All In the Family

[mrstater]

Title: All In the Family
Author: MrsTater
Rating: PG-13 for innuendo
Format & Word Count: One-shot, 8600ish
Summary: What are the odds Remus' and Tonks' firstborn will be a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff? Bets are made on Alba's sorting. The stakes are high, but that's nothing new for two members of the Order of the Phoenix. But this time, will luck run out and force them to cut their losses?
Author's Note: To Drumher, whose horse was in the top five in the Grand_National Sweeptsakes, and requested me to write "some Remus/Tonks thing involving Alba at the time she enters Hogwarts either before she leaves or at her sorting with Remus in attendance as a Prof." It's everything you requested, dear, and hopefully everything you wanted. Many, many thanks to Godricgal for her splendid beta work.

Alba appears in a few prequels to this story, which aren't essential to read first. If you're interested, you can find them here: For Rich Or For Poor, The Listener, and Shut Out.



All In the Family

"Alba, please don't walk so quickly!" Remus' hoarse voice was lost amid the bustle of Diagon Alley school shoppers as he fell further back from his daughter, shortening his steps because six-year-old John, hand in his, was practically doing the splits to match his pace. "Your brother can't keep up."

The pink bows at the ends of Alba's chestnut plaits bobbed as she darted a glance over her shoulder and rolled her eyes at her little brother. "I don't want him to keep up. I'm twelve soon. I'm not a baby. I could've Flooed here and bought my school supplies myself."

"Eyes where you're going, daughter o' mine," said Tonks, who was struggling with an armload of brown paper parcels that contained Alba's new school robes and had, herself, only just narrowly avoided a collision with another heavy-laden mother because she'd looked over her shoulder to make a cheeky remark to Remus. "We're happy to let you do that, but I seem to recall that the people in this family with jobs and Gringotts vaults are currently banished to walk no fewer than ten yards behind you."

Alba's bows reminded Remus of the last roses of summer as she heaved a sigh. Behind him, he heard Andromeda's whispered Hush and the tell-tale snort of Ted sniggering behind his hand, and then one of the muttered squabbles between his in-laws which he'd become accustomed to over the past fifteen years.

Maybe, he thought as John abruptly let go of his hand and burst into tears in the middle of the pavement, the constant distraction of children was responsible for the more relaxed attitude toward the Tonkses he'd fostered in recent years.

"All right, then." Remus swept John into the air and stooping to set the little boy on his shoulders. "Show everyone how you can be as tall as Hagrid."

"Don' wanna be taaaaalll!" John wailed. "Wanna...go...to...to....to...to..." He hiccoughed. "...SCHOOOOOLLLLLL!"

"Ravenclaw, that one," said Ted, openly chuckling now. "Both of them, really."

Tonks looked back over her shoulder at her father nearly lost a package as she gestured to Alba. "My galleons are on Hufflepuff for that one."

Remus opened his mouth to remind her that it wasn’t precisely galleons she had on Alba's Sorting, but checked himself and the slow grin that was forming as his imagination took flight. Tonks' parents really wouldn't appreciate knowing the stakes that rested on their granddaughter's house.

Though the odds also seemed pretty good they'd guess without him saying a word -- given the way Tonks' backward glance had changed from saucy to coy as her dark eyes shifted from her father and settled on Remus. Her look left little doubt in his mind that it wasn't money on her mind, or that she'd enjoy paying up quite as much as she would enjoy collecting her earnings, albeit sans gloating. They'd been looking forward to the Post-Sorting Feast for some time.

"Lamppost, Nymphadora," said Andromeda, who sighed heavily when Tonks darted out the way and dropped a parcel.

Bending to retrieve her packages, Tonks shot Remus a glower that communicated silently what she normally did verbally: Yeah, yeah, so you distracted me a bit. Go on then. Be smug. But I'll hex you to next week. Even in light of the threat, he felt the corner of his mouth twitch again. When Tonks said she was going to hex him to next week, she really meant she wanted him in their bedroom right now. Maybe they ought to scrap this whole plan, stay home, pretend they'd both won the bet, and pay up. They would have the house to themselves for the first time in years, since they were all staying the night at the Tonkses' in Sevenoaks, so Alba could ride the Hogwarts Express and get the full going-off-to-school experience; and Ted and Andromeda would be looking after John on the night of the Feast, as well.

Andromeda was speaking to Tonks. "You don't honestly think Alba's anything like a Hufflepuff?"

Eyes flashing, Tonks dropped the parcel she'd just picked up. "What in bloody..." She stopped short when Remus winced and darted his eyes upward toward John, who was still sobbing miserably. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Before Remus could come up with a scheme to stop the verbal duel of the age, Alba's chirping tones clipped through the air.

"Don't call her Nymphadora, Grandromeda."

Ted guffawed. Andromeda sucked in her breath and looked exactly like Tonks did when anyone called her by her Christian name. Tonks wore an expression reminiscent of the one she wore when she'd brought a Dark Wizard to justice. She was the picture of gleaming vindication in both this tiff, as well as the lifelong grudge she'd harboured gainst her mother for saddling her with the over-the-top Black family name.

The reaction which needed to be addressed, however, was the sharp-eyed one of the eleven-year-old child whom Remus was strongly beginning to suspect had inherited a dose of cheek from both him and Tonks.

"Alba," he said, "while I am terribly relieved that you're not--John, please stop crying. Mummy will be sent to prison if she brews you an ageing potion, and what would we do without her?--completely ignoring us, I would ask you to stop for a moment to consider whether that was the most respectful way you could have spoken to Grandromeda."

Alba considered it, didn't look as if she necessarily agreed, and chirped an apology that definitely said she didn't.

