Content Warnings: swearing, implications of fighting/abuse, characters discussing the implications of suicide
Andromeda had woken up particularly early the morning of September 4th, 2017. There was no rhyme or reason for it, she just couldn't seem to get any meaningful sleep.
The house creaked with every step she took. It was comforting in a way. Groans and wheezes in the middle of the night were normal for an old house, but easy to mistake for footsteps. An empty house was less creepy than one with people in it. She turned on the light in the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove. She had a to-do list every morning and it was easier to get it done now before the water boiled or she'd keep putting it off. First and most importantly, she checked the wards around the house. She reinforced them every morning and night, and did a sweep around the border mid-day to make sure nothing had changed. It never did, thank god.
She needed to go through the pantries. A few times a year they had to replenish their supply with more long-term things like flour, powdered milk, tea, rice. They needed vegetables that Andromeda couldn't grow in their garden, eggs, if they had anything left over, fresh meat, not the stuff that came in cans. Her granddaughter had been eating less lately, and Andromeda wondered if she thought she was stretching out their rations. Now seemed to be a comparatively safe time for them. They had been saving money and it didn't seem likely anything bad or unusual would happen the next time they went out. Andromeda considered surprising her with something to bring her appetite up. She was probably bored of eating the same thing every single day. Or worse, she was coming down with something. The last time one of them got sick, Andromeda had to stop visiting that drug store permanently because she made so many trips there for medicine and painkillers.
Andromeda made tea and a rather plain breakfast for the two of them. Two eggs each, a splurge that Andromeda allowed when they got closer to buying groceries. She had fried some potatoes and used some of the sausage she had frozen. It wasn't a lot, but they were used to it. She ate by herself, Edith's plate sitting on the counter waiting for her to wake up. It was still really early. Andromeda went and took a shower and got dressed. She expected to see her granddaughter at the table, half-asleep and still in her pajamas. But Edith didn't appear to be awake just yet. She really hoped she wasn't sick.
She watered all of her plants, indoors and out, and cycled through them, moving the ones in the shade to the sun and vice versa. She worked out in the garden some before the sun made it too hot to do so. This was a hot season and some of her plants were still pushing to produce. The tomatoes were very resilient and the peppers looked like they could still give a couple more before the end of the season. The lettuce looked good, but not ready yet. So were the potatoes and carrots. She needed to prepare to plant beans to grow in next spring. By now, Andromeda wondered if Edith was having another episode. These happened sometimes. Edith would have days were she would be too stubborn to get work done. She wouldn't be able to get out of bed. When Andromeda would question her, she would say that she had no motivation to do anything, that everything was completely pointless. Andromeda would tell her to rest, or to take time to do other things that she enjoyed other than work. If that didn't snap her out of it, she would recruit her to sit in the kitchen and kneed bread or in the garden to pull weeds. Eventually, she'd come back. Andromeda couldn't blame her. How could she prepare a child for a future she wasn't even certain about? How could she inspire hope in her if she could hardly give herself hope?
The sun was well up by now. Andromeda set out Edith's school books and notes on the table. There wasn't really a reason for her to quit her studies yet at nineteen. She enjoyed it and it kept her mind engaged. There was more she could learn, and as long as that kept her entertained, Andromeda would keep getting her books. She started on dinner, putting vegetables and the last of the frozen chicken in a slow cooker. Whether she was sick or depressed, Andromeda thought she might appreciate the gesture. "Edith, love?" She slowly opened the door to the girl's room. It was dark. The bed was made perfectly, the curtains pulled shut. All of her laundry was put away, everything neat and tidy. "Edith?"
She wasn't in the bathroom.
She wasn't outside.
She was nowhere to be found.
Andromeda dreaded the day that this would happen. She knew Edith would snap and sneak out eventually. It didn't settle her panic, but it was easier to swallow than her being taken. She had clearly cleaned her room before she disappeared. There was no sign of a forced entry. Surely she hadn't run away to commit suicide. No, surely this was a gesture of rebellion. She'd be back. Edith was one to feel guilty about these sorts of things. Andromeda tried not to hold a grudge against this. She was a kid, and if she didn't leave now, this house would've swallowed her whole. She was her mother's child. She'd be back.
