A Single Grain of Sand

by vegaslightsLKY38

"The Lupin Child" was prophesied to have gotten their hands onto a secret project from the Department of Mystery that would've lead to the unravelling of the universe. As far as Teddy, and a version of himself from another timeline are concerned, were concerned, they just wanted to put their family back together as it was supposed to be. Canon divergence, Remadora/some wolfstar

1. How did you get in my house?

Content Warning: explicit language, brief non-explicit mentions/implications of sex, characters will reference trauma related to the wars.

I also used they/them pronouns for Tonks in this story. That's not important, you would've caught on anyways, just heads up. Everyone is pretty queer here. The reason more characters don't have gender neutral pronouns is because I was afraid that it would get too confusing if I said "they" and it could mean one of two/three people, or a group of people. Rest assured, several of the characters, especially the main four of our story, will talk openly about their identities and how that affects their lives. With the premise of a multiverse as the basis of this story, it allowed me to dig into more ideas on gender and sexuality, how the environment would shape a person, and how different circumstances would lead to different outcomes and relationship dynamics. I feel like I shouldn't have to say this by now, but if it were not clear by now, I am not a supporter of JKR or even some of the canon media as it is so heavily affected by her.

**I'm so used to adding notes on AO3, I forgot that I needed to go back and add the content warning. My apologies.

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"You could not remove a single grain of sand from its place without thereby … changing something throughout all parts of the immeasurable whole."

— Fichte, The Vocation of Man (1800)

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When Teddy Lupin was little, he used to daydream a lot about his family.

He had a father, a handsome teacher. He was funny, and strong enough to carry him on his shoulders. He would be gone come fall, but would visit on the weekends. It would be like in the movies Teddy had watched with his Nan: he and his mum would be spending Christmas Eve together, disappointed that Remus had to work, only to be surprised on Christmas morning to see that he managed to make it anyway. He would've read Teddy books about all different kinds of monsters and magical creatures before bed (Andromeda even said that he knew how to say the name of almost every scientific name for almost every magical beast). He would've read him old, slow books when he was trying to get him to fall asleep. He would come to all of Teddy's quidditch games, but he would be the kind of dad that always explained to him how he could've strategized better during the game. He would've had books full of photographs of their family.

His mum was a fighter. They were Teddy's idol as a kid. They would wear a nice suit with choppy, bright pink hair to work and kick the asses of bad guys at their job and be home in time for dinner. Ante mortem, they were the breadwinner in the household and probably wouldn't have been much of a stay-at-home-parent type after having a kid. But Andromeda assured, as much as Tonks had adored being an auror, they had often talked about how excited they had been to have kids. They wanted to teach him how to fly on a broom and be the one to teach him how to morph his hair different colours. From what Teddy had dug out of the attic, during those lonesome and boring nine months his parents had essentially been locked in their own house during the war, his mother had taken up painting. And they weren't all that bad either. They had painted still-lives mostly, the living room, the garden... even one of his own father. They would've taught Teddy how to paint. Their materials had long expired, but Teddy had kept some of their things in a box in his room. He had tried to recreate some of their works, but he never quite got the look right.

His birthdays wouldn't have been so lonely. He would've had a mum that would've bandaged and kissed his skinned knees. He would've had a dad to talk to when he fell in love for the first time. He would've had parents that let him lay in their bed, snuggled between them when he had a fever or a bad nightmare. He would've had parents that hugged him and cried when they were proud of him. He would've had parents that yelled at him when he did stupid things like sneaking out and piercing his nose. He even used to sit with photographs of his parents, watching them hugging, kissing, even dancing. They were so normal. They were people with thoughts and feelings whose chests rose and fell every few seconds on the film. Why did he have to be the one without parents? Why couldn't he be the kid whose parents threw him in a dumpster and disappeared? He just wanted to know what it felt like, to have the arms of someone who loves you so much unconditionally around you. His Nan had tried so hard to give him as normal of a life as she could but it was a constant reminder. She loved him. Obviously, she did. But grandparents aren't supposed to raise their grandkids by themselves. He watched as friends, family, classmates had their own parents, and Teddy always felt a little sick to his stomach without even thinking.

In this particular daydream, sometimes, he would have a little brother. His name changed a lot depending on his classmates. His imaginary brother was Joshua for a while, until a kid named Joshua knocked out Teddy's front tooth on the playground. It was Christopher after that. He imagined someone smaller than him with matching blue hair. They could play together and they'd have twice as many toys. Teddy would be the good one though; his brother would be the one to take the fall for him so he wouldn't get in trouble. They would play quidditch together. They'd go to Hogwarts together and they'd be in the same house and he'd get to be the tough protective big brother.

This fantasy was harmless enough when he was eight, but at nineteen, with both of his parents having been dead for nineteen years, finding out he had a sister was the most terrifying moment in his life. Well, maybe not finding out that he had a sister, but rather seeing a stranger having broken into his bedroom.

