A/N. Welcome to Chapter One of Book One of my Teddy Lupin series :) These books will be pretty lengthy, probably around normal novel length, but there won't be nearly as many as the real Harry Potter series. This is mostly canon, and when it isn't I will put a little note or it's explained.

Enjoy!


Chapter One: The Puff Flu

Platform 9/3 was absolutely packed from wall to wall with families and carts and familiars scampering, loping, and flying away from their witches and wizards. Little kids ran after the animals and were showing each other spells they learned over the summer and squeezing their parents tight, promising to return home for holiday. Parents were teary-eyed and more anxious than their children, but sent them on their way up onto the Hogwarts Express, waving farewell before the train could even start moving.

One Teddy Lupin was having an especially hard time shaking off his own guardians. It was like this every year, he thought with an eye roll. You'd think they'd get used to him going away after seven years, but alas his grandmother and Aunt Ginny held on tightly to him on both sides like a Metamorphmagus sandwich. His Uncle Harry was standing by with an amused smirk at how Teddy's hair was flickering between every color of the rainbow in embarrassment at the two older women clinging to him for dear life in front of his friends and girlfriend.

"Come on, guys," Teddy groaned, feeling his neck get sticky and wet from their tears. "I'll be back for Christmas before you know it. Aunt Gin, you should be harassing James right now - it is his first year, after all."

"I tried, but he ran away from me," Ginny Potter sniffled, crushing Teddy's ribcage. He had a distinct feeling that her sorrow had a lot to do with the fact her son abandoned her and less with it being Teddy's final year at Hogwarts.

The warning whistle blew.

"Grandmum…Gin…I need to get on the train now. If I miss it, I'll have to call Uncle George about that flying car and we all know that won't be pretty," Teddy said, using his secret weapon. No one wanted to see that car resurfaced ever again but they all new that one call to George and he'd be there with the thing faster than you could say "Wingardium Leviosa."

Both women reluctantly released and Harry gave Teddy one last firm pat on the back. "You'll do great, Ted. Your father and mother would be so proud of you."

Teddy thanked his godfather and heard his girlfriend, who was only a year behind him, exclaim, "Teddy! We're going to miss the train!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," he chuckled. She was already on the steps to the train. He jogged to catch up to her, waving behind him to his family as he went. He blew one last kiss to his Grandmother Andromeda and entered the train which was now as busy as the platform was.

"Now it's going to take forever to find a seat," Victoire complained, muttering to herself in French. Teddy and Victoire had started dating in the summer and he was beginning to learn she was obsessed with punctuality and order. Apparently, she was a lot like her mother that way. That and the bossiness.

But Teddy put up with it because he deeply cared for the girl. She was beautiful, with curly ash blonde hair that she kept at the same length at the center of her back constantly, never longer and never shorter, and pretty light blue eyes. She was also smart, a Prefect, and a foot-in for Head Girl next year. And while she was a Ravenclaw, she had the cunning of a Slytherin - when she wanted something, she got it. It was just how it was. She knew how to use her smarts and looks to her advantage and wasn't afraid to. But other than that, she was caring and organized and a good French kisser, Teddy thought with a grin.

"Your hair is bright pink," Victoire observed curiously. "What exactly are you thinking about?"

"Nothing in particular," he said with a shrug, not wanting to say out loud that he was thinking about snogging her senseless the moment they found an empty cabin to sit in for their long ride.

"Hey! Ted! We saved you space, mate!" James exclaimed, poking his head out of one door. "Ditch the girl and get your arse over here!"

"Oi! You're bloody eleven! What would your mother say if she heard you talking like that, eh?" Teddy called back. "She'd box your ears worse than your Grandmum Molly, she would!"

Victoire was preoccupied by three girls that came barreling towards her, enveloping her in a herd of embraces and squeals that Victoire gleefully took part in. These were her roommates, Teddy recognized. He knew they'd want to catch up, so Teddy said, "Victoire, I'm going to keep an eye on the first years, yeah? You have fun with your friends."

