Fic: 'Heredity'
Title: Heredity
Author: Jules Noctambule (werewolf_lib)
Rating: PG
Pairing(s): Remus/Sirius
Summary: Not every trait will skip a generation.
Disclaimer: Not mine -- do you think I'd have added on that epilogue if it was?
Author's Notes: SPOILERS for DH, hence the vague summary.
On days when he needed to be anywhere other than alone with himself, Ted Lupin would go to the attic of his godfather's house and spend a few hours going through his parent's things. It soothed him to read their letters and go through their photographs; it revealed to him that they were so much more than the idealised war heroes with their portraits blank-faced and steadfast aside the others hung in the Ministry.
Ted kept mostly to the older boxes, avoiding the ones that contained the things from when he was born. He preferred the smiling young woman who wrote in her diary about the things she got away with at school and the warm-eyed man who sketched little pictures into the margins of his letters to the woman with the false smile and the empty-looking man he saw in later pictures. By most honest accounts their brief marriage had been a spectacular failure; though he knew it wasn't his fault, not really, Ted had always felt slightly guilty about that. Maybe things would have been better if his mother had married the unnamed man who worked with the dragons who'd appeared regularly in her diary for some time.
'You shouldn't be with someone just because other people think you ought to be together,' he said to himself, pulling another box out of the stack and opening it up. It was bad enough that little James had come in right after Victoire had kissed him and even worse that he'd promptly run out to tell everyone about it. The teasing and encouragement had begun that very night and had yet to let up.
He brushed quite a lot of dust off a particularly old-looking photo album from the bottom of the box but didn't open it yet. Here, alone in the attic, he was able to think about things he felt unable to confront anywhere else. Being alone felt less frightening here and there was no one to tease him or clap him heartily on the back and ask annoying personal questions full of assumptions. Even his godfather had managed to irk him today, asking him if he'd heard from Victoire even before he'd asked Ted about himself.
It wasn't that he didn't like her, just that he had begun to suspect he didn't like her nearly as much as he did someone else, someone Ted doubted would go over well with his almost-family, someone who wasn't a Weasley. . .or even a girl.
In early August, he'd stopped by the bookshop on his way home from work, hoping to pick up the latest issue of Hobby Broom-Building Monthly. It hadn't been on the shelves so he'd asked at the counter and it was then that he'd been introduced to Gavin. As soon as the dark-haired, hazel-eyed wizard had met his gaze, Ted felt. . .well, breathless was the word that came to mind when he was being truthful with himself. They'd chatted for a bit and the feeling had only increased, so much so that he'd almost left without his purchase.
Over the following weeks, Ted's visits to the bookshop had become more and more frequent. Always, he and Gavin would talk and and always Ted would be confonted with the knowledge that these casual moments made him feel all the things that had been missing when Victoire kissed him that day at the train station. Sometimes, he thought about asking him out for a coffee or something but had yet to work up the nerve. He'd spent almost every day since wondering over it, trying to decipher what it meant while knowing that he shouldn't tell anyone anything.
He opened the old, leatherbound album in his hands and looked down at the smiling, waving picture of his father on the first page. All his life, Ted had tried to do the things that he believed would make his parents proud. 'What would you think of me for this?' he whispered to the photograph, turning the page.
"Remus, our house, July 1978" was the caption beneath a large picture of him standing in front of a stone cottage. Ted had seen the same cottage before in other pictures but never one after 1981. The original James and Lily Potter were with him in the next picture, all waving, their bright faces beaming. Ted thumbed through the album, watching as the green leaves of summer turned russet and golden. There were numerous pictures of his father doing everything from cooking a meal to sleeping in front of the fireplace, pictures Ted had never seen before. Obviously, he was part of the "our" in "our house". Ted found himself feeling slightly chagrined; if his father had been married before, no one had ever mentioned it to him.
A few pages ahead, the subject of the pictures changed. Sirius Black stood by his motorcycle, gesturing proudly toward it. He'd heard many stories about Sirius when he was growing up but hadn't often seen pictures of him. His reputation of being good-looking had certainly been deserved and judging by the subsequent pictures of him trying out tricks on the motorcycle, so had his reputation as a daredevil.
