Chapter Eleven
"I'm Professor Tonks, your Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher in Professor Lupin's absence," Andromeda said at the beginning of the school year. "I don't answer to my Christian name, my nickname that my cousin gave me that my son-in-law took up, or, contrary to certain people's beliefs, my maiden name." She said this last bit with heavy affectation. Her dislike of Professor Slughorn was well-known; already, the whole school knew she referred to him only as Professor Slughorn, and refused to answer to anything but Professor Tonks... indeed, she seemed to take a certain grim pleasure out of forcing him to address her by her husband's name. "For those of you who don't pay any attention to the school gossip vine – and I'd be surprised if that was any of you – Teddy Lupin is my grandson. Are there any questions?" There were none, which Andromeda was fully expecting; she had no intention of being friendly with her students the way her son-in-law was, and knew that they would talk amongst themselves in lieu of a more accommodating professor. She didn't much care; she knew the more professional you kept yourself, the more they liked to talk behind your back.
She hadn't known exactly what to expect teaching – except that it had to share the name basic principle of imparting knowledge – but was pleasantly surprised by how much she enjoyed it, even just one day in, and – more begrudgingly – how educated Lupin kept his students. She could see a huge difference in the knowledge and ability of his – her – second year students compared to the first-years that hadn't had the benefit of a year of his tutelage.
She wasn't sure she liked conceding that her son-in-law was indeed remarkably talented... at certain things. And she definitely didn't like that, as much love and support as he got from her, Neville, Luna and the rest of the Hogwarts staff (minus Slughorn, Andromeda had seen to that) were falling over themselves to provide, Teddy missed his dad. You didn't miss someone like that if they hadn't been a damn good parent.
She joined the staff and students in the Great Hall for lunch; Teddy took her hand and climbed up into the chair on the outside that was his. "How was it?" Neville asked her.
"Fine."
"You mean you were surprised that Remus has his students so well educated?" Neville clarified. Andromeda took note of the fact that Neville was a lot more confident on his home turf. He had apparently felt so confident that he'd managed to tell Augusta that Hades would freeze over before Alice went to Morganna's. "He's an excellent teacher, Andromeda, and an excellent father," Neville said loyally.
"Who cheated on his wife."
"Who cheated on his wife," Neville agreed. "He's only human," he said dryly, because it was the non-human libido that had caused him to stray. "That doesn't make him any less of an excellent teacher and an excellent father. You and I can try all we like, we can't replace him in Teddy's mind – or his heart. Has he stopped going up to the owlery every day?"
"I told him there was no way Laya could get to Nepal and back in under a fortnight with rest and I would take him up personally every day after the fortnight was up," Andromeda admitted grudgingly, because if she hadn't, Teddy would be up there every day, hoping for news. And, to his credit, Lupin never failed to send Laya back as soon as she was fit to fly again – sometimes with just a short note, but always with a parchment of something or other.
"Any indication of how he's doing?" Neville asked.
"He's sober enough to write legibly," was all Andromeda would say, which Neville took to mean he sounded as well as could be deciphered from a series of letters written to a six-year-old boy.
As the weeks wore on, she found herself drifting towards the abandoned Muggle Studies rooms – McGonagall had made a few half-hearted efforts to find a new teacher in the first few years following the war, then given up. It wasn't a position anyone was keen on so far – a fair point, given the last professor had been eaten by Voldemort's Horcrux snake – and McGonagall figured eventually the right person would come along, either under her administration or someone else's, so the rooms got left abandoned.
Andromeda used the justification that she wanted her own space that her son-in-law hadn't made his own over the last six years, and the Muggle Studies rooms had remained empty the longest, but the reality was, they had been her husband's rooms. For a single year, perhaps, but nonetheless her husband's rooms. His picture was up and everything. She felt a certain kinship with him here.
She got so lost in marking first assignments that she didn't realised she had company. "I didn't think these of all rooms would be of any interest to you," Andromeda said coolly. "As I recall, you thought Muggle Studies was a pointless subject. No sense in wasting time and effort on inferiors," she quoted him.
"As I recall, you always had a knack for remember what people said and reminding them forevermore," Slughorn responded. It was the nicest thing Andromeda had said to him in thirty years. Mostly she ignored him.
Was that self-depreciation in his voice? An admittance of being wrong, even? Whatever it was, Andromeda found herself granting Slughorn the tiniest of smiles before she realised what she was doing. It quickly disappeared from her face. "Ted used to quote it back to me all the time. He particularly liked doing it when he worked here."
"I wasn't very nice to him," Slughorn admitted. "I at least owed him professional respect."
"Yes, you did," Andromeda said coolly.
"I was sorry when I heard about his death. No-one deserves to lie like that, by bad people away from the ones he loves."
"What would you know?" Andromeda asked coolly. She had never forgiven his choice of words of her marriage, or his treatment of her husband when they had been colleagues, and she wasn't about to start now. "You never married. Never found someone who met your standards?" she asked with venomous sweetness that actually managed to be worse than her coolness.
"No," he admitted. "You were my best student. You were a better witch than Bellatrix and made Narcissa look like a Squib. And you were the kindest student I ever had. I never understood why you chose to hang out with your cousin and his friends when Lucius was so eager to get your attention and you would have been damn good mentor for Severus, but I realise now that you didn't belong in Slytherin. I think if you'd possessed that rebelliousness and sense of righteousness a few years earlier, you would have been sorted into Gryffindor. Or Ravenclaw. Or Hufflepuff," he said wryly. Anywhere but Slytherin for someone who had the heart and sense of right that Andromeda did. "I don't mean it that way," he said hurriedly when Andromeda looked at him with the same look of disgust she must have when she found out that her son-in-law had been carrying on an affair with one of his students. "You just asked me about standards and that's part of why I never married. You're a difficult woman to live up to."
Andromeda was used to male attention; she always had been. When she was younger and highly respectable, she had been fourth in line to being the heir of the Noble House of Black. Even now that she was approaching fifty, she was an exceedingly wealthy, exceedingly respected woman who looked closer to forty of thirty-five than fifty. As a student, she'd created and perfected a discouragement charm, a wordless and wandless incantation that suddenly had boys who were after a date losing interest. As a widow, she wasn't beneath still using it. No, she was used to interest from men who saw a wealthy, esteemed, beautiful woman... but Slughorn's comments rattled her. This wasn't interest for shallow reasons – her standing in the community, her money. This was deep respect, and regret that he had let stupid prejudices blind him to that. "If you don't mind, I have work to do," she said, shuffling her papers to illustrate.
"Of course, of course." Andromeda was glad when Slughorn turned to go – his presence was unnerving her more than it angered her, which was a comfortable place for her – and gritted her teeth when he stopped. "I almost forgot the reason I came here. Don't let what happened between us affect Teddy. He loves those dogs and I'm happy to have him around."
Andromeda waved dismissively. "Fine, fine, I'll send him by this evening," she said. She made it clear that if that wasn't convenient, he was to make it convenient or quit using Teddy's best interest as an excuse to talk to her.
She'd always had a knack of getting her own way.
Tess was attempting a crossword but her hands were shaking badly and she kept jolting to pen across the page. She it across the room with a growl of frustration and wanted to burst into tears.
