Fic: Heavn (Version 2.0) for rhye
Title: Heavn (Version 2.0)
Author/Artist: magnetic_pole
Recipient: rhye
Rating: PG-13 for adult themes
Contents or warnings: *Grief; kid!fic; mentions of casual magical drug use.*
Word count: 4700
Summary: Teddy’s always been able to hook them up. The afterlife’s no different.
Notes: A happy, happy new year to you, rhye! I hope this story answers your call for domesticity and family drama. All the thanks in the world for waiting patiently until our very last regular posting day. May this story usher in a wonderful, fannish, and fun 2014 for you and for all Remus/Sirius shippers!
For two days after Teddy’s funeral, Dora can’t get out of bed.
She’d been fine at the funeral itself, dry eyed, coherent, as gracious with the guests as possible. If her mouth had been a bit dry, if she’d been nauseated and unsteady on her feet--well, Ginny had held her elbow and murmured reassurances in her ear, and no one had commented. Mum, oddly, had cried throughout the service, in a gasping, ragged way that made Lily Luna look at the two of them with wide, worried eyes.
But Dora had always been able to push through a crisis.
As soon as she’d got home, she’d needed to be alone. She’d fallen in bed almost immediately, unable to stand up any longer, feeling physical pain at the sound of Harry talking to her mum over coffee in the kitchen. She’d crawled under the duvet without taking off her robes or shoes and lay there, first curled up, then face down, with the pillow pulled over her head.
She lies there now, unable to move. Teddy, she thinks. Teddy. Nineteen years old. It had never occurred to her that her little boy might go before her.
She cries until she can’t cry any more, and then she rests for a bit, and then she cries again. Harry knocks at her door to say there’s a tray for dinner, but she ignores him. She gets up once to take off her shoes and once to use the toilet, and each time it feels like Apparating for the very first time--exhausting. Even more so than after Remus’ death, she feels bereft, as if a part of her has been torn away. Her pillow is soaked through, cold and damp.
“Aunt Dora?” Dora raises the corner of the duvet. It’s Lily Luna at the door, peering through the crack. Dora recognizes the soft voice, the flash of red hair.
“Mmmmm,” she says. She can’t bring herself to say “go away” to Lily.
Lily Luna pushes the door wide open and leans against the doorframe. “I’m worried about you, Aunt Dora.” Lily plays with her hair--flip, flip, flip.
Dora sighs and lifts the edge of the duvet. “Come here, sweetie.”
“I’ve got my clothes on still.”
“That’s okay. I do, too.”
Lily Luna crawls into bed with Dora, and Dora holds her close, nuzzling her soft hair. She’s ten, almost eleven. A wonderful age, sweet, still open to big hugs and cuddling in bed.
“Do you think you’ll ever get out of bed again?” Lily asks. Her voice is muffled by Dora’s chest.
“Soon,” Dora says. “I’m still a bit sad right now.”
“It’s just--” Lily Luna snuggles up against her. “I don’t want to rush you, but Teddy’s been texting James, trying to get hold of you.”
“WHAT?” Dora sits up immediately and grabs Lily by her shoulders. “Look at me.”
Lily looks at her and blinks. “Well, you haven’t been looking at your mobile, and so Teddy’s trying to get a hold of you through James, and he won’t stop. He thought maybe I should tell you.”
“What do you mean, Teddy’s trying to get a hold of me?” Dora’s heart thuds. “How’s he texting me?”
Lily frowns. “There’s a version of Heavn for the mobile, you know, so wizards can set up a proper video session, on the computer.”
The computer. For years, Dora had thought that the odd little Muggle box was a Come Pewter, and Teddy had laughed and laughed when she’d finally left him a note, spelling it out.
“You’ve got to explain these things to me, you know,” Dora says. “Please, Lily Luna.”
“Oh,” Lily Luna says. “Okay. I’ve got Heavn Version 2.0 set up on Teddy’s computer,” she begins. “You know, the voice-over IP for talking to dead people? Heavn used to be really useless, all dropped calls and terrible video quality. No better than a crystal ball. I tried it once, a year ago or so, for Dad to talk to his parents--it was supposed to be a surprise for his birthday, you know how he likes that sort of thing--but I couldn’t even get through."
Dora stares, uncomprehending.
"I think there was something wrong with the charm sequence," Lily adds. "After Teddy started texting, though, I downloaded the newest version. The reviews all say it’s much better, almost like life. We should try it.”
Dora’s squeezing Lily so hard she can feel Lily squirm. She loosens her grip. “Show me.”
“We’ll have to get out of bed. The computer’s in Teddy’s room.”
Dora’s out of bed in an instant.
“Wait for me!” Lily Luna calls.
***
Dora can still remember the first months after her Great Aunt Walburga died, the way her mum got all white and quiet and Dad had to do all the cooking.
“Your mum misses her aunt,” he’d told her when she’d finally begun to complain about the frozen Magic Meals. “Just give her time.”
As a child, Dora didn’t understand why anyone would miss Great Aunt Walburga, who was mean-spirited and used to scream at Sirius and Regulus when they lived with her and who hardly even noticed that Dora was there. (Now, as an adult, Dora suspects Walburga was probably sick in a way that should have been treated with sessions at St Mungo’s and a strong potion, but that doesn’t make her remember Walburga with any more kindness.) All she knew was that after Walburga died Mum started dragging her and Grandmother to seances and fortune tellers every weekend. They’d stop off at Walburga’s house near Kings Cross and pick up some of her clothes or some hair from her hairbrush, and they’d Floo to these spooky places where Grandmother would pass along bits of Walburga and pay Galleons and Galleons to hear some old witch or wizard talk.
“They’ve never even met her,” she complained to Mum one time, after three quarters of an hour staring at a deck of Life and Death cards and listening to an ancient wizard talk about love. “And I’m pretty certain she never said I love you to anyone in her life.” It puzzled her, why her mum and grandmother paid so much for so many lies.
“Your Great Aunt’s still out there,” Mum had said absently, ignoring the bit about I love yous. “We just need to find the right portal.” She’d said that last word carefully, as if she’d given it much thought.
After Remus’s death, Dora spent six days going through his things. On the sixth, Mum had caught her sitting on their bed with a hairbrush in her hand. She came into the room, sat down next to Dora, and took the hairbrush from her hand. “Don’t,” Mum said quietly.
