Disclaimer: I own no part of Harry Potter or his universe that honour goes to J.K. Rowling. The chapter title is a Burt Bacarach song even if the first place I heard it was on Glee

A House is not a Home

He jangled the set of keys in his hand to settle his nerves as he walked down the muggle street. He sighed as he thought that he would rather be doing anything else on the planet than this job. He had no choice though, he has to do it for Teddy as he can hardly do it himself and he was damned if he was going to allow Harry to do it with everything else going on with him. It was important as these were the only pieces of Teddy's family he was going to have but that didn't make it easier. So here he was walking towards the Tonks' house. The worst part of it is that as he approaches he can remember the previous time he had been here. A lifetime ago he'd come for Tonks's 17th, it had been his first time travelling like a muggle as apparition and flooing had been disallowed so as not to alert any of Tonks's local friends to magic. He'd been able to hear the music from all the way down the street and people were spilling out of the house in all directions having fun together. Quentin, his boyfriend at the time, had greeted him with a rather large kiss in front of everyone,even Tonks's elderly relatives, that had caused him to laugh and blush brightly. There was none of that now, instead the street is empty and he can hear his heavy boots on the pavement. Fortunately Tonks's had packed up her old flat had been packed up after the news that her father had been killed, which meant that he only had to do this once. Others, he wasn't sure who, had come here in the first couple of days to get the necessities for Teddy but they hadn't removed anything that wasn't directly related to his immediate needs.

When he reached the house the bright red door looked exactly the same as it had before, waiting for it's family to return. He slipped the key in the lock and made his way inside carefully. It had been long enough for a small layer of dust to have formed and the bread and milk to have gone mouldy but not the butter when he looked through the kitchen. He tried to go about it as methodically as possible as he wasn't sure when someone would be back. As legally it was Teddy's but it could not stay empty for the next few years. Currently they were thinking either of selling it and keeping the profits in a trust for when he was older or offering it to Ron and Hermione when they returned from Australia. Personally he thought it was a great plan or at least knew what Harry's long term plans were. He knew that even were capable of making Grimmauld Place truly habitable again Harry would never want to live there. It would be too painful what with his memories of Sirius and the time he had spent hiding there with Ron and Hermione. It was a house filled with far too many ghosts to ever be a home.

The downstairs was relatively simple as he merely went through shrinking what he could and placing it in Hermione's enchanted bag, leaving most of the furniture so the place wouldn't look completely bare. He only slowed down when he got to the photos, both framed and albums, as shrinking could damage them so he put them in his own satchel. Unfortunately the first bedroom he reached at the top of the stairs was Tonks's childhood one. He was immediately drawn to the large number of photos still stuck on the wall and in particular one taken at their graduation party and for reasons that now escape him he's twirling Tonks around as if they're ballroom dancing. However he does know that about a minute after the picture was taken they'd fallen in a heap as Tonks had tripped over her feet and taken him with her. Looking around he can see multiple copies of all his old friends and he can't quite take in how young and carefree they all look. Certainly Harry and his friends, despite being roughly the same age, have never looked this content. It's even weirder to see the different couples people made, sure there were a few like Patrick and Elena who were still together and now that the war was over would probably pop out a sprog or two in the near future but most had gone the way of the dodo. Extinct. Of course even harder were the pictures of those who had died in the war, including Tonks herself. To see who they had been when he could remember what their corpses now looked like. It was not that they had been best friends but they had studied for their Defense NEWT together and were often in the same large group at the three broomsticks but they had never reached the core parts of who each of them were. He had never seen Tonks's true face except in death which hadn't seemed to be her true face at all.

