Disclaimer: I do not own these character, they are the property of JK Rowling. I also do not own the lyrics you see. They are from the song "Photograph", written and performed by Nickelback.
Goodbye
Seventeen year old Teddy Lupin stared over the basin, his eyes close together, his jaw set. His shoulders were hunched forward and his hands gripped the stone edge so tightly that his knuckles were white. His face glowed silver, matching the depths of the basin before him, swirling together in its liquid form. At the sound of footsteps out in the hallway, he looked up, thinking it was his grandmother, Andromeda, come to check on him. He'd been home from school for no more than two days when his godfather, Harry Potter, presented him with his seventeenth birthday present.
A wizard's seventeenth birthday is important, almost as important as their eleventh. It is the birthday that marks him as an adult, able to do the things that he would not be able to do at a younger age – Apparating, using magic outside of school, and that was it. For other people maybe – his friends, his enemies, anyone at school. Not for Teddy. For Teddy, this was the birthday that allowed him to know everything, everything about the two people who meant the most to him, yet had never been in his life. Harry and Andromeda worked together to put this gift together for him – they found everyone who had known Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks in their youth and as they grew. Finding memories of Tonks, as she preferred to be called, was easy enough. Andromeda was her mother, an abundance of recollections. Remus was harder; everyone from his youth was gone. Yet Harry managed, finding the wildest of candidates to offer up their memories. He had even asked a retired Professor McGonagall and Professor Slughorn, and an old, withered Madam Pomfrey.
Teddy stared into the depths of the Pensieve, the basin that held everything he'd ever wanted to know about his parents. Well, almost everything. There are some parts he would never be able to see. He'd never see his father as a young boy, living with his mother and father – Teddy's other grandparents – in their small house just outside of Oxfordshire. He'd never get to see what his parents were like while Teddy was growing up, because those memories didn't exist. They were gone before those memories were even started. Teddy bent forward, his face moving closer to the silver liquid. Only it wasn't liquid any longer. No, he was staring at the top of a house that he could not recognise from the angle he was at. This was it. Teddy plunged forward, his face breaking through the silver surface.
Look at this photograph
Every time I do it makes me laugh
How did our eyes get so red
And what the hell is on Joey's head
He found himself standing in a humble cottage, in the middle of the woods judging from the trees visible through the windows. Teddy whirled around on the spot, realising that he knew what this place was. This was the home he had grown up in. His gran must have been here somewhere. Sure enough, a young woman with dark hair entered the room, chasing after a small girl with bubblegum pink hair. Nymphadora Tonks – his mother as a young child. Tonks ran about the house, chasing a frog that had found its way inside.
"Dora, come back here!" Andromeda called, her voice light with laughter. But Tonks would not listen; she had to find the frog, to set him free most likely. Teddy smiled sadly at his mother – so small and full of life – as she raced in circles, somehow unable to keep up with the hopping off the frog. When the green creature finally leapt onto a table and out an open window, Tonks dropped dejectedly on the floor. The race was run. As Andromeda hurried over to console her heartbroken child, the scene began to change.
And this is where I grew up
I think the present owner fixed it up
I never knew we'd ever went without
The second floor is hard for sneaking out
He was in the Great Hall where a much younger Professor McGonagall stood at the head of the hall, a long scroll in hand. The familiar three-legged stool stood proudly before the mass of students, the patched and frayed Sorting Hat resting motionless upon it. The Transfiguration professor was calling out names. At each name, the student – nervous, their legs wobbling – scurried up to the stool and waited with bated breath for the hat to sort them. Teddy recognised some of the names – Sirius Black, Lily Evans – he had grown up hearing about these people: Harry's godfather, Harry's mother. But these people did not make his breath catch in his throat. It was only when Professor McGonagall yelled out "Lupin, Remus!" That Teddy's eyes perked as a small boy of only eleven with sandy hair and a sickly look about him extracted himself from the group and took a seat under the Sorting Hat.
Teddy watched avidly as his father sat under the gaze of his fellow classmates, awaiting his fate. Remus's eyes were shut tightly and he was whispering something, but Teddy could not tell what it was. If he had to guess, it would have been that he was asking the Sorting Hat to forget that he was a werewolf and to sort him based on what else he was. That sounded like the kind of thing his father would say, at least from what Harry described him as. As the Sorting Hat called out "GRYFFINDOR!" the scene faded away.
