Harry/Teddy Fic: Maelstrom
Title: Maelstrom
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Harry/Teddy
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~34,000
Summary: During a family vacation, tensions between Harry and Teddy come to a head.
Notes: This was my hp_rarities fic. It owes a huge debt to chlorate's beta work -- without her there would be no soup scene. ;___;
Harry had never been in a more beautiful place and simultaneously in a worse mood. He'd thought that a family vacation to the Greek Islands would alleviate some of the stress they had all suffered during the children's school year, with James nearly flunking out and Albus the target of bullies. Lily was in her third year and already "seriously" dating a Ravenclaw whom Harry greatly disapproved of. Meanwhile, things had been hectic at work and he and Ginny weren't exactly making progress with their Marriage Healer. Harry had diagnosed the problem as a lack of the Weasley family's cheerful exuberance in the more sombre Potter household and had invited his brother-in-law's family to join them for a full month in the glorious Mediterranean sunshine. He had brought Teddy Lupin along, too, having long grown used to the boy's sensitivity about being "left out" of Potter family functions. Teddy was twenty-five years old and hardly a boy anymore, but his emotional maturity was at an all-time low.
"This place is crawling with Muggles," Teddy said disdainfully as he and Harry made their way down the stony beach toward the encampment of Auto-Adjusting Umbrellas and Levitating Sun-Bathing Cushions that had been surrounded by a Disillusionment Charm to protect the family from the prying eyes of Muggles. Harry squinted at the highly accessorised scene ahead of them: Hermione was frantically reapplying Immunity Balm to her children's pale skin and Lily was fighting with Ginny about how high her Levitating Cushion should be allowed to float. He felt weary and reluctant to rejoin them, though Teddy's company had hardly been a respite. Harry had been instructed by Hermione to go and retrieve Teddy from the vacation rental so that he would get "some exposure to the real world." Teddy had slept for most of the family's first two days on Kokari.
"Look at them," Harry said. He stopped walking, and Teddy did, too, frowning at the spectacle of the Weasley and Potter families in the distance. "Don't you envy the Muggles a bit, sometimes? They don't have to keep up with all of these charms and magical artefacts and potions that enhance every experience. Sure, they're uncomfortable lying on the rocks, but they get to just lie there. Do you know what I mean?"
"No." Teddy scowled. "You're mad. The Muggles all look so pathetically unhappy, they make me depressed."
"Oh, is that what it is? The proximity of Muggles is what's making you so surly?"
Teddy gave Harry an irritated look. "If you didn't want me along, I don't know why you bothered to invite me. It isn't as if I don't have my own life now."
Actually, that was exactly the case, and they both knew it. Teddy stalked off muttering to himself and Harry sighed. Teddy had been such a sweet, helpful child, but ever since his fourth year at Hogwarts, his life had been one tumultuous disaster after another. He was always having a drama with a girl or a fight with his poor old gran, whom Harry had been surprised to see Teddy mourn so deeply when she died during his sixth year, as he hadn't thought Teddy had any remaining tender feelings as a teenager. Harry did recall occasionally treating the people who cared about him terribly during his middling teenage years, but as soon as Teddy hit adolescence he was disrespectful and dismissive of Andromeda and everyone else who tried to help him right -
his freewheeling life, and this didn't end when he entered young adulthood. He barely managed to squeak through graduating from Hogwarts and began an infamous affair with Ron's niece Victoire shortly thereafter. If ever there was an ill-advised combination of lovers it was Teddy and Victoire: a brooding, self-centred Englishman and a vain, melodramatic Frenchwoman. Their rows were legendary, and the whole thing ended in a painstakingly staged suicide attempt by Victoire when Teddy left her for an old friend from school, Phillip Fink. Thus began Teddy's loud and tear-strewn coming out process.
"Harry, tell her to come down before she hurts herself," Ginny said when Harry entered the boundaries of the disillusionment charm. He looked up to see his youngest child floating a good twenty metres off the ground on her Levitating Cushion and peering down over the edge at him pleadingly.
"It's not like I haven't been higher on a broom!" Lily shouted.
"Yes, dear, but there's no threat of falling asleep and rolling over the edge on a broom," Ginny said tightly. Harry hated the way her jaw tightened and her temples seemed to pulse when she was cross with the children. He was overcome by a feeling of guilt, as if he had turned her into something less than she'd been fated to become. He wasn't the only one who felt that way, lately; his mother-in-law wasn't as charmed by him as she had once been, probably because she'd been hearing about Harry's every demerit on a regular basis. Ginny stared at Harry expectantly.
"Well?" she snapped.
"She'll be alright," Harry said.
"That's right," Ron piped up suddenly, sprawled out on his own cushion with a Daily Prophet that was wilting in the heat spread over his face. "If she rolls off, Harry will catch her like a snitch."
"Honestly," Hermione said, sitting down beside her husband. Harry's usual envy for the way they were able to chide each other gently and rip into each other completely and still seem to remain so close flared up. He and Ginny had been so afraid to raise their voices to each other for so long, as if theirs was a mythic, sacred love that should face no real obstacles after everything else they had been through, and by the time they finally began to have the regular married-people rows the phenomenon was far more jarring than it should have been.
"Fine." Ginny sat down heavily. "What do I know, I'm only her mother."
Hermione gave Harry a sympathetic look that infuriated him. He walked down to the water's edge and watched Hugo and James dunking each other, laughing and struggling for dominance. -
Albus was sitting forlornly at the water's edge, and Harry watched Teddy walk over to sit beside him.
"What's wrong?" Teddy asked. Harry bent down and pretended to examine a particularly interesting pebble while he listened.
"Nothing," Albus said. He was fifteen years old and still had few friends at school; Harry was more worried about Albus than James, who was allergic to class work and revision but who was always surrounded by loads of boasting mates.
"Don't lie," Teddy said. "You look especially gray this afternoon."
"Thanks."
"Has your brother been teasing you?"
Albus shrugged, which was as good as a confirmation. He was such a sensitive boy and would never make it in the world unless he changed; Harry's heart broke just at the sight of him.
"Want me to hex him?" Teddy asked.
"No," Albus said. "Your spell work is crap and you'd probably end up burning half the town down if you tried."
To Harry's surprise, Teddy only laughed and elbowed Albus in mock annoyance. Albus smirked and looked down at his lap. Harry hadn't realised they were friendly at all. When Teddy was younger he and Harry's children had been rather close, but ever since Teddy's teenage gloom had descended he typically just grunted in irritation if Harry's boys tried to follow him about like embarrassing younger brothers.
Later, when the group had sent their cavalcade of things back to the rental, Harry trudged along with his children rather than Apparating directly into the shower in the rental's master bedroom. Teddy was walking, too, staring at a large head of storm clouds that was blowing in from out over the ocean.
"Looks like bad weather is coming," Harry said, catching up to Teddy. Behind him Rose and Lily were speaking with shrieking excitement about a cute Muggle boy whom the group had passed. Harry tried to tune it out; his daughter's premature enthusiasm for the opposite sex had always given him heartburn.
"Well, we can fuck with a lot of things, wizards, but not the weather," Teddy said, and Harry smiled. After what he had witnessed between Teddy and Albus, he was willing to not take Teddy's brooding sentiments as personal insults.
"Thanks for speaking to Albus earlier," Harry said.
"I didn't do it for you," Teddy said with a scowl, and he Apparated away. Harry stood shocked for a moment, until Ginny caught up with him.
"Where's he off to?" she asked.
"No telling," Harry said, trying to stamp down the angry tone in his voice. It had been this way since Teddy's fourth year. The moment Harry was willing to give Teddy the benefit of the doubt, Teddy threw it back in his face. Harry had no idea why; he'd been nothing but a loving godfather to the boy, though admittedly, with his career as a private consultant to the world's magical governments and his own three children, he hadn't exactly had time to dote on Teddy. But Harry himself had never begrudged his own godfather's necessarily slight presence in his life, even when Sirius was lost to him so early. Thinking of him, his mood dipped even further. He still missed Sirius, and Teddy's father, too.
"Maybe we shouldn't have brought him," Harry said to Ginny, wondering if Teddy would even return to the rental later for dinner.
"No, this is exactly what he needs," Ginny said. "To be reminded what a real family is like."
"You sound as if that will only make him glad he hasn't got one."
Ginny said nothing, and for the second time that afternoon Harry's conversation ended when his companion Apparated away.
*
Dinner that night was the usual boisterous affair, but instead of lifting Harry's spirits as it usually did, he felt irritable and wished he could tell everyone to quiet the hell down. He sat at the head of the table with Ginny and Albus to his left and right, both sullen and only picking at their food. In the middle of the table there was riotous laughter as Ron, drunk as usual, tried to demonstrate to Hugo how best to make milk come out of James' nose as he laughed hysterically. Rose and Lily were red-faced with hilarity and even Hermione was chuckling, her hand over her mouth. Teddy was down at the other end beside her, sulking with his shoulders hunched.
"What do you say we go for a sail tomorrow?" Harry asked Albus. Albus looked to the windows, which were being blasted with rain.
"Have you got a death wish?" he asked, and Harry frowned. He was getting rather tired of everyone's sarcasm.
"The weather might improve," Harry said. "And if not, there are those caves on the other side of the island --"
"I hate caves," Albus said, and Harry bit back a sardonic laugh, because it seemed such a ridiculous thing: to hate caves? Why? Who even thought of them enough to hate them? He looked down at his plate with a grunt.
"Harry, leave him alone," Ginny said, as if Harry's suggestions about how they might spend the day together were torturing poor, helpless Albus. Ginny had always been insanely protective of their younger son; Harry blamed her entirely for Albus' softness and the resultant problems at school, though he would never say so.
"I'm through," Harry said roughly, rising from the table, and for some reason the cheer completely ceased, as if everyone had been listening to him all along. The mirthful Weasleys stared as Harry sent his plate to the kitchen sink.
"Delicious as always, Hermione," Harry said, because he knew his wife hated it when he complimented Hermione's awful cooking out of politeness. He almost felt he should bow before walking out of the room, but he managed to resist the urge.
"Where's dad going?" he heard Lily ask as he walked down the stairs to the third floor, where he and Ginny had been sleeping in the house's largest bedroom. He hurried away before he had to hear his wife's response.
*
Harry couldn't sleep that night. He lay on his back staring at the canopy that floated over the giant four poster bed and listened to his wife's quiet breathing. Lately he'd been having a hard time remembering what it had felt like to fall in love with Ginny. He'd been so preoccupied with everything else -- the War, Voldemort, even Draco Malfoy -- that Ginny had seemed to just suddenly appear on the horizon as a welcome escape, and then when the War ended, there she was again, waiting faithfully. Harry had been propositioned by many women over the years and all over the world, but he had never had a real desire to cheat on his wife, though his sexual disinterest in her was ruining their marriage all the same. Some people just don't like sex that much, he'd said to Ron when Hermione forced the poor bloke to take Harry out and discuss the matter over pints at the Three Broomsticks. Ron had boggled at Harry as if he'd just burst into flames and asked him if he was sure he was doing it right.