It all started on a bad Monday morning. Teddy had gone out with Victoire and some of his friends the night before and was groggy getting out of bed. He did his usual morning routine and got dressed for his internship, but after having forgotten to do laundry, he was stuck wearing a jacket that was too small for him. He was running late that morning because he had mistakenly stopped to get coffee and had gotten caught up in the long line. He didn't have a car, so he was sweating by the time he had arrived, nearly missing his usual train. He usually got to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement just before eight, but it was closer to eight-thirty by the time he made it. The Ministry of Magic seemed more chaotic that usual today. People were moving quicker than usual, avoiding eye contact with each other. Voices were quieter than usual. Even the ones selling the newspaper were not as enthusiastic as usual. Rounding the giant fountain, the stairwells were crowded and even the elevators felt as if they were moving slower. However, there was a wizard standing on a box with a sign in one hand, shouting something about level nine being off limits to everyone but the Unspeakables today. Teddy was barely squeezed into lift at the last second. A little piece of red tape was put over the ninth floor button.

"...I heard someone died." A couple of older witches off to the side were gossiping.

"Oh please, you really believe that?" The other scoffed. "No, there would be aurors everywhere. They'd shut down the entire Ministry!"

"I don't know. But it's not good."

The auror office was buzzing with commotion. Witches and wizards were constantly moving around, office doors slamming and flying open all over the place. Papers were flying all over the place and hardly anyone was sitting down. At least two different corporal patronuses floated by. Teddy pushed himself past the others and made his way to the front desk, centered between the Auror Division and the Improper Use of Magic Office.

"ID?" The wizard at the desk didn't look up from his paperwork.

Teddy patted down his pockets. His badge was lying on his grandmother's kitchen counter from when he took it out of his pocket the night before. "I-damn, I'm so sorry, I-"

"Lupin!" A voice called. It was an auror by the name of Noland Gill, the 40-year old wizard Teddy was interning for. Gill was a dark man, tall and fairly bulky, with hair already greying from the stress of the department. He was in the same unit as his mother, having trained at roughly the same time and working together for the few years they were there. He did anything Gill asked, helping with paperwork, bringing him lunch, and even shadowing hims during case work at times. Gill had taken him under his wing at seventeen after graduation after Harry and Andromeda had been pushing Teddy to go find work at the Ministry. He was a quiet man and he didn't often raise his voice at Teddy. He might've had a stern expression most of the time, but he was patient with the younger wizard. Gill had two kids of his own and he genuinely had a soft spot for his ex-collegue's kid with the same vibrant hair that they had. He looked genuinely frustrated this morning. The last time Teddy had seen his nerves get this bad, he had to go shadow a murder scene per the request of a higher up that insisted Teddy needed more exposure before he was let into the auror training program. It was a killing curse murder, and Teddy never technically saw the body, but knowing what was lying underneath the white sheet was more than off-putting. "Forget the badge, we need you in here. Now."

The wizard at the security desk glanced up and sighed, nodding his head towards Gill. "Sir? What's going on?"

"I... I don't know how much I can tell you without making you take a blood oath." The auror sighed. Teddy wasn't sure if he was kidding or not. "I need you to sit still and look pretty, stay the hell out of the way at my desk. I don't care what you do but look like you're busy. It's all hands on deck today."

"Oh... kay." Teddy said nervously, following beside him. The auror's office was made of two long rows of cubicles in the center of the room for the junior officers. The left wall had a row of closed doors for the older aurors, the right having conference rooms. Front and center was the head of the department's private office, currently belonging to Officer Leon Hollis. Most Ministry offices were structured like this, the floor itself seemingly stretching and shrinking to accommodate the amount of workers. The colour scheme varied by floor, but the aurors' division ranged from warm grey to the dark oak desks and a drab tan, only accentuated by the dark blue logo.

"You let me in without a badge and I was over thirty minutes late today. You're supposed to write me up. It must be really bad then, yeah?"

"They don't usually drag us into situations like these. I'm sure you heard about floor nine on your way in. I'm amazed they're making it so public. I'm amazed they're even letting us in there." Gill grumbled. "I swear to Merlin, I'll probably come out of there a vegetable if I turn my head the wrong way."

"Well that's a little-maybe we don't say that?" Teddy suggested, dropping his messenger bag on the floor. Gill's small office had a desk crammed into it, a chair on each side for the both of them. He had decked out what little wall space there was with overlapping Slytherin pride and a Puddlemere United merchandise, next to a board of various newspaper clippings and old photographs. Tonks had died nineteen years ago, but they still sat on the walls, watching down on the department alongside other aurors that had perished in the line of fire. He had allowed Teddy to put up a small picture of the Hufflepuff badger beneath a Slytherin flag, next to where Teddy works, after he moved in.