As he took them down carefully it was even harder than he had thought it would be. He almost regretted turning down various well meaning offers to accompany him, particularly his father or Bill. They were the only two, at least until he got together with Harry, he allowed himself to be truly vulnerable in front of. Once he had become a teenager he had struggled against his mother's overprotectiveness and their relationship had always been a little strained ever since particularly after he had moved to Romania doing such a dangerous job. His father, however, had always quietly supported him whether that meant listening to him babble hundreds of Dragon facts to him whilst he took apart muggle contraptions in the shed or the steadfast support he had offered when Charlie turned down the offer of a couple of Quidditch trials to study dragons. He had always thought that they were actually the most similar in character out of all the family. Dedicating their lives to their biggest passion rather than the more worn path. As for Bill he was all you could want in a big brother. They had become particularly close after they had both left home and were no longer on top of each other all the time. During their time off they had often combined resources and travelled magical Europe or Africa rather than return home, much to their mother's consternation.

It eventually got to the point that he had to stop what he was doing because the tears were too thick to see through so instead he just curled up on the bed. It was the first time he had truly let his guard down since the battle, or more honestly Bill's wedding, and now that he had given in, he couldn't seem to stop. Intellectually he knew the tears were healthy and that they were an essential part of the grieving process but that didn't make him feel any better. Eventually he stopped heaved himself back up and returned to his task. Once he had sorted out everything in the room and could move onto, what he hoped were, less emotionally distressing rooms. He had only taken a fraction of the stuff in the room instead he had organised everything to be given to various friends. This was not Tonks the wife and mother but Tonks the slightly crazy teenager and she belonged to others more than she did to her son.

Thankfully the master bedroom gave him a chance to regroup as he had barely known either occupant and someone, probably Andromeda, had already begun to pack up their stuff. There was even a list about what should go to whom at the top it explained that whoever they were hadn't wanted to write a new will with Voldemort being so powerful . He pocketed the belongings left to the Lupins' along with a letter for Teddy and burning the ones to Tonks and Lupin. It was nobody else's right to know what had been written on them. He didn't bother with either bathroom as he knew from the original sweep that no personal belongings were stored there Instead he headed towards the final door on the landing and what must have been the room that Tonks and Lupin had shared.

The room was much less of a gut punch than her old bedroom had been. There was nothing on display that immediately set him off. There were obvious gaps where things like the crib had been but otherwise it was surprisingly tidy almost as if it's occupants had known they wouldn't be returning when they'd rushed off. There seemed to be little of personal value to either just a few paperbacks and their clothes so he realised that the house must either have had a cellar or attic for them to store their stuff in. Going through everything was quick as he took the books and a couple of Lupin's jackets before packing rest of it away to be donated. He didn't want to take them with him he thought that presenting an older Teddy with entirety of his parents wardrobes was a little extreme.

Finally he got to the last area, the attic after he had checked the ceiling for a trap door. He had pulled down the rickety stairs and made his way up only to be surprised by what he saw. . There was not a lot, only three school trunks, but that didn't make it any less heartbreaking or his dread over how exactly he would have to explain this to Harry. Not only was there Lupin's battered trunk but the remaining two were engraved with J.C. Potter and L. M. Evans respectively. He couldn't bare to look inside any of them until Harry could but that didn't stop the irrational burst of anger towards Lupin for keeping them a secret from Harry for so long. When he must have realised how desperate he was to learn more about his parents. He roughly stuffed each of the trunks into the groaning bag but not without noticing a letter to Harry on top of Lupin's. So he plucked it off and shoved it in his pocket as the first thing to give to Harry. Before leaving the house for potentially the last time he washed his face and did a quick look round to make sure that he'd got everything. As he made his way out the door slammed with a satisfying sound and walked away back to an alleyway to safely apparate back to his waiting family.


A/N 2: Sorry for the delay but the blame rests on A) this chapter and the rest of this particular arc needing to be edited together for ,hopefully, coherence and emotional pay-off. B) the fact that this story keeps on growing orginally I had planned it to be about 10-15 chapters max and now I'm already at over 20 either planned or written and there's still more I want to cover and C) me being just a tad lazy in the last couple of weeks.

Also I've been terrible at this so far but thank you all so much if you've taken the time to review/follow/fave this story it makes my day.