There was no sign of Edith for the rest of the day. She wasn't with Victoire. She seemed to have just... vanished. Andromeda tried to keep her head straight, continuing with her daily routine. She'd be home any minute now. She would. Edith wouldn't have just left her here. Nightfall came and Andromeda couldn't hold her eyes open any longer. She took one final look in the girl's bedroom before going to sleep. Her old teddy bear was tucked in under the sheets. Had she really left with the intention of not returning? There were clean sheets on the bed, with the exception of something that was on top of the duvet. It was some sort of... substance. Splinters of dark wood. A lot of them. What was that? Andromeda cleaned it off.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No missing books. No missing clothes. Her school supplies were neatly stored in the corner of her bedroom. What had she done?
Who do you go to when someone disappears and there's no one to go to to help find them? Who do you call when someone who doesn't even exist goes missing? All you can do is wait, hoping and praying that they'll come back.
Andromeda picked up her granddaughter's teddy bear to bed with her that night.
xxxxx
Edith had been awake since before the crack of dawn. Teddy admired her resilience, but he wanted to sleep. He had laid down an extra sheet he found, gave her a pillow and the afghan blanket he slept with in the winter when it got too cold. She was safely tucked in that corner between his bed and the window. He locked the door to be extra safe, but that didn't seem necessary. At some point, she had snuck out while he was asleep to run her "errands." This time of year, shops opened earlier and closed earlier. She was lucky to have chosen September for this adventure. Teddy wasn't awake for all of this, thus he wasn't liable for her actions.
She had "bought" a small variety of potions ingredients, enough to fit in her pocket. The money Teddy gave her, after conversion to wizarding money, was enough to buy a miniature collapsable cauldron. It seemed pointless, as it would only make about two shots worth of polyjuice, but she could make it work, sliding it into her other pocket. She slipped some more herbs in her other one on the way out. She perused Flourish Blotts', but didn't get anything. Apparently whatever she needed was in her brain. That, and Flourish Blotts' took actually security measures to prevent her from nabbing anything in particular.
Teddy woke up closer to eight when he saw Edith had returned with her goods and was peacefully asleep in the floor beside him once again. Andromeda didn't seem to be awake yet.
He laid in bed for a while, thinking. How long did they plan on being gone? Was Edith just going to have to keep stealing food until they got caught? They didn't have any money. At least, none on hand. Andromeda had put a safety hold on his account until he was twenty-one. To be fair, that was incredibly smart of her to do; he probably would've spent all of his parents' money by now. Speaking of food, if they didn't have money to buy any and were just going off of whatever Edith could scrap together, they'd get very tired very quickly. How many realities were they planning on going to in a day? How many days would that rack up to? It was only a matter of time before they'd collapse. where were they going to sleep? What if they broke into the wrong Ministry of Magic with MORE security and were detained immediately? But he also thought about the fact that he was supposed to meet his parents today. He might not, but there was a chance.
Edith woke up eventually. She got dressed in her Ministry clothes and Teddy did the same. He packed a couple extra articles of clothing that they could swap out. He would be back soon so there wasn't really any reason for him to pack anything too personal. He did move the sheets to make it not look like someone else had slept in here. When he was finished grabbing the one or two things he needed, he turned to see Edith sitting on his bed, holding a folded photograph in her hands. She had brought it from her own reality, but hadn't shown Teddy what it was of. She folded it back up as soon as he looked in her direction and returned it to her things.
"I suppose we better get going." Teddy said.
"Right, just one quick issue." Edith held up the box. "We need to hide this somewhere where it won't be found. When they find you missing, they'll probably go through your stuff."
That was an uncomfortable thought. "Right... We could... put it inside of something? Like in the bottom of my dresser? They aren't going to go through and unfold every single shirt I own to find something, will they?"
"I suppose not... but it probably gives off a really powerful magical aura. But I don't know if they'll look for that or not."
"I feel like... I feel like that's not what they'll be looking for when they come in here. Like I think they'd probably be looking for a suicide note or something." Teddy said. "Speaking of, should I leave a note? Something that just says 'I'll be back' or 'I'm coming back soon'?"