"Here, I made you some hot chocolate. OK. Fleur made it," Charlie concedes. His French sister-in-law's knack for cooking with chocolate was surpassed only by Lupin's. Try and get her to have half, Bill had suggested. It'll be good for her stomach.
Tess went to take it, but her hands were shaking too badly and the cup shook in her hands, slopping the beverage violently in the cup. He saw Tess's face scrunch up in pain and impotent anger. "Hey, it's OK," Charlie said soothingly. He slipped his hands over hers, steadying her hold, and pushed the cup up to her mouth. "Try and drink it all, Bill reckons it will be good for your stomach." Tess obediently drank the whole thing. "How are you feeling?" he asked solicitously. She gave him a filthy glare for his troubles. "It's OK to admit you're hurting," he said softly. "It's OK to be angry at what's been done to you." She looked exhausted, and he didn't blame her. It was the day after the full moon, and she knew what was to come that night.
"Every joint in my body aches," she admitted dully. "And I feel – I can't explain it. I feel like my body's not mine anymore. I have this craving that I hate," she said, and he knew she meant an insane craving for flesh – the kind so fresh it had been ripped off a still-breathing animal, preferably human – that was as ingrained a part of her werewolf physiology as it was abhorrent to her humanity. Lupin had said it got better over the years, but that would be cold comfort to her now.
She was crying now, from exhaustion and hunger and self-loathing. "Tess..." Charlie felt his own brand of impotent anger, at a loss as how to help her. He pulled Tess into his arms and ignored her when she resisted him, her attempts to push him away weak given how strong she was. He pulled her into his lap and wrapped his arms around her. She wrapped his arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder; he felt her tears seep through his shirt and onto his skin. Perversely, because of her distress and the reason for it, he was immensely pleased that she had finally allowed him to comfort her. And he knew that it was because she wanted his comfort, not just comfort from anyone – well, maybe her pack-brother, but that hardly counted. He knew they had something and loved the feel of her in his arms, the fact she needed him enough to let him in. He held her gently, not offering words of assurance that weren't his to offer. And she seemed to know that such words would be hollow, and just took comfort from his presence and the fact he cared about her.
He lost track of time as he let Tess cry in his arms, rocking her gently and stroking her hair, until something possessed him to snap his head up. His ex-girlfriend was looking at them with a look of unmasked jealousy on her face.
"What the hell was that about?" he asked Tonks later in the day after he had settled Tess enough for her to take a nap. She was staying with them for a while after her mother's 'suggestions' that she terminate her pregnancy had been too much for her. He hadn't thought anything of it until he remembered that werewolves were notoriously jealous and territorial, and that in Tess's case, she was likely to push him away even more than before if she thought there was something going on between him and his Hogwarts girlfriend. "I busted my gut trying to make our relationship work, Tonks, you can't just come in seven years later and decide you want me back. You can't start behaving like a jealous girlfriend now. Not like this."Not when she was married and pregnant and he was in love with someone else and trying to get her to return his feelings – not, not even that, trying to make her not scared of him before he could start of her returning his feelings.
Tonks, despite her obvious unhappiness at the state of her marriage, still managed to give him a withering looking worthy of the daughter of Andromeda Black. "You always were full of yourself, Charlie," she scoffed. "I'm not jealous of her. I'm jealous of you."
"Me?" he asked incredulously. "Why?" He wondered if that was the reason her marriage was so unhappy – that their own relationship had done nowhere except under the steam of his strong-willed determination – she was into girls.
"How do you do it?" she asked, her voice a tortured whisper. "How do you make her lower her guard like that? How do you make her let you comfort her?"
All irritation at her belated jealousy or amusement at her interest in girls dissipated into deep sympathy – pity, even. He knew exactly what she was talking about. Tess didn't exactly let people in, and she was Aloof Werewolf Lite when compared to Lupin. "I don't know," he said. "I just – she needed comfort and I knew what to do." He knew such words were useless to Tonks; what she was asking was how do I get my husband to let me in? Which actually came after how do I make him come back?
Tonks's face scrunched up into tears. "I'd give anything to be able to be there for him," she cried. "He's in so much pain and he never lets me in. I – I guess I knew that before I married him, but I had hoped..." she trailed off. Hoping that a person would change after marriage seemed like such a stupid thing, especially after the fact when it hadn't happened.
"Oh, Tonks. I'm sorry. I wish I could help. If it's worth anything to you, I think he'll come back – he's always fulfilled his obligations to a fault."
"I don't want him to fulfil his obligations. I want him to love me."
"He does love you, Tonks. He wouldn't have married you if he didn't. He would have – well, never mind," Charlie said tactfully. He knew Lupin well enough to know that if what passed between him and Tonks was merely physical, he would have screwed it out of their systems. That he had instead held her at arm's lengths spoke about his feelings for her, even if Tonks couldn't see that. "He does love you," he repeated.
"I wish he would let me in like Tess does with you," Tonks said sadly.
Charlie was curled up next to the fire, his legs folded against his chest and his arms wrapped around them. "You OK?" Tess asked him softly, coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He took her hand, threaded his fingers through hers, and brought the back of her hand up to kiss it.
"Just thinking," he said vaguely.
"About Dora?" she asked. He squirmed guiltily. "You have a right to think about her," Tess assured him. "I don't mind."
"Do you remember when we first met?" Charlie asked. "After you'd first been bitten?" Tess gave a small murmur that he knew to be acknowledgement of that particular memory. "It was the first time you let me hold you – you were so upset, and you cried into my shoulder for about an hour."
"Sorry."
"Don't be. I loved every minute of it. I was just thinking about that, because she saw us, and she looked so jealous, and I thought she was jealous of you, but she was jealous of me. Because I knew how to be a comfort to you. Don't ask me how – I just did. Maybe it's a Weasley thing," he said self-depreciatively. They didn't whine when they didn't get what they wanted; they either cut their losses or tried harder. "I was thinking about you and me and her and Remus and Ginny. He feels so guilty for how he treated her. I wish he could understand that they just weren't right for each other."
"Why don't we go see him?" Tess suggested.
"Why don't I go see him?" Charlie counter-suggested. "There's a reason Minerva didn't want him and Teddy saying goodbye to each other, and it's the same reason I don't think it's a good idea to have you seeing him. He might miss you so much that he thinks it's a good idea to come home, even if he's not better yet."
"Charlie? What are you doing here? You don't like English weather," Lupin kidded as best he could, although he was more concerned than pleased to see his brother-in-law. "Is everyone OK? Tess? Teddy? Ginny?"
"They're all fine – Ginny too," Charlie said. "Tess wanted to see you, but I didn't think that was a good idea. I thought it was best if I came and saw how you were for myself."
"I'm OK."
He did look OK – at least, better than he had a few weeks ago. He still looked sad, but he was sober, and the guilt didn't seem to be weighing him down quite so much. "I'm trying to accept that it wasn't my fault – her death, I mean. I'm not doing so well forgiving myself for how miserable I made her."
"No-one can ever make you believe that you were both responsible for your marriage," Charlie said.
"I was so lonely, and I let her convince me that it was nothing we couldn't work through."
