Chapter 2

Second Home

With a POP! Harry and Teddy appeared just outside of the Burrow's boundaries. Harry set Teddy down on the ground, and he instantly began running through the Weasley's unkempt grass, making large circles around his godfather. Harry tried, if not every weekend, then certainly every other weekend to come to the Burrow with Teddy. He was very fond Mrs. Weasley and loved tinkering with Mr. Weasley's collection of batteries. They also cared a lot for the boy and always insisted that they stay for at least two meals. Since spending his weekends with Teddy, Harry had begun carrying around a small bottle of essence of dittany for a good reason. One time, Harry's godson had been running through this very same patch of weeds and had slipped and scraped up both arms. Another, he had been jumping up and down on Harry's bed and had slipped and cut open his leg. Remembering this, he slid his hand into his pocket just to make sure it was still there. It was.

Teddy was energetic as ever, and continued running towards the door to the burrow when he called out to Harry: "Race!"

Harry began to jog; he was going to let Teddy win; but the boy was really sharp and could tell when Harry didn't try. With energy, Teddy's hair had turned brightest green-yellow. As the two boys ran through the yard, Teddy ran up the steps and burst through the door.

Harry shouted behind him "Teddy, no! That's rude. You should wait outside!" But it was too late; he ran up behind the boy and swooped him up into his arms. "You little wolfy." Harry said lovingly.

"Harry, dear. Oh, and you've brought little Teddy Lupin I see. When he heard the loving voice, he looked up and saw Mrs. Weasley there with her arms outstretched to envelope the two in her warm hug. Harry went, and allowed her to wrap her arms around, and then has she let go, Harry handed Teddy off to her so she could bestow some of her love onto him.

"Sorry, Mrs. Weasley, he just ran. I tried to stop him."

"Oh Harry, dear. Don't worry about it! It's so lovely to have a child running through this house again. It's been ages! Well, how old are Ron and Ginny? Nineteen and seventeen, it's been that many years. I can't believe it myself. It feels like just yesterday that Bill was born, then Charlie, then Percy, then-" But she broke off, Harry knew that she was about to say the twin's names. That couldn't be easy. For she, like Andromeda, had lost a child. "I can't wait until Bill and Fleur have children! Of course, they're the only ones old enough, or even married." She said, clearly implying something about her youngest child. But Teddy could sense the sorrow and his hair began fading to a soft blue. Mrs. Weasley, who had seen this happen a dozen times, didn't even react to the shift.

"Is Fleur pregnant than?" Harry asked, amazement and excitement showing through his face, Ginny hadn't even mentioned anything to him.

"Oh goodness no, no. Not yet at any rate, but they really want kids you know. They've already got names and nursery colors picked out. I wouldn't be surprised if they're pregnant within the year."

Teddy looked up at Harry, only to see the latter giving him a fake-stern look. The effect was somewhat ruined by the corners of the godfather's mouth slightly twitching upwards. But Teddy still looked mildly offended as he continued to stare into Harry's face.

"Tell Mrs. Weasley that you're sorry."

"Sowey?" He said, clearly confused.

"Sorry for rudely running into her house and opening the door without knocking. Its okay, you can just say 'sorry.'"

"Sowey miss weezey."

"It's okay deary," she said patting his back and tickling under his chin, "Harry, don't be hard on him, especially not today." And as she said this, she trailed off, and Harry could see the tears in her eyes.

"Mrs. Weasley-" but he was interrupted by Ron shouting:

"Harry! You're here!" Harry gave Mrs. Weasley a look that he hoped conveyed how sorry he was for the loss of her son. She nodded and gave him a small smile, which he took as a good sign. "Hermione, come down! Harry's here!"

"You're not living here? Are you?"

"Nah, we've gotten a small flat in London, but we decided, under the circumstances, that we'd come and spend the weekend with Mum and Dad. Bill and Fleur; Charlie and his girlfriend, Sarah; Percy and his fiancée, Audrey; and George and Angelina are on their way here too," Ron said, ticking them off on his fingers as he went.

Teddy had only seen Ron and Hermione a few times, and certainly not enough to really recognize their faces. Harry and Teddy came around so often to the Weasley's; he was able to recognize Molly and Arthur. He took well to new people, (he even took well to Kreacher, which was brilliant thought Harry because it turned out that Kreacher was great with kids!) but he insisted on being with Harry any time he met them. Because he was now nervous about Ron, Teddy had turned his entire face into a near perfect replica of Harry's. He had untidy jet-black hair, and emerald green eyes. The only thing missing was a lightning bold shaped scar on his forehead. But both of their hair was long enough to cover it.