"Why not? That's what they'll do, obliviate your brains out." He said, picking up his almost empty cup of coffee. "Sorry, I'm not trying to scare you, kid. It's just kind of hard to gauge the severity of the situation when we don't even know what we're up against. It's easier to assume the worst."

"No, it's okay." There were rules about aurors going into certain parts of the Department of Mysteries. They couldn't look at, touch, smell, or read certain things without having to write out a witness account followed by taking a thick serum that wiped hours from their memories or be subjugated to an obliviate charm, sometimes without warning and under threat. Most aurors took the serum over the superstition about the unreliability of the charm. They were only let in the Department of Mysteries under certain circumstances. Though some civilians had fought to repeal it, aurors weren't usually allowed to investigate deaths within parts of the department, leaving many family members distraught when there was a classified cause of death and no body of a loved one found. There was a joke that that was the only place in the Ministry that you could get away with murder. "What do you need me to do? Do I need to reorganize your filing cabinet?"

"I don't care if you take apart the desk and reassemble it by hand, just don't be letting the uppers see you twiddling your thumbs. I'll do something. I don't know what yet. You have no business getting involved in this case, you're too young, kid. And just..." Gill paused, about to say something but unable to find the words, when the door opened suddenly.

Another auror knocked and poked their head inside the door."Alright, Noland, we're-oh, sorry were you in the middle of something?"

"Yes, actually, if you don't mind-"

"Hollis wants everyone up at the front." They cut him off, ducking back out and going to knock on the next office door.

"Alright Teddy, stay here. I might be back." Gill picked up his coat.

"Actually," the other auror stepped back and locked eyes with him. "Hollis wants everyone."

"Everyone?"

"I dunno, he's probably going to make an announcement or something. I didn't ask." They disappeared back into the chaos in the hallway.

"Goddamn it, Hollis!" Gill shouted at no one in particular. There was too much noise for him to have been heard anyways. He turned to Teddy with an apologetic expression. "If I were you, I'd book it to the bathroom and throw up. Really, I can see that curious look in your eye. If you try anything stupid-"

"It's okay, we don't know what he's going to say." Teddy tried to reassure. Most aurors went into training when they're seventeen or eighteen, but Gill had rejected every attempt he made to bring up applying. He could've asked any other auror he worked with to sign off to start the training to become a real officer, but that felt like betrayal. But Gill was stubborn. He kept pushing Teddy back with excuses, "you really should start in the fall, New Years isn't a good time to start", "I heard they've got a bad teacher this semester, you're doomed to fail", "you really don't have enough experience or business signing up yet, you aren't ready." Tonks had been the youngest to ever apply, having the legendary Mad-Eye Moody himself sign off on them before they even walked the graduation stage. "He might just have us answering letters today anyways."

Gill frowned. Teddy's naivety, whether he was feigning or not, worried him. He wanted to badly to believe Teddy was right. "Right. Come on then."

All of the aurors had gathered in a herd in between the cubicles, still chattering loudly. Margot, a friend of Teddy's, a scrawny Ravenclaw with bright red glasses who was also interning for an auror in Gill's unit, was off to the side. She looked frazzled, her thick hair had already come loose from the scarf she usually kept it in, the scarf tied around her wrist. She caught Teddy's eye and gave him a nervous look. Teddy carefully made his way over to her. "Merlin, this is weird." She laughed anxiously. "They're going to make us go and then they're going to put worms in our brains or something."

"Ha." Teddy stood on his toes to try and see the front of the room. "Don't kid, they might steal your idea."

Margot tried to change the subject. "That movie last night was good."

"Yeah..." Gill shot Teddy a warning look. "I have to go, but we'll talk in a minute, okay?"

Hollis was a cartoonish looking man. He was rapidly approaching being too old to work as head of Magical Law Enforcement, his face sunken and abnormally long. His eyes were solid black and his glistening hair looked like it had been glued in place with hair gel. He climbed atop an office chair to stand over the office and people began to fall silent with only the sound of rustling paper and shuffling feet audible in the room. He held his wand to his chin with his long wiry fingers, projecting his voice out. "I am extremely disappointed with how you all have handled things today. There was absolutely no reason for there to be such moral panic about what's happened on floor nine. I want units one and three to stay put today. One, you will be on call for emergencies and three, you will assist them if needed, but I expect both of you to complete your regular duties today, even if it means overtime tonight. Two, you're rotating with five on the Azkaban shifts per usual. Four, I want boots on the ground downstairs. I don't care what you have to do or say, but you need to appease the Prophet journalists and calm people down. There's no need or excuse for there to be so much commotion. I've already ordered that we have all non-essential employees removed for today to make room and keep citizens safe. Six and seven, you're on floor nine today. You will be handed instructions before you get on the elevator and briefed on your duties when you get there. We just got a new batch of memory serum and we are sending it there now, so I don't want to be seeing any non compliance. We've practically shut down most of the Ministry for safety precautions! You're costing your coworkers money from their paychecks the longer we draw this out! I expect to have a lead by tonight, and a suspect by this time tomorrow!"

