Harry watched the hands of the clock creep toward midnight. The children, full of sugar and excitement, (and the newest Weasleys merchandise from George) had begun to slow and their eyelids droop a bit. It helped that Teddy had finished with the piggy back rides and recounting of his favorite Hogwarts moments to bury his nose in the book Hermione had gotten him as a graduation gift; the Ministry's collection of heroic Aurors. His mother was in there, smiling up from the page, her hair turning pink to purple to brown.
Harry'd had to ask Kingsley where the picture had come from. He'd thought he had all of them for Teddy. In this room alone Tonks and Remus looked down at them from a treasured spot on the mantle, Remus in a fine suit with Tonks next to him holding a boquette of pink roses that she nearly dropped as she grinned at the camera. Her hair was long and platinum white, until Remus bent down to give her a chaste kiss on the lips. Her hair turned bubblegum pink, the lining on her dress following suit. First the lining along the bust turned pink, tiny rosebuds turning from white to pink and opening, then down and over the band at her waste, huge pink blossoms opening around her, and finally down and over the train pulled forward for the picture. In another on the bookshelf she brandished her wand at them. If you stood close enough you could hear her call, "Constant vigilance!" While you couldn't see him Harry was fairly certain Mad-Eye should have been in the background of that one, rolling at least one of his eyes.
And in a portrait on the wall a panorama of all the guests at Bill's wedding. Harry was there although he was just another red head in the Weasley family, disguised as someone else. But Tonks and Remus where toward the center, Remus behind her, Tonks holding his hand, pressing hers over his to her stomach. She'd just found out about Teddy there, and was telling some people (trying not to steal Bill's thunder). In the photo album there was a picture Fluer referred to as 'ze wolf boyez' that had Bill and Remus snarling at one another. Harry had never been sure how Tonks had gotten Remus to do it but it was a rare moment of levity for the group.
The picture in Teddy's new book, it turned out, was off her Ministry ID badge. It had never occurred to Harry to go looking for that.
Harry reached into his pocket and fingered the stone. Pressing the two halves togeter, it felt weightless and completely smooth under his fingers. Ginny led the last of their protesting children past Harry with a wink and he nodded at her in return. When they had disappeared up the stairs Harry walked over and put his hand on Teddy's shoulder. He jumped and looked up. "Let's go for a walk," Harry said quietly, nodding toward the door.
Teddy gave him a quizical look put the book aside and followed Harry to the park across the street, pressing his hands into his pockets as they strolled. "You know, your parents would be so proud of you," Harry said. Teddy kept his neon blue head down, and nodded. "The big things are always the hardest. Birthdays, graduations, when your children come along. You imagine they'd be proud of you but not having them there makes it feel hollow." Teddy nodded and rubbed at one of his eyes but gave no other indication that he heard. Harry sighed. "You going into the Ministry...your mother would be doing cartwheels. And your father would be yelling at her to stop before she broke her neck." He chuckled. "Something would be knocked off a shelf and broken. Fortunately she was very good at repairing things."
He paused in a particularly scenic part of the hill where they could see they were alone. "I'm going to tell you something I've only told three other people my whole life." He stood, looking down at the lights of London around them. He saw Teddy's eyes slip to the side as he counted in his head, then gave a little nod. "A lot of people have asked me about going to the forest to face Voldemort. The part I leave out..." He sighed and sat, patting the grass next to him. Teddy sat, watching him intently.
"When Dumbledore died he left me the first snitch I ever caught. When I stopped outside the forest and took it out it opened, and in it was a stone. The last of the deathly hollows."
Teddy's eyes glanced around the night, then fixed on Harry. "Not the resurection stone?" he gasped.
Harry smiled. "It was probably the best gift I've ever gotten. I got to see my mother. And my father. Not a reflection or a picture. They spoke to me. And Sirius. And your father." He smiled. "They said they were proud. And they told me something I already knew, that Dumbledore had told me again and again." He patted Teddy's knee. "The ones we love never leave us. Not even when they die. That often that's when they're closest."
"What did you do with it?" Teddy asked.
"I dropped it. Outside the forbidden forest. It could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Like the elder wand. It was better off lost."
Teddy nodded his understanding. "Sounds like something Dumbledore would say."
