I.
The question is fair enough. Six little words from Teddy’s little mouth, “Daddy, do I have a mummy?” It comes from a place of innocence and curiosity, and of course he doesn’t know any better. So Remus, really has no right to lie, does he?
Teddy knows he’s adopted, of course, Remus made that clear from the beginning. That was always his and Si- well, that was always his intention. Family is a sore enough subject without secrets. So, as far as Remus sees it, he has three options:
- He could tell the truth. He could say, ‘Yes, Ted, you have a mummy, we don’t know who she is, but she decided when you were born that she wasn’t ready and you were better off with me’. That, of course, would raise the question, though, of why he was given up in the first place, which Remus doesn’t know the answer to, and why he was adopted, which, these days, Remus doesn’t feel like he knows the answer to. So that’s a no-go.
- He could tell a different, more grown-up truth. He could say, ‘No, Ted, you don’t have a mummy, but you have two daddies. Your papa isn’t here anymore, but he loved you very much.’ But, Remus isn’t even sure that it’s true, and it opens the can of worms of, ‘where is he?’, and, ‘if he loved us, then why did he leave?’ and Remus doesn’t have reasonable answers for either of those questions, so he supposes that one’s out, too.
- He could lie. He could say, ‘Yes, Ted, you had a mummy, but she died after you were born’ or he could say, ’sort of, but just because someone’s your mother, it doesn’t make them your mum’, or he could say, ‘no, Ted, one day I was minding my business and a stork dropped you off on my doorstep’ And God, is that last one tempting.
But even at five years old, Teddy deserves the truth. He deserves to know who he is and where he comes from. So, Remus puts down his coffee, and smiles at his son, and says, “No, sweetheart, you don’t have a mummy, and that’s okay, because we’re a family anyway and we love each other.” And Teddy’s confusion fades to more of a soft, innocent smile, and Remus says, “you know, families come in all shapes and sizes. Some kids have a daddy and no mummy. Some kids have a mummy and no daddy. Some kids have both, and some kids have neither. It doesn’t matter what your family looks like, as long as you love and respect each other.” Teddy nods, and Remus realizes he’s sort of talking to himself, too, because maybe they can be a family, the two of them, without Sirius. Not a proper one, not the family they were supposed to be, but Merlin, Remus loves his son, and isn’t that enough?
[...]
II.
Remus was sure he’d burned every picture of Sirius Black. It’s how he celebrated Sirius’s twenty-second birthday, actually, four days after he’d betrayed them all and been taken. They had plans to take Teddy to a muggle park and buy a cake and sing, and put the kid to bed and drink champagne and share a fag and some good old-fashioned birthday shagging. But Sirius had decided to sell out the Potters and go all Bundy on a gaggle of muggles, so instead of celebrating, Remus had gotten out of bed for the first time in days and burned almost everything in the apartment Sirius had ever touched.
So, finding a Polaroid of the two of them sharing a chaste kiss with Teddy in Sirius’s arms comes as quite a shock, considering it’s 1990, they’ve moved thrice, and Teddy is no longer a babbling toddler but an almost-Hogwarts-aged preteen. He finds it in the pocket of Teddy’s winter jacket as he’s switching the laundry, and his heart sinks, like it always does at the sight or mention of Sirius. And he almost implodes at the thought of having to explain all of it to Teddy.
Somehow, despite being adopted and abandoned by Sirius, Teddy is his spitting image in heart and personality; fierce and opinionated and good and kind and messy and brave and wonderful. So much so that Remus will start to speak with him and forget that anything bad ever happened, because despite Sirius’s goodness being dead, his charm is still alive and healthy in their son, and it breaks his heart. Remus hates it, hates being reminded of this infant child being left at the Order and Sirius saying, “Rem, let’s adopt this baby”, and fighting over who got to be dad and who got to be papa, which of course doesn’t matter anymore. Even beginning to explain all of this to Teddy is heartbreaking, and it is terrifying, and for the millionth time Remus feels this crushing sensation because there is no one to lighten the load.
He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to go about this. He doesn’t even know how much Teddy knows, or how much Teddy thinks he knows, and he’s terrified he’ll be asked something he can’t answer. Part of him doesn’t want to bring it up at all. So he leaves the Polaroid on the kitchen table, and waits for Teddy to interrupt him at dinner, and say, “were you going to tell me about him?”
Remus looks up from his soup, and glances down at the picture, and back at his son, and says, “of course I was,” trying his fucking hardest to keep his poker face and not let Teddy see how hard this is.
