Title: Like Father, Like Son
Characters: Teddy Lupin, Victoire Weasley, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks Lupin, Charlie Weasley
Challenge/Forum: QFLC Season 5 - Round 3 (Ballycat Bats, Beater 2)
Prompt: Write about a Truth that is found out by the next generation OR write about a Dare that is carried out by the next generation.
Opt-Prompt: (emotion) regret, (dialogue) "Can we please turn back time and go back to how things used to be?", (food) cantaloupe
Warnings: Infidelity
(Glorious) Betas: queen-sheep
Word Count: 2,493


When Teddy Lupin graduated from Hogwarts, Harry attempted to recruit him for the Auror program. "Your mum was a great Auror," Harry told him, "and you've certainly got your dad's skills in defense." But Teddy had always found himself captivated by the careers of his two oldest uncles.

Bill Weasley still travelled for Gringotts, curse-breaking all around the world. He visited Egypt frequently—the goblins had a permanent encampment there due to the high volume of magical tombs—but his best stories came from the ancient temples of Sumer in southern Iraq. The Ziggaruts were as old as the tombs in Egypt, but the wards protecting them were the most complicated Bill had ever seen. His eyes glowed as he talked about uncovering his first purification pond, still pristine even after thousands of years underground.

"It's the most virile magic I've ever encountered," Bill told him, eyes bright with the memory. "It's magic you can feel."

But if Bill Weasley appealed to Teddy's intellectual side, Charlie Weasley appealed to something deep in his bones.

Charlie, who had long left the dragon pen for an administrative office on the Romanian reserve, had what seemed to be an unending litany of stories about his days as a dragon wrangler. The best stories came with an accompanying scar or tattoo.

"This one," Charlie said, pointing to a magical tattoo of a rose, "covers the first bite I ever got from a baby. Chinese Fireball hatchling, barely a week old. They look cute, but those suckers are vicious!"

"Oh that?" Charlie asked at a different family gathering, pointing to a mermaid on his left shoulder. "That's from a burn from Pearl. She's our oldest Opaleye, and she wasn't too happy when I was cleaning out her pen near breeding time. Got me right on the shoulder, and I couldn't lift anything for a week straight."

Once, during a particularly hot day at the Burrow, when almost the entire family had made their way to the pond to swim, Teddy spotted a small tattoo of a jackrabbit on Charlie's chest.

"What's the story behind that one, Uncle Charlie?" he asked warmly.

An emotion Teddy couldn't quite pinpoint flashed through the redhead's eyes, but quickly faded to the genial grin the dragon wrangler always had.

"That? That's a reminder that dragons aren't the only things that can burn you."

No one but Harry was surprised when Teddy applied to both the dragon reserve and as an apprentice curse-breaker, but not to the Auror program.


The Saturday before Teddy started work, Molly threw a joint birthday celebration for Harry and Ginny at the Burrow. The Potters had requested the party be subdued—just family and some close friends, which typically meant the Longbottoms would make an appearance, along with the Scamanders if they were in England.

Teddy loved family gatherings. The grandkids ran amok—missing only Molly and Lucy, who were stationed in Canada with their father on diplomatic appointment. Molly always made too many desserts, which always included treacle tart. There was invariably a toast to the missing family members—usually Charlie and Percy, but always Fred—and when he'd had a few butterbeers he was often goaded into doing metamorphmagus tricks.

Meals at the Burrow were an exercise in chaos, but they reminded Teddy that he really, truly had a family.

Though, with his intimate position with Victoire on the swing, he was glad he wasn't blood related. The two oldest grandkids had escaped the dramatics of the younger teens and the stern eye of Victoire's dad, and were enjoying their meal in quiet togetherness, her thin legs perpendicular over his own.

They had only been dating a year, but after spending their entire childhood together, they functioned more like an old married couple. Victoire grabbed an extra set of silverware and napkins, since Teddy always forgot his, and he gave her the strawberries from his fruit salad and took her cantaloupe, which she loathed. He always had a jacket with him, because she always underdressed and ended up cold—even in the middle of summer.

After they finished their cake, Victoire leaned her head on Teddy's shoulder. "This is perfect."

He threw his arm around her, drawing her close, and kissed her forehead. "Yeah, it really is."


The goblins were fastidious about security, so when Teddy started his job the following Monday, he went through a battery of tests.

