16: Ghosts
It was, Remus had to admit, turning out to be an odd kind of afternoon.
From the outside at least, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place really didn’t look all that different. Oh, the miserable, ratty black curtains in the windows had been replaced by something much brighter, and the snake door knocker was apparently long gone in favour of a well-used phoenix head, but the neighbourhood remained the same tatty place it had always been, and Harry had seemingly not bothered to touch up the paintwork on an exterior which, in all fairness, was probably rarely seen by anyone but family and close friends. It took only a quick examination for Remus to tell that the old, if fairly widespread, Fidelius Charm of the Order had never been removed, and he couldn’t help but smile to himself. By leaving that one Charm in place, Harry was able to invite whomever he pleased to his home without having to worry about the likes of the press, or random gawpers come to stare at the Boy-Who-Lived, dropping by uninvited.
Man-Who-Lived, he corrected silently. After all, Harry was fully-grown, married to Ginny Weasley, and a father these days “ he’d heard the deeper, more mature voice of his former student himself back at the Department of Mysteries, which seemed like an age ago. He’d come a long way from the seventeen-year-old boy Remus had last seen at the battle that was twenty years in everyone else’s past…
Twenty years. Seventeen.
Oh dear gods. Harry was thirty-seven years old. And it was July. In a few weeks he’d be thirty-eight.
They were as good as the same age. Chronologically, he was only a few months older than his school friend’s son.
Armed with that unsettling revelation, Remus steeled himself, pulled the hood of his black travelling cloak over his face, and moved up to knock on the door.
No one answered.
No one was home.
He wasn’t sure if he was glad or sorry.
What was Harry going to make of this? What was he going to say? Would he be able to get a word in before he was hexed into a thousand pieces as an impostor?
Those were the questions that buzzed through his mind as he settled on a bench in the grassy square, watching the door and waiting for Harry or Ginny to come home. He and Tonks had discussed their options and in the end found only one, for they couldn’t help their son in isolation. And so Remus had made his way to Grimmauld Place and Tonks had headed off to find her mother.
And so he waited, lost in ghostly memories of Sirius romping as Padfoot in the square before his necessary restriction to the house, of Alastor Moody stomping over the grass with Emmeline Vance and the rest of the Advance Guard as they brought Harry to his godfather’s home for the very first time, of Dumbledore casting the original Fidelius from almost this very spot, and of his own contentious last visit to this place and the terrible things he’d said and done here…
Remus sighed deeply. True, he’d not exactly been in the most stable of places mentally at the time, allowing himself to get too caught up in the horror upon horror that single week had reaped upon Tonks, and all because of him “ losing her job, almost losing her life, death threats from her psychotic aunt, her parents’ restrained but tangible disapproval, and then a pregnancy that could ruin her life forever. But that was still no excuse for the way he had behaved towards her, to Harry, towards Teddy then unborn and unnamed. He should have trusted his feelings but yet again he’d…
His self-flagellation would most likely have continued unabated for quite some time if he had not at that moment spotted Ginny Weasley “ Ginny Potter, he mentally corrected - swooping down to land her broomstick on the flat top of one of the bow windows. Lifting the hatch into the attic, she grasped her broom and ducked inside.
Remus swallowed sharply. Well. This was it.
Hexing, it transpired, proved a very real possibility. Ginny’s freckled face, a mature, beautiful woman’s face that was still perfectly recognisable as the sixteen-year-old girl he’d known, turned deathly white when he quietly lowered his hood and smiled at her. She prodded him up to the drawing room at wand’s length and, after sending off a hurried owl to Harry, pressed him for nearly an hour with every obscure question about what she knew of his life that she could think of. Since his memory of such events was twenty years fresher than hers, he even managed to correct her on a couple of points, and caught her out in several attempts to trip him up, such as her remarking on the duck’s bill Tonks used to make at the Grimmauld Place dinner table (he pointed out it was a pig’s snout), and discussing the silver trimmed robes he’d borrowed from her father for his wedding (they’d been Kingsley’s, he reminded her, and trimmed in gold). As the hour went on, the questions grew less and less aggressive and a slow, tentative, disbelievingly hopeful smile began to spread across her face, until at last she abandoned the questions altogether and hugged him so fiercely that his bruised and aching body was forced to violently protest. After an apology and a swiftly fetched cup of tea, they settled down, and Remus launched into the long, winding explanation of exactly what had happened to bring this apparent miracle about. They had just reached Teddy’s arrest when Harry’s voice called out from downstairs.