“No?” Dora asked.
Mum shook her head. “No. I’ll finish up here, don’t you think?”
Dora nodded, and Remus was finally, truly gone.
***
Lily Luna already has the computer in Teddy’s room turned on. She sits at Teddy’s desk while Dora stands behind her. Dora’s heart is beating wildly.
Heavn 2.0, the screen reads. The word is spelled out in cheerful round blue letters. Beneath those letters, Dora can see her own face and Lily Luna’s reflected in a small box.
“Is this like a two-way mirror?” she asks, and Lily frowns.
“A bit,” Lily says. She’s not the computer genius of the family--Albus Severus is--but she’s by far the best at explaining things. She got her father set up on Personal Parchments just last year, and he has more than a thousand Pals already. “There’s a camera there--” She points at a small mechanism with a blinking light that’s perched on top the computer. “And when we connect to Teddy, we’ll see him instead of ourselves. There’s a microphone, too, so he can hear you.”
It’s odd to watch little Lily setting the computer up for her. That’s always been Teddy’s task, connecting them to the outside world. Ever since he was a child, Teddy’s known people who can help, places willing to sell her what she’s looking for, how to get things done. “I’ll hook you up, Mum,” he’d say with a smile. Just two weeks ago he’d finally found some dubious Black family heirlooms for her through a friend. Magical Law Enforcement had only been steps behind.
“How do you know where to find him?” Dora asks.
“Lost Souls dot magic dot uk,” Lily says. “But you don’t need to worry about that. After we’ve talked to him once, his address will be here already. All you’ll need to do is touch here.”
She points at the screen, at a green box labeled Connect. “Are you ready?”
Dora stares at the green box. “Could you give me a moment, Lily Luna?” she asks.
“Oh, sorry!” Lily says, backing away.
As Lily leaves the room, Dora sinks down into the chair and stares at the green box on the screen.
Connect. She touches it.
***
“Teddy!”
The party at Godric’s Hollow is in full swing when Teddy hears his name. It’s that nervous little wizard Peter, who’s let the cottage in the garden and always seems to be afraid that Dad or Sirius or Lily or James will yell at him. Teddy’s reluctant to leave--James, Harry’s dad, has left him in charge of the make-shift bar--but his curiosity gets the better of him.
He leaves his firewhiskey on the coffee table and finds Peter standing near the door to his new bedroom.
“There’s someone trying to reach you on your computer,” Peter says. Then, hurriedly: “I wasn’t snooping in your room or anything--just walking by.”
“Okay,” Teddy says. Maybe it’s Mum. He’s been texting James (his James, the James at home) for days. It’s got to the point where he’s almost worried about her. He’s dead, right? Doesn’t Mum care what he’s up to now? He doesn’t need to talk much, just see her again and let her know he’s okay.
Dead, but okay.
Teddy sits down at the computer. Dad helped him set it up two days ago. Well, helped is generous description of the situation--mostly Dad had sat on the bed and talked to him while Teddy reformatted the ancient machine.
Dammit, he’s too slow arriving. Mum’s gone already.
“Is that your mum?” Dad stands in the doorway to his room, dressed for the party in a pilled brown pullover and a pair of trousers that are a bit too short. Someone needs to shop for him, clearly.
“She tried, I missed her,” Teddy says. “I’m trying again now.” He touches the green box on the screen. Connect.
“May I come in? Do you mind?” Dad asks. Of all the surprises Teddy’s encountered in the afterlife in the past four days, his dad’s unfailing politeness has surprised him the most. Mum always made him sound like an entitled jerk.
“Of course.”
Dad stands behind him, a hand on Teddy’s shoulder. They wait, listening to an electronic ringtone, hoping Mum will connect.
“Remus?”
Teddy glances over his shoulder. Now it’s Sirius at the doorway. He’s wearing Muggle jeans and a tee shirt. Somehow Sirius manages to look dashing and like death warmed over, all at the same time. He’s an interesting one. The Black family curse, Mum had always said. We’re all too interesting for our own good.
“Everything okay?” Sirius asks.
“Our first call to Dora,” Remus says. “Teddy, do you mind if Sirius joins us? It’s been a while. We’d both like to see her.”
Teddy waits, tapping the desk impatiently. “I can’t believe you weren’t hooked up,” he says. “Good thing I arrived.” Godric’s Hollow is a nice enough place--twee but comfortable, with more alcohol than he’s seen in a single home in his entire life--but it’s clearly stuck in the twentieth century.
There’s an electronic beep, and Mum’s face is up on the screen, all blotchy and red.
“Mum!” Teddy says. “Are you okay?”
“I…” Mum trails off. “God, Teddy, it’s so good to see you. It’s amazing. You’re amazing. It’s--” She breaks off. She raises a finger to touch the screen. “It’s like you’re almost here.”
“Careful!” Teddy says. “Don’t touch the red box that says Disconnect.”
“Oh,” Mum says, leaning in and frowning at the screen. She wipes the back of her hand across her nose and sniffles. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Where are you?”
“At a place called Godric’s Hollow,” Teddy says. “Have you heard of it? Our version, not yours, obviously. When I woke up in St Mungo’s and they told me I was dead, they asked where I wanted to go. I thought--”
For the first time, it occurs to Teddy that perhaps Mum wouldn’t have wanted him to stay with Dad. She’s complained a lot about him over the years. But the thing about Mum--the thing that makes her so different from Harry and Ginny--is that she’s often quite happy to see him doing whatever he wants. Not always, of course, but most of the time. She rarely has preconceived ideas about what he should do.
“I thought I’d come stay with Dad,” Teddy says, forging ahead. “He’s living with Harry’s parents and your cousin Sirius. I Floo’d over as soon as I got here.”
“Did it hurt?” Mum asked.
“The Floo? No, it works just the way it does at home.”
“No, Teddy,” Mum says with a peculiar expression. “Dying.”
“Oh,” Teddy says. Already the memory’s faded. “It did, actually. I hit a rocky patch about half a mile out of town, and the motorcycle landed on me.”
“I told you it wasn’t safe, especially at that speed.”
She had, and she was right. Usually Mum loved being right. Was she angry with him? She didn’t look happy. Teddy licked his lips. Victoire was probably upset with him, too. “It was bad, for a while. But then when I died, it didn’t hurt at all. I don’t think--” He’s venturing into philosophy here, someone else’s territory. “I don’t think wizards feel much pain here.”
