Note: Here we have the first ever one-shot based in the "Meet the..." 'ficverse!
This is an AU 'ficverse in which the Lupins survived the final battle. We join them just after the events of Meet the Marauders (meaning that Teddy is fifteen years old).
This is a scenario that I originally wanted to be part of Carrie's experience at the Phoenix Day Parade, but decided it would be too big of a tangent to wander off on. It's turned out rather random, but hopefully somebody will enjoy it!
The Phoenix Day Parade was a concept first introduced in Meet the Order of the Phoenix. Held on Dumbledore's birthday each year, it is a celebration of peace-time and consists of a parade through Hogsmeade and the grounds of Hogwarts by surviving members of the Order of the Phoenix. The Order members take turns each year leading the march and giving speeches to the public at Dumbledore's tomb, there is a memorial service before a large party is held in the school grounds.
This 'fic was named for the second most popular story title voted for in the last name-a-fic poll I held (the winner being Meet the Order of the Phoenix).
So, on to the story itself, and it's Tonks' turn to fly the flag for the Order...
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I making any profit from this piece of writing.
Meet the Malfoys
As she finally came to a halt beside the pale marble tomb, turning around to watch her fellow Order members march in pairs up the hill towards her, their dark cloaks billowing in the wind, Dora Lupin leant heavily upon the banner that she was carrying and drew in a deep, calming breath.
It was the fifteenth annual Phoenix Day Parade, and though the cheers and shouts and laughter had yet to die down as the Order completed their march and members of the public swarmed up through the gates of Hogwarts and into the grounds, as far as Dora was concerned the event had, for the time being, ceased to be an amusing matter.
No indeed, the Deputy Head of Aurors realised as her husband stepped up beside her, this was serious.
Not that holding the banner and leading the initial march through Hogsmeade hadn't been serious, the witch though, adjusting her grip upon the banner and eying the swarming crowd thoughtfully. Of course everything was serious on a day like this, serious and solemn and terribly grand. But there was a pleasure in the march, it made one's chest swell with pride and the gathered people would cheer and clap as if they had won the War all over again.
Dora couldn't say the same for the next tradition that was about to take place: the designated Order Leader's Speech.
She wasn't the sort of witch who found large crowds intimidating, or felt nervous about public speaking. Indeed, she gave press conferences on behalf of the Ministry of Magic on a regular basis, and she was pretty sure that anybody with as vibrant and unconventional hair as that which was currently adorning her head was incapable of shyness altogether.
And yet, Dora Lupin was nervous.
Perhaps it was the sheer determination to say exactly the right thing, like all the speakers from previous years. Or perhaps it was the fact that, unlike at work where she would find herself shoved forward in front of a barrage of cameras and quick-quotes quills and bombarded with questions for which she was not necessarily entirely prepared, she had been planning this speech for weeks, there had been an unusually long build up to this moment. Whatever the reason, she was feeling distinctly apprehensive.
Dora gritted her teeth and gave herself a little shake.
"Nervous?" her husband inquired from beside her, and she glanced sideways to shoot him a vaguely insulted look.
"This is all your fault, you know." she informed him as they spotted a blur of turquoise hair amongst the crowd and their son waved wildly and offered his mother two thumbs up. "I've been married to you for far too long. That ridiculous Gryffindor pride of yours is rubbing off on me. I never used to give a toss what people thought about this sort of thing."
"There's nothing wrong with being a bit nervous..." Remus began to reason, but his wife promptly held up a hand to silence him.
"Don't embarrass yourself, Sweetheart." she told him, her bout of nerves subsiding quite abruptly as she gave her head a determined little toss and waved back at Teddy. "You're going to look ever so daft if you go saying that and then I stand up there and give an utterly mind-blowing speech that makes what you said the other year sound utterly dull and boring!"
"I wasn't aware that it was a competition."
"Not officially it isn't."
"But unofficially it is?"
"Maybe..."
"Well I'm not worried."
"No?"
"No...I've read your notes...I'm not worried."
"Are you calling my speech crap?"
"Not particularly, it's just you're ever so easy to wind up..."
Dora bit her tongue against a snigger in order that she could turn to fix the werewolf with the most fiery mock-glare that she could muster.