Gods, it was strange. Seeing Harry standing there at the foot of the stairs was like seeing the ghost of James as he should have been, a James that was Remus’ age and supporting his son through Hogwarts and Quidditch and life. And Ron and Hermione too “ his last glimpse of them had been a trio of battered and desperate teenagers in the midst of a battle for which they were all too young, and now here they were, mature, assured, safe and happy, if currently looking more than a little shocked to see him.
Hermione’s mouth was hanging open, her eyes wide. Ron’s jaw was working like a guppy’s as his brain apparently struggled to comprehend what his eyes were telling him. And Harry…
Harry just stared.
It was Ginny who broke the stalemate, ushering them all down into the kitchen, as she repeated an edited version of the story that Remus had just told her while putting the kettle back on. In spite of himself, Remus couldn’t help but smile at the sheer Molly-ness of such behaviour. Ginny seemed very much her own woman, but there was no escaping the all-powerful influence of her mother.
Faced with a logical explanation for the impossibility she was seeing, Hermione was the first to recover her wits.
“So Teddy just pulled you both through the Portal?” she queried, leaning forwards with an expression so familiar from her time in his classroom that Remus was forced to mask a smile with a long, slow sip of tea. “He dragged you right out of the battle to twenty years in your future?”
Remus nodded quietly. “As far as I’m concerned, that battle was four days ago. I can show you the bruises I’ve still got if you’re feeling particularly masochistic.”
“I can see a couple from here.” Ron gestured towards Remus’ cheekbone, where he knew the yellowing remains of one particular blow were continuing to defy the best efforts of Teddy’s bruise balm. “But…” He shook his red head with disbelief. “Merlin, this is weird. I helped carry your body into the Great Hall. I remember doing it. I don’t know half as much about this as Hermione or Teddy do but I thought…I mean…” He glanced towards his wife for assistance. “Should I be able to remember that? I didn’t think fiddling about with time worked that way. If it didn’t happen, I mean, if Teddy changed it and saved you and Tonks, that means I couldn’t have done that, so I shouldn’t remember doing it but I do and … Bloody hell.” He took a hearty gulp of tea and reached firmly for a chocolate biscuit. “I hate talking time travel.”
Remus smiled wryly. “If you’re having trouble, how do you think I feel? You three do realise that I’m now the same age as you, don’t you?”
Ron snorted his tea and biscuit crumbs all over the table. Hermione actually chuckled as she conjured a cloth and handed it to her husband wordlessly.
“Ron’s got a point,” she interjected, as Ron rather ruefully wiped up the mess his start of shock had made. “Since we still remember finding your bodies, I’m assuming Teddy accounted for that somehow…”
“He used Geminio to make fake corpses.” Harry’s toneless interjection stilled Hermione’s words, his expression strangely distant. It was the first time he’d spoken since the hallway. “It said so in his notes.”
Remus had forgotten that Harry had seen written evidence of Teddy’s plans. “That’s right,” he replied quietly. He stared over at Harry, but the not-so-young man in Auror robes was staring down at the tabletop, the light of the flickering fire reflecting in his glasses and hiding the look in his eyes from general view. “Teddy snatched my wand, since he couldn’t take his own through the Portal, and used it to make a pair of fakes to leave behind. That way history as it was remembered wouldn’t be altered and he knew he stood a chance of succeeding.”
Hermione’s brow had furrowed. “Would that work? That charm can’t create long-term copies of sentient matter. The fake would dissolve in a week at the most...”
“Which didn’t matter since they were buried after three days.” Ginny pointed out. “And nobody ever dug them up to check they were still in there, did they?”
“His parents’ graves. ” Harry had closed his eyes suddenly, his expression ruefully pained as he dropped his forehead into his hands. “That’s what I had Teddy swear on when he promised me he wouldn’t try and bring you both back. That’s why he went ahead and made that oath even though it wasn’t true. He knew that if all went to plan, there’d be nothing in there to swear on but spell dust.”
Remus smiled at Harry, although with his head in his hands, his former student wasn’t in much of a position to see it. “I meant to say, Harry, I really appreciated your efforts that night to try and keep Teddy out of trouble. Especially in light of what’s happened today…” He sighed wearily, remembered the glimpse he’d caught out of the window of his son’s guilt-riddled face as Zenobia Moon had Apparated him away. “Though the oath was unfortunately chosen, the sentiments you expressed on my behalf were right on the mark…”
For the first time since the stairs, Harry’s eyes rose and met his, filled with surprise and genuine shock. “Wait a minute. You were there?”
Remus’ smile was wry once more. “In the next room with Tonks, listening to every word. I hate to break it to you, Harry, but on this occasion you arrived about ten minutes too late.”