"You can if you want, but... I dunno. It might be more dangerous. It might be safer for them to assume to ran off or got taken." She said quietly. "But... don't let me tell you what to do. If you think you should-"
"No. No. It's fine. I'll be coming back anyways." He cut her off. "No need for a sappy goodbye. But we need to make sure we hide it somewhere where we can get in it. I just realized, we can't put it in the dresser, there's no one to close the drawer."
"Right, right." Edith looked at the window. "And we'll have to leave that open as well, I think. It helps with the appearance that something happened..."
"My closet! We can set it in my closet, can't we?"
"That... could work! Let's try it."
The two worked to create a carefully designed mess in the room. There was a sort of trail, creating the idea that a struggle had occurred. Teddy's room was enough of a mess that the disheveled closet looked normal. They wouldn't find the box, at least for a while. "Ah, wait, hang on. I've got to get something out of there." Teddy jumped in front of her, blocking her from moving the last thing out of the way.
His twin stared at him, the corners on her lips turned up. "Oh so you hid those in the back of your closet too, huh?" Edith snickered.
"Oh shut up." His face was turning red as he dug through the back of his closet to hide whatever it was that he was hiding.
Everything was in place. It was messy, but it didn't feel suspicious.
"One more thing." Edith walked over to his desk. She picked up a tube of acrylic paint. "Was this expensive?"
"No."
"Okay, then we'll use it." She quickly went over and unlocked the bedroom door. The two made room for each other, closing the closet door. Teddy picked up a dirty t-shirt, throwing it over the box as the door closed behind them. They were blinded by the stark white void filled with only white walls and white doors, filled with blinding light with no light source to be seen.
"So it begins." Teddy exhaled.
"So it begins."
xxxxx
{Making things a bit simpler, the pair created a system of remembering which doors were which. They had come from opposite sides of the hallway, so they would call Edith's side "Y" and Teddy's "X". With Edith coming out first, she labeled her door as just "Door Y." Since Teddy's was not perfectly across from hers, his door was "X3", across the hall and over two. One direction was a positive axis, the other negative.}
"Where do we start?" Teddy asked, his fingers covered in red paint. A large red X marked his door. He put a little bit on the tip of his finger. "TEDDY", underlined in small letters. "What was my number?"
"X... 3." Edith replied. He put his number on the door and packed away his paint. Her door was crumpled in the floor like dropped fabric the weight of heavy wood. "Well, seems like this is going to suck no matter where we go. Want to just... do what I did? Grab the box and walk out?"
"Sure. Sure, that'll work." Teddy nodded. His stomach was wriggling into knots. "Well. Pick a door. You've got an infinite amount of choices."
"We don't exactly have a great sample size, do we? Damn. We could make any kind of hypotheses." She sighed, running her fingers along doors as she walked. "Even ones are girls, odd ones are boys... X's have the war ended, Y's the war didn't... We need more data. But we can't get more. We need to be as careful and conservative about this as we can. I doubt we'll find a pattern. The books only said things get more different the further away you move from your spot."
"Lovely." Teddy nodded. "I wish we had dice. Or a coin or something to flip. What do we do, just run straight at a door and pick that one? You pick the first one, I pick the next?"
"I picked last time, you pick."
"I don't want to pick."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm scared."
Edith didn't ask what he was afraid of. "Odd or even?"
Teddy didn't want to open his mouth. This was too much. He couldn't do this. He couldn't do this. He couldn't- "Even." He swallowed the rock in his throat.
"Even. Got it. Let's do one on my side then. Y... Y..." She walked, counting in her head. "Y8. Easy enough, yeah?"
"Doesn't matter, does it? We've got to make it through the Ministry one way or another." He said.
Edith grabbed her badge and put it around her neck. "Let's go, then."
They more or less fell out of the box. It was sitting nicely perched on top of a podium made of steps that both of them immediately fell down. No alarm sounded. Nothing happened. It was just them, the box, and the door.
"Easy, peasy." Edith said, trying to sound confident in what they were about to do. She slipped the box into her bag. "Just walk straight, eyes up, follow me, and look like you know what you're doing, got it?" Truthfully, both of them knew she didn't know any better than she did about what was about to happen. He needed her to lead him out and now was not the time to have a panic attack. "And don't walk to fast. I know you're going to want to, but we don't want to look suspicious."
