Platform nine and three-quarters was full of people weaving in and out of each other trying to find their friends and family. It was almost impossible to find someone in the sea of bodies, but one young boy was easily identifiable. He had short blue hair spiked up with green tips. He stood with a man with messy black hair and green eyes with a faded lightning bolt scar upon his forehead and a middle aged woman with long thick wavy brown hair with a few stray grey ones sneaking in. She had a look of slight disapproval on her face.

"Teddy!" she admonished the young boy. "At least change your hair to something that doesn't quite clash as much."

"But Grandma-"

She cut him off. "No buts Teddy. I won't have you entering Hogwarts on your first day looking like a clown."

The young boy sulked, but scrunched up his face until his hair flattened and became his favourite turquoise. The black-haired man looked on with amusement in his eyes and knelt down next to his Godson and whispered in his ear. "Don't worry Ted, your Grandma won't know if you change it while at Hogwarts." He stood up and winked at him and Teddy tried to hide his grin.

His Grandma noticed, but decided to let it go. It was, after all, his first year at Hogwarts. She remembered when she first sent her daughter off. Teddy reminded her so much of young Dora. He was so kind and loving, but strong and independent and quite cheeky at times. She smiled down at him. "Be a good boy Teddy. Your parents would be so proud of the wonderful young boy you've become." Teddy beamed and hugged her tight.

"I'll miss you Grandma." His eyes were glistening with unshed tears, but he held them back. He didn't want to be seen as a cry baby before he had even started school.

"I'll miss you too pumpkin." She was holding back her own tears. Teddy smiled at the pet name she used only for him. "But it isn't long until Christmas and we'll write to you at least once a week." Teddy nodded and pulled away.

"No hug for your favourite Godfather Teddy?"

Teddy giggled at Harry's mock indignation. "You're my only Godfather Harry! You're my favourite and my worst. Take your pick." He stuck his tongue out at him, but hugged him anyway. He pulled away after a few seconds when the whistle went. "I'd better go! Goodbye Grandma! 'Bye Harry!" He ran towards the nearest train door dragging his heavy trunk behind him and tried to hoist it up into the train.

Harry, seeing his Godson struggle, laughed inwardly and went over to help him, before almost colliding with a timid looking girl. "Sorry!" he exclaimed. "Are you alright?" The young girl looked up at him nervously before giving a quick nod. "Do you need any help?" The girl quickly shook her head and half ran, half walked away onto the train. Harry watched her go before turning back to where he had seen Teddy, but the young boy had obviously already gone.

The train started pulling away when Harry saw his Godson pop up at a window grinning and waving at him. Harry waved and smiled back. "Good luck Teddy!"

Teddy couldn't hear his Godfather's voice over the noise of the train, but he could read his lips. A warm glow settled in Teddy's stomach as he waved to his Grandma and Godfather as the train sped away. He watched as the last of Harry's sparkling green eyes disappeared before going to find a compartment.

He walked down the aisle, walking past compartments full with students reading, laughing, scheming and finishing off summer homework at the last minute. He eventually came across a compartment with a small girl, sitting with her knees under her chin and her arms hugging her legs, staring out of the window with a serene expression on her face.

Teddy watched as the London skyscrapers and cranes dissolved into the rolling hills of the countryside. The girl hadn't moved, she looked frozen in time, like a muggle photograph. She was alone, so Teddy figured that she needed a friend. Everywhere else was full, so he figured that he should try to be that friend.

He slammed the door open with a shuddering crash and it reverberated in the door frame. He winced and gave a sheepish grin to the girl, who had seemed to snap out of her reverie and had a startled expression on her face. Her legs dropped to the floor and she seemed to tense up.

"Hello." He walked in and shoved his trunk under the seat and sat opposite her. She seemed quite small and thin for her age with dark brown hair and pale face, like she rarely saw the sun.

She mumbled a greeting in reply and watched him warily. "Cheer up!" He couldn't understand why the girl was acting so odd. "Aren't you excited? Dad's told me everything there is to know about Hogwarts, even a few secrets we shouldn't." He winked at her, but he never had managed to master the wink and the girl looked slightly concerned as if he looked like he was in pain. "Although, he's not my real dad of course. My Dad died in the war." He straightened in his seat as he felt proud whenever he thought about his parents.

