Teddy Lupin was used to being the centre of attention. He was the older brother to the slew of Weasley and Potter children. He was the pride of the Lupin-Tonks name. He was the positive one, the popular one.

Sometimes all he craved was peace and quiet. One would think that with the ability to change his appearance going unnoticed would be a piece of cake; what did they know?

He chucked the fifth stone in the Great Lake. The sun had already set and he was going to miss dinner again. Yet, even hunger could not take him out of this frustration that was eating at him. Perched on a branch of a weeping willow, he looked at the half moon in the sky. He missed his parents every day; wishing he at least one memory of them.

Thirteen year old Victoire stood at the edge of the lake and looked at the sad boy sitting in a tree. She knew in her guts that something was wrong with Teddy. For a very long time, she had felt uncannily connected to the boy. Her mother had first chalked it up to her growing up but recently, both mother and daughter had been wondering whether it was not her Veela inheritance staking her mate.

Veela or not, Victoire knew she was irresistibly attracted to the Teddy Lupin. She felt responsible for him; knowing he struggled under the attention showered on him by their schoolmates and cousins. She understood his restlessness was an acute need to belong to a pack; a sign of the stirring of his faint lingering lycan gene, which he may himself be unaware of.

She wanted so bad to approach him and his hair out of his face. He always tended to grow out long brown hair when he thought of his father. It made an uneasy weight settle in her throat when she saw the hair. She so often resented everything and everyone for having imposed such a tragedy on someone so undeserving of it!

"Hey!" Teddy exclaimed once the door opened. "Vicky! I didn't know you were babysitting tonight," he continued, making his way into the house.

"Yeah Aunt Ginny asked if I could watch the children while she pops in to check on her parents," she replied as calmly as she could, closing the front door of the Potter's house.

She trailed behind him whilst he set his bags in the kitchen and beelined to the fridge.

"Are you here to babysit as well?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied. Taking a container of trifle, he hunted for a spoon and sat at the kitchen table. He waved for her to sit down. "Harry must not have checked with Ginny to see if she'd made arrangements. Anyway, where are the little ones?"

"Asleep. It's already eleven! Why are you so late?"

"Got caught up. Lulu…Avery, do you know her?" he wondered with an adorable tilt to his head.

At her nod of acknowledgement, he continued:

"Yeah she owled me asking if I was in for a friendly Quidditch practice. Being Head Boy apparently qualifies me for all social events. Got delayed there," he finished and shoved a spoonful of custard in his mouth.

His hair was an unruly full mane of wavy black locks. The seemingly natural floppy fringe that fell over his face gave him a mischievous, dishevelled look. He was at ease, charming even while talking about Lucinda Avery. The latter probably swooned when he showed up at her "friendly" Quidditch practice looking like the Hogwarts heartthrob that he was.

If Victoire was a full Veela, she wouldn't have been surprised if her nails had grown into talons and sheared that stupid fringe off his head. Instead, she was glad that she was allowed the choice to keep her jealousy discreet.

At the end of her fourth year, Victoire was still undecided about her career. Headmistress McGonagall had given them the heads up about the career counselling that would begin at the start of next year.

On the Express back to King's Cross, she couldn't help but think about what she wanted her life to look like when she finished Hogwarts. She was struggling in her classes more than she'd like to admit and was scared that she would not meet the expectations of her parents. Both her dad and her mum were accomplished wizard and witch. They had both graduated with the top of their classes and had gone on to distinguished careers.

Victoire did not want to be any less than them. At the same time, she wished she could find the courage to tell them that she did not want a high-profile job at Gringotts. Instead she wanted to work at Madam Malkin's to design clothes and pursue her passion for fashion.

As the train pulled at the station, she helped her cousin to locate her luggage and took her onto the platform safely. She was immediately swept into her father's arms and a lump formed in her throat, coating her "I miss you papa" with stress, relief and some weariness.

Then, out of the corner of her eyes, she spotted a beautiful mop of turquoise hair that shot a bolt of happiness through her entire being. She drew back from her father and watched as a seventeen-year-old Teddy caught Rose mid-step and swung her around to her delight.

He planted a giant kiss on her head before dropping her in Aunt Hermione's arms. He was so unapologetic in his displays of affection or in himself. He wore his turquoise hair proudly, aware that he caught everyone's attention by being different and standing out. Yet, he embraced it and kept his hair colour and sometimes even flashed some silver or red in it, to be extra.

He was inspiring, Victoire realised. He did what made him happy and that made everyone around him happy too.

'Maybe,' Victoire thought. 'Maybe I could do that too; maybe I could own up to my dreams and to who I want to be and admit it to maman et papa."

On her birthday, Teddy always wore his hair in a sandy colour. That summer, Victoire gathered the courage to confront him about this strange pattern at her birthday dinner.

She took him apart from the group after they had cut the cake and the parents were left to deal with a hoard of sugar-induced children. They went down to the beach, barefoot and stumbling in the dim light of the stars.

"What's up Vicky?" he asked, sitting down next to her on the sand.

"I was wondering earlier, why do you change your hair to that colour on my birthday every year?" she asked, turning to face him.

He took in a deep breath and turned to return her gaze.

"I change it in your honour," he started softly. "I change it to remind myself that even if my parents died on this day, you were also born on this day. Somehow fate found a way to make this day less sad for me by bringing you into my life. So, in honour of the peace and happiness you bring me, I keep my hair this colour only for you."

Speechless, Victoire could only stare into his eyes, as brown as the day he was born. She was confused, unsure of the meaning of the feelings she saw reflected in there.

Then he leant in to kiss her and as she fisted her hand in his sandy hair, she decided that this was her favourite colour of all.