HEATHENS - Harry Potter ✔

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The wind howled around the shell cottage as the grey waves crashed into the sand of the beach. The hay swayed as the cold air ripped through it constantly, even causing the few surrounding trees to creak. Inside the cottage were five people, and one goblin, all staying safe from the vicious weather.

There was a bang on the front door. Everyone's head turned toward it. Fleur came running out of the kitchen, looking frightened; Bill jumped to his feed, wand in hand and pointing at the door; Harry, Ron, and Hermione mirrored his actions. Silently Griphook slipped beneath the table, out of sight.

"Who is it?" Bill called.

"It is I, Remus John Lupin!" a voice called over the storming wind. Harry's body sank into a fear much colder than the weather outside; what had happened? "I am a werewolf, married to Nymphadora Tonks, and you, the Secret-Keeper of Shell Cottage, told me the address and bade me come in an emergency!"

"Lupin," muttered Bill, and he ran to the door and wrenched it open. The man fell over the threshold. He was white-faced, wrapped in a shabby travelling cloak, his greying hair windswept. He straightened up, scanned the faces in the room, and cried aloud, "It's a boy! We've named him Ted, after Dora's father!"

Hermione shrieked.

"Wha -? Tonks - Tonks has had the baby?"

"Yes, yes, she's had the baby!" shouted Lupin. All around the table came cries of delight, sighs of relief: Hermione and Fleur both squealed, "Congratulations!" and Ron said, "Blimey, a baby!" as if he had never heard of such a thing before.

"Yes - yes - a boy," said Lupin again, dazed by his own happiness. He strode around the table and hugged Harry as if the scene in the basement of Grimmauld Place might never have happened.

"You'll be godfather?" he said as he released Harry.

"M-me?" stammered Harry, not having expected it.

"You, yes, of course - Dora quite agrees, no one better -"

"I - yeah - blimey -"

"And Kiera will godmother," Lupin continued, the smile nearly splitting his face in half. "You two are destined for each other anyway, so it's all the same."

"Uhh," was all Harry managed to say, but Lupin wasn't even listening as Bill began to pour wine into goblets. Harry felt overwhelmed, astonished, delighted.

"I can't stay long, I must get back," said Lupin, beaming around at them all. He looked years younger than Harry had ever seen him. "Thank you, thank you, Bill"

Bill gave each of them a goblet and they stood and raised them high in a toast. "To Teddy Remus Lupin," said Lupin, "a great wizard in the making!" They all drank.

"'Oo does 'e look like?" inquired Fleur.

"I think he looks like Dora, but she thinks he is like me. Not much hair. It looked black when he was born, but I swear it's turned ginger in the hour since. Probably blond by the time I get back. Andromeda says Tonks's hair started changing colour the day that she was born." He drained his goblet. "Oh, go on then, just one more," he added, beaming, as Bill made to fill it again.

The weather outside stormed around the cottage, unable to bring down the mood inside of it. Bill was soon opening another bottle of wine. Lupin's news seemed to have taken them out of themselves. Turned them momentarily into regular teenagers not affected by a war or a quest to find Horcruxes. Only the goblin seemed untouched by the suddenly festive atmosphere, and after a while, he slunk back to the bedroom he now occupied alone. Harry thought he was the only one who had noticed this until he saw Bill's eyes following the goblin up the stairs.