Chapter Three — Rebel Without a Cause
It was in his Fifth Year that Teddy hit his rebellious stage.
That isn't to say that he was not a rebellious child. He certainly tested the limits before then. The label is merely there to explain that when he turned fifteen, Teddy began to actively seek out rebellion.
It is not surprising that he became a regular in Detentions. The most infamous incident was when he hid dungbombs in his Potion Professor's cauldron and the entire classroom had to be evacuated. Other amusing incidents included piercing his ear, streaking on school grounds and bewitching seats to jump back every time a person tried to sit on them.
With the skills of a Metamorphmagus at his disposal, he began to think of more devious ways to break the rules. He could impersonate teachers or other students and often get away with it. He could become a splitting replica of Mr. Duff, the caretaker, and roam the halls late at night, unperturbed. His shape-shifting got him most in trouble when he became a girl, in order to get into the Gryffindor girl's dormitories, all because Digby Mullins dared him. Professor Longbottom constantly had to keep an eye on him.
So, by fifteen, he had cultivated a bad boy image. Recklessness seemed best suited to his age, and he had the hair and personality to match. Most of his peers believed his audacity was impressive, but Victoire became very bored of his rule breaking. As he grew more cool, she became colder.
This never ceased to bother Teddy.
"Can you do me a favour?" he asked Victoire one afternoon. She was sitting with Krishnaa at a Common Room table, working on her Defense Against the Dark Arts homework.
"What sort of favour?" she asked, without looking up.
He leaned in close, until he was only inches from her face. She still refused to look up from her parchment.
"I want to ask Cassandra Stubbs out, but don't know what her taste in boys is."
Cassandra Stubbs was on the Gryffindor Quidditch team with Victoire, and she was a really nice girl. There was no way Victoire would subject her to an interrogation for Teddy's benefit.
"Why does it matter what her taste in boys is? Ask her out. If she says no, she says no."
Teddy sighed, and turned to Krishnaa instead. "Krish?"
"Yes?" Krishnaa said, wide-eyed and breathless. Victoire huffed in frustration.
"What do you think makes a guy look fit, in your personal opinion?"
She paused to really give the question thought. "I suppose someone with a darker complexion. Tall. Handsome, with black hair."
Teddy closed his eyes and scrunched up his face. With a pop, his appearance had shifted. His skin was a deep russet, his eyes a heavy brown, his hair inky and thick. All of his features had become heavier, more distinctly shaped. Krishnaa gaped at him, blinking several times in succession. He even had Victoire's attention now, as she studied him, her expression unnerved.
"Would you got out with me?" he asked, his voice the same.
Krishnaa nodded mutely. With a pop, Teddy returned to his preferred appearance.
Victoire was not so easily awed. She sat up and straightened her shoulders, meeting Teddy's eye. "Listen, Lupin. If Cassandra won't go out with you when you're beingyouthen it will never last even if you do look like the sexiest wizard of the year."
"You're so cynical," he sighed, pulling himself up. "And who said I was looking for it to last anyway?"
He did end up going on a date with Cassandra Stubbs, and it didn't end up lasting. It boiled Victoire's blood.
Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Victoire knew she fancied Teddy. It irked her and burned her. She spent hours pining about it. She imagined a world where they were together, where they were like a serious couple, where they were happy. There were days where Teddy seemed to humour these fantasies, where he would treat her in such a way she would think they were more than friends. But then he'd go and kiss Cassandra Stubbs. She could't help but love him, and she hated herself for it.
During that summer, things began to heat up between Victoire and Teddy. They were spending so much time together. In the absence of male schoolmates and pretty girls, Teddy seemed to focus on Victoire. It was at the start of the holidays, after a balmy day of beach-swimming and orange-eating, that Teddy leaned forward to kiss her. He tasted like citrus and magic. The kiss was strange, Victoire kept her eyes open, as if she was witnessing something happening to someone else. After that day, Teddy kissed her often.
