Discalimer: I don't own HP *obligatory tears*
Chapter 1: The Godfather
Teddy Lupin had never met his godfather in person.
Well, he had, but he'd been far too young to remember him. By the time Teddy turned five his grandmother had banned his godfather from seeing him. Apparently it was a mutual agreement; his godfather was simply too mentally unsound to spend any meaningful amount of time around children, much less become a parental figure to one.
Teddy occasionally received letters or gifts from him, sometimes at random intervals but always on his birthday and always on Christmas. He was pretty sure they were screened before they were sent to him. But Teddy knew people told his godfather about him, just as people told him about his godfather. The people who told him changed as time went by and the war dragged on.
First it was Ginny Weasley. When he was smaller she had visited with his godfather, and after he stopped she continued for a few years, always telling him stories of his parents and his godfather, assuring him that his godfather was well. Teddy remembered loving her visits and how she made him laugh. But at some point, Teddy had noticed that Auntie Ginny no longer visited him. Grandma had sat him down and explained that Auntie Ginny had passed on from this life to be with her parents and the two brothers already gone. Teddy had been nine.
After that it was Charlie Weasley. He visited consistently for a year, and Teddy remembered him from the few times he had visited with Auntie Ginny. But then he too had passed on.
Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom always came together to visit him, until one visit Luna came alone. Someone else had died. By then Teddy was ready to go to Hogwarts.
There was almost no Hogwarts left to go to, but people had worked hard to ensure that Hogwarts was safe, secure, and warded so thickly it'd be easier to find Atlantis if you weren't wanted there. The classes were small and the subjects were shared between a small group of teachers.
Teddy was sorted into Hufflepuff, and he received a letter from his godfather congratulating him and saying he'd do his mother proud. He also received the Marauders' Map. It wasn't as useful as it had been since Hogwarts was half in ruins from Voldemort's attack, but Teddy treasured it all the same. Sometimes he pretended he didn't know the password just to talk with Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.
During the summers in between his school years Teddy didn't get a regular visitor like he had in the past. Instead, many people would visit when they could. Luna still came, and Teddy met Dean Thomas, Lavender Brown, George Weasley, Bill Weasley, Fleur Weasley, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Blaise Zabini, Viktor Krum, Theodore Nott, and Draco Malfoy, among others.
Teddy watched as they all stopped visiting, one after the other. He mourned for all of them.
The one person who survived the longest was the one he'd never met. His godfather was always fighting, never falling like the others, but in spite of his pleas Grandma never allowed Teddy to meet him.
When he was sixteen, Teddy finally understood the devastation the war had wreaked on the world—not just the wizarding world, but the muggle one. The world population, once in the billions, had been reduced to mere thousands. And for a time, Teddy had hated his godfather.
How could the man who had survived so long, fought the Dark Lord so many times, fail to save billions of lives?
Grandma had listened to him rage over it when he had learned of the number of lives lost. She sat quietly through the whole thing. And when Teddy finally lost his steam and slumped down on the couch, Grandma had come over, sat herself next to him, taken his hands, and said:
"I always wanted Harry to be a part of your life. He loved your parents so much. I never want you to hate him."
Teddy had tried to interject there, but Grandma had silenced him with one of her stern looks and went on.
"When he began to lose his mind I allowed him to continue visiting because I hoped that you would help him keep his sanity. And for a time you did. Losing his two closest friends before he'd even turned eighteen was hard on him. They were his support base and losing them was like ripping the rug out from under his feet. You helped him find his feet for a time. With you he had a reason to go on living, to go on fighting. He wanted to make the world safer for you. But then he defeated Voldemort. Hush, I know you know most of this, let me speak. He killed Voldemort. Everyone was ready to celebrate. All that was left was to round up his Death Eaters.
"But one of Voldemort's horcruxes—you know what those are, they were in your history class, yes?—one of them wasn't destroyed. We aren't quite certain how it tricked them, probably possession or mind tricks, but the Diadem horcrux made Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger believe they had destroyed it. The Diadem horcrux siphoned life away from a wizard and took corporeal form. It lay in wait, gathering support and knowledge, supplemented by Ravenclaw's Diadem. It waited for Harry to kill Voldemort, and then it came to the rescue of the Death Eaters.
"Our victory was a fake, and it hurt your godfather most of all. He'd believed he would finally be able to rest, but his enemy returned once more—but this time stronger, smarter, and far more persuasive. This new Voldemort's support base grew so fast we could hardly believe it. And its sights weren't just set on England, or even just the wizarding world. It was determined to have the world groveling at its feet.
"The battleground was suddenly everywhere. Voldemort murdered muggles and Light wizards in droves. No one could have stopped him completely, not even your godfather."
"So he's unbeatable?" Teddy had asked, his heart clenching and his stomach dropping.
"No. So many people hate Harry because he couldn't save those billions of lives. But what they don't understand is how astonishing it is that your godfather saved as many as he did. I've heard of some of Voldemort's plans to rule the world, and many of them were frightening not just because of their magnitude but because Voldemort could have pulled them off if Harry hadn't stopped it. If Harry hadn't, everyone would be slave to Voldemort, mind and body and life."
"Mind?" Teddy had squeaked, horror growing.