"Ah, I was wondering how it happened. But that's actually part of why I'm here. I was thinking of something Tonks said to me. It was after she found out about Teddy," Charlie said tactfully, because what he actually meant was in was in those months when you'd walked out on your wife. "It was Tess's early months and she was having a hell of a time." Lupin remembered his own first months all too well; except he had been six years old with no-one to talk him through it, small comfort though it might have been. "I know this sounds horrible, but I was terribly pleased because she let me hold her, cried into my shoulder for an hour. It was – wonderful, being that close to her, physically, emotionally, knowing she needed me enough to let me in... Tonks walked in on us and had this look of sheer envy on her face. I thought she'd chosen the worst time possible to want to get back with me, but... it was me she was jealous of. That I could get Tess to let me in like that. And you know what? I've no idea how I managed to do it. It's just something I did without thinking about it and I knew what she needed and wanted..." Charlie shrugged; he knew he was going off on a tangent. "I was thinking about it, and you and Ginny. Whatever issues you had in your marriage, she was just as responsible as you were, if not more. She knew who you were and didn't have whatever it is that I have and Ginny has to fight with you about it. She just... went along with things because she loved you too much to object. And that wasn't your fault."
Charlie had run on for a while, and hadn't realised the way Lupin was looking at him. "What?" he asked.
"It was real," Lupin said breathlessly, and there was a strange look in his eyes that Charlie didn't understand.
"What was?" Charlie asked.
"Never mind." Whatever it was, Lupin had decided that he didn't want to share it. "You've come such a long way, why don't you stay the night at least? There's no alcohol here, but I can find you pumpkin juice or hot chocolate..."
"Neville was right, you know," Tonks said. "That no good parent would leave their child behind, not if there was any other way. If there had been any way for me to come back to Teddy, I would have, and to hell with whatever inconvenience it would have been to you."
"I know," Lupin said calmly.
"And Charlie was right. We were so incompatible... and I didn't have the courage to fight with you when you desperately needed someone to fight with you." She looked pointedly at his neck, and he couldn't help but laugh, remembering the vicious and well-deserved bite Ginny had delivered when he'd dared to try and without information from her. "Don't blame yourself, Remus, please don't blame yourself. I want you and Teddy to be happy, you both deserve so much to be happy..."
Lupin drifted from a dream into a happy kind of half-sleep. He didn't believe Tonks would ever be a ghost, knew that whatever presence had visited him the night of her death had been the last he had ever see of her, and that that dream had been his own self-consciousness... but what sweet peace his self-consciousness had delivered him. It had been real. Tonks never would have told him something like that for him to weave into his dreams – she had known how intolerant he was of any mention of Charlie – so it had to have been real, her telling him in what last moments she had that she understood, didn't blame him for their marriage and wanted him to be happy and forgave him for his infidelities. He rolled over and drifted back to sleep...
He was sitting on the couch, a heavy book balance on his crossed legs and some essays on top of the book that he was only half-heartedly marking. Ginny was curled up next to him, her head against his thigh, and he stroked her long hair with his free hand. She purred contentedly at his ministrations; she was a very accommodating wife when it came to his work. She was content to sit beside him as he marked papers, and on the rare time she got bored, she went to see Luna. Marriage and motherhood had only strengthened to two womens' bond...
"Daddy!" Teddy called, running through the door. Lupin's reflexes were just quick enough to dislodge the book and papers before Teddy jumped into his lap, wrapping his arms around his father's neck and hugging him fiercely in the way that only a son can. Lupin rubbed his son's back affectionately the way Teddy loved.
Seeing the pretence at marking papers was over, Ginny wriggled up to a sitting position, resting her head on his shoulder. Lupin wrapped his free arm around her back. "Mummy," Teddy said, plonking himself down on his father's lap and stretching his legs out so he was on both their laps. He had taken to Ginny as if she had been his real mum all his life. He smiled at both his parents, revelling in the joy of being part of a whole family, and Lupin manoeuvred himself so he could kiss his wife while still holding his son...
Charlie woke up early and checked on his brother-in-law. Lupin was sound asleep and in the midst of a happy dream. "Gin," he mumbled in his dream, and Charlie couldn't help but grin at that. It was clear that it was a happy dream – but not an erotic one. That meant he cared about her, respected her. That meant a lot to Charlie.
He closed the door and let Lupin continue on with his dream.
"Can you give this to Ginny?" Lupin asked, looked a little embarrassed. It was a parchment, folded in half, unsealed. Lupin didn't have to say that he had left it unsealed for a reason.
"Sure." Charlie slipped the parchment into his back pocket. He'd talk to Bill first.
"And give Teddy a big hug from me."
"You'll have to wait until you see him again – any hugs he gets from me are from me. But I know he loves receiving your letters. And Andromeda's a good teacher, but your students all miss you."
"I'll be back soon," Lupin said, and Charlie believed him. Whatever his memory about Tonks had triggered in Lupin, it could only be a good thing. He seemed to have finally accepted that he couldn't shoulder all the guilt for his unhappy marriage and drink himself to death over it.
Ginny and Harry were out with Neville and Luna; they had left Alice with Professor Sprout. She had promised Charlie she would get out more, date other people, and Harry had only been too happy to oblige both of them there. He was over the moon when Ginny had accepted his invitation to drinks with their old friends.
Not to mention, Luna was quite happy to be out. Few women were more suited to motherhood, but even she looked forward to a night out with friends outside the castle walls. She was enjoying himself too much to think deeply about things. Though it was quite obvious to Neville that Ginny was distracted, perhaps even here only at the request of her brothers.
He waited until he could speak to her alone. "You don't have to do this, you know," he said. "You don't have to go out with him just because he's there."
"And Remus isn't, you mean?" Ginny concluded. "He left me, Neville. Twice. I know he was hurting, but he could have said something. He could have written a note. He writes to Teddy every week – why can't he write to me? He told me he loved me and left me twice without saying goodbye."
"And you don't think if you feel that strongly about it, you should be dealing with your feelings rather than going out with Harry?" Neville asked.
Ginny tossed her long red hair back defiantly. "I told my brother I was going to move on with my life, and I am, and if you don't like it – well, you can always do what you do best and go blabbing to Harry," she said pointedly. Neville blanched; Ginny was still very good at throwing his 'betrayal' back in his face.
He let it go.
Harry took Ginny back to Shell Cottage at the end of the evening. Bill had delegated him his own room way back from when Ron was still living here, but Harry hoped he wouldn't be using it tonight. He followed Ginny into her room, and she made no protests. "Wasn't tonight great?" he asked, his eyes shining. "I've missed being with you," he said, and swooped in to kiss her.
She kissed him back, going through the motions of passion. She was sure she'd had more fun with Harry way back when she'd been seventeen... that had only been five years ago. It felt like so much longer. So much had happened... and in just a year, too. Had it really been only a year since she had met Lupin last summer?
Harry, if a little disappointed by the lack of enthusiastic response – he remembered when Ginny had been devoted to him in a way that only teenage girls can be – took her lack of refusal as a good sign, and pushed her towards the bed. She obediently lay down and he climbed on top of her. They started making out – if it could be called making out. Ginny didn't participate much. "Ginny," he crooned, delighting that things were going so far. "I've missed you so much."