Luckily, Andromeda didn't seem to think Alba had spoken particularly out of line, either.

"Apology accepted," she said crisply, stepping around Remus -- handing up a handkerchief to John and commanding him to blow -- to join Alba at the head of the group. "Why don't you tell me what teachers you'll have this term?" She laid an elegantly manicured hand across her granddaughter's shoulders and gently guided her on down the pavement. "I'm afraid I've lost track of who's at Hogwarts these days.

"Here, John," said Ted, and Remus felt the boy's weight lifted off his shoulders. "Come to Grandbear. Ooph! Your dad's feeding you Chocolate Frogs, then? Good. We'll pop over to Weasleys' Wheezes."

"Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes," John corrected -- but his ear-to-ear, snaggle-toothed grin said that Hogwarts had been, at least until he next saw Alba, flaunting her school clothes and books, forgotten.

As close to alone as he'd been with Tonks in some time, Remus took their purchases from her. They stood silently for a moment, watching their children led through Diagon Alley by their grandparents.

"What are we going to do with her?" Tonks asked, wearily.

Remus felt her jaunty pink spikes brush the sleeve of his robes as she shook her head and, glancing down, noticed that jaunty wasn't the adjective for them anymore; she'd wilted. Then she sighed and slipped her arms around his waist, pressing herself as tightly as she could against him, which was rather awkward as he held Alba's school things.

"And what'll we do without her?"

Tonks sniffed, and Remus had a feeling his sleeve might just have become a handkerchief. Ah well -- he'd got used to that, too, thanks to the children. They really did have a way of making you learn to take everything in stride.

"She's right, she's not a baby anymore," Tonks went on. "She won't even hold my hand in Diagon Alley."

Unable, with his arms full, to hug her as he wished, he leant over and kissed her hair.

"Obviously she's a Gryffindor," he said, as Alba and Andromeda rounded a crooked corner beyond his sight, "since she's got the courage to be cheeky to your mother."

Tonks let out a puff of laughter. "For a second there I thought you were going to say she had the courage to go shopping with my mum."

"That, too." He straightened up so he could look her in the eye. "Is it just me, or are you at last acknowledging Alba's lion heart?"

Releasing him from the circle of her arms, Tonks snorted. "Fat chance, Professor. In fact, I it's you that's proving out what a Hufflepuff she is, being so accepting of other Houses. A Gryffindor would never go around with a Slytherin, would she?"

"If she's such a Hufflepuff," Remus said as Tonks caught hold of his sleeve and tugged him in the direction Andromeda and Alba had gone, "then why won't she have anything to do with her Hufflepuff mum or her Gryffindor dad today?"

He'd only meant to take the piss out of her, but as Tonks stopped walking and whirled to face him, mouth agape, Remus' own arms went slack. The brown paper parcels fell from his hands and crunched as they struck the pavement.

"You don't think...?" Tonks expression said she was too horrified to speak the rest of the thought.

Remus shook his head, weakly at first, then with greater insistence. "No."

It was ridiculous. He'd never heard anything so absurd -- and he'd shared a dormitory with Padfoot and Prongs for seven years.

He took out his wand, reduced the parcels, then summoned them into his pocket. "I wagered a great deal on Gryffindor, and I stand by that."

He didn't sound as confident as he would have liked, and when Tonks said, "Right," the crease between her eyebrows troubled him far more than it ought to have if he really did stand by his bet. Her fingers were limp in his hand, and they walked slowly, as though they were re-thinking something that up till now had been as fundamental a truth as saying Lumos made light. Gryffindor or Hufflepuff. One of them had to be right...

Hadn't they?

Even if it was a Slytherin he saw through the window of Flourish and Blotts, shadowing his little girl through the shop.

"Why do you look so surprised?" Andromeda's dulcet tones filled Remus' ears the instant he and Tonks set foot in the bookshop door. "Didn't you read your booklist and see that it said, Boggarts Banished: A Beginner's Guide to Basic Defensive Magic, by R.J. Lupin?"

"I read it," came Alba's reply from behind a display of books, over which the top of Andromeda's glossy black hair was visible. "I just must have missed that bit..."

Rounding the display, Remus found Alba gawping at the Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook, which looked so large and unwieldy for her eleven-year-old hands. She couldn't be old enough to attend Hogwarts, could she? At his approach, the round dark eyes flicked up to him.

"You wrote our textbook, Dad?"

"I did, indeed," he said, fully aware that his tone bordered on one that would have made Padfoot and Prongs look downright humble. "And if I do say so myself, the new ed--"

"Bugger!" Alba screwed her eyes shut, and her fingers clutched the book so tightly her knuckles turned white. "The other kids are going to think I'm a total prat."

"Alba!" Tonks and Andromeda cried together.

"Such language!" said the latter with a tsk.

"Is that any way to talk about your dad?" asked the former. "And you know you're not allowed to say bugger or prat," Tonks added, red-faced, for the benefit of her mother, whose scolding gaze had shifted to her. Even though it was from Tonks that Alba had learnt the forbidden words.

Remus gave his wife a small smile. "I think I understand." He squeezed her hand, then released it to bend, hands resting on his knees, so that he was crouched at eye level with Alba. "You're afraid I'll play favourites with you just because you're my little nymph, aren't you?"

Alba cringed. "Please don't call me your little nymph at school."

"Of course not. I shall only call you Alba in the classroom," Remus said emphatically -- though honestly, he couldn't imagine how he would he'd keep himself from doing.

One of Alba's eyebrows was arched dubiously. "I think you'd better call me Miss Lupin. Just to be extra careful."

"Hmmm..." Remus drew the word out to squelch a chuckle. "Do you intend to call me Professor Lupin?"

