Family Ties
There was something oddly relaxing about the Easter holidays at Hogwarts.
Several of the other teachers had thought Remus mad when he’d ventured that opinion in the staff room a few days before. After all, Easter was the holiday when most students failed to go home, choosing to remain and, reputedly, study for their imminent exams and, aside from the absence of lessons, it was much like term-time, full of bustle and laughter and barely concealed flouting of the rules. But Remus had long been of the opinion that Hogwarts without students might as well not be Hogwarts at all “ the castle was too eerie, too silent, too lifeless to feel comfortable in the summer and even Christmas, he recalled from his year as a live-in teacher, was just that touch too quiet. But Easter was a break without boredom, a paired down version of the job he loved that meant he could help the students and prepare for future classes while still having time to see plenty of his family in between. It formed a happy medium between the two parts of life he loved the most.
Neville Longbottom had nodded his agreement at that and even Headmaster Flitwick had conceded that he could see his point. But the other teachers had banded together and roundly concluded that he was barking.
The look on Alice Spindleshaft’s face when she realised that yes, she had just used that term out loud to address a werewolf, had been worth the concession of the argument. It had taken him ten minutes of fending off stammered apologies to convince the Muggle Studies professor that he hadn’t been the slightest bit offended. Five of those had been needed so he could stop laughing.
And it had been so easy to laugh. Years ago, before Dora, and before a trip through a temporal Portal had thrust him away from his own death and into a whole new life, he would never have been able to laugh so long, the laughter consumed by worries that he was making people uncomfortable, that the apology was motivated by fear, that they were wondering about his motives in wanting to stay with the children, that they and the children were watching him nervously behind his back. Or he’d have swallowed his laughter for fear they thought he was mocking them or even that he might be giving himself away. Concern about his condition, about people finding out what he was or people knowing and watching him with sharp, suspicious eyes had dogged every step of his life back then, for whether he’d wanted it to or not, he’d somehow always seemed to let it. And he’d said it didn’t bother him and he’d smiled and joined in with the jokes but it had nagged at him right up until the day that a slightly pregnant Nymphadora Tonks had looked him in the eye after he’d returned, shamefaced, from Grimmauld Place and told him he was getting downright neurotic about his condition and that he needed to stop worrying about other people’s opinions and start finding some of his own, for his child’s sake if nothing else. Being a werewolf would only ruin his life if he decided to let it. And he’d known then that she had been right.
It had been easier to laugh after that. And easier still when he’d found himself twenty years away from the memory of Greyback and the war, with his wonderful wife and a brilliant and emphatically not lycanthropic grown-up son, given back the job he loved and surrounded by people who insisted on treating him like either a friend or some kind of war hero. With the memory of his strange reappearance fading with the passing of fresh years, he’d started to feel almost ordinary. Days, almost weeks at certain phases of the moon, would go by when he wouldn’t even think about his condition. He knew that he could have no greater gift and every evening spent around a dinner table, chatting with Teddy about the latest shenanigans at Hogwarts or listening to Dora’s updates on her latest investigations, left him feeling more like a human being than he’d ever thought was possible.
He felt whole. And the Easter holidays and all it represented, the merging of work and family and all the ordinary little things that made his life so extraordinarily wonderful, was relaxing. He didn’t care if that made him figuratively barking or not.
With his Easter office hours tailored to match Dora’s schedule, he’d had a wonderful few days so far. Half had been spent tutoring a few of his uncertain students and one or two of his more conscientious “ Rose Weasley really could be alarmingly like her mother “ and fending off the latest gambits in James Potter’s unsuccessful but ongoing prank campaign to get one over on the last of the Marauders. The other half he’d spent with Dora, picnicking in the sunshine, shopping in Diagon Alley or just curled up together at home, enjoying the warmth and feel of each other and the comfort and passion of their love. It would have been nice if Teddy could have joined them, but his son had opted to whisk his girlfriend Victoire away to the magical quarter of Bruges for a few days to celebrate the rapid approach of his twenty-fourth birthday. It wasn’t often that Teddy’s Hogwarts commitments and Victoire’s apprenticeship at St Mungo’s fell so nicely into line and the young couple had been unashamedly eager for some private time.
