARREST OF FORMER DEATH EATERS.

Teddy grinned as he recalled reading the headline that morning over breakfast, he'd shown the newspaper to Chester, pointing at the large photograph of his mother and Minister Shacklebolt and announcing loudly: Look Ches, my Mum's made the front page! He was pretty sure the whole entire Gryffindor table had heard him, and he had grinned broadly whenever he had spotted other people looking at their own copies of the paper.

"Typical really," Orion Lynch, Teddy's least favorite person in the whole entire school, had commented loudly when he and his Slytherin friends had followed Teddy and Chester out of the Great Hall and towards the marble staircase. "Newspapers always exaggerate. I mean...there were what? Three? Four of them? Hardly a mass arrest, was it?"

Teddy had been forced to grab hold of Chester's arm and drag him up the stairs in order to stop him turning around and making some sort of rude comment in return. Chester would start a fight with Orion given even the smallest opportunity, he was especially fond of drawing his wand and threatening to hex Orion into the middle of next week. Teddy did not feel this was a particularly wise move to make, especially when Orion was continuously followed around by several boys who were at least twice Chester and Teddy's size. Besides, it wasn't as though the comment had bothered Teddy in the slightest, he had been much too excited to bother paying any attention to what Orion had to say. Teddy had simply mused that it was unusual for Orion to resort to making comments about his mother. Teddy's father was by far Orion's most frequent target, since the Slytherin had a distinct hatred of werewolves, whilst Teddy was fiercely proud and protective of his father. It made for an explosive mix, and both Teddy and Orion knew it.

After a while Teddy had given up staring at his watch and he was just beginning to think that Professor Binns' lecture was never going to end when the constant droning sound came to an abrupt halt. Both Teddy and Chester looked up at the ghost rather hopefully along with the rest of the class.

"You may go."

Teddy practically leapt to his feet, narrowly avoiding upturning his chair, before reaching to grab hold of his bag in order to shove his belongings away.

"What's the rush?" Chester asked as he gathered up his blank set of notes and stored them away in his own bag.

"Gotta show this to Dad!" Teddy announced, pulling out his dog-eared copy of the Daily Prophet and waving it under his friend's nose.

"Don't you think he's already seen it?" Chester asked, rolling his eyes a little, Teddy's constant excitement was beginning to get a little irritating. "I mean... you said he reads the paper every morning..."

"I'll see you at dinner!" Teddy called, already halfway to the classroom door, and before Chester could call back, the turquoise haired boy had disappeared.

Skidding around the corner and narrowly avoiding tripping over his own feet, Teddy sprinted down the corridor towards the Defense Against the Dark Arts office. Holding the paper aloft in triumph, he came to an abrupt halt and reached to fling the door open and hurry inside.

"Dad!" he cried as the door flew back on it's hinges, striking the wall with a loud bang. "Look! Have you seen? Look, Mum's on the front page of..." his sentence ended abruptly as he felt his feet collide with something, and before he could look down to fathom what, the boy found himself falling flat upon his face, landing on the offending object with a crash, the newspaper went flying from his hands sending a spray of pages fluttering in all directions.

With a groan, Teddy pushed himself up into a crouch and looked down to see what he had fallen over. It was a large cardboard box full of a whole range of objects, from books to photo frames and ink bottles to a rather bent pair of spectacles. Or rather it had been a box...it was looking rather worse for wear now that Teddy had attempted to flatten it, it's contents spilling out onto the floor.

"Whoops," the boy muttered, feeling his cheeks warm as he finally looked up towards his father's desk, ready to be confronted by an inevitable raised eyebrow and pursed pair of lips.

But the sight that met Teddy's eyes was not what he had expected. Not at all...

"What are you DOING?" he shrieked, jumping to his feet and hurriedly reaching back to try and grab hold of the door, slamming it shut again, causing it to shudder in protest. "Are you MENTAL? Somebody could walk in and see you! I could have been ANYONE!"

From his position sat behind the desk, his wife sat across his lap with one arm hooked tightly around his neck, Remus Lupin offered his son a raised eyebrow.

"I rather doubt it," he said as Tonks reached to grab her wand from the desk, summoning the scattered papers with a broad sweep of her arm. "Anyone else would have knocked."

Teddy scowled at the pair of them until she finally put her wand down again and, disentangling her arm from around the professor, got to her feet.

"You saw the paper then?" she said, shooting the boy a grin. "Pretty cool, huh?"