Edith opened the door and they stepped out, never stopping. They shut the door and started walking. There was no time to sneak around. They were out in plain view now. Teddy could feel sweat forming on his brow. He glanced over at his sort-of-sister. Her chin was up. She didn't look afraid. Did he? He sure hoped not. Teddy stumbled on his shoes, his face flushing red as he started walking quicker.
"You alright? You seem like you're in a hurry." Edith reminded him as the approached the front desk.
"You two are signing out early." The guard noted.
"He's sick." Edith pointed at Teddy, writing down fake names as if they were actually signing out. She waved her badge in front of him too quickly for him to read. "He's too sick to apperate, he'll splinch himself. I'm dropping him off and coming back. By the way, boss told me to get him coffee, were you wanting anything?" He voice sounded sarcastic. She was selling this really hard, but the guard didn't pick up on it.
"No, actually. Trying to watch my caffeine intake."
"Of course." She nodded solemnly and they kept walking. "I'll be back!" Edith called as they went to the elevators. It wasn't a long wait, thankfully, and they were gone.
"Wow." Teddy sighed as soon as they were crammed in the lift. "Was that that easy last time?" He whispered.
"No, not... quite. Getting into the Ministry is a lot harder than getting out." She whispered back.
As soon as they put distance between themselves and the Ministry, they found a place to change out of their nice Ministry clothes into plain muggle ones. No one was following them as far as Teddy could tell. This being his first alternate reality to enter, he wasn't sure if it was his imagination or not. The sun felt a bit brighter, the air a bit cooler. The grass was just a few shades less green, but the trees looked more alive than ever. Had it always looked like this? Was his brain trying to imagine fake ideas of minor changes in this reality? Or were his eyes just not adjusting from the soulless white hallway they had just left? "I don't know their old address." Teddy pointed out. "Mum and Dad's I mean."
"Oh! I do! It's-" She said something nonsensical very quickly. It sounded like she had memorized a bunch of garbled words.
"Sorry, one more time?"
"I only know how to say it fast, it's something like-" Edith tried for a while to recall her old address. At six years old, she could've told you it exactly, but now it was a strange memory. They worked together to decipher it. She knew the city, so now they just had to navigate the streets. It took a couple hours. They kept getting lost and Edith kept swearing up and down that she recognized places that were further and further away from where they wanted to go. As soon as they hit her old neighbourhood, they booked it.
"This is it!" She exclaimed. They were ducked behind the bushes of one of the neighbours. "Right, right, right. So what's our plan? Should we both go up?"
"No." Teddy replied. "Unless we knew for certain that they had twins or something, it'll just scare them. You should go. This was your plan after all."
"Yeah, but... you can morph. I can't. If the other Teddy or Edith answers the door, you can pretend to be a sales person or something. And if they said they had a girl instead of a boy or something, you've got an excuse. I don't. We don't know enough about these people."
"This wasn't apart of our agreement!"
"You said you wanted to help, so help!"
"Fine!" Teddy marched off and Edith could see him talking to himself and contorting his face into someone else's. She sat and waited, making sure no one could see her and she didn't look like she was loitering. Teddy was gone for a few minutes. She felt his breath on the back of her neck and jumped so hard she almost slapped him.
"I'll fucking-what is wrong with you!?" She exclaimed.
"I was just trying to be funny!" He laughed nervously. "They're... they're gone. The house is empty."
"Is it empty, or is it enchanted?"
"It seemed clean. The house isn't in great condition and there's a For Sale sign out front." Teddy regretfully informed.
"Oh..." Edith looked crushed. "Let's... let's try Nan's house then." The two were well acquainted with Andromeda's house by now. Teddy could've sword the siding of the house was more of a pale robin egg's blue. Here, the light made it look more like a light periwinkle. Could've been the light, could've just been "orange juice." But other than that, everything looked identical to the reality they had just left behind, down to the flowers hanging on the porch.
"Do you want to scale the wall again?" Teddy asked jokingly. She was already doing it. He realized for the first time from below how difficult of a feat that actually was. There was a flaw in the siding that was just barely big enough for her to slip her foot into it to boost her body up to the window. Opening it from the outside was an acrobatic accomplishment all on its own. Edith didn't seem to open it though. She hopped back down with a rough landing. "It's empty. Our room, its got mum's old stuff in it. We don't live here."
