The 'I' in Family

Chapter 1: The Second Orphan

Author's note: Welcome to The 'I' in Family! I'm so excited for you guys to read it.
First off: this story has already been written and I'm planning on releasing one chapter a day from now on, but I may miss a day here and there. I'm not sure.
Secondly: this story is family friendly, but I would like to put a tw/cw - mentions of sickness/long-term disease, death, and orphans are very common in the fanfic because it's Teddy Lupin and this is canon compliant. Mostly. Which brings me to my next point- since Tonks popped up in Hogwarts Mystery, I'm bringing some of the characters in because I love them way too much. More info on that in future chapters because the HM characters don't really make an appearance until chapter three.
Thirdly: there will be mini-author's notes here and there, you'll see why.
Fourthly: Because this is a family-themed story, for the purposes of this story only, Andromeda and Ted will not be prejudiced against werewolves. I know this would cause some drama and that's always fun but if I do end up writing another fic with Andromeda in it (and let's face it, with the fact that Remadora is literally my favorite ship, that's very likely to happen) then she and probably Ted will most likely be somewhat prejudiced.
Lastly: I'm not JKR, so any canon characters/places/etc. belong to her. As far as I can remember I'm not taking quotes straight out from the book but if I did then those belong to her too.
With that, enjoy!

May 3, 1998

The boy wasn't even a month old when it happened; too young to remember anything, but somehow old enough to understand something was wrong.

Andromeda Tonks sat on the couch in the small home, staring off into space. The small boy in her arms had turned four weeks old the previous day; it hadn't been a full month since he was born, but almost. He looked so peaceful when he was asleep, calm and relaxed, and his currently dark reddish-brownish hair was now turning slowly to blonde.

Andromeda smiled at her grandson. When his mother was born, her hair had changed to many different colors all in an hour, and they were all bright. Teddy's hair hadn't changed as much, and the colors were more natural. Andromeda guessed that Teddy didn't really want to try too much to change his appearance, because seeing as he was so young, he still wasn't sure what was what in the world.

This showed a bit more of his father's more careful side in him, though only his mother had the same ability to change appearance at will. Andromeda sighed as her thoughts drifted back to them. It was sometime in the afternoon, and when Teddy had awoken this morning, crying, Andromeda had rushed to him to try to calm him, though it had taken a while. She knew there was some sort of sixth sense babies had for their mothers when they were born, that they could tell if they were far away, but the cry seemed to mean something worse and Andromeda really wasn't sure she should try to tell if his parents were in danger from something so simple as crying.

Except crying wasn't simple, was it? No, it couldn't be. Maybe for children, feelings could be simple, but since her daughter and son-in-law had started dating, everything was complicated. Life is supposed to be complicated, Andromeda reminded herself.

War is supposed to be complicated.

Andromeda was moved back into reality slowly as she felt movement in her arms. Teddy was awake now. His blue eyes stared into his grandmother's, and while Andromeda knew that most babies eyes were blue and would most likely change as they got older, she loved this color. However, they would probably change sometime soon.

"Hey, Teddy," Andromeda whispered to the boy. "You awake now, hmm? Are you hungry?"

Something told Andromeda that the boy wanted his parents. No wonder.