"Mmm-hmmm," Ginny said, which Harry took to be concurrence. She lay there, almost still, putting in the minimum effort to return his embrace without being a stone, waiting for something to happen inside her. She had known even way back when she had been seventeen that there was something magical missing between her and Harry – that thing that Lupin had talked about, that thing that she had had in abundance with him – but now, after all she had been through this past year, there was even less chemistry between her and Harry then there had been before.
She wondered how Lupin was doing.
She felt Harry undoing the buttons of her shirt and returned the favour half-heartedly. She willed herself to be turned on, waiting for Harry to do something to send her into a frenzy. "Harder, Harry," she urged him when he kissed her skin along the swell of her breasts above her bra. "Harder!" she said more urgently, remembering how Lupin would grope and bite and one of their frenzied bedroom sessions wasn't worth doing if they weren't heavily marked by the end of it.
She dug her nails into the back of her neck the way Lupin loved. "Ouch!" Harry yelped. He raised his head, temporarily forgetting how pleased he was to be in bed with Ginny. "What's gotten into you?" he asked. "You're acting... weird."
"I am not," she said huffily.
"You never wanted it... harder," he said, making it sound like she was acting like – like a Dark Creature's whore. She wondered how much he knew. Bill and Charlie were the only ones who were supposed to know – plus their wives, Neville and Luna, McGonagall, Andromeda... Ginny squirmed. That was a lot of people to be keeping a secret, and that wasn't even allowing for any other Hogwarts staff who might know.
She shrugged. "I'm not a seventeen-year-old virgin anymore," she said. "Surely you're tastes aren't as simple as they used to be."
"They're not so complex that I like pain," Harry retorted. He peered at her intently. He had heard the rumours, of course. Lupin had been linked to almost every pretty female student he'd had in the last six years, particularly after it became common knowledge that his relationship with Sarah Callahan had been a fact. But he had never given the rumours about Lupin and Ginny any serious thought.
Until now.
"Is it true?" he demanded. "About you and Remus?" he wanted a denying, even a half-hearted one, something that he could take at face value... but the look on her face said it all. "Ginny!" he said, disgusted... and hurt. "What the – he's old enough to be your father! He was my dad's best friend! He's married."
"Was," Ginny corrected him.
"Was married when you were fooling around with him," Harry countered. "Jesus, Gin – that's – what were you thinking?" He made a face, making it obvious that he thought Ginny had lost her mind... and that her relationship with Lupin was disgusting... and traitorous.
"I love him," Ginny said quietly. Harry flinched at the certainty in her voice; he didn't think she had ever spoken about him like that. Certainly, she had never spoken to him like that. "Believe me, if I could switch it off, I could."
Harry believed her... and it broke his heart to hear it. No-one would choose to love a married man nearly twice their age, and a Dark Creature to boot. So she had to love him an awful lot – far more than she had ever loved him.
"Harry, I'm sorry," Ginny said when she saw how much it hurt him. "If – "
"Don't," Harry said, pushing her away when she tried to place a comforting arm on him. He knew what she was about to say. If I could love you, I would. I love you as a friend. All of that crap; nothing he cared to hear. "Just – leave me the hell alone. Go play your stupid games with your married werewolf... if you know where to find him," he jeered. Everyone knew that Lupin had been so grief-stricken – or was that guilt-stricken? – that he'd been sent to Merlin-knew-where to get over it.
Harry stormed out of Shell Cottage, just about running into Charlie on the way. "Harry!" Charlie said, pleased because it had been so long since Harry had been there, and concerned because the look on Harry's face said the younger man wasn't happy – no doubt because of Ginny. "Where are you going?"
"Home," Harry mumbled.
"It's nearly midnight!" Charlie said. "Why don't you crash here for the night?"
"I'm fine," Harry said, and Charlie could see that he was too angry – or was that too upset? - to bother arguing with.
"What was that about?" Charlie asked Bill.
Bill shrugged. "Beats me. They looked really happy when they came in maybe fifteen minutes ago, and now..." He shrugged again.
"Do you think it has something to do with Remus?" Charlie asked. The look on Bill's face was affirmative. "I have a letter from him." He dug into his pocket and withdrew the parchment.
"What's it say?"
"I don't know, I didn't read it. I take it from the fact he didn't seal it that he meant for us to read it – or at least he doesn't mind – but..." Shrugging seemed to be the norm for them lately, when faced for difficult – or impossible – positions. "But I'm not sure I should. We both agree if he was free to marry her – "
"I know what we agreed, Charlie."
"And whatever happens now, there'll be less aggro between us and her if we give her the same space and respect that we would have given anyone else."
"You sound like you approve."
"Approval's not the word... I think we need to make the best of a bad situation. If what they have is real, then they'll get together eventually, and do we want to be the big brothers that went out of our way to keep them apart?" Bill nodded slightly, reluctantly, to say that he agreed with Charlie.
Charlie knocked of Ginny's door. "Things with Harry not go too well?" he asked. "He didn't look to happy when he left here."
Ginny looked pained. "I tried, Charlie – I really did. I'd love for things to work between me and Harry. But they don't – I can't help that. I can't help the way I feel about Remus. Merlin knows, I wish I did. He left me twice without bothering to say goodbye, and I can't stop feeling the way I do about him."
"He gave me this to give to you," Charlie said, glad now that they hadn't read it. "We haven't read it. He expected us to, I think, why he didn't seal it, but we didn't, so I've got no idea what it says. But... I said something about Tonks that seemed to switch something on inside him. It was like a load had just been wiped off like that." He clicked his fingers. "Whatever it meant, I think he let go of a lot of what he's been feeling since she died, and I think he's started thinking about you without feeling like scum at the same time."
Ginny had wanted to harden her heart towards Lupin, but Charlie's words made it soar instead. She reached for the parchment, almost snatching it out of his hands, and Charlie beat a swift exit so she could read the letter in private.
My darling Ginny,
it read. Ginny's heart soared even higher at the Darling Ginny address.
I did you a huge wrong in leaving without saying goodbye to you – and that's not even taking into account the way I treated you in the last year. I felt responsible for Dora's death, I spoke to her shortly before she died about how lonely I was. I'm beginning to understand that there was no coming back for her – even if she would have left me, she would never have left Teddy if she could help it – and that I wasn't responsible for her death, Bellatrix was.
I've given you every cause to walk away from our relationship and part of me still hopes that you find happiness with someone more acceptable for you. Ginny noted the way he'd said acceptable, rather that suitable. Acceptable, as in accepting by society... not suitable, because there was no-one more suitable for her. But I'm selfish and I love you and if there's any hope for us, I plan on winning you back once I return to England.
I love you,
Remus.
Ginny felt a sob rising in her throat. She had never in her wildest dreams expected to hear such news from him – such hope for the future. He loved her, he wanted to make things right with her, wanted to make things work for them.
Dear Remus,
she wrote back
I will wait for you.
Ginny.
There didn't seem to be anything else to be said.
"Uncle Charlie!" Teddy cried happily, running up to his uncle and jumping into his arms.
Charlie hoisted him up onto his hip. "Hey, kiddo," he said. "Have you missed me?"
"Can we go flying?" Teddy asked.