He got out of bed and walked out onto the large balcony that was attached to the bedroom. The air outside was cooler than it had been all summer; it was still raining, but just a bit. Harry wished he had a brandy and considered summoning one, but Ron had probably finished what was left of the house's supply after dinner, and Harry's magic had been so out of whack and unpredictable for the past year or so that he was afraid, in the absence of drinkable brandy, a Muggle girl named Brandy might come sailing into his grip. -
He tried to allow this mental image to stir up the kind of fantasy that he'd wanked to as a younger man, but the thought only embarrassed him. His Marriage Healer told him that his dying sex drive and his inability to trust his spell work were linked. Harry could only imagine this story being leaked to the press: The Great Harry Potter: Losing His Magic Because He Can't Get It Up!
The truth was, Harry didn't like trying to solve his own problems. He much preferred confronting the problems of other people, and even then only if those problems involved physical danger rather than this emotional sort. He was rubbish with comforting Albus when he was persecuted, and the situation with Ginny was grave. When they'd come back from the beach she'd looked at him as if she wanted to hex him into the next country just because he asked her if she knew where he'd put his red shirt.
The door on the balcony below the third floor slid open and shut beneath him, and Harry was immediately on edge, listening carefully. Lily and Rose were sleeping on that floor; what if some Muggle prat they'd flirted with during the day had followed them home? Not wanting to startle his daughter and niece if he was wrong, he went back into the bedroom and hurriedly put on his Invisibility Cloak before Apparating down to the lower porch.
When he arrived he realised that whoever had sneaked onto the porch was certainly not a Muggle: a Concealing Charm had been poorly cast and was shimmering around the right side of the porch, over the sofa that looked out at the ocean. Through the cracks in the bubble of secrecy Harry could see a man sitting on the couch, his legs spread wide and his hand down the front of his pants. He couldn't see the man's face; his head was tipped back onto the couch cushions and there was some sort of cloth covering his face. Harry was set to tear off the Cloak and perform an enthusiastic Crucio on the pervert who had broken in his family's vacation home when he recognised the long, ripped trousers that Teddy had been wearing since they arrived in Greece. He had to bite his tongue hard to keep from gasping in shock.
As he stood there allowing his hammering heart to wind down and accept that his daughter wasn't in danger by some sexual predator, he realised that there was really no reason to be shocked: Teddy was sharing a room with James, so he would want privacy for a wank. Perhaps he was aware of the fact that his Concealing Charms weren't reliably functional. Harry was almost jealous of Teddy as he prepared to Apparate away; he so missed the days at Hogwarts when he would cast a Silencing Charm around his bed and have a wank that he'd been dying for all day, back when he used to get half-hard just from sitting on a broomstick. He found himself standing in place and staring at Teddy enviously as Teddy pushed his pants down with impatient need and took his cock in his hand. It was dark on the balcony, but in the glare from a Muggle street lamp outside Harry could see the shine of the precome on Teddy's cock as he rolled his fist up and down, going slow. Harry flushed with embarrassment and told himself to leave, but then Teddy's bare feet inched further apart on the floor, and he sank down deeper into the cushions of the sofa as he spread his legs wider, sighing with deep contentment. For the first time in months, Harry's cock twitched to life. By the time Teddy reached down to rub his balls with one hand as he continued to pump his cock with the other, Harry began to get hard. Teddy's pathetic little moan, as if he'd stepped on something sharp and was surprised by the sting of pain, truly did Harry in. Teddy arched up into his hand and made the sound again, more quietly this time, as if he was afraid to be caught but couldn't stop himself.
Harry's breath was coming faster, and his cock was achingly heavy, tenting not only his pyjama pants but the Invisibility Clock as well. He tried to stay quiet, and told himself again that he should leave, but he was so hard that he was afraid he wouldn't even be able to Apparate properly, let alone walk. He stood watching, wide-eyed as Teddy's pace picked up and his chest began to heave. Harry wondered why Teddy's face was covered; was that some type of fetish? He found himself wishing, guiltily, insanely, that he could see Teddy's face, and tried to imagine what it looked like under the cloth: would he bite his lip and pinch his eyes up tight with the agony of remaining quiet, or would he be slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, his mouth wet and open?
Teddy began to arch up into his hand in panicked little thrusts and Harry knew he was close. His fingers ghosted over his own cock, stiff beneath two layers of cloth, but he didn't dare do anything bolder than that as he watched Teddy come, spurting over his hand and onto his partially exposed stomach. Harry could see Teddy's mouth moving beneath the cloth that covered his face as Teddy took great gulps of air until his breath shuddered out in weakened huffs as the last of his come spilled lazily from the tip of his cock.
Harry was flushed with arousal and afraid to waste what was really a rare phenomenon for him in the past year or so: a desire to come that was so intense that it washed all other concerns away, including the fact that he was spying on his godson in order to vicariously re-experience his lost youth, the sort of desperate longing for release that would send Teddy out onto the porch in the middle of the night just for this. For some reason that was what was getting to Harry the most: that surly, closed-off Teddy even had these types of secret desires. Of course he did, but for some reason Harry was stunned, and so hard in the face of the evidence that his cock hurt with every begging throb.
He stood completely still and watched Teddy remove the cloth from his face. Teddy held it under his nose and inhaled deeply, and Harry realised what it was that he was holding. His missing shirt.
"Oh."
As soon as the involuntarily noise of surprise had left Harry's lips his blood turned to ice. Teddy shot up into a sitting position on the sofa and stuffed the shirt behind his back before even attempting to cover his cock or clean himself up.
"Who's there?" Teddy asked, panting in terror. He grabbed his wand from the table but still didn't move to hide himself. His cock was beginning to soften, and for some reason the sight filled -
Harry with an overwhelming sense of protective tenderness for Teddy. What was he doing? Had he really gone completely mad just from a normal stretch of sexual frustration? He was so ashamed. He Apparated away, but just before he disappeared from the second floor porch and reappeared on the third, he thought he heard Teddy ask, frightened, and so softly that it broke Harry's heart:
"Harry?"
After all, he was the owner of the Invisibility Cloak, and who else could have been standing in the middle of the room unseen? Harry was frantic with shame and worry as he knelt on the floor of the porch attached to master bedroom, a cold ocean breeze ghosting across his back. His erection was gone; probably some effect of Apparation. Harry had certainly never had cause to Apparate while hard before.
Disoriented, his mind reeling, Harry crawled up off the floor and stood trying to catch his breath. Then he held it, listening for sounds from Teddy below. He heard the faint squeak of the sofa cushions and a muttered spell as Teddy removed his faulty Concealing Charm. Teddy's footsteps moved with a lethargic drag across the porch, then the door to the second floor opened and shut and all Harry could hear was the quiet lap of the ocean down below.
He got into bed, shivering with guilt. Ginny was fast asleep and oblivious; Harry had had trouble sleeping since he was very young, and she was more than accustomed to his unannounced entrances and exits. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, wanting his heart to stop racing, though he knew there was little hope of that. For a moment he allowed himself to imagine Teddy throwing open the bedroom door dramatically and demanding to know the location of the Invisibility Cloak; Harry had hurriedly shoved it under the bed. But no one came, and the house was silent.
He tried to sleep, but gave up quickly when his heart continued to ram his ribcage wildly and the images of Teddy would not fade. Harry wet his lips and allowed himself to picture Teddy on the porch downstairs, thinking he was alone, how guiltily he would have spread Harry's shirt over his face and sucked in the smell of him. But that couldn't be right; Teddy could scarcely be in the same room with Harry without snarling at him in disgust for some reason or another. Perhaps he thought it was someone else's shirt. That, of course, made even less sense than the idea of Teddy harbouring some secret sexual desire for Harry.
Harry's cock reawakened with the thought, and he shifted uncomfortably, his heart beating faster. Could Teddy have been downstairs touching his cock and thinking of Harry, wanting -- what? Harry's mouth around him? His mouth around Harry?
Very carefully, Harry sneaked a hand under the bed sheets. He glanced at Ginny, who would have bounced with happiness if she were awake to see Harry's erection, which was beginning to tent the sheets. There had been much sobbing with the Marriage Healer about how Harry's lack of physical response made her feel ugly and unwanted, though she was still a very -beautiful woman in her early forties. Harry did his best to assure her that he wasn't getting hard for other women, either, but she didn't believe him. His mind raced with terror when he thought about what he was getting hard for now. A man. A young man. His godson, for fuck's sake. Teddy.
Just the thought of Teddy's name made Harry's cock pulse with need, and he was fully hard quickly, as if his body was more than ready to pick up where he'd left off downstairs. He glanced at Ginny again. She was turned away, motionless. Very carefully, he reached down and thumbed the underside of his cock through his pyjamas. Even that dull, tiny sensation sent sparks through his entire nervous system, from the seat of his balls all the way up to his neck. He very slowly undid the fly button on his pants and inched two fingertips inside to stroke the hot flesh of his cock. It took everything he had in him not to gasp in outrageous satisfaction; it had been so long that his eyes actually watered. He'd forgotten how to make himself feel good like this, like nothing else mattered, not his sleeping wife and her hurt feelings or the children whose lives he'd built his own around. Not his relationship to Teddy, what little there was of it. At the moment Harry didn't care about anything except the pressure of his fingertips as they slid stealthily up and down the underside of his cock.
It was infuriating, trying to bring himself off this way. He wanted to cast a concealment spell or Apparate somewhere where he could groan and yank hard on his leaking cock, but something about his encounter with Teddy stopped him. He was afraid to leave the safety of his bed, lest he discover something else tantalizing and disturbing in the rented house, and in the state he was in he had little faith that he could cast a better Concealing Charm than the botched one Teddy had managed downstairs. So he lay still, his furious heartbeat the only indication that just the careful brush on his fingers over his cock was maddeningly good. He inched his legs apart a little at a time, keeping his eyes on Ginny, and reached in further to caress his balls, which were hot and sweating and sensitive from so much teasing stimulation. Harry let his eyes slide shut and allowed his hips to twitch, just barely, then regretted it greatly when Ginny rolled toward him.
Her eyes were still closed, and she moaned a little with the effort of getting comfortable, shoving one hand under her pillow. Harry thought his heart would explode; he still had his hand down the front of his pants, his balls cupped carefully with just two fingers and his thumb at the base of his cock, which seemed to have a heartbeat of its own. He stared at his wife as her face again settled peacefully into sleep. What was he doing? How could he be this way, after everything Ginny had sacrificed for him? She had quit a profitable and exciting Quidditch career to raise Harry's children. What had he ever really done for her since the Chamber of Secrets?
