This was written for my friend a while back on her birthday.
Hi, Lady Genius!
Harry Potter belongs to our Revered Lady of Literature, the great and powerful J.K. Rowling.
The story down here is mine, though.
Well, technically Lady Genius's. I did give it to her. THIS IS YOUR STORY, L.G.
Teddy stood by the front door of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and fidgeted.
Today he and his Godfather would be going Out. They had the whole day meticulously planned down to the last detail, starting with a trip to Diagon Alley. Teddy had always wanted to go, but no one had ever taken him- at least not until now. It was going to be fantastic!
Now if only Harry would hurry up...
"-I think I've found a place, nice little spot we can actually afford," Harry strode down the hall, attempting to simultaneously find his glasses, pull on a coat, and hold a conversation. "Bill showed it to me, actually. It'll be great, tons of room for the boys to run around-"
"Boys and girl," Ginny corrected, handing her husband his glasses. "The next'll be a girl. Trust me, we females know these things. Women's intuition and all that rot."
"Yes, yes, there'll be space for her too. Miss Potter, who at the moment has no first name."
"I was thinking maybe 'Luna'. Anyway, you two be careful- hullo, Teddy!- because if anything happens to Teddy, Andromeda'll-" Here Ginny drew a line across her own throat, pulling a ghastly face as she did so. Harry half laughed, half groaned.
"Don't I know it! How long did it take for her to finally say we could go, Teddy?"
"Nine days, four hours and fifty two seconds," Teddy rattled off. Grown ups often told him he had a good head for numbers. Ginny gave a low whistle, shaking her head.
"You never cease to amaze me. When I was seven I could just barely tell time. Well, have fun you two, you'd better get off before-"
"Wait!" There was a series of loud thuds. With a final crash as something expensive-sounding fell over, James, Harry and Ginny's three year old son appeared, still in his dark blue pajamas.
"-James wakes up." Ginny finished her sentence, ending with a loud sigh. "Here we go..."
"I wanna go!" James announced. "Take me too!"
"James-" Harry began firmly.
"TAKE ME, TOO!" If the expression on James' small, pudgy toddler face was anything to go by, there was a tantrum on the horizon. And if that happened, Teddy knew they'd never get going.
"James," He said, feeling slightly desperate. "I'll give you my chocolate frog cards!"
"Take me!"
"As many as you want!"
"No!"
"Please!"
"I WANNA-"
"Well, we don't always get what we want, do we?" In one deft movement, Ginny scooped up a loudly protesting James, and headed down the hall in a swirl of swishy red hair. "Be back on time for time for dinner or I won't give you any. Love you!"
"You, too!" Harry called back, as he and Teddy set out, the latter giving a sigh of deep relief.
"So, there's three ways we could get to Diagon Alley."
Harry and Teddy sat together on a park bench, pouring over a map of London. "We can Apparate there- but I wouldn't recommend it. Side-along's not the most comfortable.
"Our second option is Floo Powder. You've used that before, haven't you? Yeah, I thought so.
And last, we go through London Underground. If we do that, though, we'll need to find you a hat. Muggles don't have hair quite like yours."
Teddy touched his ever changing hair, which was currently bright green. "It doesn't change?"
"Nope."
"What, not ever?"
"Not exactly like yours does. If you're a muggle, and one day you decide you want pink hair, you go out and buy hair dye."
"Hair dye?"
"It's sort of like a fancy kind of paint."
"Paint? In your hair?" Teddy' eyes widened as he tried to tell if Harry was joking or not. Harry smiled. "Believe it or not, for muggles it's actually quite normal."
"Weird!"
Harry laughed in you-haven't-seen-anything-yet kind of way, then got up, stretching. "I've learned not to trust my watch anymore... any idea what time it is, Ted?"
Teddy concentrated, calculating from the last time he'd seen a clock. "Um...it is...exactly eight fifty-two, May fourth, Tuesday, year-"
"What?!"
Teddy paused his reciting, confused. "What? What is it?"
"Say that again," Harry told him, looking mildly alarmed.
"...eight fifty-two, Tuesday, May fourth?"
"Tuesday," Harry mumbled, running a hand through his hair, making it stick up even more than it usually did. "Almost nine. I said I'd meet Bill about the house..."
Teddy stared at his godfather, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Surely that couldn't mean...
Harry looked miserable. "I'm sorry Teddy, I really am. I know I promised. It's just... Ginny and James and Al, and the Next One.. there just isn't enough space. The family keeps getting bigger, and the house is starting to get smaller and smaller, and Bill-"
"S'fine," Teddy interrupted, swallowing his disappointment. "Don't worry. Go see Bill."
Harry nodded, expression both grateful and guilty. "I promise, Ted, we're going to have our day. Diagon Alley, quidditch match, you name it. We'll do it all."
