Written for Cheeky Slytherin Lass's Fanfiction Tournament Competition on the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum.
Theme 3 (Round Three): Childhood
There was an old man sitting on the park bench, the one closest to the small pond with water lilies in spring. He was there every time Teddy went to the park with his grandmother, sitting at that very same place all by himself. His hair was thick but almost all white, with only hints that it might have been a darker colour before. Sometimes he held a sandwich bag in one wrinkled hand, throwing breadcrumbs to the quacking ducks; other times he read the paper, the Muggle kind without moving pictures on the cover page, though Teddy sometimes caught sight of movement in the pages hidden within.
But most of the time the old man just sat there quietly with a thousand-yard stare as if gazing upon some scenery no one else could see, something far beyond the small world of the shallow pond with its water lilies and waddling ducks.
Today was apparently sandwich bag day, and the ducks crowded noisily around the park bench like greeting an old friend.
As usual, Teddy's Gran had settled down on one of the other benches with a book, leaving Teddy to his games. Teddy's hair was light brown instead of the turquoise he usually favoured, a compromise for being able to play outside in this mixed Muggle and Wizarding neighbourhood. Normally Teddy would play with some of the other kids who had come to the park with their parents, but today a stirring of curiosity prompted him to detour away from the laughing children and approach the quiet old man instead. The ducks scattered out of the way as he walked by, quacking a little indignantly at the interruption. Teddy giggled at the funny noises before raising his eyes up to meet the man's.
The old man smiled at him, the gentle curve of his mouth highlighting the wrinkles across his face. His voice was deep and hoarse but filled with quiet warmth. "Hello there."
Teddy scuffed his shoe against the ground, feeling suddenly shy at the attention. "H'llo."
"Would you like to feed the ducks?"
Teddy's eyes widened with delight and he nodded eagerly. The sandwich bag was extended to him so that he could take a handful of crumbs. The ducks immediately waddled closer now that they had identified Teddy as being a source of food instead of an obstruction like they had originally thought. He threw the crumbs out at them, watching them chase after the bits of bread with loud quacks. A braver few came closer to him instead, angling for more. Teddy laughed and reached for another handful of crumbs.
The bag emptied all too soon, the old man shaking out the last bit of crumbs for the ducks to catch. Teddy heard his grandmother calling him then as well, signalling that it was time to go home for dinner.
Teddy's Gran had taught him to always be polite, and so he turned to the man with solemn sincerity on his young face. "Thank you for letting me feed the ducks."
The old man's eyes twinkled. "You're very welcome."
The child's serious demeanour only lasted for a brief moment, turning into a bright grin as he turned to jog towards where his grandmother was waiting.
"Bye-bye, mister! See you tomorrow!"
The man's responding smile as he waved was gently warm but filled with a strange sorrow that Teddy couldn't read.
"It'll be my birthday very soon," Teddy divulged with bright eyes as he sat on the bench next to Lyall, legs swinging as they fed the ducks. They'd exchanged names back on their second meeting and had fallen into a happy routine over the past weeks, where Teddy would spend a bit of time feeding the ducks with his new friend before running off to play with the other children.
Lyall smiled gently, eyes crinkling around the corners. "Is that so? How old will you be then?"
"Five!" Teddy said, proudly holding out his hand with all five fingers extended.
"Oh, what a big boy! Will you be celebrating it?"
"Uh-huh, Gran is making a cake, a big chocolate one because I like chocolate, and then Harry is coming over to play. Harry is my favourite person in the world after Gran," he confided in a serious voice.
"That's very nice."
Teddy's button nose scrunched up as he thought over something, nodding to himself as he decided. "And you're my next favourite person," he finally declared, satisfied with his judgement.
Caught up in tossing out a piece of bread to one of the ducks on the water, Teddy didn't notice the old man's sharp intake of breath and wide-eyed wonder that took over his face at the innocent declaration, given so trustingly.
Teddy received a letter in the mail the next day, delivered by a handsome if somewhat aged tawny owl. He fed the owl a piece of bacon from his plate before it took off again back through the window, leaving its delivery lying on the table. The letter was addressed very properly to 'Mr Teddy Lupin' in neat but slightly shaky slanted handwriting. When he picked it up the envelope was thick between his fingers, like it held a sheaf of papers inside instead of a single letter.
Unnoticed by the boy, Andromeda glanced over, forehead creasing a little at the sight of the unfamiliar handwriting. It didn't look like Harry's, the most likely person to send a letter to Teddy directly.
"Would you like me to open that for you, Teddy?" she suggested gently.
Teddy had been attempting to pry open the sealed seam with stubby fingers to no success, and so handed the letter to his grandmother without complaint. Andromeda considered the letter thoughtfully for a moment. With most of the Death Eaters rounded up in the year following Voldemort's fall, she couldn't think of anyone left who might hold a personal grudge against her family, enough so to target them through her grandson. The wards around the house were also supposed to stop dangerous material from entering. Just to be safe, she used her wand to magically unseal the letter.
To her relief, the small stack of photos that slid out of the open side of the envelope was perfectly innocuous. The photographs were yellowed with age and had the faded colour common to old film photographs. Despite this, each picture showed little wear and tear, a sign that obvious care had been put into preserving each one.