Even these melancholy thoughts couldn't sink Harry's persistent cock, which was sobbing precome against the sheets. Harry could smell the murky scent of his own arousal, which was hardly familiar to him anymore. He withdrew his hand from his pyjama front slowly and flattened it on his chest. His cock was still jutting out of his pyjamas, so he turned onto his side, toward Ginny, to prevent it from making an obvious tent. Smashing his eyes shut tightly, he willed his thoughts about the incident on the second floor away, but they were as stubborn as his erection: the way Teddy's feet had shifted apart on the floor, first his toes and then his heels, gingerly but eager, too. And the way he had breathed in the scent of Harry's shirt afterward, as if -- as if what? As if he wanted to put it in his mouth and suck on it.
Harry lay still and tried to keep his breathing quiet. It hurt badly to allow his cock to deflate until it was sad and crusted with dried precome. He tucked it back into his pyjamas and rolled over. The pain was more emotional than physical, even with his balls aching and unspilled. Finally, he'd had what he and Ginny had been seeking for months, the key that would lock them together again. But Harry could never have awoken Ginny and slipped inside her when his mind was full of nothing but that image of Teddy with his legs apart and his face hidden, pulling on his cock and coming so hard just from the smell of Harry's shirt.
*
The next morning was gloomy and overcast, and the children haunted about the rental while Harry nursed a headache that no amount of Mistress Tilly's De-stressing Solution could conquer. He had slept poorly, of course, and dreamed of Sirius. Teddy had not yet shown his face, and when Harry asked James if Teddy was still sleeping in the bedroom James said of course he was. Part of Harry wanted to go into the bedroom, shut the door behind him and place an understanding hand between Teddy's shoulder blades to rouse him, and another part of him wanted to invent some important consulting that needed doing abroad, leave Greece at once and avoid Teddy for the rest of his life.
It wasn't the first time he'd been aroused by a man, and he was disturbed and depressed by the parallel this incident struck to the previous one, which he didn't like to remember. The first time Harry ever stroked himself off thinking of anyone but Cho Chang was a few hours after he'd hugged Sirius at Grimmauld Place during the summer before his fifth year. To that point in his life, no one had ever touched him the way Sirius did on that quiet afternoon when they were finally alone together for a moment in the room that held Sirius' defiled family tree. Harry had hugged Ron and Hermione, and had of course been assaulted by Mrs Weasley's jubilant affections, but something about the hug with Sirius moved him deeply in a way that he didn't understand for years. He had embraced Harry not the way that others had, as if they were overwhelmed by sympathetic pity or simple relief that he wasn't dead, but as if Harry was truly sacred to him, someone to be drawn close against his chest for no real reason except that he seemed to belong there. Harry hadn't wanted to let go, and after he had, he was still tingling with the touch. He had a wank before dinner while Ron and Hermione were off doing whatever it was they did together back then when they weren't fighting, and he sank into that lingering feeling, allowing himself to call up the warm, sharp smell of Sirius when he'd been so close, the scruff of his short beard against Harry's temple and the heat of his chest. He came all over himself just as quickly as he had when he'd first tried beating off back at Hogwarts in his second year. And of course, later, there was the incident with Remus.
"Harry, are you alright?" Hermione asked, appearing suddenly to put the back of her hand against Harry's forehead. "You look a bit ill."
"I am, I think," Harry said, standing. "Nothing a long walk won't cure, though. Would you like to come with me?"
He could see by Hermione's face that she'd rather not; she'd been in the midst of instructing Rose on the magical properties of the fig leaves she'd picked by the beach two days earlier and hung to dry. But she seemed to think that Harry needed her company, because she smiled dutifully and nodded.
The beach was empty and the sea was rough. Hermione chattered about how she'd heard from a witch down at the sundries shop that more storms were on the way and fretted that they should have taken the trip later in the summer. Harry didn't say that he couldn't have possibly waited any longer to escape his life in London.
"What's bothering you?" Hermione asked, placing her hand on Harry's arm as they walked along the shore. "Are you and Ginny having problems again?"
"That's rather direct," Harry said, but he smiled. He never would have believed, as a teenager, that someday he would take comfort in Hermione's obnoxious concerns about his life.
"Oh, Harry. You can tell me. I promise I won't gossip to Ron."
"That's a lot of bollocks, there. You tell him everything."
"Not everything! If you took me into your confidence I wouldn't let anything spill. It's not as if he wants to chat about his sister's sex life, anyhow."
"I don't especially want to chat about it, either."
"Fine, Harry, but you can't keep everything bottled up."
"We're seeing a Marriage Healer!"
"You know I have no faith in that profession! You need to facilitate communication with your wife, not the Healer."
"That's exactly what the Healer tells us, actually. To facilitate communication. Is there a spell for that?"
"Don't joke!"
"I'm not, actually."
Hermione shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest as the wind blew in cold against them. It was as if Harry's gloom had followed them to the sunny little island where he thought he could escape it: now, instead of frolicking on the beach or exploring the floor of the sea with the help of the giant jars of gillyweed they'd brought along, they would be confined to exactly the sort of suffocating space that they were stuffed into during the children's summers at home, only now they had the far jollier Weasley family close by to make them feel especially inadequate.
"I've done everything wrong," Harry said, knowing that he could be melodramatic with Hermione; she always knew when to not take him seriously.
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," she said.
"Do you want to hear a curious old secret of mine?" Harry asked. Hermione raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not sure," she said. "Is it very dark?"
"No. Yes. Well, I don't know. I need your input on that, actually."
"Fine, tell me," she said, pretending not to be very eager for new information on virtually anything.
"You remember that summer before fifth year, when we found out about the Order and stayed at Grimmauld Place until we left for school? Or you two did, anyway, but I was there for a short time."
"Lest you ever let us live that down," Hermione said.
"I think I've earned a few childish grudges, thank you," Harry said. "Anyway, that afternoon before we left, I was looking for you two and the house was so quiet, I thought the adults were all downstairs having a meeting, but then I walked toward that old study in the back and I heard this strange sound. I thought maybe it was the ghost of one of Sirius' evil relatives, so I went quiet and peeked inside, and, well. To put it bluntly, I saw Remus Lupin giving Sirius a blow job."
"Oh." Hermione stopped walking and made an uncertain face. "Are you sure that's what you saw?"
"Hermione, what a classic question! Of course I am! Even back then I knew enough about what -
blokes wanted from girls to understand what they were doing to each other. I suppose it should have occurred to me that some blokes might want it from other blokes, but I had rather a lot of other things on my mind at the time and it was a bit of a shock."
"Well, of course it was a shock!" Hermione said. "To see two people you were close to -- being intimate -- when you were so young. And, oh, Harry -- Tonks."
"Yes, precisely. I rather put it out of my mind -- or I think I talked myself into thinking that Remus was only doing it as some kind of favour to Sirius because of all that he'd been through, that it was just Sirius who was bent, but now -- now, I don't know."
"I suppose it doesn't matter too much," Hermione said. "As far as Remus' motivations, anyway. They're both --" She stopped short of gone.
"Yes, well, it really sort of affected me," Harry said, wincing when he heard the words out loud. Hermione frowned.
"How do you mean?" she asked.
"I don't just mean that, I mean the whole summer," Harry said. He was always doing this; halfway wanting to hash out his issues with Hermione and then going back on his desire to do so when she began to figure things out.
"Well, why are you thinking of it now?" Hermione asked, still frowning. "What's it got to do with anything anymore?"
"Nothing," Harry said. "Forget it. I just -- I suppose it's being around Teddy that makes me think of it. You know, Remus, who he really was. I thought I would at least be able to truly get to know him, but." He didn't have to continue the sentiment. Hermione sighed.
"We all lost people," she said. Her parents' memories of her were never able to be properly restored. The spell she'd used to erase them as a clever but inexperienced young girl had been too strong.
"You know, you're the only one who doesn't treat me like a delicate flower when I talk about this stuff," Harry said, not enjoying this at the moment.
"Ginny treats you like a delicate flower under any circumstances? I find that hard to believe."
"No, I suppose she doesn't, either, but she'll get emotional about Fred at the slightest mention of the War, and once we got into a horrible row when I'd got a bit fed up with it and told -
her she could have lost so much more of her family and that she should be grateful that so many survived."
"Harry! What a nasty thing to say!"
"I know, I felt terrible. It just ripped out of me. I'm finding that happening more and more as I get older. Uncontrollable things."
Hermione gave him an appraising look that made him very nervous. They had come to the end of the beach by the rental and had turned around, and were now nearly back to the house. The wind was getting stronger.
"If you're thinking of having the marriage Undone --" Hermione began.
"No!" Harry said. "Not at all, God, Hermione, don't be so dramatic."
"I'm being dramatic! You've brought me out here in this horrible weather to tell me that you're still having angst about seeing your godfather getting sucked off by your former teacher and I'm being dramatic?"
"I'm not having angst! I just wanted to tell someone! Piss off if you don't want to hear it!"
Hermione groaned. "You Potters," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Rather moody these days. Teddy, too."
"Leave Teddy alone, he's had a hard life," Harry said. Hermione turned for the house but Harry caught her arm before she could storm off. "Sorry," he said. "Lately I can't seem to talk to anyone without having them hate me by the end of the conversation."
"I don't hate you," Hermione said. "I'm only frustrated with you."
"I'm rather frustrated with myself. Listen, do you think Teddy resents me because I wasn't there for him when he was growing up, as a sort of stand-in father figure?"
"I doubt it," Hermione said. "He seemed to resent his stand-in mother figure quite enough and she was there for him."
"Well, until she died."
"And suddenly she was sainted. Harry, I don't know what to make of Teddy Lupin, honestly. But you certainly did everything you could to make him feel like a member of the family."
"Did I, really? I always wanted so much more from Sirius than he was prepared, that is, able to give me -- I never resented him for it, but I might have."
"What's the solution here?" Hermione asked. "Spend time with Teddy now if you think that will mend his resentment. But if I were you I'd be more worried about spending time with my wife."