It was then that Teddy finally got a good look at her, and her appearance surprised him just as much as her presence in the office did. Since the office's fireplace was connected to the floo network so that Remus could spend his nights at home rather than in the castle, it was not unheard of for Tonks to turn up, the Headmistress did not seem to mind the occasional visit from the Head of Aurors. But in Teddy's living memory, his mother had never felt the need to dress up for the event.

She was wearing a long, pale grey evening dress, studded with a spray tiny pink gemstones, and she seemed to have done something rather fancy to her hair, which today was a soft pink to match the dress. He noted the unusual addition of pristine silver nail varnish and asked:

"How come you're all dressed up?"

"Kingsley's throwing me a big party in the Atrium." Tonks told him, dark eyes twinkling with amusement. "So I thought I'd pop over and rub Dad's nose in it, you know, since he's stuck here and probably won't be able to come with me."

Teddy could not help but feel rather bemused.

"Doesn't Minister Shacklebolt have more important things to do with his time than organize parties?" he wanted to know, and Tonks sniggered cheerily.

"Probably," she admitted, turning to squint scrutinizing her reflection in the glass of the grindylow's tank. "But that's the thing about Kingsley...never could resist an excuse for a good knees up..."

"You're going to be late if you don't hurry up, you know." Remus pointed out as he too stood up. Tonks glanced over at the clock on the wall and Teddy watched her eyes widen in surprise.

"Bugger!" she exclaimed, as Remus rolled his eyes. "I was meant to be there ten minutes ago!"

"That's okay," her husband assured her as she hastily flung her arms around his neck. "You'll be fashionably late."

Teddy averted his gaze as the two of them set about saying a proper goodbye, and his eyes came to rest upon the upturned box that he had tripped over. He stooped to set about clearing up the mess, glancing at each object as he stored it away. Nothing caught his eye as being of interest, indeed most of the things were nothing more than old school textbooks, until he came across a small, dusty book with a faded red leather cover and yellowing, scrappy pages. He was just opening it up so that he could examine the title page when Tonks appeared beside him and reached down to ruffle his hair.

"Be good, love." she told him, and he glanced up and offered her a smile.

"Have fun, Mum!" he enthused, and with that the Head of Aurors headed for the fireplace, disappearing in a roar of green fire.

Remus reached to draw out his wand and with a muttered word the rest of the objects flew back into the box.

"Come along, Teddy." he instructed, striding towards the door. "We're missing dinner."

Teddy got to his feet again and obediently followed his father out of the door, the little book still clutched in his hand. As he walked, trailing along behind the werewolf, the boy opened up the book and squinted down at the faded title. It was written by hand in neat, familiar looking handwriting:

Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are proud to present The Marauders' Handbook.

Teddy's eyes widened and he glanced up to stare at the back of his father's head.

The Marauders' Handbook?

The child could feel excitement bubbling up inside of him at the mere mention of his father's school friends.

What exactly was the Marauders' Handbook?

Teddy couldn't help but feel that this was not a question that he should pose to Remus. He imagined that the book probably contained all sorts of accounts of rule breaking and pranks, if Remus spotted the book in Teddy's hands he may well feel inclined to take it away from him. Not that Moony was at all secretive about the antics that he and his friends had gotten up to whilst they had been at school, he was simply very careful not to condone them. He had only surrendered the Marauders' Map to his son with precise and strict instructions that it not be used to aid rule breaking, and his stories were always slightly on the vague side, just in case his son might feel inclined to try and copy them.

Teddy wondered if Remus had seen him pick up the book or not. He supposed not, otherwise he would have said something...

And so began a mental battle as the child tried to decide what to do with the precious object that he had discovered.

This was a chance to learn more about what the Marauders had gotten up to at school, the boy realized excitedly, without Dad telling only half a story, or being vague and frustrating about it...

Maybe, Teddy mused, he should just hand the book over, or put it back in the box after dinner. After all, it did belong to his father and he might not be pleased to find it missing...

It wasn't as though he would try and re-enact or copy anything he read, he reasoned. He was sensible with the Map, he could be sensible with this...handbook, too...

He could put it back later, his father would not have to know it was gone...

Remus shouldn't have left it lying around...

Even if it had been packed away in a box...

It was just a book. He borrowed books from his father all the time. This was not any different. Remus probably wouldn't even care about it, he trusted Teddy to be sensible...

Teddy slipped the book into his pocket with a grin. This, he thought happily as he hurried to catch up with his father, was going to be interesting...