Alba looked as if she hadn't considered this before, but after a moment of her features scrunched up in the expression Tonks wore when she morphed, she said decisively, "Yes. "I reckon I ought to. Can't have the other kids thinking I'm taking advantage, can we?"

Remus couldn't decide whether he was more surprised by the notion of his daughter calling him Professor Lupin, or that she understood the concept of taking advantage of people.

"You know, Alba, I don't typically like to address students by their surnames," he said. "Wouldn't you rather I call you as I do the others?"

"Maybe." She drew out the word.

"I promise," said Remus, settling one hand on Alba's shoulder, "I will do my very best not draw attention to your being my daughter. I will be neither easier on you than on any other student, nor more difficult."

Alba gave a curt nod. "And on the first day..." She glanced over his head and scanned the shop, presumably making sure none of her would-be schoolmates were privy, then leant close to him. Lowering her voice, she asked, "Will you promise not to say, Hello, I'm Professor Lupin, and I'm Alba's dad?"

Tonks, who Remus, frankly, was surprised hadn't butted in before now, asked, "Now why in Merlin's' bloody -- blessed, I mean blessed! -- name would you think Dad would stand up and say that?"

Where any other child would have darted her eyes downward and bit a look in shame, Alba, to whom there was no such thing as a rhetorical question, looked up and met her mother's eye. "So people will think he's cool and's got a life and isn't just a boring old professor?"

Remus was very glad his back was to Tonks so he wouldn't be tempted to laugh. Not that he didn't know exactly how she looked now, with her face pulling strange contortions to hold back her amusement.

"Alba," he said, "you're a very clever witch, but you have yet to realise that though I may be very proud of being your father, and older than dirt, I do know that it is not, and never has been, and never will be, cool to have a parent for a professor. Believe me, I wouldn't dream of standing in the way of you living up to your cool potential."

Tonks' hand came to rest on his shoulder. "Your dad was a pretty cool bloke when he was in school, you know."

Of course this made Alba's mouth fall open.

"I had cool friends," Remus corrected. "I promise, I shall let yours figure out on their own that we've got the same surname. Which, of course, they'll do quicker if I call you Miss Lupin and you call me Professor Lupin."

"I don't think it'll matter much," said Andromeda. "Slytherins are very cunning and don't need many clues."

Remus could have cited a few examples of Slytherins he'd taught who needed a great many clues and weren't at all cunning, many of them Andromeda's relatives, but before he could, Tonks spoke.

"Mum, you can't think she's anything like a Slytherin?"

"Walking a hundred feet in front of her family in public?" Andromeda rejoined coolly. "Insisting they pretend not be anything more to her than acquaintances? Who else of her relatives has done that?"

"It's not the same!" Tonks cried. "Your family were horrible!"

Remus glanced over his shoulder in time to see Andromeda's lips curve into a smile that hid whatever she might have been thinking and feeling about her family. "You've got to see it through the eyes of an eleven-year-old, my dear."

"I will see," said Tonks, folding her arms across her chest, "at the Sorting."

"You won't!" Alba said, so sharply that Remus snapped his head back to look at her.

Her small child's frame was as rigid and immovable as ever Tonks' had looked in all those long ago months she'd battled him about their separation. Indeed, Alba's stubborn streak had reared its head like never before the evening at dinner when Tonks had asked whether professors' wives were allowed at the Sorting Feast.

"Only Dad can be there. And I wish he--"

She cut herself off, catching her lower lip between her teeth and dropping her gaze.

"You wish what?"

Tonks had asked the question, but it was Remus to whom Alba offered her explation.

"Do you have to come to the Sorting Feast?" Her voice pitched so high and plaintive that Remus was a little surprised she hadn't dropped down on her hands and knees and raised clasped hands in supplication. "Can't you stay in your office or something? Or stay home with Mum? Only...If I do get Sorted into Gryffindor, I'm afraid you'll cheer, or run up and kiss me, or do something embarrassing."

Once again Remus swallowed laughter. "I'm a Professor, little nymph--"

"Miss Lupin."

Merlin, she was so like Tonks. But Remus resisted the impulse to sling her in his arms and tickle her senseless, and instead adopted his best parenting tone -- the one he wasn't really sure he'd mastered in eleven years.

"I said I would consider calling you Miss Lupin in school, but I will not outside of school."

"Yes, sir."

Well -- maybe he did get the parenting tone right some of the time. Maybe there was hope yet that he'd be a better parent than he'd been a prefect.

"I'm a Professor, Alba. Professor McGonagall requires all staff to attend the Sorting Feast. I promise, when--" He looked up at his wife. "--not if -- you're Sorted into Gryffindor, I shall do no more than discreetly pump my fist in the air, all right?"

Alba wilted. "Okay."

"Don't worry your pretty little head, Miss Lupin," said Tonks. "Dad won't do anything to embarrass you when you're Sorted into Hufflepuff." She shot him a cheeky grin. "He'll be in his office, telling me the good news."

The glitter in her dark eyes added, And paying up.

She was so coy that he wouldn't have minded her winning the bet--

--if the reward for him winning weren't the exact same thing.

"I can't believe you're really going to do this," Remus said as he watched his wife's slender figure shift into a stockier, muscled build that filled out the borrowed black Quidditch coach's robes she was wearing.

"Can't you?" Face still scrunched, Tonks scrutinised her reflection in the full-length mirror she'd conjured on the wardrobe door in Remus' office. "Mister Professor McGonagall requires all staff to attend the Sorting Feast?" She turned sharply toward him, normally dark eyes blazing golden, like struck matches. "Requires, my arse."

