Author's Note: All right, guys, this is the last chapter. I want to give a huge thanks to everyone who's read, favorited, and followed this story. And I want to give an extra huge thanks to Aenlu, Alicia Olivia Mirza, Chinagirl18, faerieMagic07, Gerenuk, Liz Merryfeather, Rose of the West, Snarky64, and VlightPhase (I hope that last chapter didn't break you) for the reviews. I hope you've all enjoyed the story, and that the sad parts didn't make you too sad. Look for the helpers - Fred Rogers.
Chapter 25: May 2nd, 1998, 7:28 am
Teddy finally settled sometime in the small hours, but Andromeda never did. She spent half the night pacing and the other half wondering where Kreacher had gone. An hour or so after daybreak a Patronus appeared in the middle of the sitting room. Molly Weasley's.
"It's over. Harry won. You should come to Hogwarts."
There was something in Molly's transported voice that made her think that it was not all good news. Careful not to wake him, Andromeda transferred Teddy to a sling that she strapped to her chest, and tried not to wonder why neither Nymphadora nor Remus had been the one to send her the all clear.
"Kreacher? Are you there?" Andromeda called.
No response.
"It's all right, I can walk."
Had the house ever been left completely unoccupied since the coup? Andromeda didn't think so. Not until now. She shut the door and Apparated to Hogsmeade.
The gates leading to Hogwarts were destroyed, melted, and were those footprints made by giants? What had happened here?
She only made it a few steps onto the grounds before a Mediwizard stopped her with a hand on her elbow.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am, you can't go in there."
"I'm with the Order of the Phoenix."
"Please wait in Hogsmeade."
"My daughter and son-in-law are in there."
"It's all right, Timothy, she's with me."
Andromeda turned and saw Kingsley striding down the broken path toward them. He had a thick dressing on his temple and burns all over, but walked with his usual grace and energy.
"Thank you," Andromeda said, pulling her elbow free and falling into step beside Kingsley.
"Molly said you might be coming."
"She said we won?"
Kingsley filled her in on as much as he knew as they walked the mile or so to the castle. It seemed incredible, close to nonsensical. Voldemort's wand had decided not to kill Harry? Could that possibly be true? She needed the story from the beginning, but for the moment she was more interested in what Kingsley was not saying. The closer they got to Hogwarts, the more obvious it became that one of the toughest men she knew was afraid to tell her something. Her legs started to fail her. Kingsley had to give her his elbow.
"They're dead, aren't they? Nymphadora and Remus."
"I'm sorry, Andromeda. They're heroes…"
"I know."
Andromeda found her feet again and hurried ahead, scrambled up the rubble that stood where the stairs to the entrance had been, through another set of ruined doors, guessed right when she saw the amount of activity in the Great Hall, spotted them both easily, laying side by side near the center of the room. Not a mark on them, even when she approached. It must have been quick.
Nymphadora's hair had reverted to its natural brown. Andromeda worked out the spell under her breath, then dyed her daughter's hair back to its customary purple. She thought she got the shade just about right.
"Teddy," she said, lifting the stirring infant. "Look carefully. Try to remember. These are your parents. They died so the world would be safer for you. It's okay to be sad, but don't be afraid. I'm going to take care of you now."
Only then did she let herself sink to her knees at their sides and sob into Nymphadora's shoulder.
"Miss Andromeda?"
She didn't know how long she'd stayed that way. It might have been a minute or a year, but Kreacher seemed to know that it had been enough. She looked up into his round eyes.
"Kreacher, is this where you went? Are you all right?"
She reached out and touched the bandage around his head. It seemed to be holding one of his ears in place.
"Kreacher is fine. Kreacher fetched back fighters from France and rallied the Hogwarts elves against You-Know-Who. Now we are helping."
"You're always helping," Andromeda replied. "Thank you."
"Kreacher will miss Miss Nymphadora and Mister Remus. Kreacher was too late to help them."
"I'll miss them too." Did he mean that he had been the one to find them and bring them to the Great Hall?
"Kreacher can sit with Miss Andromeda?"
"Of course."
The Mediwizards were still busy with the wounded. How long did she have before they moved on to the dead?
"Andromeda?"
She spun as quickly as she could on her stiffening knees, trying not to disturb Teddy. Narcissa was standing near Remus's side. Andromeda tried not to look surprised to see her there, unshackled.
"Narcissa?"
"I'm sorry for your losses."
Andromeda felt a surge of anger and tried to ignore it. There was no accounting for luck. She glanced past her sister and spotted Draco and Lucius in a far corner, trying to look unobtrusive. Had they turned their coats? Must have done.
"Thank you."
"If you need anything."
"I'm fine."