This struck through Harry heavily; even when she didn't have all of the facts, Hermione certainly had a way of cutting him right to the quick. They Apparated back into the house and Hermione went down to the ground floor, where she and Ron slept. Harry went up to the third floor to have a shower, but it was occupied, probably by Rose or Lily based on the smell of Navinia's Never-Fail Hair Taming Potion emanating from the bathroom. Harry groaned in annoyance and shut himself in his bedroom. Ginny was downstairs with Albus, probably wiping pumpkin juice from his chin while he whined about the difficulty of his life. Sometimes she reminded Harry so much of Petunia with Dudley that it made him shudder. Meanwhile, James was off somewhere, certainly making mischief with Hugo that Ron would find hilarious upon its discovery. Harry sat on the end of his bed and pondered the whereabouts of Teddy. Was he still in bed? What difference would it make to Harry either way? Hermione was right: Harry should be focusing his relationship-mending efforts on his wife. But what if Teddy knew that Harry had been standing there in the darkness the night before, watching him? Could he press charges for that sort of thing? Hermione would be horrified if she knew, and Ginny would literally kill Harry if she ever found out.
He went downstairs, roaming the house aimlessly. Ron had passed out on the couch with the wireless playing a Quidditch game between Greece and Italy. Lily was writing furiously in her journal across the room from her slumbering uncle, and the sight made Harry's skin tighten. He wished to God that every innocent thing in the world didn't remind him of some horror from his school days. Including Teddy, though seeing Remus sucking on Sirius' cock that day had hardly been horrible. Harry had reeled in confusion for a few hours after witnessing it, and then the details settled comfortably into his mind in a way that had made his cock stir: Sirius' fingers twisted through Remus' hair as Remus' head bobbed over Sirius' cock in a leisurely fashion, the way Sirius' head was tipped back just slightly, his eyes shut and his expression serene, and that low, contented sound that was humming in the back of Sirius' throat.
Harry began to get hard just remembering it, and he returned to his bedroom, smiling a little and feeling pleasantly wicked. He thought about putting a locking spell on the door and spreading himself out on the bed for a long overdue wank, thinking of nothing but that scene that had burned itself into his brain at fifteen, Remus on his knees and eager, Sirius sated as he guided Remus' head. But Ginny was adept at breaking locking spells, so Harry pushed the thoughts away and only sat heavily on the end of the bed. It wasn't healthy, anyway. It wasn't as if he could suddenly decide he'd been attracted to men all along. He had enough problems, and had endured enough negative attention for one lifetime, despite the fact that the papers called him a saviour on a regular basis. They were fond of using the term ironically now, in their scolding articles about his children's problems in school.
The rain arrived and began to pound against the rental. Harry turned to see it soaking the already damp porch through the screens. He watched the rain for awhile and thought about calling the whole vacation off, going home before more damage could be done. When he had written Teddy about coming along he'd expected, and maybe even hoped, that Teddy would turn down the invitation, but now his chief reason for staying in Greece was that Teddy was two floors below, sulking in his bed. Or maybe wanking himself quietly under the blankets, with Harry's shirt balled up beside his pillow, where Teddy could easily stuff his face into the fabric and remember the smell of Harry's skin.
Harry sniffed his own sleeve, then laughed at himself. Maybe he was losing his mind, but he felt indignant in the moment, as if he deserved to let it be lost after everything he'd done.
These were always his darkest moods, when he considered what the world owed him. It reminded him a great deal of being fifteen and feeling entitled to smash everything in sight just because things had been hard for him. He sighed and stood to leave the bedroom and rejoin the others.
*
The rain lasted into the evening, and it was Harry's turn to prepare dinner. He set to work in the kitchen, attempting to make a simple and crowd-pleasing dinner of pizza, but the dough wasn't responding to his spells the way he'd hoped it would. It was leaden and refused to rise, and he didn't want to give Hermione the pleasure of being appealed to for help with even cooking, which she was rubbish at, and didn't want to bother Ginny, either, as he knew she would complain that she ended up doing everything while he feigned helplessness with all but the most interesting tasks. Ron of course was useless in the kitchen. Harry stood with his back to the stairway that led down to the second floor's lively living area, where the children were playing some type of card game that involved the occasional blast of water to the face from one of the unlucky cards. There was much shrieking and laughter involved, and as Harry stood staring at the globby lumps of ruined pizza dough that dotted the kitchen counter and pondering how to break the news to his momentarily cheerful family that dinner would have to be ordered out from the gyro shop again, he was almost on the verge of tears.
Someone jogged up the stairs behind him and Harry hurriedly disposed of the dough, levitating all of it into the bin in one easy flick of his wand. Maybe he had enough supplies to start again. He turned to see who was coming into the kitchen: it was Teddy, his eyes red and puffy from sleep and his hair terribly dishevelled. He paused on the top step and stared at Harry for a moment, looking frightened, and then quickly angry. Harry lost his breath, and when the rain blasted against the window behind him he startled like an infant.
"I didn't know you were up here," Teddy said. He went to the cabinet and took down a cup and saucer for tea. Harry wondered why he didn't use his wand. Did he have that little faith in his spell work, that he wouldn't trust himself not to break the china?
"It's alright," Harry said, not even halfway knowing what he meant. Teddy gave him an irritable look and set about getting some of the best tea leaves from a jar Hermione kept tucked behind the more serviceable blends.
"Have you been sleeping all day?" Harry asked. He was sorry that the question sounded so peevish, as he hardly had a right to complain about Teddy's strange habits, considering his own behaviour the night before. He prayed that Teddy hadn't spent all day wondering how he would break the news about Harry's perversion to the rest of the family.
"Not all day," Teddy said, and Harry blushed, wondering if there was something suggestive in his tone. No, no, he was imagining things. He began conjuring measurements of flour again.
"Are you baking a cake for dinner?" Teddy asked, leaning against the counter beside Harry while he sipped his tea.
"Pizza," Harry said. Teddy snorted, and Harry glared at him. "Is that funny for some reason?" he asked. Teddy just shrugged and watched Harry attempt to remake the dough. Harry wanted to ask him to leave, because his closeness was making Harry's hands shake. Teddy smelled like sleep, like warm blankets.
"What's your plan exactly?" Harry asked as the dough plopped lifelessly onto the counter, looking just as it did after his prior attempt.
"My plan?" Teddy said, incredulous.
"Yes, for your life."
"I don't know." Teddy scoffed. "What's yours?"
Harry flushed with annoyance, but when Teddy smiled a little, wickedly, Harry smiled, too, and looked again at his ruined attempt at making dinner.
"My plan is to somehow resurrect this dough," he said.
"Here," Teddy said impatiently, taking his wand from the pocket of his trousers -- those battered tan trousers, the same pair he'd been wearing the night before on the porch -- and muttering a spell Harry didn't recognise in the direction of the dough. Harry winced, afraid the dough might explode fantastically all over the kitchen, but instead it morphed and began to rise rapidly, until it was perfectly puffy and ready to be worked with.
"You know how to cook?" Harry asked, astonished.
"A little," Teddy said. His cheeks were pink. Harry wondered why he was embarrassed, but then, when was the last time anybody complimented Teddy Lupin's skills with a wand? There had been theories among his professors at Hogwarts that Remus' werewolf--spoiled blood had somehow corrupted Teddy's ability to do proper magic, but Harry had always suspected a more run of the mill laziness. Teddy pressed his lips together, and Harry's cheeks burned, too, as he hoped that Teddy's embarrassment had nothing to do with the night before. Maybe Harry had only guiltily imagined Teddy saying his name as he Apparated away. After all, if he did know that Harry had spied on him in that most intimate moment, he likely would be avoiding him as usual, rather than lingering with him in the kitchen and rescuing his dinner. Unless of course he'd liked the idea of Harry standing there in the darkness, watching him. The red on Harry's cheeks spread down to his neck, and he began to sweat a bit. Teddy was staring at him, not confrontational or flirtatious, just looking, his face soft with curiosity.
"Well, thank you," Harry said. "I don't suppose you want to help me make the sauce? Ginny always says I use too much salt."
"You cook for her?" Teddy sounded disgusted, and for some reason this made Harry grin. He imagined Hermione shaking her head at his behaviour in disgust. Well, fine. He'd imagined that plenty of times before in his life and it rarely stopped him.
They worked on the meal together while the others continued their revelry downstairs and the rain fell steadily outside. Harry mostly leaned on the counter and drank wine while he watched Teddy put the pizzas together with ease. It was cosy, being alone with him while still within earshot of the others. Harry imagined what his Marriage Healer would say, or the Psyche Healer he'd seen after the War when his nightmares kept him up all night: You are projecting your orphandom onto the younger man. You want to save him so that you can comfort your lonely inner child. Harry laughed to himself, thinking this. He was starting to get a little drunk.
"What's funny?" Teddy asked, immediately defensive and frowning deeply as the pizzas slid into the clay oven.
"I was laughing at myself," Harry said.
"Why?"
"Because of the way I've begun to think about things. It seems like all I ever do is try to imagine what other people would think about what I'm doing or saying or feeling."
"That's pathetic," Teddy said lightly. He took the wine glass from Harry and drank some.
"Do you like it?" Harry asked. His voice came out unusually low and something heavy shifted in his stomach. Teddy handed the glass back.
"Yeah," he said. "It's good."
They stood facing each other as the conversation drained away. They were about the same height and roughly the same build, tall and thin but not lanky. Harry had filled out through the middle when he was about Teddy's age and Teddy was beginning to grow a bit thicker himself, probably -
due to his leisurely lifestyle. Teddy had a good combination of his parents' features, and he was neither a Metamorphmagus nor a werewolf, thankfully. Harry would not have liked to see Teddy's appearance change, certainly not as a wolf and not even like his mother's had, for fun. Teddy had a sadness to his face, like his father, but he had his mother's sharpness, too. Harry almost dipped in toward Teddy, thinking about how much he liked the way he looked, and how grateful he was that Teddy's sandy hair and gray eyes wouldn't shift like seasons. He swayed back against the counter and laughed at himself again.
"Lightweight," Teddy whispered. Harry heard footsteps clambering up the stairs and the shouting voices of Lily and Rose. He waited for Teddy to move away, and when he didn't, Harry did.
"Dad, what on earth is taking so long?" Lily asked, throwing herself to a seat at the kitchen table. "We're all starving!"
"I messed everything up and Teddy had to rescue the meal," Harry said, sitting down across from her. Lily boggled at him.
"Teddy?" she asked in disbelief. Harry looked up to see Teddy heading for the stairs.
"Where are you going?" Harry asked.
"The food's ready," Teddy said, walking away.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Harry called. Teddy didn't answer, just jogged down the stairs as Albus and Hugo ran up to check on the progress of dinner.
"Pizza!" Hugo shouted appreciatively. Harry gave him a tight smile as the others made their way upstairs. He wanted to follow Teddy downstairs and sit beside him on the edge of his bed, pet his hair, pull him close and tell him -- tell him what? You're special, you're cherished, you are loved dearly. Everything he'd wanted to hear when he was alone among someone else's indifferent family in the house on Privet Drive.
But Harry stayed at the table. His wife was asking him a question, and Hermione was staring at him suspiciously, and the children were asking if they should be expected to serve themselves.