Remus hmphed against creeping guilt. "At least I'm not going behind Alba's back. Really, Tonks -- Attending her Sorting in cognito?"

He'd plotted it with her, of course, even gone so far as to obtain permission from Minerva to bring his wife on school grounds impersonating one of the staff. But seeing Tonks preparing to actually carry it out...

Her features went slack for the briefest moment, during which Remus suspected she must feel a twinge of guilt, as well.

When she spoke, however, her voice was husky with bravado. "I'm doing it for your convenience. When Alba gets sorted Hufflepuff, we'll be up here anyway for me to collect my winnings."

That particular way she darted her eyes sidelong at him, even though they weren't her own colour and he only saw them reflected in the mirror, always had been his undoing. She knew just how to draw out his inner Marauder. Or how to make him feel more randy than guilty.

Remus stepped up behind her and settled his hands on her hips. Well, not her hips. He withdrew his hands and bent to nuzzle her long, silky midnight blue hair. She shuddered.

"I do believe you've got it backward," he said. "It'll be a lot more convenient for me to collect my winnings."

Suddenly there was no blue hair. Just a neck he'd seen on another witch, which he had no desire to feel -- and never had done, not even as a schoolboy -- and above it, crowning Tonks' heart-shaped face, iron grey, close-cropped hair.

"Look, Remus," she said, "we match."

"Next time Alba's cheeky to you and you wonder where she gets it from, remember this phrase: black pot."

"Admit it, you like cheeky girls."

"Not so much when they're costing me a hefty load of galleons to bribe certain flying instructors into giving up their identities for the night."

"I've told you a million times," said Tonks, grabbing the whistle hung over the spindle of the mirror and looping it over her neck, "I got those all-access passes to train for a week with the Holyhead Harpies for a discount because I know people."

"Mundungus Fletcher isn't people. Poor Rolanda's probably warding off actual Harpies now, not doing Quidditch drills with them. She'll file suit, the family will be disgraced, we'll no doubt be arrested -- who knows how many laws we broke buying those passes from Dung, not to mention this little thing called identity theft -- and the children will be sent to live with your parents, if they're not implicated as accessories to the crime for agreeing to babysit John so we can pull this off..."

Tonks turned to Remus and brushed her hands over the lapels of his robes. "Admit it, you great overgrown schoolboy -- it's the danger that made you do this in the first place. It gives you a rush."

"Marauding's nice foreplay, yes."

For a moment, she looked at him as if she was the one considering aborting the plan and going straight to sex-in-the-office. But instead she said, "Hurry up, then, and give me a good luck kiss so I can put on Hooch's face."

"Fine," said Remus with a sigh of mock-disappointment. He wouldn't miss Alba's Sorting for anything, not even to fulfil the naughty desire he'd had since he'd begun teaching again, which he'd for some unknown reason been too shy to confess to Tonks before this whole wager came up. "But it's you who will be giving the good luck kiss."

Tonks wrinkled her nose, which became a hawk nose as the rest of her delicate features became sharper.

"No kisses, then, boy," she said brusquely, in a perfect imitation of Rolanda Hooch.

"For now." Remus held out his hand to shake hers. "May the best House win."

"That'll be Hufflepuff."

"Gryffindor."

"You're so immature."

"You are."

"How'd they ever let you teach?"

Remus grinned at her as she passed through the office door he held for her. "Why, the Headmistress is a Gryffindor. Fancy that."

"Do you always get the female staff's chairs?" said Tonks as Remus seated her at the teacher's table at the top of the Great Hall. "Or are you showing off that Gryffindor courage by risking blowing my cover?"

"Isn't it only Alba you're hiding from?"

Tonks looked up at him through Madam Hooch's lashless golden eyes. "I don't think you're frightened enough of that little witch we caught reading her Charms book under the covers last night. Who knows what hexes she's learnt already?"

Taking his seat beside her, Remus felt conflicting emotions duelling on his face: a smug grin at the likelihood of his firstborn being the brain behind whatever version of the Marauder's Map her generation devised; colour draining at the thought of his little girl plotting revenge on him if she cottoned on to this.

"Who's Head of Slytherin?" Tonks asked in a low voice, looking down the long table. Remus followed her gaze to where a black-haired witch was watching them with a deep frown tugging at a set of strong features that could only be described as unpleasant on the best of days.

"Millicent Bulstrode," he said, attempting to smile at the Potionsmistress, whose brow only seemed to become thicker as she stared him down. "She was in Harry's year. I taught her."

"If you were her professor and in her rival house, don't you reckon she might just have a grudge she's on the lookout to get revenge for? Like letting it slip to your daughter that her mum morphed into another teacher and attended her Sorting?"

Remus turned to his wife. "Sounds rather like your problem, doesn't it?"

Tonks' mouth fell open.

"What?" He put on his best innocent expression which, unlike the parenting tone, he had no doubt he'd well and truly mastered through the years. "It's only cover."

It was very hard not to give into the grin that wanted to form as he was struck with a truly inspired way to annoy Tonks whilst addressing her as Madam Hooch. "Nymphadora would want me to behave as though there's no romantic interest between me and the witch seated beside me."

"She also wouldn't want you to call her Nymphadora," Tonks gritted out through clenched teeth. "Anyway, didn't we establish that you charm all the female teachers, and not act like a cheeky bast--"

The words died and her face bloomed as Hagrid lumbered toward them, waving. Remus marvelled at how even though she wore Madam Hooch's older, athletic body and face, Tonks' spirit broke through and he felt he was really looking at his wife.

"Wotcher, Hag--um, I mean, good evening, Rubeus."