Remus couldn’t blame them. Much as he loved his son, it was nice sometimes to have a little more time alone with his wife. And although he was looking forward to Teddy’s return that evening, he could also feel a strong tug of anticipation regarding his pending afternoon alone with Dora. Her annual Auror Department physical had thwarted their plans of a whole day together but she’d promised him that on the stroke of midday, she would be waiting in the Three Broomsticks and most emphatically all his. The possibilities that had danced in her dark eyes as she’d winked over her shoulder and headed out of the door had occupied his thoughts for most of the rest of the morning.
But his last batch of unmarked essays were calling and, with noon still over an hour away, Remus had felt compelled to answer. It was mostly uneventful; he’d noted that Columbine McMillan would most likely need an extra tutoring session on Dark Artefacts before her OWLs and James Potter’s essay had leapt up, folded itself into a paintbrush and made an emphatic but ultimately futile attempt to paint paisley patterns on his robes. Remus had Charmed it down without breaking a sweat and, with a small smile, wrote the words must try harder in red ink at the bottom. He’d always tried to encourage innovation and James was nothing if not imaginative. Remus rather looked forward to the day when he would actually be caught out. He strongly suspected Harry would be quite proud.
The pile went down quickly. His OWL students were a fairly competent bunch and their handwriting was only moderately challenging to interpret. The clock on the mantle of his fireplace marked the passing of minutes as the final hour before midday and whatever delights his wife had in store for him slipped away, quarter past, what would she be wearing “ Sebastian Hardcastle, good understanding of curse breaking theory “ half past, where would they go - Agrippina Gamp, a little too focussed on the placing of curses, rather than their detection or removal “ quarter to, what would they do - Isis Forest, excellent work, well thought out “ and so it was that he was just rounding off his final comments on June Boot’s missive “ well written but lacking a little in detail “ and wondering what shade his wife’s hair was likely to be when he rather abruptly got an answer.
The door to his office burst open. There stood Dora, her eyes wide, her face pale and her hair limp and alarmingly brown. She stared at him in mute horror for a moment, before launching herself abruptly into the room. He barely had time to get up and out from behind his desk before she flung herself into his arms.
“Oh, Remus!” she exclaimed, burying her head into his shoulder as her brown locks ticked his cheek and nose. “Oh Remus, I’ve really messed up!”
Alarm was coursing through Remus in chilly waves as he tightened his grasp upon his wife. Was it about this afternoon? Did she have to work after all? But surely she wouldn’t be so upset about a scheduling mix up…
Well, all he could do was ask. “Messed up what?” he said gently, if a little urgently against the top of her head. “What on earth’s the matter?” The cold turned abruptly glacial. “Is this about your physical? Did they find something wrong? Dora!”
“It’s not wrong, exactly.” Her tone of voice, muffled as it was by her face being pressed against his neck, nonetheless offered no comfort. “But it’s stupid and my fault and it’ll affect everything and I’ll have to stop work again and I know we talked about it and said that we probably would someday but we’d have to talk to Teddy, but we haven’t and no matter what he says I know he’ll be upset and…” She huffed sharply against his skin before launching herself back into babble. “Oh, this is all my fault! I thought that potion tasted a bit funny when I drank it, do you remember, I said! But you were sat there looking so bloody sexy and it was the last bottle I had and I convinced myself it would all be fine…”
“Dora!” Remus’ sharp exclamation was enough to lift his wife’s head, her dark eyes meeting his and spilling out such a vivid confusion of emotions that it almost made his head spin. “For goodness sake, please tell me what’s wrong!”
He saw it. He saw the answer in her eyes an instant before her lips parted and softly said again the words that had once rocked his world to its core.
“I’m pregnant.”
There was a definite judder. His world gave a distinct lurch but this time the shocked surprise gave way not to the swamp of fear and self blame that had so cruelly swallowed up the half-second’s worth of soaring joy he’d felt before but to a sudden dawn of stunned happiness. It was true they had discussed having another child, but Dora was so happy in her career and knowing that they now had all the time in the world had taken away any kind of urgency they might have felt. He’d been more than content to wait until she decided she was ready.
But the wait was over, whether they’d intended it to be or not.
Pregnant.
A baby.
A baby he’d get to see grow up, rather than meeting again fully grown after a few seconds of bright red light had swallowed up twenty whole years…
He started to smile but one look at the outright miserable look on his wife’s face halted its progress sharply.