Harry had explained to him a number of years ago about how his parents had died. At first, he hated that they had left him alone to grow up without my parents, but he eventually understood that they had gone to fight so that he could grow up without the threat of Voldemort and the prejudice he would face as the son of a werewolf.

He noticed that the girl looked slightly confused. "Was your dad a soldier?" she asked after a bit of hesitation.

"A soldier?" The word sounded familiar, but he couldn't remember what it meant. "Oh! You mean the muggle version of aurors?" He remembered hearing Aunt Hermione talk about them once, explaining the difference between them and aurors to Uncle Ron. "No, he er...had a bit of a problem...he couldn't get a job because of his...condition..." he trailed off. The girl looked even more confused than ever, but obviously decided to let it go.

She had spaced out for a moment as if in deep thought, but suddenly asked, "So, what's your name? I'm Leah Higgins." She forced a smile onto her face in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood.

'Merlin, where are my manners? I'd forgotten to introduce myself! Thank Merlin that Grandma isn't here,' he thought to himself. "Teddy Lupin. Don't you recognise me from the papers?" he smirked at her before changing into various different hairstyles, colours and shape of his face into the different 'disguises' he had worn when out with my family. The girl looked even paler than before, if that was possible, and had a look of complete and utter shock. 'Hm, maybe that was a bit too much at once,' he thought.

"H-how d-do you d-do that? Can you teach me?" she stuttered getting gradually higher in pitch. She had that look in her eye again that told him that she was deep in thought. He wondered whether she would end up in Ravenclaw. A small smile gradually crept onto her face with an ever so slight manic look in her eye.

He got a bit uncomfortable and tried to imagine what thoughts must be going through her head. He decided he needed to crush whatever plans she was concocting. "Sorry, I'm a metamorphmagus, I was born this way. It's not something that you can learn."

He avoided her eye and shuffled in his seat, still feeling quite uncomfortable. He looked up and saw that she had slumped in her seat looking a bit put out. He tried to change the subject. "You're a muggleborn aren't you? What's it like to live with muggles?"

"Well, I wouldn't really know how a normal muggle lives," she said petulantly. It was her turn to feel uncomfortable. "My parents died in a fire when I was very young. I went to live with my Grandfather, but he was quite old and losing his daughter just made him much worse. He wasn't able to look after me so I got sent to a children's home."

She must have seen his perplexed face and elaborated. "A children's home is basically where you get sent if you're under 18 and you haven't got anyone suitable to look after you. I suppose it's a modern term for an orphanage. There's a mix of orphans like myself as well as children who were taken off their parents because they were neglected and children of parents that have been sent to prison.

"Anyway, my Grandad died just a year later, so I never knew my parents. I don't even know their first names. I asked once, but apparently there's no record of them. It's like they never even existed. It confused my care workers for a while, but they must have found out why eventually because it was never mentioned again. They act like they've forgotten it was ever mentioned.

"I find it easier to think of them as two faceless people who brought me into the world anyway, rather than know lots about them and know that I can never meet them." Teddy was horrified. He had lost both his parents while he was young too, but at least he had people who remembered them and loved him like he was their own son. He told Leah as much.

"Yeah, you're lucky, but it doesn't bother me so much now. I've just accepted that I will never know them," she said. However, Teddy could tell that she was trying to hide the despair she felt at never knowing her parents so decided to talk about something else.

They spent the next couple of hours or so with Teddy explaining various things about the wizarding world that she hadn't already read including Quidditch, the Hogwarts houses, the subjects they will be learning and even talking about the war in more detail than can be found in the history books and on a much more personal level.

The trolley lady arrived and Leah headed out to buy as much as she could afford, which didn't appear to be much. She had tried to justify that it was simply for an experiment to compare muggle to wizard sweets. Judging by the small smile playing on her lips and the eagerness in which she headed over for the trolley, that wasn't the main reason.

