He was holding the tiny baby close to him. Rocking back and forward as the baby slept. Tracing the tiny face with one of his fingers. He was so like him. He could already see him as he grew older drinking any mention of his  parents.

“Oh, you remind me of James. He used to call it my fury little problem.”

“I think you are like James who would have thought it the biggest dishonor to suspect a friend.”

He wept for the last link to his parents. For all that could have been. He had wanted so much more. Harry had hoped for a father figure in him but had been disappointed because he had always held back. Except that one hug. The one hug Harry would remember forever. People may think he was being foolish. After all he was eighteen and had just fought a war but we always need a parent don’t we? Doesn’t Bill, almost thirty and married ask his father for advice. He’d seen it. But he never had it and now his last chance was lost. But Teddy would have it. When he was thirty and married and needed to know why his wife made him sleep on the couch Harry would be there to listen. Like no one was there for him. Teddy would not be another Harry Potter. He would make sure of that.

He put the baby back on his cot and tiredly laid down on the bed Andromeda made for him in the nursery. She had asked him to stay there. He hadn’t wanted to intrude on the Weasley’s grief and Andromeda was mourning the same people he was. He thought she wanted him there so they could miss them together. Miss Remus, Tonks and Sirius, who Andromeda never had the chance to see again. She told Harry stories of Sirius’s childhood and years at Hogwarts. Stories that later were populated with James, Remus and Lily. Stories Harry memorized to later tell Teddy.

He sighed and closed his eyes as he cried himself to sleep. As he faded to unconsciousness he could have sworn he felt a kiss in his forehead and heard his voice.

“Be happy Harry. I love you; always have even if I didn’t know how to show you that. Tell my son I love him and will always look out for both of you.”

The end