"This is all my fault"

"Harry-"

"No Hermione, don't! I should have done better! Cast another spell or something-"

"Harry, listen!" Hermione held his hand in hers and wiped the tears off his chicks with her other one. "It's not your fault. You couldn't have known something like this could happen."

"But, why? Why Teddy? He is 2 years old!"

"I don't know Harry; maybe they wanted something from you and they will use Teddy to get it from you, or-"

"If they really wanted something from me they could have used me directly! And if they already broke in, they could have easily got it themselves! No reason to kidnap the boy!"

All the adults in the room stared at anything but Harry. The floor, the broken pieces of glass, the sealing or the now cold and empty bed which the small color-switching baby was supposed to be sleeping peacefully in at the moment.
They felt uneasy, standing there watching the strongest person they knew cry.

Ginny sat next to Harry, whispering words of comfort in his ears and hugging him as if he could break at the smallest touch.

Ron sighed as he sat down on the couch next to Hermione. He never would have guessed the reason Harry summoned him was that
bad. Now the only question left is, how do we deal with the 'daily prophet'?

-^w^-

The streets of London could not be more crowded then tonight. Kids running around in their Halloween costumes with their parents tailing behind them, sometimes yelling when they go too far or just correcting their manners if they forget to say thank you when they are given candy.

The teenager smiled to himself as he watched two kids running past him on his way to the party one of his friends held at his place.

Brushing his now pink hair put of his eyes, he walked the path to the party. Why pink? Well, no special reason. The character he dressed up as could change his hair color so it wasn't really important which color he chose. Even though one of the girls in his class overheard what he was going to dress up as at Halloween and argued with him for over 20 minutes that Teddy Lupin's hair was turquoise and not pink, but what does it matter if he changes colors?

He sighed to himself.
The reason why he chose Teddy Lupin in the first place was somewhat ironic (he doesn't even know the half of it :3) , but mostly amusing.

You see, ever since the seventh book was released anyone that would read it would call him Teddy Lupin because it was so close to his real one, Ted Lurkin, and soon enough everyone he knew called him that. His uncle, which he lived with since his parents died in a car accident when he was 2 years old, now called him Teddy as well but that could count as a nickname! Even his teachers started calling him Lupin! Seriously, that's a bit too much! But even though, he never hated that name. To him, it actually felt more like his name then his real one. And that was probably what scared him the most.

Ted sighed again at the memories that filled his head, not realizing where he was going nor that he was taking a few wrong turns, and ended up stopping at an unfamiliar ally with no one around.

Deciding to try to go back from the way he came, he turned around, took the first right turn, then a left and entered a street where the only light came from the streetlight at the middle on the street. Under it stood two men wearing large black robes with their hood's shadowing their eyes.

Who ever made that costume, is a genius! Ted started walking towards them to wish them a happy Halloween and ask for directions when he heard one of the men whisper something rather illogical.

"Did you cast the spell?"

Ted stopped dead in his tracks, staring in shock as the words echoed in his head. No matter how he tried to put them, he couldn't find a way for these words to sound like a part of any normal conversation.

I seriously need to stop reading the Harry Potter books…

The men talked and just a Ted decided he needs to have a hearing test one
Of the men turned him head towards him, noticing for the first time that the teenage boy was standing there staring at them.

"I thought you said you've casted the spell!" OK, now it wasn't mistakable.

"I did!" the other man shouted back as he turned in horror to look at Ted as well.

"Well, it didn't work!"

"No, I don't think that's the case…"

"What do you mean?"

"This spell works only on Muggles."

Through their conversation Ted backed away slightly while he questioned his sanity, then suddenly one of the men turned back to look at him.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

Ted turned around to run, at the last second seeing the man pulling a stick from his robes.
Questioning sanity later, now run!
But all he could do was take a few steps before he felt a piercing pain in his left leg, as if he was stabbed with a hundred knives at the same time.

He gave a strangled cry as he fell on his side, holding his leg, and rolled onto his back. Blinking away the tears he looked up to see the man pointing his stick at him once more as his friend laughed.

Ted braced himself for more pain but suddenly saw a flash of red sparks heading towards the men, aimed from the top of one of the houses.

