Title: Daddy, It's a Death Eater!

Disclaimer: JK Rowling killed two of these characters so obviously, I'm not her and have no ownership of Harry Potter.

Universe: Again in an AU where that Remus and Tonks both live through the Battle at Hogwarts.

Time: About four years after the end of Deathly Hallows

Characters: Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, Teddy Lupin, two OC's

Ships: Remus/Tonks

Genre: Family/Parental Frustration

Summary: Remus Lupin has survived years of lycanthropy and two wizarding wars. How hard can a shopping trip be? With two toddlers. And a baby. Maybe he was better off before having children...

"Daddy, daddy, it's a Death Eater!" Teddy said in that particular whisper only three- and four-year-olds had, the one that was just as loud and conspicuous as a shout but with the obvious intent of being kept quiet. Remus flinched as Hope pressed herself close to his leg, her thumb wandering into her mouth. The man Teddy was oh-so-obviously pointing at was not a Death Eater. He was simply a muggle man with a tattoo on his left forearm, a nice looking man actually. He had a little blonde son, probably around Hope's age, who he was putting inside the seat of a trolley. There was a blonde woman beside him and the couple turned and looked at him with a mixed expression of amusement and camaraderie.

"Teddy, he's not a Death Eater, it's just a regular tattoo," Remus said quietly as the couple and their son walked away. "And this is a muggle shop. You can't say things like that."

"Why?" Teddy asked, his voice entirely full of curiosity.

"Because they didn't know about the war," Remus answered.

"Why?"

"Because it's against the law to tell them," he answered. Teddy seemed to think this was an all right answer as he stopped questioning it. "Hope, it's okay," Remus assured her, putting his hand on her head and brushing back some of the thick brown hair that had fallen over her face. Hope looked up at him, her eyes wide as if to ask if he definitely promised. Her thumb stayed in her mouth but she stepped a little away from him so he was at least capable of walking again. Amata tugged her hat off and dropped it on the floor as if to remind him that she was there too. He winced as her bright purple hair caught the light and he hoped no muggles had seen her. He wasn't entirely certain, but he was fairly sure that usually five-month-old muggle babies didn't sport hair colours that could be found in the rainbow.

"Teddy, could you hand me that?" he asked and his son nodded eagerly and handed up the hat. Teddy was, thankfully, quite proud of his own hat. At four, Teddy had more control than his baby sister but he was still prone to occasional burst of out-of-control hair colour, particularly when he was scared or excited. Remus noticed that his brown hair had a small orange tuft sticking out the back of his cap from his recent "Death Eater" scare. Thankfully, at least Hope had not taken after their mother. He managed to fit Amata's hat back on her head (with a surreptitious light sticking charm in hopes that it would actually stay on her head for at least ten minutes this time), got her into the seat of the trolley, and got Hope to stop trying to climb by herself into the trolley by actually setting her inside of the basket. She settled down apparently quite comfortably with her legs criss-crossed, uncaring that she was flashing her underwear to the world. She was three. The world wouldn't care either and with her in the basket, he would be able to move more quickly.

"I want to sit it in there too," Teddy whimpered as he saw Hope.

"If you sit in there, then we won't have room for any of the food," Remus explained calmly.

"Yes there would," Teddy protested.

"Teddy," Remus warned. Teddy crossed his arms over his chest, his brow furrowing but he consented to walk beside the trolley. Only a few steps later, Remus was beginning to wish he had let Teddy sit with Hope. He'd told Teddy to stay close to the trolley so he didn't get lost but he hadn't realized that would mean he would have to keep looking down as he moved to make sure he didn't accidentally roll over Teddy's feet. He managed to get as far as produce before Hope suddenly stood up in the trolley and Remus had to stop, narrowly avoiding smashing Teddy's foot in the process.

"Hope sit down," he told her.

"It hurts," she protested, her eyes pleading again. He noticed that indeed, the bars had already left big red imprints on her legs which would go away in a moment if she stayed standing but which must feel pretty darn uncomfortable to sit on. He glanced around, wondering if he could cast a slight cushioning charm for the time being when he heard a clatter and just barely caught Hope in his arms as she started crawling out of the trolley. Hope seemed un-frightened by her near spill.

"Don't climb out of the trolley like that," he told her sternly and she just looked at him from her place on his hip as if he were the one who was three.

"She's so cute!" someone cooed. "How old is she?" Remus looked up to see two muggle women, one of them proudly displaying a slight baby bump in a thin t-shirt, standing over Amata. His gut twinged; he wanted to get these strangers away from his daughter.

