Like "Snape's Thoughts" but in first person.

Teddy was seconds old when I held him, born swiftly into my tired, wrinkled hands, crying his first cry without even looking around. The midwife beamed, Dora began to laugh and my hands shook as I thought, "James had it right."

I used to think he was crazy. Totally crazy. Get married right out of Hogwarts? Have a wife and then, swiftly, a baby in the middle of a war? A war in which he and his wife were fighting? Had he taken complete leave of his senses?

I wasn't jealous that Sirius was the godfather. No, James defiantly had that right. They were more like brothers than the rest of us. I was too dangerous, too… too serious to be a godfather. But Siruis, in the too-brief moments that he had with Harry, surrounded Harry with love and laughter.

Oh, I tried. I tried to go to the Dursely's, to see Harry, to tell him. I wanted to be the godfather that Siruis couldn't be. I wanted to take him to the park, to play, to tell him all about our world. Every time I got near that house, though, I couldn't. I just turned and left.

I was 21 when they died. James, killed by Voldemort, dead. Siruis, betrayer, murderer, in prision. Peter, dead by the hands of a friend. My friends, my only good friends, the ones who accepted me just as Remus. Not the werewolf, not the freak, not the nerd. Just Remus. They had all gone and left me. At 21.

What was I supposed to do? Take Harry with me and turn him into an outcast? There was no wolfsbane potion then. I would have been a danger to him every full moon. No one would accept a orphan being raised by a werewolf and I daresay the entire wizarding world would have been up in arms about the famous Harry Potter being raised by one Remus Lupin, werewolf.

I tricked myself into thinking he was being showered with a mother's love at the house, although rumors told me otherwise. I told myself that Lily and James had loved him enough in his short 15 months with him that that would carry over. Harry didn't need me, see.

I remember thinking that James was going to regret marrying Lily so young. Sure, he had money and didn't need to work. But look what he put her through! Hiding! Fighting for the Order! I never, ever wished Harry away but sometimes I thought he would have been happier… had a childhood… had they waited.

Harry wasn't the only baby born in the Order. There was Neville, of course. The two often played on the floor during meetings, laughing and crying. It seemed that every other month one of the Prewett brothers brought word of another nephew being born or that Molly was expecting again. I would be lying if I said that the babies sweet innocence hadn't made our dark meetings a happier place. We knew what we were fighting for, with them around.

But still….

When I met Dora and I understood, even if I didn't agree with it. We were married quickly and quietly, just like James and Lily. We had Teddy quickly, the same way James and Lily had Harry. This time, I named a friend's son godfather, instead of a friend.

It seems odd but Harry had aged. He wasn't 17, he was ages beyond it, the same way I had become ages beyond 21 when my world fell apart. I knew that if something happened to me, Harry would keep Teddy going. He would let him know about life the way I never could bring myself to let Harry know. He was, after all, so much braver than I.

It took Teddy for me to fully understand what James did. The second I saw my boy… my boy… my son… the son I never thought I could ever have… I knew that even if we had only minutes or hours together, it was worth it. I loved him beyond love, beyond life, beyond anything any human could possibly love. In the midst of the darkest days, love was created anew in this tiny person and it shone. Utterly and completely shown.

I cried with Teddy that day. Cried because of love, of joy, of pain, of sorrow, of happiness and sadness. I cried because finally, finally, I had it right.