Author's note

Written for Season 6 of the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.

Round 11: Who's Afraid of the Dark?

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Chaser 2

Prompt: Take inspiration from the TV series Grimm (2011–2017)

Optional prompts:

2. (dialogue) 'Stay out of my room!'
6. (quote) We all want to escape our circumstances, don't we? —Benedict Cumberbatch
9. (object) compass

Word count (excluding author's note): 2,789

The show Grimm follows a police officer who is descended from a line of people who are able to see strange magical beasts, and are tasked with keeping order between the human and the beast worlds. This inherited guardian role, as well as the thematic link to the renowned Brothers Grimm, led me to write about the Peverell Brothers and their magical items that were passed down in the family line.

As for the present-day character that I chose to focus on—there's no canon evidence to support that he is descended from Cadmus Peverell, but according to what JK has said, the population of wizarding Britain is pretty small and often interrelated between families, so as far as I'm concerned you could throw a dart at a board of everyone related to a pure-blood family and they've got as good a chance as any to be descended from a Peverell. :P So I picked someone who is dear to many HP fans and whose background I felt would work with this story.

Finally, a note on prompt #6: the quote isn't used directly in the story, but its meaning is referenced several times throughout. I've therefore used the word 'circumstances' a lot more often than I normally would, but I wanted to make it clear when the quote was being alluded to!

The Second Brother

Though the Tale of the Three Brothers is known far and wide, whispers of the Elder Wand's legendary might have long eclipsed those surrounding the other of Death's gifts. Their own legacies were known to few…

The second brother's young son watched in anguish as his father succumbed to his misery, coming home one day to find his mother's sad spirit gone and his father's lifeless body on the floor. He ran to his uncle's home, who was upset but unsurprised to learn his brother's fate. While cleaning out the house, he pocketed the Resurrection Stone and quietly put it away.

On the day that the boy came of age, his uncle pressed the Stone into his hand, stressing that it must be used for love, not for selfishness. The boy used it for himself only once, to finally say goodbye to his parents, and then assumed his role as the guardian between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Rumours of the brothers' powerful artifacts had been circulating for years, so it didn't take long for friends and neighbours to come knocking at the young man's door, clambering for favours. He had to judge whose causes seemed worthy and truthful, and mediate their sessions with the Stone. His strict policy was one use per guest, and at times it had to be enforced somewhat aggressively, but he consoled himself knowing that a few bumps and bruises were better than the fate his father had suffered.

As tales continued to spread, more and more visitors came to him, from further and further away. Those who had travelled a long way only to be refused were often angry, and the son had to become adept in defensive magic to keep safe. But still, he never wavered from his role, and always allowed those who truly needed the Stone to use it for parting with their loved ones.

A wolfish howl sounded from behind Teddy as he walked away from the castle. 'Off to visit your family in the Forest?' an older student called to him with a self-satisfied smirk.

Victoire whipped around to face the snickering group of students, but Teddy got a rebuke in first, calling over his shoulder unconcernedly. 'Yeah, actually. I'd offer to say hi to your mum for you while I'm there, but I don't speak Troll.'

The boy roared in anger and began to make his way over to them, drawing his wand from his robes. 'Don't you talk about my mum that way!'

It was Victoire's time to shine now—Aunt Ginny had helped her perfect her Bat-Bogey Hex over the Christmas break, so she sent one toward their aggressor, and for good measure charmed a nearby pile of snow to form snowballs and fling themselves at the lot of his friends. They didn't stick around for long after that.

The couple resumed their leisurely stroll toward the lake, but Victoire was still unsettled by the encounter. 'Where do they get off, taking the piss like that? You father was a right war hero—they ought to show a shred of decency.'

Teddy thought back to what his godfather had told him years ago when he'd tearfully Floo-called him from the Hufflepuff common room and demanded he come to Hogwarts to arrest the girl who was telling others to stay away if they didn't want to be bitten:

'It may not be obvious, since you grew up in a time of peace, but many of your classmates suffered losses in the war that affected their family life. When someone is mean to you, usually they're just trying to feel better about their own problems. When they can't escape from their circumstances, they try to distract from them instead. So you shouldn't resent them—if anything, they deserve your pity.'

'It doesn't bother me; I'm proud of who I am,' he told his girlfriend as they sat by the lake's edge. 'Besides, haven't you ever had a bad day and said something you regretted? Maybe one day they'll look back and feel bad about how they've acted.' He pulled a trinket from his pocket and began to fiddle with it idly.

Victoire hummed disapprovingly, not quite as ready as he was to forgive and forget, but didn't press it. Instead, she focused on the gadget in Teddy's hands. 'What have you got?'

'A compass I found at a junk shop in Hogsmeade. Pretty, isn't it?' He held it up to glint in the sunlight. 'It's broken, but I'm trying to charm it.'

He had always been quite taken with the Weasleys' kitchen clock, showing the whereabouts of each member of the family. However, some of the bleaker of its designations invoked anxiety in him. Once, Percy had wandered off the path in the nearby woods while gathering firewood for a backyard bonfire, and Teddy had been made to stay behind with the other children, waiting for the search party to return. He'd eyed the clock nervously the whole time, making sure Percy's hand didn't swivel from 'lost' to 'mortal peril.'

