Fathers
The door slammed shut before he really had time to process what had just occurred. Harry collapsed on the couch, his head in his hands, rubbing at his temples to try to sooth the pain making his head ache.
He had always known this day was going to come, but it had happened a lot later than he expected. He had even begun thinking that it was never going to come, that his godson was different from him, after all Teddy Lupin had grown up with a loving family, a godfather and an almost godmother that doted on him, and a grandmother who adored him. But what had just happened was inevitable really, and Harry wasn’t prepared with how to deal with it.
‘You don’t understand,’ twenty-one year old Teddy had screamed at him, ‘No one does. Everyone’s always telling me how much like him I am. Well I don’t know that do I. I don’t know how wonderful he was, or how much he loved me, because I never knew him. He died, and he left me.’
That had been the end of the argument and his godson had stormed out of the house, knocking over a prized vase by the door Ginny had won in some contest years ago. Harry hated that vase; it was an ugly shade of pink that clashed with the rest of the furniture in the living room. He wasn’t sad to see it broken, but he dreaded having to tell his wife about what happened.
He sighed, getting up to pace around the living room, frustrated at his own inability to talk to Teddy. Didn’t he understand what Teddy was going through? Shouldn’t he understand better than anyone? After all, he had been through this before, but he had never really gotten closure. He still sometimes felt like the lost teenager he had been, the boy who just wanted someone to love him, the boy who just wanted a father.
Sirius had been a great godfather, and Harry had loved him. When he was still alive Harry would entertain thoughts about how Sirius would be free and Harry would finally go live with him, finally have a family. But it wouldn’t have been enough, no matter how much Harry loved Sirius. There was always going to be a part of Harry that was searching for his real father.
What was James Potter really like? He had seen him from Severus Snape’s memory, but Harry couldn’t trust that. After the second war he had learned to respect his old potions professor for the brave man he had been, for the man who had loved his mother, even though she didn’t love him back, even though she had fallen in love with and married his old school rival. But that didn’t mean he could look for who his father was in seeing Snape’s memories of him. Snape and his father had hated each other, so no matter what; it would probably only show James Potter’s flaws, because that’s all that Snape would have seen.
The same could be said for what Sirius and Remus had told him when he was younger. They had only told him the good, only told him how James had been a brave and loyal man, their best friend. Both sets of parties were biased, so how could he really trust what they said? No one had ever really offered an unbiased opinion of the man; they were all tainted by how the person felt about him. How could it really paint an accurate picture of the man?
He had never seen how much his father and mother loved each other, had never really seen how good of a friend he had been. He had never known if he would have taught his son to play Quidditch, if he would have been proud of what he done, how he lived his life. He had never seen his father get angry at him, or never felt a hug from him when he was feeling sad.
‘You look just like your father,’ people would tell him, or ‘He’s very much like his father.’ Was he, and did he want to be? How much of what he was reflected his mother, and how much reflected his father? How much of what he is was unique?
No matter what he did, people had always looked for his parents in him. Sirius, Remus, Snape, even his teachers at Hogwarts. It use to seem like they looked for it deliberately, and as he grew up, far from being a source of pride like it use to be, it was a source of anger. What if he didn’t want to be just like his father? What if he wanted to just be himself?
Is this what Teddy felt? When Harry would tell him how he was just like Remus, how much Teddy reminded him of his old mentor, or when Andromeda would tell him how like her daughter he was? Teddy was physically his mother really; he had her eyes and nose, her lips. But his hair, when he wasn’t changing it to a different color, was the same dark blonde/light brown color Remus’ had been, that time Harry had seen him brought back with the resurrection stone.
He had the same calm disposition Remus use to have, the same love of books. He had the same aura really, the one that said you could tell him anything and he would listen to you. His eyes had the same look that Remus’ use to have, even if they weren’t the same color. Harry hardly saw Tonks at all in him. Did he intentionally look for Teddy’s father in his godson? Was he unknowingly doing to his godson the same thing his godfather had done to him? Did it seem to Teddy like he didn’t see him as his own person?
Harry heard the door open and he hoped, for the first time since he had held him in his arms as a baby, that it wasn’t Teddy. He looked up and he saw his oldest son James looking at the broken vase with a smirk.
“Mom is going to flip,” his seventeen year old son muttered, throwing his broom on one of the chairs and collapsing onto the couch next to his father. Harry didn’t really know how to relate to James anymore. His oldest son was the most independent of his three children. While Albus still clung to him and Lily was always trying to emulate their mother, James tried hard to separate himself from them. He didn’t need their help for anything really. Just out of Hogwarts, the boy wanted to travel, and he had already saved up enough money by himself, by working the past three summers at his Uncle George’s shop.
“You alright dad,” his son asked, and Harry looked at him and nodded, even though he wasn’t. It struck him then how much his son looked like his name sake. Both his boys had taken after him in looks, the same messy black hair, the same high cheekbones, the same nose, the same eye shape, the same mouth. But James had his mother’s skin tone, and freckles, and he had his mother’s brown eyes. Sometimes they had flecks of green, making them almost hazel, and it was those times that Harry thought that his oldest son looked just like his father. They looked that way now.
