As Harry stared down at the chubby mass of arms and legs that wiggled like mad for freedom, he felt a lump rise in his throat. It was not that he felt a paternal surge of affection toward Theodore Remus Lupin, his godson, but it was that this child was now an orphan, and he knew what that was like. Of course, Andromeda would not allow him to grow up as Harry had, locked in a tiny cupboard, unloved and unwanted. Teddy was Remus’s boy, and he deserved so much more than that.
When the child had had enough of foreign hands, his writhing increased and his hair turned a violent shade of orange. Andromeda had said that he did that when he was fussy and needed a nap. Harry felt like he should know these things, but he was barely more than a child himself. He was an honorary father at the ripe old age of eighteen, and he knew less than nothing about babies. Hermione had said that it would just ‘come to him’, that he would simply know what to do and do it when some sort of biological coding took over. That was complete bollocks, and he was pretty sure that Teddy detested his completely foreign hands.
No matter. He would still come. He would come every day if he had to, because Teddy was worth it. Teddy deserved the father that had been stolen from Harry, and he would do everything he could, come hell or hippogriffs, to make sure it happened.
* * *
Teddy could not stop grinning. Harry was coming over that day. Visits from Harry were always fun. He brought sweets that he managed to hide from Gran, who never gave him any. She had always said that it was because they were not healthy for him, but he knew that it was because she could not afford them.
He had overheard the conversations between Harry and Gran ever since he was old enough to care about grown-up things. Harry would offer her money to help out with things, but she said no faster than he could finish his sentence. Harry would always end up being annoyed with Gran after that, but he was always nice to Teddy.
Harry was his best friend. Harry would tell Teddy about their dads, whereas Gran only talked about his mum. It was nice to know that, even though his dad had led a tough life as a werewolf, he had still had such good friends. Harry promised to be that sort of friend to Teddy, and that felt good. It eased his five-year-old mind to know that his hero, his friend, his godfather, was the greatest man to ever live.
* * *
“I’d really love to, Mrs Tonks, but I have half a dozen meetings today.” Harry felt like a complete prat for refusing to take Teddy for a day so Andromeda could visit her husband’s grave in peace. She always took Teddy with her, but he always asked a lot of questions, and many of them were painful for her to think about. It was not that he did not understand; it was that he simply did not have the time.
Andromeda’s face fell, which was still obvious despite the skewing of her features through the Floo. He knew how much she needed this visit with Ted, and he would be damned if he was the one who would ruin it for her. “Just give me a few minutes. I’ll see if Mrs Weasley can take him.”
“No,” Andromeda said quietly. “That’s all right. I know you’re busy, but I thought that, since you haven’t been by in quite a while, that you might like to have him for the day.”
If Harry could kick himself in the arse, he would have right then and there. She was completely right. It had been nearly six months since he had seen his godson, which was absolutely shameful, but being the Head Auror was not conducive to light schedules. As it was, he barely saw his own children.
That made Harry pause. He had always thought of Teddy as one of his own sons, as much a part of his heart as James and Albus. He had been there for birthdays and holidays and even a bunch of occasional drop-ins, just to see how much taller he had become since the last visit and perhaps if the little one had discovered any new hair colours.
But then, James had been born and everything had changed. He saw Teddy less and less and spent more time with his own son. Then Albus and Lily had followed, which siphoned off even more of his schedule. Mentally, he had justified it by thinking that Teddy was getting so much bigger and he simply did not need his godfather to be there for everything. He was approaching that age where he was too ‘cool’ for parents, and Harry did not want to face that sort of rejection from a ten-year-old.
Ten? Teddy was ten already? When had this happened? It seemed like mere months before that he had looked at the bright-haired new-born that Remus had displayed so proudly at Shell Cottage. Now, Teddy was closer to adulthood than infancy, and Harry had missed so much of that. The next year, Teddy would be starting at Hogwarts, and his chances to visit would dwindle down to nothing.
He had to do better than that. Teddy was his godson, and he did not care if he was the most un-cool godfather on the face of the planet, he still wanted to drink in that last bit of youth that Teddy had left. He still wanted to be that father that Teddy so richly deserved, the father that Remus had wanted so badly to be.