Everyone was hanging onto his words, wringing their hands and shifting nervously to hear what their units would be doing today. People were both relieved and disappointed that their team wasn't going to floor nine. Gill was in unit six. He wasn't usually one to curse but Teddy, and several others, heard him say something vile under his breath. He squeezed his intern's shoulder reassuringly. Teddy felt a little bit better knowing his godfather had worked the nightshift and would be heading home to his kids instead of getting caught up in this mess.

"Hollis, where are we putting the interns?" Gill spoke up, almost interrupting the other auror.

"The interns are non-essential. They are relieved of work for today and are forbidden from going to floor nine." Teddy and Margot let out equally relieved sighs. Gill closed his eyes. He would've rioted if they decided to send a bunch of seventeen to twenty year olds with barely any experience loose. Something bad would be bound to happen. Just after that moment of solace that they wouldn't have to go deal with whatever was on the ninth floor, Teddy immediately felt guilty. He didn't want to leave his mentor to go by himself. But to go against Hollis was an extremely dangerous thing, and if that didn't get him banned from the job, Gill would guarantee he would never get signed off. They were even sending in the Hit Wizards. Nothing about this felt safe. "They are free to be dismissed now. There's no need for them to stay."

There was a bit over a dozen of them, quickly going to their mentors' desks to collect their things. Margot had already picked up her bag and went to find Teddy, who appeared to be going through some of the papers on the desk in Gill's closet of an office.

"What are you looking for?" She asked.

"Shh!" He whispered furiously, still digging around for something. Most of the interns were already out waiting by the elevator.

"...I believe it's only right that I inform you all that an important magical artifact has gone missing." Teddy stopped to listen to Hollis. "I am not authorized to disclose any further information beyond that, but I hope that I can give you all a sense of peace over this situation. I am not allowed to disclose the severity of this situation either, and I expect all of you to keep this information confidential..."

Teddy quickly rearranged the papers he had disrupted, returning them to their places, and picked up his things. "Okay, we need to go."

The two of them awkwardly walked out, keeping their heads down as they made their way out. No one seemed to pay attention to them.

"What was that all about?" Margot demanded.

"I was trying to figure out what's going on. I doubt Gill will be able to tell me anything later." He whispered back. "Why are we getting involved? Isn't there a whole subdivision of people who deal with magical artifacts? Hell, isn't it the Department of Mysteries?"

"Shhh." She whispered back. "That makes me think that either someone is on the run right now, or they're about to be."

Most days, Andromeda had a pretty relaxed routine, making herself breakfast in her dressing gown. More and more often, her little two bedroom house was getting lonelier. Her muggle job was more for fun than for a main source of income. A lot of her time was spent keeping up the house, which she always did in case company came by, trying to make it as welcoming as possible. Andromeda had to keep herself busy for her own sake. Teddy begged her to move once he graduated even if it hurt them both to. He slept in his mother's old bedroom, the room his parents had lived in during the second war. This house was where they had spent their last holidays. In Andromeda's eyes, this house was too full of memories to leave, but Teddy knew how weighed down she was with grief. Spending hours in the garden and repainting the walls didn't strip the house of all of the things that had happened here.

Andromeda often had music playing on the radio she kept in her kitchen, so it was no surprise that she never heard the intruder climbing up the side of the house into the upstairs bedroom with extreme precision. She didn't hear them hide in the space between Teddy's dresser and the wall. It was a surprise however, seeing her grandson coming home from work only a couple hours after it had started. "Teddy? Are you alright?" She asked, her hands on her hips. "What happened? You didn't get fired, did you?"

"No, I'm just off today." He didn't exactly want to have to explain the entire situation only to worry her more. "They said they don't want the interns working on a specific project and they told me that I did my work and I could go home today."

Andromeda frowned. "Well that's disappointing. You'd think they'd learn to send you an owl so you could at least sleep in some."

"It's alright, Nan." He sneakily took a piece of bacon from her plate sitting on the counter. "I'll find something to do."

"You could go put a dent in that pile of laundry in your room!" She called after him as he headed up the stairs, already eating the bacon.

Teddy nonchalantly tossed his bag and his jacket onto the bed. He sighed and looked to the pile of clothes. He'd have to sort them, carry them downstairs, wash them, hang them up... he was still exhausted just from the panic this morning. The clothes could wait a little bit longer, surely. He collapsed on top of his bed, rubbing his face. He could fall asleep right there he was so tired. His room was fading from his vision as his eyelids got heavy, the ceiling blurring above him...

Something moved inside of his bedroom, and it wasn't him.