Hagrid's eyebrows, grizzled grey now, knit together as he took the chair on the other side of Tonks. Though he wasn't in on this scheme, he had an idea she wasn't Madam Hooch.

Or did he? He only said, "Lo. I scouted Quidditch likelies." It wasn't very like Hagrid to cotton on to an undercover scheme without due warning and play along.

"And?" Tonks asked.

Remus had to take a quick drink of wine to hide his laughter at the idea of Tonks pretending to be interested in the Hogwarts Quidditch hopefuls. He only succeeded in choking himself as Hagrid peered around Tonks to give him an apologetic look.

"Sorry ter break it ter yeh, Remus, but yer littlie ain't goin' ter be a Quidditch player. Stepped right off the train an' fell on her face, tha' one did."

"Is she all right?" Remus and Tonks asked together, sitting up straight in their chairs.

"Fine, fine," said Hagrid, eyeing Tonks again as he took a drink. "Sent fer Poppy an' she's fixin' Alba right up now. No black eyes or broken noses. See fer yerselves!"

They followed the sweeping gesture of his enormous hand, which knocked Professor Flitwick off the seat at his right. At the same time, Remus and Tonks reached for each other's hands under the table.

The first years were filing in. There was Alba, not so much marching as shuffling in a huddled mass with Kingsley's youngest daughter and Bill and Fleur Weasley's twin girls. A new generation of Gryffindors, Remus thought with a swelling heart as sudden tears welled and obscured his daughter's pale face. He blinked to clear them, not wanting to miss a thing, and saw her peering, agog, at the star-speckled ceiling from under the brim of her pointed hat. He'd been a little afraid that, as Alba and John had come to Hogwarts many times, when Tonks had brought them for surprise lunches on Remus' birthday, or they'd Flooed to his office to tell him to come home for dinner, they wouldn't experience the spine-tingling sensation he remembered upon seeing the Great Hall for the first time. But then, it was never was quite so magical at any other time as it was at a Sorting Feast.

He blinked, then noticed Alba's eyes dart quickly sidelong, as though she'd been watching him but didn't want him to know. Again, he recalled the fear and trembling and sheer excitement he'd felt upon first seeing the professors at the Top Table. The greatest witches and wizards of the day were to be his teachers. So many of these now, in Alba's day, were of great renown, their stories which he and Tonks had told her every night before bed for her whole life. Her thoughts could not be so far off from Remus' at the age of eleven; her glowing face, which seemed a little older now than when they'd put her on the Hogwarts Express that morning, said they were not.

And maybe it had dawned on her that boring old Dad was sat among them?

Hagrid leant toward them again. "Alba fell out the boat, as well."

Remus vision cleared as he chuckled. "How on earth did she manage that?"

"Leanin' over ter see the Gian' Squid."

"You see, Rolanda?" said Remus, squeezing her hand. "Alba may have inherited Nymphadora's equilibrium, but that just proves what a Gryffindor she is. Brave even in the face of her own shortcomings--"

"I did the same bloody thing!" Tonks raged at Remus in a stage whisper, dropping his hand as if it had burnt her.

Amused, he watched the rise and fall of her chest as she panted for breath as Hagrid and several other teachers -- including Minevera at the head of the Hall -- turned toward her. Alba was looking, too.

"I mean..." Tonks looked down at the table, as if afraid Alba would recognise her through Hooch's face. "I remember Tonks did that when she first arrived here."

Chuckling, Hagrid patted her back. "I know it's you, Tonks. Professor McGonagall warned us all you'd be Hooch, and that Hooch wouldn't be." His face crinkled as though he'd baffled himself with the explanation.

As Remus considered how many people they were depending on not to leak this secret to Alba, he began to experience a measure of the dread Tonks had accused him of not having enough of. He watched her muscle twitch beneath the prominent cheekbone of Madam Hooch, and knew she was worried, too. Which didn't make it any easier for him to access his Gryffindor courage. This could backfire all too easily, and no amount of satisfaction at guessing Alba's house correctly, or the manner in which Tonks would pay up, would squelch guilt they would both feel at betraying their daughter's trust.

"Who dried her off?" Tonks asked. "Poppy?"

Hagrid chuckled. "Clever little dickens! Whipped out her wand and did a drying charm herself, easy as yeh please, and that was that."

Remus and Tonks looked at one another with slack jaws. Their daughter really had just read a book of spells and then reproduced one.

They were really in for it.

"Gave her house points," Hagrid went on, still laughing, round cheeks red and merry. "Hopefully they'll go to Gryffindor, but I won' mind much if they go to Ravenclaw."

"Or Hufflepuff," Tonks said.

"Yes." Remus rested his hand on the back of her chair. "Nymphadora has a great deal riding on Hufflepuff, you know."

When she turned her head to him, it was Tonks' black eyes blinking at him from Madam Hooch's face.

"That's not really it," she whispered to him, running her hand over his thigh. "It's the Gryffindor I'll be riding."

Remus' face went very hot, and he fumbled for his wine glass. He'd used to pride himself on being quick on his feet, and not easily caught off-guard, but not since he'd met Tonks who, occasionally -- never when he expected it -- would come up with something like that, and he, quite literally, choked. Was it a Hufflepuff quality, he wondered? One the Sorting Hat never bothered to mention? The ability to utterly flummox your spouse with deliciously naughty remarks?

As he turned to face front, Minerva was making her way front and centre of the hall with a four-legged stool, upon which she placed the Sorting Hat.

The Great Hall fell completely, utterly silent. There wasn't even the sound of anyone breathing. Or else Remus' heart was pounding so loudly that he couldn't hear anything else. Was Tonks holding her breath, as he was? The hairs on the back of his neck stood as he watched Alba's dark eyes, locked on the ragged Hat. His anticipation rivalled that which he'd had at his own Sorting, so many years -- decades -- gone now.