* * *
Andromeda hugged Teddy close to her chest, despite the fact that he was now at least a head taller than she was. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. He had a meeting with the Minister and…”
Teddy shook his head and smiled. “I know, Gran. Harry’s a busy man. He’s in charge of the entire Auror Department. It’s a wonder he even gets to sleep, let alone visit all the time.”
Though he did not like lying to his grandmother, Teddy thought he owed it to her. She had always felt so terrible when Harry had needed to postpone one of his sparse visits. As it was, he was only able to visit on holidays and during the summer while Teddy was back from Hogwarts. Did it hurt? Yeah, sure it did, but the fact that his godfather was such an important man, was Harry-bloody-Potter, meant that he would always have to split his attention in a thousand different directions. Teddy was still thrilled to bits that he had his own little piece of Harry, though.
That was why he had told Professor Longbottom, his Gryffindor Head of House, that he wanted to be an Auror. If anyone would understand, it was him. Hardly anyone could live up to the legacy that inevitably followed Harry everywhere, but Professor Longbottom was one of them.
The moment that Teddy had uttered the word ‘Auror’ during his career consultation, he knew that he had made the right choice. Maybe then, he would actually get to see Harry more, since they would work at the same place.
Gran had been…concerned by this choice, but she knew from raising his mum that sometimes it was best to let it be. She just kept saying that he was so much like his mum, that he wanted to be the one to save the world from itself. Maybe he did a little, but more than anything, Teddy wanted to be just like Harry.
Harry would give his life for any member of his family, even the in-laws. They were all his family, and Teddy felt honoured that he had been chosen to be part of that.
* * *
Staring dumbfounded at the list of new trainees in his department, Harry nearly had a heart attack when he saw his own godson’s name on it. There it was, plain as day. Theodore R Lupin. How could he have not known that Teddy wanted to be an Auror? This was the same Teddy who had been small enough to hold above his head and play aeroplanes with only a few years ago? Was it a few years? Was it ten? Could he even remember?
Harry felt like a complete bastard. How could he not? Sure, he had pulled a few strings to get a hold of Teddy’s N.E.W.T. scores a bit ahead of schedule, only to find that they were bloody fantastic. Yet, it had never occurred to him to ask Teddy what he wanted to be when he grew up, and now that he already had grown up, he finally knew, if only by coincidence.
Things had to change, and it would start at that very moment.
The new recruits were there for orientation that day, so this was the perfect opportunity for Harry to have a nice, long-overdue chat with Teddy. He sent a memo to the training room, asking for ‘Mr Lupin’ to be sent up to his office.
When Teddy arrived, his face was wary. He probably thought that he was going to get the ‘it’s too dangerous’ speech that he likely got from Andromeda. Harry gestured toward the chair opposite him and smiled.
“How are you, Teddy?” The question felt ridiculous and awkward as soon as he said it. It had the air of someone who was pretending to care about another person but could not be bothered to think of anything more creative. Harry just hoped to Merlin that this was not how Teddy took it.
But Teddy just chuckled. “You can call me ‘Ted’ now. Only Gran calls me ‘Teddy’ anymore.”
“Old habits, I suppose,” Harry mumbled. He felt so ridiculously out of the loop. The most basic information about Teddy was completely beyond him.
They fell into silence, each waiting for the other to speak first. Harry realised that it had to be him, as he was the one who paged Teddy in the first place. He only had a vague idea where he should start, though. “Er, so you’re probably wondering why I asked you up here.”
Shrugging, Teddy said, “A little. Proudfoot seemed really annoyed that you interrupted his speech.”
“He’ll get over it,” Harry said as they both laughed. This felt good; this felt right. He had had far too few of these easy moments with Teddy, and that needed to be remedied.
“I just wanted to say that…that I’m sorry, Teddy. So sorry.” Harry could not make himself look Teddy in the eye as he said this.
When he did venture a glance up, Harry saw complete confusion on Teddy’s face. “Sorry for what?”
It was Harry’s turn to be confused. “I’ve been a terrible godfather to you. I’m never around, I don’t write often enough, and worst of all, you wanted to be an Auror and I never even knew about it!”