Harry closed his eyes. “He’d already done it. Merlin, I didn’t even think of that.” His jaw hardened in a gesture so reminiscent of his father when the name of Snape was mentioned that Remus had to shake himself to remember which Potter he was talking to. “But that doesn’t change the fact that he lied to me. He stood there and lied to my face…”
“And he hasn’t stopped beating himself up about it since.” Remus leaned forwards carefully, managing to snare Harry’s elusive gaze once more. “If it helps at all, he thought he was trying to protect you.” He gave a rueful smile, which Harry actually returned, if rather wanly. “Family failing, I’m afraid.”
Harry managed a slight chuckle. “I’m Head of the Auror Department. I would have though my own godson would know I’m big enough and ugly enough to look after myself.”
The protracted cough that Ginny covered sounded suspiciously like “wrong on both counts” but no one at the table acknowledged it with more than a brief flicker of a smile.
“If it makes you feel any better, I agree with you.” Remus raised his hands at Ginny’s glare of mock warning. “Not on the matter of being ugly, but on the matter of being able to decide such things for yourself. But Teddy was concerned that if he took you into his confidence and then the truth of what he’d done came to light, you risked losing your job for sheltering a criminal and concealing what was technically a crime. And he couldn’t stand the thought of being responsible for bringing that down on you after all you’d done for him.”
“He had a point.” Hermione’s voice was soft. “It’s just like what we were saying earlier about handing in those notes. And you know that Matilda “ our boss, Matilda Breakspear, Remus; you might remember her daughter Eliza from when you taught “ anyway, Matilda would have been forced to fire you if she found out you’d helped Teddy to cover up a crime, especially given what happened to Penny…” She glanced over at Remus. “Was that because of Teddy too?”
Remus briefly closed his eyes. “Yes, though he was almost inconsolable when it happened. He hadn’t realised his plans would damage the Portal, let alone result in someone he cared for getting hurt. He takes after his mother in that. I love her dearly, but she does have an awful habit of diving in without considering the consequences, and our son seems to have inherited that impulse to act before thinking things through.”
Ron was working his way steadily through his third cup of tea and his fifth biscuit. “Where is Tonks anyway? Didn’t she want to come?”
“She’s at her mother’s.” The words came without any kind of thought, but the ghosts of this much altered but still recognisable kitchen, of the last time he’d sat in this very chair facing these three people and said very similar words, assaulted him almost violently. He felt his cheeks grow hot, and the sudden widening of Hermione’s eyes was enough to tell him that the irony had not been lost upon her either.
“She’s gone to see her mother,” he corrected himself sharply. “To tell her. Poor Andromeda “ she probably doesn’t even know about Teddy yet.”
He saw Harry’s brow furrow. “Hang on, she must. She was there when he was arrested. The charge sheet said so.”
Remus’ returning look was pointed. “She wasn’t.”
Ginny was the first to catch on. “It was Tonks, wasn’t it? She morphed into her mother! And I’ll bet it wasn’t the first time “ Victoire was telling me on Tuesday how strangely Teddy’s grandmother was acting when she went over to fetch him for lunch.”
Remus sighed wryly. “She wasn’t having a good day. Her hormones are a little… erratic. After all, her body still thinks Teddy is a baby.”
Ginny and Hermione nodded sympathetically. Ron and Harry exchanged a look so uncomfortable that it was closer to a shared wince.
“Poor Tonks,” Hermione was biting her lip. “I remember how strange I felt for a couple of months after Rose was born. And being pulled through that Portal can’t have helped her physically…”
Remus forced down the memory of the tide of red light surging, squeezing at his body, dragging him apart. “It was… a rough ride,” he conceded, attempting without much success to conceal his discomfort. “Tonks and Teddy weathered it rather better than I did; it seems it’s more beneficial to be a young metamorphmagus when one is dragged through a turbulent time Portal than it is to be a creaky old werewolf.”
Hermione was shaking her head slowly. “I amazed you survived it at all. I’ve talked about the Portal with Penny and Teddy before now, and I’ve skimmed over the case notes on the Portal they gave me when I got myself assigned to Teddy’s defence.” Remus looked up sharply at this piece of news and Hermione smiled at him with reassurance. “I meant to tell you that before. I’m sharing the role of Teddy’s defence counsel with Padma Goldstein “ you’d remember her as Padma Patil. But anyway, the point I was making is this - with that protective field of theirs broken, you shouldn’t have survived that trip.” She reached under the table, rustling in the tatty beaded bag she had been carrying until she pulled out a handful of papers. “Ah yes, here it is “ the technical report Rajesh Chaudhry submitted this morning about the accident. Let’s see…Hmmm…” For several moments, Hermione was lost as she read over the documents grasped in her hand. Ron caught Remus’ eye and gave him a very familiar grin.