Charlie laughed; trust his nephew to be more focused on flying than seeing his uncle for the first time in weeks. But maybe he missed his dad too much to care much for the company of anyone else. "Professor McGonagall doesn't like me taking you flying here at Hogwarts," he said. Taking a child flying dinky bordered on illegal, one of those things that was best done in the spacious backyard of Shell Cottage and not on the grounds of one of the world's leading magic schools. "But the next time you come to Shell Cottage, I'll be sure to make some time for you. Is your grandmother here? I want to speak to her."
"Right here, Charlie. I'm not sure what kind of guardian you think I am that I wouldn't be far away – especially given what Dora was capable of doing if I let her out of my sight. Teddy, why don't you go and bring Charlie your pictures?" she suggested, sensing Charlie wanted to speak to her alone. "He's becoming quite the artist," Andromeda said proudly. "He loves drawing Hogwarts. He's always pestering me to take him somewhere new."
"I could help you out there," Charlie said. He explained briefly about seeing Lupin, and his letter to Ginny, which had made her very happy. "I was thinking he could stay at Shell Cottage from time to time," he suggested. "I know what you're thinking, and you have every right to disapprove of her. But I think they love each other, and I think eventually they're going to get together – if he can ever let go of his guilt, and I think even you would rather see him happy with someone else then acting the way he was." Andromeda nodded so slightly that if you didn't know her, you would have missed it completely. "She's a good kid, Andromeda. More than a kid. I might not be happy with her choice, but at the end of the day, I have to respect it... and so will you, eventually. I think it's in everyone's best interest to support that, encourage Ginny and Teddy to have a good relationship."
Andromeda blanched. The idea of approving of Ginny's position in her son-in-law's life, after she had been his mistress for so long, after she had been fooling around with her daughter's husband... and yet, she knew Charlie was onto something. Lupin had been involved with the girl for almost a year; that wasn't some flight of fancy. And as much as she despised his infidelities, she would rather see him happy – and happy with someone else – than miserable like he had been before he had left England. But the idea of letting that girl influence her grandson, of potentially being his new mother... "Let me think about it," she said coolly.
"I don't like the idea of her spending time with him," Andromeda admitted. "She cheated on my daughter."
"And you've already got Gryffindor numbers stacked against you, that can't help," Slughorn said; he was under no illusions as to why Andromeda was asking his opinion. Not that he wasn't flattered that she had asked for his opinion, and they had been getting along extremely well lately, but he wasn't arrogant enough to believe that she had sought his company for its own sake. Still, he wasn't about to say no to her when she'd casually invited him along one of her extensive evening walks through the grounds, almost as if she was putting herself out to do him a huge favour. "And you wanted my opinion?"
"I rather like my solitude, Horace," Andromeda said loftily.
"And the fact I'm the only other Slytherin on staff has nothing to do with it," Slughorn suggested gently, smiling in spite of himself. Once upon a time, he would have been insulted to be used so, and by a woman who made it sound like she was doing him a huge favour, but teaching had mellowed him hugely, and Andromeda Tonks was just as enchanting as she always had been. "Will I be forfeiting any future walks if I say I agree with young Mister Weasley? What they did was wrong, Andromeda, but I'm not sure what else you expected him to do. Am I right in assuming it was more the emotional than physical affair that bothered you?"
"There was never anyone but Ted," Andromeda said primly, making it clear that she meant both before their marriage and since his death.
"But there's never been anyone like you," Slughorn said. "As I was saying – what they did was wrong, but can you really blame anyone for grabbing what happiness they can? And... he needs a mum. No-one denies that you're a fantastic grandmother – every student of mine wishes you were their grandmother – but that's not the same as being his mum. You and Tess can bend over backwards and work miracles and you still can't fill that void. Have you ever noticed the way he looks when he's with Neville, Luna and Alice? Like if he could wish a whole family into existence, he would. And I think there are far worse potential step-mothers in the world than Ginny Weasley. I've heard stories about your mother-in-law," he added.
"My mum was no prize, either," Andromeda said. She laughed dryly. "So that's John, Sarah and Ted dead, and Molly and Arthur, too. We're not doing too well for extended family."
"The way Teddy's taken to calling the staff 'Uncle' and 'Aunty', I don't think you have to worry about that," Slughorn said dryly.
Andromeda laughed at that – really laughed, which was rare for her, let alone over something Slughorn had said. "That is entirely Remus's fault," she said.
"You know, if I hadn't raised you better, I would have sworn you turned a blind eye to certain things so you can blame him for the means when the ends suited you perfectly."
She laughed again. "It is good for Teddy to have people he considers family and Remus to blame for encouraging such unprofessional behaviour with people who will be his Professors in a few years – his Headmistress next year."
"You still sore about Lady of the Lake?"
Andromeda shrugged. "I knew he was never going there," she admitted; maybe Slughorn was onto something when he thought she found it rather handy for having Lupin to blame for the means when the ends were exactly what she had wanted. "I liked it but I know Dora was miserable, and I wouldn't want Teddy going there, not with pureblood snobs still convinced that his breed-status is questionable."
"I would have liked to have had kids," Slughorn said wistfully. "I always found it odd how so few professors ever married and had children. It's a tough job to share with a spouse and children, but not impossible."
"Luna is singularly suited to be a – I'm not sure what we'd call her," Andromeda said. But there was no denying that Neville's wife was good for the younger students of Hogwarts.
"I think Ginny would be, too," Slughorn said. "And I think Charlie's right. If what they feel for each other is genuine, then they will eventually get together. Do you want to be the bad guy who disapproved of his new mum and did everything she could to keep them apart... or do you want to demonstrate some kind of acceptance? Whatever you might feel about the situation, I think you have to think about what's best for Teddy."
"When did you get so open-minded?" Andromeda asked. "I recall a time when you wouldn't have acknowledged me, let alone given thought to what was best for my half-blood grandson with questionable breed status."
"Not exactly Slytherin characteristics, I know," Slughorn admitted with a rueful laugh. "Sometimes I think I'm not the role model I should be. I doubt old Salazar would have approved of me. At least not now."
"Screw Salazar, he started all this pureblood garbage that had caused so much trouble," Andromeda said vehemently. "I hear you're good with them. You're certainly not as traditionalist as you used to be."
Slughorn laughed at that. "I never thought I'd hear that, and take it as a compliment."
"You've changed," she admitted with grudging honesty in a way that was clear it was – perhaps a not-so-grudging – compliment.
"We all have, I think," Slughorn said. "By the end of the war, no-one could sit on the fence anymore. We all had to pick a side. It made people like Dolores Umbridge who basically a vicious tyrant to show their true colours rather than hedging their bets, and forced me to stop being a coward and fight for basic human decency. I never realised just where pureblood values could lead us until I saw where Voldemort took them."
It was on the tip of Andromeda's tongue to say that he should have been paying more attention, but there was something in Slughorn's tone that made her check herself. This was a man who had truly reflected on his past actions and found himself lacking – a sense of self-reflection and self-honesty that few people possessed. Her nephew, for one, was singularly incapable of working out why his life had worked out so badly. She laughed out loud at the thought.
"What's so funny?"
"Thinking about Draco. He doesn't like getting by on fifty galleons a month, but he's incapable of doing anything other living off inherited wealth and exploited labour." Andromeda paid him a small allowance, both to keep him out of her hair and because it amused her to think that he was forced to rely on the aunt that he loathed for such a small amount. "He'll spend the rest of his life wondering where it went wrong and never once thinking that maybe he should look in the mirror for an answer."