“Are you mad or something?”
“No! I—I just can’t believe that you’re all grown up, sitting in that chair, and I don’t even know how it happened. That’s why I’m sorry, son. I promised Remus that I would treat you like my own if anything ever happened to him, and I haven’t done that. It’s completely inexcusable.”
Harry got out of his chair and wandered over to the portrait on the wall, which was of his house, complete with his wife and children waving at him. No Teddy. He leant his forehead against the wall, trying to stop the room from spinning. This office should have been filled with pictures of Teddy and Harry together, bringing back memories of time well spent. But it was not. He had really screwed up.
A hand touched Harry’s shoulder, and Teddy was there. His hair had adopted the sandy brown that he remembered so well on Remus. “So you missed a few Quidditch matches. It’s okay. Any dad can do that. You gave me something else, something better.”
Turning to face Teddy, Harry could not help but marvel at how much like Remus he was. He was calm, collected, and so very wise. He was perfect. “You remind me so much of him. They would have been so proud of you. I’m proud of you, though Merlin knows I had nothing to do with it.”
Teddy’s face became dark, and his hair turned red. “Nothing to do with it?” he said hotly. “You showed me what it was to be a man! You showed me how someone should really be, how to look at the world, not just my tiny little part in it. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”
Completely dumbstruck, Harry could only stare at Teddy. The boy had given him far more credit than he deserved, but that did not matter. Only the future mattered now. “I want to see you more. I’ve missed so much, and I want to fix that. Come to dinner tonight. James misses you a lot, and he’ll be leaving for Hogwarts next week, so it might be a while before he gets to see you again. Come to think of it, now that you can Apparate, come over whenever you like. I’d like that a lot.”
“I’d love to,” Teddy said, beaming. For once, Harry felt like he had done something right. As his godson left to resume his orientation, he could not help but think that, yes, he had missed a lot of Teddy’s childhood, but he had all the time in the world to make up for it.
* * *
Teddy stared at the certificate in his hand. After three years, he had passed the Auror Training Programme with flying colours. He was a real, honest-to-goodness Auror now, and the first thing he wanted to do, even before share the news with his girlfriend, was to shake Harry’s hand and be welcomed into the fold as an equal.
Even though Auror training had been by far the most difficult thing that Teddy had ever done, the past few years had been absolute bliss. Not only had he practically fallen in love with Victoire Weasley from the moment he met her, he had spent nearly every day with Harry and his family. And even though Gran did not really have much nice to say about Harry anymore, she had been happy that his relationships were going so well.
When it was Teddy’s turn to shake Harry’s hand, instead, his godfather drew him into a backslapping hug. This had been what Teddy had craved all his life, the acceptance of Harry.
“I love you, son. I hope you know that.”
Of course he knew. Teddy had always known that Harry had loved him. He did not need to see him every day for that to be obvious. Just the fact that Harry had called him ‘son’ spoke volumes about how much he really cared. Family was everything to Harry, and he, Teddy, was a part of that.
Being an Auror was not glamourous, and it most definitely was not easy, but Teddy knew that it was the right profession for him. Even though his first year on the job was spent shadowing the more seasoned officers and filing copious amounts of paperwork, it was still evident that Teddy felt truly called to do this for the rest of his life.
The second year was when it got even better. Despite being assigned to the late shift, Teddy got to be on call more and more, ready to respond to any immediate emergencies. Sure, a majority of them were people who were certain that someone had broken into their homes because they forgot to lock the doors after they left, but that did not mean that Teddy saw it as anything less than service to the community.
It was a Saturday night, and none were left in the office but the most lowly of Aurors. The rest were attending the Annual Ministry Gala, which was held to raise funds for victims of the war to cover their life expenses and medical care. Everyone turned out for these events, and Harry was always expected to be there as an honoured guest.
That left Teddy, a new bloke named John Tassleberry, and Eugene Proudfoot, Harry’s second in command, in charge. Right away, it was gearing up to be a slow night. Teddy and John played chess and listened to music while Proudfoot did the crossword from the previous day’s Prophet, swearing every time he had to look in the current issue for an answer he did not know. All in all, everything was fine.