*
Part II
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Harry/Teddy
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~34,000
Summary: During a family vacation, tensions between Harry and Teddy come to a head.
Notes: This was my hp_rarities fic. It owes a huge debt to chlorate's beta work -- without her there would be no soup scene. ;___;
Harry had never been in a more beautiful place and simultaneously in a worse mood. He'd thought that a family vacation to the Greek Islands would alleviate some of the stress they had all suffered during the children's school year, with James nearly flunking out and Albus the target of bullies. Lily was in her third year and already "seriously" dating a Ravenclaw whom Harry greatly disapproved of. Meanwhile, things had been hectic at work and he and Ginny weren't exactly making progress with their Marriage Healer. Harry had diagnosed the problem as a lack of the Weasley family's cheerful exuberance in the more sombre Potter household and had invited his brother-in-law's family to join them for a full month in the glorious Mediterranean sunshine. He had brought Teddy Lupin along, too, having long grown used to the boy's sensitivity about being "left out" of Potter family functions. Teddy was twenty-five years old and hardly a boy anymore, but his emotional maturity was at an all-time low.
"This place is crawling with Muggles," Teddy said disdainfully as he and Harry made their way down the stony beach toward the encampment of Auto-Adjusting Umbrellas and Levitating Sun-Bathing Cushions that had been surrounded by a Disillusionment Charm to protect the family from the prying eyes of Muggles. Harry squinted at the highly accessorised scene ahead of them: Hermione was frantically reapplying Immunity Balm to her children's pale skin and Lily was fighting with Ginny about how high her Levitating Cushion should be allowed to float. He felt weary and reluctant to rejoin them, though Teddy's company had hardly been a respite. Harry had been instructed by Hermione to go and retrieve Teddy from the vacation rental so that he would get "some exposure to the real world." Teddy had slept for most of the family's first two days on Kokari.
"Look at them," Harry said. He stopped walking, and Teddy did, too, frowning at the spectacle of the Weasley and Potter families in the distance. "Don't you envy the Muggles a bit, sometimes? They don't have to keep up with all of these charms and magical artefacts and potions that enhance every experience. Sure, they're uncomfortable lying on the rocks, but they get to just lie there. Do you know what I mean?"
"No." Teddy scowled. "You're mad. The Muggles all look so pathetically unhappy, they make me depressed."
"Oh, is that what it is? The proximity of Muggles is what's making you so surly?"
Teddy gave Harry an irritated look. "If you didn't want me along, I don't know why you bothered to invite me. It isn't as if I don't have my own life now."
Actually, that was exactly the case, and they both knew it. Teddy stalked off muttering to himself and Harry sighed. Teddy had been such a sweet, helpful child, but ever since his fourth year at Hogwarts, his life had been one tumultuous disaster after another. He was always having a drama with a girl or a fight with his poor old gran, whom Harry had been surprised to see Teddy mourn so deeply when she died during his sixth year, as he hadn't thought Teddy had any remaining tender feelings as a teenager. Harry did recall occasionally treating the people who cared about him terribly during his middling teenage years, but as soon as Teddy hit adolescence he was disrespectful and dismissive of Andromeda and everyone else who tried to help him right -
his freewheeling life, and this didn't end when he entered young adulthood. He barely managed to squeak through graduating from Hogwarts and began an infamous affair with Ron's niece Victoire shortly thereafter. If ever there was an ill-advised combination of lovers it was Teddy and Victoire: a brooding, self-centred Englishman and a vain, melodramatic Frenchwoman. Their rows were legendary, and the whole thing ended in a painstakingly staged suicide attempt by Victoire when Teddy left her for an old friend from school, Phillip Fink. Thus began Teddy's loud and tear-strewn coming out process.
"Harry, tell her to come down before she hurts herself," Ginny said when Harry entered the boundaries of the disillusionment charm. He looked up to see his youngest child floating a good twenty metres off the ground on her Levitating Cushion and peering down over the edge at him pleadingly.
"It's not like I haven't been higher on a broom!" Lily shouted.
"Yes, dear, but there's no threat of falling asleep and rolling over the edge on a broom," Ginny said tightly. Harry hated the way her jaw tightened and her temples seemed to pulse when she was cross with the children. He was overcome by a feeling of guilt, as if he had turned her into something less than she'd been fated to become. He wasn't the only one who felt that way, lately; his mother-in-law wasn't as charmed by him as she had once been, probably because she'd been hearing about Harry's every demerit on a regular basis. Ginny stared at Harry expectantly.
"Well?" she snapped.
"She'll be alright," Harry said.
"That's right," Ron piped up suddenly, sprawled out on his own cushion with a Daily Prophet that was wilting in the heat spread over his face. "If she rolls off, Harry will catch her like a snitch."
"Honestly," Hermione said, sitting down beside her husband. Harry's usual envy for the way they were able to chide each other gently and rip into each other completely and still seem to remain so close flared up. He and Ginny had been so afraid to raise their voices to each other for so long, as if theirs was a mythic, sacred love that should face no real obstacles after everything else they had been through, and by the time they finally began to have the regular married-people rows the phenomenon was far more jarring than it should have been.
"Fine." Ginny sat down heavily. "What do I know, I'm only her mother."
Hermione gave Harry a sympathetic look that infuriated him. He walked down to the water's edge and watched Hugo and James dunking each other, laughing and struggling for dominance. -
Albus was sitting forlornly at the water's edge, and Harry watched Teddy walk over to sit beside him.
"What's wrong?" Teddy asked. Harry bent down and pretended to examine a particularly interesting pebble while he listened.
"Nothing," Albus said. He was fifteen years old and still had few friends at school; Harry was more worried about Albus than James, who was allergic to class work and revision but who was always surrounded by loads of boasting mates.
"Don't lie," Teddy said. "You look especially gray this afternoon."
"Thanks."
"Has your brother been teasing you?"
Albus shrugged, which was as good as a confirmation. He was such a sensitive boy and would never make it in the world unless he changed; Harry's heart broke just at the sight of him.
"Want me to hex him?" Teddy asked.
"No," Albus said. "Your spell work is crap and you'd probably end up burning half the town down if you tried."
To Harry's surprise, Teddy only laughed and elbowed Albus in mock annoyance. Albus smirked and looked down at his lap. Harry hadn't realised they were friendly at all. When Teddy was younger he and Harry's children had been rather close, but ever since Teddy's teenage gloom had descended he typically just grunted in irritation if Harry's boys tried to follow him about like embarrassing younger brothers.
Later, when the group had sent their cavalcade of things back to the rental, Harry trudged along with his children rather than Apparating directly into the shower in the rental's master bedroom. Teddy was walking, too, staring at a large head of storm clouds that was blowing in from out over the ocean.
"Looks like bad weather is coming," Harry said, catching up to Teddy. Behind him Rose and Lily were speaking with shrieking excitement about a cute Muggle boy whom the group had passed. Harry tried to tune it out; his daughter's premature enthusiasm for the opposite sex had always given him heartburn.
"Well, we can fuck with a lot of things, wizards, but not the weather," Teddy said, and Harry smiled. After what he had witnessed between Teddy and Albus, he was willing to not take Teddy's brooding sentiments as personal insults.
"Thanks for speaking to Albus earlier," Harry said.
"I didn't do it for you," Teddy said with a scowl, and he Apparated away. Harry stood shocked for a moment, until Ginny caught up with him.
"Where's he off to?" she asked.
"No telling," Harry said, trying to stamp down the angry tone in his voice. It had been this way since Teddy's fourth year. The moment Harry was willing to give Teddy the benefit of the doubt, Teddy threw it back in his face. Harry had no idea why; he'd been nothing but a loving godfather to the boy, though admittedly, with his career as a private consultant to the world's magical governments and his own three children, he hadn't exactly had time to dote on Teddy. But Harry himself had never begrudged his own godfather's necessarily slight presence in his life, even when Sirius was lost to him so early. Thinking of him, his mood dipped even further. He still missed Sirius, and Teddy's father, too.
"Maybe we shouldn't have brought him," Harry said to Ginny, wondering if Teddy would even return to the rental later for dinner.
"No, this is exactly what he needs," Ginny said. "To be reminded what a real family is like."
"You sound as if that will only make him glad he hasn't got one."
Ginny said nothing, and for the second time that afternoon Harry's conversation ended when his companion Apparated away.
*
Dinner that night was the usual boisterous affair, but instead of lifting Harry's spirits as it usually did, he felt irritable and wished he could tell everyone to quiet the hell down. He sat at the head of the table with Ginny and Albus to his left and right, both sullen and only picking at their food. In the middle of the table there was riotous laughter as Ron, drunk as usual, tried to demonstrate to Hugo how best to make milk come out of James' nose as he laughed hysterically. Rose and Lily were red-faced with hilarity and even Hermione was chuckling, her hand over her mouth. Teddy was down at the other end beside her, sulking with his shoulders hunched.
"What do you say we go for a sail tomorrow?" Harry asked Albus. Albus looked to the windows, which were being blasted with rain.
"Have you got a death wish?" he asked, and Harry frowned. He was getting rather tired of everyone's sarcasm.
"The weather might improve," Harry said. "And if not, there are those caves on the other side of the island --"
"I hate caves," Albus said, and Harry bit back a sardonic laugh, because it seemed such a ridiculous thing: to hate caves? Why? Who even thought of them enough to hate them? He looked down at his plate with a grunt.
"Harry, leave him alone," Ginny said, as if Harry's suggestions about how they might spend the day together were torturing poor, helpless Albus. Ginny had always been insanely protective of their younger son; Harry blamed her entirely for Albus' softness and the resultant problems at school, though he would never say so.
"I'm through," Harry said roughly, rising from the table, and for some reason the cheer completely ceased, as if everyone had been listening to him all along. The mirthful Weasleys stared as Harry sent his plate to the kitchen sink.
"Delicious as always, Hermione," Harry said, because he knew his wife hated it when he complimented Hermione's awful cooking out of politeness. He almost felt he should bow before walking out of the room, but he managed to resist the urge.
"Where's dad going?" he heard Lily ask as he walked down the stairs to the third floor, where he and Ginny had been sleeping in the house's largest bedroom. He hurried away before he had to hear his wife's response.
*
Harry couldn't sleep that night. He lay on his back staring at the canopy that floated over the giant four poster bed and listened to his wife's quiet breathing. Lately he'd been having a hard time remembering what it had felt like to fall in love with Ginny. He'd been so preoccupied with everything else -- the War, Voldemort, even Draco Malfoy -- that Ginny had seemed to just suddenly appear on the horizon as a welcome escape, and then when the War ended, there she was again, waiting faithfully. Harry had been propositioned by many women over the years and all over the world, but he had never had a real desire to cheat on his wife, though his sexual disinterest in her was ruining their marriage all the same. Some people just don't like sex that much, he'd said to Ron when Hermione forced the poor bloke to take Harry out and discuss the matter over pints at the Three Broomsticks. Ron had boggled at Harry as if he'd just burst into flames and asked him if he was sure he was doing it right.