"So we don't live here, but we don't live in our old home..."
"We didn't go that far down. The hallway, I mean." Edith's eyes grew wide. "What if none of them are alive? What if we never existed?"
"Then that means... we need to try the front door." Teddy said urgently. He handed her his bag. "You wait and hide. We'll make a new plan in a minute."
He walked slowly up the front steps. This was strange. Something here felt wrong, something here was bad. The front door flew open. Edith ducked behind a bush before she could be seen. Their grandmother was there, her wand pointed at his chest. It only took her a moment before she softened.
"Teddy?" Andromeda's voice broke. "Oh, Merlin, is that actually you?"
"Y-yeah, it's me." He announced. His stomach was beginning to sink. They had gone to the wrong reality.
Andromeda lowered her wand and rushed to him. His hair changed from it's usual light blue to a saddened plum purple. He didn't notice or intend for that to happen. "You're back, you're really back..." She murmured, hugging him tightly.Back? Where had this reality's Teddy gone? This was just the first reality they had stepped into and he was getting punched in the chest with guilt over leaving his grandmother back at home. "Where are your parents? Do they know where you are?"
Teddy perked up a bit. Parents are here. That's a step in the right direction. "No. No, they don't."
"Oh," Tears were forming in her eyes. She kept hugging him. "I'll get them. We'll talk when they get here. Your dad's been heartbroken over this whole mess. Keeps blaming himself for this. They've missed you so much. We've missed you so much!"
Teddy stared at this unfamiliar-familiar face that was crying over him. Context clues told him this: One, his parents had a son, two, he had gone missing somehow, and three, by the lack of reaction to him morphing his hair, he (the Teddy from this reality) was a metamorphmagus like him. With Edith's inability to morph, they wouldn't have bought it. This was useless. Edith couldn't live here. They wouldn't accept her. He needed to turn around and march off. He didn't know what happened to the other Teddy Lupin and he was going to crush these people mercilessly when he left. He felt awkward sitting on the sofa that belonged in his own house, yet it felt like he was in a stranger's home. He lived here. Everything here, down to things like the rug and the coasters, was all exactly like the ones he had back at home. This must've been how Edith felt when she came to his house. Andromeda informed him that his parents were on their way. He couldn't stop nervously fidgeting.
Andromeda picked up on this. "Don't worry. I know why you came here instead of going home." She reassured him. She squeezed his hand comfortingly, forcing a cup of tea into his hands. "I'll be right here to mediate if they start fussing at each other. I'm not tolerating any of that."
Teddy didn't know what she meant by that. He tried to relax. He'd have to plan how to get away from all of this. He'd have to prepare himself to lie his ass off to his parents' faces in the first and possibly the only conversation he would have with them. Poor Edith didn't even know what was going on. "I'm more worried about them yelling at me."
"It got worse when they didn't have to restrain themselves." Andromeda explained. "They're fine, I suppose. Though I couldn't tell you how this is going to end."
He felt bad about this. Everyone had told him growing up that they had loved each other when they were alive, but he knew that things had not been easy for them. When they had died, they were at a high, but Teddy knew things had been much, much worse before. He liked to assume the best. There was no use speculating the worst in death, but he would never know the truth of what went on behind closed doors with them. "I'm going to make it worse, aren't I?"
"None of this is your fault, Ted." She comforted. "Things are... I'm going to be honest with you, it isn't... good. Things really haven't been the same since you left. But that doesn't mean that it's your fault, and I won't stand to listen to you blaming yourself for a mess that they made."
"Have they...what's going on?" There was a knock.
Teddy wanted to slap himself across the face and wake up.
Remus was standing in the doorway by himself. This didn't feel real at all. His father was older, obviously, by about twenty years. Those twenty years hadn't been the kindest to him, but he wasn't too shabby looking. He had some new wrinkles and his hair had more grey in it. His eyebrows looked stuck in a worried position. He had a white bandage clinging on the side of his neck that indicated some sort of cut was there. His eyes looked exhausted and sunken in like he hadn't slept in ages and he needed to shave. Despite all of this, he was dressed fairly nice. Teddy was convinced from the old photgraphs he had found that this man had never put denim on his body in his entire life.
