Chapter 47: Tutoring, Godparent Style

Harry flipped the flashcards from one to the next. Had he been flipping only a few ticks faster, he could have been shuffling the deck in the same manner as a master Gobstones player. As it was, Teddy's version of a lightning round still held real risk of giving his godfather a paper cut.

Seated across the table from the Chosen One at his grandmother Andromeda's kitchen table, Teddy dutifully chirped out the images he saw flashing before him. "Cat. Rat. Dragon." Teddy squinted and then his face broke out into a beaming smile; it was actually more of a strained, little-boy grimace but nevertheless it showed all his teeth. "Me!"

With a bemused frown, Harry craned his neck around to see the front of the card. He nearly laughed at the stick-figure version of the artist's (probably Ron) idea of a 'little boy.' The godfather's lips reversed its frown into an impressed smirk.

"Nicely done, Ted!"

Hermione squealed and clapped her hands. "Yay! Now go double time!"

Harry shot her a soft glower. "Do you actually want me to nick my finger? The last thing we need to do to Andromeda is get blood all over her carpet!"

"What's blood?" Teddy chirped suddenly.

Harry and Hermione glanced at each other. He couldn't tell what exactly she was thinking of at the moment, but whatever it was had to be a PTSD flashback. For Harry, the word 'blood' conjured more than a few things, in his mind's eye: his sister-in-law-to-be swooned on the floor of the drawing room at Malfoy Manor, copper liquid coagulating and streaming down her defaced arm. Lavender Brown, the stuff pooling from her neck while sprawled on the Hogwarts Castle steps and looking more dead than alive. An image of Luna Lovegood, with blood pouring from her nostrils, clear as day even in the dim light of….

Harry shook his head to clear the memories. He hadn't thought back to the Battle of the Department of Mysteries in quite a while.

"Well, blood is the stuff inside of us, Ted! It keeps you, me and Uncle Harry alive!" Hermione stated as delicately as she could.

It was May, just after the annual commemoration of the Battle of Hogwarts – the fourth held already. Maybe that was why the memories and the trauma seemed so fresh, if they could be triggered by Harry's little godson – now only just four and on the cusp of Muggle primary school age – innocuously asking a science question. Her natural gifts as a student easily making her a natural teacher, Hermione was trying to improvise the inquiry into a lesson. Casting her brown eyes about, she finally seized upon a potted plant that Andromeda had set in the window and went to fetch it. "For example, the stem of this plant has water flowing through it. Your granny's plants need water inside of them to live just as we need blood in our bodies to live."

Harry smirked. "Capital ingenuity, love, but I don't see how our godson possibly needs to understand the concept of photosynthesis at only four years old."

She squirted her head around the plant to stick her tongue out at him without Teddy noticing.

"…. Is that why Mummy and Daddy aren't alive-y anymore? Because they have no more blood to live?"

Harry felt his own blood drain from his face as he and Hermione shared another loaded look, their winces matching. Letting out a long breath, Hermione daintily retook her seat next to her godson, grunting a little as she coaxed him into shifting to sit on her lap. She stroked his turquoise curls, resting her chin on his little head in thought. How to explain a topic like this?

"Teddy….. has Granny Meda talked to you about what happened to Mummy and Daddy?"

"Yeah!" Teddy bleated, the word uttered clipped and airily so that it sounded almost like a dog's pant. "Granny said they di-ed."

Hermione swallowed. "Died, sweetums. A dyad is something which consists of two elements or parts…."

Harry awkwardly cleared his throat, using that alone to convey to his parenting partner that the concept of a dyad was not going to be on the primary school entrance exam. Hermione's voice trailed off, her doe brown eyes searching her almost brother-in-law for help.

Harry leaned across the table, elbows on the wood, and smiled sadly, gently at his godson.

"Mummy and Daddy…. passed away just after you were born, little man." Teddy started to open his mouth and Harry preemptively cut him off. "'Passed away' is just another way of saying that Mummy and Daddy died."

"A euphemistic way," Hermione interjected.

"What's you've-em-istic?" Teddy wanted to know. He ducked his head, now almost prompting himself. "Sound it out…."

Harry cocked an eyebrow at Hermione. "Are you seriously going to try and make him spell that? Preschoolers don't need such an advanced vocabulary…."

"U…." Teddy was attempting to sound it out anyway.

Hermione smiled and cuddled him close. "So close, my lovely. It actually starts with an 'E'."

Harry slumped back in his chair, muttering half to himself. "At the rate the woman is going, she'll be having him skip a grade…"

"Oh….. you!" Hermione giggled from where she was still bouncing Teddy in her lap. The boy was still biting his lip in thought.

"Why did Mummy and Daddy….?" he sounded it out. "…..died?"

"Die," Hermione corrected him quietly, even as her lip trembled. "No past participle. Remember your tenses."