"She'll be five months on Thursday," he replied absently as he grabbed Teddy's arm to stop him from playing in the water from the sprinklers that had just started misting over the vegetables. "That water's not for-"

"Awww! She's a Valentine's baby?" Why had he said what day? For some reason, half the women he knew seemed to think it was irresistibly cute that Amata was born on Valentine's Day.

"Yes," he answered, instead of ranting, running his hand over his face. He was scruffy. Had he remembered to shave this morning? He remembered intending to after breakfast but Amata had been in a particularly artistic mood and had joyously thrown half of Teddy's leftover porridge all over, including into Remus's hair and her own. Shaving must have gotten forgotten somewhere in between cleaning up the kitchen, washing himself and the baby, consoling Teddy about the loss of the food he was already done with, and Hope's tantrum because Remus wouldn't turn her into a gerbil; he still didn't know why she'd wanted to be a gerbil but he suspected Teddy had something to do with it.

Remus eased himself toward the front of the trolley again, trying to nudge a place between the muggles and his daughter. He was aware that he was being slightly irrational but he did not like having strangers between him and his most defenseless child. His younger daughter stared at him as if asking him what in the world was going on.

"Why's she wearing a hat though?" the pregnant one commented. "It's so hot out and she's hardly so little that she needs one." And Remus fought back a growl and the sudden jerk of his hand to tear her arm away as she reached forward and pulled the hat back. He certainly hadn't given her permission to touch Amata. He didn't even know the muggle woman's name.

"It's blue!" she yelped.

"Turquoise," Remus answered automatically and then flinched, his mind whirring to try and find a logical muggle explanation at the same time he was realizing that Amata was slightly frightened. Turquoise on Teddy meant he was happy but purple meant happy on Amata like pink did on their mother. For her, turquoise meant she was slightly nervous. She was entering into that phase where she was unsure about strangers. "We had some left over temporary dye from-" he paused. Muggles dressed up for Halloween, didn't they? "-from Halloween," he decided. "Teddy got a hold of it while they were with a babysitter and well, it's going to take a while to wash out."

"I-" Teddy began but Remus turned quickly and put his fingers to his lips, making himself smile. If Teddy thought it was a game, maybe he wouldn't say anything. Teddy stared at him in confusion but silent confusion. It was better than nothing. The women were giggling and Remus took that as his opportunity to grab the trolley with one hand and begin pushing it way.

"Sorry, we have things we need to do," he said, his tone fairly bland as he headed around the corner, or tried to. He realized with a start he was still holding Hope who had been silent the entire time because there had been people she didn't know around. Since when had he gotten so used to holding a toddler that he didn't even realize when he had one in his arms? He set her on the ground so that he could manoeuvre the cart around the corner, watching as Amata's hair changed from turquoise to purple.

"I didn't," Teddy protested again.

"I know," Remus replied as he stopped in the thankfully empty aisle, "but they were muggles. I couldn't tell them the truth."

"Oh," Teddy replied thoughtfully as Remus put Amata's hat back on with a slightly stronger sticking charm. He wasn't sure if it was custom for muggles to take the hats off of other people's infants without permission but he was fairly sure he didn't want them to continue doing so. He had no desire to perform a memory charm today. "You're not supposed to lie," Teddy informed him.

"Lying's bad," Hope seconded.

"Sometimes you have to lie to muggles," he replied. "Muggles who don't know about magic," he amended quickly, the thought of Audrey, Percy Weasley's wife popping into his head.

"Purple!" Hope said happily, pointing to a cereal box a few steps away. She reached up her hand. "Orange."

"Very good," Remus told her.

"Magenta," she announced, pointing to another box. Remus blinked and shook his head. Both Teddy and Hope had picked up their colours early and started naming more complex colours before- well, Teddy apparently knew the difference between coffee and chocolate brown which Remus had yet to distinguish. He blamed it on Tonks and her use of her hair to teach them colours.

"Mmm, yes, that's magenta. Come on Hope. Back in the trolley."

"No," she replied. "It hurts." She glared at him as best a three-year-old could which, as it turns out, when she was related to the Blacks, was fairly well.

"I'll make it better," Remus told her. Hope looked at him suspiciously. Suddenly Remus got an idea. "Teddy, do you want in the trolley?" he asked as he cast a cushioning charm.

"No," he answered plainly, foiling his plan. "Look it Daddy. There's a bee on the cereal! Do you get stinged if you eat it?"

"Ouch," Hope replied, and giggled, poking her finger at the bee. "The bee's not moving?" she asked, half to Remus and half to the cereal box.

"No, muggle pictures don't move," he explained as he picked her up again and headed toward the trolley.

"No!" she screamed suddenly just as another cart came into the aisle. "It hurts me! I don't wanna! It hurts!" Remus flinched as he felt the stares of the people behind him boring into his back.