Grandma had given him a tired smile and said simply. "Don't hate your godfather, Teddy. Harry could have saved those billions of lives if he'd let Voldemort have its way. But the life they would've had would not have been life in any meaningful way at all. Death is a kinder fate than slavery of the mind. And the only way the resistance could continue to survive."
It was then that Teddy understood why his Grandma—and indeed, most adults—rarely smiled. With a renewed hate of Voldemort and a renewed respect for his godfather, Teddy had made it his mission to make Grandma, and anyone else he could, smile; smile, laugh, giggle, snort, grin, anything. He wasn't old enough to fight a war on a real battlefield (Grandma insisted, no matter how many times Teddy pointed out that many war veterans had begun fighting at sixteen), so he fought a war against the depression and sadness Voldemort brought.
When Teddy was seventeen, Harry Potter slew the Dark Lord a third and final time. Tom Riddle was gone at last. No more horcruxes, no more not-dying and returning from a not-death. He was completely gone.
When Teddy was seventeen, he finally met his godfather. He convinced Grandma to let him meet his godfather, just once, now that he was of age. It was an… unsettling experience, to say the least.
When he'd entered the private room at St. Pomfrey's, St. Mungo's had long since been destroyed, his godfather had immediately recognized him. He'd cried and told him he was so much like Tonks and Remus. At first, Teddy was surprised by this reaction's normality—when he was younger a lot of people, Grandma included, had told him how like his parents he was. It seemed mundane that this would be his godfather's first reaction to him.
But then his godfather had grinned a manic grin and it was like someone had flipped a switch. He giggled and laughed, crowing over how he'd snapped "Little Tommy's" neck. If Teddy hadn't known Voldemort's name had been Tom Riddle, he would have been very afraid. As it was, Teddy had swallowed hard, gathered his courage, and talked to his godfather.
The conversation, if it could really be called that, bounced all over the place so much it was difficult for Teddy to follow, but he got a very good idea why Grandma hadn't wanted him to meet Harry. At times, it seemed like his godfather thought he was still fighting the war, that he hadn't already defeated Voldemort, and he'd panic and rage. Other times he shouted his victory to Teddy or the walls in the most gruesome descriptions. Teddy wondered how this madman had ever led the war effort.
Teddy got only one coherent sentence out of him. He'd asked if he was glad they'd won and in a solitary moment of clarity his godfather turned to him and spoke with the face and voice of a world weary warrior and a broken man. "We didn't win, Teddy, not really. Tom killed everyone and I killed him. It was a draw. Nobody won."
Teddy had stared for a long moment, and then his godfather had collapsed to the floor sobbing. Tentatively, Teddy had reached out to comfort him, but as soon as his hand touched his godfather's shoulder the man had shot to his feet. A deranged fire lit the man's eyes and a Cheshire grin stretched across his face; both a disturbing contrast against his gaunt, tear-tracked face.
Teddy quietly slipped out of the room amid shrieks of laughter. His shaking hand rested on the door handle for a long time before a soft voice had called his name.
"Teddy Lupin?"
Teddy had jumped and whirled around, coming face to face with a tired blonde woman with cheerless blue eyes. "Er, yes?"
"You're his godson, aren't you?" she asked softly, smiling sadly.
Teddy nodded, ignoring the prick of tears in his eyes as he heard his godfather went from laughing to crying again.
"I'm Su Li," she introduced herself quietly.
Teddy's jaw dropped and he automatically straightened up. This was one of the war generals who fought on the frontlines, advising the Man-Who-Fought and a member of the New Order of the Phoenix.
Su Li chuckled, but it sounded hollow. "No need for that, Mr. Lupin. The war is over now."
"But we didn't win," Teddy blurted before he could stop himself. He mentally berated himself and opened his mouth to apologize, but the blonde spoke before he could.
"Indeed," Su Li murmured, eyes shifting to the door of the hospital room. "He told you that?"
"Y-yeah," Teddy said, moving away from the door. He didn't want to hear anymore of his godfather's heart wrenching sobs or unhinged laughter.
"He didn't use to be like this," Su Li said, mournful eyes fixed on the door. "He killed Riddle, made sure all his people were safe and accounted for, and then… he just snapped. Let go of his what little he had left of his sanity and was reduced to this. But he was… he was a sight to see when he had it together."
Teddy desperately wished he could have seen that sight. He didn't want to his only memories of his godfather to be of this… this shell.
"I wish it could have all ended there, at the Battle of Hogwarts," Su Li said, stepping up to the door and no longer looking at Teddy.
Teddy wondered if she'd forgotten he was there, that he was listening. He wouldn't be surprised if she had.
"It would have been better, easier," Su Li whispered. "Many would have died, but not like this. There's hardly anything left of the world. I wish… I wish we could go back and warn ourselves of our mistakes, of Riddle's Diadem horcrux."
"Could we?" Teddy whispered back to her.
She didn't answer him , but a few months later she turned up at Weasley Wizarding Wheezes while Teddy was working and asked him if he would like to help her change the world.
Teddy didn't hesitate to say yes.
Author's Note: So, this is another one of those evil plot bunnies stalking my brain. This one focusing on a horcrux hunt by Teddy, Harry, and Regulus. Hope I didn't disturb anyone with unhinged!Harry. Or maybe you thought it was stupid. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ either way, I'd love to hear your thought on it.