“Oh.” Mum struggles with a weak smile. “Is that your father there behind you?” Mum asks, squinting at the screen.
Dad leans down over his shoulder. “Hi, Dora,” he says.
“Hi, Remus.” Mum sounds extra polite.
“Nymphadora!” It’s Sirius now, leaning over Teddy’s other shoulder.
To Teddy’s surprise, Mum sits up a bit straighter and grins. “It’s been ages, Sirius! Good to see you again. I can’t believe we--”
“I can't either. Teddy says the technology is all very new.”
"It's like you're right here."
"You look just the same. Stunning, as always."
“Ha! Not my best. Have you done this before, Heavn?”
Sirius shakes his head. “Teddy’s just got us hooked up these past few days. Hadn’t even heard of the World Wide Wizarding Web before he arrived, actually.”
“Look, Mum,” Teddy says. “We should go. Lily and James--Harry’s parents--are having a welcome party for me. Right now.” His firewhiskey is probably already gone, and he’s worried Dad won’t let him have another.
“Oh.” Mum sounds disappointed. “Don’t you want to tell me anything else?”
He does, but not with Dad in the room, with his hand on Teddy's shoulder. “Mmm, I love you?”
“I love you, too, Teddy.”
Dad takes his hand off of Teddy’s shoulder and whispers something to Sirius. “We’ll see you in a moment,” he says quietly to Teddy. “Take your time.”
“Do you really need to go already?” Mum asks.
“I’ll call again tomorrow,” Teddy says. He hates seeing Mum disappointed. What can he say to cheer her up? “There’s a room waiting here for you, you know. Right next door to me. With pictures of those Muggle bands you like from the 80s. Sirius did it for you. And Dad and Sirius have a room on the other side of mine.”
“What?” Mum says, and at the same time Dad pauses in the doorway, eyes wide, signaling frantically to Teddy: shut up.
“Er, nothing,” Teddy says. He gestures to Dad: go away, shut the door. He waits until he can hear their steps fade, until Sirius laughter tells him they’ve rejoined the party. “Mum, I’ve got to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Victoire hasn’t been over, has she?”
Mum shakes her head.
“And you haven’t been in my room? To--clean it up, or anything like that?”
Mum shakes her head again. "Just now, to talk to you."
“Has anyone?”
“What’s this about, Teddy?”
“I need you to keep Harry out until Victoire comes by.” It’s an awkward thing to ask, especially since the official reprimand for selling Dark artifacts had arrived just a week ago. He hadn’t seen Mum that angry in ages.
“What’s in there, Teddy?” she asks. Her warning voice. Teddy winces.
“Nothing!”
“You haven’t been selling illegal goods again, have you?”
“No! It swear, Mum, nothing like that, ever again. It’s nothing, really. Just some personal items.”
“Really.” Mum can’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
“Really.”
“It’s not gillyweed, is it? Teddy?”
“No, no! It’s…” He licks his lips. “It’s…” Mum always knows when he’s lying.
“Teddy.”
“Okay, okay! But it’s just a small packet, under the floorboards in the wardrobe. I was meant to pass it along to someone this week.”
Mum leans in, her face growing so large on the screen that he can see her pores. “Teddy!” she whispers. “Your godfather’s an Auror! You can’t do this kind of thing!”
“That’s why I need you to help me out,” he replied. “There are things Harry doesn’t need to know. Victoire will take care of it.”
“There are things I don’t need to know,” Mum mutters. “Jesus Christ. I’ll take care of it, don’t involve Victoire in your mess. You’re going to be death of me, Teddy.”
Teddy laughs, then Mum catches on.
“Well, now I can’t do anything ever again, don’t worry,” Teddy says, but that makes Mum sad again, so he tries a different approach. “Talk to you again soon, Mum. I should get back to the party.”
Mum waves at him, and he touches the red box labelled Disconnect.
***
When Teddy was seventeen years old and home for the long vacation, Mum made a point of asking him if they could go to Florean Fortesque’s shop for ice cream. In a normal family, that would have been that--a trip to Diagon Alley, ice cream, some funny faces when Florean’s back was turned, maybe.
But Mum took Teddy to Florian’s when she wanted to have a Serious Discussion with him.
“I hear you’ve been snogging Victoire,” Mum had said without preamble over two vanilla cones with peppermint wand-and-cauldron sprinkles. “We need to talk about sex.”
“We really don’t,” Teddy replied, because Madam Pomfrey already did this five years ago and there was nothing worse than hearing your mum talk about sex while watching her lick an ice cream cone. It was a hundred flavors of wrong.
“Did Madam Pomfrey tell you about contraception?” Mum asked.
Teddy nodded. “You don’t need to say anything more.”
“I do, because it’s not just about safe sex and contraception,” Mum said. “It’s about respecting your partner and making good choices.”
“Did Grandmother cast a Chastity Charm on you, Mum?” Teddy wanted to redirect the conversation, but in truth he’d been curious for ages, ever since Ginny told him how unhappy his mum had been with his dad.
Mum’s mouth became a very thin line. “She did not. That kind of thing ended a long time ago, Teddy. And it’s against the law now. I haven’t always made good choices, but they’ve always been my own.”
“Ginny says Aunt Fleur’s mum cast one on her. That’s why she and Uncle Bill got married so quickly.”
Mum looked like she had an opinion about Aunt Fleur. “Sometimes witches just happen to marry the first wizard they fall in love with. It doesn’t require a Chastity Charm. I’d be very disappointed to hear Aunt Fleur’s family was that…” Mum paused.
“Traditional?”
“Short-sighted.”
“When I have sex with Victoire, I have sex as a girl,” Teddy said quickly, to get it over with. Best to keep these things at Florian’s, and then everything would be normal again at home. He turned his ice cream upside down in its dish and began to break up the cone with a spoon. "It's not such a big deal, really."
“WHAT?” Mum asked.
“Victoire likes it,” Teddy said to his ice cream. “And I do, too.” He stole a look at Mum, whose mouth was still pressed in a very thin line. When Teddy was younger he used to wake up as a witch sometimes, and Mum would freak out. He’d hoped she’d be over it by now.
“Okay,” Mum said. “Okay. Thanks for telling me. That’s...okay.”
Teddy wasn't quite done yet. “And James and Albus think Dad was gay.”