"I loathed that little brat," Slughorn admitted. "And he wasn't particularly talented, either. Buoyed up entirely by his belief in his family's worth. Still, it's kind of sad that he – that anyone – is so helpless now."
"It takes courage to recognise the things you did wrong, that the beliefs you held were wrong." There was a tone in Andromeda's voice that was almost addressing Slughorn as an equal in their journeys of reflecting on themselves and their beliefs. She was calling him courageous, in her own way. He reached for her hand. "Don't!" she yelped, yanking it violently across her body so it was almost touching her right hand, and Slughorn immediately realised what the problem was. "You can hold my other hand," she said in that same begrudging tone that she did so well (Slughorn had long come to the conclusion that she spoke to everyone that way, except maybe Ted, who had been more inclined to accept such address from muggle royalty than the informal nobility of the magical community) that made it sound like she was doing him a huge favour when actually she was inviting him to hold her hand, just so long as it was the hand that didn't sport her wedding ring.
Ginny woke to the sounds of a young boy squealing with delight. She went to her bedroom window, which overlooked the backyard. Charlie had Teddy on the back of his broomstick and was zooming around with the little boy as fast as he dared.
She quickly slipped on her dressing gown and stuffed her feet into her slippers and Appirated directly into the backyard. Charlie waved at her briefly before returning his concentration fully on flying. She grinned at that. He wouldn't be so cautious if it was just him up there.
After another fifteen minutes, he brought them down safely. "Can't we stay up for longer?" Teddy pleaded.
"It's breakfast time, kiddo," Charlie said. "Maybe later on in the day. Teddy, you remember my sister Ginny, don't you?"
"I met you last Christmas. You were my dad's student when I was a baby," Teddy replied promptly. "You ice-skated with me, dad and Aunty Tess – you were good. Can we go skating again?" he asked, figuring that if Charlie wouldn't take him flying again, then skating was the next-best thing.
"If you want, but we need to have breakfast first. A growing boy like you needs energy – I need energy," she said, laughing gaily.
"Uncle Charlie says you were a Quidditch star," Teddy said admiringly.
"Uncle Charlie exaggerates. I played a little professionally, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. It's fun playing at school and at home with my brothers but when you're playing for your country, it's so much tougher and meaner. Now I just do a little work for the papers."
"Ginny's a lady of leisure, she doesn't actually need to work," Charlie said with a grin. Ginny poked her tongue out at him, although it was true enough; she had inherited the bulk of her parent's assets as well as those confiscated from the Malfoys, she didn't need to work. She picked and chose her writing assignments because she enjoyed it.
"What's a lady of leisure?"
"It means I don't have to work."
"Thanks to your great-aunt Narcissa," Charlie said with a grin. "Never mind," he said hurriedly when Teddy looked like he was about to ask about the Malfoys.
"Grandma says we're not to talk about her sisters," Teddy said. Then, the inevitable question – "How come?"
"They weren't very nice people," Charlie said. "They didn't like your grandpa. They thought your grandma could have done a lot better than him. But she couldn't," he added. "He was one of the nicest men I ever met. My dad loved him – he was fascinated by muggle things..."
Teddy wolfed down a huge breakfast before dragging Ginny off to the lake. She had considered herself to be energetic and athletic, but Teddy was something else entirely. "You seem to be placing more importance on the fact he's human than on the fact he's Remus's son," Charlie said.
Ginny spent the day with Teddy and found him to be a charming, intelligent, energetic boy. She had already known that, but actually spending hour after hour with him one-on-one was an experience far beyond what she knew of him. "Happy?" she asked him at the end of the day. She was charmed by the flushed, excited look on his face. She loved that he had taken to her so well, even if Teddy was the sort to take to anyone well, and he would have been particularly predisposed to Uncle Charlie's kid sister. But she honestly believed there was a connection there – maybe she wanted there to be, but surely you couldn't entirely imagine something, could you?
"Yes," Teddy said promptly.
"But...?" Ginny prompted. There had been a definite but in his affirmation.
"I miss my dad," Teddy admitted.
"I miss my mum and dad," Ginny said frankly. "They died over five years ago. I still miss them. I don't think we'd be human if we didn't always miss our parents, no matter how much or how little time we got with them," she said sagely.
"So it's OK to miss my mum, even though I never knew her?" Teddy asked.
"Of course it is, sweetie. Did no-one ever tell you that?" Teddy shook his head slightly. "I guess that's because they all thought it was so obvious that it didn't need to be said. But you're allowed to miss her. I know Neville always missed his mum and dad. Still does."
Teddy took this information in seriously; it was exactly what he needed to hear. And so the ice was broken.
At the end of the week, Ginny took Teddy back to Hogwarts. Andromeda wasn't there yet, so Ginny stayed with the boy until his grandmother arrived. She knew at some point she would have to confront the woman.
She wasn't waiting long before she could hear the older woman's voice in the hall – and was that Slughorn accompanying her? Ginny had heard that they hated each other... or at least, that Andromeda couldn't stand Slughorn.
If Andromeda was surprised to see Ginny, she didn't say anything. She smiled when Teddy ran up to her and hugged her exuberantly; Ginny was surprised to find that she felt jealous of the boy's love and devotion for his grandmother. "I thought perhaps I should stay with him until you returned," she stammered.
"I'll leave you to it," Slughorn said. "Teddy, I know Blackie and Emerald missed you. Why don't you go say hello to them?" he suggested, recognising that the two women needed to hash things out.
"Did he enjoy himself?" Andromeda asked when Slughorn took Teddy away, and she was grateful for his tact.
"Yeah. He really loves Charlie, and I think he likes me. I wouldn't be disappointed to have such a son."
"Yes, dear, but you're not old enough to be his mother," Andromeda said coolly. "You are, however, young enough to be Remus's daughter."
Ginny flinched at that. It was true enough; she was younger that James Potter's son. "You can't stop us from loving each other," she said desperately, because if there was anyone in the world who could, the indomitable Andromeda could surely take a crack at it. If she could make a convincing argument that it was in Teddy's best interest that Lupin remain single, well, Lupin might just listen to her.
Andromeda pursed her lips. "No, I can't," she said grimly, making it sound like she wasn't sure who was demonstrating the biggest lack of class – Ginny or Lupin. "But your brother seems to think you'd make a good step-mother. So does Horace," she added, and it took all Ginny's willpower not to grin at that. It was clear that, despite the history between Andromeda and Slughorn, she still held his opinion higher than that of a Weasley. Her eyes narrowed. "You'd better do better than just a step-mother," she said. "If he ever feels in any way less of a son to you than any of your other children, so help me Merlin, Ginny, I'll make sure you regret it."
Ginny felt her heart catch in her throat. It sounded like Andromeda was giving – well, if not her approval exactly, than her acceptance of the situation. Instead of outright opposing the match, she was negotiating the best possible deal for Teddy – that he never be made to feel that he was merely a step-son. And since Ginny had been perfectly sincere when she'd said that she'd be proud to have such a son, that wasn't exactly a difficult task. "I won't – " she started.