The day he was born Harry had struggled on what to name him. Ginny had wanted to name him James from the start, but Harry hadn’t been sure. Should Harry really give him that name? Would his son have to grow up, and think it was expected of him to be like his namesake was? In the end, Harry had taken one look at the baby, and had felt an almost compelling need to name him James. It had taken them a little longer for the middle name, Ginny had wanted to give him the middle name of Arthur, but Harry had felt like it needed to be Sirius; so in the summer of 2002, their first boy was born James Sirius Potter.
When James was younger he had been a lot like Sirius, and what Harry imagined his father had been. He adored his Uncle George and his adopted cousin Teddy, and he was often seen rigging pranks around the house, or antagonizing his younger siblings when they came along. As he grew older, his love of pranks never wavered, but he had drifted apart from his parents. Now it seemed he was more like his Uncle Charlie, who had never stopped wandering around the countries with his dragons, and had never settled down, much to Molly Weasley’s chagrin.
“Where’s your brother and sister,” he asked James.
“Al is hanging out with that Malfoy boy, you know, his friend from Ravenclaw, and Lily went with mom shopping,” his son answered. He had started to look through travel brochures; the first one was for Greece.
Contrary to Albus’ fears when he started Hogwarts almost three years before, he hadn’t ended up in Slytherin, nor had he ended up in Gryffindor. He had ended up in Ravenclaw. It had shocked both his parents more than it would have if he had been in Slytherin. Out of all his children, Albus was the one who looked the most like Harry, inheriting not only his hair and most of his facial features, along with his emerald green eyes, but his personality. As he was younger, when they had sent the kids to Muggle primary school, he had never shown any interest in learning or doing homework. But he was also the most clever and witty of his children, and when sorted into Ravenclaw, that changed, and he became a very dedicated student, though never to the extent that Hermione or Percy had been.
What had even been more shocking was when he became friends with Draco Malfoy’s only child, the first Malfoy in many generations to be sorted into a house other than Slytherin. Despite the fact that he looked a lot like Draco when he was a teen, Scorpius Malfoy couldn’t be more unlike his father. He was quiet and shy, and it seemed like he was often overshadowed in magical ability when he was near the other students. Ironically, he almost reminded Harry of a younger Neville, though Draco Malfoy would likely have a heart attack if Harry ever mentioned that in front of him. Rose Weasley, his niece in Gryffindor like her parents, seemed besotted with the younger Malfoy, and was often at his house when Albus brought his friend over, looking at him with moon eyes, but when ever he would try to speak to her, she would snap at him and walk away. Harry and Ginny chuckled over the girl’s obvious crush, and Ron’s thankful obliviousness to it.
Albus Severus Potter, his second son, was born on his mother’s birthday in 2005. They had hoped for a daughter when Ginny had been pregnant with him, but when a second boy arrived, they had been ecstatic. Harry had no idea what to name him at first, and for a few days the new baby boy had remained unnamed. The idea to name him after two of Hogwarts headmasters, one his old mentor, and both heroes of the second war came to him when looking at his old photo album. Harry had always been closet to Albus, Lily more likely to seek help from Ginny or her Aunt Hermione.
His only daughter Lily Nymphadora Potter was born in the spring of 2007. She had just ended her first year of Hogwarts. She looked a lot like her mother, with pale freckled skin and orange-red hair, that would probably darken as she got older, and bright brown eyes. The only thing that she inherited from Harry physically was her high cheekbones, otherwise she was all Ginny. Her personality was much like Ginny to, she was very shy now, but Harry had a feeling as she got older that it would change.
She had been placed into Gryffindor, like her older brother James, and all year she complained in her letters James didn’t let any boys talk to her. James and Albus were very protective of their little sister, and Merlin help any boy that stepped within two feet of her in years to come. Her best friend was surprisingly enough, a Muggle born girl named Iris Dursley. Harry had never mentioned to her that the girl was likely her third cousin. He wondered how Dudley had taken the news his daughter was a witch.
“James,” he started to say, not sure exactly what he intended to ask. His son looked up from his brochure with a raised eyebrow, “Am I a good father?” He had never asked his children that before, had never felt the need to ask, though he often had doubts. Ginny was the perfect mother, a lot like Molly Weasley had been, but different as well. Ginny had been a natural when it came to parenting, but Harry had always been stumbling along. He worried he was going to mess something up, not only with his children, but with Teddy.
James looked confused, he was blinking his eyes rapidly and both his eyebrows were raised now. “Yeah dad, you’re awesome. Why are you asking?”