He therefore aspired to charm the compass with similar location-tracking magic, to make it a tool for finding lost family members. He'd asked Professor Flitwick for help with it a few weeks ago, and felt certain that he was making good headway on the project, but wouldn't be able to properly test it until the next time someone got lost.

'Sound!' Victoire replied, taking the compass and examining its ornate, if a little tarnished, design. She opened the lid. 'Wow, it sure is broken—the Forest is definitely not north of here.'

Teddy startled at her observation and quickly pulled her hand over to have a look. She was right—the delicate metal prong pointed toward the Forbidden Forest. Usually, it spun loosely in its casing, but now it stuck unwaveringly to one direction, no matter how much he shook it about. What was going on? Could one of her troublemaking little siblings or cousins have gone into the Forest?

His mind raced. There were simply too many Weasleys in too many houses to go looking for them all and assure himself they were safe in the castle. What if he finally discovered that someone was missing and it was already too late to find them? He had to follow the compass's bearing now.

He quickly explained the situation to Victoire, who wasted no time in rushing to the castle to check on her family's whereabouts. 'Be safe,' she told him, kissing him firmly on the lips before they parted ways.

Teddy ran headlong for the Forest, keeping the compass out in front of him to make sure he didn't stray from its directions. Once he was under the cover of the trees, there was a lot less snow to trudge through, but still, the thick greenery of the Forest got in his way. He didn't know who to call for, so he simply kept his ears trained for any sound of a voice.

Suddenly, the compass's needle reversed its direction, and Teddy screeched to a halt, utterly confused. He'd been following its bearing exactly—how could he have passed by an entire person without noticing them?

He stepped backwards slowly until the compass's needle began spinning furiously around in its case. This must be the spot. He looked upwards, half expecting to see someone peeking at him from the branches of the trees above, but above him was nothing but a tiny opening in the canopy, looking out at the darkening sky. He then considered the other direction, and the horrifying thought of one of his friends being buried alive made him drop to his knees and begin digging through the earth with his hands.

He soon realized that the soil was too densely packed to have been recently dug up, and he sat on the ground, his heart settling and the temperature beginning to get at him now that he wasn't warm from running. He was just about to get up and trudge back to the castle to tell Victoire everything was alright when he saw something shining in the earth he had just loosened.

He picked up a small, black stone. He rubbed the dirt away to reveal its polished edges, as well as a funny little symbol that Teddy had never seen before. What a strange thing to find lying around in the middle of nowhere, he thought to himself.

He pocketed the stone and stood to leave the Forest. He looked at the compass and found that it had stopped spinning, the needle sitting loose like it did when he'd first bought it, and he sighed. Clearly, this compass needed some more work.

'Go away!'

Teddy was lying face down on his bed, so his response to the knocking on his door came out muffled. When he heard the click of the door opening, he lifted his head to shout more intelligibly. 'I said stay out of my room, gran!'

'Come on now, I'm not that old,' Harry quipped at his godson, entering the room and shutting the door behind him.

'Oh, sorry, Harry,' Teddy said, embarrassed. 'I thought you'd gone off with the others.'

When Fleur had emerged from Andromeda's kitchen and noticed that her youngest, Louis, was missing from among the many children present at the summertime gathering, Teddy had been quick to offer up his compass as well as his services in finding him. The former had been accepted by Bill, but yet again, Teddy was instructed by his grandmother to stay behind while the adults took care of things.

'I'm sure you're frustrated, feeling stuck in circumstances like this. I know how it feels to not be able to help someone you care about,' Harry said, sitting at the edge of Teddy's bed.

At this Teddy had to laugh. 'Yeah, right. You were always the first one to rush in and save the day.'

Harry grinned sheepishly. 'And you know how many times that backfired! You ought to learn from my mistakes and at the very least be a bit more cautious about it.'

This remark reminded Teddy of the last time he'd thought a Weasley was lost, a little over a year ago, and he'd rushed recklessly into the Forest because of it. At the time he'd felt he had no choice, but in retrospect he realized how foolish he'd been, going to such a dangerous place all alone. As he thought, he pulled the stone he'd found that day from his pocket, where he'd taken to keeping it as a charm of sorts. Harry spotted the motion and paled when he saw what was in his godson's hand.

'Where did you find that?' he asked seriously, all thoughts of their previous conversation forgotten.

Teddy told him the story of its discovery, and Harry was silent for a long time.

Of course, the whole world knew Harry's story, but there were a few pieces that he'd never revealed to the public, including his brief possession of the Resurrection Stone. He'd wanted the Stone to be lost for good, because he knew how its power could lead to tragedy. But he also understood Teddy's sorrow of never having known his parents, and saw the goodness in his heart. Maybe, just maybe, it would be okay to tell him…

'Turn it over in your hand three times,' he said finally, standing to leave the room.

