"You spend an awful lot of time with Professor Lupin," Luna said. It was a flat statement where others might have been snide, or coy, but snideness and coyness was not in her nature. It was what Ginny liked about Luna, she was upfront and often deeply insightful.

"I like being around him," she said. "He gets what it's like to have lost someone – sorry," she added, remembering that Luna had witnessed her mother's death as a young girl, even if she hadn't lost someone close to her in the recent war like she and Lupin had.

"That's quite alright," Luna said in her sweet, sing-song voice, seeming to understand completely that her pain, after almost ten years, had receded somewhat when so many people's were still very raw. "Does he let you hold Teddy?"

Teddy Lupin was proving to be almost as popular an addition to DADA as his father. Lupin kept the boy with him at all times, except for the days around the full moon when Andromeda had him. The little boy was remarkably well-behaved – especially, Lupin often joked, since his mother had demonstrated a singular inability to behave – and seemed to know instinctively when his dad was teaching and limited his need to be fed, changed or petty to a minimum. Not that anyone particularly minded when Teddy wanted to be fed or petted; it was quite endearing to see Lupin sitting on his desk, teaching the class at the same time as he'd have his son in his arms, feeding him, or maybe just tickling his stomach and making him gurgle with delight. Everyone wanted to hold and pet him, but he was extremely protective of Teddy. So when Ginny nodded that Lupin let her hold Teddy, Luna was clearly jealous. "He's so pedantic though, he makes me so nervous," she added.

"I don't think I could feel nervous around him," Luna said. "He's got such a kind heart. It's so tragic that he had so little time with his wife."

Ginny murmured her agreement absently. She had taken to knocking on the door to his rooms before entering after she had walked in to find him sobbing brokenly over Tonks. It had been so raw, so private a grief that it had dwarfed what she felt for Fred.

She said goodbye to Luna and dropped by Lupin's rooms. He had done remarkably well to make them look homey, given they were in the basement close to the DADA teaching rooms. She knocked and he called, "Come in." She let herself in and was welcome with a smile. "Hi, Ginny. "I was just making some tea. Would you like some?"

Suddenly a nice hot cup of tea seemed the perfect thing for a chilly day in the chilly basement. "Don't you get cold in here?" she asked, taking note of the thin – long-sleeved, to hide the scars on his arms, but thin nonetheless – shirt that he was wearing... and the fact Teddy was rugged up in a warm romper suit and blanket.

"My body temperature runs higher than human, so I feel the cold less," he explained casually, as well he might, since his different physiology to humans was something he had long become used to.

Ginny, however, had never heard of it; as far as she knew, Bill had never experienced any change beyond his enjoyment of very rare steaks. "Really?" she asked, and before she had thought it through, she went to put her hand on his chest. He flinched slightly. "Sorry," she said.

"It's fine. I just haven't been touched by a woman since Tonks. And that's not going to do anything. Here, if you're so interested – " He removed her hand from her chest and used his free hand to unbutton his shirt. He slid her hand inside her shirt. "See, feel?" he asked.

He didn't know why he had done it. He should never have allowed Ginny to get close enough that she felt she was at liberty to touch him like that – and he certainly shouldn't have encouraged her by moving her hand from his shirt to his bare-skinned chest. But he liked having her around and it had felt natural to move her hand when she'd expressed a curiosity and – "Wow, you're hearts going crazy," she marvelled.

He removed her hand before it went even crazier. "Don't flatter yourself, that isn't your doing," he told a semi-truth. "My heart always goes faster." He moved away from her, grateful for the whistling of the kettle. He started brewing tea.

She picked Teddy up from his crib. He gurgled when he recognised her and reached out a tiny fist to tug at her hair. "Ouch!" she cried, feeling her hair pull out at the roots.

"Yeah, he does that," Lupin said. "I suggest you keep your hair back next time." She pulled a hair lackey out of her pocket and tried in vain to tie her hair back while holding onto Teddy. "Here," Lupin said. She thought he was going to take his son off her, but instead he pulled her hair back behind her head and tied it loosely. Then he handed her a steaming cup of tea. "Thanks," she said, sipping it gratefully. It warmed her up instantly. "You make a good cup."

He took his own cup and pulled up a chair a little bit away from her, watching her with his son intently – so intently that Ginny felt the heat of his gaze on her and squirmed. "Sorry," he said when he realised he was making her uncomfortable. "But everytime I see him with you I'm reminded that he's never going to know her."

"Do you have any regrets?" she asked.