This moment would set the course of Alba's whole life.

The Sorting Hat twitched. Then the rip near the brim opened wide, and its new song filled the Hall:

"I am an old and tatty hat,
But pay good heed to me.
For though I'm frayed and very patched,
I've sorted history.

To Slytherin I sent the Blacks,
Most noble ancient House.
True ambition they did lack;
Their fear the Dark Lord roused.
Young Regulus, he turned his back
On Death Eaters' cruel ways.
His serpent cunning did curses crack
In his remaining days.

Ravenclaws are clever, too,
Fight like no others could.
Problems obscure they see right through,
Truths hidden understood.
How to get off castle grounds?
Six young heroes, musing, stood.
"Ride Thestrals'!" Ravenclaw's voice resounds,
From the lips of Luna Lovegood.

Hufflepuff's a lot of duffers,
One old fool once said.
But I say he's a giant stuffer,
And put that lie to bed.

Hagrid coughed loudly, as though in embarrassment, and Remus turned to see the skin that wasn't covered by wild greying black beard was deeply flushed. Tonks had one eyebrow raised at the giant. Remus had to admit, that while Tonks could be quite intimidating when she wanted to be, the affect was even more so when produced by Madam Hooch's hawk-like features.

Than Badgers nobody is tougher--
Just look at Aurors Tonks and Moody.
Vigilant, diligent, though the war got rougher,
Loyal, just, and never snooty.

Of course Remus couldn't help but look at his wife for her reaction, and he found that now she was the red one. A few of the other teachers -- again, including Minerva -- were doing as the Hat had said, and looking at her with admiration. He turned his gaze to Alba who, despite all she'd said about not wanting attention draw to her because of her parents, was stood with her chest was puffed out in pride as the little Shacklebolt girl grinned and leant over to mouth, Your mum's in the song!

Gryffindor, a valiant lot,
That everyone knows well.
Of course the first is Harry Potter,
To whom the Dark Lord fell.
But others' courage burned as hot:
Dumbledore, McGonagall,
The Weasleys, Granger, and Lupin all fought.
Love had armed them well.

The phrase a little more love in the world resonated in Remus' heart as his eyes locked with Alba's, who gave him a smile -- and the slightest wave of her fingers, barely peeking out from the black sleeve of her robe at her side. A Hogwarts robe, emblazoned with the school crest. Alba Andromeda Lupin, his little nymph, dressed in the Hogwarts uniform. At one point it had seemed impossible that he'd get to go to school himself, and how he was teaching here, his heart about to burst with pride as he attended his daughter's Sorting.

Not a little love; so much more love than he'd ever dreamed could exist. And all of it condensed into his heart.

That was magic -- that something as fragile as his heart could contain so much love.

From all four houses warriors hail,
The names of history books.
Some of each went through the veil;
None destiny forsook.

So when you sit upon this chair
And put me on your head,
Don't worry or pull out your hair,
Though your heart may feel like lead.
No house your future will ensnare,
There is no house to dread.
You can be anyone you dare --
That's what the Sorting Hat said.

The song had not stopped echoing through the Hall when applause rippled, along with the thunder of hundreds of students and teacher's rising from their chairs. There was a feeling as if they were all holding the song suspended in the air, and Remus looked around and saw the faces of people he'd taught, some of whom he now taught with, and others who he'd fought with. This was why they had done. This was Dumbledore's dream. Remus couldn't believe he'd been fated to make it through, when so many colleagues, friends, equally brave and capable, had fallen, and he'd been so sure he would be among them. But he was here, growing old with his wife, raising his children, guiding them as they came into their own, able to hear this song. He was sure it reached the White Tomb, a hymn to the man resting within, who had done so much for them...for him. How blessed for this to be the song for Alba's Sorting.

Which, Remus realised as Tonks tugged on his sleeve for him to sit, had begun.

"Barbary, Sean!" Minerva called.

A boy with a pierced eyebrow sat on the stool, struggling to fit the hat over his Mohawk.

"GRYFFINDOR!" declared the hat.

"Damn!" Tonks muttered. "Alba could've gone out with Heathcote Barbary's kid and got me backstage passes to the Weird Sisters!"

"You'd have to be a Gryffindor to go about in public with that hair."

"Oi!"

"Although, my Hufflepuff wife Nymphadora does go about in public with spiky pink hair--"

"Oh my God!" Tonks interrupted. "Look, that's Stubby Boardman's kid Minerva just called! When did all the Rockers have babies?"

"Apparently the same year we did," said Remus as the be-dreadlocked Boardman boy was sorted...

"RAVENCLAW!"

Tonks looked dejected, but said, "I reckon that suits, seeing as how it was right clever of Stubby to retire when he did."

"Yes," Remus replied. "It's wise to leave showbiz when your audience resorts to throwing turnips at you."

Next, Galatea Crumb -- daughter of Weird Sister bagpiper Gideon -- was sorted into Hufflepuff, and Tonks gave Madam Hooch's whistle a little blast.

And another, when the daughter of her least favourite colleague, Dawlish, was sorted into Slytherin. "Thank God Alba won't have to share a room with that brown-nosing little--"

"Longbottom, Francis!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Ha!" Tonks nearly fell off of her chair as she leant to gloat in Remus' face. It didn't humble her. "Gryffindor dad plus Hufflepuff mum equals Hufflepuff kid!"

"That bodes well for Alba, then," said Remus, "seeing as the Sorting Hat can only fairly do the opposite this time."

"Lupin, Alba!" Minerva's crisp tones pierced the air of the Great Hall, and froze Remus' heart in his chest.