After a few pages of nothing but Sirius Black came a picture of his father and Sirius together.
Remus looked tired and there was a bandage around his right arm, making Ted wonder if the night before had been a full moon. 'All the worrying you did about that,' he said to the picture, 'thinking you were going to pass that on to me. I'm fine, you know.'
Despite that, he looked happy and very much as if he was enjoying himself. He and Sirius were sitting on the sofa, each holding a glass of something sparkling. "Second Anniversary, 1979" was written below the picture.
'Anniversary of what?' Ted wondered aloud. He turned to the next page and almost dropped the album.
There on the same sofa were his father and Sirius, kissing each other. "Happy Anniversary -- I Love You" was written in his father's handwriting across the margins of the picture.
It took Teddy a moment to compose himself. As the shock of it all wore off, things began to make sense. 'No wonder you were unhappy being married to Mum,' he said, sighing.
Harry's head appeared in the attic's doorway. 'Teddy? You all right up here?' Without waiting for an answer, his godfather came in.
'What's this?' he asked, holding out the album.
Harry blinked. 'Um. . . .'
He closed the album and put it back in the box before standing up. 'Why didn't anyone tell me?'
'Well, we. . . .'
'How long were they together? Years, obviously, and no one's ever said a thing! Did you think it was too shameful to mention?'
Harry shook his head. 'Teddy, it was nothing like that. I just couldn't think of a way to say it. I mean, that's a hell of a thing to tell someone, isn't it?'
'What, that my dad loved someone else before my mum or that he loved another man?'
His godfather shrugged. 'Both, really. Who wants to think of their parents as having ever loved anyone else?'
'I'm not all that sure mine did love each other,' Ted admitted. 'Do you think my dad really loved her?'
'Of course he did. He loved you, too, very much.' Harry paused as if debating speaking his mind. 'I know that he was in love with Sirius, though.'
He nodded. 'There's a difference, isn't there, between loving someone and being in love with them. All these years and I thought it was me, you know. I thought they had those rows over me.'
'Teddy, I'm sorry. I should have said something, I know.'
'I wish you had,' he said to him, walking toward the door. 'It would have helped.'
Outside, Ted started to walk. He'd walked quite a while before he realised that he didn't know where he was going. Since he was headed in the direction of Diagon Alley, he decided he might as well go have a cup of coffee to help settle his thoughts.
The Witches' Brew coffeehouse was bustling, full of young witches and wizards in front of tables filled with fancy, frilly coffee-based drinks and laptop comupters, both of which had taken off quickly since their introduction to the wizarding world nearly a decade earlier.
Ted ordered a plain coffee to the apparent surprise of the blue-haired witch at the counter. After receiving it, he began to search for a place to sit among the people and their technological toys. He was about to give up and take his drink to go when he felt a tap on his arm.
Behind him, sitting with a mug of coffee and a book, was Gavin.
'Need a place to sit?'
'Yeah, that'd be great. If you're not waiting for someone, of course.'
'No, not anymore. Just promise that you won't pull out one of those things,' he said, indicating a nearby laptop.
'Not a chance,' Ted promised, settling in to the chair opposite Gavin. 'Looks like we're the only ones without them.'
'And the only ones with decent taste in coffee. Why bother wasting perfectly good coffee by putting it in something resembling a milkshake?'
'No idea.' He took a deep sip from his mug, concentrating on the flavour and trying to clear his mind. The afternoon's discovery had been less shocking than it ought to have been, really. It answered so much about his father's past and more than a few questions that Ted had about himself. He thought of his father in the pictures with Sirius and how different he'd looked than in the pictures Ted had of him with his mother. He'd looked so relaxed, so content. So happy. He would disappoint more than a few people if he didn't go out with Victoire, he knew, but Ted thought that at the very least, it might have made his father proud to know that he wasn't going to let other people make that decision for him.
Ted put down his mug and dared a smile at Gavin. 'So, who are you when you aren't busy at work, then?'
'No one very interesting, I'm afraid,' Gavin replied, smiling back.
It made him giddy to be smiled at like that and this time, Ted relished the intoxicating feeling. 'We'll see about that.'