Mum seemed puzzled. “Did they say that?”
“Not in so many words, but James heard Grandmother tell the Malfoys that people like Dad shouldn’t get married.”
Mum let out a sigh of relief. “It’s because of the lycanthropy, Teddy. I know you don’t remember this, but werewolves like Dad and Uncle Bill used to be--”
“I know, I know, the bad old days,” Teddy said. “That’s not what they were talking about.”
Mum stood up abruptly, all talk about Teddy and Victoire and good choices forgotten. “That’s enough ice cream for now, don’t you think?”
***
As soon as Teddy clicks on “Disconnect” and logs out of Heavn, Dad is back at his bedroom door. “Teddy,” he says gently. “Sirius and I need to talk to you.”
Teddy’s highly suspicious about the gentle tone of voice his father’s using, but he’s only been here four days, for heaven’s sake. He hasn’t even had a chance to do anything wrong yet. “Okay. Come in.”
Dad and Sirius file into the room, one after the other, both looking at the floor in a weird way. They sit side-by-side at the foot of the purple-covered bed, which sags under their weight. “Teddy,” Dad says. “Sirius isn’t sharing the room next door with me. Not that there’s, er, anything wrong with that. We just thought you should know.”
Teddy looks at his dad and Sirius sitting there on the bed, their thighs pressed together, Sirius patting Dad’s knee in a reassuring kind of way. Do they really think they can feed him this line? It’s a bit insulting.
“But I saw you together there last night,” Teddy says.
“Sirius just wanted to borrow a book,” Dad says.
Borrow a book? Teddy snorts. Sirius, to his credit, looks guilty. “I’m not a kid any more,” Teddy says. “It’s okay.”
“Sorry?” Dad says.
“You don’t need to lie to me.”
“But I’m not lying!”
“It’s okay,” Teddy says. “I mean, I know you grew up in the age of Chastity Charms and all, and everyone was worried about sex and marriage and everything, but I get it. You can love more than one person in your life.”
“You can…what?”
“I mean, it’s not ruining my memories of you or Mum or anything like that,” Teddy says. “It’s okay. You were together with him, then you were together with her, now you’re with him again, it’s all fine with me.”
Dad and Sirius look at each other and scramble apart, putting a full foot of purple duvet cover between them. “I’m treating you like an adult, Teddy,” Dad says very slowly. “And I think I need to ask you, as adult, to explain what you’re talking about.”
“You lived together, just before Sirius died, Harry told me.”
Dad’s mouth opens and then shuts again. Sirius glances at Dad and then clears his throat. “We were living in the same house, Teddy, but we weren’t together.”
“Harry said you were always looking at each other.”
Sirius shrugs, noncommittal.
“You gave him joint Christmas gifts, for heaven’s sake!” Teddy says. “It was an open secret. Everyone knows.”
“Sirius,” Dad says in an odd, strained voice. “Do you know what Teddy’s talking about?”
Surely they’re pulling his leg? Teddy had seen the pictures of Dad and his friends when they were younger. You couldn’t miss the way Sirius looked at him.
The way Sirius is looking at him now, all kind and gentle, when most of the time, honestly, Sirius seems to be a pain in the arse.
The way Dad’s looking right back.
“Sirius?” Dad asks.
“Remus,” Sirius says. “Perhaps we should talk.”
Teddy sighs and stands up. “Do you two need some time alone?” he asks, and it’s like he’s not even there in the room, Dad and Sirius are so wrapped up in each other.
“Er, goodbye?” Teddy says to no one in particular and walks back out to the living room, where the party is.
***
When the alcohol runs out and the mood in the living room turns sour, Teddy volunteers to fetch another couple of bottles from the kitchen. There he finds Lily on her hands and knees, reaching into the back of the cupboard closest to the door.
“Hi, Lily,” he says. It feels weird, because in his mind Lily means Lily Luna, and this Lily reminds him a bit of Lily Luna, what with the red hair, but mostly what Teddy notices is the fact that she looks twenty but has got to be really old, maybe forty or fifty or so by now. It’s hard to wrap his mind around, the idea that Harry’s parents might be younger than him. They look younger than him, at least. Are they old, really? Maybe they’re not. Maybe time stops here. Teddy’s awfully glad he didn’t die later in life like Dad or Sirius, who both look terrible.
“Hey, Teddy,” Lily says, scrambling to her feet. She’s got a small tin in her hand that she inspects and then dusts off with the edge of her shirt. “Everything okay in there with your dad? He seemed upset a moment ago.”
Teddy nods. “He and Sirius have got some stuff to work on, but they’re okay.”
Lily seems satisfied with that answer, not too uptight about the two aging closet cases who are probably kissing like third-years in his bedroom right now. Teddy’s a bit relieved. He doesn’t want to get involved with his dad’s love life, which seems messy. It occurs to him that if Dad and Sirius didn’t know they were in love, Lily might not, either. That seems like the kind of thing Dad should have to explain.
“Hey, Teddy,” Lily says again. “I know I’m probably supposed to be a parental figure to you or something.”
Teddy shrugs.
“Good, I don’t want to do that, either,” Lily says absently, opening the tin, and Teddy catches the unmistakable whiff of gillyweed. “Are you interested? I’m tired of the crowd out there.”
Teddy can’t help laughing. It blows his mind that Harry’s parents might be cooler than Harry and Ginny. The afterlife might be more fun than he’d expected.
They share a joint quietly, and Teddy thinks about Harry, always trying to be the perfect dad.
“Have you heard of Heavn?” he asks. Lily’s blank look answers his question. He struggles for the words to describe it to her. “It’s this, this thing on the computer, to let dead wizards talk to wizards who are still alive. They just released a new version before I died, correcting all the old charm sequence problems. It’s really good now, almost like being there.”
It’s still too much; Lily’s frowning, confused.
“Would you like to talk to Harry? On the computer?” he asks, and he can tell he’s said the right thing when Lily’s face lights up.
“Really?” she asks. “You can do that?”
Teddy nods. “Right in here--” He starts to gesture toward his bedroom before he remembers that it's occupied. “When my dad and Sirius are, er, done in there, in a few minutes, I’ll show you how to do it.” He gives her his most charming smile, the one that even Mum can never resist. “Stick with me, Lily. I can hook you up.”
Lily looks at him in an appraising sort of way. “I bet you can, Teddy,” she says. “I bet you can.”
