A/N: This is tied in with my other story Just A Pair of Eyes Watching The World Go By, but you can read this without reading that, I think. If you have read that one, this one is a different POV than Just A Pair and there is a rather obvious hint to the POV of Just A Pair in here. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. JKR owns everything else.
Like many young men growing up in the years after the Unveiling, Teddy Lupin found his calling during the Killings. Unlike many young men, his calling wasn't in law enforcement (magic or muggle), politics, journalism, or even on the opposite side of the law.
Teddy found his calling in the days before Christmas 2018, and the family got a first look at it on December 25, 2018. Of course, we didn't know it at the time.
Well, I may have had a slight inkling. It happened on the end of term for all my Hogwarts aged relatives. Mum and Dad had to, of course, go and pick up my two idiotic brothers at King's Cross. Now, normally I'd go with them, but I had a bit of a cold (which I may or may not have exaggerated). Really, though, this was my first chance to have the house to myself. You'd think this would have happened before because after all I am ten, not two, and am perfectly capable of being on my own for a few hours. But because I am the baby of the family, the only girl, and have the misfortune of having James as my older brother (they should know by now that I'm not going to blow up the house like he did) I have never been left alone in the house. When they both have to work, I am shuttled off to the Burrow.
Don't get me wrong, I love Grandmum, but really, she is way to over protective. And it's boring there. At least last year Louis was still at home, but now it's only Hugo. Not that Hugo's not great and all, but he has all these stupid morals and won't go along with some of my greatest plans. Louis, at least was a great spy, because half the time he's invisible to most people. (According to Aunt Fleur, this is because he is a part-veela male. It makes sense because has anyone ever seen a boy veela?)
And last year, I at least got to go to that muggle primary school during the week. As I'm not a brain like Louis or Al, I actually learned a few things there. Plus, the muggles were plain interesting. I even had a few friends and I was pretty sure that Jacob Finely was a muggleborn.
But now, I can't go to that school anymore because the stupid Americans had to go and ruin the secret. Yes, I know they saved millions of lives during that terrorist attack, but really, they didn't do that in 2001, so why do it in 2017?
Now because of the Unveiling, as the events of December 25, 2017 are called, it's really not safe for me to mix with muggles at the time being. Because of the Killings.
Naturally, each side blames the other for starting the Killings, though no one knows for sure, and it doesn't really matter. It's happening. Muggles kill wizards, wizards kill muggles, and a lot of innocent people get caught in the crossfire. People are dying out there for no better reason than ignorance and intolerance and blind hatred.
For a while after the Unveiling, I still got to go to school. I was just told to be extra careful with my magic. And I was. No one even suspected it.
Then Jacob Finely was murdered. It happened on a Monday. In the morning, I saw him laughing and joking with his mates and the next thing I knew, I was coming back from recess and the room was reeking of the stench of dead Jacob Finely. The police discovered that the nurse, a nice plump lady who had always given me extra lollipops, had murdered him. He'd done a bit of accidental magic in front of her, I suppose.
I never went back to that school again.
Come to think of it, that's probably why Mum let me stay home. King's Cross could be a dangerous place to be right now.
That's what was going through my mind when I heard the crack of apparition. I jumped; terrified I was going to be killed. It was hours too early for Mum and Dad to be back with James and Albus.
The sight that awaited me when I inched in view of the entry way did nothing to calm my nerves.
It was Teddy, covered in blood, collapsed on the rug. My mind immediately assumed the worse.
"What happened? Who was attacked? Mum? Dad? Vic? Al? James?" I was speaking so fast I wasn't sure he could understand me.
When I touched his face, his eyes met mine and registered the absolute terror in my eyes. He took my hand in his, obviously trying to reassure me.
"No, no, no, no, and no. No one was attacked." He winced. "Well, no one that you know."
"Really?"
"Would I lie to you, Lils?" He straightened and gasped, his unoccupied hand immediately moving to his side.
"You're hurt!"
"Just a bruise." He said as if reassuring himself. "I must have landed the wrong way when I apparated."
I helped him to sit down on the couch, cursing for the umpteenth time that witches under eleven can't have wands.
I settled for the next best thing: finding out what the hell had happened.
Teddy hesitated at my question, probably realizing that he was in fact speaking to his ten-year-old god-sister. He hedged, "Where's Harry?"
"He's at King's Cross with Mum, picking up Al and James."
"They left you here?"
"King's Cross could be dangerous. Though probably not as dangerous as where ever you just came from."
"You aren't going to let this drop, are you?" He sighed. I just smirked.
"Just don't let your mum know I'm telling you this. And don't blame me for any nightmares you may get."
A part of me acknowledged that maybe I shouldn't listen to this. But the curious part of me (which I think takes up 89% of my brain) really wanted to know.
"My squad was called out on a lead that the Supremes were going to hit this particular family today."
I nodded, a bit surprised that a newbie Auror group like Teddy's would be used on a big anti-muggle gang like the Supremes. The Supremes had made a big deal of recruiting all those family members of wizards murdered in the Killings so they were pretty big.
"We got there too late. That bloody 'S' of theirs carved in the door and the arm of the mother charmed to the door." Teddy kicked the table as he remembered.
"I was the one who read the briefing on the family, you know. I knew that the woman had just beaten cancer and was pregnant with her bloody second child. What sorts of monsters murder a pregnant woman who just beat cancer, for Merlin's sake, no reason except for her lack of magic!" Teddy was crying now. I'd seen him like this before, every time he came home from a mission like this. He just didn't have it in him to be hard and cool like most of the other Aurors. I never really thought he was suited to be an Auror, but he joined out of some 'sense of duty to the family legacy' and he stayed in because of the Killings. "I was sent inside to make sure the house was clear. I found the father, who had just lost his sister to a car accident, decapitated on the couch. The head, the fucking head, was in the fruit bowl with the damn 'S' written on his forehead in blood!
"The house was ripped apart, and a fire was burning in one of the rooms. The bookshelves were tipped over and the pictures were all defaced. The carpet was splattered, in blood. So fresh, it was still wet. They weren't even fucking looking for anything!
"I went into the nursery, and thank Merlin I did, because under the overturned toddler bed was a little girl. A freaking three-year-old! She was fucking bleeding everywhere and her hair was soaked in blood, but she was alive! I dunno if the Supremes missed her or just left her there as a fuck you or what. Fucking bloody monsters."
"CJ found me in the room five minutes later, I'd guess. I'd managed to stop the bleeding but I'm no healer like Aunt Fleur. She still hadn't opened her eyes but she was breathing barely."
"What happened to her?"
"CJ fucking wanted to leave her at a fucking muggle hospital. Said we should fucking leave her with her own kind. Does he bloody think that I don't know that most of those muggle places can't help someone that wounded? I made him let me take her to St. Mungo's. Then the fucking idiots there refused to treat her. Some nonsense about fucking liabilities when a little girl is dying in my arms. I had to pull the bloody 'my god father is fucking Harry Potter' card before they listened."
After that, Teddy cried into my shoulder, even though it looked weird, him being twenty and me being ten. Me? Well, I just stared out the window, wishing I had listened to that 11% of me that said, "You really don't want to hear this".
Shouldn't the Unveiling of a huge secret make the world less complicated? Wasn't that the look-on-the-bright-side headline the Prophet had run after Christmas last year? Because from where I stand, the world just got a lot more confusing, twisted, and just plain stupid.
A/N: Did you like it? Please review. Criticism is always welcome. Also, more will be coming to this story. It was meant to be a one-shot but it got so long (6 pages in word) I've decided to split it up!
