A/N: I don't own anything that doesn't seem at all foriegn to you (Teddy and the whole plot is pretty much mine.)
And you say the last name B-u-ee.
Plus she has nothing to do with Lupin's Teddy. Nothing at all!
Chpt.1 This Can't Happen Again
I was never supposed to fall in love.
It wasn't in the tarot cards or in the crystal ball the "gypsy" had in the carnival that visited my town every summer. My brother and I would always go to the fair grounds by the river just to get our future told; so that once we got older we could laugh at how wrong they were.
Of course, it was a ridiculous thing to do because it would be forever till we were grown, but that didn't matter I guess.
What did matter, though, is that every time my brother would get a different prediction, he'd had four kids, he'd be a widower before he ever had kids, he'd have broils all over his face when he graduated, etc. But me? I had the same thing told to me over the years;
"You should never fall in love".
Course that did a toll on me.
It made me realize that I, Agnes Theodora Buey should never fall in love.
(And of course, it didn't take a 3 year old to figure that out…. It took a 9 year old me.)
"Oh!" Emily squealed bursting through our room as if she was the Fonz. Or just a really cool kid who liked kicking doors open. "Just oh! This won't do. No, no neither will this….Ugh, why'd I even pack that?...No matter what I do I'll look like five!"
First she had loudly come through the door, then she started throwing her clothes around out of her trunk onto the floor and now she was muttering to herself. All very distracting, but I tried to keep concentrated on the paper before me, urging myself to finish this essay. I was not willing to let the Emily tornado suck me up, not again!
"Oh, Teddy, care to help me pick out an outfit?" She finally turned to me; hands on hips looking truly exasperated…The warning signals never actually work for the Emily tornado.
"What's it for?" I asked, setting my pen down. White flag is waving, Mrs. Mother-Nature, just leave me in peace to finish my essay. Thhhen send the Emily tornado after me. Please?
"He's finally available! I've got to make an impression on him!" As soon as the word available came out of her mouth, about 4 other girls came rushing into the dorm, causing a rustle of the papers on my bed, making it fall to the ground. Not one of them said sorry or helped to pick them up.
I guess that's what you get for being second in your class. Or quite frankly not letting them copy my essay when I did the hard work and they just sat around talking about the latest issue of whatever.
And as soon as I was done collecting all my papers, everyone deserted the room almost as fast as they entered. Who changes clothes that fast?
I didn't care who was single that week. Remember the whole, "I'm not supposed to fall in love"?. It didn't change the fact that I thought he was rather handsome, but I had an essay to finish.
Sirius Black laid on his back, looking up at the curtains wishing he wasn't lying down.
"So what happened?" His friend asked, still unpacking even though they've been at school for a whole two weeks now. Leave it to him to procrastinate.
"The normal, she started talking about commitment, and I just had to break it off" Sirius sighed, rolling his head to one side, his arms behind it.
"Aw, is a wittle someone afraid of commitment?"
"No! It's just, this is our last year, you know? I want to be as free as I can, not settling down, being totally reckless, not letting anything get in my way"
"In other words, staying away from women completely?" James asked, which they both laughed at. Sirius sat up, massaged his temple than stood all the way and started heading towards the door, calling back to James "I'm heading down for dinner".
Unbeknownst to Sirius, almost the entire girl population had assembled into the Common Room, giving it quite a cramped feeling, waiting for him. If it had been "knownst" to him, he wouldn't have come down in the first place.
"Oh, oh Sirius!" The girls cried when they saw him coming down the stairs. A rather surprising, erm, surprise to him, he jumped almost five feet from the screeches.
"Oh hello, ladies…Well I'm gonna go eat now…if you don't mind parting the way" He said lamely, but apparently not to the ladies because they sighed and divided up, watching him till he climbed through the door.
Just as fast as the rest of her bunkmates had entered the door the last time, they entered as slowly as they could this time. All with protruding lips and furrowed brows, Teddy could feel their sadness irradiating off them, which made her have the need to ask. But she only had a few more messily words to write down, a few periods and comas here and there, maybe even a semi-colon. Curiosity and drive never mixed will with Teddy Buey.
"What's wrong with you all?" Teddy asked not taking her eyes or hands off her essay, knowing that this was the last stretch, that finally she would be the proud owner of a finished essay!
