Please excuse any inaccuracies, typos and general weirdness. This story was demanding to be written, so I wrote it all in a mad rush of emotion.
Harry has nightmares.
He sleeps with his wand under his pillow and wakes with screams lodged in his throat. Beside him, Ginny wraps her arms around his waist and whispers, "It's okay, I get them too," in his ear.
Sighing, Harry rolls over so their noses are touching and he can count the tears clinging to her eyelashes. "I made a promise," He whispers to her in the dark, "That I would take care of Remus's son."
She looks up at him and smiles, with just the corner of her mouth. "Well then," she says, and kisses him quickly on the nose before twisting away and throwing off the sheets, "Let's go bring him home. We've waited long enough."
Andromeda Tonk's house is dark against the night. A single light glows softly in a room close to the top of the house. Harry can see the wavering glow of the candle's flame, like a beacon in the dark.
Beside him, Ginny has not said a word. He can hear her breaths, low and shallow. Harry turns to look at her. In the faint light of the moon he can see tear tracks on her cheeks. "You alright?" he asks. It's a stupid question, but he has to say something.
Slowly, almost carefully, she takes his hand. Her fingers are warm against the night's chill. "Are you?"
He doesn't know how to answer that. "Come on," he says, clearing his throat. "Let's go bring my godson home."
Molly Weasley opens her door at 11pm, to her daughter, Harry Potter and a blue haired baby.
She looks older than Harry remembers her, more worn. There are lines around her eyes that are not from laughter, creases along her mouth, her forehead. She has not been sleeping—her eyes are clear and alert. "Harry, Ginny," she says after a pause, "what-"
Ginny steps forward because Harry can't speak, and says, "Mum, we were wondering if we could…stay here for a little while?" Her voice rises, making it a question.
"Of course you can," Molly says, and opens her arms, ushers them in, "There you go, Harry dear, support his head, oh he's such a tiny thing, isn't he?" And there, there is the Molly Weasley Harry remembers—warm and motherly and fiercely protective.
Harry obediently slips his hand more firmly under his godson's head of bright blue hair and steps into the house. "Thank you, Mrs. Weasley," he says through a tight throat as she bustles about, waving her wand, making tea and warming milk for a bottle.
"Of course, dear." The tea kettle begins to sing. Molly snatches it up and pours him a steaming cup.
Harry does not know how to politely refuse. He can't reach for the cup without dropping Teddy.
"Um," Harry manages, "I-"
She understands, reaches up to pat his cheek. "It's alright," she says, softly, and the words nearly undo him. Harry swallows hard.
"Thank you."
In his arms, Teddy Lupin squirms, and looks up at Harry with wide, dark eyes.
At night, when they both can't sleep, Harry takes Teddy on long walks.
The baby wakes him with screams, and Harry cradles his godson against his chest and rushes down the Weasley's creaking stairs and out into the cold night air. The only light is the silver shadow of the moon and the fragile, flickering beam emanating from his wand's tip. Teddy's screams have quieted to hiccupping sobs, and Harry walks until his feet ache.
He knows that Ginny doesn't sleep well either, but they have never spoken about it. He has never been good with words, and nothing he can possibly say will make any of this alright. So he walks with Teddy.
The baby has fallen asleep now, lulled by Harry's repetitive rocking. Harry looks down at his godson. Teddy's tiny hand is fisted into Harry's sweater, his lips puckering slightly in his sleep, his tear stained cheeks flushed in the light of the moon. Slowly, gently so he doesn't wake him, Harry lifts Teddy up against his shoulder, pressing a kiss to his godson's forehead.
He doesn't understand how this happened.
He's barely of age and he is responsible for the life of another—for a tiny, fragile human life. He could barely protect his friends during the war—failed to protect most of them, in fact. How is he supposed to care for this child?
Sighing, Harry turns his back on the moon and begins the long walk back to the Borrow, which, oddly enough, is starting to feel something like home.
When Teddy is three he asks about his parents.
Harry supposes he should have expected it—Teddy is a smart child, already showing an inclination for magic—but his throat still tightens when Teddy asks, "Harry? Where's my daddy?"
It's a question that Harry himself had secretly wondered for years, wondering if there was a way he could have prevented his parents deaths. Wondering what life with them would be like. Wishing that they would come and take him far, far away from his cupboard.
Ginny is making lunch, some kind of soup. The spoon clatters back into the pot, hot liquid exploding everywhere, and as Molly rushes to clean up the mess, Harry kneels down in front of his godson.
Teddy's hair is a brilliant red today. This seems to be his favorite color. His eyes, though, as he looks up at Harry, are the same color that Remus's used to be. Gently, Harry puts his hands on Teddy's shoulders. "Teddy Lupin," he says, making an effort that his voice does not shake and that his words are clear, confidant, gentle. He and Ginny have decided to speak to Teddy as if he were an adult—no cooing. He deserves more respect than that. "Do you remember when you had a bad dream last week and Ginny told you that your Mum and Dad would watch over you and make the bad dreams go away?"
They have had this conversation before. It isn't as if Harry and the Weasley's never mention Lupin and Tonks. Teddy has never asked so bluntly and clearly before. Perhaps he has never known how.
The boy nods. He's sticking out his lower lip. His eyes are bright and wide and wholly trusting. It is that blind faith that both cripples Harry and spurs him forward. "Your Mum and Dad," he says, and places a hand over Teddy's heart, "Live here. They are always going to watch over you."
Teddy looks down at Harry's hand, shuffling his feet. "But you're always going to live outside me right?"
Harry's throat constricts. He swallows hard, and pulls the boy into his arms, combing his fingers through his godson's hair, "Yes," he says, knowing that one day he could live to regret that promise, but what else is he supposed to say? "I'll always be here."