Author/Artist: magnetic_pole
Recipient: rhye
Rating: PG-13 for adult themes
Contents or warnings: *Grief; kid!fic; mentions of casual magical drug use.*
Word count: 4700
Summary: Teddy’s always been able to hook them up. The afterlife’s no different.
Notes: A happy, happy new year to you, rhye! I hope this story answers your call for domesticity and family drama. All the thanks in the world for waiting patiently until our very last regular posting day. May this story usher in a wonderful, fannish, and fun 2014 for you and for all Remus/Sirius shippers!
For two days after Teddy’s funeral, Dora can’t get out of bed.
She’d been fine at the funeral itself, dry eyed, coherent, as gracious with the guests as possible. If her mouth had been a bit dry, if she’d been nauseated and unsteady on her feet--well, Ginny had held her elbow and murmured reassurances in her ear, and no one had commented. Mum, oddly, had cried throughout the service, in a gasping, ragged way that made Lily Luna look at the two of them with wide, worried eyes.
But Dora had always been able to push through a crisis.
As soon as she’d got home, she’d needed to be alone. She’d fallen in bed almost immediately, unable to stand up any longer, feeling physical pain at the sound of Harry talking to her mum over coffee in the kitchen. She’d crawled under the duvet without taking off her robes or shoes and lay there, first curled up, then face down, with the pillow pulled over her head.
She lies there now, unable to move. Teddy, she thinks. Teddy. Nineteen years old. It had never occurred to her that her little boy might go before her.
She cries until she can’t cry any more, and then she rests for a bit, and then she cries again. Harry knocks at her door to say there’s a tray for dinner, but she ignores him. She gets up once to take off her shoes and once to use the toilet, and each time it feels like Apparating for the very first time--exhausting. Even more so than after Remus’ death, she feels bereft, as if a part of her has been torn away. Her pillow is soaked through, cold and damp.
“Aunt Dora?” Dora raises the corner of the duvet. It’s Lily Luna at the door, peering through the crack. Dora recognizes the soft voice, the flash of red hair.
“Mmmmm,” she says. She can’t bring herself to say “go away” to Lily.
Lily Luna pushes the door wide open and leans against the doorframe. “I’m worried about you, Aunt Dora.” Lily plays with her hair--flip, flip, flip.
Dora sighs and lifts the edge of the duvet. “Come here, sweetie.”
“I’ve got my clothes on still.”
“That’s okay. I do, too.”
Lily Luna crawls into bed with Dora, and Dora holds her close, nuzzling her soft hair. She’s ten, almost eleven. A wonderful age, sweet, still open to big hugs and cuddling in bed.
“Do you think you’ll ever get out of bed again?” Lily asks. Her voice is muffled by Dora’s chest.
“Soon,” Dora says. “I’m still a bit sad right now.”
“It’s just--” Lily Luna snuggles up against her. “I don’t want to rush you, but Teddy’s been texting James, trying to get hold of you.”
“WHAT?” Dora sits up immediately and grabs Lily by her shoulders. “Look at me.”
Lily looks at her and blinks. “Well, you haven’t been looking at your mobile, and so Teddy’s trying to get a hold of you through James, and he won’t stop. He thought maybe I should tell you.”
“What do you mean, Teddy’s trying to get a hold of me?” Dora’s heart thuds. “How’s he texting me?”
Lily frowns. “There’s a version of Heavn for the mobile, you know, so wizards can set up a proper video session, on the computer.”
The computer. For years, Dora had thought that the odd little Muggle box was a Come Pewter, and Teddy had laughed and laughed when she’d finally left him a note, spelling it out.
“You’ve got to explain these things to me, you know,” Dora says. “Please, Lily Luna.”
“Oh,” Lily Luna says. “Okay. I’ve got Heavn Version 2.0 set up on Teddy’s computer,” she begins. “You know, the voice-over IP for talking to dead people? Heavn used to be really useless, all dropped calls and terrible video quality. No better than a crystal ball. I tried it once, a year ago or so, for Dad to talk to his parents--it was supposed to be a surprise for his birthday, you know how he likes that sort of thing--but I couldn’t even get through."
Dora stares, uncomprehending.
"I think there was something wrong with the charm sequence," Lily adds. "After Teddy started texting, though, I downloaded the newest version. The reviews all say it’s much better, almost like life. We should try it.”
Dora’s squeezing Lily so hard she can feel Lily squirm. She loosens her grip. “Show me.”
“We’ll have to get out of bed. The computer’s in Teddy’s room.”
Dora’s out of bed in an instant.
“Wait for me!” Lily Luna calls.
***
Dora can still remember the first months after her Great Aunt Walburga died, the way her mum got all white and quiet and Dad had to do all the cooking.
“Your mum misses her aunt,” he’d told her when she’d finally begun to complain about the frozen Magic Meals. “Just give her time.”
As a child, Dora didn’t understand why anyone would miss Great Aunt Walburga, who was mean-spirited and used to scream at Sirius and Regulus when they lived with her and who hardly even noticed that Dora was there. (Now, as an adult, Dora suspects Walburga was probably sick in a way that should have been treated with sessions at St Mungo’s and a strong potion, but that doesn’t make her remember Walburga with any more kindness.) All she knew was that after Walburga died Mum started dragging her and Grandmother to seances and fortune tellers every weekend. They’d stop off at Walburga’s house near Kings Cross and pick up some of her clothes or some hair from her hairbrush, and they’d Floo to these spooky places where Grandmother would pass along bits of Walburga and pay Galleons and Galleons to hear some old witch or wizard talk.
“They’ve never even met her,” she complained to Mum one time, after three quarters of an hour staring at a deck of Life and Death cards and listening to an ancient wizard talk about love. “And I’m pretty certain she never said I love you to anyone in her life.” It puzzled her, why her mum and grandmother paid so much for so many lies.
“Your Great Aunt’s still out there,” Mum had said absently, ignoring the bit about I love yous. “We just need to find the right portal.” She’d said that last word carefully, as if she’d given it much thought.
After Remus’s death, Dora spent six days going through his things. On the sixth, Mum had caught her sitting on their bed with a hairbrush in her hand. She came into the room, sat down next to Dora, and took the hairbrush from her hand. “Don’t,” Mum said quietly.
“No?” Dora asked.