"Dinner, that's what!" Answered Emily, grumpily, from which only Teddy could guess on her bed. "If we had only gone down there a half an hour later, we would have been merrily sitting with Sirius Black giving him a shoulder to cry on! It would look ridiculous to go and eat twice, not to mention those extra calories!"
Emily loudly sighed just as Teddy lifted her hands off her paper as she silently gave out thanks to all the little people who helped her along the strenuous journey to finishing a paper.
But then something made Teddy stop, lift her head up and finally fully acknowledge Emily there.
"Did you say dinner?"
But before Emily even opened her mouth, Teddy was flying through the door and down the stairwell, rushing to the Great Hall with as much speed as a gazelle, but as much grace as a hippo.
How I managed to forget about dinner, I have no clue. I mean, you'd think with being distracted just by a few sighs and rumples of clothes, I'd be distracted enough by my grumbling tummy.
Which, by the way, only just started sounded like a garbage disposal swallowing about forty silver forks at a time.
Luckily, the Great Hall was still open. The oak doors where wide, but only the elite stragglers were left behind; maybe seven other students and one teacher, who just seemed bored out of his mind. I never understood why they kept dinner open for one hour, but now I was just thankful for it.
Sliding into a seat, which was three seats away from the only other person at my table, I grabbed a ladle full of what looked like peas. In etiquette school, they teach you that if you and another person, that you are not acquainted with, are the only ones at a table, the furthest seat you could sit and still be able to engage in conversation is three seats away. I know because I had to take it for four years. And attend a cotillion. With a smelly date who, I doubt seriously ever went to etiquette school.
Three people left from the Hufflepuff table, as I moved on from the peas to the cornbread, then to the roast beef. If anyone hated the food here, I'd shovel gruel down their mouths. Or the more "manner-ed" way of forcefully feeding food to someone. It depends on who's watching said event.
"You know, they don't waste the food we don't eat here. It's not like they don't give the food to the starving kids of China or something" A bemused voice said to my right, of course the logical answer being Sirius. He was the only other person at this table.
"I figure, if they can't get fat, I might as well. I'll gladly carry the weight they're supposed to weigh." I said, cutting up my roast beef into lady like sizes at a very fast rate.
He chuckled and moved down two seats so that he was diagonally to my right. The seat directly across from you or beside you is reserved for lovers and family members, so him not choosing that seat was very…etiquette of him. Maybe some one else in the bloody school went to etiquette class.
"There is also no contest to see who finishes first, because if you haven't noticed you've already lost. By a lot" Sirius said, motioning to the nearly empty room, save two lovebirds at the Ravenclaw table and the teacher patrolling the Great Hall. I set down my knife and fork, twisting the knife to face the plate, and picked up the spoon instead.
"I only have about ten minutes left to eat, and I don't want to go to bed starving. Then I'll dream of pies, which have never been my favorite dessert anyways" I scooped up some peas and drove them into my mouth, possibly the most un-lady like thing I've done all day. The whole eating part of the lessons never really stuck in my brain too well.
"I'm Sirius Black" He said, sticking out his hand.
"Teddy Buey" Before speaking or shaking his, I successfully swallowed my peas.
"So why are you late to dinner?"
"I had to finish the Transfiguration essay" I scooped up another mouthful of peas.
"You do know it's not due till Thursday, don't you?"
I shook my head vigorously, my mouth was full of green, round vegetables and that would have looked disgusting mashed up in my mouth.
He started to laugh as I finished with my peas and moved onto my cornbread. I had to eat my dinner starting with fruits or vegetables, carbs, then the meat. That wasn't taught in etiquette school.
The "Five-minute bell" rang through the Great Hall only, signally we better eat faster or else everything on the table will disappear. The teacher up at the table seemed startled by it because he instantly fell off his chair once it sounded, and the Ravenclaw lovebirds looked disheartened as they walked through the Great Hall doors, still looking into each others' eyes.
Did it dishearten me when I saw couples like them walk through the halls?
Course it did. I'm a girl after all, I would be plain weird if I didn't say I've never had a crush on anyone, but I wasn't supposed to fall in love. And that was reason enough for me never to want to be like those couples.
"Well, it's been fun talking to you, Sirius, but this girl has to get back to her dorm before all the other girls evoke a real tornado" I said, pushing my plate forward, the meat still untouched and the silverware neatly placed.
"Night Teddy" Sirius called to me as I walked away, laughing again as I left.
He was rather handsome up close too.