Like Father…

Chapter I

Ted…'Teddy' Lupin had been chewing on his roast-beef for about ten minutes, maybe Ginny thought her cooking skills where being insulted by that behavior but that day, Ted couldn't care less.

Being around the Potters, sitting at their dining table, pretending not to notice Lily's fixed gaze on him, were making Ted go insane! What was the point in all of that fuss?!

He had heard them on the platform a few days before; he knew what they wanted to ask him! So why weren't they just asking him to move in?!

As Harry started scratching his scar, a gesture, Teddy knew, meant he was rather nervous about something, Ted decided to finally swallow his last bite of meat. The Potters took it as a sign: they could start with their plan to get the young Lupin to live with them.

First of all Lily begun to pull at Teddy's oversized rainbow-striped Tee. Ted looked down at her, right into the best puppy eyes he had ever seen in his whole, nineteen year old boy's, life. They were so unbelievably wet and nearly sad. You could almost say it was impossible to say no to those eyes.

"Teddy…do you…do you like me?" asked little Lily, tightening the grip on Teddy's T-shirt.

"Of course I do!" he replayed ruffling Lily's hair, and he did mean it. Lily would have been such a cute little sister. When Teddy was younger, he though of the Potters as his own family. Teddy somehow knew they were not his real family at all, but he always felt so lonely when other kids told him stories about their parents, or even when they complained about punishments and things like that. At first he would tell them Harry Potter was his dad and Ginny Weasley Potter his mom, but nobody believed him. He had no parents to love, to envy, or sometimes hate. Harry was just his godfather and Ginny just Harry's wife. They had their own kids to give love to. Teddy understood that fully just when James II was born. He felt jealous in the beginning, for James had stolen his place in Harry and Ginny's hearts. But as soon as he noticed how different the Potters' attitude towards their son was from the one they had towards him, Teddy felt like the world collapsed on him. He was just a six year old back then… but everybody told him he was a clever one... and he, in fact, was. Teddy could still remember how mad at him his grandmother got when he told her he wouldn't talk to the Potters ever again. It took him some months to cope with the pain, the break of his sweet illusion caused. Eventually he managed to get over it. Ted never told Harry about that. He felt so silly for trying to get new parents and stealing them from other kids. Now he was well aware of his situation and even though he loved them he couldn't quite think about them as his family. Well… he'd never tell Harry that either, his godfather would probably break Teddy's head open if he did.

"So…" grunted Harry (he probably didn't want that to sound like a pig but it did) "Would you-"

"Hey. Hey, hey!" Teddy stopped his Godfather waving his hands in front of him "I don't want to get married YET!" he joked, winking at Lily who blushed.

The eye-roll Harry gave Teddy made the boy grin wickedly.

"You sure didn't get much from your father… that's a rather Tonks-ish joke…" pointed out Ginny, smiling sweetly.

Teddy heard his heart cling… people would always tell him that he didn't look like his father. They said Teddy looked healthy, and his father didn't, Teddy always wore colorful and absolutely not cheap clothes whereas his father wore grey and threadbare ones. Noble wizards and witches told Teddy he had the Black Family's charm and despite of his attitude (similar to his mother's) he was a really righteous heir of the Blacks. His grandma was so proud of him when her friends appreciated Teddy's looks. She was also really happy to have somebody so similar to her dead daughter beside her.

How was Teddy supposed to be happy, though? It looked like his father was a zero: a worthless creature, just one of the many dirty and un-human werewolves, whose only good action had been making Nymphadora Tonks able to have such a cute and perfect son.

"T-Teddy? Are you all right?" Harry's worried voice brought him back from his thoughts, his godfather's strong and large hand firmly gripping his shoulder.

"I…" whispered Teddy blushing, feeling suddenly depressed "I'm ok… don't worry…"

Harry was now gripping both of his shoulders and facing him.

"Ted, you know I want you to tell me if anything's wrong! I've been telling you this for years!" his voice was severe, the one used to scold him when Teddy was younger and made any of the Potter kids cry.

"I KNOW THAT! AND SINCE I'M NOT TELLING YOU ANYTHING, NOTHING IS WRONG WITH ME!" yelled Teddy at Harry, escaping his firm grip and running out of the kitchen.

The Potters froze as Teddy rushed out of the room. They weren't able to understand his behavior, but it was pretty clear something Ginny said made the multi-colored boy get angry.

Meanwhile Teddy had climbed out of a window and was now sitting on the rooftop. Oh, he loved so much sitting on top of rooftops: back at Hogwarts his favorite place to hide and think by himself, had been the Astronomy Tower, so quiet and windy. The cold breeze hit his puffy cheeks making them turn a deep shade of red. Teddy's hot breath mixed with the evening's air and as he stopped exhaling, his appearance changed. His face was still heart shaped but he looked a lot thinner and three red scars glowed in the milky moonlight. His hair was longer now and it was just tawny brown.

"Teddy…" the young Lupin knew Harry was going to get up there; he always did that when he tried to be alone for just a few minutes "Teddy, you'll eventually fall off. I know you're a wizard, an extremely good one too, but this is still dangerous habit…"

"… Not worse than riding a dragon or… fighting Voldemort, facing a Devil's Snare, or-"

"Fine, fine… that's enough… besides those weren't hobbies!"

