Hello everyone! Here is the next chapter-finally! We have the whole family reunion in this chapter, so we will see how that goes. I hope this is good, because I really wanted to get this right! To those who follow my other fics, they should be updated soon. I am going on vacation next week and I do not know if I will have time/internet to update, so I really wanted to get this story into a better place. I think I sort of did that. I have started the next Holding It Together chapter, so if I have internet (I think I will) I will try to update that next week.

I don't own Harry Potter, but if you mistook my writing for the writing of the brilliant JKR, I am extremely flattered and you must have never read a HP book in your life.


Remus could only stare at the man, the child, before him; his child. "Teddy?" he gasped.

Teddy dropped his morph. "How did you know?" he asked.

"I was suspicious from the beginning. I recognized Harry's owl. Your eyes were the real giveaway. You have your mother's eyes and her morphing. You remind me of her very much. You know she did something almost exactly like this to Harry's aunt and uncle?" he answered. It was only half the truth. The other half was much harder to admit to. Perhaps the most stunning similarity was the tone in Teddy's voice when he grabbed Remus' wrist and begged him to wait. It reminded him so much of Dora, and the last time he spoke to her. That is, in the moment before she realized he would not relent, when she still had hope. The last glance of his wife's anguished face when she thought he was not looking still haunted him. Seeing it on his son's face was too much. "You look so much like Dora."

"A lot of people say that," Teddy sighed, "Mostly because of the morphing. Most people say I remind them of you."

Remus saw it now. Teddy's voice was similar to his and he had his sandy colored hair, today anyway. His build was tall and lanky like his. There was no denying that this was his son, the son that he did not know.

"Teddy," Remus asked, "Why did you run away from George's shop? Why did you lie to get me here?"

"I wanted to meet you, at least just once before I go to school," he said desperately, "I'm turning eleven soon, and all the other kid will know their fathers and I wouldn't have known hardly anything at all! You're not… mad, are you?"

That innocent statement hit Remus like a punch to the gut. Not for the first time, he began to doubt is decision to stay away. "I'm not angry," he assured him, "I just think we should probably tell your mother and the others before they worry themselves sick." Teddy looked more contrite at that. Remus raised his wand to cast the patronus, but shouts from across the pub distracted him before he could say the incantation.

"There he is!" a young witch in Auror robes shouted to alert her companion. She trained her wand on Remus. "Sir, put your wand down and raise your hands where I can see them."

Remus sighed and did as instructed. "It is not what it looks like," he protested, but was interrupted again.

"Blimy," the other Auror said in disbelief, "That's Remus Lupin. And Auror Tonks refused to even believe her estranged husband could be behind it."

"I'm telling you, I did not kidnap Teddy," Remus cried, grimacing at the word estranged.

"It is true," Teddy offered anxiously, "I tricked him into coming here and then snuck out of Uncle George's shop by morphing into an adult." He did not want to be responsible for his father being thrown in prison.

"I can verify that Teddy came here morphed as an adult and met with Mr. Lupin," Neville said, edging himself in between Remus and the Aurors. "He was just as surprised as anyone when the patronus came to tell us Teddy was missing. He shot up immediately to help in the search, but Teddy stopped him. You came in shortly after." Remus shot Neville and thankful look.

The two Aurors looked at each other and whispered briefly. "We had better call the boss lady and let her decide what to do," the female Auror announced decisively. Remus thanked his lucky stars that they were not the curse first, ask questions later sort of Aurors, but then the gravity of the situation dawned on him. He was about to see his wife for the first time in eleven years.

Before he could collect his thoughts—though admittedly that would have taken quite a long time—Dora swept into the room. Her eyes and her wand were locked on Remus. "You!" she spluttered, a look of betrayal contorting her features, "I can't believe…" Her hair was changing to a vibrant red in her fury. Her team of Aurors shrunk back with looks of mingled apprehension and excitement. Remus could only stare back in mute horror. Never had Dora looked at him like that. This was not the sweet, gentle person he married; this was a mother bear protecting her cub.

Dora composed her features and adopted a brusque, businesslike tone. Remus had to admire her cool demeanor. He felt as if his insides were writhing like something alive. "Neville, I require a private room to have a little chat with Mr. Lupin. Could you please watch Teddy for me? Teddy, love, come away."

"No." The room fell so deathly silent that the clock ticking on the mantle seemed obscenely loud. All eyes were darting between the Head Auror and her son, who was now standing firmly between his father and his mother's wand. Remus pushed him to the side just as Tonks dropped her wand arm to her side.

"Excuse me?" Tonks choked once she had regained her voice.

"I said no," Teddy said plainly, his arms crossed in a manner that Remus thought startlingly reminiscent of his mother. "I asked him to come and I won't let you make him go away."

"He never needed my command to leave before," she quipped bitterly, causing Remus to recoil as if he had been slapped. She then turned to Neville, "Is this true?"

"I don't see how it couldn't be," he said plainly.

Tonks replied with a curt nod and seemed to make up her mind on her course of action. "Aurors, you are all dismissed. I can see this is a private family matter, not a security concern. You may all go back to your posts. I do not want to see any paperwork on this. Neville, please send a patronus to tell the Order that Teddy has been found. I would prefer if you kept the rest of it to yourself for the moment." Neville nodded and assured her that he would be discreet. The Aurors left the pub, chattering excitedly as they did so. "I also don't want to hear any gossip about this!" Dora shouted after them.

She took a moment to restore her hair to the mahogany pixie cut she had arrived with before turning to Remus with a carefully guarded expression. "I think you and I need to have a talk. We should go to my house where it is private rather than continuing to make a scene in poor Hannah's pub. You and Teddy can talk things over after." She then gathered Teddy up in her arms. "You scared me half to death Teddy Bear."

"Mu-um!" he whined, but was really just thankful he hadn't been grounded—yet. "I really am sorry."

"I know you are. Let's go home, shall we?" She lead them out to Diagon Ally, where she grabbed them both by the arm and Apparated them away.


Well, there it is! They are talking again, in a sense. Surely it is only uphill from here! Please read an review. Reading your encouragement and critiques make my day!