He got out of bed and walked out onto the large balcony that was attached to the bedroom. The air outside was cooler than it had been all summer; it was still raining, but just a bit. Harry wished he had a brandy and considered summoning one, but Ron had probably finished what was left of the house's supply after dinner, and Harry's magic had been so out of whack and unpredictable for the past year or so that he was afraid, in the absence of drinkable brandy, a Muggle girl named Brandy might come sailing into his grip. -
He tried to allow this mental image to stir up the kind of fantasy that he'd wanked to as a younger man, but the thought only embarrassed him. His Marriage Healer told him that his dying sex drive and his inability to trust his spell work were linked. Harry could only imagine this story being leaked to the press: The Great Harry Potter: Losing His Magic Because He Can't Get It Up!
The truth was, Harry didn't like trying to solve his own problems. He much preferred confronting the problems of other people, and even then only if those problems involved physical danger rather than this emotional sort. He was rubbish with comforting Albus when he was persecuted, and the situation with Ginny was grave. When they'd come back from the beach she'd looked at him as if she wanted to hex him into the next country just because he asked her if she knew where he'd put his red shirt.
The door on the balcony below the third floor slid open and shut beneath him, and Harry was immediately on edge, listening carefully. Lily and Rose were sleeping on that floor; what if some Muggle prat they'd flirted with during the day had followed them home? Not wanting to startle his daughter and niece if he was wrong, he went back into the bedroom and hurriedly put on his Invisibility Cloak before Apparating down to the lower porch.
When he arrived he realised that whoever had sneaked onto the porch was certainly not a Muggle: a Concealing Charm had been poorly cast and was shimmering around the right side of the porch, over the sofa that looked out at the ocean. Through the cracks in the bubble of secrecy Harry could see a man sitting on the couch, his legs spread wide and his hand down the front of his pants. He couldn't see the man's face; his head was tipped back onto the couch cushions and there was some sort of cloth covering his face. Harry was set to tear off the Cloak and perform an enthusiastic Crucio on the pervert who had broken in his family's vacation home when he recognised the long, ripped trousers that Teddy had been wearing since they arrived in Greece. He had to bite his tongue hard to keep from gasping in shock.
As he stood there allowing his hammering heart to wind down and accept that his daughter wasn't in danger by some sexual predator, he realised that there was really no reason to be shocked: Teddy was sharing a room with James, so he would want privacy for a wank. Perhaps he was aware of the fact that his Concealing Charms weren't reliably functional. Harry was almost jealous of Teddy as he prepared to Apparate away; he so missed the days at Hogwarts when he would cast a Silencing Charm around his bed and have a wank that he'd been dying for all day, back when he used to get half-hard just from sitting on a broomstick. He found himself standing in place and staring at Teddy enviously as Teddy pushed his pants down with impatient need and took his cock in his hand. It was dark on the balcony, but in the glare from a Muggle street lamp outside Harry could see the shine of the precome on Teddy's cock as he rolled his fist up and down, going slow. Harry flushed with embarrassment and told himself to leave, but then Teddy's bare feet inched further apart on the floor, and he sank down deeper into the cushions of the sofa as he spread his legs wider, sighing with deep contentment. For the first time in months, Harry's cock twitched to life. By the time Teddy reached down to rub his balls with one hand as he continued to pump his cock with the other, Harry began to get hard. Teddy's pathetic little moan, as if he'd stepped on something sharp and was surprised by the sting of pain, truly did Harry in. Teddy arched up into his hand and made the sound again, more quietly this time, as if he was afraid to be caught but couldn't stop himself.
Harry's breath was coming faster, and his cock was achingly heavy, tenting not only his pyjama pants but the Invisibility Clock as well. He tried to stay quiet, and told himself again that he should leave, but he was so hard that he was afraid he wouldn't even be able to Apparate properly, let alone walk. He stood watching, wide-eyed as Teddy's pace picked up and his chest began to heave. Harry wondered why Teddy's face was covered; was that some type of fetish? He found himself wishing, guiltily, insanely, that he could see Teddy's face, and tried to imagine what it looked like under the cloth: would he bite his lip and pinch his eyes up tight with the agony of remaining quiet, or would he be slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, his mouth wet and open?
Teddy began to arch up into his hand in panicked little thrusts and Harry knew he was close. His fingers ghosted over his own cock, stiff beneath two layers of cloth, but he didn't dare do anything bolder than that as he watched Teddy come, spurting over his hand and onto his partially exposed stomach. Harry could see Teddy's mouth moving beneath the cloth that covered his face as Teddy took great gulps of air until his breath shuddered out in weakened huffs as the last of his come spilled lazily from the tip of his cock.
Harry was flushed with arousal and afraid to waste what was really a rare phenomenon for him in the past year or so: a desire to come that was so intense that it washed all other concerns away, including the fact that he was spying on his godson in order to vicariously re-experience his lost youth, the sort of desperate longing for release that would send Teddy out onto the porch in the middle of the night just for this. For some reason that was what was getting to Harry the most: that surly, closed-off Teddy even had these types of secret desires. Of course he did, but for some reason Harry was stunned, and so hard in the face of the evidence that his cock hurt with every begging throb.
He stood completely still and watched Teddy remove the cloth from his face. Teddy held it under his nose and inhaled deeply, and Harry realised what it was that he was holding. His missing shirt.
"Oh."
As soon as the involuntarily noise of surprise had left Harry's lips his blood turned to ice. Teddy shot up into a sitting position on the sofa and stuffed the shirt behind his back before even attempting to cover his cock or clean himself up.
"Who's there?" Teddy asked, panting in terror. He grabbed his wand from the table but still didn't move to hide himself. His cock was beginning to soften, and for some reason the sight filled -
Harry with an overwhelming sense of protective tenderness for Teddy. What was he doing? Had he really gone completely mad just from a normal stretch of sexual frustration? He was so ashamed. He Apparated away, but just before he disappeared from the second floor porch and reappeared on the third, he thought he heard Teddy ask, frightened, and so softly that it broke Harry's heart:
"Harry?"
After all, he was the owner of the Invisibility Cloak, and who else could have been standing in the middle of the room unseen? Harry was frantic with shame and worry as he knelt on the floor of the porch attached to master bedroom, a cold ocean breeze ghosting across his back. His erection was gone; probably some effect of Apparation. Harry had certainly never had cause to Apparate while hard before.
Disoriented, his mind reeling, Harry crawled up off the floor and stood trying to catch his breath. Then he held it, listening for sounds from Teddy below. He heard the faint squeak of the sofa cushions and a muttered spell as Teddy removed his faulty Concealing Charm. Teddy's footsteps moved with a lethargic drag across the porch, then the door to the second floor opened and shut and all Harry could hear was the quiet lap of the ocean down below.
He got into bed, shivering with guilt. Ginny was fast asleep and oblivious; Harry had had trouble sleeping since he was very young, and she was more than accustomed to his unannounced entrances and exits. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling, wanting his heart to stop racing, though he knew there was little hope of that. For a moment he allowed himself to imagine Teddy throwing open the bedroom door dramatically and demanding to know the location of the Invisibility Cloak; Harry had hurriedly shoved it under the bed. But no one came, and the house was silent.
He tried to sleep, but gave up quickly when his heart continued to ram his ribcage wildly and the images of Teddy would not fade. Harry wet his lips and allowed himself to picture Teddy on the porch downstairs, thinking he was alone, how guiltily he would have spread Harry's shirt over his face and sucked in the smell of him. But that couldn't be right; Teddy could scarcely be in the same room with Harry without snarling at him in disgust for some reason or another. Perhaps he thought it was someone else's shirt. That, of course, made even less sense than the idea of Teddy harbouring some secret sexual desire for Harry.
Harry's cock reawakened with the thought, and he shifted uncomfortably, his heart beating faster. Could Teddy have been downstairs touching his cock and thinking of Harry, wanting -- what? Harry's mouth around him? His mouth around Harry?
Very carefully, Harry sneaked a hand under the bed sheets. He glanced at Ginny, who would have bounced with happiness if she were awake to see Harry's erection, which was beginning to tent the sheets. There had been much sobbing with the Marriage Healer about how Harry's lack of physical response made her feel ugly and unwanted, though she was still a very -beautiful woman in her early forties. Harry did his best to assure her that he wasn't getting hard for other women, either, but she didn't believe him. His mind raced with terror when he thought about what he was getting hard for now. A man. A young man. His godson, for fuck's sake. Teddy.
Just the thought of Teddy's name made Harry's cock pulse with need, and he was fully hard quickly, as if his body was more than ready to pick up where he'd left off downstairs. He glanced at Ginny again. She was turned away, motionless. Very carefully, he reached down and thumbed the underside of his cock through his pyjamas. Even that dull, tiny sensation sent sparks through his entire nervous system, from the seat of his balls all the way up to his neck. He very slowly undid the fly button on his pants and inched two fingertips inside to stroke the hot flesh of his cock. It took everything he had in him not to gasp in outrageous satisfaction; it had been so long that his eyes actually watered. He'd forgotten how to make himself feel good like this, like nothing else mattered, not his sleeping wife and her hurt feelings or the children whose lives he'd built his own around. Not his relationship to Teddy, what little there was of it. At the moment Harry didn't care about anything except the pressure of his fingertips as they slid stealthily up and down the underside of his cock.
It was infuriating, trying to bring himself off this way. He wanted to cast a concealment spell or Apparate somewhere where he could groan and yank hard on his leaking cock, but something about his encounter with Teddy stopped him. He was afraid to leave the safety of his bed, lest he discover something else tantalizing and disturbing in the rented house, and in the state he was in he had little faith that he could cast a better Concealing Charm than the botched one Teddy had managed downstairs. So he lay still, his furious heartbeat the only indication that just the careful brush on his fingers over his cock was maddeningly good. He inched his legs apart a little at a time, keeping his eyes on Ginny, and reached in further to caress his balls, which were hot and sweating and sensitive from so much teasing stimulation. Harry let his eyes slide shut and allowed his hips to twitch, just barely, then regretted it greatly when Ginny rolled toward him.
Her eyes were still closed, and she moaned a little with the effort of getting comfortable, shoving one hand under her pillow. Harry thought his heart would explode; he still had his hand down the front of his pants, his balls cupped carefully with just two fingers and his thumb at the base of his cock, which seemed to have a heartbeat of its own. He stared at his wife as her face again settled peacefully into sleep. What was he doing? How could he be this way, after everything Ginny had sacrificed for him? She had quit a profitable and exciting Quidditch career to raise Harry's children. What had he ever really done for her since the Chamber of Secrets?