"You're awfully lucky today is all about peace and love and all that jazz, Sweetheart. Because if it wasn't I would have hexed you at least thirty seconds ago." she informed him icily, only for him to offer her a raised eyebrow that tipped her over the edge, causing her to stifle a snigger into her hand and complain: "Don't make me laugh, this is supposed to be serious!"
In truth, they always managed some light bickering or humour on solemn occasions like this, because they had long since agreed that laughter was good for them, after all, Remus had told her, there had been so little laughter back during the War, they ought very well make up for it.
"Perhaps," she mused, taking a step towards him so that she could reach to rest her hands against his chest and peer up at him through a fringe of blazing Phoenix-orange hair, "I better show a bit of willing, give up hexing you into oblivion for the day and settle on a kiss instead."
As he reached to pull her closer to him, free hand brushing the hair from her eyes, Remus agreed:
"Yes, perhaps you'd better..."
Dora was just rising up upon the balls of her feet to press a kiss to his lips when a voice from behind her called:
"Tonks? Everybody's ready."
The flaming haired Auror froze, gaze darting down towards the werewolf's lips as the smallest of frowns creased her brow.
Remus leant to brush a kiss to her forehead with a murmured:
"Knock them dead, darling."
Dora grinned.
"Again," she murmured back as she reached to straighten her cloak and dust the invisible dirt from the front of her blouse, "I'm not sure knocking them dead quite fits in with today's..."
"Tonks?" the voice interrupted again, and with a small sigh Dora was forced to fully turn her attention to the task at hand.
She stepped up upon the little raised wooden platform beside Dumbledore's tomb and took a moment to gaze around at the large crowd of witches and wizards before her, one hand fumbling in her pocket to extract her wand. Clearing her throat determinedly she at last located the elusive shaft of wood, and with a muttered word and a sharp flick of the wand, her voice became magically amplified and she drew in a deep, oddly audible breath with which to call for silence.
The silence was deafening. Hundreds of pairs of eyes stared up at her intently and for the briefest of moments Dora entirely forgot everything that she had planned to say.
"Good morning everybody," she began regardless, feeling instantly better once the first syllable had left her lips. "Welcome to the fifteenth annual Phoenix Day Parade. It's fantastic to see so many of you here today, together with your friends and family, all in support of our new society, where we practice tolerance and preach fairness and equality. Thank you for coming to give your praise to our triumphs and your sorrow for our losses once again. This is an important event for Wizarding Britain and thanks to all of you it has once again been a great success. Merlin forbid a year shall ever come when witches and wizards don't take to the streets to remember the Wizarding Wars and their victims. I sincerely hope that this tradition will continue in one form or another, long after all those who survived the tragedies are gone. Lest we forget."
Dora allowed herself a moment to smile as the crowd cheered and clapped their approval, fiddling absent-mindedly with the thin band of gold upon her left hand until things quietened down and she could continue.
"I don't suppose anybody who knows me in any capacity at all expects me to be the one to quote muggle poetry." she admitted, chancing a glance over her shoulder at her husband whose expression remained thankfully serious. "And there are certainly others who spring to mind as the right people to talk about my chosen subject today. Because when I fought in the War I was an adult, and my son was only a baby when I joined the Battle of Hogwarts. But nevertheless, I'd like to take the time today to talk to you about the children who fought alongside and against adults in the war, our little soldiers." When she paused for a moment, Dora found the crowd to be entirely silent, the atmosphere suddenly dark. "Now, we in the Order of the Phoenix have a saying about our offspring. We say we don't breed children, we breed little soldiers. Little soldiers! It's a terrible phrase, but the fact of the matter is: that is what they were. Children followed their parents' examples, they got themselves into dangerous situations because they believed what we believed and thought as we thought. It is unavoidable in dark times for this to happen, and in the end there is only so much that parents can do to shield children from conflict. And that is why it is crucial, absolutely crucial, that we don't ever allow the precious gift of childhood to become so tarnished and spoilt for wizarding children. Don't let your children be forced into growing up too fast. Don't throw them into a dark and unforgiving world for which they are not ready. Because we might have won, it might all be over now, but for those little soldiers...on both sides, the damage is already done. So protect our new world and all that it represents with as fierce a love and conviction as you would your children. Because they deserve their childhoods. And if you don't stand up for what is right and good in the world, no matter how small or insignificant you think it may be, your children will be the ones to suffer. Your children won't have all that they deserve. We might be proud of Harry Potter, of Dumbledore's Army and all those students who fought to defend our freedom. We might be more proud of them than they can possible know. But our pride is a poor prize, when we should have given them a strong and safe world in which they could grow up. The Wizarding community failed a generation. And I for one will not see it ever happen again. I will not fail my son Theodore, I will not fail my godson Albus, I will not fail my friends' children, my work colleagues' children, the children I see with their parents when I go shopping in Diagon Alley, and I won't fail any child that I see here today. I will not fail a single child in the Wizarding community because that is my duty as a witch. And if you can all say the same for yourselves, then this wonderful new world of ours shall last for an eternity."