Mum shook her head. “No. I’ll finish up here, don’t you think?”
Dora nodded, and Remus was finally, truly gone.
***
Lily Luna already has the computer in Teddy’s room turned on. She sits at Teddy’s desk while Dora stands behind her. Dora’s heart is beating wildly.
Heavn 2.0, the screen reads. The word is spelled out in cheerful round blue letters. Beneath those letters, Dora can see her own face and Lily Luna’s reflected in a small box.
“Is this like a two-way mirror?” she asks, and Lily frowns.
“A bit,” Lily says. She’s not the computer genius of the family--Albus Severus is--but she’s by far the best at explaining things. She got her father set up on Personal Parchments just last year, and he has more than a thousand Pals already. “There’s a camera there--” She points at a small mechanism with a blinking light that’s perched on top the computer. “And when we connect to Teddy, we’ll see him instead of ourselves. There’s a microphone, too, so he can hear you.”
It’s odd to watch little Lily setting the computer up for her. That’s always been Teddy’s task, connecting them to the outside world. Ever since he was a child, Teddy’s known people who can help, places willing to sell her what she’s looking for, how to get things done. “I’ll hook you up, Mum,” he’d say with a smile. Just two weeks ago he’d finally found some dubious Black family heirlooms for her through a friend. Magical Law Enforcement had only been steps behind.
“How do you know where to find him?” Dora asks.
“Lost Souls dot magic dot uk,” Lily says. “But you don’t need to worry about that. After we’ve talked to him once, his address will be here already. All you’ll need to do is touch here.”
She points at the screen, at a green box labeled Connect. “Are you ready?”
Dora stares at the green box. “Could you give me a moment, Lily Luna?” she asks.
“Oh, sorry!” Lily says, backing away.
As Lily leaves the room, Dora sinks down into the chair and stares at the green box on the screen.
Connect. She touches it.
***
“Teddy!”
The party at Godric’s Hollow is in full swing when Teddy hears his name. It’s that nervous little wizard Peter, who’s let the cottage in the garden and always seems to be afraid that Dad or Sirius or Lily or James will yell at him. Teddy’s reluctant to leave--James, Harry’s dad, has left him in charge of the make-shift bar--but his curiosity gets the better of him.
He leaves his firewhiskey on the coffee table and finds Peter standing near the door to his new bedroom.
“There’s someone trying to reach you on your computer,” Peter says. Then, hurriedly: “I wasn’t snooping in your room or anything--just walking by.”
“Okay,” Teddy says. Maybe it’s Mum. He’s been texting James (his James, the James at home) for days. It’s got to the point where he’s almost worried about her. He’s dead, right? Doesn’t Mum care what he’s up to now? He doesn’t need to talk much, just see her again and let her know he’s okay.
Dead, but okay.
Teddy sits down at the computer. Dad helped him set it up two days ago. Well, helped is generous description of the situation--mostly Dad had sat on the bed and talked to him while Teddy reformatted the ancient machine.
Dammit, he’s too slow arriving. Mum’s gone already.
“Is that your mum?” Dad stands in the doorway to his room, dressed for the party in a pilled brown pullover and a pair of trousers that are a bit too short. Someone needs to shop for him, clearly.
“She tried, I missed her,” Teddy says. “I’m trying again now.” He touches the green box on the screen. Connect.
“May I come in? Do you mind?” Dad asks. Of all the surprises Teddy’s encountered in the afterlife in the past four days, his dad’s unfailing politeness has surprised him the most. Mum always made him sound like an entitled jerk.
“Of course.”
Dad stands behind him, a hand on Teddy’s shoulder. They wait, listening to an electronic ringtone, hoping Mum will connect.
“Remus?”
Teddy glances over his shoulder. Now it’s Sirius at the doorway. He’s wearing Muggle jeans and a tee shirt. Somehow Sirius manages to look dashing and like death warmed over, all at the same time. He’s an interesting one. The Black family curse, Mum had always said. We’re all too interesting for our own good.
“Everything okay?” Sirius asks.
“Our first call to Dora,” Remus says. “Teddy, do you mind if Sirius joins us? It’s been a while. We’d both like to see her.”
Teddy waits, tapping the desk impatiently. “I can’t believe you weren’t hooked up,” he says. “Good thing I arrived.” Godric’s Hollow is a nice enough place--twee but comfortable, with more alcohol than he’s seen in a single home in his entire life--but it’s clearly stuck in the twentieth century.
There’s an electronic beep, and Mum’s face is up on the screen, all blotchy and red.
“Mum!” Teddy says. “Are you okay?”
“I…” Mum trails off. “God, Teddy, it’s so good to see you. It’s amazing. You’re amazing. It’s--” She breaks off. She raises a finger to touch the screen. “It’s like you’re almost here.”
“Careful!” Teddy says. “Don’t touch the red box that says Disconnect.”
“Oh,” Mum says, leaning in and frowning at the screen. She wipes the back of her hand across her nose and sniffles. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“Where are you?”
“At a place called Godric’s Hollow,” Teddy says. “Have you heard of it? Our version, not yours, obviously. When I woke up in St Mungo’s and they told me I was dead, they asked where I wanted to go. I thought--”
For the first time, it occurs to Teddy that perhaps Mum wouldn’t have wanted him to stay with Dad. She’s complained a lot about him over the years. But the thing about Mum--the thing that makes her so different from Harry and Ginny--is that she’s often quite happy to see him doing whatever he wants. Not always, of course, but most of the time. She rarely has preconceived ideas about what he should do.
“I thought I’d come stay with Dad,” Teddy says, forging ahead. “He’s living with Harry’s parents and your cousin Sirius. I Floo’d over as soon as I got here.”
“Did it hurt?” Mum asked.
“The Floo? No, it works just the way it does at home.”
“No, Teddy,” Mum says with a peculiar expression. “Dying.”
“Oh,” Teddy says. Already the memory’s faded. “It did, actually. I hit a rocky patch about half a mile out of town, and the motorcycle landed on me.”
“I told you it wasn’t safe, especially at that speed.”
She had, and she was right. Usually Mum loved being right. Was she angry with him? She didn’t look happy. Teddy licked his lips. Victoire was probably upset with him, too. “It was bad, for a while. But then when I died, it didn’t hurt at all. I don’t think--” He’s venturing into philosophy here, someone else’s territory. “I don’t think wizards feel much pain here.”
