Five.

Teddy is five. He is aware that something is not as usual, but he does not know what. He is at Grimmauld Place following Ginny around the house, watching her carefully. She moves very slowly, and she doesn't look as cheerful as she usually is. Over the last few times he has been to visit, Teddy has noticed she has been getting rather large. He is desperate to ask her what she has been eating to get so big but he knows his Grandmother would be terribly embarrassed if he asked such a question- after all, he knows it would be considered rude, even if he does not mean it to be so. He's just a bit worried about her. When people are worried about him, they ask him if he wants to play a game.

"Ginny," He asks her. "Do you want to play Hide and Seek?"

She looks at Teddy sadly. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I don't think I would be much fun to play with right now."

He watches her sit carefully on the sofa in the living room. "You see, I think it would be very difficult for me to hide anywhere!" She points to her stomach and forces a smile at Teddy, but he does not smile back. He thinks she looks ill, and it makes him sad. "You could play with Harry when he gets home, though. He shouldn't be long. Why don't you go and try to find the best hiding places now?" Teddy does as he is told, and as he leaves the living room he sees the House-elf running down the stairs. He follows it into the kitchen. From the doorway he sees it run into a smaller room off to the side, and opposite the pantry. As Teddy peers around he can no longer see the elf, but he can see a dingy door in the corner, underneath the boiler. He imagines it is quite a spacious little cupboard behind the door, and decides that it would be a very good hiding place, if only he had someone to hide from.

A little while later Harry does indeed arrive home. Teddy has continued on his quest for a decent hiding place and has reached the library, so when he hears the front door open he dives behind the curtains by the window. It is not an excellent place to hide, he thinks, but it will do at such short notice. Usually, when he and Ginny have been playing, Harry would immediately join in the game as soon as he arrived home.

But on this particular occasion, however, they do not play Hide and Seek. They call Teddy down to the living room and sit him on the sofa. Ginny sits beside him, whilst Harry crouches in front. They tell him, very seriously, that they are going to have a baby.

"Would you like that, Teddy? Someone to play with? He'll be like your little brother." Harry asks.

"Will you help us look after him?" Adds Ginny.

Teddy nods. He does not know what this has to do with Hide and Seek.

By the time Teddy is six, something has definitely changed. He has moped about his Grandmother's house and has not been allowed to visit Harry for what seems like a long time, due to something his Grandmother refers to as 'James'. For the life of him he cannot work out what all the fuss is about.

But, after three very long weeks, Harry appears. He tells Teddy that he wants him to come round to his house to meet this 'James'.

When he arrives, he quickly removes his shoes and places them beside the fireplace. He holds his Grandmother's hand and she leads him to Ginny, who is sitting carefully on the sofa with a huge bundle of blankets in her arms. She looks a lot happier now, Teddy decides. He is allowed to look into the blankets and he can make out a tiny, squashed face within them. He frowns. He finds it very strange that Ginny would be holding the house-elf like that, but he is told that this is James.

Teddy makes the connection that 'the baby', 'James' and 'the brother' are the same thing, and he is disappointed. He is still not entirely sure what a brother is, but since Harry told him he would be gaining something that would be like one, he had been quite excited to find out. He thought it sounded fun. He knows Ginny has a lot of brothers, and he cannot decide whether they are a good thing. This brother does not seem to be half as much fun as Ginny's brothers, and Teddy hasn't actually seen it do anything yet, apart from wriggle in the blankets. As he watches everyone absorbed with the odd little thing, and as he is continually made to look at it, he still isn't sure.

Teddy notices a gift bag resting beside the armchair he is sitting on. He knows it is rude to poke around in the bag, as it is not his, and due to the pale blue colour and pictures of bottles and rattles on it Teddy guesses it is for the baby. But rather peculiarly, the gift inside the bag is not suitable for babies at all- it is a book. He checks no one is watching and pulls it from the bag- after all this book is his brother's, he reasons, and brothers share. The book is filled with colourful pictures and large words printed on each page. He finds it an odd present for a baby- Teddy knows they can't read. But Teddy can. He isn't a brilliant reader yet, but he knows that practice makes perfect, and he thinks this will probably be far more interesting than a baby. Opening the book to the first page and resting it in his lap, he begins to slowly read the story of the Quidditch Keeper's Lunch.