She just waved in acknowledgement, so excited to be jumping up and down and reuniting with her friends. Ted shrugged, smirking, and walked over to James's cabin. Ted was shocked to find his best mates in there with his "little brother" James.

"Ted!" Parker White said, jumping up to hook his arm around Teddy's neck and put him in a headlock. His Irish brogue was strong and loud, declaring, "I missed you, you Technicolor pigmy puff, you!" Parker was tall and lean, but had muscle fit for the best Beater in Hogwarts and Gryffindor was lucky to have him. Parker's straw blonde hair had grown to his neck since the last time Ted saw him and his brown eyes were glittered for mischief, as always.

"Parker, Ted's lips are turning blue," a mild, lilting Irish accent, from the corner of the cabin commented lightly. "What did I tell you about murdering friends? It's improper."

"Oh, Freckles, he's just doin' that on purpose, love, trying to make me go easy on him, " Parker told his sister, who was in the same year as Victoire. She had the same straw blonde hair as her brother, always pulled back in a ponytail and pretty hazel eyes, her face covered in freckles. Her given name was Ophelia, but everyone just called her Freckles because she was covered in them. And from the days the White family took Teddy to the beach, he knew she had them on her elbows, her knees, and her back - but it kind of worked for her. They just belonged on her like feathers belonged on a Hippogriff.

Parker continued roughing up Teddy's now ice blue hair, saying, "Your little gift won't be gettin' you out of this one, mate!" He finally released Teddy's neck, only to put them around his thin waist and squeeze hard enough to make Teddy regret eating breakfast that morning and spun him around in the little amount of space.

"I don't know whether or not to laugh or be stunned by the fact that murdering your companions is a common enough occurrence that your sister needs to remind you not to," the boy sitting not far away from Freckles said with a smile. He had a book in his lap, as he usually did.

"Oh, my dear Abe. Lovely, darlin' Abraham," Parker said affectionately, dropping down beside him. "Fear not. We've shared a room for more than six years now. If I haven't killed ya yet, it's not bound to happen soon."

Teddy let out a light cough, rubbing his neck and stomach from the rough greeting from his friend. Parker was the best friend a bloke could ask for, but he definitely didn't know how to love lightly. He loved you until it hurt…literally. Teddy and him used to get in rows all the time and be evenly matched until on summer, before fourth year, BAM, those Beater muscles came out of nowhere.

James, who'd been sitting across from the older boys and Freckles, said, "Where's Bowie?"

Bowie, the youngest White, was James's age and supposed to be starting his first year, but he was nowhere in sight.

"The wee fella is so nervous he's already gone to the bathroom three times since we got on the train," Parker said with a full laugh. "He's been all arseways since he woke up this morning."

"He's worried about the Sorting, naturally," Freckles chimed in. "He feels that because Parker and I are Gryffindor, that he should be too. We've told him it didn't matter which House he was in, we'd still love 'im the same and take care of him."

"And let's face it, he's not looking promising for Gryffindor anyways," Parker said. "The boy's as cowardly as they come."

"Parker! Our brother isn't cowardly!"

"Freckles, he cried to our Ma this morning, begging her not to make him go," he said bluntly, raising an eyebrow challengingly at his sister. "That certainly isn't something a 'brave of heart' would do, now would it? He's more of a badger, I think."

"Hufflepuff is a perfectly respectable house," Abe put in.

"Your only saying that because all the girls from the 'Puff House are loony over you."

With a grin, Abe didn't deny it. He was a bookworm-ish type, his dirty blonde hair wavy and thick. He was tall and thin, he jogged around the Black Lake every morning before breakfast, and he was chivalrous. He even took a Muggle Theater class as an elective a couple years back, a class only Hufflepuffs took, and gave a monologue from a Shakespeare play that made every girl in the room, and a select few boys, swoon. Mild and kind, Abraham Collin had girls tripping over their feet for him, but he never paid them very much attention which only made them want him more.

"Hufflepuff," Ted said with a smile, "is the House they had to have for all the miscellaneous types. After you pick out the brave, the cunning, and the intelligent, what's left?"