But then the letter came. The owl that carried it was nondescript, and the letter had neither a return address nor a signature to identify the sender. It was not addressed to anyone in particular, and the handwriting was just as plain as the parchment on which it was written. All there was to go on was the message itself.
“At midnight tonight, Harry Potter will die.”
John had gone to the loo and Proudfoot had dozed off in his chair, crossword still splayed across his chest as his snoring made it rustle. As it was, the time was already half past eleven. Whoever it was, they were going to kill Harry in a half-hour. The mere thought of his godfather being murdered made Teddy’s blood run cold. There was no way he could let that happen.
Quickly, he scribbled a note to John to tell him where he had gone, and Teddy sprinted out of the office toward the Atrium. From there, he could Apparate to the Longbottom Estate, where the benefit was being held. There was hardly any security there, even though the Minister was attending, because there were two dozen Aurors there. Problems had never arisen before, so it hardly seemed necessary.
Once outside the ballroom, Teddy immediately snapped into Auror mode, looking for any signs of foul play or anything amiss. However, all he could see were dancing couples and servers buzzing about, leaving no glass unfilled. There was…nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Still, he had to at least warn Harry so he could keep an eye out for any trouble.
* * *
If Harry could possibly by any more bored, he would be asleep. He knew he had to attend this ball every year, but each one got successively more dull. He was so sick of being the centre of attention when he would have loved to dance with his wife a few times, once or twice with Hermione, and go home quietly.
Sitting at his table, staring at his champagne and about ready to fall asleep sitting up, Harry noticed something in the background. Someone in street clothes was moving around the perimeter of the room, looking around for something, and he would recognise that shade of blue anywhere.
But what was Teddy doing there? He was supposed to be on-call. Finally having something with which to occupy his mind, Harry excused himself from Ron, who was suffering a similar fate. Teddy stopped in the corner of the room, obviously frustrated with what he found, or rather, did not find.
Harry led Teddy into a quiet alcove away from the din and asked, “What’s up?”
Teddy was wide-eyed and breathing hard. “We got a note.”
“Note? What kind of note? Who sent it?” Whatever this note was, it had to be damned important for Teddy to come. Proudfoot would have sent an owl to alert the Aurors that were already there, rather than send a junior Auror to do it. Merlin, what if something happened at Headquarters?
Biting his lip, Teddy said, “It was a threat. A death threat.”
Shit, Harry thought. Someone was going to try to kill Kingsley. Immediately, he craned his neck to find the Minister of Magic and confirm that he was still alive. Still, nothing seemed out of order. Perhaps it has just been an idle threat, which was more than likely, considering the Auror Department received one of those a month.
“What did it say, Teddy?”
Still not able to make eye contact, Teddy imparted every detail he could remember about the owl, the note, about everything. Harry was careful to keep his expression blank. This was not the first time his life had been threatened. The first one had come even before he was a true Auror. It was almost old hat by that point. That did not matter, though. Teddy needed to know that everything that was going to be all right.
“I know this is hard for you to think about, but it’s probably just some rabble-rouser who wants to stir the pot for some attention. I’ll be fine, I promise.” Harry tried to smile, but Teddy just looked like he was going to throw up.
“Harry, how can you say that? Someone just threatened your life! Shouldn’t you be scared or angry or…something?”
With a chuckle, Harry said, “Son, I fought Voldemort. How scary could this person possibly be?”
“Scary enough to kill you while your back is turned,” Teddy said soberly.
Harry knew that his godson would not let this go. Besides, it gave him something to do. “Fine. We’ll check it out. But, for the love of Merlin, don’t tell Ginny or the kids. Last time I got one of these threats, she nearly locked me in the house and kept me prisoner.”
Nodding, Teddy started back toward the throng, looking for anything and everything that could qualify as suspicious. Harry did not search as hard, because he was fairly convinced that this was yet another of the cookie-cutter, empty threats that he had got before.
* * *
People were everywhere. In every direction, partygoers were crammed into the room elbow to elbow, laughing and swapping bawdy jokes. Did they not know? Did they not realise what was at stake? Harry could die, and none of them would even notice until it happened. Not even Harry seemed to care overly much.
