Chapter Eight – Time in a Bottle

If I had a box just for wishes,

And dreams that had never come true,

The box would be empty, except for the memories

Of how they were answered by you.

"Time in a Bottle", Jim Croce ~

Author's Note: OK, here is the last chapter in Tonks' POV. I hope you enjoy it:-) Look out for the epilogue in Teddy's POV in a few days' time.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise. Although I do own all seven books – just not in the same way…..

For two days, I didn't hear from Remus, and I had to carry on as though everything was fine, pretending to my parents that he had filled me in on the details but that it was top secret Order work and I couldn't tell them anything. I am usually an extremely truthful person, but for some reason I just couldn't bring myself to tell them the truth – that he had left me with nothing more than a vague explanation and a brief kiss on the lips.

On the third day, I was out in the garden attempting to pull up some very stubborn weeds when I heard a loud crack and Remus appeared out of thin air a few feet away from me. His face was paler than ever and he looked absolutely livid. Without even looking at me, he stormed into the house and slammed the door violently behind him. Feeling hurt and bewildered and more than a little miffed to be honest, I decided to follow him and confront him about his strange behaviour. I pulled open the front door and stalked after him to our bedroom, where I found him seated on the bed with his head in his hands. Putting my hands on my hips like the stereotypical housewife (something I have never been), I surprised even myself by yelling at him.

"Remus John Lupin, what do you think you are doing, storming in here without so much as a word to your wife?? You come here and give me some vague and frankly unhelpful explanation, if you can even call it that, telling me that you need to go off on some 'important business' which you can't even tell your wife about and then you leave abruptly and for two whole days I have no word from you, no owls, nothing! Then you storm in here in a foul mood and without even looking at me, you slam the door and disappear to our bedroom. I'm your wife, Remus, and so help me I will not put up with you treating me like I'm nothing more than a mere accessory – this is a partnership and you cannot treat a partner like that." I stopped, fuming, and catching my reflection in our wardrobe mirror, I saw that my hair had turned a violent shade of red to match my temper and my cheeks.

Remus finally looked up at me, a shocked expression on his face; he had never heard me yell at anyone like that, least of all him. Then dropping his head into his hands again, he mumbled something that sounded like "I'm sorry."

I snorted derisively. Not very ladylike (although I have never really been a 'lady') and replied shortly, "Well you should be. But if you think that you are going to be let off that easily then you are sorely mistaken. I want explanations and I want them now. Because I am pretty sure that whatever you have been doing is not top secret Order work, so spit it out. Where have you been and why did you leave me so abruptly?" Yeah, hormones are wonderful things; they give you the courage to say all kinds of things that you normally wouldn't say – I mean spit it out?! Well, if it worked, I wasn't complaining…

It worked. Remus sighed deeply and looking up at me with a pained look in his eyes, he began his rather lengthy explanation.

"I was scared, Nymphadora. I'm ashamed to admit it now, and I can't pretend that I've got it all sorted either, but I was scared."

"Scared of what?" I interrupted him. Since when was Remus a coward?

"Scared of having a baby, of being a father. I…my kind don't usually breed, 'Dora, and I was so afraid, am so afraid that the baby will turn out like me, will inherit my warped genes and be an outcast for the rest of his life, just like me. And even if he didn't…..'Dora, what kid would want a werewolf for a father? He would be ashamed of me all his life, he would hate me. I would taint him just as I have tainted you. I've seen what I've done to you 'Dora – don't think I haven't. Your parents were disappointed with you for marrying me, you've lost many of your friends because of me; Merlin, 'Dora, you've lost your blasted job because of me - the job you loved and worked so hard to get into! Don't think that I haven't seen how miserable and lost you've been without your work and how hurt you look every time someone looks at you funny because of me. I ruin everything I touch and I just didn't want to be around to see that happen to my son. I wanted to be a father that he could be proud of, so I went to Harry, I asked him to let me join him and help him. I wanted to redeem myself somehow. And he turned me away 'Dora. He called me a coward for abandoning you and our unborn child. He said James would be ashamed of me, and oh gosh, he was right. He was right and I didn't want to admit it, so I turned and left him in anger. I should be ashamed of myself. James would be ashamed of me. Sirius would be ashamed of me. Heck, even Harry was ashamed of me. I'm a failure 'Dora and there you have it. Not fit to be a hero, not fit for anything except to come home snivelling to you." And as he said this, he choked back a sob and abruptly stopped speaking, his hands covering his face.

At first I was rendered speechless (quite a feat, let me tell you). Whatever I had been expecting him to say, this was certainly not it. And then as I let his words sink in to my brain, I felt a flurry of emotions – anger, pity, anger, love, hurt, love. Because, funnily enough, the thing that registered first and foremost in my mind was not the fact that he had left me to go and try to kill himself heroically, but that he had done it for me and our unborn baby. Despite everything, he still loved us. He did it for us. Because he loved us. Because he wanted to be worthy of us. Because he thought I regretted marrying him and that our son would be ashamed of him, and it was on this point that I sought to assure him.