"Well he did give it to me," Harry pointed out. "So I imagine he would also say there are exceptions." He fished the stone out of his pocket and put it into Teddy's hand, careful to keep the two peices together. "Took me the better part of three weeks walking around the outside of the forbidden forest accio-ing for all I was worth."
"This is really it?"
"It's on loan. Just for tonight. A wise man once told me it doesn't do to sit around staring at one's dreams until your life is wasted. But on an occasion like this I think it's called for. Are you ready?"
Teddy took a deep breath. "I'm not sure."
"I imagine they can't wait. Your mother never was too patient."
"What do I do?"
"Turn it over three times." He patted Teddy's knee again. "Whenever you're ready. Come home when you're done."
"You don't want to see them?"
"I would love to. But this is your moment. I've had mine." He glanced around. "What I'd tell them they know already."
He nodded and Harry walked away.
Teddy sat there, staring at the stone. What would he say? He had imagined it a million times but to be faced with it was different. And it had changed over the years. As a child he would have just cried. As a young teenager he'd been angry. And now, on the edge of adulthood, the same age Harry was when he faced down the most evil creature ever to walk the earth, he had no idea what to say. That he missed them? Surely they knew that. That he wished they hadn't left? That he wanted them here?
Were they here? Were they waiting? Were they as excited as he was? As scared? He felt shy suddenly.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and rolled the stone carefully in his hand.
He heard them first. The crunch of grass underfoot. An indrawn breath. "Can he hear us?"
He clenched his eyes tighter at the sound. His mother's voice.
"Perhaps you should ask him," the male voice said.
Someone drew closer, right in front of him. "Edward?"
"Teddy?" the other voice whispered. "Can you hear us?"
He nodded, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes.
The woman crouching in front of him looked so young. Barely older than him. Her hair was pink, falling into her face, with an amazing red leather coat resting on the grass around her.
And the man next to her looked so old. Gray in his hair, deep lines across his face, more exaggerated than they appeared in the pictures. But his eyes conveyed such concern he caught his breath.
"I wish I could give you a hug," Nymphadora Tonks Lupin sighed.
"Someday," her husband said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "May that day be a long time from now."
She smiled up at him, then back at Teddy. "How are you?"
"Good." He looked down at his hands. "I wish…grandma was great but I wish…you had been there."
"We do too," Tonks said with a sad smile. "We have been. But I know it isn't the same."
"Why…I've always wanted to know why…" He paused, chewing his lip, looking for the right words. "Why did you leave me?" He looked at his mother. "Grandma always said you were supposed to stay home but you…you went to him…"
"Oh, Teddy," she reached for him, and smiled when her hand made contact with his cheek. It wasn't like someone alive touching him. It was chilled and it felt weak, insubstatial. But it was still his mother's hand on his cheek. "I didn't leave to go back to him." Remus cleared his throat and she turned to glare at him. "I didn't JUST leave to go to him." She looked up into his eyes. "I was an Auror, Teddy. I was trained for this. How could I stand by and let CHILDREN fight this battle and not go? Every student at Hogwarts was in danger. Five years ago it would have been me. Ten years into the future it would have been you. I would never have been able to face anyone whose child died if I hadn't been there. I'd have wondered how many of them would have lived if I'd been there. And I imagined what your life would be like if they lost. A boy whose mother was half muggle-born and a father who was half muggle, and a werewolf, raised by the woman that had turned her back on her pureblood family. Even with me there we wouldn't have much of a life. I had to go." Teddy looked away, blinking hard. "Please tell me you understand," she whispered.
He nodded. "I still wish you'd stayed."
"I wish I hadn't had to make the choice. But you going into the Ministry, I know you know. You'll be risking your life to do good, to save people."
"We're very proud of you, taking after your mother," Remus said.
He looked up at his father. "I told Headmistress McGonagall I'd like to teach dark arts some day. She said you were the best one they ever had."
Remus smiled down at him. "I was looking forward to teaching you."
"Harry says he's teaching me the same way you did so it's sort of like you are. I'd rather have you doing it though. I wonder what it would have been like…"
"I'm sure Harry always did too," Remus sighed.