For a good twenty minutes, both of them searched for any clues they could find. It was already midnight, but nothing had happened. All there was to see was a swarm of expensive clothing and a jumble of a hundred different perfumes.
On the far edge of his peripherals, Teddy noticed a server who was not carrying a tray. He looked far more unkempt than any of the rest of the waitstaff, and he seemed grossly out of place. If this was an inside job, whoever this bloke was, he was involved. Teddy nudged Harry with his elbow and used his eyes to point the fellow out.
Nodding in acknowledgement, Harry whispered, “Don’t draw any attention to yourself. Let him think he’s not being watched. Keep moving.”
Doing as he was told, Teddy wandered about the room, greeting random guests and taking a glass of champagne in order to seem like he was an attendee and not a gate crasher. But never did he let the slippery server from his sight.
At three minutes past midnight, a black cloud of smoke descended over the crowd. Not aware of any danger, most speculated as to what was coming next, the popular consensus being a surprise acrobatic troupe. Teddy looked around frantically for Harry, but all he could see was a thick, powdery haze draped over everything.
Teddy pulled out his wand and cast a Bubble-Head Charm to dispel the cloud from his eyes. He heard someone shout, “Clarus,” which caused a breeze to waft through the room and clear the smoke. One thing was missing, though, and it was Harry.
* * *
Harry struggled against his captor, but whoever it was stood at least four inches taller than him and had at least a three stone weight advantage.
“What do you want?” Harry said scathingly.
With a harsh laugh, the big brute said, “I’d think that was obvious. I’m going to kill you, and I am going to enjoy it.” He leant in and added in barely more than a whisper, “Oh so much.”
That voice finally registered with Harry. It was Thorfinn Rowle, a Death Eater. He was one of only four that had eluded capture after the war, but he was considered a nominal threat. He was known much more for his brawn than his cunning, which also led Harry to believe that he was not working alone. There was no way that this stupid lummox could ever think of Peruvian Darkness Powder, let alone how to deploy it throughout an entire room.
“So, Rowle, who are you working for, or is he too cowardly to reveal himself?”
At that, Rowle tightened his vice-like grip around Harry’s chest, nearly squeezing out all the air from his lungs. “Be quiet!”
“Fat chance,” Harry wheezed. “Tell me who your master is.”
“He’s not paid to talk,” a second voice added. “He’s paid to do as he’s told. He’s actually quite good at it.”
Harry saw the newcomer right after he heard him. He was wearing a server’s clothing, but there was no mistaking who it was. It was Yaxley.
“Ah, I see you remember me,” Yaxley said. “I thought you had forgotten after all these years. Most of them seem to have done so,” he added, gesturing toward the house from their position deep on the grounds. “Twenty-three years, it’s been. I’m impressed.”
“You shouldn’t be,” Harry spat. “Who could forget an ugly mug like that? Then again, it would be easy to mistake you for a barnyard animal, and don’t even get me started on this one—“ He rolled his eyes back toward Rowle.
Angry, Yaxley punched Harry in the mouth. “I believe silence would be in order for you, Potter, or I won’t just stop with you.” His eyes filled with pure hate, he added, “Your wife looks pretty tonight.”
“You touch her and I’ll kill you with my bare hands.” Harry had never felt the urge to maul another human being quite like he did at that moment.
Yaxley shook his head. “Now that’s not how to speak to the one with the upper hand, Potter. And they said you were intelligent.” He delivered another blow to Harry’s face, this time a backhand across the cheek, which broke the stem of Harry’s glasses. It was because of this that Harry could scarcely believe what—or rather who—was standing behind Yaxley. It was himself.
* * *
“Let him go!” Teddy bellowed through his disguise.
Yaxley did a double-take, looking back and forth between the two Harry Potters. One was dressed in evening attire, but the other was wearing a simple polo shirt and jeans. Teddy smiled at the man’s confusion. He had ‘borrowed’ some fellow’s glasses to add to the disguise once he had seen Harry being dragged off toward the trees in the distance.