“Aha!” Hermione broke away from what Remus couldn’t help but mentally refer to as her homework. “It says here that Penny only survived because they’d managed to restore a thin layer of the field just before she tried to step through. But because of the damage, it couldn’t take the strain and shattered on her, and the physical trauma knocked her into a coma. Now as I understand it…” She riffled through the papers once more. “Here we are. The actual charge against Teddy is that he wilfully broke the field in order to try and alter history. But if he did that, he “ and you “ should have suffered the same effects as Penny.” She shook her head. “I may have to look into this more deeply. But that doesn’t make much sense. By all rights, all three of you should have been badly injured. Probably even killed.”
Remus felt a shiver once more as he remembered drifting in the light; vague glimpses of the faces of old friends as they pushed him back to his body…
He shook the feeling away. “Teddy really had no idea that anything so serious was going to happen,” he told Hermione instead. “If he’d thought there was a chance of anyone getting hurt, he wouldn’t have done it. And Penny’s accident really shook him to the core.” He shifted his gaze back to Harry. “It was that that made him decide he had to come and tell you the truth, Harry. He was going to come this afternoon but…”
“He was arrested first.” Harry sighed. “And so you had to come instead.”
Remus echoed the sigh. “Which was hardly ideal. I was rather concerned that I’d give you some kind of heart attack.”
Harry managed another slight laugh. “You very nearly did. I thought I was seeing a ghost for a minute….”
The laugh died. The odd, distant look that Remus had noticed on his face at the start of the conversation flickered back into place. His eyes seemed a thousand miles away.
Something was definitely wrong. “What?”
Harry’s expression shifted uncomfortably. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
Ah, nothing. The most potent non-admission that there was something to be found. “I don’t think it is nothing,” Remus replied softly. “Something about all this has been bothering you since you first set eyes on me, Harry. What is it?”
Harry was shaking his head, his expression set but his eyes told a very different story. “It’s just… well, it’s like Ron said earlier. Everything we remember must have happened or we wouldn’t remember at all. But I remember something that… that couldn’t have happened if you… well, didn’t die. And you didn’t, because you’re here, now, alive and talking to me, which means I guess… I guess what happened wasn’t as real as I thought.” His voice was almost plaintive. “But it felt so real and it meant so much to me and if it turns out I just imagined it…” He sighed deeply, his eyes dropping to the tabletop once more as he fingered the Ginger Newt he was holding in one hand. “I suppose in hindsight it doesn’t really matter if it wasn’t real. But I can’t help it; it does to me…”
Realisation struck Remus with the force of a Reductor Curse. Of course…
“The Forbidden Forest,” he said softly.
The biscuit in Harry’s hand snapped in two with a sharp retort. His head jerked up.
“What?” he whispered harshly.
Remus met his eyes, emerald and bright just like his mother’s, as he forced himself to think about that strange and hazy visit, about what had happened, what had been said.
“The Forbidden Forest,” he repeated gently, keeping his voice calm against the almost hungry intensity of Harry’s expression. “I told you I had a rough ride in the Portal, remember?” Harry nodded, although his forehead creased in bemusement at the apparent change in subject. “Well, that was somewhat of an understatement. The truth of the matter is I got stuck halfway through and left behind.”
He heard Hermione gasp but he ignored her, keeping his attention on Harry, on his almost desperate stare. “And while I was there, something strange happened to me, something I thought I’d hallucinated until Teddy mentioned that you might remember it too. I felt something call me to the Forbidden Forest. And there, I saw you. And James, Lily and Sirius were there with us.”
Harry was almost shaking. “You could just be saying that,” he said softly. “To make me feel better. You’ve said no more than I’ve told Teddy.”
Remus shook his head slowly. “I’m not.” He forced himself to think of the crimson light, tried to peel through the vague mistiness of the memory and remember exactly what was said. “You thought you were going to die. You asked if it hurt. And you told me you were sorry I’d died without getting to know my son.” He sighed uncertainly. “I don’t remember everything that was said very clearly but…”
Harry’s gaze stopped him in his tracks. “You’ve remembered enough.”
Remus smiled shakily, feeling a little unsteady himself at this final confirmation that his experience in the Portal had been real. “I think they saved me, you know; James, Lily and Sirius. They told me off for being there, told me to get back to my body. And then I was pushed out of the Portal right into Dora and Teddy’s arms.”