"Andromeda?" His eyes scanned the room until he saw his son. "Teddy, you're here. Are you alright-"
"I'm fine." Teddy said quickly, jumping to his feet. His heart was racing a marathon. This wasn't real. This couldn't be real. "I'm fine, really. Dad." He had to force out the word.
Remus' face eased up. "Your mum's going to be pissed when they get here." He walked over to Teddy, already having him in a hug before he could respond. He smelled familiar in a way. It was probably the lingering smell of a cheap aftershave that Remus used, but it felt like he had met him before. He smelled... woodsy. Earthy, but in a clean way. Where was he? Where had he come from?
"I'm sorry." Teddy said quietly. "I'm sorry." Was all he could say.
Remus let him out of the hug. "Where were you? Where did you go?"
"It's... hard to explain." Teddy winced. What was he going to tell them? What if the real Teddy showed up right now? "I don't... I don't remember a lot."
"You don't remember? Were you obliviated?" His father asked. He was becoming more concerned again.
"No, no, just... lost. Wandering. I was a lot of different places. I can't remember it all. It blended together." Hopefully if he played up the memory loss enough, they'd buy it in case the real Teddy came back. But that didn't make the lie hurt any less.
"Teddy, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry for all of this, I really am-"
"No, it's okay." Teddy reassured. He tried to sound as calm as he could. He didn't have any idea what they were apologizing for. He was practically shaking just at the sight of his father here like this. He had dreamed of this for nineteen years and this was not the way he imagined this conversation.
"Your mum and I... we tried really hard while you were gone. We talked, we did everything we could to try and fix this. Honestly." Remus said. "I'm so sorry."
"No, no, I-"
The door went flying open again, this time without knocking. Tonks looked like they were getting ready for work when they were summoned, or had just come from there. They were in the standard auror uniform for when they had to do field work or make public appearances and a black leather trench coat. A shiny badge was positioned perfectly on their belt. They gave off a strange aura of anger and domination over this, like they were investigating a crime scene. Their hair was shaved on the side, a gradient from dark magenta to bright purple on the tips. The anger seeped away when they locked eyes with Teddy. They pocketed their wand. Everything about them felt unreal, like this was a dream and he was just piecing together items in his mind.
"Hey, baby," They looked tired. Exhausted from all of this, whatever "this" was. They wrapped their arms around the boy. His mother was a soft hugger. They were a bit shorter than Teddy, not by much. Their tall boots made them closer to eye level with him. They smelled faintly of a cologne that Teddy didn't recognise. "God, six weeks. Where were you this whole time!?"
"A lot of places, apparently." Remus explained.
"Wasn't asking you."
"Is now really the time for this?" Andromeda interjected. "Your son goes missing for a month and a half and the second he comes home, you two start fighting again!"
"I don't remember, Mum." Teddy said. "I was lost... it was all hazy, I'm sorry..."
"What? Like some kind of fugue state?" They asked. They sounded panicked, grabbing him by the shoulders.
"Kind of... No? I-I don't know."
"You weren't doing drugs, were you?"
"No! No, of course not!"
"Is there anything you remember?"
Teddy shrugged vaguely. "I was with some friends. I was safe."
"It's probably all the stress." Remus said. He rubbed his face. "You're probably trying to compartmentalize this. You're trying to forget, I don't blame you."
"Well, you're clean. You're wearing new clothes than what you left in, you don't look like you're starving. Either you took care of yourself, or someone took care of you." Tonks searched his face. "Where are your piercings?"
"Took them out." Teddy said simply. They turned their head to Remus and he morphed up an eyebrow scar. "Look, I don't know what's going on right now. It's like... It's like I just woke up."
"So you... don't remember the fight before you left?" His father asked. "Any of it?"
"I was... I was angry. It was like seeing red, no, I don't remember the details." He lied.
"Sit. Sit down, we'll talk." Tonks insisted.
He obeyed his parents. Andromeda and Tonks sat, but Remus stood, the increasingly worried look on his face growing. "What's going on? What did I miss? How are you?"
Tonks glanced in Remus's direction and took a deep breath. "Your father and I came to the conclusion after you left... well, we..."