The cheer and applause that swelled through the crowd gave Dora a sudden rush of euphoria and she beamed to spot Teddy and the Potter-Weasley brood stood amongst the crowd, cheering wildly and clapping their hands. She wondered just how much the youngest members of the family would understand of what she had said, how much of their shrieks of approval were nothing more than excitement. But then again, she mused, it didn't really matter. Let them scream and clap and whoop and cheer, she thought as she offered them a little wave that sent them into some sort of wild cheering frenzy. Let them be children.
"Thank you." she called, allowing herself to smile for one last moment, only for the crowd to lapse into quiet again and the sombre mood to return with vengeance as she announced: "Mr. Harry Potter will now lead us in our remembrance and read the names of the dead." And with that, she quietened her voice with a wave of her wand and stepped down off the platform.
The music and cheer of the party some time later was welcome relief from the bleak stillness of the crowd as Harry slowly read out name after name from a long roll of parchment. Dora had long since given up crying to hear familiar names, but with each one she would feel a dense, stabbing weight in her chest and come the end she and Remus would have given up standing solemnly side by side and would instead cling to one another, foreheads pressed together, gazes locked, silent and soothing strength.
Don't cry, my love.
And before long the party would start and they would inevitably be laughing instead.
This year, however, they had taken a stroll beside the lake, watching the wind send ripples skimming along the water's surface, talking seriously for a while about the speech and how it had gone and whether or not she had gotten it quite right. Talk had turned to the War in a far more sombre manner than they were accustomed to these days, leading Remus to comment that they ought be far more merry at a party like this and maybe a drink might help them. Perhaps it was for this reason that when she had returned to the crowded lawn, only to have Remus whisked away by Lily Potter who seemed to think her eldest brother was in need of a good scolding for some misbehaviour or another, that Dora felt unusually serious and not much in the mood for dancing or drinking or anything much at all.
She wandered idly around the edge of the gathered crowd, spotting the odd familiar face and offering them a broad smile should they catch her eye.
Fifteen minutes passed and she had done an entire lap of the lawn, stopping to speak briefly to a friend or two, and was just about to head for the refreshments table to fetch both herself and Remus a drink, because wherever he had gotten to she strongly suspected that he would be in need of one, when she spotted a lone figure stood down at the lakeside. Squinting, one hand raised to shield the sun from her eyes, Dora watched the figure, a young child, squat down upon the bank, reaching to poke a finger into the water.
A brief glance from left to right confirmed that the little boy was entirely void of adult supervision and as he leant further forward towards the water, Dora winced. Not waiting to see the child fall face first into the lake, she set off at a near-run across the grass towards him. She came to an abrupt halt, her shadow upon the ground around him causing him to pause in his inspection of the water, and the Auror was quick to tell him:
"I wouldn't lean that far if I were you, Sweetheart. If you're not careful you might fall in!"
The boy, five or six years of age Dora would guess from the size of him, slowly turned around to peer up at the witch stood before him, and at the sight of his face, Dora promptly stared straight back.
He had a mop of white-blonde hair, a thin, pointed face and wide, pale grey eyes...
He was unmistakable.
Dora simply stared.
It didn't make any sense, she thought as the boy reached to wipe his grubby hands upon the front of a rather expensive pair of charcoal coloured trousers before getting carefully to his feet. It made no sense whatsoever, to see a boy like him on a day like this...
The boy was staring up at her almost impatiently now, his brow creasing a little as if her bemusement was in some way a waste of his valuable time.
Dora hastily swallowed the small lump that had formed in her throat.
"Where's Mummy or Daddy?" she asked, and, still staring up at her with those chilling eyes of his, the child raised an arm and pointed over her shoulder.