“He’s my dad, isn’t he?”
Ouch. “Yeah, Ted. Yeah, he is.”
Teddy purses his lips. God, look at him, hardly eleven years old and so cool and collected. Remus wonders how long he’s had this picture. How long he’s wondered. How long he’s known.
“Why don’t you talk about him?”
Because you don’t ask, Remus wants to say, I don’t talk about him because it kills me, and because if you don’t wonder then I don’t have to, either. But instead, he swallows, and says, “what do you want to know?”
There’s a spark in Teddy’s eyes, it’s not quite joy or excitement, but Remus knows when he sees it that he can’t withhold anything from this kid, that whatever he wants to know, Remus is going to tell him. Or, at least he’s going to tell him in a way that an eleven-year-old can process. He can see Teddy’s gears turning, like he doesn’t know what he wants to ask first, but he starts with, “did he die?”
Worse, he killed. “No, he’s alive.” He just left.
“Did something happen to him? Was he cursed, did he forget about us?”
“No, he just… made some bad decisions, I suppose,” Remus says, taking a long drink of his water and chewing his cheeks. “There was a war going on, you know. I think it got to him, made him a little mental.”
“So he left?”
“Yes.”
Teddy swallows and nods. “Because of me?”
Remus’s heart drops to his stomach. Of all the things Teddy could have inherited from him, why did it have to be the doubt? He sighs, and blinks, and says, “no, Teddy, of course not. What makes you think such a thing?”
The kid puts down his spoon and his glass, and fidgets with his fingers. “One of my friends from school, Seamus, his dad walked out, I guess. Seamus said it was because it was too much having a witch for a wife and a muggle for a son. So, I just assumed maybe it was too hard for him. My other dad. Like, I was too much.” Under the table, Remus pinches himself, hard. “And you told me about grandpa,” Teddy continues. “How he offed himself after you turned. I just thought… there was a war. Things got hard. Maybe that’s just what dads do.”
“Hey,” Remus says, trying to smile through it. “Would I ever do that?”
Teddy smiles and shakes his head, and says, “yeah, you’re right, Da, sorry.” Then, “did you love him?”
“Of course I did.”
“Do you still?”
“Oh, Teddy…” Remus says, “I don’t know. I hated him forever. For doing what he did. For doing it to you. I know he loved you. I swpre he loved me. I think a part of me might always… I don’t know, kid. Ask me again tomorrow, I’ll have a different answer.”
Remus is sure he’s incoherent, but Teddy smiles sadly and nods. “Sorry. For bringing it up.”
“Never be sorry for wanting to know about him,” Remus says, and he means it. Merlin, if he’d had someone to talk to about his parents, the bad and the ugly… but that’s beside the point now, and perhaps there’s something besides bad and ugly in it for Teddy. “I’m sorry I’ve never told you more. It was naive of me to assume you wouldn’t be curious.”
“I just want to know…” Teddy starts, looking down, “could you tell me his name?”
Remus smiles, for real this time. “I called him Padfoot.”
[...]
III.
“Merlin’s Beard, Dad, it’s a stupid map!”
“Edward Fleamont, I did not raise you to be so careless!”
“What are you so afraid of? Black?”
“There is a killer on the loose in the castle, Teddy, and after all of the things you and I have been through I thought you’d be a bit more considerate of the fact that I don’t want you in any fucking trouble.”
“This is Hogwarts, what kind of trouble could I possibly find here?”
“You’re fourteen years old, Teddy, you have no business wandering anywhere alone, particularly at night, especially armed with a map that in Sirius Black’s hand is a map to you.”
“Why are you so afraid of him finding me, huh?”
“He’s a serial killer, Ted, a fucking psychopath!”
“Oh, is that all? So, it’s got nothing to do with the fact that he’s my father?”
Remus’s blood runs cold. “What?”
“I’m not fucking daft, Dad, did you think I wouldn’t figure it out? It’s fucking math.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Teddy cries, “seriously, where do you get off lying to me like this?”
“Edward Fleamont Lupin.”
“Black.”
“Lupin, Teddy. You’re my kid, mine, and you’re good, and you don’t have a trace of him in you, so can we please talk about this in private? In the daylight? Just go back to your dormitory, Ted, I won’t have it out with you like this.”
“You were never going to tell me.”
“I was going to tell you when none of us were in any more fucking danger!”
