For the few days preceding the birth, Tonks had been in the worst possible mood. The baby had been due a week ago, and she was taking her anger out on the world. Remus thought it was entirely justified; she was huge, unable to sleep or get comfortable and in a great deal of discomfort as well as seeming to need the toilet every half an hour. Really, she was allowed to be this angry.

Not that he would have dared say anything else.

Breathing wrong near to his wife was likely to result in a massive verbal lashing, and then a teary apology fifteen minutes later. Despite all his many failings in life and in their relationship, Remus felt even he didn't deserve to be shouted at this often and for so little.

It wasn't just him. Andromeda was getting the blunt end of Tonk's anger just as frequently, although in this case the difference was that as her mother she felt able to shout back. The two women were ferocious. Remus now understood exactly why his wife was so formidable.

It was just one of these afternoons where Tonks and her mother were busy shouting at each other over the washing up, and Remus had escaped the house for a walk around the garden, when everything changed.

Remus was standing by the pond, pondering if his wife would stop being quite so scary when the baby was born or if this was the new normal, when the sounds of shouting came out into the garden. He thought to begin with that they had discovered something he'd done wrong, and come to shout at him (the only thing scarier than Dora shouting at him was both of them shouting at him, he'd have taken a duel with Voldemort over that), but then he realised it was just Andromeda.

"Remus! Remus!" she was shouting. "There's contractions! Three in twenty minutes! I think the baby is on it's way!"

He turned, and ran back towards the house.

It turned out that, despite the note of panic in Andromeda's voice, there was little to do. Babies did not come as quickly as you'd imagine. Remus had read all the pregnancy books, and knew it was likely to be slow, but nothing had prepared him for quite this slow. Tonks refused to allow either of them to go any further than the kitchen to fetch snacks and drinks, or to turn the radio on, so they both sat in silence as she paced the room between contractions. Remus read the birthing manual they'd been leant for the fifth time. Andromeda knitted. She finished off a blanket for the baby and had started a cardigan before anything really began to happen.

"Remus," said Andromeda after the fifth hour of contractions was almost up. "They're coming every three minutes now. It's time to Floo for the midwife."

Glad of something to do, Remus leapt up to get in contact with the midwife. Generally, a witch in labour would contact St Mungo's, but it was all more complicated given the state of the wizarding world. It was unlikely an Order of the Phoenix member, pregnant with the baby of another member of the Order and a known werewolf, would get a good reception at the wizarding hospital. As both mother and father were on official wanted lists, Andromeda had done some digging around and found a midwife who was willing to supervise the birth without needing to involve the hospital. If all went well, it would be perfect.

If the birth didn't go well… Remus had to hope it didn't.

The midwife arrived half an hour later. By this point, Tonks was pacing up and down the living room slower than ever. Every few minutes, she'd stop and bear down, screaming like she was being attacked. Remus had never heard a noise like it. He'd tried reassuring her and telling her she was doing a good job as the birthing manual had advised him to do, but each time he'd tried she'd sworn at him. He'd given up on that.

"If anything, I said worse to her father when I was giving birth to Nymphadora," Andromeda told him when they were both in the kitchen well away from Tonks. "Foul mouth, I had, and I never swore in those days. It wasn't becoming of a nice pure-blood girl from one of the best families to swear. Unfortunately, childbirth has an effect on women. It does hurt, rather."

And Remus completely believed her.

The midwife was pleased with Tonks' progress, and retreated to the kitchen. She claimed witches made better progress when left as alone as possible. Nature needs to do its work, she repeated frequently from her spot by the window. She was a very smily woman, irritatingly so Remus felt, and sat there taking the odd note on a piece of parchment and eating biscuits.

Tonks was not so enamoured with letting nature do its work as the midwife was. Her pacing the room was now closer to stomping. The midwife had tried to make Remus encourage her, despite him telling her that Tonks really didn't want that. She'd given up when, the second time he'd tried, Tonks released the longest stream of swear words any of them had ever heard. Andromeda had looked as though she'd wanted to tell her daughter off, but thought better of it. Remus was just glad Andromeda had confiscated Tonks' wand at the onset of labour. He didn't want to know what hexes she'd have used on him if she'd had access to it.

By the time the midwife had been there for an hour, Tonks was screaming for any pain potions they could give her.

"This is a good sign," said the midwife, not moving from her chair. "She's almost ready to push."