Andromeda waved her hand dismissively; she had seen enough to believe Ginny, or at least believe her intentions. Weather or not that stayed the same once her own children were born remained to be seen, but Andromeda had been perfectly serious in upholding her end of the bargain; her acceptance of the situation was conditional on Teddy feeling like a son to her. "You may go," she said. Then, a little more kindly, "Why don't you go and see Neville? Luna's visiting her father for the weekend and I don't believe you've met Alice yet." Because Luna and Neville were loathe to have Alice leave Hogwarts and Ginny had been banned from the school because of Lupin, all she had seen so far were photos.
Neville was sitting on the bed when Ginny entered, and he smiled warmly to see his old friend. "Hey, come sit," he said, waving clumsily at the chair near the dresser; his arms were full of Alice. "This is my daughter, Alice Penelope Longbottom," he said proudly, pronouncing each syllable with grandeur in much the same way people used to announce Dumbledore's full name. "Say hello to Aunty Ginny, Alice," he cooed.
"Hi, Alice," Ginny said. She reached out and Alice grabbed at her hand. She longed to hold the baby, but if Neville was anything the protective father than Lupin had been, he would be loathe to hand her over to someone who didn't have children of her own. "She's beautiful," Ginny gushed, settling for a bright smile and flashing of grey-specked blue eyes. "Sorry I haven't been to see her yet."
"That's OK, given the circumstances," Neville said. "How did things go with Andromeda?"
"OK, I think, all things considering," Ginny said carefully. "She basically threatened to rip my heart out in the most painful manner she could find if I didn't make Teddy feel like he was my son instead just my step-son, which was better than I expected."
"Never forget that she's Bellatrix's sister," Neville said sagely. "She's just as capable of treating viciously anyone who betrays her principles – her principles are just a little more humane, but that doesn't negate the fact she's a very powerful witch with a strong knowledge of Dark Arts. Minerva was right – she surpasses even Remus in what she knows. He should be grateful she wants to go back to St. Mungo's else there might be a fight on their hands. But anyway – she will hurt you if she feels you've betrayed something she believes in deeply. I think she might have already gone after you, or Remus, if it hadn't been for Teddy."
"It's that important to her?" Ginny asked, floored but grateful for this turn of events.
"You can thank, of all people, Horace," Neville said. "He's mellowed so much, by his own admission, he wouldn't have been sorted into Slytherin if he'd gone in knowing then what he knows now. And whatever's going on with them, she listens to him – sometimes. Particularly about Teddy. So when he says Teddy needs a mum, she listens to him, even if part of her will always hate you for cheating on her daughter."
At the word daughter Neville focused his attention on Alice. She cried a little, which he seemed to understand was her particular noise for hunger. He conjured up her bottle and started feeding her. "I'm so jealous of Luna," he admitted. "I wish I could breast-feed. I was kind of glad that she went to her dad's so I could have Alice all to myself." He cooed softly to her and rocked gently. He was a sight, a grown man acting so gaga of his daughter, and yet, he had never looked so confident, so at ease sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the bed with his daughter in his arms. If marriage had made him happier and more settled, then fatherhood had done so even more, blowing away all his fears of abandonment like a wispy cloud in a strong wind.
She remembered Lupin talking about Teddy in that way, how he had been terrified of fatherhood until he'd held his son in his arms and suddenly everything had fallen into place and so many insurmountable problems were suddenly perfectly dealable. She looked at how happy and calm Neville was with Alice and she realised something.
"He would never have left Teddy."
"Pardon?" Neville asked distractedly. Even one of his oldest friends had difficulty competing for his interest when it came to Alice.
"He never would have left Teddy," Ginny repeated. "Remus. He never would have left Teddy, unless he couldn't help it. I never saw him with him, except at Christmas, and then barely, I never understood how much he means to him."
"I could have told you that," Neville said softly. "He just went crazy over Tonks's death. I think he felt guilty. He wanted so much to be with you, Gin, he would have wished he was single again, even though he knew the only way that would happen was if she died. I can't imagine what a burden that would be, to have that happen."
"I felt so guilty after she died," Ginny said. "Because I'd wished her dead. I – I had no idea that he might be feeling guilty, too."
"He didn't handle it well," Neville admitted slowly, loathe to say anything critical about the man he worshipped. "In the end, Minerva made him leave – threatened to fire him and side with Andromeda in a custody battle if he didn't get help. You're right about that – he wouldn't have left Teddy unless he could help it. And if it's worth anything, when he gets better, I think he'll remember how much he loves you... and he'll be able to love you without feeling guilty about it."
Ginny remembered what Lupin had said in his note. I love you and if there's any hope for us, I plan on winning you back once I return to England. He would come back to Teddy, and he would come back to her. She just had to be patient.
Andromeda held a tired-but-still-alert Teddy in her lap that evening as she combed out his hair the way he liked. He was content to sit in her lap long after she had worked out all the knots, and she wondered where along the line had Lupin become so tactile that he had raised his son to love hugs and kisses and having his hair combed for hours on end. "That's pretty," Teddy said, spying the bracelet on his grandmother's wrist. "It's Slytherin colours."
"Yes, it is," Andromeda said. It was a slim silver bracelet with a thin line of emerald snaking through it. "Horace gave it to me a lot time ago – before your mum was born, when I was still a student here." Whatever she had thought of the man over the years, she had never been able to fault his taste in jewellery.
"Wow, that was ages ago," Teddy gushed, and Andromeda laughed, because sometimes it felt like only days ago to her. "I thought you didn't like him."
"I didn't," Andromeda admitted, using the past tense instead of saying I don't.
"How come?" Teddy asked. "Do you like him now?"
"One question at a time, sweetheart. He didn't approve of your grandfather – he didn't approve of my marriage. A lot of people didn't, but he was my favourite Professor and I think I was his favourite student, so he said some things that I couldn't ignore – really mean, cruel things. I think he was sorry a long time ago but he couldn't say so. And he sided against Voldemort in the war – a lot of people didn't want to take sides. They wanted to keep quiet in case Voldemort won and they could say they never sided against him... it took courage to come out against him. Courage I didn't think he had. So yes, I guess that means I like him now."
"Good," Teddy said, satisfied, because he loved his grandmother and liked Slughorn and didn't like them being enemies. "Was daddy courageous? Uncle Neville says he was."
"He was," Andromeda said, a little begrudgingly, but she could neither talking badly about Teddy's father to him, or lie. "He helped defend this castle, he killed his sire – that's the werewolf who bit him – to protect you and Tess, and another werewolf to protect you and Tess, too. He was a part of this really important organisation, the Order of the Phoenix, and he was a good friend of Dumbledore's."
"So how come you don't like him?"
Damn. Trapped by her own words. She forgot sometimes how intelligent Teddy was. "Horace said you and daddy used to be friends. He said you used to sneak down to hang out with him and his friends."
Andromeda laughed at that; Slughorn still believed that all those absent afternoons and evenings had been spent with Sirius and his friends, whose company she had infinitely preferred over her Slytherin classmates her own age. "He was my cousin's friend. I guess that made us friends," she said, lying through her teeth because they had been friends. She'd had no problem with him being a werewolf until he had gone and married her daughter.
"So how come you don't like him now?"