And this is where I went to school I wonder if It's too late Oh oh oh
Most of the time had better things to do
Criminal record says I broke in twice
I must have done it half a dozen times
Should I go back and try to graduate
Life's better now then it was back then
If I was them I wouldn't let me in
Oh god I
Scenes flashed before Teddy's eyes. He saw his father sitting in on a Prefects' meeting on the way to school. He looked no older than fifteen, sitting in his school robes with a shining silver P on his chest. He saw his mother's own Sorting Ceremony, where her hair – this time a light blue, as Teddy's hair was – sticking out in the crowd of black. He watched her trip on her way up to the stool and jam the hat on her head, only to have it place her in Hufflepuff. There was his dad again, this time older, though no more than nineteen, sitting in on an Order meeting. His hands were folded on the table, his eyes narrowed in seriousness as he listened to an unfamiliar witch speak about a mission they were about to embark on. The scene changed again. There was his mother standing in the Atrium of the Ministry of Magic, her hair an underwhelming brown as she undoubtedly prepared for her first Auror training session.
The picture dissolved.
Every memory of looking out the back door Every memory of walking out the front door
I had the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye
I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye
Hogsmeade appeared before Teddy's eyes – Zonko's Joke Shop, to be exact. Teddy weaved his way through the mess of pranks to find his father standing with three boys. They must have been only thirteen and on their first trip into the village. The evident glee in their eyes told of their excitement at their first of many treks into this establishment. Teddy knew who the three boys with his father were – Sirius Black, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew. Remus Lupin's best friends, friends who would not be in his life the longest of times. They were laughing as James, with his untidy black hair so much like Harry's, held up a revolving teacup that snapped at Sirius's fingers when he tried to take it. Teddy couldn't keep his eyes off of his father's face. His father's face was alight with the kind of joy only best friends could bring.
Remember the old arcade
Blew every dollar that we ever made
The cops hated us hangin' out
They say somebody went and burned it down
Teddy couldn't help but laugh out loud at the sight before him. His mother stood before him in the oddest of getups Teddy had ever witnessed. Her hair was long and blonde, draped over her face as she danced around her bedroom in a black tee shirt and ripped blue jeans. Teddy recognised the song playing on the wireless on her bureau – a Weird Sisters song. His gran always said his mother had a particular love for them and, after watching this, Teddy would never again doubt her. Teddy did have to clamp his hands over his ears when his mother started singing in an off key and not too refined singing voice. But, as he did so, he slowly removed his hands from his ears, realising this would be one of the only times he'd ever hear his mother's voice – painful or not.
We used to listen to the radio
And sing along with every song we know
We said someday we'd find out how it feels
To sing to more than just the steering wheel
The memories in the Pensieve fast forwarded years and years later to when his father was in his late thirties and his mother in her mid-twenties. Teddy knew what time this was – the height of the second war, only months before his parents would leave the world. Teddy studied the room around him, he did not recognise it. It was small, with several chairs stuffed haphazardly inside. He saw at the head of the room a small man with a book laid out over his hands. He was speaking to a beautiful woman with short, spiked pink hair and a handsome, tired man with lines etched over his face and his hair a premature gray. This was his mother and father's wedding. Teddy saw his grandmother and the man that could only be his grandfather – Ted Tonks, the man he was named after. The ceremony was quiet, over before it began. He watched as his mother and father kissed for the first time as husband and wife.
Kim's the first girl I kissed Oh oh oh
I was so nervous that I nearly missed
She's had a couple of kids since then
I haven't seen her since god knows when
Oh god I
Teddy saw his parents crowded in the parlour of the Burrow with the Weasley family, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Fleur and several other members of the Order of the Phoenix raised their glasses – toasting to the memory of (as Harry had reported) Mad Eye Moody, who had died in their escape from Privet Drive. He watched Remus and Tonks run from the Weasleys' backyard, he watched them at the wedding of Bill and Fleur. He felt a frown form on his face as he noticed repeatedly the bright smile of his mother, yet the lines of anxiety on his father's face.
He then found himself following his father into what he knew as Number Twelve Grimmauld Place – Harry's chosen residence, the house he had inherited from Sirius Black. He gaped in horror as he witnessed the conversation between his father, Harry, Ron and Hermione, where his father had broken into a nervous state, saying how he couldn't stay with Tonks any longer – that he had turned her and, as a result, Teddy into outcasts from society because of what he was. Teddy had never known his father had considered leaving, he had never known that at one point his father could not handle the pressure.
But his expression changed when his father appeared at Teddy's grandmother's house and he apologised to Tonks, telling her that he had no right to even fathom leaving her and his child. He swore he'd do whatever he could to help her throughout the months before she would give birth. Yet he still had to continue to dedicate himself to the Order. He continued to pursue missions and took part in a rebel station on the wireless – Pottercast – with Lee Jordan, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Fred Weasley. His father may have taken a turn at one point, but he was able to bring himself back to where he should be.