“And that’s… bad?” Remus sensed this was a venture into troubled waters but it had to be done “ it was with no small amount of irony that he realised that the last time this scene had played out, their roles had been almost exactly reversed. “I know it’s unexpected but I’m certain Harry will be more than happy to make every accommodation with your work if…”
“This isn’t about work!” Five years of marriage had left Remus more than used to being regarded as though he was an idiot, but on this occasional he couldn’t help but feel that she was being a little unfair, especially since her logic had apparently wandered well out of his range of husbandly detection and was probably legging it over a fence a hundred miles away by now. “This is about Teddy!”
Yep, over the fence and heading for the horizon… “Teddy?”
“Yes, Teddy!” A small fist thumped against his chest. “How do you think he’s going to feel about this?”
It was possible that the sudden surge of happiness running rampant through his brain had interfered with his usually more accurate ability to interpret Dora’s direction of thought. The word hormones did flit across his mind, but he also knew with a grim certainty that if it crossed his lips, he wouldn’t be making any more babies for many years to come. Bravely, he waded into the confusion.
“I would imagine… happy?” he ventured.
“Oh, he’ll say he’s happy.” Abruptly Dora pulled herself out of his grasp, striding halfway across the room before wheeling on one heel to face him. Luckily, she regained her balance after only a couple of seconds of flailing. “I know him. He’s like you.” A finger stabbed in his direction almost accusingly. “He won’t want to upset us so he won’t admit it! He won’t admit how he feels! Remus, barring accidents, misfortunes or fate being even more a bastard than it’s already managed, we are going to have this baby and raise it all the way to adulthood!”
“Well, that’s the normal arrangement…”
“But not with Teddy, was it? We weren’t there for him!”
Aha… The logic had slipped in around the back door and finally come knocking. The old guilt, that he hadn’t been there for Teddy, that leaving him to go and fight had cost them twenty years together, rose briefly to stab at his heart and knew at once that Dora’s assassin was far more potent. She’d come to terms with those lost years in the end but he knew that no matter what anyone said to her, she’d never quite forgiven herself…
“I mean, how’s he going to feel?” Dora ran one anxious hand through her limp hair as she paced in a nervous little circle. “Seeing us with a baby, raising a child, sharing all those little moments we didn’t share with him! We couldn’t have that with him so we’ve brought in a reserve? He’ll feel like we can’t love him as much because we didn’t teach him to walk or talk or wave him off to school! He’ll feel like he’s being abandoned. He’ll feel like he’s being replaced!”
There was really only one thing that Remus could reasonably do. He strode over and engulfed his wife in another hug.
“I never thought I’d be the one saying this to you,” he said affectionately. “Especially since it’s usually your job to poke me about it. I think you’re over thinking this.”
Dora buried herself back into his chest once more. “Remus, I couldn’t stand to hurt him,” she whispered, her voice betraying the resurgence of deeply buried anxieties. “I let him down so much when I left him to fight. He lost the chance to be our little boy. I can’t be happy at his expense, I just can’t…”
“You won’t be.” Remus tightened his hold. “I know him too. He knows how much we missed having the chance to raise him. He knows how much we love him now. And he knows that nothing will ever change that.”
“But we’ll be flaunting what he didn’t have with us! He’ll feel left out!”
“Then we won’t let him. We’ll prove that we love him as often as we need to. And Dora, I think you’re forgetting. There’s more than just the three of us to think of now. The new baby “ what about his or her feelings about being raised in the shadow of a brother that mummy feels she let down? We can’t slight one to please the other “ in either direction. Teddy would never resent us happiness “ he sacrificed a career he loved so that we could have this life! And he would hate it more than anything else if he thought he was in some way responsible for ruining our joy.” Gently, he tilted her head so that her dark eyes could not escape his and pressed his lips softly against hers. “We’ll be a family, Dora, a bigger family, with all the hang-ups and issues that come with it. But we’ll manage. And I know that our Teddy will love being a big brother.”
A hint of a smile curved across Dora’s lips. “I suppose he will. I can just see him holding our baby and playing games and singing songs…”
Remus smiled in spite of himself. “You know, the way he and Victoire are going, it probably won’t be long until we’re gra…”
A finger slapped down across his lips, cutting off the rest of his sentence. Dora glared up at him sharply.
“Don’t say it! We do not use the g-word! I am too young for the g-word!”