Teddy picked them a few of them up curiously, staring at the little moving figures inside. All of the photos featured what appeared to be the same boy, ranging from a toddler beaming a gap-toothed grin at the camera to a boy several years older than Teddy with his nose buried in a book. In some of them, there was a second person as well, a kind-faced woman with the same smile and a clear resemblance to the boy.
He looked up questioningly at his grandmother, who unfolded the note that had accompanied the photos, written with the same slanted handwriting.
Dear Teddy,
It may still be a little early, but happy 5th birthday. I realised that you likely don't have any photos of your father as a child. These ones are from my personal collection and are very precious to me, but they've been with me for a very long time and I believe it is time for them to find a new home with someone I'm sure will love them just as much.
The letter wasn't signed, but Andromeda could make a guess on who it was from. She had always assumed that Remus did not have any living relatives, given that her son-in-law had never mentioned them, but it seemed that she had been mistaken.
Teddy stared at the photos with renewed bright-eyed interest. This boy was his Daddy? Gently, he smoothed a finger over the boy in the picture, who lifted his head from his book to give him a shy smile.
A smile that looked just like Teddy's.
Teddy headed towards the park that afternoon with a bounce in his step. At first he had been reluctant to leave the photos behind in his room, but eventually acquiesced when his Gran pointed out reasonably that he wouldn't want them to get dirty.
He still took one of them with him though, tucking it carefully into the pocket of his puffy jacket. It was one of those where his father looked the same age as him, and he wanted to show it to his friend.
He found Lyall sitting on the same bench as always, empty sandwich bag next to him as he stared out at the ducks.
Teddy grinned widely in delight, leaving his grandmother behind to run up to his friend. "Ly-" he called, but his cheerful greeting was cut off by the sheer expression of wide-eyed shock that crossed the old man's face the moment he turned to him.
Lyall stood suddenly, a jerking motion that looked almost unconscious, but in the very next moment he fell heavily to his knees as if his legs simply could not hold his body up any longer.
Concerned, Teddy sped up to reach him faster, coming to a stop in front of the old man's half-collapsed form. The fervent light in Lyall's eyes as he stared at him pinned Teddy in place, kept him silent. Green eyes, Teddy realised, finally close enough to notice. Green eyes flecked with gold, just like the colour of his father's eyes in the more recent coloured photographs.
Green with a hint of gold, just like Teddy's were right now, after spending the whole morning pouring over his father's old photos.
Tears slipped from those green orbs, a few droplets at first but deepening into torrents as if they had been struggling to escape for a long time. A wizened hand reached out to touch the side of Teddy's face, shaking with fine tremors that matched the anguished hope in Lyall's eyes. The old man's lips moved soundlessly, as if wanting to call out but finding no voice to do so.
It took a third voice to break the spell. "Mr Lupin?"
Lyall startled, turning his gaze up to meet the understanding eyes of Teddy's grandmother. Teddy. His eyes snapped back down to the young boy standing in front of him, staring at him with warm concern with Remus' eyes in Remus' face with Remus' shady brown hair. But there were differences too, in the way he chewed his bottom lip as he worried, the tilt of his head as he stared at Lyall with huge, confused eyes. Those little differences grounded him to the present.
"T-Teddy?" his voice was hoarse.
"Uh-huh," the boy responded, quiet and subdued.
Before his eyes, Teddy's face shifted, changing back to the features that Lyall was familiar with. There were still traces of Remus there, in the colour of his hair and the shape of his eyes, but his irises were dark instead of green, his cheekbones higher, his lips fuller and quirked at the sides.
"Teddy's a Metamorphmagus, Mr Lupin." Teddy's grandmother had knelt down by the boy's side, and now held out a hand with a small smile. "It's nice to meet you, I'm Andromeda Tonks."
Part of him wanted to deny the name, retreat back to his cocoon of anonymity, but he knew that it would serve no purpose anymore. And his heart whispered, would that be a bad thing? After so many years of lonesome regret, did he dare to finally reach out to the only family he had left? He found the answer in Teddy's twinkling dark eyes.
Swallowing down his uncertainty, he reached out across that bit of empty distance to take that offered hand, thankful that his voice shook only a little. "Lyall Lupin."
A lump rose to Lyall's throat as small warm hands clasped around his as well. The large dark eyes that stared at him held no reproach, only bright curiosity.
"Lyall, are you really my Grandpa?" Teddy asked. Lyall's hand gently caressed the soft curve of the boy's cheek, fingertips brushing against tousled sandy brown hair. He blinked away the tears that threatened to form at the simple contact.
"Yes. Yes, I am."
He was not prepared for the sheer delight that swept across the boy's face, lighting up that sweet face which held such mix of features from both parents. He was even less prepared for Teddy to jump straight at him in a hug, short arms wrapping trustingly around the back of his neck and soft brown hair tickling his chin.
His heart felt like it had skipped a beat in his chest before resuming with warmer, stronger beats. Like he'd been given life afresh, a second chance at love.
This child in his arms was not Remus, not his son. No, Teddy was Teddy – the child who had been the most precious gift the world had given to Remus, just like Remus had been to Lyall. His grandson. His family.
Teddy, who smiled at him with nothing but trust and love, small hands placed in his.
"Grandpa, will you come to my birthday party?"
"I'd love to."
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