It took a while, but eventually I managed to convince him that I most certainly wanted him back, that I didn't hate him (although I was hurt that he hadn't confided in me sooner) and that I most certainly didn't think our baby would be ashamed of him. I also thought it highly unlikely that werewolfiness (for lack of a better word) could be passed on genetically. In fact, I informed him, it was much more likely that our child would inherit his mother's wonky genes than his father's (something about which I was proved to be right, incidentally, but I am getting ahead of myself).

By evening, Remus had calmed down considerably and had promised me that he would never ever leave me like that again, that he had quite accepted his pending fatherhood and that he was even, dare he say it, looking forward to meeting our little kicker. Life was looking up again.

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Reading that last sentence makes me want to laugh. Or cry. Or both. Life looked up for a few brief happy weeks and then it abruptly dropped its eyes to the floor again. I believe I have already mentioned that the Ministry had changed hands? Yes, well one of the new legislations that was passed by the new Minister for Magic, Pius Thicknesse (merely a puppet minister under the control of the Imperius curse), was what was known as the Muggleborn Registration Commission. Basically, it stated that all Muggleborns had to register with the Ministry (which was really just a cover-up for getting them all in one place so they could more easily cart them off to Azkaban for 'stealing' magic). Now, whilst I may be merely a half-blood who lost her job at the Ministry because of unsavoury marital ties, my father on the other hand was a Muggleborn, and being my father and more than a little like me, he refused on principle to register with the Ministry and fled for his life. The first I heard about it was when my mother paid me an unexpected visit and informed me that my father was now officially classified by the Ministry as 'on the run' and WANTED. He had left so quickly that he hadn't even been able to say goodbye to me (Remus and I had moved back to our own place now that my parents had recovered) and I didn't know if I would ever see him again. I had always been close to my father and what with raging pregnancy hormones and the thought that my little baby might never know his grandfather (I was convinced my baby was a boy), I broke down and sobbed as though my heart would break. It felt as though my world was rapidly falling to pieces about my ears and the only certain things I had left to cling to were Remus and our unborn baby. They were like my anchors in an unstable world and I clung to them with all that I had.

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The months went by with no news of my father. Of course, we all knew that no news was good news. There was also no news of Harry Potter or his friends, Ron and Hermione, who had gone with him. Lee Jordan, an ex-Hogwarts student, had created a radio station called Potterwatch, which broadcast any pertinent news which the Daily Prophet, being Death Eater-controlled now, didn't see fit to report. Kingsley Shacklebolt, Fred and George Weasley and Remus were regular contributors and had to be very careful as the Death Eaters knew about Potterwatch and would dearly have loved to shut it down. They constantly relocated and one could only tune in to the station using a secret password which also changed constantly.

As time went by, I was getting bigger and bigger due to my pregnancy and as a result was not able to do so much for the Order anymore. My feet and back ached frequently and I felt very tired a lot of the time. I had also developed a strange craving for bogie-flavoured Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, which utterly revolted Remus and dearly amused everyone else. Fred and George in particular thought it was hilarious and took it upon themselves to make me try out every revolting flavoured food possible, in case, so they claimed, I discovered that I had a craving for those too. As it turned out I didn't. Only bogies were the flavour of the month.

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There was still no news of my father, until one night at about midnight Remus and I were woken up by a resounding crack outside our house. Leaping out of bed and running downstairs as fast as we could, we arrived in the living room just in time to see the door burst open and my mother stumble inside, pale and exhausted with tears streaming down her face. We both ran to her, talking at once and she flung herself into my arms, sobbing. "He….he's dead." She choked out. "Your father….is…dead."

I could feel the blood drain from my face and the sounds around me became strangely muffled all of a sudden. Knowing that if I didn't sit down soon I would faint, I staggered over to an armchair and collapsed heavily into it, all the time keeping my eyes fixed on my mother's tear-streaked face.

Remus glanced at me quickly and seeing that I wasn't capable of speech at that precise moment in time, he mercifully took over from me, and taking my mother gently by the hand, he led her to the sofa, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders once she was seated. Then sitting opposite her, he took one of her hands in his and began to question her.

"Tell us what happened, Andromeda."

"He…he….was caught by Death Eaters and he tried to escape. He fought them and they killed him and two others who were with him, a goblin and one other…I…I just got the news now….Kingsley Shacklebolt contacted me…..came in person and told me….said that they had found his body and the bodies of the two others and that there appeared to have been a struggle…He surmised the rest…and oh….my Ted…" she sobbed.

All this time I had been too stunned and numb to do anything but sit there in silence, listening to my mother pour out the story of my father's death. It can't be true,I thought feverishly, my father can't be dead. He can't be. Not my father. Not him. No. I couldn't believe it and yet I knew horribly that it was true, it must be true. The evidence was before my eyes in the person of my distraught, grief-stricken mother. And as the truth sunk in, I felt my eyes start to burn as they filled with tears and my stomach clench with agony as a sob ripped out of it. Half of me kept on expecting to see him come walking through the door and telling us that he was fine, that it was all a lie, a mistake, but the other half of me, the logical half, knew that I would never see him again and it hurt. Oh, it hurt.