"How the fuck would you know? Nobody else is feeling all of this! I'm being ripped apart, I'm never doing this again! Remus, I'm going to fucking kill you for doing this to me! Mum, I want my wand back, I'm going to hex his balls off!"

"I'm not giving you your wand," said Andromeda.

"Thank you," said Remus.

"Yes, almost ready to push," said the midwife, and picked up her quill to scribble on her parchment.

Tonks was by now making animal noises. The midwife also claimed this was a good sign. Tonks began to abuse the midwife for doing nothing to help her. Remus decided now was not the point to remind Tonks that she had wanted a natural birth without too many pain potions and to be left alone.

It all started to happen rather fast. Tonks announced that she needed to push, and the midwife began to prepare an area. Remus was put to work fetching towels and getting a nappy for the baby when they arrived, while the midwife tried to persuade Tonks to remain even slightly still so that pushing would be easier. It wasn't going to work. Remus felt sure that very few people were capable of persuading Tonks to do anything she didn't want to do, and the midwife wasn't one of them.

Andromeda took over, and managed to talk her daughter into a position on her knees, leaning up against a chair. The midwife hovered in the background, talking Tonks through each push and reminding her to breathe. Remus felt like a spare part, until Andromeda ushered him over and got him kneel beside her, holding her hands as she pushed. With every push she squeezed down.

"This is worse than before," said Tonks, after a push. She looked him right in the eye. "No more kids."

"No more kids," he said. He was still nervous enough about how this one might turn out. He pushed the worry away, though. Now was not the time to be getting himself into a panic about whether he was producing tiny werewolves. Now was a time to be supporting his wife as she did the hard work. "Now we're going to get this one out of you. You're doing so well. I really do love you."

"I love you too, but I also want to hurt you for putting me in this situation. Is that normal?"

"Very normal," said Andromeda.

"MUM! I might be giving birth but that doesn't give you the right to eavesdrop on my private conversations! I'll send you to the kitchen! I'll fucking Imperius you out of this house if I have to!"

"That escalated rather quickly," Andromeda muttered, giving Remus a look.

"Please focus on pushing, you're almost there," said the midwife.

"Almost there, my arse," said Tonks.

The midwife was right. Within minutes she was shouting that she could see the baby's head appearing, and encouraged Tonks to feel for it. She asked Remus if he'd like to take a look. He tried to decline, but Tonks made him.

"If I have to push it out, you can damn well suffer in your own way by looking at something that makes you uncomfortable!"

"I'm trying to make you feel comfortable," he protested.

"No you're not," she said. "Get down there and tell me it's coming out soon!"

It really was. Remus could see everything. He almost fainted. Andromeda chuckled at him, sat over on the sofa knitting away at the cardigan well out of the way.

A few more pushes, and baby was out. Tonks was helped into a position where she could hold the baby, and looked content for the first time in hours. The baby was perfect. She was perfect.

The two of them sat for ages, staring at the other. They'd had a little boy. A son. His son, and her son, half him and half her. It was baffling, really, how someone so amazing had made a baby with him.

"What's his name?" asked the midwife. With a wave of her wand, everything had been tidied away.

"Edward," said Tonks, beaming up at her. "Teddy. After my dad."

"It's a lovely name," said the midwife.

"Do you want to hold him?" Tonks asked, and Remus was surprised to find she was talking to him. He'd been content on the sidelines, watching his wife and his son together.

"I don't want to take him from you," he said.

"Seriously, take him, I want to clean up a bit. Messy, this giving birth lark."

Remus was handed his son, and settled down into the armchair he'd been born next to. There was a flash, Andromeda taking a picture with Ted Tonks' old camera before she walked out the room to help Tonks. He didn't really notice. Teddy looked up at him and scrunched his face, in an almost exact imitation of his mother.

"I look at myself like that, too," he said to the baby. "I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself. I'm your dad. My name's Remus Lupin. And you're Edward Remus Lupin. We thought about giving you both our surnames, but your mum goes by her surname almost exclusively and we thought that would be too confusing. So you're stuck with mine. Sorry about that."

He took Teddy's tiny hand and inspected it.

"All ten fingers there, I see. And ten toes. Good. I don't know where to start with babies, if I'm honest Teddy. My friends had one, years ago, he's seventeen and off fighting the bad guys now, and he was the last baby I had much to do with. And I was a bit scared of him. He did a wee on me once. Please don't you do that. Maybe I should get that nappy."

