Thicker than Water (Marauders Era) PART II

1 May, 1998 - Belong

The first month of little Teddy Lupin's life was as uneventful as Lavinia supposed was possible given the state of the world. Things were quiet. The news was nothing shocking. Even the near constant stream of disappearances and muggle violence seemed to have waned slightly. It was almost disconcerting, really. True, Lavinia was more than grateful for whatever small mercies they could get but it felt... it felt like the Death Eaters had really, truly won. It felt like, for the first time since the Ministry had fallen, they didn't feel the need to even bother terrorizing the country into submission.

True, Lavinia thought, it was more than possible that the Death Eaters were merely occupied elsewhere and that thought alone was somewhat horrifying, but in the absence of the abject terror, a hollow sort of calm seemed to have settled over the world and Lavinia had decided that even if it was still rather awful, it was, at least better. And she would take better any day.

So life went on, as it always had. Of course, with little Teddy in the world, there were some definite changes. Remus and Tonks went into hiding, less because they were being actively hunted and more because it was simply the smart thing to do when they had a child there with them. Lavinia did her best to help them out. She ran errands, came with groceries and spent time with her godson when she could. This was in part because she was determined to do a better job of it than she had with Harry and in part because, regardless of her relationship with the child, she was Remus's friend and she'd known from that first moment he had come home with his wife and child that they were going to be more than happy to take any and all chances to sleep that they could. So Lavinia gave them that.

Really, it was actually rather nice. Teddy was relatively calm as children went. Which wasn't to say he didn't have screaming fits - he did, as Lavinia supposed all children must - but he was, on the whole, fairly placid. In some ways, really, he was easier than Lavinia thought any normal child would be because his hair seemed to rather helpfully change color when he was in need of things.

Less helpful and far more disconcerting, however, was his penchant for studying a person's face and changing his own to match it. Nothing, Lavinia decided after one very strange morning, was quite as utterly horrifying as seeing one's own eyes staring back at them from the face of an infant.

Lavinia had bitten back a swear word and gone to find Tonks who had laughed, then sighed, then told her that she had apparently done the same thing as a child and that he would grow out of it when he started to be able to control his powers. According to Tonks, at least, this was a metamorphmagus's equivalent of teething and Lavinia decided she hated it. She suspected she'd dislike the actual teething about as much, but for now, she just tried not to make eye contact with little Teddy when he was in the process of changing his face around to mimic whatever it was he had most recently laid eyes on.

On the whole, actually, taking care of little Teddy was rewarding work, something Lavinia discovered with some surprise because it was rather a change from how she'd always known herself to be around children. Indeed, the more time she spent around him, the more she realized just how much she herself had changed. Holding Harry as a baby all those years ago had terrified her. The thought of a child looking up at her and mimicking her and learning from herhad petrified her. What if she taught them the wrong thing? What if they mimicked some bad habit? What if she wasn't enough?

And yet now, with Teddy, it felt... Well it wasn't that it wasn't scary and it wasn't that she felt truly comfortable with it but... but it was less terrifying. Because there was fear, yes, but also something like determination and maybe, just maybe, a little spark of confidence. Because she felt like she could get through this. Like she would be able to figure it out. And no, it wouldn't be easy and no, she wouldn't always do it right but... but she would manage. And it felt like maybe that was enough. Because, of course, Lavinia knew that all Remus truly wanted of her was her best. And that she knew she could give.