This plan was completely mad, but it was all that Teddy could come up with on the fly. Perhaps if the kidnappers, neither of whom he recognised, thought that he had the wrong man, it would give he and Harry enough time to turn the tables and stop them. He just had to play his part perfectly and thank his lucky stars for being born a Metamorphmagus.
“What is this?” Yaxley hissed. “A feeble ploy to throw me off? I thought you were smarter than that, Potter.”
Much to Teddy’s relief, though, Yaxley was addressing the plain-clothed Potter, not the one he had already captured. It was time to play it up. "I mean, how could you possibly think that was me?” Teddy said, waving his arm at Harry. “He’s too short, and the glasses are all wrong. He’s just my double so I don’t have to go to boring parties all the time.”
Teddy could tell that Yaxley was seriously conflicted. He seemed to be perusing both faces, trying to figure out which was Harry and which was the fake. Teddy seemed to be winning.
“All right then. Tell me something that only Harry Potter would know.”
Thinking for a moment, Teddy said, “My godson is Theodore Remus Lupin, and his fondest wish in life has always been to be like me, even when I don’t think I deserve it.” When he said it, though, he was looking at Harry, not at Yaxley.
Seemingly accepting this, Yaxley smiled wickedly. “Very well, then, Harry Potter. I’ll let you watch this one die before I kill you.”
Rowle wrapped an arm around Harry’s throat and began to squeeze. Harry’s face began to turn a reddish-purple colour and his eyes would not stay open. Teddy had to act quickly. In one smooth motion, he whipped out his wand and cried, “Diffindo!”
Harry and Rowle were blasted apart, but Yaxley was quick on the uptake. Before Teddy could move, a spell shot from Yaxley’s wand, and it was heading right toward Teddy’s chest. He knew what it was and what it meant, but it did not matter. Harry could still get away.
* * *
Harry felt sick when he saw Teddy fall. He knew that his life being spared could very well come with the forfeit of his godson’s. He had hoped that the last time he would see that particular spell was when he had himself used it twenty years before. He wanted to curse and scream and a lot of other things, but he only had a few seconds while Yaxley admired his handiwork and Rowle was still recovering from the Severing Charm.
With one quick motion, Harry dove toward Teddy’s prone body and grabbed the wand that lay in his slack fingers. All of his rage was channelled into one spell as he bellowed, “Stupefy!”
The red bolt of energy slammed into Yaxley’s chest, knocking him back several feet, and with a second flick of the wand, Rowle was bound and incapacitated, struggling to free himself. He repeated the process for Yaxley before turning back to more important matters.
No longer able to hold his changed form, Teddy had reverted back to his normal face. He took off the ridiculous-looking glasses and smoothed back the normally brightly-coloured hair. Now it was a washed out light brown—the same colour that Harry remembered on Tonks when he saw her at her funeral.
“Please don’t die, Teddy. Not now.”
Tears dripping down his face unnoticed, Harry cast every healing spell he knew, but the bleeding only subsided a little. The futility was becoming more and more ominous. There was only one thing left for Harry to do. He bellowed at the top of his lungs for help. He could not muster enough good feelings to send a Patronus. All he could see was Teddy’s blood-soaked shirt and flickering eyelids.
“It’s ‘Ted’, Harry.”
Harry’s head whipped back toward Teddy. For the moment, he was still alive, and he was not going to waste these precious moments—not like he had the rest of them.
“Old habits,” Harry said, choking back tears.
Teddy tried to smile, but it looked like more of a wince. “Did you get them?”
“Yeah.” Harry was struggling to breathe. How could this happen? Why his beautiful, precious Teddy? He was little more than a child, but instead of chasing girls and drinking too much, his life was slowly seeping out of him and into the soil below. “I’m sorry.”
His speech laboured, Teddy asked, “Why?”
“Because I was never there. It took me almost your whole life before I gave you what you needed from me. You needed a dad, and I was too wrapped up in my job and my own kids to be that. I wasn’t there to get the monsters under your bed when you were little. I never took you fishing or for your first broom ride. I never told you how incredibly mad girls are, especially the red-headed ones. How can you stand to look at me?”
“Because you wanted to do those things. That was enough.”