With much shuffling, trying not to disturb the baby, Remus managed to pick up the nappy off the floor. He put it on back to front, then switched it round. Teddy didn't seem frustrated by his dad's incompetence. He made an odd gurgling sound, as if he was happy to be wearing it at all.

"Your dad doesn't know what he's doing with this," Remus said to him as he settled Teddy back into a safe position in the crook of his arm, remembering to support his head like the books and Andromeda had told him. "Your dad is better at other things, maybe. I can teach you to read. Though that's a few years off.

"What else do you need to know? How to eat? Your mum had better teach you that to begin with. She's got the apparatus, shall we say? When you're a bit bigger, Nanny Andromeda is excellent at cooking. She can help you with that, neither me or your mum are much use there. Grandad Lyall, he's good with making things. Painting, too. And me? Well, all I've ever been much use at is fighting the bad guys.

"There are some pretty bad guys out there right now, Teddy, but don't worry, they won't be coming anywhere near you. Your mum, she's pretty good at fighting those bad guys too and we won't let them hurt you. Ever. You're going to be safe, and you're going to grow up loved. You'll go to Hogwarts in a safe world, I'm going to make sure of that. Whatever happens.

"Look, here I am getting all teary now. Your dad doesn't really cry. Not that men can't. I just don't. Maybe you've changed that for me.

"And I think I've got something to apologise for," Remus continued. Not that his son could understand any of this, but it felt better to talk than to sit in silence with the baby. "You see, I'm a werewolf. And we don't know if we're going to have made you one. If I have, then I'm so very sorry Teddy. You don't deserve a life like that, and you don't deserve a dad who's a part-time monster either. But, you know something? Even if most of the world hates werewolves, well it isn't everyone. Your mum, she's something special you know, she married one. And I know plenty of people who were happy for us. A few threaten to kill me every so often, but that's par for the course with the whole monster thing.

"So, Teddy, I'm sorry for all of this that's going on around you. But you know, you will be safe, and that's what matters. We all love you, even though we don't know you yet. Is that strange? I used to think it was when James and Lily said that about Harry as a baby, but I think I understand now. You'll meet Harry. He's great. He sent me back to you. Your dad did something very stupid, which I'm constantly amazed your wonderful mum forgave me for, and Harry made me come back here. And even though he's supposed to be able to defeat You-Know-Who, I think that may just have been the best thing he'll ever do."

Remus suddenly became aware that someone was watching them. He looked up to see Tonks standing in the doorway, with wet hair and a clean pair of pyjamas on. When she saw he'd noticed her, she crossed the room to him.

"Sore?" he asked.

"Can barely walk," she replied. "You don't need to apologise for anything, you know."

"Don't all parents worry they're going to ruin everything for their child at some point?" he said. "I'm just doing it a little earlier than some."

"You're going to be such a great father," she said. "Now get out that chair and let me sit down. Fucking hurts, this."

"Don't swear around that baby!" admonished Andromeda, walking in with a pile of baby blankets. "Here, tuck him up in this."

Andromeda left again once Tonks was settled back in the chair, Teddy in her arms. She said that they all needed a meal, and had hurried off to make something. Teddy felt that he needed a meal too, and Tonks was trying to encourage him to take the breast. He picked it up quite quickly, and was soon slurping away with a lot of noise and a Nanny-knitted blanket slung over him.

"You know, I'm bloody glad Harry sent you back too," said Tonks. "If you'd left me do to that on my own I really would have hexed you."

"What I want to know," said Remus, "is how many times in our relationship you've threatened to hex me."

"The important thing," she replied, "is that I've never done it."

"That's not true, you've done it five times at least. Once on our wedding night."

"That one wasn't my fault! You were lurking around the room and I woke up in an unfamiliar place and thought you were a Death Eater. You had a hood on!"

"I was wearing a bathrobe. I'd been to the toilet. You can't hex a man for having a weak bladder!"

"Moody would have said I could."

"Moody hexed everything that moved anywhere within a mile of him. I don't want to be married to Mad-Eye Moody."

"Fair," she said. "I love you."

"I love you too. And Teddy." He couldn't take his eyes off the two of them. This was perfection. "Tonks? About Harry? Can we make him godfather?"

"I wanted to suggest that too," she said. "Teddy Remus Lupin, you have a werewolf for a father and the Chosen One for a godfather, and your grandad was killed for being a Muggleborn. Take after the women in your life."

"I hope he does," said Remus, thinking about the upcoming full moon.

He could have sworn Teddy's hair had been brown a moment before. Now, it was definitely blue.