"We agreed that what's going on isn't good or healthy for either of us, and it would be best if we just went ahead and separated." Remus spit it out.
"We're working on the divorce now." Tonks said. They sounded regretful, like it hurt breaking the news more than the actual divorce. Teddy literally felt his soul get ripped from his body when they said this. "Actually, we're probably not supposed to be in the same room together right now. We're not supposed to talk to each other, but it's... fine. We're fine. Teddy, we owe you an apology for all that-"
"Several apologies." Remus said. Andromeda cut her eyes at him. "For all of it. You... we all said things we didn't mean because we wanted to hurt each other. We wanted to make each other miserable and you shouldn't have been there. The yelling, the fighting. We never meant for you to become the middle man in all of this, it's not your job to play messenger with your own parents. You deserved better than to be caught in the middle of all of this. We're very sorry, really."
"You're... you're an adult now. We're all adults." Tonks nodded. "We don't need to argue about custody. You get to decide where you want to go forward from here, but just know that we love you and we want to help you out as much as we can. We're not going to start screaming because you picked one of us over the other."
"Wait, so... You all are just separating? Permanently? Just like that? You're done with each other? Twenty years and that's it?"
"We've been separated since you left and things have been better for both of us." Tonks said. "I realized that the only reason I was still in that house was because you were there and... well, I moved out. I've got my own place now." Remus frowned at them.
"Teddy, you need to understand that we've been trying to make this work for twenty years now and all we're accomplishing is getting better at pretending to love one another." Remus explained. "Sometimes love isn't enough to make a relationship, and sometimes it doesn't matter how hard you work, you'll just realize you're growing apart. And when you keep trying to make things work, you grow to hate each other."
Teddy paused. "Then what am I?"
"Teddy, we went over this-"
"No, because... did you ever really love each other? Was I just there to try and make you both look better?"
"Teddy, it was not your job to keep us together, it never was." Tonks pleaded with him. "We love you, we've alwaysloved you, we just... we don't really love each other all that much."
"Dora, he doesn't-he doesn't remember the last time we talked about this-"
"No, I just... I knew I was an accident, I knew I was a mistake. I've known it my whole bloody life, but apparently my purpose in life was to reassure the two of you that you've done nothing wrong! To help make you make this picturesque life that you never even wanted! That was never even real!" The words were falling out before Teddy could stop himself. The rouse was over, this was all him. "Honestly I don't even care that much that you're splitting, but making me be apart of this act you have going on?"
"It was real. We're still... it's not like we're wishing death on one another. And we love you more than anything else in the world! You were never meant to be an accessory." Remus explained. "We just... we can't stay together. We don't love each other and we're miserable living in each other's company. This is only going to keep getting worse."
"So that's just it then? I see you for the first time-since I went missing, and all you have to say to me is how much you hate each other? I thought there was supposed to be something important you would say to me, and this is it? How me leaving your life gave you clarity enough to split?" The words were blowing up in his mind. This should've been a good reality. They were both alive and the war was over, it would've been perfect, but now this was coming to light... Teddy was losing faith in the idea that if they tried a new reality, things would actually work out. "I... I need to step outside."
Remus tried to stop him. "Teddy, no, please don't do this. We can't lose you again-"
"I can't breathe." Teddy was beginning to hyperventilate. "I can't breathe in here..."
"Let him go." Tonks declared. They sighed as he ran out the door. "He has every right to leave if he wants. He doesn't have to listen to us."
"Sure, but that doesn't mean that we can't apologize. He's... he's confused, he's upset. He needs us to help him."
"And we're the last people in the world that he wants to help him." Tonks said bitterly.
"Glad to see you two are being more civil." Andromeda remarked dryly. The last time Andromeda saw the two of them spending any amount of time together was amidst a fight much worse than this one, if you could even call this a fight in comparison. That time was spent at St. Mungo's where both of them had to get glass removed from their hands and arms. Something about a rogue spell that hit a glass vase both of them were standing too close to. Neither gave into what actually happened or elaborated as to if they were actually throwing spells at one another, so a domestic disturbance case was never opened. They just swept up the glass and mopped up the blood and pretended that they were going to vow to not do it again. Andromeda didn't know if it was better or worse that it was both of them were bleeding.
No one was angry at Teddy for running.