Harry just stared at Teddy. How could this young man, hardly out of the cradle at twenty-three, understand so many things better than most people twice his age? Why would fate bless him with the perfect godson, only to cut him down so cruelly and quickly?
He knew that Teddy had no more strength left to hold on to consciousness. Harry would never forgive himself if he could not say one last thing. “I love you, Ted. Just like my own.”
Though Teddy could not speak anymore, Harry saw acknowledgement in his eyes before they closed. Finally unable to hold himself together, he pulled Teddy to his chest and sobbed into the boy’s hair.
How long he was there, Harry had no idea. Eventually, he heard voiced behind him and the sounds of Yaxley and Rowle being taken away.
Proudfoot, who had finally arrived, was the only one who dared to approach Harry. “Yaxley got him?”
Harry nodded, his face still buried in Teddy’s hair. “Sectumsempra,” he said quietly.
“You want me to go get your wife?”
“No. Can I just…have some time?”
“Yeah.”
With that, Proudfoot led the escort away from the area and told all the onlookers under no uncertain terms to bugger off and mind their own damned business. Harry had never had much time for the man’s gruff demeanour, but that day, he was grateful for it.
All he could do was gape at Teddy, who had been happy and vibrant and alive just that morning. He had been excited to be the primary on-call officer, and he had been so sure that he could do it. He had, too. He had done his best to protect Harry, even though it had cost him dearly. Had Harry actually taken the death thread seriously, Teddy might have even still been alive. The only reason why he had acted on it at all was because it was more interesting than drinking too much and being bored out of his skull.
Now Harry truly understood why his parents had so willingly died for him, why Remus and Tonks had fought in the battle, why the Weasleys had been hit so hard by Fred’s death; it was sick and unnatural for someone to outlive their own child. To die in their stead was an immensely easier choice and far more orthodox.
And Teddy was his and always had been. He was because that was what Remus had wanted when he had asked Harry to be the godfather. Now it felt like a part of Harry’s soul had been ripped out and torn to ribbons before him like curse had done to Teddy’s body.
It was time to go. He had to take Teddy back to his family. He had to tell Andromeda what happened, had to explain to his children why Teddy would not be around anymore, had to explain to Ginny why he had had such a costly lapse in judgement.
Carefully, Harry scooped up Teddy’s weight into his arms and started walking back toward the house. There was no one within a hundred metres to see Harry stumble and fall to his knees, too shaken to properly carry the burden.
As if waiting for the proper time to show himself, someone stepped out of the shadows and toward Harry. If he could choose the person he least wanted to see at that moment, this man would have been high on the list.
“I’ll grab his arms and you can take the legs.”
Harry felt a growl rise in his chest. “How can you say something like that, Malfoy?”
Shrugging, Draco said, “Fine. You take his arms and I’ll take the legs.” Without another word, he went to Teddy’s feet and hoisted them off the ground in front of Harry. Barely even aware of doing it, Harry rose back up from the ground and they began the slow, awkward trek back to the party.
Finally, Harry regained his ability to speak. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, that unpleasant Auror fellow of yours said that someone had been killed and we all needed to clear out. I was just hoping it had been you.”
“So was I,” Harry said before he could stop himself. He and Draco exchanged a look before they resumed the journey.
At last, Draco broke the silence. “You know, Potter, if that had been my son…”
Draco did not finish because there was no need. “I know,” Harry said.
As they arrived at the house, the rest of the night had been a whirlwind of activity. Harry spent hours recounting events and everything that Teddy had told him for the Auror reports before going to St Mungo’s for the formal death pronouncement. He went to see Andromeda, who cried more than he had seen anyone cry before. He would have stayed, but she had thrown a book at him and told him to get out. She blamed him for everything, and he respected that. He blamed himself.
And then he went home. The children were all in bed and Ginny had not seen him since before Teddy had come to the gala, but she knew what had happened. They sat at the kitchen table, staring into cups of cold tea in silence.
He knew that he would have to tell her about the threat against his life eventually, as well as his nonchalance regarding it that had got Teddy killed. She would be beyond angry, and he would deserve it.
But not just then. Not just then.