He was risking life, limb and a night on the sofa, but Remus really couldn’t help himself. “Well, you could always go with Nan instead…”
The beating of fists against his shoulder stopped after about twenty seconds, with no real bruises but to his pride, to Remus knew she hadn’t really meant it. It was a strange thought though. In years lived, he was just venturing into the murky waters of his early forties, a little late, if not excessively old for second-hand fatherhood and early, but not ridiculously, for grandchildren. But technically, in years passed since his birth, he was knocking around sixty and grandparenthood was nothing to be ashamed of. But Dora was physically not even thirty yet. To have a smiling little face call her grandma seemed outright silly.
Mummy, however…
A baby. They were having a baby…
“We’re having a baby.” The words slipped out almost unbidden and oh yes, Dora was actually smiling, smiling with him and the joy reached up to her eyes…
“I know,” she whispered slipping her arms back around him. “And I am happy. I really am.”
“Me too.” He rested his head against her hair, noting the small strands of pink and purple that were creeping their way up from her crown as he closed his eyes. “And Teddy will be too, I promise. We can tell him tonight. I’m sure that he will…”
“Dad!”
Remus jumped about a foot and he was certain that it was only his grip on Dora that prevented her from taking a violently startled tumble. Wheeling sharply, he stared at the green flames that had burst into life unheeded in his fireplace and found the disembodied head of his son staring back at him with wide eyes and pale cheeks. If it were not for the vivid turquoise of his hair, he would have been almost the image of his mother when she had first rushed through the door what seemed like an eternity ago.
Remus found his mind racing. What had they just said? How much had Teddy heard? They’d wanted him to know, but not like this…
“And Mum too!” A nervous smile flashed briefly across Teddy’s features. “You’re both here! That’s great! That’s… two birds with one stone… that’s…”
Oh, not again. Rather babbled out, Remus decided to cut to the chase. “Teddy! I didn’t think you were back until tonight. Is something wrong?”
Teddy shook his disembodied head, eyes flicking from one parent to the other almost anxiously. But he couldn’t know, we’ve barely found out ourselves, and I was so sure he wouldn’t mind…
“I’m not back. I’m still in Bruges, but I borrowed a Floo. I needed to talk to you “ well, one of you, and I didn’t know where Mum would be so I… Well you’re both here and that’s great! It’s great!”
Dora looked as bewildered as Remus felt as she exchanged a glance with her husband. “We’re flattered, Teddy, but it couldn’t have waited a couple of hours? You said you’d be back by six…”
“I know, I know! And I can’t be long, Victoire’s outside and she doesn’t know I’m doing this but I’ve decided I want to and this is the place I want to do it, but I couldn’t just go ahead without talking about it with you because it’ll affect you too. The thing is…” Teddy paused a moment, puffing his cheeks as he took several what must have been very smoky breaths. “I’ve decided to propose to Victoire.”
And with Dora’s guilt stricken logic still wedged in his mind, Remus saw at once where Teddy’s words were heading. And she says he takes after me…
“But of course that means we’ll be getting a place of our own and I’ll be moving out and we’ll maybe even be having children of our own in a few years time. But the three of us “ well, we’ve had relatively little time together as a family and the last thing I wanted you to think was that I was abandoning you or leaving you behind because I’ve got something better, because that’s not the case at all. I love you both so much and we lost so many years we should have had together and I can hold off asking her for a while if you think it hasn’t been enough…”
Remus couldn’t help himself. He burst out laughing.
Teddy stared at him with bewildered horror. Dora regarded him rather more wryly.
“Sorry, Teddy,” Remus heard her say. “I think your dad is formulating some manner of hysterical statement on how very alike we are.”
“I am indeed.” Still grinning broadly, Remus reached out and took his wife’s hand as they dropped as one to a crouch in front of the fireplace and their son’s confused face. “Teddy, for goodness sake, you don’t have to worry about us. In fact…” He glanced at Dora and revelled for a moment in her suddenly radiant expression, at yet another strange new beginning for their strange little family. “I think there’s something you ought to know…”
THE END
Beyond The Portal by Pallas
Story Notes:
This story is set within the Portalverse established in my previous story A Little More Time, a few years after the events in the Department of Mysteries. For anyone who hasn’t read ALMT, these stories are readable enough in their own right but certain aspects of them probably won't make much sense. ;p They could be called AU though I would argue they're technically not. ;p The stories I post here will each be entities in their own right, although they do hark back to each other.