Enjoy!
Teddy fit into our family well. Though he slept on the couch, he ran to Dominique's room to wake her up every morning and they went and walked through the forest. He read to Louis, old tales from Beedle the Bard and so many others. And in the evenings, we went swimming and basked on the sand while the sun set. He took more time is stopping and looking than anyone I had ever met. It was such that, a week through his time, he saw the elf's grave in the garden.
"Who's that for?" He bent down, brushing the dirt off his knee caps.
"An elf." I said proudly, showing him.
"Yes, but who's Dobby?"
"An elf!"
Teddy chuckled, and I watched the corners of his mouth.
"How do you think he died?" I asked seriously after a moment.
"In the war, probably." Teddy said wisely.
"My uncle died in the war." I told him.
"My parents did too."
"I knew that."
We sat in silence, pondering the stone before us. "Do you think we should ask?"
He bit his lower lip, "no. Maybe it will make your parents sad."
"Oh."
That night, I couldn't help but think about the elf, and how he had been killed. I wondered whether dying hurt. Did Dobby cry? And why had he been buried here? Finally, I stood up and watched out my window as a yellow light bobbed along the path outside. My heart skipped. It was Teddy. I rushed over to Dominique's room and told her what was happening. We had never snuck out at night before.
We slipped outside and hopped along the cold stones that made up the path. Teddy was sitting down next to the grave. Dominique and I stood over him, seeing that his eyes were closed. He reached up a hand and took Dominique over to sit next to him. I followed, and we all sat there, eyes closed, in front of the grave of that elf.
Eventually, Dominique's rustling stopped, and I learned to sit and be quiet. I tried to feel for this elf that I didn't know. I thought about the war. Why had it happened. It was so cruel of them to kill a nice elf.
Finally, I was left with no noise but the ocean, and these thoughts of how cruel war could be. I opened up and felt it all, leaving me with a hollow heart. I don't know how long I stayed awake, but when I woke up, Teddy was standing over me. It was almost dawn. He grabbed my hand, and led me back to the house. I curled up in my bed and slept for a long while. When I woke again, I came downstairs to find that Teddy was alone on the couch in the mid-afternoon.
"What were we doing last night?" I whispered to him.
He opened his eyes, "sitting vigil."
I nodded, and wondered vaguely how this boy could be only two years older than I, but somehow so adult-like. His hair was dark brown in the light, leaving me wondering again. His hair had been jet black the night before. When I asked, he said he was a metamorphmagus.
That night, when I looked in my dictionary, I didn't believe the definition.
A witch or wizard with the ability to change his or her physical appearance at will, rather than requiring Polyjuice Potion or a spell like the rest of the wizarding population. They are extremely rare.
For a moment I just stared at it. How could he change his appearance? It meant that he could look however her wanted, but… He could look however I wanted too. Immediately I started leafing through a notebook and pulling out one of my sketches of a character from an old tale of magic. A dark boy, with great sweeping hair colored like shadows that stuck up in the front with a great cowlic. A boy with large deep eyes, the color of the sky reflected in a pond in midsummer. The most beautiful boy I had ever seen. I stared at the drawing, then laughed. Teddy wasn't my lover anyway, he was just a friend, anyway. He was older, and, not like this boy at all. I shrugged and crumpled the paper up. I pushed open the window and let the ball drop into the night.
I didn't think of it again until years later.