As I sobbed brokenly, I felt my baby squirm and kick inside of me in response to the convulsive clenching of my stomach muscles, and reaching down, I rubbed my stomach in soothing circles, thinking sadly that my little son would certainly never know his grandfather now. And as I thought this, I had a flash of inspiration. It was a strange time to get inspiration but it came nonetheless. Ted, I thought. We'll call him Ted after my father. My little Teddy. And as I thought this, a small smile broke across my face like the sun breaking through the storm clouds, and I saw Remus looking at me questioningly. "I'll tell you later," I mouthed. And he nodded and after making sure that my mother was alright (she had fallen asleep, worn out by grief), he came over to me and wrapped his arms around me tightly. And then he did something he had never done before. Kneeling down, he lifted the sleepshirt I was wearing, and softly kissed my exposed stomach, whispering to it, "I will always be here for you, my son. As far as it is in my power, I won't let you go through this sort of grief….I love you." And as he said these last words, my eyes filled with tears again, but this time they were tears of joy.

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We held a quiet funeral for my father, with just a few of our closest friends and family, as it was never a good idea to have large meetings of anti-Voldemort people in one place at one time – it made it too easy to pick us off, should something go wrong. During the weeks following my father's death, Remus was a huge support to me, never leaving my side if he could help it and showing me so much love and devotion that at times I thought I must be dreaming. But I wasn't dreaming, and as the time neared for our baby to be born, I found myself to be falling in love with my husband all over again.

Remus had agreed with me that we should call our baby Ted, after my father (it never even entered our minds that our baby might be a girl – we just knew somehow that we were having a son), and I had insisted on naming him after Remus as well. At first Remus demurred, reluctant to pass on his name to his son, feeling that somehow it might 'jinx' him into inheriting his werewolf genes as well, but I insisted that if I wanted our son to be like anyone, I wanted him to be like his father, and that he would be honoured to be named after such a great man. Remus blushed a bit at this, but finally agreed when I showed him that I wasn't backing down.
"Good," I said triumphantly, "Now our son will be named after the two best men I have ever known, and don't you dare say anything to the contrary," I added as I saw him open his mouth to argue. When he still showed signs of arguing, I quickly changed the subject.

"So….who should be his godfather?" I knew that this would distract him from the name issue and sure enough, it did.

:"Harry." He said instantly.

"Wow, you've already thought about this haven't you?"

"Well, yes. You see if it wasn't for Harry, I might not have come back to you and discovered how happy I could really be. I might not have discovered the joy of fatherhood, and besides Harry is the son of one of my best friends and the godson of the other. I just think he would be the best choice. He would be a great godfather I know."

"You know, I think you're right," I replied pensively. "Harry would be a fantastic godfather. In fact, when I think about it, I can't think of anyone better. And seeing as we do kind of owe him our current happiness and togetherness, what better way could we thank him?"

"My thoughts exactly," Remus replied with a little smile on his face.

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About two months after this conversation, I was pottering around the house one wintry afternoon, when I realised that my usual backache, which I had come to ignore, had been steadily increasing over the past hour or so. Thinking at first that I must just have put a bit too much strain on it, I decided to sit down and put my feet up for a bit to give it a break. However, when my back pain still didn't improve after about forty-five minutes, but on the contrary became steadily stronger and sharper, I began to get worried.

"Remus!" I called frantically, and he came running downstairs, with a panicked expression on his face.

"What's the matter, 'Dora?!" He asked and then taking in my expression and the way I was sitting, understanding dawned on his face, and with it came an increase in panic.

"Oh my goodness! It's the baby, isn't it?"

"Yes! I think I've gone into labour! I think we should get to St Mungo's as quickly as we can…" I gasped as another contraction took hold of me.

Remus nodded as the blood drained from his face and running from the room, he grabbed my overnight bag and taking my hand, he turned on the spot and everything disappeared as we Disapparated together.

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Five painful hours and a lot of unladylike screaming and grunting later, Teddy Remus Lupin entered the world. Most other people would probably think he wasn't much to look at, what with the red, scrunched up face and the wide screaming mouth, but I, being only a biased mother, thought he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I had never understood before how people could look at newborn babies and say that they looked just like their auntie so-in-so or how they had exactly their daddy's eyes or whatever. Frankly all newborns looked the same to me – red and ugly like little monkeys. But, looking at Teddy, my Teddy, I thought he looked just like Remus. When I told Remus this, he just laughed and said that on the contrary, Teddy looked just like me; his hair was changing colour already (it was, it's true!) and my mother smiled and said that my hair started changing colour the moment I was born as well.

Remus said that he probably should go off and give the other members of the Order the good news, especially Harry who still didn't know that he was godfather yet, but before he left my mother said that she wanted to take a photograph of us, the new little family. Remus came and sat next to me, putting his arms around me and Teddy and smiling tenderly down at us both, and as the camera flashed, I grinned exhaustedly back up at him, feeling deep in my heart that life truly could not get any better than this.

A/N: Well, there you have it! The last chapter in Tonks' POV! I hope it lived up to all your expectations – please REVIEW!!!