Oh, for Merlin's sake, Harry thought, even as his entire expression shattered. How in Godric's name to answer that? "Er….. Because…." He opted to cling to euphemisms, even though he knew that what he was really saying would be a bald-faced lie. "Because it was their time, lad." No, it hadn't been. No one deserved to die before they were 40 – the prime of their life! In Nymphadora's case, she had barely been 25….. He could feel Hermione staring at him, her expression pained over the top of Teddy's head.

Teddy had grown quiet. "Did they have to leave me?"

"They didn't leave…" Hermione faltered. "Well, they absolutely didn't have to….."

"Did they want to leave me?"

"NO!" Hermione blasted out a bit too forcefully, startling both the lad and Harry. She let out a shaky exhale. "Godric, no, my love…." and she almost moaned it. "How could you think that….?"

Teddy didn't answer, his hands playing with the inseams of his tiny jeans. To better ground himself lest he get washed away in the tide of memories, Harry kept his head ducked low as he focused on jotting down copious notes to pass on to Audrey. There was to be another tutoring session next Saturday week, this time at her and Percy's London flat, for the primary school teacher to ascertain Teddy herself and whether or not he was ready to attend the coming fall term. Judging from how this lesson had careened from one rather heady topic to the next, Harry felt confident in his assessment that his sister-in-law would judge the boy as more than prepared.

Still deep in thought, Harry at last lifted his head. "My parents left…" he stopped. Tried again. "My parents passed away when I was a tiny baby too, Teddy lad."

"Why?" Teddy chirped, almost cheeped.

Harry gnawed on his bottom lip. He tried to find a way around it, to give the truth euphemistically, but finding none, he had out with it: "They were killed. By a…." He sighed. "By a monster."

"Where's the monster now?" Teddy wanted to know, blinking dolefully.

"He died," Harry blurted shortly, voice cold, as he stared out the window into the middle distance of Andromeda's garden pond. For a second, he could almost picture a motorbike sputtering and waterlogged in the low pool. A flash of green light…. He wagged his head almost like a dog to shake the trauma off.

When Harry next glanced back, it was almost a relief for him to see how Teddy was visibly nodding off in his godmother's lap. Andromeda now came tiptoeing in, and Harry irrationally almost wanted to accost her for not intervening earlier.

"I'll put him to bed, lovelies," the grandmother whispered. Lifting him out of Hermione's arms, she cast the tiny lad over her shoulder.

Harry and Hermione showed themselves out, walking up the small dirt path in the direction of the Burrow, where their respective spouses and spouses-to-be were waiting.

Hermione tiredly lay her own sleepy head on Harry's shoulder, her breath shuddering, almost as though she was staving off a sob.

"Godric, I wasn't expecting that…."

"Me neither." Harry stared off grimly into the horizon just beyond, a late afternoon sun dipping towards the rolling hills of Devonshire. He felt Hermione wind her arms about his waist and nuzzle into him further until he was half-supporting her on their walk.

"You did good," she cooed to him. "I know it's hard for you, talking about your parents…."

He shook his head. "There will be time to get into it with Ted yet. Hopefully, when he's a little bit older."

Hermione nodded, glancing up to him, her expression nakedly raw. "I love you."

Harry grinned. "Don't let Ron hear you say that. Not just before the wedding." She giggled at his joke. "But likewise." He kissed the top of her head, feeling Hermione's bushy curls bounce as the godparents continued up the path.

Three Months Later

Teddy dutifully held both of his godparents' hands, one in each palm, as he and Harry and Hermione walked three abreast up the quiet Muggle street to the little one-room primary schoolhouse just ahead. There were already plenty of young parents in the schoolyard, seeing their own little ones off.

From how the boy's palm tightened in his, Harry could feel Teddy tense. The lad glanced up nervously at each of his godparents. Smiling gently, Harry wiggled his and Teddy's clasped fingers together.

"Best start at a bit of a run, if you're nervous, lad."

"I'm scared…." Teddy's voice was small.

Harry glanced back once to Andromeda, who was trailing behind them a bit further up the street. The old woman nodded to him encouragingly. She had invited Harry and Hermione to come along and see Teddy off on his first day.

"Can't you lot come along?" Teddy glanced between Harry and Hermione, who stroked his curls, now manipulated into a tame and natural light brown.

"Uncle Harry and I are grown ups, poppet. We're already all done with school!"

He stared. "Wow….. That must have taken you a really long time, Auntie!"

Hermione frowned at the unintentionally savage remark while Harry attempted to hold his sides and keep from roaring with laughter. He cleared his throat instead, kneeling so that he was eyelevel with his godson.

The school bell rang, and Audrey appeared in the doorway, shepherding the other little ones forward. Harry, Hermione and Teddy now entered past the front gate. When they drew nearer, Audrey came down the steps to greet her family by marriage.