"If you say so…" Teddy shrugged lying down, crossing his legs.

Harry climbed near Teddy and sat down; Teddy couldn't help but laugh at his godfather's uneasiness.

"Teddy… I know how you feel…" Teddy had heard his godfather saying that nearly a billion times already "You miss your parents but feel… yeah… stupid because you've nothing to miss since you've never met them an-"

"It's not about that, Harry…" interrupted him Teddy "Not this time. This time our situations are quite different"

"Ohhh… I see." declared Harry sounding like he had just understood the secret potion to cure lycanthropy. "You've problems with you girlfriend, haven't you?"

Teddy sat up, his eyes flashing open.

"Girlfriend?!" he yelled letting the moonlight enlighten his amber eyes.

"Ahhh don't feel so embarrassed, it's quite normal for a boy your age…" Harry smiled heartedly staring straight in Teddy's natural eyes.

"Harry, seriously, I don't have a girlfriend!"

"Oh… so now boys call girls they snog another name?" Ted's mouth opened but no word escaped from it.

"James saw you on the train with Bill's daughter…" Harry explained suffocating a laugh "… and he was rather shocked, you know… Lily wants you t-"

"STOP RIGHT THERE!!!!" shouted Teddy jumping to his feet "I was kissing that crazy half French girl, who I used to call a friend, just because she asked me to! She… Oh my God I'm so going to kill her… she wanted a guy she fancies to see us and get jealous, you know that kind of things girls do!"

Harry just kept on smiling at him with an 'Oh don't try to tell me you don't like her, I've been a nineteen year old before you did' look on his face.

"HARRY!!!!!" yelled Ted sitting back down in front of his godfather, his hands tightly gripping his light hair "Have you ever kissed Mrs. Granger-Weasley? Have you ever though about it?! Despite the fact Mr. Weasley would have killed you, would you have kissed your best friend?" Teddy was sure that with that statement he was going to make his point.

Harry glared at his godson, zooming in and out, checking for signs of a lie in Teddy's body gestures.

"Fine. You two must be really close, aren't you?"

Teddy sighed relaxing his tensed up muscles "Yeah… we are. You know, being the oldest one among Harry Potter's friends' children, I always felt a bit lonely. Vic and I were bound to get close to each other. Fortunately for Mr. Bill Weasley I've always considered Vic my twin sister. We're truly alike."

Harry put a comforting hand on Teddy's shoulder. He felt so sorry for him. And yet couldn't forget Remus's smiling face and the happiness he expressed just being with his dead friends. Harry gave Teddy a one harmed hug, just like Sirius's last one and said "Let's get back down Teddy, I'm freezing."

Ted stopped him, "No… wait. I… I want to tell you what made me get up here."

How stupid of him, thought Harry, mentally slapping himself, his godson felt bad about something and he just forgot that in three minutes time. Sirius would have never done anything like that.

"Oh… of course. Tell me…"

"People used to tell you 'You're just like your father but your eyes, they're your mother's eyes', didn't they?" his voice was shaking, his eyes watering up.

Harry just nodded feeling a warm and comforting feeling filling him.

"That's why I told you my situation is completely different from yours. People love me… just because I look like my mother. I understood that ages ago and started to try and look a lot more like her than I really do. Why… why has nobody ever told me I look like my dad without meaning to insult me?"

A Hogwarts sized stone placed itself on Harry's heart. What had they done? Harry never paid attention to that. He thought it was pretty obvious, so obvious Harry didn't feel the need to remind the guy of his similarity to his dead father.

"Teddy what… that's not right! Like… not at all!!! You're so much like your father that's… obvious!" Harry Accio-ed a little mirror and put it in front of Teddy's face "I mean: look, those eyes of yours, they're not your mother's. They shine so much you can't quite tell but if your father had lived a continuously happy life his eyes would have glowed that same way." Harry couldn't tell him he saw that shiny reflection in Remus's eyes just once, because of the fact it wasn't Tonks who made Remus happy. "And that's not all about physical appearance, you're quiet, smart, you've always been a good student and you love people you so much… sometimes I just want to cry because I can't be that same way. You look like the both of them. You're able to make people laugh even when you're not in the mood to, you joke, you love to be noisy, and reading a book on top of a tree or on a rooftop is just pure bliss to you. You're an amazing combination of the two of them. Unfortunately your father was… he was a beautiful person but unfortunately life, with its cruel and sad happenings, made him stop being completely sincere with people. I…I'm sorry to say this, I wasn't that close to your father, Remus didn't let people know him that much, he was the kindest man on earth and everything, but nobody could understand what was deeply buried in his amber eyes and in the depths of his gentle heart."

Harry stopped, sighed, and hugged his godson tightly, letting him soak his shirt with his unstoppable tears. Harry had always been afraid of having to face that moment in his godfather's life. He couldn't understand Remus, nor Sirius nor his own father, they'd always been black holes in his knowledge. When he was younger Harry wanted to find out everything he could about them but as time passed he let go of his hopes and just lived on, thinking about them from time to time, happy with just what he knew about the Marauders.