"Hope, it's better now. There's a charm on it," he whispered, knowing better than to yell about charms in the aisle of a muggle store.

"No!" she cried, her eyes filling with tears. He sat her down in the trolley where she continued to cry but she had apparently found it better as she was no longer hollering about it hurting. She had even calmed down enough to start sucking vigorously on her thumb, tears still streaming down her face. The people who had come into the aisle glared at him as they passed by and he had a feeling it had nothing to do with the fact that he'd had to call Teddy away from pointing out cartoon characters so that they could get by him. In the meantime, he heard a light, tell-tale noise and glanced to see that Amata had spit-up on herself. Just as soon as the other people were out of the aisle, Hope pulled her thumb out of her mouth and looked back at him.

"There's a bunny," she informed Teddy cheerfully, pointing at the cereal box on the shelf from inside the trolley. Amata gave Remus an open mouthed grin and more of the white substance spilled out of her mouth. He sighed and began searching the pockets of his trousers for a burp rag or a handkerchief. Why did muggle clothes have to have less pocket space than robes? Finally, he dug out a handkerchief, and cleaned her off before remembering the bag he had shoved down beneath the seat where he knew for sure there was a burp rag.

"Teddy, what are you doing?" Remus asked glancing at his son. Teddy was shaking a cereal box with a worried look on his face.

"She's stuck!" Teddy told him desperately, stopping from shaking the box and pointing to a picture on the box. "She got skunked and forced into the box."

"Shrunk," Remus corrected.

"Yeah, skunk," Teddy agreed, shoving the box at Remus. "Get her out!" he demanded, his eyes wide.

"Teddy," Remus began.

"Please," Teddy amended hastily. "Daddy!" he pleaded staring up with his mother's eyes, tears forming rapidly. Remus bent down closer to him.

"Teddy, it's not a real person. It's just a toy inside of there."

"Sure?" Teddy asked.

"I promise," Remus assured him. Teddy smiled, still holding on to the box. Remus moved to ruffle Teddy's hair as he stood up and then realized Teddy still had a hat on so all his hand ran into was cloth. "Put the box back, please," Remus told him. Teddy nodded and sloppily put the box back onto the wrong shelf. Remus figured it would at least stay put and was therefore, good enough. He grabbed a bag of something that looked like what they'd had in the cupboard before and kept walking to get out of the aisle.

Remus laid back on the sofa, his head in Nymphadora's lap, her fingers working through his hair as she listened to his tale of the grocers, which he was beginning to look on with vague amusement. Nymphadora already found the whole story greatly amusing and kept laughing at him.

"And then of course, Hope stands up in the trolley again and declares that she has to go to the loo, which makes Teddy think he has to go too," Remus informed her. "And apparently Hope now knows how to tell the doors of male and female toilets apart, so she was offended that she and Amata had to go into the boys' with me. Teddy, of course, then tried to convince her that she should use the urinal so he could use the toilet as there was only one of each. Which led to a discussion I did not want to have in public about why Hope could not use the urinal."

"Sorry about your terrible ordeal," Tonks teased, looking down at him.

"You ought to be. They're your children," he told her, closing his eyes. She stopped playing with his hair and a moment later he opened his eyes to see her glaring.

"Oh, they're mine, are they?" she asked.

"I do remember you being pregnant with them, yes," Remus answered, sitting up on the sofa.

"I seem to remember you being there when all three of them were born. They're yours too. You signed the birth certificates. You're legally bound." He leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

"Okay, I'll take partial responsibility," he told her. She smiled at him. "They're mine." She curled up against his side. "Thank you," he said quietly, resting his cheek against her hair, her head leaning up against his shoulder. "Whatever the trouble, I'll take them." He ran his hand along her arm. "Even if all three of them are just like their mother."

"You wish," she mumbled at him. "You know even Amata's going to end up being just another Marauder."

"That wouldn't be all bad either." Nymphadora shook her head against his shoulder and snuggled closer. Remus closed his eyes as he said thank you again to whatever God was up there who had given him the pink-haired woman curled up against his side. His friend, his wife, and the mother of his three curious, troublesome children he'd never even dreamed he'd have. He'd definitely take them all.

"You still have porridge in your hair from this morning by the way," she told him. Remus swore; Nymphadora laughed.

So if I'm honest, I think this was in part inspired by this: s/2571997/9/Nymph-vs-Wolf (which is part of a great, OotP era Remus/Tonks story) but obviously very different cast other than Remus. And also because I like trying to write kids from time to time. Hopefully they don't feel completely unrealistic.

I do have another couple stories (and possibly a longer-than-one-shot idea) in this same universe if there's any interest (may post them anyway but it's nice to know if people are reading/liking). Have a good evening and for anyone doing Nanowrimo, good luck!