Author: Jules Noctambule (werewolf_lib)
Rating: PG
Pairing(s): Remus/Sirius
Summary: Not every trait will skip a generation.
Disclaimer: Not mine -- do you think I'd have added on that epilogue if it was?
Author's Notes: SPOILERS for DH, hence the vague summary.
On days when he needed to be anywhere other than alone with himself, Ted Lupin would go to the attic of his godfather's house and spend a few hours going through his parent's things. It soothed him to read their letters and go through their photographs; it revealed to him that they were so much more than the idealised war heroes with their portraits blank-faced and steadfast aside the others hung in the Ministry.
Ted kept mostly to the older boxes, avoiding the ones that contained the things from when he was born. He preferred the smiling young woman who wrote in her diary about the things she got away with at school and the warm-eyed man who sketched little pictures into the margins of his letters to the woman with the false smile and the empty-looking man he saw in later pictures. By most honest accounts their brief marriage had been a spectacular failure; though he knew it wasn't his fault, not really, Ted had always felt slightly guilty about that. Maybe things would have been better if his mother had married the unnamed man who worked with the dragons who'd appeared regularly in her diary for some time.
'You shouldn't be with someone just because other people think you ought to be together,' he said to himself, pulling another box out of the stack and opening it up. It was bad enough that little James had come in right after Victoire had kissed him and even worse that he'd promptly run out to tell everyone about it. The teasing and encouragement had begun that very night and had yet to let up.
He brushed quite a lot of dust off a particularly old-looking photo album from the bottom of the box but didn't open it yet. Here, alone in the attic, he was able to think about things he felt unable to confront anywhere else. Being alone felt less frightening here and there was no one to tease him or clap him heartily on the back and ask annoying personal questions full of assumptions. Even his godfather had managed to irk him today, asking him if he'd heard from Victoire even before he'd asked Ted about himself.
It wasn't that he didn't like her, just that he had begun to suspect he didn't like her nearly as much as he did someone else, someone Ted doubted would go over well with his almost-family, someone who wasn't a Weasley. . .or even a girl.
In early August, he'd stopped by the bookshop on his way home from work, hoping to pick up the latest issue of Hobby Broom-Building Monthly. It hadn't been on the shelves so he'd asked at the counter and it was then that he'd been introduced to Gavin. As soon as the dark-haired, hazel-eyed wizard had met his gaze, Ted felt. . .well, breathless was the word that came to mind when he was being truthful with himself. They'd chatted for a bit and the feeling had only increased, so much so that he'd almost left without his purchase.
Over the following weeks, Ted's visits to the bookshop had become more and more frequent. Always, he and Gavin would talk and and always Ted would be confonted with the knowledge that these casual moments made him feel all the things that had been missing when Victoire kissed him that day at the train station. Sometimes, he thought about asking him out for a coffee or something but had yet to work up the nerve. He'd spent almost every day since wondering over it, trying to decipher what it meant while knowing that he shouldn't tell anyone anything.
He opened the old, leatherbound album in his hands and looked down at the smiling, waving picture of his father on the first page. All his life, Ted had tried to do the things that he believed would make his parents proud. 'What would you think of me for this?' he whispered to the photograph, turning the page.
"Remus, our house, July 1978" was the caption beneath a large picture of him standing in front of a stone cottage. Ted had seen the same cottage before in other pictures but never one after 1981. The original James and Lily Potter were with him in the next picture, all waving, their bright faces beaming. Ted thumbed through the album, watching as the green leaves of summer turned russet and golden. There were numerous pictures of his father doing everything from cooking a meal to sleeping in front of the fireplace, pictures Ted had never seen before. Obviously, he was part of the "our" in "our house". Ted found himself feeling slightly chagrined; if his father had been married before, no one had ever mentioned it to him.
A few pages ahead, the subject of the pictures changed. Sirius Black stood by his motorcycle, gesturing proudly toward it. He'd heard many stories about Sirius when he was growing up but hadn't often seen pictures of him. His reputation of being good-looking had certainly been deserved and judging by the subsequent pictures of him trying out tricks on the motorcycle, so had his reputation as a daredevil.