"All right," Narcissa said. "Thank you for your help. You may have saved Draco's life."
Andromeda couldn't see how that might be. Maybe she would pursue it later. For now she didn't care.
"Bellatrix was captured," Narcissa continued. "I'm going to make sure she can never escape again."
There was a time when a statement like that would have sent Andromeda into her room. No longer.
"Tell her I'm not scared of her anymore."
"Well she still terrifies me."
"Narcissa, I'd rather be alone right now."
"I understand." And she must have. She left.
When she was dry eyed again, Andromeda looked around the Great Hall. She was not the only one keeping watch beside a fallen warrior that day. Not far away, all of the Weasleys stood, sat, or kneeled in a tight knot. Andromeda's heart fell, but she could not make out who they had lost, only his or her shoes were visible. Perhaps she ought to go and offer her condolences, but she could not seem to get her feet to move for the moment. Instead, Fleur eventually noticed her watching and tapped Bill on the shoulder. Leaning on each other, they wobbled over to her.
"Bill, Fleur," Andromeda greeted. "Are you…"
What a ridiculous thing to ask. Was anyone all right?
"It's Fred…" Bill began but could not finish.
"…Zhere was an explosion." Fleur finished but could not begin.
"I'm so sorry." An insufficient thing to say. "You must be devastated. George…is George…"
At first she thought she could not begin to imagine how it must feel to lose a twin, like a piece of herself. But then she looked at Nymphadora and thought that of course she could.
Bill and Fleur glanced at each other.
"I will stay with you, Andromeda," Fleur said. "You should not be alone."
"I…thank you…but you should be with your family."
"You are family," Bill replied. That wrung a few more tears out of Andromeda.
"I'll stay, Bill."
Andromeda looked up again and found that Dean had appeared next to them.
"Dean, I'm glad you're okay," Andromeda said, scrubbing at her cheeks. "It's good to see you."
"Thanks. I…uh…" He pulled a wand from his pocket and rolled it between his hands. "I lost my wand before the battle. This is Professor Lupin's. I hope he wouldn't have minded that I borrowed it, but maybe it's Teddy's now."
Andromeda felt a brief surge of panic, but Nymphadora's wand was still caught in her limp hand.
Perhaps because of her reaction, Dean knelt immediately to tuck Remus's wand back into his pocket, but Andromeda caught his arm before he could.
"Did his wand work for you?"
"Well, yes," Dean said.
"Then you should keep it."
"Are…are you sure?"
"Yes," Andromeda said. And she was. "Who knows how long it will take for Ollivander's to reopen. You need a wand. That one is yours for as long as you need it. Forever, even. I'm sure Remus would want it that way."
"All right," Dean said, pocketing the wand reverently. "Thank you. Should I sit with you for awhile? Or maybe I should get Luna, she's better at this than me."
"No. Thank you, Dean, but I would rather just be by myself."
"Okay." He stooped and placed a hand on Remus's shoulder, then moved on.
And it was just Andromeda, Kreacher, and Teddy again. From time to time someone would touch her on the shoulder and offer their condolences, she would thank them, and they would continue on. Once Kreacher disappeared to the kitchens and returned with some milk for Teddy. Eventually, Andromeda started to wonder if she ought to stand and offer her services to those who could still benefit from them, as Kreacher sometimes did, but in the end she always stayed where she was. Nymphadora and Remus had no one but each other right now, and her.
Gradually, Andromeda became aware of a change in activity in the Great Hall and concluded that the Mediwizards must have finished with the wounded and were starting to move the dead. She looked hard at Nymphadora and Remus, trying to remember everything about them.
"Just a moment," she said to the dark haired young man who crossed from the cluster of Weasleys and knelt in her peripheral vision at Remus's side.
"Master Harry!" Kreacher exclaimed.
Andromeda looked up in surprise. Harry was almost unrecognizable compared to the boy she had briefly met after his escape from Privet Drive about a thousand years ago.
"Hi Kreacher," Harry replied, shaking the House Elf's hand. "It's good to see you. Thank you and the other House Elves for your help."
"It was nothing," Kreacher said bashfully.
"It wasn't," Harry said, then he turned to Remus but spoke to Andromeda. "Remus helped me, I can't even explain how much he helped me. I don't know how to repay that. I'm sorry he died, he and Tonks."
"You helped him too," Andromeda replied, remembering Remus's own moment of crisis. "And…" How could she possibly express her gratitude to him? Words like 'thank you' were not built for people who saved the world. "Thank you."
It was all she had. He seemed to understand.
"I don't know if Remus told you this, but…" he broke off with an inward smile, as though something he had said sounded familiar to him. "…but he asked me to be Teddy's godfather, and I accepted."
"He told me."