Even these melancholy thoughts couldn't sink Harry's persistent cock, which was sobbing precome against the sheets. Harry could smell the murky scent of his own arousal, which was hardly familiar to him anymore. He withdrew his hand from his pyjama front slowly and flattened it on his chest. His cock was still jutting out of his pyjamas, so he turned onto his side, toward Ginny, to prevent it from making an obvious tent. Smashing his eyes shut tightly, he willed his thoughts about the incident on the second floor away, but they were as stubborn as his erection: the way Teddy's feet had shifted apart on the floor, first his toes and then his heels, gingerly but eager, too. And the way he had breathed in the scent of Harry's shirt afterward, as if -- as if what? As if he wanted to put it in his mouth and suck on it.
Harry lay still and tried to keep his breathing quiet. It hurt badly to allow his cock to deflate until it was sad and crusted with dried precome. He tucked it back into his pyjamas and rolled over. The pain was more emotional than physical, even with his balls aching and unspilled. Finally, he'd had what he and Ginny had been seeking for months, the key that would lock them together again. But Harry could never have awoken Ginny and slipped inside her when his mind was full of nothing but that image of Teddy with his legs apart and his face hidden, pulling on his cock and coming so hard just from the smell of Harry's shirt.
*
The next morning was gloomy and overcast, and the children haunted about the rental while Harry nursed a headache that no amount of Mistress Tilly's De-stressing Solution could conquer. He had slept poorly, of course, and dreamed of Sirius. Teddy had not yet shown his face, and when Harry asked James if Teddy was still sleeping in the bedroom James said of course he was. Part of Harry wanted to go into the bedroom, shut the door behind him and place an understanding hand between Teddy's shoulder blades to rouse him, and another part of him wanted to invent some important consulting that needed doing abroad, leave Greece at once and avoid Teddy for the rest of his life.
It wasn't the first time he'd been aroused by a man, and he was disturbed and depressed by the parallel this incident struck to the previous one, which he didn't like to remember. The first time Harry ever stroked himself off thinking of anyone but Cho Chang was a few hours after he'd hugged Sirius at Grimmauld Place during the summer before his fifth year. To that point in his life, no one had ever touched him the way Sirius did on that quiet afternoon when they were finally alone together for a moment in the room that held Sirius' defiled family tree. Harry had hugged Ron and Hermione, and had of course been assaulted by Mrs Weasley's jubilant affections, but something about the hug with Sirius moved him deeply in a way that he didn't understand for years. He had embraced Harry not the way that others had, as if they were overwhelmed by sympathetic pity or simple relief that he wasn't dead, but as if Harry was truly sacred to him, someone to be drawn close against his chest for no real reason except that he seemed to belong there. Harry hadn't wanted to let go, and after he had, he was still tingling with the touch. He had a wank before dinner while Ron and Hermione were off doing whatever it was they did together back then when they weren't fighting, and he sank into that lingering feeling, allowing himself to call up the warm, sharp smell of Sirius when he'd been so close, the scruff of his short beard against Harry's temple and the heat of his chest. He came all over himself just as quickly as he had when he'd first tried beating off back at Hogwarts in his second year. And of course, later, there was the incident with Remus.
"Harry, are you alright?" Hermione asked, appearing suddenly to put the back of her hand against Harry's forehead. "You look a bit ill."
"I am, I think," Harry said, standing. "Nothing a long walk won't cure, though. Would you like to come with me?"
He could see by Hermione's face that she'd rather not; she'd been in the midst of instructing Rose on the magical properties of the fig leaves she'd picked by the beach two days earlier and hung to dry. But she seemed to think that Harry needed her company, because she smiled dutifully and nodded.
The beach was empty and the sea was rough. Hermione chattered about how she'd heard from a witch down at the sundries shop that more storms were on the way and fretted that they should have taken the trip later in the summer. Harry didn't say that he couldn't have possibly waited any longer to escape his life in London.
"What's bothering you?" Hermione asked, placing her hand on Harry's arm as they walked along the shore. "Are you and Ginny having problems again?"
"That's rather direct," Harry said, but he smiled. He never would have believed, as a teenager, that someday he would take comfort in Hermione's obnoxious concerns about his life.
"Oh, Harry. You can tell me. I promise I won't gossip to Ron."
"That's a lot of bollocks, there. You tell him everything."
"Not everything! If you took me into your confidence I wouldn't let anything spill. It's not as if he wants to chat about his sister's sex life, anyhow."
"I don't especially want to chat about it, either."
"Fine, Harry, but you can't keep everything bottled up."
"We're seeing a Marriage Healer!"
"You know I have no faith in that profession! You need to facilitate communication with your wife, not the Healer."
"That's exactly what the Healer tells us, actually. To facilitate communication. Is there a spell for that?"
"Don't joke!"
"I'm not, actually."
Hermione shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest as the wind blew in cold against them. It was as if Harry's gloom had followed them to the sunny little island where he thought he could escape it: now, instead of frolicking on the beach or exploring the floor of the sea with the help of the giant jars of gillyweed they'd brought along, they would be confined to exactly the sort of suffocating space that they were stuffed into during the children's summers at home, only now they had the far jollier Weasley family close by to make them feel especially inadequate.
"I've done everything wrong," Harry said, knowing that he could be melodramatic with Hermione; she always knew when to not take him seriously.
"Stop feeling sorry for yourself," she said.
"Do you want to hear a curious old secret of mine?" Harry asked. Hermione raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not sure," she said. "Is it very dark?"
"No. Yes. Well, I don't know. I need your input on that, actually."
"Fine, tell me," she said, pretending not to be very eager for new information on virtually anything.
"You remember that summer before fifth year, when we found out about the Order and stayed at Grimmauld Place until we left for school? Or you two did, anyway, but I was there for a short time."
"Lest you ever let us live that down," Hermione said.
"I think I've earned a few childish grudges, thank you," Harry said. "Anyway, that afternoon before we left, I was looking for you two and the house was so quiet, I thought the adults were all downstairs having a meeting, but then I walked toward that old study in the back and I heard this strange sound. I thought maybe it was the ghost of one of Sirius' evil relatives, so I went quiet and peeked inside, and, well. To put it bluntly, I saw Remus Lupin giving Sirius a blow job."
"Oh." Hermione stopped walking and made an uncertain face. "Are you sure that's what you saw?"
"Hermione, what a classic question! Of course I am! Even back then I knew enough about what -
blokes wanted from girls to understand what they were doing to each other. I suppose it should have occurred to me that some blokes might want it from other blokes, but I had rather a lot of other things on my mind at the time and it was a bit of a shock."
"Well, of course it was a shock!" Hermione said. "To see two people you were close to -- being intimate -- when you were so young. And, oh, Harry -- Tonks."
"Yes, precisely. I rather put it out of my mind -- or I think I talked myself into thinking that Remus was only doing it as some kind of favour to Sirius because of all that he'd been through, that it was just Sirius who was bent, but now -- now, I don't know."
"I suppose it doesn't matter too much," Hermione said. "As far as Remus' motivations, anyway. They're both --" She stopped short of gone.
"Yes, well, it really sort of affected me," Harry said, wincing when he heard the words out loud. Hermione frowned.
"How do you mean?" she asked.
"I don't just mean that, I mean the whole summer," Harry said. He was always doing this; halfway wanting to hash out his issues with Hermione and then going back on his desire to do so when she began to figure things out.
"Well, why are you thinking of it now?" Hermione asked, still frowning. "What's it got to do with anything anymore?"
"Nothing," Harry said. "Forget it. I just -- I suppose it's being around Teddy that makes me think of it. You know, Remus, who he really was. I thought I would at least be able to truly get to know him, but." He didn't have to continue the sentiment. Hermione sighed.
"We all lost people," she said. Her parents' memories of her were never able to be properly restored. The spell she'd used to erase them as a clever but inexperienced young girl had been too strong.
"You know, you're the only one who doesn't treat me like a delicate flower when I talk about this stuff," Harry said, not enjoying this at the moment.
"Ginny treats you like a delicate flower under any circumstances? I find that hard to believe."
"No, I suppose she doesn't, either, but she'll get emotional about Fred at the slightest mention of the War, and once we got into a horrible row when I'd got a bit fed up with it and told -
her she could have lost so much more of her family and that she should be grateful that so many survived."
"Harry! What a nasty thing to say!"
"I know, I felt terrible. It just ripped out of me. I'm finding that happening more and more as I get older. Uncontrollable things."
Hermione gave him an appraising look that made him very nervous. They had come to the end of the beach by the rental and had turned around, and were now nearly back to the house. The wind was getting stronger.
"If you're thinking of having the marriage Undone --" Hermione began.
"No!" Harry said. "Not at all, God, Hermione, don't be so dramatic."
"I'm being dramatic! You've brought me out here in this horrible weather to tell me that you're still having angst about seeing your godfather getting sucked off by your former teacher and I'm being dramatic?"
"I'm not having angst! I just wanted to tell someone! Piss off if you don't want to hear it!"
Hermione groaned. "You Potters," she said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Rather moody these days. Teddy, too."
"Leave Teddy alone, he's had a hard life," Harry said. Hermione turned for the house but Harry caught her arm before she could storm off. "Sorry," he said. "Lately I can't seem to talk to anyone without having them hate me by the end of the conversation."
"I don't hate you," Hermione said. "I'm only frustrated with you."
"I'm rather frustrated with myself. Listen, do you think Teddy resents me because I wasn't there for him when he was growing up, as a sort of stand-in father figure?"
"I doubt it," Hermione said. "He seemed to resent his stand-in mother figure quite enough and she was there for him."
"Well, until she died."
"And suddenly she was sainted. Harry, I don't know what to make of Teddy Lupin, honestly. But you certainly did everything you could to make him feel like a member of the family."
"Did I, really? I always wanted so much more from Sirius than he was prepared, that is, able to give me -- I never resented him for it, but I might have."
"What's the solution here?" Hermione asked. "Spend time with Teddy now if you think that will mend his resentment. But if I were you I'd be more worried about spending time with my wife."
This struck through Harry heavily; even when she didn't have all of the facts, Hermione certainly had a way of cutting him right to the quick. They Apparated back into the house and Hermione went down to the ground floor, where she and Ron slept. Harry went up to the third floor to have a shower, but it was occupied, probably by Rose or Lily based on the smell of Navinia's Never-Fail Hair Taming Potion emanating from the bathroom. Harry groaned in annoyance and shut himself in his bedroom. Ginny was downstairs with Albus, probably wiping pumpkin juice from his chin while he whined about the difficulty of his life. Sometimes she reminded Harry so much of Petunia with Dudley that it made him shudder. Meanwhile, James was off somewhere, certainly making mischief with Hugo that Ron would find hilarious upon its discovery. Harry sat on the end of his bed and pondered the whereabouts of Teddy. Was he still in bed? What difference would it make to Harry either way? Hermione was right: Harry should be focusing his relationship-mending efforts on his wife. But what if Teddy knew that Harry had been standing there in the darkness the night before, watching him? Could he press charges for that sort of thing? Hermione would be horrified if she knew, and Ginny would literally kill Harry if she ever found out.