“Oh.” Mum struggles with a weak smile. “Is that your father there behind you?” Mum asks, squinting at the screen.
Dad leans down over his shoulder. “Hi, Dora,” he says.
“Hi, Remus.” Mum sounds extra polite.
“Nymphadora!” It’s Sirius now, leaning over Teddy’s other shoulder.
To Teddy’s surprise, Mum sits up a bit straighter and grins. “It’s been ages, Sirius! Good to see you again. I can’t believe we--”
“I can't either. Teddy says the technology is all very new.”
"It's like you're right here."
"You look just the same. Stunning, as always."
“Ha! Not my best. Have you done this before, Heavn?”
Sirius shakes his head. “Teddy’s just got us hooked up these past few days. Hadn’t even heard of the World Wide Wizarding Web before he arrived, actually.”
“Look, Mum,” Teddy says. “We should go. Lily and James--Harry’s parents--are having a welcome party for me. Right now.” His firewhiskey is probably already gone, and he’s worried Dad won’t let him have another.
“Oh.” Mum sounds disappointed. “Don’t you want to tell me anything else?”
He does, but not with Dad in the room, with his hand on Teddy's shoulder. “Mmm, I love you?”
“I love you, too, Teddy.”
Dad takes his hand off of Teddy’s shoulder and whispers something to Sirius. “We’ll see you in a moment,” he says quietly to Teddy. “Take your time.”
“Do you really need to go already?” Mum asks.
“I’ll call again tomorrow,” Teddy says. He hates seeing Mum disappointed. What can he say to cheer her up? “There’s a room waiting here for you, you know. Right next door to me. With pictures of those Muggle bands you like from the 80s. Sirius did it for you. And Dad and Sirius have a room on the other side of mine.”
“What?” Mum says, and at the same time Dad pauses in the doorway, eyes wide, signaling frantically to Teddy: shut up.
“Er, nothing,” Teddy says. He gestures to Dad: go away, shut the door. He waits until he can hear their steps fade, until Sirius laughter tells him they’ve rejoined the party. “Mum, I’ve got to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Victoire hasn’t been over, has she?”
Mum shakes her head.
“And you haven’t been in my room? To--clean it up, or anything like that?”
Mum shakes her head again. "Just now, to talk to you."
“Has anyone?”
“What’s this about, Teddy?”
“I need you to keep Harry out until Victoire comes by.” It’s an awkward thing to ask, especially since the official reprimand for selling Dark artifacts had arrived just a week ago. He hadn’t seen Mum that angry in ages.
“What’s in there, Teddy?” she asks. Her warning voice. Teddy winces.
“Nothing!”
“You haven’t been selling illegal goods again, have you?”
“No! It swear, Mum, nothing like that, ever again. It’s nothing, really. Just some personal items.”
“Really.” Mum can’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
“Really.”
“It’s not gillyweed, is it? Teddy?”
“No, no! It’s…” He licks his lips. “It’s…” Mum always knows when he’s lying.
“Teddy.”
“Okay, okay! But it’s just a small packet, under the floorboards in the wardrobe. I was meant to pass it along to someone this week.”
Mum leans in, her face growing so large on the screen that he can see her pores. “Teddy!” she whispers. “Your godfather’s an Auror! You can’t do this kind of thing!”
“That’s why I need you to help me out,” he replied. “There are things Harry doesn’t need to know. Victoire will take care of it.”
“There are things I don’t need to know,” Mum mutters. “Jesus Christ. I’ll take care of it, don’t involve Victoire in your mess. You’re going to be death of me, Teddy.”
Teddy laughs, then Mum catches on.
“Well, now I can’t do anything ever again, don’t worry,” Teddy says, but that makes Mum sad again, so he tries a different approach. “Talk to you again soon, Mum. I should get back to the party.”
Mum waves at him, and he touches the red box labelled Disconnect.
***
When Teddy was seventeen years old and home for the long vacation, Mum made a point of asking him if they could go to Florean Fortesque’s shop for ice cream. In a normal family, that would have been that--a trip to Diagon Alley, ice cream, some funny faces when Florean’s back was turned, maybe.
But Mum took Teddy to Florian’s when she wanted to have a Serious Discussion with him.
“I hear you’ve been snogging Victoire,” Mum had said without preamble over two vanilla cones with peppermint wand-and-cauldron sprinkles. “We need to talk about sex.”
“We really don’t,” Teddy replied, because Madam Pomfrey already did this five years ago and there was nothing worse than hearing your mum talk about sex while watching her lick an ice cream cone. It was a hundred flavors of wrong.
“Did Madam Pomfrey tell you about contraception?” Mum asked.
Teddy nodded. “You don’t need to say anything more.”
“I do, because it’s not just about safe sex and contraception,” Mum said. “It’s about respecting your partner and making good choices.”
“Did Grandmother cast a Chastity Charm on you, Mum?” Teddy wanted to redirect the conversation, but in truth he’d been curious for ages, ever since Ginny told him how unhappy his mum had been with his dad.
Mum’s mouth became a very thin line. “She did not. That kind of thing ended a long time ago, Teddy. And it’s against the law now. I haven’t always made good choices, but they’ve always been my own.”
“Ginny says Aunt Fleur’s mum cast one on her. That’s why she and Uncle Bill got married so quickly.”
Mum looked like she had an opinion about Aunt Fleur. “Sometimes witches just happen to marry the first wizard they fall in love with. It doesn’t require a Chastity Charm. I’d be very disappointed to hear Aunt Fleur’s family was that…” Mum paused.
“Traditional?”
“Short-sighted.”
“When I have sex with Victoire, I have sex as a girl,” Teddy said quickly, to get it over with. Best to keep these things at Florian’s, and then everything would be normal again at home. He turned his ice cream upside down in its dish and began to break up the cone with a spoon. "It's not such a big deal, really."
“WHAT?” Mum asked.
“Victoire likes it,” Teddy said to his ice cream. “And I do, too.” He stole a look at Mum, whose mouth was still pressed in a very thin line. When Teddy was younger he used to wake up as a witch sometimes, and Mum would freak out. He’d hoped she’d be over it by now.
“Okay,” Mum said. “Okay. Thanks for telling me. That’s...okay.”
Teddy wasn't quite done yet. “And James and Albus think Dad was gay.”
Mum seemed puzzled. “Did they say that?”