First was Veritaserum, under which he admitted to smoking weed with Jameson Wood and Max Flint after a Quidditch game seventh year. Then came the employment contract, which he signed with a blood quill—Harry had not been happy to hear about that.

Once the contract was signed, a Goblin healer started on the standard health assessments. It was during these tests that the bomb had been dropped, changing Teddy's entire life.

The goblin healer had scowled at his blood test. "I thought you said your father was Remus Lupin?"

"He was," Teddy responded shortly.

"Lies!" hissed the goblin. "Remus Lupin was a known werewolf. You show no traces of lycanthropy."

Teddy rolled his eyes. Aunt Hermione had warned him that his father's affliction would likely come up over his lifetime. "Lycanthropy can't be passed on from parent to child," Teddy explained. "I would have to be bitten to be a werewolf."

"Stupid boy," said the goblin, taking a set of hair samples to have on file. "Of course you have to be bitten to be a werewolf. But if Remus Lupin was your father, you would have latent lycanthropic genetic material evident in your bloodstream. You do not."

Teddy was silent. He had never displayed any of the traits of latent lycanthropy; Aunt Hermione had theorized that his metamorphmagus abilities negated those drives—the increased sex drive and energy near the full moon, heightened senses, etc—since he generally used more energy than other magicals.

The goblin continued. "While I cannot tell you who your father is, I can tell you with certainty that it is not Remus Lupin."


Teddy thought about confiding in Harry, but ultimately decided against it; it was Remus, after all, who had asked Harry to be godfather, and Teddy didn't want to jeopardize his position as a surrogate member of the Potter family.

Not that he thought Harry would disown him. Things would just be… different.

He thought about telling Aunt Hermione, because she was the smartest person he knew and would be able to tell him what to do next, but he decided against that as well; he knew she would ultimately reveal his secret to Harry.

When he thought about it, he realized anyone he could confide in—Hermione, Victoire, Bill, Charlie, James—was connected to his godfather.

So Teddy kept it inside.

But that didn't stop the speculation.

Was his father alive? Or had he been killed in the war, like Remus? His mother's mentor had been Mad-Eye Moody, the senior Auror who had been killed in the Battle of the Seven Potters. His death had occurred only days before his supposed conception, right after Bill and Fleur's wedding. Was there more to their relationship than mentorship?

He knew his mother had also been close with Kingsley Shacklebolt, the current Minister for Magic. They had been Aurors together, even during the Ministry's occupation by Voldemort, and Kingsley had regaled Teddy with a number of stories about his Order missions with Tonks. The Minister always smiled fondly when he talked about her.

But it wasn't until Christmas, when Uncle Charlie came home and showed the inquiring nieces and nephews a photo album from his old Hogwarts days—an album filled with an inordinate amount of pictures of Charlie and his mother—that Teddy knew.

He saw the way Charlie stared at his mum in her Yule Ball dress. Or the way she hugged him after he won the Quidditch Cup. Or how they let their touches linger just a fraction too long. Or the emotion between them when they caught each other's eye.

If he wasn't really a Lupin, then he had to be a Weasley.


Teddy became withdrawn. He hadn't confirmed that Charlie Weasley was his father—and with Charlie back in Romania, he didn't have the means to—but he knew it in his soul.

Which meant that Victoire was his cousin. His first cousin.

He avoided her for a month before she showed up at his flat, tears running down her face.

"What is happening, Teddy?" she asked between sniffles. "What is going on with you?"

He sighed, defeated. "Things are changing, Vic. I'm changing." He swallowed. "And I think we should stop seeing each other."

The blonde witch broke down in tears.

"Why, Teddy?" she asked between sobs. "Just tell me why?"

He swallowed. "Because I don't love you anymore, Vic. I'm sorry."

A lie. Both lies. He did love her—he was sure he always would—but he was not sorry to break things off with her. He had to. It was only right.


Teddy quit Gringotts a month later, and was in Romania by the summer. He shoveled dragon dung and went through too much burn paste and drank too much firewhisky at the pub with the other wranglers. He got to know Charlie as a colleague, rather than as an uncle, and discovered a striking number of similarities they shared. Most could be chalked up to coincidence or nurturing—they had both been raised by (or practically by) Molly Weasley—but Teddy knew they ran deeper than that.