"More than I can tell you. I regret not making her understand that it was in everyone's best interest for her to stay at home. But mostly what I regret is not being with her when she first came to me. It was just after Sirius died, you know. I'd been holding her at arm's length for a year but I was so lonely and I took her to bed... then held her at arm's length for another year until she went batshit at me over Bill. Then I walked out on her when I found out she was pregnant. That's almost three years I could have had with her, instead of a few weeks."

"I'm so sorry," she said. It made her own heartache over Harry seem so trivial.

Harry accepted the warm embrace of the man he had come to consider an uncle-figure joyously. Lupin was looking good – well, as good as a man who was clearly still deep in grief for his wife could be. A steady job with decent pay had done a lot for him. And having Teddy to live for must have done wonders.

He peered into the pram that Teddy lay in, asleep. "Hey, kiddo," he cooed at the sleeping baby. "How's he handling Hogwarts?"

"Really well, you never saw such a well-behaved boy. I only wish he'd wake up, he doesn't get as much fresh air as I would like." The two men had met at the Three Broomsticks Pub, and Lupin had insisted in sitting outside despite the chill in the air – Teddy was well-rugged up anyway – so the boy could enjoy the clean, crisp air, even asleep.

"I hope he wakes up before I go. Not much point in being his godfather if I can't interact with him."

The two men chatted briefly about Harry's travels – he had been over most of Europe, hailed as a hero. Seeing the world had been good for him, Lupin thought. "What I really want to do is become an Auror," Harry admitted. The thought had been in his head for the last three and a half years, since Alastor Moody – who had actually been Barty Crouch Junior – had mentioned it. Even though that Moody had turned out to be a fraud, he had never been able to let go of the idea. "But they take hardly anyone."

"I think you'll find they have a massive hole in their ranks," Lupin said dryly – Tonks had been one of the many Aurors who had died in the war. "I can talk to Andromeda for you if you like. She still has a lot of clout with the Ministry." Particularly now that Bellatrix was dead and Narcissa in disgrace, Andromeda was the only Black left and therefor her opinion held a lot of sway.

"You would do that? I thought she hated you," Harry said in surprise.

"Hate is too strong a word... try disgust that her only grandchild is being raised by a werewolf," Lupin said dryly. "But she loved Teddy, and she'll do a lot if I offer her an extra weekend with him in exchange. Besides, she knows it's in all four of our best interests for you to be able to support Teddy in the way she and Tonks were used to. I think she'll actually love the idea of his godfather being an Auror. It's a very respectable job."

Harry flashed Lupin a grateful smile. "I'd appreciate that," he said.

Teddy stirred, and Lupin lifted him out of his pram and handed him to Harry. Looking surprised, Harry picked a single long red hair off his blanket. "Ah, that would be Ginny," Lupin explained. "He has a thing for grabbing long hair. Probably would have scalped her if he'd had the opportunity."

"You – er – see a lot of her then?" Harry asked in surprised.

"No more than any other of my students," Lupin found himself lying, because he didn't care to explain to Harry that he saw his ex almost every other day. "She likes Teddy and she likes talking about Fred. It's really hard for her, being separated from everyone at a time like this. Molly would probably have been better off having her privately tutored, but she believed it was her duty to keep the Hogwarts tradition alive."

"Sounds like Molly," Harry mused. "I bet she's sorry she doesn't have any more kids to send along." There was a long pause, then Harry asked. "Does – does she ever talk about me?"

"A little. You really hurt her."

Harry squirmed. "I didn't mean to. Things just sort of... happened."

"Harry, for what it's worth, I think both of you were too young to settle down. I can tell just looking at you how good being single and travelling has been for you. But you can't deny you went a lousy way about it. I've no doubt she would have understood eventually if you'd been upfront about how you felt. But it's a hell of a lot harder to get over being cheated on."

Harry squirmed some more. "I know. And I'm sorry. Can you – can you tell her that?"

"You should really tell her yourself," Lupin said pointedly. Harry looked terrified at the thought, which amused him somewhat, but also made a kind of sense. Given the choice between facing Voldermort and facing the Weasley temper, chances were, he would take Voldermort, too. "Fine, I'll talk to her. But don't blame me if it only makes things worse."

Ginny picked up a birthday card that she recognised as being written by Harry. "You've seen him?" she asked.

Now, Lupin found himself squirming. He'd been hoping to tell her more gently. "Um, yeah," he said. She started to flare. "Wipe that look off your face," he said shortly. "He's Teddy's godfather. Without him, do you know who's Teddy's next of kin after me and Andromeda?"

"Narcissa and Draco," Ginny said in a small voice.

"Exactly. Narcissa and Malfoy. I know he hurt you and you know I'm fond of you, but if I have to choose between your happiness and Teddy's security, it will always be Teddy."