"I – I don't know," she admitted, knowing that she could never admit to her grandson that she despised him for putting her daughter in her weakened state, despised him for encouraging Bellatrix's wrath by having her marry a half-breed. She had pursued Lupin, not the other way around, she had known what she was getting into... but it was easier to blame him than her. And she couldn't bring herself to tell him about Lupin's infidelity, even if he did understand. "I guess I thought she deserved better. Because he was so much older, and he couldn't provide for her the way she was used to."
"But they loved each other..." Teddy said slowly, more for confirmation than anything else.
"Yes, they did, sweetheart. It was very complicated... but maybe I could have been nicer to him." She stopped combing his hair and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, kissing his head. "They both loved you very much, sweetheart. And so do I. No matter what, never doubt that."
She wondered if it was time to talk to her son-in-law – talk to him, as opposed to jeering at him for all his failings as a husband.
What was it about Andromeda, Lupin thought, which she seemed to age at half the rate everyone else did? He wouldn't put it past her to have perfected an anti-aging charm or potion that she was keeping to herself. Whatever it was, at fifty she looked thirty-five, perhaps younger – young enough to pass for Tonks's barely-older (and much more striking) sister.
When she got closer, he realised she wasn't wearing her usual all-black but what he supposed was her idea of semi-mourning – a full black skirt with a dark green overlay – a colour like emeralds seen in shadows, rich but barely discernable from their black backdrop – and a silk blouse that was only a few shades lighter than the overlay. And a silver bracelet. He backed away from her instinctively. Even the smooth edges of fine jewellery raised his hackles.
"Remus, if I was going to kill you with silver, I'd do it properly and get one of those knives that you and Tess tote around," Andromeda said when she saw the look on his face. "It's just an old piece of jewellery that I found again."
Old piece of jewellery? That sounded like – he peered closely at it, just making it the thin emerald engraving. "Didn't Horace give that to you years ago?" he asked. He remembered how much she had loved the striking piece of jewellery from her favourite Professor, even as she had been sneaking down to hang out with him, Sirius, James and Peter... when she wasn't sneaking out to hang out with Ted.
"So?" she asked, daring him to call her on it.
"Teddy says you've been seeing a lot of him lately," Lupin said laconically. "You might have screened all my letters, but I guess you didn't screen his. So you don't hate him anymore, then?" he asked. "He's a good guy, Andy, he always was – just a bit cowardly at times. And I think he's growing out of that."
"He's old enough to be my father, he should have 'grown out of that' fifty years ago," Andromeda said icily. "And I didn't come here to talk about my friends, Remus. I came here to ask you and your marriage to my daughter."
Lupin looked suddenly tired. "Andromeda, I don't want to be attacked by you again," he said. "I know you despise me for the way I treated her, but calling me names isn't going to achieve anything, so if that's what you came for, then go home." And as much as she might despite him for the way he had treated Tonks, he was surprised that she was so obsessed with it that she had come all this way...
"I didn't come to attack you, Remus, I came to talk to you," Andromeda said in a funny, stiff voice that sounded almost as if she was trying to be friendly. "I want to understand your marriage. Teddy wanted to know why I didn't like you, and I didn't have any good reason except for ones which sounded very much like the reasons I didn't like Horace."
Lupin raised his eyebrows. That sounded very much like an apology in Andromeda-speak. And it was the first time since he had married Tonks that she had spoken to him like a human, as least when it came to references to his marriage, so he supposed he could humour her. "I tried to make her understand," he said. "But I did love her and I was lonely and it was easy to believe her when she said it was nothing that we couldn't work through. But it wasn't nothing. We were so incompatible in – er – certain ways – "
"Sexually, you mean," Andromeda offered dryly. "I never took her to be the storage-closet type."
Lupin blushed, remembering that first time when Andromeda had caught them. "She went to so much effort to make me believe we wanted the same things, and when I found out, I was so disappointed... and angry that I was stuck in this marriage with a woman who hated it when I was anything but utterly gentle with her. And I hated being gentle. It's not in my nature."
"She never knew," Andromeda said softly.
"Pardon?"
"She never knew how much you hated it. And I think hated isn't the word you're looking for. Frustrated, perhaps?" she offered. "You're perfectly capable of being gentle, Remus. Perhaps not in the way you mean, but I've seen you with Teddy. But she never knew. I sensed it myself, but she never knew. She was so happy in those last months. She wouldn't have been that happy – couldn't have been that happy – if she had suspected your true feelings. You loved her enough to make that effort for her."
Lupin looked at her with surprise. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked, meaning why are you being so nice to me?
"It was easy to blame you," Andromeda admitted. "Easier to blame you than acknowledge that she flung herself into a relationship with a man she should have known she was so incompatible with. Easier to hate you for not being strong enough to say no to her than admit that she was just as determined as I was when it came to love, but it ended so badly for her."
"I wish I'd been strong enough to say no to her," Lupin said. "Or strong enough to stay with her. Or – there are so many things I wish I'd done differently. I wish I'd known then what I know now. I wish I'd let her comfort me. I wish she'd fought with me."
"You wish she had been more like Ginny," Andromeda offered. "I want to make one thing clear, Remus. I will never understand why you let yourself fall in love with someone else. The sex, I get, but not the love. But... I understand what you see in her. The Weasleys are certainly something else. And Teddy adores her, which is the most important thing."
"You sound like you approve," Lupin said dryly.
"Approve? Never. Accept," she corrected. "I wanted to understand your marriage first, and I think I do, a little better. And... understand my own feelings. It... wasn't fair of me to blame you for everything that went wrong in your marriage when Dora was at least half to blame."
"Sweet Merlin, Andy, who have you been talking to?" Lupin asked incredulously. "Not Horace? This doesn't sound like him."
"Horace thinks non-Slytherins are intellectually beneath him, you all the more so since you were so bad at Potions," Andromeda teased.
"I wasn't bad at Potions, I just wasn't his favourite," Lupin protested. "What's the story there, anyway?" he asked, trying to sound casual when he was dying of curiosity. Was Andromeda softening, just a little?
"I guess this is something you just can't relate to, but when I was younger, I couldn't stop attention from men. I was beautiful, intelligent – I know that sounds arrogant, Remus, but it was true, and it was more of a burden than you think – and fourth in line to the Noble House of Black. Men would look right through me, Andromeda, and only see what a trophy I was. Ted didn't. That wasn't the only reason I loved him, but it was so liberating to be with someone who wanted me for myself. For twenty-seven years I was with this man who wanted me for myself and no-one bothered me because I was persona not grata. Then he died – and more importantly, Bella died – and I was the heir to the Noble House of Black, fabulously wealthy and single." She twisted her wedding ring around the finger. To her, there was a chasm of difference between being single and being widowed. "It's like I'm sixteen again, maybe worse. Being fourth was so much easier than possessing the lot. And men look at me the same – the beautiful, talented, wealthy pureblood. But Horace doesn't. And I like that."
It wasn't much of an answer; they had once shared the same kind of companionship. But he sort of understood what she was getting at, and it helped him understand her a little more.
Besides, if she found happiness again, that could only work out well for him. And Horace Slughorn – though who would ever have thought? – seemed to be as much of a mellowing influence on her and teaching had been on him. Was it possible that Andromeda Tonks was mellowing, becoming more understanding, maybe beginning to forgive him for all the mistakes he had made that had hurt her so much through her daughter?