Teddy Lupin had a lot of friends. He had aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents, he had a godfather, and maybe you could even say he had brothers and sisters if you wanted to push it, but what he didn't have were parents, not really. For Teddy's parents had long ago become memories, not his own of course, but other peoples which he fed off hungrily. You see, to Teddy, dad was the man who held him in a photograph or waved from the ranks of the order of the Phoenix. He was a name in old school and ministry records, and he tended to hold a starring role in many of the stories that were told to him by Harry, or Ron, or Bill or any other family member to whom he wasn't related, not really. To Teddy, Remus Lupin was his love of knowledge and books, his mild temper and his cool head.

To Teddy, mom was two and a half decades of photo albums and letters and an assortment of awards and achievements from her days in the ministry. To Teddy, Nymphadora Tonks was the sadness he saw in his grandmother's eyes, the violet color that he liked to keep his hair, and the way he had a tendency to trip over things, even when he was standing still.

To Teddy Lupin, parents meant lying in the grass in a quiet graveyard, tracing the words on the matching gravestones with a thin finger and wondering what it was like to die.