"Wow," Ron said in amazement. "Creepy."

"Yeah, it is, just a bit." Harry said looking into a younger-looking version of him.

Hermione came down the stairs and stopped just short of the little grouping in the kitchen and did a double take at the two Harrys standing there.

"Harry, what the-?" She trailed off, unable to think of any words to describe the sight before her.

"Hey Hermione, oh this, right: He's a metamorphmargus, just like his mum, and, well, because he hasn't really seen you and Ron that much, he doesn't remember you. Whenever he meets new people he changes the way that he looks. Usually he makes himself look like me. I'm not quite sure why. I think it's because I'm around him most, except for Andromeda of course, and he feel safe looking like me. I also think it's because he can tell that you lot like me, (at least I hope you do) and he thinks that if he looks like me, than you'll like him too. He's a bright kid," Harry added affectionately.

"Pratt." Ron aimed sarcastically at Harry.

"Wow Harry, you really get him. And of course we like you, how could you even say something like that? Well, I'd like to see what he really looks like." Hermione said looking to the miniature-Harry. Now addressing him, she said, "Hello Teddy," at this Teddy looked up at Harry who nodded reassuringly, "I'm you're Auntie Hermione, I don't know if you remember me, but I'm a good friend of Harry's. I promise I won't hurt you. I just want to see what you really look like." She finished with a kind smile at the boy.

Teddy looked back up at Harry. "It's okay Teddy, you can look like yourself. I promise, they won't hurt you, or me." At the sound of Harry's calming, steady voice, Teddy started morphing back into himself. He face changed, his eyes went back to their deep, chocolate brown, and his hair changed to auburn.

"Oh Harry!" Hermione exclaimed. "He's so cute, and he's gotten so big! Can I hold him?" Ron and Harry both laughed at her sudden burst of joy.

Fighting through his laughter, Harry said "It's not my choice Hermione, ask him."

"What-? I-. Ask him? Harry, he's only thirteen months old. Well, okay then." she faltered under the exasperated look he gave her. "Umm—Alright—Umm. Teddy, could I hold you, please?" Again, Teddy looked up at Harry. Who again nodded and smiled reassuringly and handed Teddy to Hermione where at first he looked a little taken aback, and shocked that Harry would just hand him off to someone. But after about a minute he looked fine. She began to rock him and slowly, his eyes began to close, and he looked very peaceful in her arms. Ron looked at her as though he could not see anything else, like a sight he had never seen before, and would only get one chance to take all that was in front of him in.

Mrs. Weasley walked out of the room, and as she left they heard her stifle a sob. "Lunch-" she paused in the doorway. "Lunch will be ready in half-an-hour."

Hermione handed Teddy, who was now sleeping soundly, back to Harry, and together the three of them climbed the stairs up to Ron's attic bedroom. Harry paused on the landing where Ginny's bedroom door was open. He looked into her room and out her window. It seemed like a millennia ago when they had stood there kissing in her sunlit room on his seventeenth birthday. Now, things were different. Her brother had died, now he was her teacher, they were raising a child. Things had changed so much since that first day that Harry saw Ginny at King's Cross Station. During the school week, they couldn't be seen together. But on those Hogsmead weekends, when they could get time away together, and on holidays, they spent every moment together. Teddy loved Ginny, and in turn, she cared very much for him.

"Oy! Are you coming?" Came Ron's voice from a few flights up. Unconsciously, Harry looked down to make sure that Teddy was still sleeping. He was fine; in Harry's arms Teddy rolled a little to curl more into Harry's chest.

Pulling himself out of his reverie, he answered, "Yeah, sorry, I'm on my way." Sitting up in Ron's room it felt just like the old days. But once again, things were different now; they were no longer plotting for future adventures, but regaling old ones and catching up on what had happened in this lost time. Ron and Hermione were living together in London—which Mrs. Weasley severely disapproved of—and were both working at the Ministry of Magic. Harry was a godfather, but he felt like so much more. Ginny was almost done school, and when she was, Harry was planning on leaving and getting a house. Fred was dead. Sirius was dead. Dumbledore was dead. Hedwig was dead. Lupin was dead. Tonks was dead. Things were, after all, very different. But some good had come out of all the mess. Ron and Hermione had fallen in love, and Harry couldn't be happier for them. Harry now had a beautiful girlfriend, and an adorable godson whom he loved very much and tried to spend as much time with as possible. Again, Ron and Hermione talking pulled Harry out of his thoughts. Harry tucked Teddy into the old camp bed that he himself used to sleep on when he would stay at the Weasley's. Ron and Hermione told him all about their apartment, and Bill and Fleur's house and redecoration, and about how George got together with Harry's old quiditch captain, and Percy was now engaged to Audry, and how Charlie had taken over the dragon operation that he worked for in Romania along with the owner's daughter, Sarah. Harry, in turn, filled them in all about the on goings at Hogwarts, and Ginny and Luna, and how Teddy and Andromeda were doing and how Neville had come up to the school once to interview for professor Sprout's assistant. It was all day-to-day things, but it kept the conversations away from what they were all trying to avoid thinking about: May 2, 1998.