"Of course that's what we intended too. Growing old, giving you a few siblings." Remus sighed and rolled his eyes, but Tonks winked at him. "But I'm glad you've had such lovely people to help you along."
"There are days I could have done without Molly," Teddy said which made them chuckle.
"She did a good job though. She had far more practice at it than me."
"You would have been an excellent mother," Remus said softly.
"That's not what you said when you found she was pregnant," Teddy pointed out.
Remus' face darkened. "I never doubted her. I feared for you." He put his head down. "And I was weak. Fear will do that. But the moment I set eyes on you any doubts I had disappeared."
"Even if I'd changed at the full moon?"
"I would have been upset, but it wouldn't have changed the way I felt about you. I loved you in ways I didn't know I could."
"It was just a few hours," Tonks said. "He had a nutty, went and got a few drinks, and came home completely devoted to you." She smiled up at her husband. "Silly man does manage to overcome his fears. Just takes time."
"Comes with the territory," he said.
"You weren't going to spontaneously turn into a wolf and eat someone," she said shaking her head. She turned to wink at Teddy. "I would have loosened him up some."
"That's why you were so perfect for me, even if it took me a while to see it," he admitted.
"He loved it," Tonks said. "He especially loved you."
"I do. I've loved watching you grow into a man I am so very proud of. I wish I could say I had more to do with it."
"Harry would say you had more than a little to do with how he grew up, and he's tried to do the same for Teddy."
"James would have done the same for me," Remus said.
"And so Harry's done the same for you. And my mum's done for me." She smiled at him. "Anything else you want to ask?"
"What were you like when you were at Hogwarts?"
Tonks laughed, flopping back on the ground. "Ask your father. He's a far better role model. Prefect," she said as if it were an insult and stuck her tongue out at him.
"My friends did their fair share to take me off course."
"And I did my fair share to take your Uncle Bill off course. What he ever saw in Fleur." She wrinkled her nose. "Speaking of which-"
"Dora," Remus said in a warning tone.
She ignored him. "A vela, really?"
"She's only one sixteenth," Teddy said.
"Thank goodness your father never went for the blonds."
"You would have catered to me if I had," Remus said.
"Don't know, may have been a divorce-worthy offence."
He shook his head. "Don't believe a word she says."
"I wouldn't want to look like a Malfoy. On the plus side Mum's side of the family must be less than happy."
"Andramada always said the only thing you could have done to make them more unhappy than becoming an Auror was marrying a semi-human. Werewolf was a nice touch."
"You WERE human before you were bitten. You can hardly be blamed for it."
"It isn't about blame. And I'm no less dangerous for what I used to be." She blew a raspberry at him and he rolled his eyes. "I'm thankful every day you didn't inherit it."
"You're not the only one," Teddy admitted.
Tonks snickered. "Are we what you thought?"
He glanced at Remus. "He is."
"And me?" she asked, sitting up.
"I can't say I wasn't warned, but I expected you to be more serious."
"She is when she needs to be," Remus said.
"And I have to make up for it the rest of time."
"Here's one," Teddy said. "How on earth did you end up in Hufflepuff?"
"There is nothing WRONG with being in HUFFLEPUFF!" she burst out while Remus winced.
"May have touched a nerve there," Remus said. "Bill Weasley always said he thought the sorting hat was drunk that night."
"What's wrong with loyalty? And before you tell me it's better to be brave I remind you I'm an Auror. They didn't even accept anyone into Auror training for three years after I joined."
"They seem to be doing all right now," Teddy said. "They took three others with me."
"And one was a Hufflepuff," she put in.
"How do you know that?"
"I'm dead. I know everything."
"That's...hard to argue with," Teddy said.
Remus gave him a rare smile. "It's late, darling, and Teddy's had a long day."
Her head shot up. "No, I'm not ready yet."
He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. "And you never will be." He pulled her close and she buried her head in his chest before looking back at Teddy.
"I love you," she whispered.
"Just remember we're always there," Remus said. "You can talk to us any time."
"And we'll see you someday."
He gave them a watery smile. "I love you too Mum, Dad."
He placed the stone in his pocket and looked back at the place they had stood. It was empty now. He felt lonely suddenly, but he took a moment to remind himself they were still there.
And there was always the chance Harry would lend him the stone again.