He held out his arm, indicating Teddy should grab it.
"Hold on tight, okay? Good. One...two..three!"
Right at the moment the word 'three' left Harry's mouth, Teddy found himself plunged into one of the absolute worst sensations of his young life. He felt as though he had been turned inside out and folded into little squares, he couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't breathe...and then it was over.
Gasping, Teddy looked around to discover they had indeed arrived at Shell Cottage. Harry gave him a worried glance.
"You all right, Ted?"
"I thought," Teddy mumbled, feeling as though he was going to be violently sick. "I thought...it'd be like...a portkey."
"Ah, not quite."
"Harry!"
Bill Weasley stepped out of the cottage, a call of "Bill! Bring 'Arry inside, it eez cold!" following him. Grinning, Harry strode over.
"Hullo, Bill! I brought Teddy with me, I hope you don't mind..."
"Hello, Ted! How're you?"
"M'good," Teddy replied, smiling despite his irritation at the day not going at all how he wanted. Bill just seemed to have that effect on people. "How're you, Mr. Bill?"
"Just Bill, Teddy- what Andromeda doesn't know won't hurt her. I'm doing well, thanks."
"Bill!" Fleur hollered again from the house. The scarred man gave a start, then looked sheepish. "Er. Right. D'you want to come in? We can talk inside."
"No thanks," Teddy declined. Yes, it was cold, but it wasn't that cold- and he really didn't feel like having Fleur hovering, which she was prone to do. Bill shrugged.
"Suit yourself. Actually, I think Victoire's out here somewhere...Victoire! Where- oh, there you are."
A little girl had scurried over to Bill's side. Harry smiled at her. "Hi, Victoire! Good to see you."
She responded with a smile of her own, oblivious to the look of distaste Teddy was giving her.
As the daughter of Bill, one of the coolest adults he knew, he'd figured she should would at have at least had some chance of being cool, even if she was a girl. But this 'Victoire' was disappointingly girl-ish. Dressed in a light blue coat and dress, she had two white blonde plaits tied with twin pink ribbons. The picture of femininity and innocence, she reveled in being a girl, he could just tell.
Gross.
"So I've been talking with the current owners, and I really think you guys would like it there..." Bill and Harry went inside, deep in conversation. This left Teddy and Victoire standing out by themselves, each examining the other. Victoire eventually spoke.
"My name's Victoire."
"I know."
"What's your name?"
"Theodore," Deciding he didn't want the fluffy little thing to use his full name, he added, "Actually, Ted."
There was no way she was allowed to call him Teddy. Only family could do that.
Undeterred by his lack of friendliness, Victoire pressed on. "I'm six and a half. How old are you?"
"Seven." He was also bigger than she was, Teddy noted with satisfaction. Just by a little, but still.
"I like Charlie Bone, and I play quidditch-"
Here Teddy couldn't resist a snort. Victoire frowned. "What?"
"Nothing." He smirked. This only served to annoy Victoire further.
"No, what?"
"You play quidditch? You're a girl!"
Had she not been so girly-looking, Teddy would have found the look on Victoire's face rather intimidating. "So?!" She snapped.
"So girls can't play quidditch! They suck!"
"That's not true! My Auntie Ginny plays for the Hollyhead Harpies, and she can kick your butt!"
This was true. Honestly though, Teddy had never really considered Ginny to be a girl, or anything, really. Ginny was just Ginny.
"Ginny doesn't count."
"SHE DOES SO!"
"Nuh-uh. She's not a girl, she's a grown up. And she's not little, like you."
This was the final straw for Victoire. Flushing bright red with rage, she gave wordless shriek of pure fury and charged at him.
The next two minutes were a complete blur of yelling, biting, scratching, kicking, punching and everything else imaginable. Teddy gave an "Oof!" as Victoire's little fist caught him in the stomach, and then lost patience. Snatching one of her braids, he began yanking on it with all his strength.
Victoire screamed, then pulled away as hard as she could. There was a horrible ripping sound, and Teddy found himself holding a ribbon and a surprising amount of blonde hair.
Victoire clutched the side of her head, trembling and making very quiet noises that might have been sobs. Noticing him staring at her, she straightened shakily and ran.
With a sense of growing horror, Teddy realized what he had done. He'd beaten up a girl. Which, according to Grandma, was the absolute worst thing you could do. And on top of that, she'd been younger than him, so now he just felt like a bully.
He stood there for a moment, staring at the hair and ribbon and half expecting Bill, Fleur and Harry to come out shouting about the noise and demanding to know where Victoire was.
Considering, he decided he wasn't really too surprised when they didn't. Adults could be amazingly oblivious.