Dora turned to gaze in the direction that he was pointing, and spotted a lone figure stood stock still upon the grass, gazing upwards at the castle.
"Right then," Dora mumbled, eying the boy's father a little apprehensively but nevertheless reaching to usher the child away from the water and back towards his parent. "Well we best get back to Dad, hadn't we? Because he'll be wondering where you've gone."
They set off across the grass side by side, Dora mumbling all the things she supposed she ought say about not running off, being careful beside water, all those things she had no doubt told Teddy when he had been young, whilst her gaze remained fixated upon the wizard that they were approaching, mind wandering to just how curious the whole scene was and how really this man was the last person she had expected to see.
Quite suddenly she found that they were stood just behind him and both she and the child came to an abrupt halt.
And so it was for a long moment that Dora Lupin gazed at Draco Malfoy, who in turn continued to gaze upwards towards the sky.
Upwards towards the Astronomy Tower.
He looked old, Dora saw, much too old. His hairline was receding and his brow was creased, he gazed up at the tower with such tired hatred that it made the witch feel as though the weight of the world was about to come crashing down upon his shoulders.
The witch wondered if she ought say something, if she ought speak to her estranged cousin for the first time in their lives, but any words that might have come died in the back of her throat.
There were no words. She couldn't find any.
Not for this little soldier.
And so instead she glanced sideways at his son and observed:
"Here we are, then."
At the sound of her voice, Draco Malfoy turned abruptly to face them, and, gaze darting only fleetingly to his son, he stared at the Order member, startled.
As dark eyes stared unblinkingly into grey, Dora wondered if he might say something, if he might speak to his estranged cousin for the first time in their lives, but when his lips did finally move he only made to wet them.
There were no words. He couldn't find any.
Not for an old enemy.
"I want to see the Giant Squid, Father!" the child at Dora's side piped up quite suddenly, making both adults jump a little, and abruptly Malfoy's hand shot forward, grasping hold of him by the shoulder, and pulled him away from the witch's side, eyes still staring at Dora intently.
Dora pursed her lips together against a frown at this sudden movement and as the boy was tucked neatly behind his father's arm she rather wished she could think of something to say.
Bored by another long pause, the child reached to tug impatiently at his father's cloak, irritated by his father's preoccupation with the witch stood opposite them.
"Father!"
Malfoy blinked. And then he glanced down at the boy, managing a small smile.
"I expect we better go and find it, then." he said, reaching to rest a hand upon the boy's shoulder, but rather than move he looked back up at Dora, pale eyes oddly expectant.
Dora didn't know what he was expecting. Or indeed what she was expecting herself...
She settled on a small and overall gracious nod.
Malfoy visibly swallowed.
And then he nodded back.
Both adults took this as their cue, turning on their heels and setting off in opposite directions.
"I don't think it's real!" Dora heard the boy announce as his father led him off towards the lake, and she felt an odd twisting sensation in her stomach at such familiar words when she heard Malfoy give a snort and say:
"Not real? Of course it's real, Scorpius! I've seen it with my own eyes..."
It was almost like being back in the sitting room at home, curled up upon the sofa, watching Remus sit in the armchair, a young Teddy sat upon his lap, clutching hold of a photograph album.
I don't think it's real! It can't be!
Not real? Of course it's real, Teddy! I've seen it with my own eyes! It's as big as a house and has great big tentacles that like to GRAB little boys and TICKLE THEM TO DEATH...
With a small huff of amusement at the memory, Dora paused to turn and watch the little soldier lead his son down towards the lake.
"I'll find some words one day..." she found herself musing aloud some minutes later as the two figures disappeared behind a tree, and a voice behind her might very well have startled her had she not been so lost in her thoughts.
"What words are those?"
Dora heaved a heavy sigh before she turned to offer her son a broad smile.
"Oh, nothing..." she murmured, reaching to slip an arm around his shoulders with the vague thought that he really was getting much too tall. "C'mon, let's go and find Dad. I think the children are holding him hostage..."
"Oh dear..."
"He could probably use a drink. I know I can..."
And with that, Dora and Teddy headed back towards the crowds in search of Remus, Dora chancing one last glance back towards the lake as she mused that today had been a poignant day in more ways than one.
Finish.