"You all are terrible!" Freckles declared. "Plenty of wonderful, successful people come out of Hufflepuff. Professor Sprout was a Hufflepuff and she was in the Order of the Phoenix."

"Yeah, but there are really no famous Hufflepuffs," Teddy said, thinking about it. "Are there?"

They all drifted off, thinking about it deeply, going through famous all the famous wizards they could think of.

"Janey Mack," Freckles said in disbelief and disappointment. "There really isn't any famous Hufflepuffs. That's so sad."

Abe, Parker, Teddy, and James all started laughing at that. In part because of the Hufflepuffs and in part because Freckles never said "Janey Mack" - that was always Parker's thing. She almost never used Irish slang, mostly because she knew how difficult it got to understand her brother when he started forgetting he was around Englishmen.

Finally, the door to the cabin swung open, and there stood a nauseas-looking boy with gold-ish hair and a light dusting of nose freckles.

"You're looking a little green, brother," Parker said, sounding mostly amused instead of concerned.

"I don't like trains," the boy said simply, walking over to sit next to his friend James. The two eleven-year-olds had gotten on swimmingly since they met a few years back at the Burrow when the Weasleys invited the Whites over for a picnic and they'd been penpals ever since. They wrote a lot about Quidditch and books and girls, occasionally.

"Oh, Bowie," Freckles said, shaking her head sympathetically.

"I think he's got a case of the 'Puff flu," Parker said with an evil grin.

Bowie groaned loudly and dragged his hands down his face. "I don't want to be a Hufflepuff!"

"You'd meet a lovely girl there," Freckles said, trying to give the obviously doomed "'Puff", as Parker called them, a bright side. "Hufflepuff girls are known for their maternal, homely qualities. They made lovely wives, I've heard -"

"Ophelia!" Bowie whined. "I'm ELEVEN. I'm not LOOKING FOR A WIFE, I just don't want to be a feckin' PUFF!"

Parker and James were laughing uncontrollably, and Ted and Abe were having a hard time holding back their own chuckles at the boy's outburst. Especially when Freckles reached across to flick her younger brother hard on the ear.

"If Mum heard you swearing, you'd be dead," she chided.

Rubbing his abused ear, Bowie slumped in his seat with a scowl on his round face, remaining silent.

Finally, changing the subject, Parker said, "Ted, my boy, how's your bird? Where's your bird, actually? Pretty thing, fine bit of stuff, wouldn't mind seeing her in her uni again -"

"Oi! Parker, that is my girlfriend you're talking about," Teddy said, teasingly firm, but really he didn't mind. He knew his girlfriend was the fittest girl in school - being part Veela did that. Before he and Victoire were together, Parker was always telling Teddy to hurry up and ask her out or else he would. It was all fun and games, Teddy knew, because Parker could never tolerate a girl longer than one-and-a-half dates on Hogsmeade weekends. (That story about the half-date was rather hilarious and had quickly become Parker's claim to fame ever since their third year).

"Well, can you blame me?" Parker said good-naturedly. "Looking at her makes me want to speak French, she's so gorgeous."

"You don't speak French," Abe pointed out.

"Then she makes me want to learn it."

Teddy groaned. "Please don't ever say that in front of her, ever. She's been nagging me to learn French for ages."

"Why don't you?" Freckles asked.

Teddy scowled and answered, "Too girly. If she were, say, Russian, I'd be there in a heartbeat."

"Thinking about Russian," Abe jumped in, "story in the grapevine is that Loki Vargstrom's sister is transferring from Durmstrang this year."

"Loki Vargstrom has a sister?" Parker said with wide eyes.

"And she's coming to Hogwarts?" Teddy added in, just as shocked.

"Story is she's his half-sister and her name's Ronia. Apparently there were some…issues back at Durmstrang with her…condition."

"Is she ill?" Freckles inquired.

"No," Abe said with a smile to Teddy. "She's a werewolf."


Rate and Review! PLEEEASE.

~So Long And Thanks For All The Fish~