A/N – This is my first attempt at writing next-gen so please let me know what you think. It was written for the 5th round of the Diversity Competition on the HPFC forum, and I probably would never have written next-gen if it weren't for the competition, but I actually really enjoyed writing this. :)

On this Day

Every year it was the same.

Teddy and his grandmother would go to the usually quiet graveyard, which, on the second of May, suddenly attracted what seemed like the entire population of Wizarding Britain. They would walk past the hoard of redheads at Fred Weasley's grave, and come to two identical, white headstones under the shade of a willow tree, where Teddy's parents lay.

His Nana Dromeda would cry and tell him how like his mother he was. Various people would come and offer their condolences; members of the Order of the Phoenix who had fought alongside them, his mother's colleagues from the Auror Office, old teachers and school friends. Harry would come and pat him on the back and tell him how much his parents had done for him, for everyone.

Then his grandmother would go to sit at her husband's grave and an unspoken agreement would be reached, that Teddy should be left alone with his parents.

So he would stand there and feel... alone.

It was never the same on this day. Normally, when he came to visit his parents, he would feel their presence as he told them what was going on at school, what he had done with his friends, what pranks James and Al had played on him when he had gone to visit Harry and Ginny. But on this day, the headstones were just stone. Seeing so many people who had known his parents made him realise that he had not known them at all. It made him feel more alone than he ever had.

This year, as he walked through crowds of sympathetic glances, he decided to put off that moment for a little while.

"Nana, you go on ahead, I want to say hello to everyone first."

His grandmother turned to him, looking a little concerned. "Are you feeling alright, Teddy, dear?"

"Yes I'm fine," he replied, forcing a smile onto his face. "It's just that I haven't seen some of the kids in a while and I might not get a chance to later."

His grandmother nodded and made her way over to her daughter's headstone, whilst Teddy headed over to the patch of grass beside Fred Weasley's grave, where the crowd of his nieces and nephews, increasing every year, sat playing and chatting whilst their parents gathered in his memory.

The older ones had the day off school and had been brought home last night on the Hogwarts Express so that they could come to the graveyard today, and the memorial service later on. Now nineteen, this was the first year Teddy had not joined them.

He high-fived James, who immediately launched into the tale of how he had earned his most recent string of detentions, whilst Teddy glanced around at the others. Lily and Rose sat making daisy chains, most of the younger children were running around after each other. At a distance, the two eldest girls stood talking to their mother in an odd-sounding mixture of French and English. Despite being the Weasley children closest to his own age, Teddy didn't think he had ever actually spoken to Victoire or Dominique. He saw them often, at this memorial every year, and at Harry's children's birthday parties, and they seemed approachable enough, all smiles and grace, but those smiles never quite looked genuine. Teddy had always thought them both rather cold and vapid, unlike their loud, playful bunch of cousins.

"...and you should've seen the look on his face!" James finished, looking up to Teddy expectantly.

"Nice one, mate," Teddy said plastering a grin on his face and patting James on the back. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his grandmother walking over to him. It didn't look like he could put this off any longer.

"Teddy, do you want to go and see them now?" Andromeda asked softly, when she reached him.

Teddy nodded and made his way across the neat lawns between the headstones, feeling her eyes on him as he went.

Teddy stood there, staring blankly at the white marble for a good ten minutes before he could bear it no longer. He fiddled with one of the long, overhanging willow branches nearby and then set off to explore the little grove of trees behind the graves, just for something to do to take his mind off his guilt that he was not feeling the way that he thought he should.

The trees seemed to block the sound of the voices from the graveyard completely and Teddy relaxed as only the birdsong reached his ears.

Birdsong and an odd scratching noise, coming from somewhere above him.

He looked up to see a girl perched in the branches of a tree, scribbling into a little, patterned, Muggle notebook.

"Victoire?"

She jumped violently and gave a little shriek of surprise, dropping the notebook in the process.

"Oh, Teddy, hello. I didn't... I mean... there's never normally anyone here," she spluttered, clambering down from her fork in the branches.

"That's ok," Teddy smiled, a little surprised to see the normally refined, graceful girl so flustered. He bent down to pick up her notebook.

"Would you mind not telling my mother that I've been climbing trees? She doesn't think it's very ladylike." Victoire began dusting off her skirt with a compulsive fervour.

Teddy looked down at the notebook in his hands and saw that she had not been writing, but drawing. A delicate, half finished sketch of a bird had been worked onto the page that lay open.

Seeing him looking, Victoire snatched the book back, but not before Teddy had turned the page and seen her previous sketch; himself, gazing at two identical, white headstones.

"Oh, they're not very good," she mumbled, flushing self-consciously as she made to stow the notebook away in her handbag.

"They're brilliant," Teddy said genuinely. "You've got a real talent; I never knew you could draw like that."

"You don't have to say that, I wasn't fishing for compliments," she mumbled. She then noticed that Teddy had turned the page to the picture of him and suddenly looked mortified. "I... I didn't mean to watch you while you were meant to be alone with... um..."

"No, don't worry about it, it's ok, I don't mind. What are you doing over here anyway, why aren't you over with your family?"

Victoire bit her lip shyly. "I just don't feel like I should be over there with them. I mean, I haven't lost anyone. I always think I should just be leaving people who were actually there during the war to mourn."

"Yeah, I feel the same," Teddy replied, a little surprised to hear his own feelings echoed back to him in the girl's words. He hadn't thought that anyone felt the same way he did.

"I didn't mean you shouldn't be here," she said hurriedly. "No, I mean, obviously you've lost more than most people."

"You say that, but sometimes I'm not sure. Whenever I come here on the anniversary, all these people start telling me how great my parents were. I just know that at the memorial later, I'm going to have to speak to all their friends again. And that's not a bad thing. Of course I want to know more about my parents, but the more they tell me the more I realise I don't know anything about them, and maybe I can't really miss what I never had." He looked into Victoire's big blue eyes, which were filled with understanding, and smiled a little at the uncharacteristic emotional outburst. "Gosh, I've never told anyone all that before."

"I'm sure they wouldn't have wanted you to spend your whole life missing them," she said softly. "But I know exactly what you mean; it hurts to hear all these incredible stories about them and to think we'll never get to know any of the people in here."

Teddy felt tears prick his eyes and blinked quickly in an attempt to get rid of them. Victoire noticed and squeezed his hand. He couldn't quite remember when she had started holding it, but it was very comforting.

"You know, you're not quite what I was expecting, Victoire."

She looked a little puzzled, and then, seeing that he had meant it as a compliment, she smiled. Not the fake, perfect smile she gave whenever her relatives told her how beautiful she looked, but a truly warm, genuine, spontaneous grin.

"It's a shame it took me catching you off guard to see it." She laughed at that and the sound made Teddy smile back. "We should definitely speak more, instead of always ignoring each other at these family things."

"I'd like that."

"Oh, and happy birthday, Victoire."