Teddy was left on his own, and though he wasn't sure what good it would do, Harry's advice had always been sound before, so he decided to try it. When his parents appeared before him out of nowhere, he screamed bloody murder.

'Shhhhh, calm down, son!' Remus said, fighting to keep his amusement from his face.

'How are you here?!' Teddy shrieked, jumping from his bed to hurry over to the apparitions. Before he could gingerly reach out to see if they were solid, his mother was pulling him into a very real and warm hug.

'Typical Harry, leaving all the explaining to us,' she tutted.

After a brief explanation of the Stone and their limited ability to inhabit the world of the living, Teddy and his parents spent a long afternoon talking, catching up, and telling stories about one another's lives—and afterlives

'One of the most interesting things about death is getting to meet all your ancestors,' he began.

The second brother's son had children of his own eventually, and they grew up knowing of their father's duty. His eldest inherited the Stone when it came time. The guardian role was passed like this, to the first of each new generation, for centuries. But over time, the message originally espoused by the second brother's son was diluted and lost. Unscrupulous descendents accepted bribes and favours in exchange for unquestioned use of it, and they stood idly by as it was used for selfish gain.

One such man had a younger sister who tried to tried to stop his treachery, and when she was unable to overpower him, she left Godric's Hollow, renouncing her ties to the Stone and to the family. She started a family elsewhere, never revealing to them that she was descended from the hallowed Peverell line.

Each time the Stone was for ill gain, it lost some of its power. Eventually, it was no more than a pretty carved rock, and it was set in a ring to be passed down as a status symbol, and as far as anyone knew, the family line died with the Gaunts.

What brought the Stone back to its former glory was the pure love in Harry Potter's heart as he used it to see his family before willingly sacrificing himself for the fate of the world. But then he dropped it to lie forgotten and waiting in the Forbidden Forest…

Remus revealed that his father, Lyall, had in fact been descended from the woman who tried to keep her brother from misusing the Stone. Teddy looked at it in his hand, marvelling at its age, and how it had made its way back to the Peverell line after so long.

'This Stone doesn't seem to want to stay lost, but it needs looking after,' Tonks told her son. 'I think it found its way to you for a reason.'

Teddy thought of all the people he knew who had lost their loved ones quite suddenly in the war—the Weasleys had lost Fred, and countless classmates he knew were missing parents and older siblings to due the Battle of Hogwarts or from being targeted by Snatchers. He thought of being able to offer them the chance to say goodbye, and he was filled with emotion. If he couldn't change their circumstances, he could at least offer them the reassurance that it wouldn't be forever. 'You're right. Of course, I'll do it.'

He shared one last hug with his parents before allowing them to fade away.

'I'm so proud of you,' Remus beamed as he disappeared.

Teddy wiped his eye and immediately ran to find his godfather.

'Harry!' he called. 'You won't believe it!'

'I think I rather will,' Harry said from the sitting room. Teddy darted inside. 'I told you how to use it, after all. Don't you think I know what it does?'

'How did you ever give this thing up?' Teddy asked him in awe.

Harry set down the newspaper he'd been perusing and looked the boy carefully in the eye. 'Because I knew that death is an inevitability, and that there was no use in trying to change the circumstances, no matter how much I wanted to. And I knew that eventually I would join them in the world of the dead, but that in the meantime, I had many other loved ones in our world to spend my life with.'

Teddy absorbed his words, and then Harry continued, 'I think it would be best if I kept the Stone safe for now.'

Teddy looked up at him, determined. 'No; my parents told me I'm meant to have the Stone. I won't use it for myself again, I promise. I want to protect it, too.'

'Alright, then,' Harry smiled, picking up his newspaper again.

'Wait—what? You're agreeing just like that?' Teddy had been steeling himself for more of a fight than that.

'I trust your parents, and I trust you. I'm far too busy to have to look after it. To be honest, I'm a little relieved you offered. I'm sure you'll do a great job.' Harry looked up from his paper just long enough to give him an encouraging smile.

Teddy whooped, elated to finally have an adult think him capable of something important like this, and ran off to look for George.

A/N: The compass was drawn to the Stone because of Teddy's familial connection to it. The reason it suddenly pointed to the Forest was because in the castle it had been slightly too far away to locate the Stone—Teddy is a good wizard, but still just a student, so its location magic wasn't strong enough to search a huge radius. When he went outside, he was then close enough for the Stone to register. It locked on to the Stone when Teddy first took it from his pocket, but because the cover wasn't opened until Victoire was holding it, he assumed that it was locking on to one of her cousins. He didn't understand any of this at the time, so I couldn't really explain it in the narrative, but I'm sure he worked it out for himself sometime after learning the truth about the Stone.

And to expand on my choice of Teddy as the inheritor of the Stone: I wanted to mirror Ignotus Peverell giving the Stone to his nephew to look after, so I thought Ignotus's descendent, Harry, should give his blessing for the Stone to go to one of his nieces or nephews. But Teddy seemed a better fit, since he'd lost his parents, so I decided a godfather/godson relationship worked just as well!