The other men seemed to notice it as well and drew a stick of his own from his robes and at the speed of light pointed it at the red sparks sending green sparks at it from the tip of his wand. Ted had finally realized, insanely as it sounded.

The explosion from the two sparks colliding sending a warm shock wave that hit Ted.

Suddenly something much unexpected happened.
The pain vanished and Ted was lying flat on his back from the impact. The warmth made something inside him warm too. The teen gasped as he felt the same warmth in the center of his chest, then starting to spread through his entire body.

He was completely oblivious to the fight that was merely 10 feet from him, nor did he notice his wide open eyes and his hair changed colors in an almost ridiculous speed.

The warmth reached his toes and fingers, it also seemed to reach the roots of his hair, and then it settled. His body felt normal again. Well, sort of. He still felt somewhat… lighter?

Panting, Ted lied there until he felt something touch his shoe. He quickly sat up, taking notice of the two men from before now lying unconscious on the ground, meeting a pair of green eyes staring at him suspiciously from behind glasses.

Ted backed away a bit and saw the man had black hair, covering his forehead, and that he was wearing black robes with yellow and red stripes on the here and there.

The man was quite handsome, about 30 and now had a confused expression mixed with worry. His eyebrows furrowed.

"Wasn't your hair pink earlier?

The man asked him that, his voice tender yet you could pick up the stress in it if you listened carefully.

Ted looked at him wide-eyed.

The man sighed and pulled a small mirror from his pocket and placed it in front of Ted's face, whose eyes got even wider if that was possible.
He stared at his reflection. His hair was back to its normal brown. But that wasn't all. It was shorter and stood up just like he usually liked to style it.

His hand reached out to touch the mirror but the man pulled it away giving Ted another weird look.

"Why aren't you at school?"

Now it was Ted's turn to look at him confused.

"Umm… it's Halloween?"

It ended up coming more like a question. How could it not? Right now, it wasn't safe to say that you are sure about anything.

"Hey, Harry! Are you all ri—who's that?"

The man, whose name seamed to bee Harry, turned around to look behind him as another got to them. The new guy was very tall, his hair red like flames, blue eyes, a hell lot of freckles and he wore the same robes that Harry had.

"I'm not sure. He was here when I got here."

"Oh. All right. So kiddo," the red-head turned to look at Ted, giving him a reassuring smile. "What's your name?"

"Um… Ted. Ted Lurkin."

"All right, Ted. Why aren't you at school?"

"I've already asked him that, Ron"

"Oh. So what's his answer?"

"Because it's Halloween."

The red-head looked confused then realized something and turned to look at Ted once more, this time studding him inside out. But the boy was already having a realization of his own. Not noticing his hair turning plane white and eyes gray he covered his face with his hands and muttered to himself something that was like 'I'm definitely getting rid of anything that has any connection with the words Harry Potter…'

When he finally looked up at the two men again they were staring at him with pure horror.

"W-what?"

The men named Ron opened his mouth then closed it several times until Harry answered by holding up the small mirror once again.

The second Ted met his reflection he stared at it with the same horror, if not worse. His skin turning even paler then before, far from his usual tan, and his eyes turned an even lighter shade of gray that was almost mistaken as a white.
This time Harry allowed him to take the mirror.

With confusion in his eyes, and after he was done looking at his reflection, Ted turned to Harry and Ron begging for a sane explanation for all this, and not the only one he could come up with that only earned him a one-way ticket to a madhouse.

The men looked at each other. Finally Harry turned to him once more.

"Ted… when is your birthday?"

The teen looked at him with even more confusion, shifting his gaze to Ron, seeing he had a worried look that wasn't meant for Ted but for Harry, then shifted it back to Harry who was dead serious and seemed somewhat hopeful.

"April 19th. Why?"

Ted studied Harry's face.
The emotions that were shown on it amazed him. Most of it was shock, but there was also horror, anger, blankness, pain, happiness, and then it just went tender and soft.

Before Ted knew it he was pulled into a crushing hug, eyes widening at that one simple word that was whispered into his ear by that tender voice.
The same word that has been hunting his mind for all so long now.

"Teddy."