He went downstairs, roaming the house aimlessly. Ron had passed out on the couch with the wireless playing a Quidditch game between Greece and Italy. Lily was writing furiously in her journal across the room from her slumbering uncle, and the sight made Harry's skin tighten. He wished to God that every innocent thing in the world didn't remind him of some horror from his school days. Including Teddy, though seeing Remus sucking on Sirius' cock that day had hardly been horrible. Harry had reeled in confusion for a few hours after witnessing it, and then the details settled comfortably into his mind in a way that had made his cock stir: Sirius' fingers twisted through Remus' hair as Remus' head bobbed over Sirius' cock in a leisurely fashion, the way Sirius' head was tipped back just slightly, his eyes shut and his expression serene, and that low, contented sound that was humming in the back of Sirius' throat.
Harry began to get hard just remembering it, and he returned to his bedroom, smiling a little and feeling pleasantly wicked. He thought about putting a locking spell on the door and spreading himself out on the bed for a long overdue wank, thinking of nothing but that scene that had burned itself into his brain at fifteen, Remus on his knees and eager, Sirius sated as he guided Remus' head. But Ginny was adept at breaking locking spells, so Harry pushed the thoughts away and only sat heavily on the end of the bed. It wasn't healthy, anyway. It wasn't as if he could suddenly decide he'd been attracted to men all along. He had enough problems, and had endured enough negative attention for one lifetime, despite the fact that the papers called him a saviour on a regular basis. They were fond of using the term ironically now, in their scolding articles about his children's problems in school.
The rain arrived and began to pound against the rental. Harry turned to see it soaking the already damp porch through the screens. He watched the rain for awhile and thought about calling the whole vacation off, going home before more damage could be done. When he had written Teddy about coming along he'd expected, and maybe even hoped, that Teddy would turn down the invitation, but now his chief reason for staying in Greece was that Teddy was two floors below, sulking in his bed. Or maybe wanking himself quietly under the blankets, with Harry's shirt balled up beside his pillow, where Teddy could easily stuff his face into the fabric and remember the smell of Harry's skin.
Harry sniffed his own sleeve, then laughed at himself. Maybe he was losing his mind, but he felt indignant in the moment, as if he deserved to let it be lost after everything he'd done.
These were always his darkest moods, when he considered what the world owed him. It reminded him a great deal of being fifteen and feeling entitled to smash everything in sight just because things had been hard for him. He sighed and stood to leave the bedroom and rejoin the others.
*
The rain lasted into the evening, and it was Harry's turn to prepare dinner. He set to work in the kitchen, attempting to make a simple and crowd-pleasing dinner of pizza, but the dough wasn't responding to his spells the way he'd hoped it would. It was leaden and refused to rise, and he didn't want to give Hermione the pleasure of being appealed to for help with even cooking, which she was rubbish at, and didn't want to bother Ginny, either, as he knew she would complain that she ended up doing everything while he feigned helplessness with all but the most interesting tasks. Ron of course was useless in the kitchen. Harry stood with his back to the stairway that led down to the second floor's lively living area, where the children were playing some type of card game that involved the occasional blast of water to the face from one of the unlucky cards. There was much shrieking and laughter involved, and as Harry stood staring at the globby lumps of ruined pizza dough that dotted the kitchen counter and pondering how to break the news to his momentarily cheerful family that dinner would have to be ordered out from the gyro shop again, he was almost on the verge of tears.
Someone jogged up the stairs behind him and Harry hurriedly disposed of the dough, levitating all of it into the bin in one easy flick of his wand. Maybe he had enough supplies to start again. He turned to see who was coming into the kitchen: it was Teddy, his eyes red and puffy from sleep and his hair terribly dishevelled. He paused on the top step and stared at Harry for a moment, looking frightened, and then quickly angry. Harry lost his breath, and when the rain blasted against the window behind him he startled like an infant.
"I didn't know you were up here," Teddy said. He went to the cabinet and took down a cup and saucer for tea. Harry wondered why he didn't use his wand. Did he have that little faith in his spell work, that he wouldn't trust himself not to break the china?
"It's alright," Harry said, not even halfway knowing what he meant. Teddy gave him an irritable look and set about getting some of the best tea leaves from a jar Hermione kept tucked behind the more serviceable blends.
"Have you been sleeping all day?" Harry asked. He was sorry that the question sounded so peevish, as he hardly had a right to complain about Teddy's strange habits, considering his own behaviour the night before. He prayed that Teddy hadn't spent all day wondering how he would break the news about Harry's perversion to the rest of the family.
"Not all day," Teddy said, and Harry blushed, wondering if there was something suggestive in his tone. No, no, he was imagining things. He began conjuring measurements of flour again.
"Are you baking a cake for dinner?" Teddy asked, leaning against the counter beside Harry while he sipped his tea.
"Pizza," Harry said. Teddy snorted, and Harry glared at him. "Is that funny for some reason?" he asked. Teddy just shrugged and watched Harry attempt to remake the dough. Harry wanted to ask him to leave, because his closeness was making Harry's hands shake. Teddy smelled like sleep, like warm blankets.
"What's your plan exactly?" Harry asked as the dough plopped lifelessly onto the counter, looking just as it did after his prior attempt.
"My plan?" Teddy said, incredulous.
"Yes, for your life."
"I don't know." Teddy scoffed. "What's yours?"
Harry flushed with annoyance, but when Teddy smiled a little, wickedly, Harry smiled, too, and looked again at his ruined attempt at making dinner.
"My plan is to somehow resurrect this dough," he said.
"Here," Teddy said impatiently, taking his wand from the pocket of his trousers -- those battered tan trousers, the same pair he'd been wearing the night before on the porch -- and muttering a spell Harry didn't recognise in the direction of the dough. Harry winced, afraid the dough might explode fantastically all over the kitchen, but instead it morphed and began to rise rapidly, until it was perfectly puffy and ready to be worked with.
"You know how to cook?" Harry asked, astonished.
"A little," Teddy said. His cheeks were pink. Harry wondered why he was embarrassed, but then, when was the last time anybody complimented Teddy Lupin's skills with a wand? There had been theories among his professors at Hogwarts that Remus' werewolf--spoiled blood had somehow corrupted Teddy's ability to do proper magic, but Harry had always suspected a more run of the mill laziness. Teddy pressed his lips together, and Harry's cheeks burned, too, as he hoped that Teddy's embarrassment had nothing to do with the night before. Maybe Harry had only guiltily imagined Teddy saying his name as he Apparated away. After all, if he did know that Harry had spied on him in that most intimate moment, he likely would be avoiding him as usual, rather than lingering with him in the kitchen and rescuing his dinner. Unless of course he'd liked the idea of Harry standing there in the darkness, watching him. The red on Harry's cheeks spread down to his neck, and he began to sweat a bit. Teddy was staring at him, not confrontational or flirtatious, just looking, his face soft with curiosity.
"Well, thank you," Harry said. "I don't suppose you want to help me make the sauce? Ginny always says I use too much salt."
"You cook for her?" Teddy sounded disgusted, and for some reason this made Harry grin. He imagined Hermione shaking her head at his behaviour in disgust. Well, fine. He'd imagined that plenty of times before in his life and it rarely stopped him.
They worked on the meal together while the others continued their revelry downstairs and the rain fell steadily outside. Harry mostly leaned on the counter and drank wine while he watched Teddy put the pizzas together with ease. It was cosy, being alone with him while still within earshot of the others. Harry imagined what his Marriage Healer would say, or the Psyche Healer he'd seen after the War when his nightmares kept him up all night: You are projecting your orphandom onto the younger man. You want to save him so that you can comfort your lonely inner child. Harry laughed to himself, thinking this. He was starting to get a little drunk.
"What's funny?" Teddy asked, immediately defensive and frowning deeply as the pizzas slid into the clay oven.
"I was laughing at myself," Harry said.
"Why?"
"Because of the way I've begun to think about things. It seems like all I ever do is try to imagine what other people would think about what I'm doing or saying or feeling."
"That's pathetic," Teddy said lightly. He took the wine glass from Harry and drank some.
"Do you like it?" Harry asked. His voice came out unusually low and something heavy shifted in his stomach. Teddy handed the glass back.
"Yeah," he said. "It's good."
They stood facing each other as the conversation drained away. They were about the same height and roughly the same build, tall and thin but not lanky. Harry had filled out through the middle when he was about Teddy's age and Teddy was beginning to grow a bit thicker himself, probably -
due to his leisurely lifestyle. Teddy had a good combination of his parents' features, and he was neither a Metamorphmagus nor a werewolf, thankfully. Harry would not have liked to see Teddy's appearance change, certainly not as a wolf and not even like his mother's had, for fun. Teddy had a sadness to his face, like his father, but he had his mother's sharpness, too. Harry almost dipped in toward Teddy, thinking about how much he liked the way he looked, and how grateful he was that Teddy's sandy hair and gray eyes wouldn't shift like seasons. He swayed back against the counter and laughed at himself again.
"Lightweight," Teddy whispered. Harry heard footsteps clambering up the stairs and the shouting voices of Lily and Rose. He waited for Teddy to move away, and when he didn't, Harry did.
"Dad, what on earth is taking so long?" Lily asked, throwing herself to a seat at the kitchen table. "We're all starving!"
"I messed everything up and Teddy had to rescue the meal," Harry said, sitting down across from her. Lily boggled at him.
"Teddy?" she asked in disbelief. Harry looked up to see Teddy heading for the stairs.
"Where are you going?" Harry asked.
"The food's ready," Teddy said, walking away.
"Aren't you going to eat?" Harry called. Teddy didn't answer, just jogged down the stairs as Albus and Hugo ran up to check on the progress of dinner.
"Pizza!" Hugo shouted appreciatively. Harry gave him a tight smile as the others made their way upstairs. He wanted to follow Teddy downstairs and sit beside him on the edge of his bed, pet his hair, pull him close and tell him -- tell him what? You're special, you're cherished, you are loved dearly. Everything he'd wanted to hear when he was alone among someone else's indifferent family in the house on Privet Drive.
But Harry stayed at the table. His wife was asking him a question, and Hermione was staring at him suspiciously, and the children were asking if they should be expected to serve themselves.
*
Part II