"It's time, my lovely," Hermione murmured low. Teddy now looked to his godfather for help.

"Unca Harry…."

The Boy Who Lived smiled. "Better do as your godmother says." He gently urged the lad forward. Teddy seemed to brighten upon realizing who his teacher was to be.

"Aunt Audrey?! Are you going to school too?!"

Audrey smiled. "In a way. I'm going to be your teacher, Teddy. But…" and she leaned down as if to share with him a secret. "The other boys and girls don't know that I'm your Auntie, so we're going to play a game where you call me 'Mrs. Weasley.' That sound like fun?"

Teddy beamed. "Yeah!"

Audrey beamed back. "Let's hop to it, then!"

Teddy only dashed back once, to hug each of his godparents and his grandmother in turn. He lingered on Hermione the longest. "I wuv you, Auntie….." he whispered, before scampering over to Audrey.

Audrey, who had heard the exchange, nodded to her brother-in-law and sister-in-law-to-be. "I'll be sure to work with him on his hard 'L's." She led Teddy inside.

Glancing to her, Harry could see that Hermione was wiping her eyes. "Ohhhh….. what are we going to do when he's off to Hogwarts? Or when it's our own little ones?"

Harry laced his fingers through hers. "We'll carry on and do what we just did: we'll let them go."

Harry and Hermione paused briefly during all their Disapparating and Apparating to drop Andromeda off in Devonshire. After staying for a spot of tea, the pair then moved on to Ottery St. Catchpole.

If it were possible, the wizarding neighborhood was even more picturesque than Godric's Hollow, full of young families rearing the next magical generation.

"I don't know if I'll want to bring my Ginny here…. She'll want to move!" Harry quipped.

"But doesn't she like Godric's Hollow?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, she likes it fine! I reckon she would rather do without the morbid reminder of her parents-in-law laying at rest in the graveyard across the way, and aside from a few of the neighbors…" He grimaced as he was reminded of his wife's lingering beef with one Daphne Greengrass. Harry shrugged. "Well, you know what they say: you visit somewhere else and you always start to wonder if the grass is greener." Thoughts of Daphne still danced in his head, and he almost cursed her last name for being such a portmanteau. Well, at least as portmanteaus went, it was jolly well better than Longbottom. Not that he'd ever say so to Neville, the poor fellow.

He and Hermione now approached the little bungalow, from which Harry could now see empty boxes spilling from the entryway. Ron emerged to greet them, wiping his hands on a paper towel and sporting a dirty work T-shirt.

"Hullo, you lot! And who is this breathtaking bird?"

A beaming Hermione ran into her intended's arms, and he picked her up and swirled her around, all but half-carrying her into the house. Harry ambled along behind.

"Don't carry the bride across the threshold now, sod – it'll ruin the moment later!"

"Perhaps," Ron shrugged, setting Hermione grandly down. "But not the magic." He smirked at his own joke, grinning sappily into Hermione's eyes as the couple leaned in and shared a tender kiss on the lips. "So: our Teddy boy get on?"

"He's in school, safe and sound," Hermione grinned.

"Can't ruddy believe it…." Ron shook his head. "Well, come on, then! There's something I want to show you…."

The Golden Trio passed into Ron and Hermione's kitchen, which from Harry's perspective appeared to be just about complete, in the partial remodeling his best mates were doing to the place. They had bought it about five months ago and were now, just a handful of months before their wedding, almost completely moved in.

Ron was picking up a spread of newspaper from the kitchen table, holding out one corner for Hermione to inspect. "There, now! Huh? What do you think of that, love?"

"Our wedding announcement!" Hermione cried, enraptured. She frowned slightly. "But it's still somewhat early yet!"

"I don't mind," Ron shrugged. "All things being equal, I'd say the announcement of our engagement in the paper was late!"

Harry grinned, leaning against the doorjamb. "Just brace yourselves that this might be a signaling to the media to send an onslaught down on your heads."

"Oh, no – there isn't going to be any paparazzi or reporters at our wedding!" Hermione declared emphatically.

"You say that now, love…." Ron muttered dryly. "But best laid plans tend to…."

"This one won't be," Hermione shook her head. "Buggered up, I mean. I will insist on Jimmy Peakes and his ilk keeping their distance – no closer than the Rook!" She glanced to her nearly-brother-in-law. "That's how you and Gin handled it, isn't it?"

Harry nodded. "Peakes was bloody pissed with me for weeks afterwards over how he could only get wide and distance shots."

Hermione shrugged, a satisfied smile playing at her lips. "See what I mean? Perfect." Her brown eyes dipped down to peer at the radiant photograph of her and Ron, their arms around each other, and the accompanying announcement of her upcoming wedding: WEASLEY, GRANGER – TWO-THIRDS OF 'THE GOLDEN TRIO' – TO WED COME CHRISTMASTIME. She sighed with contentment. "Perfect…."