Sorry about the long time between updates! I was busy getting ready for my semester abroad. I am settled in now (for the most part), so hopefully I will be able to update more. Any thoughts and prayers would be appreciated as I adjust to living in a new country and being on my own for the first time. But don't worry, two sunny weekends in London in a row, I'm not exactly suffering :)
So for this chapter, we are jumping back to Teddy's POV. He and Remus are having their first father and son chat! I hope this makes up for the long wait. Please leave me a review!
I don't own Harry Potter. I do own a copy of Casual Vacancy, but a stack of required reading is standing between us.
Teddy followed his father through the garden gate up a neatly trimmed path and up the stone steps to the front door. He thought his father's house seemed quite nice, in his opinion, if much different than his. His Mum had a bit of a careless approach to gardening and housekeeping. She kept it under control and insisted that Teddy do his fair share of chores, but their house always held its slightly wild appearance. Teddy thought their garden looked like the perfect place for faeries to live, with wild blossoms and twisting vines. Occasionally, his Gran would try to get his Mum to make their garden look more tended, but she never did and Teddy was glad. He thought that his Gran would approve of his father's garden, even if she did not approve of his father, and Teddy had the suspicion that she did not.
Teddy was called back to reality by his father muttering the counter-spells to the locking charms on the door. The door swung open to reveal a sitting room every bit as tidy as the garden. That was not surprising. What was surprising were the pictures on the mantle. There were three. One was unfamiliar, and depicted four boys in Hogwarts school robes laughing. The ones that drew his attention were ones he had seen many times. The first was of his Mum holding him the day he was born. Her hair was brown and was stuck to her face in places by sweat. She looked tired, but she was smiling broadly down at Teddy. His hair was shifting colors every so often, first sandy brown, then blue, then orange, then black. The next picture showed only Teddy and was more current. It was Christmas at the Burrow and he was opening a gift from his Uncle Harry.
His father noticed his focus. "Harry sends me pictures and letters. I like seeing you happy and hearing about you growing up so clever..." he trailed of distractedly, "I suppose you still have questions. Why don't I make us some tea and we can talk? You just make yourself comfortable."
Teddy thought that was a rather impossible request because this situation was anything but comfortable. If his father had asked him to sit there and say… be queasy, or panic, he would be able to do that just fine. But to make himself comfortable? It is not every day you meet your father for the first time. He listened to his father fumble around in the kitchen from his perch on the sofa. It had deep, squishy cushions that would be easy to sink into, but Teddy's back was rigid in anticipation. There was no going back from this moment, and he knew it. He could never redo this moment if it went wrong.
His father came back in the sitting room carrying two mugs of tea and with a package of biscuits tucked under his arm. He laid them out in front of Teddy. "I'll let you put your own sugar in," he said, "I don't know how you take it." Teddy thought there was a bit of regret in his voice, as if how he took his tea was fundamental information that it was his duty as father to know.
"I like it with lots of sugar," Teddy said, "Everyone says I got my sweet tooth from you."
His father smiled. "Yes, I do like my sweets," he admitted, "Especially chocolate. I always carry a bit on me. For dementors, you know."
They fell off into an awkward silence, each stealing glances at the other over their mugs of tea. "I'm sure you still want to know the answer to the first question you asked me. Why did I leave?" His father finally asked.
Teddy shook his head quickly. What if his Mum was wrong? What if it was Teddy's fault? "You don't have to tell me," He said, "I don't need to know."
"I think you should know. What you must know is that I did not leave because I didn't want to be a father. I wish I could have been."
"Then why didn't you?"
"It is hard to explain, and even harder to understand. I'm not even quite sure I fully understand it myself. I just knew… deep down, that I couldn't stay. I wasn't good for your Mum. Her aunt swore that she would kill her after we were married. I tainted the bloodline, you see. She very nearly succeeded one night before we knew that Dora was pregnant with you. That was when I knew marrying was a mistake. Then, when we found out about you… I knew there was no other way. It made leaving harder, but more necessary than ever. So, I ran away. After we got home after the attack at Mr. Bill and Mrs. Fleur's wedding, I brought your mother to her parents' house and left her on the doorstep. I never came back. I was afraid. I was afraid of hurting you or your mother. I was afraid of being happy and losing everything all over again."
Teddy did not interrupt his father through all of this, as he was talking so fast it was a struggle to catch all of it. "Did you ever want to come back?" he asked when his father stopped for breath.
"All the time. I've watched you grow up through pictures and letters…my only child…you have no idea how much I wanted to know you, to hold you once. Knowing what was happening with you made it so much harder to live with, but it reminded me why I was staying away. You and your mother were happy and smiling because I couldn't hurt you. Whenever I had a weak moment, I looked back on the pictures and the letters. I couldn't bear to come back and risk taking away those smiles. You are the two most important people to me. Being away doesn't change that."
"But you won't go away this time," Teddy demanded.
"No," he said, "I won't leave again. I can see I made a mistake. Everyone says I am a coward for staying away, and maybe they are right. I can never go back and make up the years I missed, but I can do my best to be there for you for the rest of them."
"Do you promise?" Teddy asked.
"I promise," Remus said, and Teddy smiled in return.
Once that sticky bit of conversation was out of the way, Teddy quite enjoyed the time he spent with his father. He got answers to a lot of his questions, but nowhere near all of them. His father probably would not have been the one to teach him to ride a broom, because his Mum and godfather were both much better at it. He promised to take him to a match, though. He had supported Puddlemere United since he his father took him to a game when he was small and still did, unless, of course, they were playing the Holyhead Harpies. It would simply be wrong not to choose Ginny's team, he insisted. His favorite candy was Honeyduke's classic chocolate bar, just like Teddy's. He couldn't really say what his favorite book was, because he loved so many. He was a Gryffindor in school, which Teddy knew already, and enjoyed his years at Hogwarts immensely. He assured Teddy that when his time came to start school, he would love it just as much. The hours until seven seemed to fly by as they went back and forth with questions and stories. Teddy did not want to leave, but knew his Mum would be waiting. He felt as if this was all a dream and he would wake up to find that everything would be in his imagination.
As they stood in the garden preparing to apparate back to Teddy's house, his father asked the question Teddy had been waiting for.
"So, it doesn't bother you that I am a werewolf?"
Teddy shook his head. "No, you're still you. If you are a nice person, it doesn't matter if you go a bit furry when the moon gets full. You seem like a nice person."
"And you understand that other people don't think that way, and they may give you a hard time about it?"
"When kids made fun of me for my hair, Mum told me that the ones that mind don't matter and the ones that matter don't mind," Teddy explained, "She said Dr. Seuss said it first. I think it works the same way with this. I don't want to be friends with someone who minds. That doesn't make them very nice, does it?"
Remus shook his head, "I suppose not," he said with a small smile, "Your mother has always been quite smart, hasn't she?"
"She says so," Teddy answered, causing his father to laugh.
Teddy held his father's hand to apparate and felt the unpleasant sensation of being squeezed through a tube. They landed heavily on the ground outside Teddy's garden gate. Remus pulled him into a hug before they walked in. "I'm glad you found me," he said, pulling him so tight that Teddy felt like he was apparating again, "I love you, I hope you know that."
When his father returned him to the ground, Teddy could see that there were tears in his eyes. He ruffled Teddy's hair, which was a sandy brown at the moment.
"I love you, too… Dad," he answered, and father and son broke into identical smiles.
I hope you liked it! Please tell me what you think! :)