"Good luck, Remus," Hagrid said.

"What about Good luck, Tonks?" she asked.

Hagrid shrugged. "Gotter be loyal ter me own house!"

"Yeah, well I think you've got a lot to atone for, calling Hufflepuffs a lot of duffers--"

"Shh!" said Remus.

Alba had sat on the stool.

The Sorting Hat was in her hands.

Gryffindor, Gryffindor, beat Remus' heart.

The hat had barely touched her brown plaits before it bellowed...

"SLYTHERIN!"

Slytherin?

Remus glanced down the table at Millicent Bulstrode, who was applauding, but regarding him with an arched eyebrow and a smirk.

Merlin help Alba...

Slytherin.

"I gave house points to Slytherin?" Hagrid said.

"Oh God." Tonks' eyes were huge in her ashen face as she continued in a monotone. "My daughter's my mother."

Indeed: Alba was marching through the Hall, her lips pursed in a small, dignified smile that was frighteningly reminiscent of Andromeda. She took out her wand, touched it to the purple bows at the ends of her plaits, and turned them green.

Good God. Alba had been sorted Slytherin and...didn't bloody mind.

Not to mention she was already a fair hand at Transfiguration, without one lesson from Minerva -- who was looking at Alba with features crossed with conflict. She clearly wanted to award her house points...But she'd been Head of Gryffindor House for so long...Could she really put Slytherin ahead for the House Cup before term technically began?

As Alba found an empty seat near the end of the Slytherin table, she darted her eyes at him, almost nervously. Remus told himself to smile, and he clapped for good measure. There is no house to dread, the Sorting Hat had said.

And if Alba wasn't afraid, then Remus John Lupin, Gryffindor, damn sure couldn't be.

There was, however, one thing he was afraid of as he turned to Tonks, who seemed to be frozen in a state of shock: that since neither he nor Tonks had won the bet, their plans for a Post-Sorting Feast Of the Senses in his office would have to be cancelled.

Back in her own pink-haired form again, Tonks sat straddling Remus' lap in the DADA office. Her face was buried against his neck, exposed by the open collar of his shirt. She'd been kissing him, since they decided that having both lost to Slytherin they needed that office love-making session more than ever.

Only she'd stopped kissing him to groan against his skin. "Slytherin! Bloody Slytherin!"

"I know," said Remus, slipping his fingers under the hem of her shirt and over the smooth skin of her back. "But it has changed a great deal since the war..."

"It's not even that," said Tonks, with a sigh that ruffled the hair at his nape as her fingers tangled in it. "It's that she didn't get sorted with a single rocker's kid! But she did get stuck with Dawlish's brat. And Mum will never let me hear the end of it. And Dad'll laugh his fool head off--"

A rap on the door cut her off and sent her springing off his lap and ramming her hip on the corner of the desk. "What in bloody hell's anyone doing here this time of night? Everyone knows you don't live at the school."

"Perhaps someone saw us come up here," said Remus, with a grunt as he pushed himself up. He avoided using the phrase too old at all costs, but he really was too old for long snogs in uncomfortable desk chairs with Tonks on his lap.

"Probably just as well someone can see it's me with you, and not you and Madam Hooch tarnishing the school by having a torrid love affair. Course, I'm not sure I want the gossip columns printing that Professor Lupin and his upstanding Auror wife like to shag in the DADA office..."

"I'd prefer that to a lot of things that have been written about me in gossip columns." Remus redid his collar, adjusted his tie, straightened his robes, then called as he smoothed his hair, "Come in."

He gave a start, and behind him, Tonks gave an Eep as the door creaked open to reveal...

Alba.

"What..." Remus leant heavily against the door frame. "What are you doing out of your dormitory?"

"I tried Flooing you at home from the Common Room," said Alba, "but you weren't home."

He'd started to picture her knelt before the great fireplace in the cosy Gryffindor Tower Common Room, but then his brain reminded him that that was not Alba's common room. She was a Slytherin, and for the next seven years his little girl would have to live in those dark, gloomy dungeons all hung with serpentine green. Alba, who'd been used to a bedroom of pink and purple, spending her evenings in the Slytherin Common Room!

Before Remus could gather his wits to ask why she hadn't Flooed his office from the Common Room, Alba's sharp dark eyes looked past him and hardened on Tonks.

"I might have known you'd be here."

"I..." Tonks voice cracked with guilt, and Remus turned to see her actually take a step backward, looking almost...intimidated. "Dad couldn’t wait till he got to Grandromeda's to tell me which house you got sorted into, so he Flooed me and I came in..."

Alba looked sceptical. "You morphed and watched my sorting, didn't you?"

Tonks took another step backward. Her mouth opened and closed, but her vocal chords didn't produce so much as a squeak.

"You were Madam Hooch!"

"I'm sorry! I know you didn't want me to come to your sorting, but I was mad with jealousy that Dad got to see..."

Her face was an even more violent shade of pink than she'd ever worn her hair, and her eyes were over-bright. Remus wanted to reach out and comfort her, but he knew Tonks needed to sort this with Alba, or no amount of comfort would assuage her guilt -- a feeling he knew well.

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I won't ever do it again..."

Alba studied her for a moment, her features a picture of calm except for a little crease between her eyebrows. The picture of calm (or calculated?) decision-making, not often seen on a child her age. Remus was beginning to see that she did, indeed, fit the better qualities of Slytherin, and wondered that he'd never considered it before her sorting. Well -- it wasn't really a wonder. It had crossed his mind in Diagon Alley, and he'd squelched the thought out of a lifetime of practiced prejudice. Not that Slytherins hadn't, historically, given plenty of cause for negative perceptions. But Remus supposed lines had been drawn on both sides, and somehow unintentionally reinforced pure-blood elitism.