The door opened again and Albus and Scorpius came into the house, covered in mud, his nephew Hugo, Ron and Hermione’s only boy, and George’s son Fred trailing behind them. Hugo was going into his second year of Hogwarts, in Hufflepuff, and Fred was going to be joining the boys in September. It had taken a long time for George to settle down and get married, he was never quite the same since his twin brother Fred died, and when he finally got married to a Muggle girl he had met, and had his son, it seemed like he was beginning to mend a little.
“Dad, Teddy’s kicking rocks out in the garden. He looks angry about something,” Al informed his father. Harry sighed. He had thought that Teddy had apparated back to the flat he shared with his girlfriend Victorie in London.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he told the boys, leaving the room, never answering James question. His godson’s back was to him, his hands in the pocket of his jacket, looking at Harry’s godfather’s old motorcycle. Arthur Weasley had fixed it up for him and he had given Teddy and his kids rides on the bike when they were younger. Just around the property, Ginny had forbidden him from riding with them on the streets. He had planned to give the bike to James for his birthday in August.
“I’m sorry,” his godson said, his back still to him. Harry didn’t quite know how he did it, but Teddy always seemed to know when someone was behind him, and who it was. “I shouldn’t have yelled.”
“It’s fine. It probably needed to come out for a while,” Harry said, going over to lean against the bike, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Teddy sighed, and for a moment Harry thought he didn’t look anything like Remus or Tonks. For a moment he looked like someone Harry had never seen before.
“I asked Victorie to marry me,” Teddy said. Harry stared a little confused. If he had asked Victorie to marry him, what had brought on the thoughts of Remus?
“I asked her father first, guess I can’t call him Uncle Bill anymore,” Teddy continued, and Harry listened patiently. “I’ve never really missed him or mom before. I had you; I had Grams, all the Weasley’s. But after she said yes, Bill was in the room, and she started to talk about him walking her down the aisle. It occurred to me that my father wasn’t going to be there. I’d sometimes have thoughts about the things they missed, birthdays, Christmas, but I’d never really missed them before. And after we left, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I just got so angry at him. That he left me, that he died.” Teddy had started to choke up, his shoulder’s shaking slightly and Harry got off the bike to wrap his arms around his godson. Teddy leaned into the slightly taller man, letting his godfather comfort him.
“I didn’t know him, not really, and for the first time in my life I wish I had, I wish I could know why I love him so much, even though he wasn’t there,” Teddy said into his shoulder, the tears leaving his eyes now. “Damn it, I needed him, so why did he have to die, why did he...” Teddy stopped talking now, words weren’t coming out anymore; he was sobbing. Harry just hugged his godson tighter, not minding that his shirt was now messy, or that it was starting to rain.
“He didn’t want to leave you,” Harry said, rubbing soothing circles over his godson’s back. There wasn’t much he could really say. Losing your parents was a wound that never quite healed no matter if you knew them or not. “But he, and your mother, loved you more than anything in the world.”
Harry held his godson as he cried, not saying anything more, just being there with him. Teddy’s sobs slowly quieted down until there were no more, but Harry continued to hug him long after he stopped crying.
“How do I know if that’s true,” Teddy asked after Harry let go of him. He was rubbing at the tear tracks on his face, his hands balled into fists, and the twenty one year old man looked like the little boy he once was, the little boy who would crawl in bed with him and Ginny after a nightmare during one of his many visits.
Harry didn’t know how to answer him. He had wondered the same thing many times. How did he know if James and Lily Potter had loved him, even though people had told him they did?
“What does your heart tell you,” he said to Teddy. Teddy sighed, and looked at his godfather. He looked unsure and confused, and he didn’t answer Harry for several minutes. Slowly, he started to smile, a small and sad smile.
“It tells me they did,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets again. “I know I’m probably too old for this, but can you tell me about the first time you met my dad again?” Harry smiled, and began the story he used to tell Teddy when he was a little boy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“So, how was your day?” Ginny asked, lying down next to her husband in their bed that night. “Lily dragged me all over Diagon Alley.” She leaned up next to him, her head coming to rest against his chest.
Harry looked up from the photo album, open to the picture of his parent’s wedding. The newly married Lily and James, and the best man Sirius looked up at them, happy and smiling, the joy of the day clearly reflected in their eyes. Harry smiled, his hands playing with the strands of her red hair.
“It was...enlightening,” Harry told her. She looked a little confused, but Harry just shook his head. He’d tell her later. He flipped to the next page of the photo album. The picture was of a newborn Harry, with his parents and godfather. James and Sirius were sitting next to Lily on the hospital bed, James holding the baby. All three were looking at him with loving eyes.
He would never know what his father and mother were like. He would never see their achievements or their faults never see them spoil their grandchildren, and perhaps for the first time, he didn’t need to wonder about it.
He put the photo album back in the dresser where it had been, turning off the light, his arms coming around his wife’s waist, eyes closing. Ginny sighed happily and cuddled into him.
“Harry,” Ginny suddenly asked, as she picked her head up from her place on his chest. He opened his eyes. Her face was stern and her mouth was twisted in an oddly suspicious way. “What happen to my vase in the living room?”