Sometimes, Harry has migraines.
The first time it happened, Ginny had to call Hermione and Ron to come calm him down. The pain had been so blinding, so intense, and all Harry could think was, No, no, no he's back, he's back, he's back—
He hadn't realized that he'd been saying the words aloud until Hermione had grabbed his face in her hands, forcing him to meet her gaze, "Harry."
Her fingers were cool against his flushed cheeks, her features a blur. Blinking through the tears, Harry struggles to focus.
"Harry," she says again, somehow fierce and soothing at the same time, "I promise you that he is not coming back. This is just a headache. I get them too, sometimes."
The irrational fear claws at his inside, twisting his gut into knots, constricting his ribcage until his lungs scream for air. Harry knows that she is right. He knows but-
"Shhh," She says, finally, and wraps her arms around him. "Shh, shh it's going to be alright, Harry. I promise. I promise that he's not coming back."
"She's never wrong, our Hermione," Ron says somewhere to his left. "You know that, mate."
Harry does.
Over the years, he's gotten better at managing them, wrestling with the irrational terror, the pain, the nightmares. Teddy is five now, and when Harry has a migraine the boy comes and sits on his lap. He doesn't say anything. He wraps his tiny fingers around Harry's hand and doesn't let go.
When Teddy is ten years old, he runs away.
He doesn't go far, and perhaps "running away" is not the right term. He goes walking in the middle of the night and doesn't' tell them where he's going.
Harry finds him sitting in the center of a field, staring up at the moon. He wants to grab his godson and scold him, scream at him, make him promise to never, ever do that again.
Somehow, he knows that approach will not work.
Walking up beside his godson, Harry says, "What are you thinking about?"
Teddy's hair is a soft brown tonight, falling in his eyes. There is almost something wolfish in his eyes. Harry remembers Remus's terror that'd he'd pass on his condition to his son, his anguish, his boggart in the shape of a full moon. Teddy does not look at him. He continues to stare as if transfixed, into the night sky.
"The moon," he says finally. His voice barely rises above a whisper.
Harry sits down beside him. The grass is wet and stings under his palms, pricking against his skin like an irritating insect. "What about the moon?"
"I'm just wondering," the boy says, very serious, "how something so beautiful can cause people so much pain."
Harry still goes for walks at night.
Sometimes he comes down the stairs to find George sitting at the kitchen table, hands wrapped around a mug of tea, staring into the distance as if it holds all the answers. Harry sits in the seat opposite him. "Hey," he says.
George blinks, refocusing. "Can't sleep?"
"No."
A quiet nod. It's been ten years, and Harry does not think that George has slept through the night once. His hair is dyed a tarnished brown. Harry knows that he keeps no mirrors in his rooms, but after awhile he'd simply decided to change his hair. George hasn't confided any of this in him, of course. They don't talk about those things. It doesn't stop Harry from noticing.
They sit in a comfortable silence until George finally rises and shuffles back up the stairs, leaving Harry alone.
He sits and listens to the creaks and groans of the old house until the sun comes up.
When Teddy is eleven, he receives his letter.
The owl that delivers it is beautiful—a tawny eyed snow owl with a fierce beak and strong talons. He screeches when Teddy eagerly snatches the letter from him, as if proud that he is the one delivering it.
Teddy reads the letter aloud to the assembled family—Harry, the Weasleys, and Hermione—and when he finishes Ginny picks him up and swings him around, ignoring his protests.
Harry tousles his godson's hair when Teddy proudly hands him the crumbled parchment with McGonagall's signature, and hopes that Remus and Tonks are proud.
Neville keeps Harry updated on Teddy's progress in school.
When Teddy is home for a holiday, Neville, Hermione and Harry go out to the Three Broomsticks for a drink.
"He's brilliant," Neville says, beaming up at them, "He really is."
"He's making friends?" Hermione asks. She reaches up and tucks a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. Harry think that its grown bushier over the years. Ron had joked just last week that a bird could build a nest on Hermione's head and they wouldn't notice. It's odd, how comforting their familiar banter is. In some ways, nothing has changed.
"He has friends," Neville reassures her, "Oh, Harry, his hair is usually pretty blue."
Harry fights a smile. Teddy has been keeping his hair either red or black around the family, but Harry had caught him staring in a mirror, scrunching his face up in concentration and changing it to various shades of blue, purple, and pink.
"He isn't teased about it?" Hermione asks before Harry can.
Neville shrugs. "Sometimes, but he handles it well. He threatened to change the last girl's nose into a pig's if she made another comment about it."
Harry thinks of Dudley and laughs. "I'm sure that shut her up."
Neville takes another sip of his drink, smiling. "Yeah. He's a good kid," he looks at Harry, "Good job, mate."
Blushing, Harry looks down into the swirling, murky contents of his mug. "Thanks," he mutters.
Hermione jabs him in the ribs. "They'd be proud of you, you know. Tonks and Remus."
"I hope so."
"No," Neville says, seriously, "They are."
Harry takes another swig of his drink. It burns his throat and he coughs, tasting the fire of it sparking off his tongue. "Thanks."
Teddy is fifteen, and Harry still has nightmares.
He doesn't know if they will ever go away, and he doesn't know what he will do if they do. He still sleeps with his wand underneath his pillow. He still jumps at shadows. Migraines still send fear twisting through his chest.
But he is learning to manage it. He lives for the days when his children send him owls from school, when Hermione contacts him in a furious rage because someone is in detention AGAIN, when Ron asks him to meet up and play chess, when Teddy tells him that a cute boy asked him if he would like to go to the Three Broomsticks for drinks. On those days, he thinks that everything—the war, the pain, the loss—everything, was worth it.
And he knows that no matter what comes next, he is going to be okay.