She rushed back in with a box of every flavour beans, a packet of fizzing whizbees and a chocolate frog. "Teddy, there's some guys going into every compartment looking for you," she stated as she sat back down and started opening the box of every flavour beans.

"Really? What did they look like?" He replied feeling confused. He didn't know anyone on the train.

"There's a boy with light brown hair and he has a small slightly upturned nose, thick eyebrows and freckles. The other one has blonde hair spiked up at the front and he's really cute!" she exclaimed before turning slightly pink. "I just said that out loud, didn't I?" she asked timidly. Teddy just nodded amusedly.

"Well, I don't know them, so let's make sure they won't be able to find me." He scrunched up his face and his hair turned long and black and eyes a sky blue. "There, how do I look?" he asked with a smirk.

"I really wish I was able to do that," She sighed. "You look fine, nothing like you at all."

"And how do you know what I really look like?" he smirked, but before she could reply the compartment door slid open and a brown haired boy came in followed by a taller blonde haired boy.

"Have either of you two seen Teddy Lupin? My father told me he was in the same year as us." The brown haired boy spoke and the other boy just nodded and rubbed the back of his neck as if he was slightly embarrassed about asking about a boy neither of them had met.

"Sorry, who? Is he famous or something? Do you even know him?" Leah spoke up before putting another jelly bean into her mouth.

"Erm, well he normally has odd coloured hair. Like green or blue or purple." The blonde boy spoke up, ignoring the last two questions.

"Ew!" Leah spat out the jelly bean. "What the hell are they doing making mud flavoured jelly beans!" She put the box down and moved onto a chocolate frog while she tapped her chin and looked like she was trying to remember something. Teddy thought the girl was a bit strange. "You know, I think I did see someone with turquoise hair."

The boys looked excited. "Really? Where?"

"On the platform. He was getting onto the train."

"Great! Did you see where he went after that?"

"No, this man with messy black hair and green eyes bumped into me and I lost sight of him." Teddy could tell she was trying to fight off a grin, but the other boys didn't seem to notice. Their eyes just widened, looking like they might pop out of their skulls. He couldn't help but feel a little shocked as well. That sounded like his Godfather, but his Godfather is always aware of his surroundings because of being an auror and having 'constant vigilance!' drilled into him since he was 14.

"D...did he have a scar? On his forehead?"

"Shaped like a lightning bolt?" The brown haired boy added.

Leah seemed to contemplate this for a second. "Actually, I think he did. Why?"

"You met Harry Potter!" they both shouted at once, looking in awe at Leah.

"The guy that survived the killing curse when he was one year old? The man who destroyed Voldemort once and for all? The man who is the youngest person to ever become head of a department at the ministry?" she asked very quickly and excitedly. She was almost falling off her seat with her bouncing up and down on the seat which surprised Teddy because it had been the opposite of the way she had been acting for the past couple of hours.

The boys just nodded their heads vigorously. "No, you must be mistaken," she deadpanned, all excitement suddenly gone as if it was never there. "This man was really clumsy and just kept apologising and asking if there was anything he could do."

Teddy was really struggling not to laugh. Now that was definitely something his Godfather would do, but most people had a completely different image in their heads. "But...the scar...he has to be Harry Potter," the brown haired boy said desperately.

"Surely there are more people that just happen to have a scar on their head that have black hair and green eyes? I mean there's what? A few hundred million wizards in the world? And you're telling me that only one fits that description?"

The boys just stared at her opening and closing their mouths as if they were trying to say something to contradict her logic. "But...he's Harry Potter," the smaller boy finished lamely.

"Mhm. Anyway, I haven't seen Teddy so could you leave us so that we can get changed please?" She smiled sweetly at them. The boys just nodded and backed out with incredibly confused expressions on their faces, like they couldn't work out which way was up.

He couldn't hold it in any longer and Teddy started laughing uncontrollably. Leah watched him and then giggled softly. "I...I think...you...broke them!" he exclaimed between laughs. They both laughed for a couple of minutes and when it died down Leah smiled at him properly for the first time since the train ride began, a smile that showed off her crooked teeth, but reached her eyes and made them twinkle. She would have a beautiful smile if her teeth weren't quite so crooked. He wished she would smile more. He resolved to make sure that her time at Hogwarts was a good one and would reverse all the damage done by being brought up in a children's home.