Harry’s breathing was rapid and shallow. “They “ and you “ saved me too. I’d never have been able to go on if you hadn’t been there and I had to do it. And it was real.” A tentative smile brushed the corners of his mouth. “Remus. Thank you.”
Remus allowed himself a gentle laugh. “Don’t thank me. I don’t even know how I got there. And you looked after my son. That’s all the thanks I’ll ever need.”
It was only as he finally settled back in his chair and freed himself from Harry’s stare, that Remus became aware that Hermione, Ron and Ginny were staring at them both with something bordering on awe. Remus could almost sense the academic questions about his apparent out of body experience hovering on Hermione’s lips.
He reached for the teapot, cutting her off before she could even begin. “More tea, anyone?”
Fortunately, the conversation did not veer into the metaphysics of astral projection while trapped in time portals, mostly thanks to Ron’s timely ability to deflect his wife from questioning their friend and their former professor on a matter both had quietly but firmly implied they had no wish to discuss further. Remus filled in the remaining gaps in the story of his return and offered up the possible courses of action that he, Dora and Teddy had discussed. But in the light of Teddy’s arrest, the matter was now a great deal more complicated.
“We should include Andromeda and Tonks in this.” Ginny exchanged a tired look with Harry as she wordlessly used her wand to clear away the tea things; all five of those at the table were verging on tea-and-biscuit saturation. “If there’s going to be a decision on this, they need to have their say. And it’d probably be a good idea for Remus to be gone before I go and get the kids.” She smiled slightly. “Can you imagine trying to explain to them why a dead man out of one of the pictures on the mantelpiece is staying with us? And then we’d have to persuade James to keep his mouth shut…”
The snorts of Harry, Ron and Hermione led Remus to conclude that young James probably had about as much subtlety and discretion as his namesake at that age.
“Dora and I are fine to stay at Teddy’s house, provided they don’t plan on searching the place,” he offered. “Or we could stay with Andromeda. We wouldn’t dream of imposing ourselves on you.”
Ginny laughed. “I won’t say it wouldn’t be a bit inconvenient,” she admitted. “But if we had decided you were going to impose, believe me there’d be no declining.”
“You told Tonks you’d join her at Andromeda’s, didn’t you?” Hermione was whisking her papers back into the beaded bag. When Remus nodded, she continued. “Well, then we should all go there. Talk this thing out with everyone present.”
Ginny was already shaking her head. “I promised Mum I’d collect the kids about now, and besides, my deadline for that Harpies-Cannons match report is tomorrow. You four go.” She moved over to where Remus had just come to his feet and caught him in a rather gentler hug.
“Remus, it’s so good to have you back,” she said sincerely. “And give Tonks my love and tell her I hope to see her soon.”
Remus smiled down at her, a wonderful woman grown out of a wonderful girl. “Thank you, Ginny.”
“We haven’t really said that, have we?” Ron remarked suddenly as he strode around the table to slap Remus firmly on the back. “Ginny’s right. Whatever happens, it’s bloody brilliant to see you again.”
“It’s fantastic. It’s wonderful.” This time the hug was from Hermione. “Oh, Remus.”
“It is.” Smiling quietly, Harry took his hand and shook it firmly. “It’s a miracle. And whatever the consequences, I’m not sorry to have you back.”
Ron had already grabbed a handful of Floo powder from the mantle. “Shall we?” he said.
It was decided that Remus should go last, in case they needed to shove him back into the Floo at the sight of any unexpected faces. Hermione also insisted he don his travelling cloak and pull the heavy hood up to cover his face. It was a prudent precaution. And Remus agreed.
And so it was he tumbled out of the Floo into Andromeda’s familiar-yet-different kitchen only to stumble straight into the backs of his three companions. All of them were frozen, eyes wide, as they exchanged nervous looks and reached for their wands.
A moment later, Remus understood why.
CRASH!
“Mum! Put the wand down!”
“Don’t call me that!”
SMASH!
“Mum! Please!”
“Stop it! You cruel… You evil… Is this some Rita Skeeter ploy to finally get that story of the Blacks she’s always badgering me about? Is this Rudolph Spragg getting his sick revenge because I came to the conference and heckled his speech?”
“Mum, no! It’s not revenge and it’s not a ploy! I’m alive! It’s really me! I’m Nympha…”
“NO!” Andromeda’s voice was a roar, choked with pain, desolation, anguish and fury. “No, no, no! I don’t know who you are or why you’re playing this sick game but I want you out of this house right now! Nymphadora is dead! You are not my daughter!”