“Yeah, just like you weren’t going to tell me he existed until I was nine. Or anything about him until I was eleven. Waiting ‘till I’m of age to tell me about what he did? The whole school knows what he did, I just happen to be the one he did it to.”
“Teddy-“
“I know what my teachers say! Good, kind Sirius Black, went crazy and betrayed his best friends and left his family. Killed all those muggles because he could. I’m a part of the fucking story, Dad, let me hear it!”
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Now, you’re going to give me back that fucking map and head straight back to your dormitory.”
Teddy tears the map down the middle, discards it in the hallway, and flips Remus off on his way back to Ravenclaw tower. Remus hates how much Sirius that kid has in him, almost as much as he hates lying about it.
[...]
IV.
Remus’s head has been reeling for about seven hours straight when he meets Teddy in his office and draws the door shut. “I’m sure your cousin has filled you in?” He suggests, as he gestures to his desk chair and Teddy sits.
“Harry told me what went down in the shack. Most of it, I guess.”
Remus sighs. “Merlin, Ted. I never meant for it to come out this way.”
Teddy breathes. “I don’t care about any of that.”
“Do you have any questions?”
It takes Teddy all of two seconds to look back up at his dad. “Is he going to stay this time?”
Remus nods. “Yes, Teddy. He’s going to stay.”
[]
V.
“Fancy company, Professor Lupin?”
The voice in the doorframe is gravelly, the silhouette is thin. Remus doesn’t need either of those things to identify their posessor, he can smell Sirius and feel him, he knows him.
There are a hundred and one things Remus could say right now. He could be confrontational, with a how dare you? or a why did you do this to us? or he could be clingy and whisper I’ve missed you, and I need you, or he could be cheeky, and say, you look terrible and you smell worse. But he doesn’t have a choice, because Sirius pulls Remus down by the collar and about sucks his face off, and despite his muddy face and terrible breath, all Remus can think is Godric, I needed this, and he kisses him back, and doesn’t dare let go. When Sirius releases him, he’s shell shocked, frozen, and all he can murmur is, “I…” and Sirius just shakes his head.
“Don’t say anything. Please.”
“Okay.”
“Just… hold me, Moony.”
“Okay.”
And for a moment it is, holding each other and letting their heartbeats synchronize and their fingers intertwine as they relearn each others’ bodies and faces and patterns. Remus wants to give himself up and let everything lose, say every thought he’s had towards Sirius over the past twelve and a half years. He wants to tell Sirius how much he missed him and how much he hated him, and how he’d never been with another and how he’d known he’d never leave the way he did on purpose, even if that part wasn’t believed for most of their time apart. But Remus is paralyzed. He can’t say anything, he can just feel and absorb and decompress. It’s like the weight of a thousand suns being lifted off his chest and pulling him back into life. He looks Sirius in his perfect, sad eyes, and everything is forgiven.
Sirius pulls away again, and says, “is Teddy…?”
“He’s perfect,” Remus says. “Brilliant and funny and kind. He’s so much like you, Pads, I don’t know how, but he is. He’s so good.”
Sirius wipes a tear from his eye, and says, “I knew he would be. I knew you’d do perfectly. You shouldn’t have had to do it alone.”
“No, I shouldn’tve,” Remus agrees, “but I don’t have to anymore.”
“I want to see him. Please.”
“I should talk to him first.”
“Yeah,” Sirius says, swallowing a sigh, and pushing hair behind his ear. “I don’t know what he… I’m sure he hates me. He should, I know. But I hope he’ll give me the chance to prove him wrong.”
“He’ll believe you. He sees so much good in everyone, you know. I always told him you loved us. He’ll believe you Pads, if not right away, he’ll come around.”
“He’s good?” Sirius nods, looking for reassurance. He’s letting the tears come now, letting it get to him.
“He’s extraordinary.”
***
Sirius doesn’t last two seconds in Teddy’s presence before he absolutely loses it, turning away to hide his tears and fight the overwhelming urge to grab Teddy and hold him and never let go. Teddy’s not exactly great at holding it together, either, and Remus just stares at the two of them and he wonders how they can possibly be so alike without Teddy knowing Sirius in his sentient life. But he stands there with his guard down as Teddy steps forward and extends an arm for Sirius to wrap around, and he just loses it.
When they step back to face each other again, Sirius says, “oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry, I never stopped missing you.”
“I know,” Teddy says. “I missed you, too.”
And Remus grabs them both and pulls them in, and for the second time and forever, they are a family, and for now in this space, everything is going to be okay.