After a few pages of nothing but Sirius Black came a picture of his father and Sirius together.
Remus looked tired and there was a bandage around his right arm, making Ted wonder if the night before had been a full moon. 'All the worrying you did about that,' he said to the picture, 'thinking you were going to pass that on to me. I'm fine, you know.'
Despite that, he looked happy and very much as if he was enjoying himself. He and Sirius were sitting on the sofa, each holding a glass of something sparkling. "Second Anniversary, 1979" was written below the picture.
'Anniversary of what?' Ted wondered aloud. He turned to the next page and almost dropped the album.
There on the same sofa were his father and Sirius, kissing each other. "Happy Anniversary -- I Love You" was written in his father's handwriting across the margins of the picture.
It took Teddy a moment to compose himself. As the shock of it all wore off, things began to make sense. 'No wonder you were unhappy being married to Mum,' he said, sighing.
Harry's head appeared in the attic's doorway. 'Teddy? You all right up here?' Without waiting for an answer, his godfather came in.
'What's this?' he asked, holding out the album.
Harry blinked. 'Um. . . .'
He closed the album and put it back in the box before standing up. 'Why didn't anyone tell me?'
'Well, we. . . .'
'How long were they together? Years, obviously, and no one's ever said a thing! Did you think it was too shameful to mention?'
Harry shook his head. 'Teddy, it was nothing like that. I just couldn't think of a way to say it. I mean, that's a hell of a thing to tell someone, isn't it?'
'What, that my dad loved someone else before my mum or that he loved another man?'
His godfather shrugged. 'Both, really. Who wants to think of their parents as having ever loved anyone else?'
'I'm not all that sure mine did love each other,' Ted admitted. 'Do you think my dad really loved her?'
'Of course he did. He loved you, too, very much.' Harry paused as if debating speaking his mind. 'I know that he was in love with Sirius, though.'
He nodded. 'There's a difference, isn't there, between loving someone and being in love with them. All these years and I thought it was me, you know. I thought they had those rows over me.'
'Teddy, I'm sorry. I should have said something, I know.'
'I wish you had,' he said to him, walking toward the door. 'It would have helped.'
Outside, Ted started to walk. He'd walked quite a while before he realised that he didn't know where he was going. Since he was headed in the direction of Diagon Alley, he decided he might as well go have a cup of coffee to help settle his thoughts.
The Witches' Brew coffeehouse was bustling, full of young witches and wizards in front of tables filled with fancy, frilly coffee-based drinks and laptop comupters, both of which had taken off quickly since their introduction to the wizarding world nearly a decade earlier.
Ted ordered a plain coffee to the apparent surprise of the blue-haired witch at the counter. After receiving it, he began to search for a place to sit among the people and their technological toys. He was about to give up and take his drink to go when he felt a tap on his arm.
Behind him, sitting with a mug of coffee and a book, was Gavin.
'Need a place to sit?'
'Yeah, that'd be great. If you're not waiting for someone, of course.'
'No, not anymore. Just promise that you won't pull out one of those things,' he said, indicating a nearby laptop.
'Not a chance,' Ted promised, settling in to the chair opposite Gavin. 'Looks like we're the only ones without them.'
'And the only ones with decent taste in coffee. Why bother wasting perfectly good coffee by putting it in something resembling a milkshake?'
'No idea.' He took a deep sip from his mug, concentrating on the flavour and trying to clear his mind. The afternoon's discovery had been less shocking than it ought to have been, really. It answered so much about his father's past and more than a few questions that Ted had about himself. He thought of his father in the pictures with Sirius and how different he'd looked than in the pictures Ted had of him with his mother. He'd looked so relaxed, so content. So happy. He would disappoint more than a few people if he didn't go out with Victoire, he knew, but Ted thought that at the very least, it might have made his father proud to know that he wasn't going to let other people make that decision for him.
Ted put down his mug and dared a smile at Gavin. 'So, who are you when you aren't busy at work, then?'
'No one very interesting, I'm afraid,' Gavin replied, smiling back.
It made him giddy to be smiled at like that and this time, Ted relished the intoxicating feeling. 'We'll see about that.'