Behind him, Harry could hear Teddy rolling around on the camp bed, and without thinking, he got up, walked over to him, and began rubbing his back to get him to fall back to sleep.

"Harry, you've really turned into a parent, haven't you?" Hermione said impressed.

"Not really, I only get to see him on the weekends. I wish I could see him more, but McGonagall really needs someone right now, she's working on finding someone for next year, but it's hard. You know? But you should see Ginny with him. She's brilliant! Teddy never even changed the first time he met her. It's amazing; I've never seen him take to someone the way he does with her. She's going to make a great-"

"Don't say it!" Ron said, a little louder than necessary.

"Ron." Hermione reprimanded, "Shhh... You'll wake him." She said in hushed tones pointing at Teddy.

"Don't say what?" Harry said with a slight smirk.

"You know exactly what. That's my sister you're still talking about. My baby sister! I don't want to think about her—. About you—. About you and her—. About—" but he couldn't finish plainly too disgusted about the thought of his baby sister and best friend raising a child together.

"Mother." Hermione said complacently.

"You really had to say it, didn't you?" Ron said with a slightly disgruntled, slightly amused look on his face.

"Lunch!" Mrs. Weasley called from downstairs.

Hermione glanced at the sleeping baby. "Harry, what do we do with him?"

In his sleep, Teddy's hair had turned a deep midnight blue, like it always did when he had sweet dreams. Harry was reminded of Dumbledore's words from his third year at Hogwarts, "Let him sleep, for in our dreams we enter a world completely our own." "We'll leave him up here, he should be fine. He'll call me when he wakes up. Not to worry." Harry said getting up and tucking him in more securely. He pointed his wand at the bed and whispered "Protego," as he got up and walked towards the door where the other two followed him.

"Harry, why did you do that?" Hermione asked.

"Two reasons: 1. So he doesn't fall off the bed, and 2. One time I left him in his bed in his room and someone, an ex-deatheater, I think, broke into the house and into his room. It was one of the scariest things of my life, and I was able to get the deatheater out and all, but unfortunately for Teddy, I am still Harry Potter, and that is a death eater specialty: go after those whom I love. It worked when I was twelve, why should it stop working now." Harry remembered rushing into the Chamber of Secrets and seeing Ginny lying on the ground, presumably dead, and about how much it had terrified him then to see her life threatened. If anything, his protective nature had grown one hundred-fold. Even with all that Harry had been through, seeing his godson being threatened like that scared him possibly more than he had ever been scared in his life. He saw the look on Hermione's face when Harry had mentioned almost losing someone he loved when he was twelve. She knew who all had been hurt that year, his best friend, and the girl who would grow up to be his girlfriend.

"That is scary," was all that Hermione could say.

"This is really creepy mate, seeing you all fatherly-like and all."

"I know. But it all just sort of fell into place, it just feels natural to me. I never really have to think when I'm with him."

"How was it this morning?" Hermione asked, with a little too much understanding in her voice.

"It was fine. Andromeda got choked up. After she left, I did too. He doesn't really know what's going on, but he will one day. He will, one day," Harry repeated, more softly this time, falling silent and gathering his thoughts. "And I think he'll really appreciate that he's been going there since he was a kid. It was sad though. I miss Remus. I hate that we fought so shortly before—you know."

"Well, you're all grown up now aren't you Harry?"

"What about you guys! You sound like you're pretty grown up yourselves. Hermione, you working at in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and Ron training to become an auror." After lunch and just before dinner, they were all planning on going to the cemetery where Fred was buried. After the Second Wizarding War had ended, May 2nd had become an official school holiday, so Ginny was going to come in by floo powder just for a few days to go to the grave and see where Fred lay.

They went downstairs only to see Mrs. Weasley wiping her face again with a dishrag and setting the food out on the table.