Growing up was not, by anyone's measure an easy thing to do. Everyone's childhood had its pitfalls. Things went badly, awkward adolescence, but your family got you through it. Even when your friends were rotten, you always had your parents, or siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins; someone was always there to pick up the pieces of your teenage angst. Even when you were the one being rotten, they still loved you. Or at least that was what Teddy Lupin, wonder child, Head Boy of Hogwarts, had always heard.

There were people in his life that loved him, people who he had, for some parts of his life, considered his family. But every one of them had, at some point let him down. It hadn't happened all at once, and had never, of course, been intentional. But it had always happened. And that was a hard thing to accept as a kid, hell; it was even hard for his nineteen year old self to accept.

The first to go had been the older adults; Bill and Percy had families of their own and had never even been close to his parents, anyway. They hadn't signed up to have another kid thrust on them, but they always made a point of being nice. In a way it was funny, they were far better equipped to deal with a kid than any of their younger siblings.

George had never really made an effort, being too locked up in his own grief, then in his whirlwind love affair to consider taking part in Teddy's upbringing. Charlie had left right away, throwing himself back into his work, losing himself in the magic of the dragons.

That had left Harry and Ginny, Ron and Hermione, and the slowly aging Weasley parents to work out taking care of a kid who was, for all intents and purposes, unrelated to any of them. This was made even worse by the fact that two thirds of their number were barely out of school, if they were at all. Nevertheless they tried their hardest, and did pretty well for most of his younger years.

Then Molly grew ill and Arthur gave up everything in his life to take care of her. He abandoned his muggle artefacts and stopped working. He focused all of his energy on preserving her life.

The two young couples had done a pretty good job, making every special occasion for the first 7 years of his life. Then Rose was born, and he could see the struggle that was constantly plaguing Ron and Hermione. Then on his 8th birthday they didn't come. They came a week later, protesting the illness of their daughter. But that was a concept that was difficult for an 8 year old to understand, all he knew was that she meant more to them than him.

The final blow came 7 years later; he had come to be a quite accomplished Quidditch player, but had, quite unfortunately taken a bludger to the head. Unfortunately for him, this was the day that Albus and Rose discovered that they were quite handy at escaping their houses and had, somehow, managed to dare each other into flying brooms. The 8-year-olds, relishing in this freedom, had flown higher than their parents would ever have allowed before attempting their favourite game, broom jousting. They had both just managed to tumble off their brooms as their mothers came outside to look for them. This was the only fact that saved them. Despite their state of unharm, it was, nonetheless, out of the question for any of their parents to take time away from their precious children to attend to a poor boy alone in the hospital wing.

So Teddy awoke alone, his grandmother being far too frail to travel so far if he wasn't dying. And this was the first moment he felt truly abandoned. There were several more in the years that followed: his Christmas presents never seemed quite as perfect, he was always the last one hugged at the train station. None of them had even stopped in in the hours before his grandmother's funeral last year. All of it made him realize how alone he really was.

But now. Now he was to be a proper part of a family, he was proposing to Victoire, tonight, and it would, it could only, lead to him marrying her entire family. They'd have to love him then. He'd be theirs for real.

AN: I'm not sure if this really accomplishes what I meant it to. I mean it comes across a lot whinier than I intended. But I really like the start, so I might rework it into something better in the future. But for now drop me a line and tell me what you think!