Title/Link: A Stomach Full of Doxies
Total Progress x/x fics: 4/12
Possible squeamish things: None
Word Count (WITHOUT a/ns): 1222
Who it's for: a beautiful misfortune
Characters/Pairings: Teddy Lupin, Harry Potter, Victoire, pre-Teddy/Victoire
Summary: As Teddy faces his fifth year at Hogwarts, he wonders about what it would've been like to grow up with his parents, and whether or not it's normal to miss someone he's never even met.
Thanks to Slytherin Cat for reading this over for me. :-)
Teddy Lupin stood on the platform, waiting to board the train to Hogwarts. It was noisy, and there were a number of other students his age bustling about, bidding their parents and siblings goodbye.
Typically, it didn't bother him. He'd grown up with his grandmother, and the Potters were like family to him, really, but right now, Teddy wished that he was being sent off for another year at Hogwarts by his real parents – not his godfather. He'd never even met them, but he missed them intensely, and was certain that his father – a werewolf – would understand some of what he was going through right now in a way that Harry, Ginny, or his grandmother would never be able to.
"Chin up, Teddy," Harry said, and he tousled Teddy's hair playfully.
Sighing, Teddy straightened his hair, and pulled his gaze away from the train to look at his godfather. Harry was a good man, great really, and he'd been a constant in Teddy's life since he could remember. Ginny was great as well, and they both told him about his father and mother – how brave they were, and how much they meant to the wizarding world, to them personally.
Teddy knew all about the sacrifice that his father and mother had made, and, though he felt bad for thinking it, he couldn't help but think that the real sacrifice made at the end of the war, was his, and other children like him, who'd lost their parents to a war that they hadn't started. He knew that Harry and Ginny had lost loved ones as well, but it didn't ease the ache in his gut whenever it came time for him to leave for school in the fall.
"You worried about taking your O.W.L.s this year?" Harry asked.
Teddy shook his head. He wasn't the best student, but he wasn't the worst either, and he knew what he'd need to get to pursue an occupation as a professor. He wanted to follow in his father's footsteps in that regard. He saw how much of a toll working as an Auror took on Harry.
"I just…" he didn't know how to phrase it. Wasn't sure that he'd make sense if he even tried to voice what was really bringing him down. How did one miss a mother and father one had never even met?
"I think I understand," Harry said, and he clapped a hand on Teddy's shoulder, squeezed, and then stood there, silently, looking at the train.
"I'd like to tell you that it gets easier," Harry said. "But, it doesn't. At least, not in the way that many people think it will."
Teddy tried to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat. He couldn't cry now, not in front of his fellow students. He had an image to maintain, after all. He wasn't the most popular kid in Hogwarts, not like Harry, Ron and Hermione had been when they'd gone to Hogwarts.
Teddy had a feeling that if he talked to Harry about his popularity as one of the 'Golden Trio,' he'd deny it instantly. Harry wasn't vain like that.
"Harry! Teddy!" Ron called; he was waving at them with one hand, while holding the hand of his youngest child, Hugo.
Teddy sighed, and turned from train, forcing a smile on his face for the enthusiastic Weasley clan. They all appeared to be there, including Victoire, Bill and Fleur's oldest daughter. She was only in her third year at Hogwarts, he was in his fifth, but there was something about her that appealed to him. She turned, and smiled at him, and Teddy's heart jumped straight into his throat, and he felt his cheeks growing warm. Slightly embarrassed, he looked away.
James Potter, the oldest Potter child was starting his first year at Hogwarts, and he was talking with his mother, completely oblivious to everything else around him. Whatever discussion they were having was serious. Ginny was knelt down in front of him, and her face was knit in a semi-frown.
Teddy knew that the eldest Potter boy was a handful, and he'd promised Harry that he'd look out for the energetic, danger-magnet as much as he could, no matter which house he was sorted into. He knew that he'd have his work cut out for him.
"Hey, you're Teddy Lupin, right?" a lilting voice asked, and Teddy turned to find Victoire standing right beside him. Harry was talking with Ron, and Hermione, and everyone else seemed to be preoccupied with their own families – Bill and Fleur were busy catching up with some family friends; it was just Teddy and Victoire, and she was looking up at him with a rather disarming smile on her face.
Teddy blinked and took a deep breath. It felt like his feet had been swept out from underneath him. This was something he needed a father for – to discuss what it was about Victoire, looking up at him through the fringe of her eyelashes, blushing prettily, smiling at him, that made his heart flutter, and his stomach fill with a myriad of doxies, each of them biting him, filling him with a poison that had power to do more than just kill.
Suddenly, his mind was filled with something else other than missing his parents. He offered Victoire what he hoped was a smile, though he wasn't certain how much of a smile it truly resembled. He tried to keep his heart in his chest when she giggled, and reached for his hand. Her hand felt small and warm in his.
He felt a spark of something, like he'd been hit with a stinging hex, except it traveled from the palm of his hand – where Victoire's hand was touching his – up to his arm, and throughout his body, warming him down to his toes. He bit his bottom lip, and tried to pull his gaze away from Victoire, because he was starting to feel a little dizzy, but he didn't want to look anywhere else.
"Eh hem," a throat cleared, and Teddy let go of Victoire's hand, feeling very much like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't have. "I'd like to give my little girl a hug before sending her off to Hogwarts," Bill said, and much to Teddy's embarrassment, he winked at him.
"Uh, sorry, er…" Teddy felt his ears growing hot, and he looked down at his feet.
Bill clapped a hand on his shoulder, and leaned down; whispering in his ear, "Keep an eye on her for me?"
Swallowing, Teddy nodded, and he shared a look with Harry over the top of James Potter's head. There was a sense of knowing in Harry's look, as though he understood what the fluttering and the doxies were all about, and Teddy felt like maybe this year would be a good one, that maybe everything would go his way.
He wondered if, had he been there, his father would've looked at him in the same way Harry had. If he'd have tousled his hair, and tried to bolster his spirits as he faced the O.W.L.s and girls whose hands felt like magic when he held them. If his father would've shared a half-smile with him and sent him off on the Hogwarts Express with a shoulder-squeeze and a whispered, "You make me proud."