They talked for a while more before getting changed into their robes and waiting in silent anticipation as the train pulled in to the station. Teddy's stomach started twisting in knots and he could see that Leah had turned even paler. She looked really ill.

When the train finally stopped, they pushed our way through the crowds and onto the tiny platform, lit with only a couple of street lamps. He looked around until he saw the familiar face of the half giant Hagrid and felt myself calm down. Leah stiffened behind him and whispered "Wh-who is that?"

"His name is Hagrid. Don't worry he isn't as scary as he looks, he's a good friend of my Dad, helped him out a lot while he was in Hogwarts," Teddy reassured her.

"When you say your dad, do you mean your real one or your Godfather?"

"Well, both I guess, but I was mainly talking about Harry. Sorry, I've known him all my life and he has been my Dad since mine is dead. So I call him Dad, but not to his face anymore. I used to when I was younger because I didn't really know any different, but I think it made him uncomfortable because he doesn't want to replace Remus Lupin." He was rambling, but Leah put an arm around him and pulled him into a hug. He was slightly taken aback, but relaxed into it and let her hold him.

"Firs'-years over here! C'mon, follow me - anymore firs'-years? Mind yer step, now! Firs'-years follow me!" Hagrid's booming voice carried over the crowd and Leah pulled away and grabbed Teddy's hand and followed after Hagrid.

He barely took notice of his surroundings. He heard Hagrid's voice and the other kids exclaiming with oohs and ahhs, but he wasn't paying attention. He was thinking about the person currently attached to his hand. At first glance, she didn't look like anything special, but underneath she was nothing but special.

She was incredibly shy and had seemed slightly awkward at first, but he supposed she didn't really meet many people. She was intelligent, funny and witty. He remembered the encounter with the two boys on the train. But she also seemed to be the first person to ever really understand him. She had hugged him. He didn't realise himself that he wanted one, but she had. And now here she was, holding his hand and leading him to the boats. He wondered what was going on in that beautiful mind of hers.

He hadn't realised he was staring at her until she smiled shyly at him and released his hand before coughing slightly and looking away and getting into the boat. He hadn't even realised they had arrived already and smiled nervously at her while mentally kicking himself for making her uncomfortable and got into the boat.

Two girls walked over blushing slightly. "Do you mind if we join you?" One of the girls asked.

"Sure," Teddy smiled brightly and the two girls got in.

"Hi, I'm Rebecca Millan, but you can call me Beck," Beck said smiling sweetly at Teddy. She had perfectly straight blonde hair and perfect smile with perfectly straight teeth that made her bright blue eyes twinkle. She seemed completely flawless.

He gaped at her before forcing out a reply, "Wotcher, Beck." Wotcher? He wondered where the hell that had come from. He quickly glanced at Leah and noticed an odd look in her eye.

The other girl coughed slightly, probably not liking being ignored. "And I'm Elga Cornfoot, but please call me El. I hate the name my mother forced upon me." She made a disgusted face. However, she still managed to look gorgeous even with that look on her face.

She had wavy light brown hair that fell past her shoulders. There was a light spattering of freckles on her nose and cheeks against her lightly tanned skin. Her grey eyes seemed almost hypnotising and Teddy felt himself being drawn in before he heard Hagrid shouting for them to keep their heads down as they passed through a curtain of ivy and into an opening in the cliff face.

They finally arrived at the underground harbour and scrambled out onto the rocks and pebbles. They followed the rest of the students up the flight of stairs. He kept trying to catch Leah's attention, but she wouldn't look at him and he began to wonder if he had done something to upset her. He missed the feel of her hand, which confused him greatly.

They reached a great oak door and Hagrid lifted his great fist and pounded on the door three times. He looked up in awe. This was it. His first year at Hogwarts was about to begin. This was the moment he had been waiting for the past 11 years. He hoped it would help him connect with his parents and he wished with all his heart that he would end up in either Gryffindor or Hufflepuff.

The door swung open and he took a deep breath and entered with the other first years.