Every memory of looking out the back door Every memory of walking out the front door
I had the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye
I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye
He was in Shell Cottage, surrounded by Bill, Fleur, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna Lovegood, Dean Thomas, a goblin, and the old wand maker. They were just sitting down to dinner as there was a sharp knock on the door and his father's voice called over the winds. His father's face was radiant; he looked younger than he ever had as he announced "It's a boy! We've named him Ted!" After staying for a drink to toast in Teddy's honour, he hurried back to St. Mungo's where Tonks was. Teddy stared at himself as an infant only hours old, with a tuft of red hair that was steadily turning to the sandy brown hair of his father. The way his parents smiled at each other as they sat with their newly born son… there were no words for it.
But the happiness did not last as Teddy stepped into the final memory – the memory that would forever change his life.
I miss that town So hard to stay If I could I relive those days
I miss the faces
You can't erase
You can't replace it
I miss it now
I can't believe it
Too hard to leave it
I know the one thing that would never change
There had been no true witnesses of his parents' deaths, but there had been fighters near them who were too involved in their own life-or-death battle to stop and assist them. The person Harry had extracted this memory from was George Weasley, who had been battling Rodolphus Lestrange at the time. Teddy knew that only a short time later, George would be receiving his own loss in the form of his identical twin brother, Fred. Teddy turned his back on the fourth eldest Weasley son and was met with the sight of his father, haggard and beaten, throwing curse after curse at the Death Eater Teddy knew, and loathed, as Antonin Dolohov.
He couldn't watch… he tried to force his eyes down… he didn't want to watch his father die. But he couldn't stop himself; his eyes would not stay down. They kept drifting upwards to where his father was, clearly losing the fight, no matter how strong of a front he put up. Why did his father have to be noble? Why couldn't he have stayed home that night, with Teddy, where he belonged? Teddy sighed in disgust at himself. His father was a fighter, one of the head members of the Order of the Phoenix. He had seen death and was willing to fight to his own to make a happier world for everyone – for Teddy – to live in. This was his fight.
Teddy could not stop the leaking of his eyes as Dolohov shouted the Killing Curse and his father, weak and all but defeated, could not dodge it. He wanted to shout, but he could not find his voice as his eyes followed the body of his father as it dropped to the floor. Teddy could not stop himself from staring into the blank, green eyes of his father that stared at the ceiling, the life gone from them. Teddy could not block out the triumphant laughter of Dolohov as he left to find another victim, nor could he ignore the horrified cry of "Remus!" from his mother, who was supposed to be home with him, as she spotted the still form of her husband. No, Teddy thought desperately, not her. I can't watch my mum die.
He wanted to climb out of the Pensieve, but he could not remember how. How had Harry instructed him to leave? His mind was blocked. He wanted to leave; he could not witness the death of the woman who had brought him into this world. He could not watch her be taken from it. He shut his eyes as he heard a high cackle and spotted a woman who was almost identical to his grandmother. Bellatrix Lestrange – his mother's killer. He tried to block out her taunts of "werewolf bride" and how she had "further contaminated the Wizarding World". Teddy knew who she was talking about – she was talking about him.
His mother was enraged, but her despair was greater. She fought. She threw hex after hex until she could not catch her breath. She danced on the spot, dodging every spell Lestrange threw at her. Yet it was not enough. Teddy turned away as he heard the thud of Nymphadora Tonks's body as it hit the stone floor and the cackle of Bellatrix Lestrange as she "rid the world" of someone she found unfit to be in it. He wanted out… he wanted to leave. Teddy gazed up at the ceiling, which was blurred, and he found himself standing once more in his bedroom.
Every memory of looking out the back door Every memory of walking out the front door
I had the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye
I found the photo of the friend that I was looking for
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye, goodbye
His chest heaved as he gained his bearings, making sure that he was in his house and not the hell that had been Hogwarts. His parents… they had been so happy. Throughout the madness, throughout the turmoil that was engulfing the world around them, they had been happy. They had futures ahead of them, futures that included raising a boy to be just like them – a decent, brave man. They had not been given that chance. They had fought for what they believed in, they had given everything to give Teddy a world where he could be happy, where he could grow up and have a life without war. Teddy looked over his shoulder at the Pensieve, so innocent now that he was free of it.
Look at this photograph
Everytime I do it makes me laugh
Everytime I do it makes me
He could never look at it again. He would never see his parents living in memory. It was time to let go. He loved his parents, he always would, but it was time to turn to the future. It was finally time to say goodbye.