"It's okay, Mum," Alba said at last.

Tonks started to let out a shuddery sigh of relief, and Remus laid a hand on her shoulder -- but they both tensed as Alba pinned them with a look and an accusatory pointed finger.

"But only cos you didn't do anything too embarrassing. And maybe you should swear an Unbreakable Vow not to do anything like that again."

Tonks nodded emphatically but, now that the forgiving had been done, it was time to be parental again.

"I don't think an Unbreakable Vow will be necessary," Remus said.

"I reckon you'll want to sneak into John's Sorting," said Alba thoughtfully.

"No," said Tonks, "I've learnt my lesson--"

"You'll have to do, to be fair."

Remus and Tonks exchanged a look, then he asked his daughter, "What did you need to see me about? Are you all right? Are your housemates...?"

Alba's eyebrows slanted sharply downward. "You think they must be mean because they're Slytherins?"

A lump lodged in Remus' throat. "Of course not, I...You were worried that because I..."

"Will you still like me, Dad?" she said quietly, eyes on her feet. Her small hands clutched the front of her robes. "Even though I'm a Slytherin and you're a Gryffindor?"

Dear Merlin, he thought as Tonks crooned, "Oh, Sweetheart!" Was that how they -- he -- had made her feel? All this betting and speculation about her house...Of course he and Tonks and her parents understood it was all meant in good fun...But of course a little girl, as mature as Alba could be, would worry -- she had a full dose of his personality after all -- that where she was sorted really mattered.

Kneeling so that he was at eye level to her, he took Alba's hands. "Well that depends," he said hoarsely, drawing her surprised gaze. He smiled and gave her fingers a squeeze as they curled around his. The gesture took him back to the first day he'd held her, so tiny, so fragile and helpless in his arms, and she'd captured his heart by clinging to his finger with her tiny hand. "Will you still like me even though I'm a Gryffindor and you're a Slytherin?"

Alba looked at him for a long moment, then flung her arms around his neck, catching him in a fierce hug.

"Nothing, little nymph," he said, enfolding her to him, "absolutely nothing could make me stop loving you, and nothing could make me stop liking you, either. Not ever. And I am very glad to see Slytherin prove that the ambitious and cunning can be good people."

Her head popped up, and she flashed her grin--

--but only briefly.

Her forehead crinkled in a troubled expression. "You won't take away house points because I sneaked out of the dormitory? Only I'd rather just receive points on my first day."

"No," Remus chuckled, tugging at one of her green beribboned plaits as he got to his feet again. "I should, but I won't."

He glanced at Tonks, who mouthed pushover as she wiped her eyes.

"I'll even walk you back," he continued to Alba. "That is, if you don't mind being seen with a Gryffindor."

The grin returned in all its glory, and she tugged at his robes to pull him down for a kiss on the cheek.

"You can come, too, Mum," she said cheerfully as she slipped her little hand into Remus'.

"It's good of you to condescend to walk with a Hufflepuff," Tonks said, taking Alba's other hand. "But I reckon that's the sort of Slytherin that comes from a Gryffindor dad and a Hufflepuff mum. Clever, brave, and accept--"

The rest of the word was muffled as somehow, in the process of manoeuvring to get through the door without unlinking their hands, Tonks tripped and pitched headlong into the corridor and got a mouthful of Alba's plaits as she went down, too.

Sniggering, Remus shoved his hands into his pockets and stepped over the heap of females. "I'm not sure I can be seen with either of you."

Tonks shot him a playful glare. "What's the matter? Not brave enough, Gryffindor?"

"I suppose if you put it like that..." He turned back and offered his hands. "As you know, Gryffindors are also very chival--"

He barely registered the devilish look that passed between mother and daughter before their tug on his hands pulled him to the floor.

As they lay in a tangled, laughing heap, the click of heels down the corridor grew louder, signalling an approach. The tempo of the staccato step was all too familiar to Remus and had, at one point in his life, many years ago, been enough to kill laughter.

Which was precisely the affect it had on Alba.

And on Tonks, too.

Two pairs of dark eyes rounded in dread, huge in the heart-shaped faces that had gone ghastly white.

But Remus only laughed all the harder, and offered Minerva McGonagall a wave as she stopped before them, appraising the trio over the tops of her square spectacles perched at the end of her nose.

"All in the family, Professor Lupin?" she said crisply.

He slipped his arms around his girls. "It would appear so."

The corners of her thin lips twitched. "Yes. Well." She swept on down the corridor. "Don't let Filch catch you."

At the warning, years seemed to slip away as exhilaration swept through Remus at the prospect of creeping through the school by cover of night, long past curfew. In this time of need, his memory was flooded with the long-ago knowledge of every squeaky floorboard, every shortcut through hidden passageways. He would lead Tonks and Alba swiftly and stealthily -- a few Silencing Spells would compensate for the lack of natural stealth -- to Slytherin House, never arousing the attention of Filch, and maybe, if they were luckily, managing to annoy Mrs. Norris along the way.

A Gryffindor, a Hufflepuff, and a Slytherin. Three new Marauders. Maybe Ted was right, and John would turn out to be a Ravenclaw. One Marauder from each Hogwarts house. Dumbledore would be proud, even if the Founders' intent hadn't been to run a school of pranksters.

Except that the Sorting Hat would be wrong.

Every house would be one to fear.

The End

A/N: Reviewers get to make a bet with Professor Lupin, who is only too happy to settle up accounts in the DADA office. Whether he's a total gentleman, a smug git, or a Marauder, is up to you.