"Well, I don't really know how to be someone's godfather," Harry continued, "but if you need anything…babysitter…or…I have money…actually, maybe I don't anymore, but…"
Andromeda stilled him with a hand on his wrist. Was it odd that the person who had just defeated Voldemort was now offering to babysit for her?
"Would you like to hold him?"
"Yes!"
Andromeda let him get settled, showed him the proper way to hold an infant, then passed Teddy over to him. They seemed to take to each other immediately; Teddy even turned his hair green for Harry's benefit.
In time, Ginny wandered over. She lingered at Tonks's side for a moment, but with her own brother to mourn it seemed that she had no tears left. Instead, she sat down next to Harry, leaned her head on his shoulder, and ran a gentle finger over the top of Teddy's head. Even amongst all this death, it made a pretty picture, the way life did.
"Well, Teddy, what did you think of your first real day of school?" Andromeda asked after shutting the door behind the last student and his father.
Teddy shrugged and started helping to clean up the parchment and textbooks. "It was the same as all those other days of school, Nana."
Andromeda had been afraid of that. Even though he was only now old enough to be an official student, Teddy had been attending her school in some capacity since he was four months old, and he was Remus's son. It shouldn't have surprised her that he already grasped concepts far beyond his grade level. Not for the first time, Andromeda wondered if she ought to send him someplace else for his pre-Hogwarts schooling, just for the variety of it. Maybe next year.
"What's for dinner?" Teddy asked.
"Harry and Ginny invited us over, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. Will Uncle George and Aunt Angelina be there?"
"I don't know, but maybe. Harry said that he and Ginny wanted to make an announcement, maybe a lot of people will be there."
"Oh, good. Uncle George always brings fun things to play with." Then Teddy made a face. It stuck. Nymphadora used to do that. "I hope Aunt Ginny doesn't make that casserole stuff again."
"It was shepherd's pie," Andromeda replied. "And if you tell Ginny you don't like her cooking you'll have me to answer to. She's trying, and she's getting better, and it's harder than it looks. Understood?"
"Understood." The tips of Teddy's hair turned blue when he said it, and Andromeda had to look away. She hated being harsh with him.
"Do you want a snack?"
"I'm gonna see if Kreacher's in the garden."
Andromeda joined him outside a few minutes later with a plate of apple slices and peanut butter. Kreacher was indeed there; he was helping Teddy add flowers to their small homemade shrines to Ted, Nymphadora, and Remus.
After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry had sworn that he could never give a House Elf another order. He had wanted to free Kreacher, but Kreacher's training went too deep to accept that. It had looked like an impasse, until Harry suggested that Kreacher retire instead, and remain attached to the Potters but free to do what and go where he wished. Kreacher had found that acceptable, and it turned out that the places he wished to go often included Andromeda's back yard. His flower garden had greatly expanded in color, variety, and real estate in the intervening years, completely overtaking Andromeda's abandoned vegetable patch and the former site of the potting shed, and it never went out of bloom, even during the harshest winters. Andromeda didn't mind. She particularly liked the way he had coaxed the ivy up the pedestal of the bird bath, and the wide swing where she had spent many an afternoon with Teddy, and where she sat now.
After a time, Teddy left the shrines to their own devices and came to join Andromeda on the swing, taking an apple slice and a huge glob of peanut butter before passing the plate over to Kreacher. His hair always looked a little brighter after visiting with his parents.
"Nana, will you tell me a story?"
"All right," Andromeda replied, pulling him against her side. "Which one would you like? Babbity Rabbity?"
"No, that's kid stuff."
"Is it now?" She'd had no idea that mattered to him already. "The Wizard of Oz?"
"Nana!"
"Okay then. Have I told you about how Kreacher rescued Muggle-borns from the Ministry?"
"Yes, and so has Kreacher."
"There's the one about your great-grandma, who saved everyone from a fire."
"You told me it yesterday!"
"What about the story of how your parents met?"
"Only about a bajillion times. And Bill's version is better."
Well he had the benefit of being present when it actually happened. "You're not making this very easy. What about the story of how your Dad dealt with being a werewolf?"
"That's not a very happy story."
"But it's an important one. And it's not all sad."
"Mummy helped."
"That's right, she did," Andromeda said, giving him a squeeze. "I have it. Did you know that your Mum figured out how to make herself look like a bug?"
"A bug!" Teddy exclaimed, jumping to his feet so quickly that he upset the forgotten plate of apples and Kreacher had to catch it with magic. "Can I look like a bug too? Can I be bug sized?"
"I don't know, you're the metamorphmagus. Maybe you should start by finding some bugs to impersonate."
"Good idea!" And Teddy raced off among the flowers.
The End