"I know," she said in a small voice.

"Here." He took her by the waist and led her to the couch. "Sit down, I'll get you some chocolate." He returned in a minute with a giant slab of chocolate and two bottles of butterbeer. "For the love of Merlin, don't tell McGonagall I had you drinking in my rooms, but I think you need it."

Gratefully, Ginny took a long sip. "Thankyou," she said. "I'm sorry if I acted like a brat. I know you want what's best for Teddy. And he's a good godfather. Teddy will always be OK with him."

"I know, that's why we chose him. But that doesn't mean I don't value your friendship, too."

"I – friendship?"

"Yes, friendship. I like to think that we're friends, at least in these rooms."

She smiled tearily at him. She loved the idea of having a friend in him – even just in these rooms. "Thanks," she said.

But she couldn't tell him how upset she had been to know that Lupin had been seeing Harry. It broke her heart all over again. She had known that Harry was Teddy's godfather, so naturally it meant that the two men would be seeing a lot of each other, but there was a difference between knowing that and seeing cards from Harry lying around in Lupin's possessions.

She didn't want to be around her classmates. She didn't want to be around anyone, not even Lupin. Especially not Lupin. And then it occurred to her: Hagrid had gone to France for a few weeks over the Christmas holidays to spend time with Olympie Maxine, which meant his hut would be empty. She got hide out there until her heart felt less broken...

..."Remus? Something up?" McGonagall asked him over dinner. Lupin always made an appearance for dinner, though he preferred to cook in his own rooms after he was free to leave; left to his own devices, he preferred meat uncooked, although he was too aware of social conventions to demonstrate that preference in public. So the compromise was that he show up for the beginning of each meal and eat in private before or after.

"Just think about Harry. I saw him the other day," Lupin said, trying to keep an eye on the window and the figure walking towards what he assumed was Hagrid's cabin in the red robes of Gryffindor discreetly enough that McGonagall wouldn't know what he was doing. If Ginny was going to Hagrid's cabin knowing full well that he wasn't there – he had mentioned it himself – then she had good reason, and he wanted to investigate it before McGonagall did.

"How's he doing?"

"Well. He loved travelling, it's done him so much good to see a world outside of London and Hogwarts." He kept sight of Ginny out of the corner of his eyes. Maybe she'd been more upset than he'd thought. Damn, he should have paid for attention. He made his excuses as soon as he could, then exited out of the castle and headed towards Hagrid's cabin...

... She stumbled in the thick drift of snow, her House cloak no match for the weather. She felt the tears stream down her face, starting out warm than quickly going icy in the fierce wind. She stumbled again and felt her knees knuckle and for the life of her, couldn't will them to straighten and keep walking...

... A few minutes later, Lupin scooped her up out of the snow. "You'd better have a damn good reason for being out here in this weather," he growled. He could feel the cold in thick winter gear and his higher body temperature that provided a natural insulation, so she had to be chilled to the bone in nothing but jeans, a t-shirt and her House cloak. He carried her into Hagrid's cabin, deciding that it was best to shelter there, at least until she warmed up, then take her back to the castle.

The snow had soaked her clothes right through. He stripped her of her cloak and ran a basic drying spell on her, but she started to shiver violently. He started a blazing fire in the fireplace and moved her in front of it, backing against her and propping her up in his arms so she wouldn't collapse. "C'mon, love," he coaxed. "Wake up." He threaded his fingers through hers. "At least try and squeeze my hand." To his relief, Ginny squeezed his hand weakly. "Good girl. Now wake up." Instead, she started shivering even more violently.

He remembered how he had driven Tonks bonkers the way he would always kick the blankets off, and they resolved the problem in the brief time they had been together by cuddling up to her and keeping her warm that way. "I'm really sorry about this, love," he whispered. Procuring a blanket, he awkwardly undid Ginny's shirt under the blanket, taking great care to touch her as little as possible, then undid the front of his shirt so he could press his bare chest directly against her bare back. He was grateful at least that she was wearing a bra.

Her skin was icy. Slowly, from the combination of the blanket, the fire and his body heat, he felt her warming up and her breathing regulate. "Good girl," he said. He felt a strong urge to run his mouth through her hair the way he did when Tonks was spooned in his arms and berated his body for reacting to intimacy – no, just physical proximity – with a woman – no, a girl. "Now just come to and I'll take you back to the castle." He stayed with her for a while before he started to feel fatigued. He reasoned that it was too hot for him to sleep properly, so if he just closed his eyes for a minute or two while waiting for her to warm up, it would be OK...