"What now?" He mumbled aloud.
Stupid question.
Turning, he headed in the direction Victoire had run off in, stupid pink ribbon clutched tightly in his hand.
He walked for a while, doing his best to guess where she had gone. It wasn't that hard.
The cottage was surrounded by tall, dry grass, and the only thing that particularly stuck out was an enormously tall tree at the top of a low hill.
Teddy reached the trunk with a deep feeling of dread.
He did not like heights. At all.
It was different on a broom, where the height made you exhilarated, made you feel like the king of the sky. You controlled what happened there.
Other high places were different.
Trees, for instance.
Swallowing hard, Teddy looked up at the little spot of blue and yellow in the top branches of the tree. He gritted his teeth, grabbed the lowest branch, and began to climb.
'Don't look down, don't look down, don't look down,' he chanted in his head, climbing steadily higher. 'Don't look, don't look, don't look.'
He climbed continuously upwards for what felt like hours, silently chanting all the while, then finally, finally reached Victoire's branch.
There was a moment where they stared at one another, neither speaking a word. Then Teddy, gingerly poking at the bleeding lip Victoire had given him earlier with his tongue, very carefully handed her the ribbon.
"I think this is yours."
She stared at him with a mixture of surprise and mild distaste, face still wet from tears. Then, drawing herself up, she offered him her hand.
It was at that moment that Teddy slipped.
Then fell.
Down he went, wind whistling in his ears, twigs whipping at him on his way down, unable to even scream. Then, halfway to the ground, he stopped.
With shock, he realized he was floating in mid air. Then he went upwards, through no intention of his own, back up to Victoire's branch.
Arms stretched out in front of her, fingers spread wide in a burst of uncontrolled magic she was forcing to obey her, Victoire directed Teddy next to her on the branch, which was fortunately large enough to fit two small children.
Teddy held on tightly to the tree, breathing only in short panicky gasps. He knew he should thank Victoire, but somehow couldn't get the words out. What came out instead was "I don't like high places."
To his relief, she didn't respond to that. He'd been half expecting her to make fun of him.
Feeling a lot more gratitude towards the girl than he was sure he liked, he added "I'm sorry I said girls can't play quidditch. And I'm sorry I pulled your hair."
A small smile lifted the corners of Victoire's mouth. "It's okay. I'm sorry I made your face bleed."
"S'no problem."
They sat there and talked about quidditch, which teams were best, what positions they wanted to play when they grew up, ("Seeker!") anything and everything that came to mind. For a girl, Teddy considered, watching as Victoire gave a very animated explanation as to why the French quidditch team was better than the Chinese, Victoire wasn't so bad.
- -MANY YEARS LATER-
"C'mon, hurry it up! Winning won't be any fun if you don't even come close!"
"You, win? Cute. Catch me if you can, Blue!"
"Oh no you don't!"
The two young adults skidded to a stop at the trunk of a still-very-enormous tree. Teddy grinned, panting. "I win!"
"Oh, puh-lease. You only won because I let you!" Victoire blew a strand of hair out of her face, her obvious joy at running around like a little kid again spread all over it. Teddy's grin turned into an odd little smile.
"Okay. Re-match. First one to the top branch wins. I'll even give you a head start."
"You're on!"
Victoire scrambled up, pulling herself from branch to branch "Like a monkey," as Dominique would have said. Or sniffed. As far as Victoire knew, her sister had never climbed a tree in her life. No, much too sophisticated for that...
"Hey, Ted?" She called down to him as something occurred to her. "I thought you hated heights. When did that change?"
"It didn't." She looked down at the head of turquoise hair. "But when I'm with someone else- it's not so bad."
The way he said "Someone else" left no doubt in her mind who he meant. "Aw. That's so sweet. Going soft in our old age, our we?"
"Oh, shut up. One year."
"That's a whole year, Gramps!" Victoire laughed at his groan. "You'd better get a move on if you want to win! I'm almost at the top!"
"I'm coming." There was something odd about his voice. He sounded almost... nervous. Weird, since Teddy had never scared easily. Victoire shrugged inwardly and kept climbing.
Higher, higher, and- "I win! Told you I- hey, what's this?"
Wedged between the trunk of the tree and the crook of the branch was a small black box.
"Open it." He was definitely nervous. He sounded flat out terrified. Confused, Victoire frowned, but obeyed.
"Are you all right? You sound-" Her voice trailed off into a gasp. Time seemed to stop as the lid of the box fell from her hand.
Inside, placed on a piece of black velvet was a slim gold band adorned with a glittering blue stone. Arranged very carefully underneath that was a handwritten note in very familiar handwriting.
Will you marry me?
Okay, I exaggerated a little bit. I'm pretty sure they know about hair dye in the Wizarding World...