One night, at the village pub, after a long day of dealing with a stroppy, pregnant Ironbelly, Teddy asked Charlie about his mother.

"I know you were friends at Hogwarts," Teddy said, sliding another firewhisky toward the redhead. "I'm sure you have some stories I've never heard. Some that wouldn't have been appropriate when I was younger." He smiled.

Teddy thought this line would bring out the old glory days for Charlie. He sometimes got like that, with the younger wranglers—reliving the days of being in the pen, telling the same stories of his scars that he'd told to a younger Teddy.

But this question made Charlie falter, and his mouth turned downward in a slight frown. "Your mum was… was beyond reproach, Ted. Sure, we got up to some mischief at Hogwarts but after that? She was a paragon of virtue."

Perhaps it was because Charlie was on his fourth glass, but the redhead couldn't quite hide the scorn from his last sentence.

Teddy sipped his whisky. "She couldn't have been perfect."

The scorn morphed to something sadder, almost mournful. "She was though, Teddy. Merlin your mum was just—the brightest, most fantastic witch I've ever met. She had this way of putting anyone at ease. I'm better at dealing with dragons than people—don't have the patience for most of 'em—but your mum was the one person who I could really let loose with. She never had a bad word to say 'bout anyone."

Teddy sat. Sipped. Waited.

"There was a time I fancied myself in love with her. We dated a bit, before I left for the reserve. I never told you that and not too many people knew, but we did." He shot back the rest of his whisky. "I think she thought it was casual, but… well, it wasn't, not for me. Biggest regret I ever had was leaving for Romania and not telling her how I really felt."

Teddy nodded solemnly, staring at his glass. He had imagined he was the result of a drunken one-night stand, not some unrequited lost love. When he looked up, Charlie was staring at him, with an odd look in his eye.

"Of course, by the time I realized what a mistake I'd made… well." Charlie pushed his glass to the bartender, nodding for another drink. "Your father was a good man, Teddy. Dora deserved someone like him, someone who could love her the way she deserved."

Charlie shook himself out of his morose mood and punched Teddy jovially on the shoulder.

"Plus, without Remus, I wouldn't have your lazy ass to boss around all day."


Christmas at the Burrow was the same as always. But now, family gatherings felt different.

There were the disappointed looks from Bill, Fleur and their kids—except for Victoire, who alternated between avoiding and staring longingly at Teddy. There was the constant badgering of Harry—"whenever you want to come home, I've got a spot for you on the team," he'd explain, still trying to recruit the metamorphmagus for the Aurors. There were the constant inquiries from the younger kids about his job with dragons, and was he dating anyone?

And under all of this ran the constant reminder that his relationship with everyone—with his family—was both more real and less real than it had been the Christmas before. They were blood now, but more than six months distance meant he missed out on the small developments, the new inside jokes, the day-to-day updates that built the close bond he'd always thought made him part of the family.

He was cornered by Victoire later in the evening, after everyone was dozing in a pudding-induced coma.

"I miss you, Teddy," she smiled at him, unshed tears in the corner of her eyes.

"Vic," he protested. He tried to keep his voice sweet, but he put a bit more distance between him and the witch. The tears threatened to spill forth.

"I don't understand what happened," she exclaimed. "You just decide you don't love me anymore and then run off to Romania?" She moved forward, pressing against him, taking him in her arms. "You could come home. You could join the Aurors. We could be together, just like we always dreamed." She hugged him tight. "Can we please turn back time and go back to how things used to be?"

And then Teddy saw it: his mother in her lavender dress at Bill and Fleur's wedding, with her hair to match; Remus, off on patrol for the Order, making sure the Burrow's wards held; Charlie, laughing with his mother and reminiscing on old times; the champagne flowing; a dark corner, where Charlie confessed his lingering feelings for Dora, revealing the regret that had dogged him for years; a liquor-induced seduction—"Can we please turn back time and go back to how things used to be?"— and the subsequent nostalgia-filled shag in one of the hidden spaces of the Burrow that only a Weasley would know; and then the fall of the wards, the fear of the guests, the relief and remorse and guilt that filled his mum when Remus returned.

The relief she would have felt when Teddy arrived with the blue hair of a metamorphmagus, rather than the bright red hair of a Weasley.

Teddy pushed Victoire away. "No."