“Not in so many words, but James heard Grandmother tell the Malfoys that people like Dad shouldn’t get married.”
Mum let out a sigh of relief. “It’s because of the lycanthropy, Teddy. I know you don’t remember this, but werewolves like Dad and Uncle Bill used to be--”
“I know, I know, the bad old days,” Teddy said. “That’s not what they were talking about.”
Mum stood up abruptly, all talk about Teddy and Victoire and good choices forgotten. “That’s enough ice cream for now, don’t you think?”
***
As soon as Teddy clicks on “Disconnect” and logs out of Heavn, Dad is back at his bedroom door. “Teddy,” he says gently. “Sirius and I need to talk to you.”
Teddy’s highly suspicious about the gentle tone of voice his father’s using, but he’s only been here four days, for heaven’s sake. He hasn’t even had a chance to do anything wrong yet. “Okay. Come in.”
Dad and Sirius file into the room, one after the other, both looking at the floor in a weird way. They sit side-by-side at the foot of the purple-covered bed, which sags under their weight. “Teddy,” Dad says. “Sirius isn’t sharing the room next door with me. Not that there’s, er, anything wrong with that. We just thought you should know.”
Teddy looks at his dad and Sirius sitting there on the bed, their thighs pressed together, Sirius patting Dad’s knee in a reassuring kind of way. Do they really think they can feed him this line? It’s a bit insulting.
“But I saw you together there last night,” Teddy says.
“Sirius just wanted to borrow a book,” Dad says.
Borrow a book? Teddy snorts. Sirius, to his credit, looks guilty. “I’m not a kid any more,” Teddy says. “It’s okay.”
“Sorry?” Dad says.
“You don’t need to lie to me.”
“But I’m not lying!”
“It’s okay,” Teddy says. “I mean, I know you grew up in the age of Chastity Charms and all, and everyone was worried about sex and marriage and everything, but I get it. You can love more than one person in your life.”
“You can…what?”
“I mean, it’s not ruining my memories of you or Mum or anything like that,” Teddy says. “It’s okay. You were together with him, then you were together with her, now you’re with him again, it’s all fine with me.”
Dad and Sirius look at each other and scramble apart, putting a full foot of purple duvet cover between them. “I’m treating you like an adult, Teddy,” Dad says very slowly. “And I think I need to ask you, as adult, to explain what you’re talking about.”
“You lived together, just before Sirius died, Harry told me.”
Dad’s mouth opens and then shuts again. Sirius glances at Dad and then clears his throat. “We were living in the same house, Teddy, but we weren’t together.”
“Harry said you were always looking at each other.”
Sirius shrugs, noncommittal.
“You gave him joint Christmas gifts, for heaven’s sake!” Teddy says. “It was an open secret. Everyone knows.”
“Sirius,” Dad says in an odd, strained voice. “Do you know what Teddy’s talking about?”
Surely they’re pulling his leg? Teddy had seen the pictures of Dad and his friends when they were younger. You couldn’t miss the way Sirius looked at him.
The way Sirius is looking at him now, all kind and gentle, when most of the time, honestly, Sirius seems to be a pain in the arse.
The way Dad’s looking right back.
“Sirius?” Dad asks.
“Remus,” Sirius says. “Perhaps we should talk.”
Teddy sighs and stands up. “Do you two need some time alone?” he asks, and it’s like he’s not even there in the room, Dad and Sirius are so wrapped up in each other.
“Er, goodbye?” Teddy says to no one in particular and walks back out to the living room, where the party is.
***
When the alcohol runs out and the mood in the living room turns sour, Teddy volunteers to fetch another couple of bottles from the kitchen. There he finds Lily on her hands and knees, reaching into the back of the cupboard closest to the door.
“Hi, Lily,” he says. It feels weird, because in his mind Lily means Lily Luna, and this Lily reminds him a bit of Lily Luna, what with the red hair, but mostly what Teddy notices is the fact that she looks twenty but has got to be really old, maybe forty or fifty or so by now. It’s hard to wrap his mind around, the idea that Harry’s parents might be younger than him. They look younger than him, at least. Are they old, really? Maybe they’re not. Maybe time stops here. Teddy’s awfully glad he didn’t die later in life like Dad or Sirius, who both look terrible.
“Hey, Teddy,” Lily says, scrambling to her feet. She’s got a small tin in her hand that she inspects and then dusts off with the edge of her shirt. “Everything okay in there with your dad? He seemed upset a moment ago.”
Teddy nods. “He and Sirius have got some stuff to work on, but they’re okay.”
Lily seems satisfied with that answer, not too uptight about the two aging closet cases who are probably kissing like third-years in his bedroom right now. Teddy’s a bit relieved. He doesn’t want to get involved with his dad’s love life, which seems messy. It occurs to him that if Dad and Sirius didn’t know they were in love, Lily might not, either. That seems like the kind of thing Dad should have to explain.
“Hey, Teddy,” Lily says again. “I know I’m probably supposed to be a parental figure to you or something.”
Teddy shrugs.
“Good, I don’t want to do that, either,” Lily says absently, opening the tin, and Teddy catches the unmistakable whiff of gillyweed. “Are you interested? I’m tired of the crowd out there.”
Teddy can’t help laughing. It blows his mind that Harry’s parents might be cooler than Harry and Ginny. The afterlife might be more fun than he’d expected.
They share a joint quietly, and Teddy thinks about Harry, always trying to be the perfect dad.
“Have you heard of Heavn?” he asks. Lily’s blank look answers his question. He struggles for the words to describe it to her. “It’s this, this thing on the computer, to let dead wizards talk to wizards who are still alive. They just released a new version before I died, correcting all the old charm sequence problems. It’s really good now, almost like being there.”
It’s still too much; Lily’s frowning, confused.
“Would you like to talk to Harry? On the computer?” he asks, and he can tell he’s said the right thing when Lily’s face lights up.
“Really?” she asks. “You can do that?”
Teddy nods. “Right in here--” He starts to gesture toward his bedroom before he remembers that it's occupied. “When my dad and Sirius are, er, done in there, in a few minutes, I’ll show you how to do it.” He gives her his most charming smile, the one that even Mum can never resist. “Stick with me, Lily. I can hook you up.”
Lily looks at him in an appraising sort of way. “I bet you can, Teddy,” she says. “I bet you can.”