For "The FRIENDS Comp" on the HPFC forum. Man, it's been a long time since I've been over there.
He can still see it.
He drops his bags at his feet and looks around the cold, empty apartment with weary eyes. He, Harry, and Ginny had scouted the place out earlier, despite their insistence that he didn't have to leave Grimmauld Place just because he graduated Hogwarts.
"It's time, you guys. I'm almost eighteen, and most muggle kids are out of their parents' homes by this age anyway. I just… need to grow up by myself for a while. Figure things out."
Ginny hated that. "You don't have to do anything of the sort, Teddy. You don't have to leave."
Harry had been silent. He was sad, Teddy could see it on his face, but he didn't have anything to say. "I'm not leaving because I want to leave. I'm leaving because I have to. It's part of growing up. And yeah, I know I can stay as long as I need but I still need to learn how to live on my own- and what better time than now?" Teddy had said, desperate for them to understand.
Today, he sighs and walks further into the living room, picturing where his mismatched furniture was going to go. He's been waiting for this a long time, and now that he has it, he almost doesn't know what he's going to do with himself. The place is too quiet. As the oldest of four, he feels a familiar loneliness begin to creep into his mind as he thinks of how little noise there is. It's unnatural.
A knock on the door.
He turns and walks over, peeking through the small window as he turns the knob. He sighs in relief and swings the door open. "Hey, Teddy," she says. He steps back and she steps in, looking around. "I brought boxes," she says next, fixing her gaze on him.
"Thanks, Vic," he replies, and she smiles brilliantly.
"By Merlin, I can't wait to move in here," she says, swinging her arms around. "I'm so done living under my parents' thumbs, you know? You're really lucky."
I don't feel lucky right now, is what he wants to say, but he doesn't. "I like this place," is what he says instead. She stops moving and looks at him.
"Something's wrong," she says, and walks over, her heels clicking on the hardwood floors. "Talk to me, baby. Tell me what's wrong."
She cradles his face in her hands and smiles at him. "Come on, babe."
He looks around desperately and then sighs. "I don't know how I'm going to sleep alone here," he says.
The thing about Victoire is that she always just gets it. She knows him well. But Bill interrupts. "Where do you want this stuff, Teddy?" he asks gruffly, holding three large boxes. Fleur and Dominique follow, each holding lamps and kitchenware that couldn't fit into boxes, like pans.
Teddy almost sways in his rush of emotion. He doesn't know.
"Just on the floor, Papa," Victoire says.
"Okay," Bill says. "After packing these things into all these boxes and then hauling it over here, what do you say to ice cream?" he offers, and Bill gets it, too. He knows. He winks at Teddy and Teddy smiles back, relieved.
"Okay," he agrees. Bill, Fleur, and Dom make their way back out. Victoire holds him back.
"You're still going to talk to me, okay, Teddy? I love you, and I don't want this unresolved before we have to go home," she says, tugging him into a hug. She kisses him, and he kisses her back desperately.
"Okay," he says again. She nods.
"You coming?" Louis demands, sticking his head in the door. "Or are you going to stand there all day?"
"Shut up," Victoire says immediately, still holding Teddy's gaze. "We'll be down in a minute."
He rolls his eyes and disappears.
"I can't wait until you move in with me, either," Teddy mutters, getting a little lost in the blue of her eyes. She grins at him.
"That's the spirit. I turn seventeen in six months and then I'm out of there. Can you hold on that long?"
"For you, my dear, I can hold on forever," he says, and she laughs.
"There's my Teddy."
…
Bill is sweating by the time every box is in the house and the furniture is, too.
Teddy feels just as awful, but Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione have just gotten off work, so they show up with housewarming gifts and dinner, and he feels slightly okay.
James gets in the apartments, slams himself onto the couch, and doesn't move again, typing into his phone- a muggle device Ron and most of his family have yet to understand despite the fact that they all have them, now- to his new girlfriend about something or another.
Louis joins him and they put their feet on the coffee table, much to Teddy's irritation. "Feet down," he calls to them, and Ginny bursts into laughter just as they enter the kitchen together.
"Now you get it," she says fondly, reaching up to ruffle Teddy's blue hair. He ducks out of the way with a laugh of his own. "It's annoying as all hell, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it is," he agrees, "Though, in my defense, I never did that."
"Not in your memory, you didn't, but it was your favorite thing to do until you were about four," Harry says, holding a pan of lasagna. "Ticked Ginny off so badly and then you'd pull the puppy-dog eyes and it was all over…"
"Oh, quiet, you," Ginny huffs at him, just as Hermione wanders in, a box in her hands.
"Plates," she announces, and lays the box on the counter. She starts unpacking them, and then looks at Ginny and Harry like they're done her a personal wrong. "All the money in the world and you couldn't even buy a set of plates?"
"I didn't want a set," Teddy says, finishing off the box and opening a cabinet on the top and piling a few inside. "I like the romanticism of it."
"There's romanticism in mismatched stuff?" The disbelief in Hermione's voice is plain.
"Absolutely," Teddy declares, and breaks down the box to take care of later.
"It's a moving-on-with-life type thing," Victoire chimes in, "Your first set of stuff and nothing looked right because it's all second-hand type deal but Ginny wouldn't go for that part."
"Damn right," Ginny agreed, and Teddy smiled broadly.
"Thank you, Vic," he says.
"When are we eating?" Ron asks, materializing from nowhere to lean on the counter.
"When you can stop asking," Hermione retorts, and then shoves a plate at him. "It's serve yourself night," she explains.
And when they're all leaning on the counters and sitting on the floor with a dismantled table against the wall by the window, Teddy feels like this might be okay, as long as they kept this up.
"You know," Albus says, sliding up next to Teddy, Scorpius following closely, as always. "I think of this little apartment as just another place we can argue over for holidays," he finishes, handing his plate to Scorpius when the blond makes grabby motions at it. Teddy laughs. This will be home, he thinks.