She wasn't sure what it all meant, but the summer was spent in a high of kisses and sneaky touches and constant butterflies. It was as if she has swallowed a love potion. She felt delirious with the feeling, almost unable to focus on anything but Teddy. Their cousins started placing bets on whether they'd get into an official relationship. But they were on and off, on and off. His inconsistency drove Victoire insane. One moment he would be resolute and mad about her, and another he would be reeling away, more interested in Quidditch and brooms and prank gadgets and new spells. He would just ignore her. She hated the idea that she was competing for his attention, yet she thrived on it whenever he was in the mood to focus on her. Whenever she tried to talk about it, to ask for some clarification, he would cut her off and ask, "Can't we just keep this simple?"
But it had never been simple between Teddy and Victoire.
These events culminated at the 2014 Quidditch World Cup Final. They had spent most of the day kissing in corners, behind tents or beneath the stadium's scaffolds. The kissing was the usual high school kind that Victoire was still inexperienced with. It always left her breathless, her skin crawling and her mind stuck on Teddy for hours afterwards. She itched to be near him, to sit beside him, to have him touch her. Teddy never seemed to take it as seriously as she did.
"I fancy you," she would tell him, as honestly as ever, as if she were a child again with a great big crush.
"Don't go making this messy," he would say uncomfortably, untwining himself, looking at her with boyish defiance. "Why don't you just want to keep things simple?"
It got splashed across the newspapers and they became the centre of ridicule. Her father was filled with I told you so's and her mother suggested that Victoire consider her behaviour in public.
She was young and green and feeling terribly used. Teddy would see-saw between kissing her and ignoring her. When she finally confronted him at the end of the summer, he seemed genuinely surprised.
"What do you mean I'm using you? We're just having a good time!"
"Yeah, maybe for you!" Victoire cried, furious with him. "But I'm not just someone you can have a good time with, Teddy Lupin! You can't treat me like that."
"I do like you, Vic, you know I like you. We're just so young, for Merlin's sake. What did you want out of this? I'm not even sixteen."
"You're selfish and you're cruel," she replied, her eyes filled with tears.
"Oh come on, Victoire. Give us a kiss."
"I'm never going to kiss you again," she vowed, the heat in her voice. "I mean it. Never again."
She became cold to him, aloof, alone. Her love from his disintegrated, and he didn't seem to mind. This is what hurt her most.
At the start of the school year, she didn't fancy Teddy, but his immaturity did irk her. The bubbly, bright boy she had once befriended began to encase himself in a snarky, defiant attitude. It didn't take long for Teddy to have his first drink, his first cigarette, his first fight. He sped through these experiences as if he was checking them off a mental list. And no matter how much he believed he seemed cooler and wiser for having done so, Victoire always felt that it made him seem juvenile. There was nothing attractive about someone who tried so hard to soil their integrity.
With hindsight on side, Fifth Year was a bad year for Teddy. It was a year of unmet desires.
On one late night escapade, he was wandering the halls as Mr. Duff, his skin wrinkled and his back stooped. He happened to pass several Professors along his way, but they only nodded, not recognising that they had just seen a faux doppelgänger. His late night walks were mostly attributed to insomnia, although they had proven profitable. He was often able to steal potion ingredients or sneak into restricted areas of the library or else explore hidden rooms. He became a sleepless sleeper, walking around mindlessly, struggling to tell the difference between dreaming and reality.
He took a turn that night, into a room he had never visited before. It was one of the less explored levels of the school and at first he thought he had stumbled upon an unused classroom.
The room was draped with heavy red curtains, and a fine layer of dust had settled on the velvet. There were no portraits on the walls and no desks occupying the empty space either. The only object in the room was a large, gilded mirror. It was carved intricately, reflecting back the room at large. Teddy began to inch his way towards it. He expected to see the withered reflection of Mr. Duff, but was surprised to see himself, skinny and blue haired, staring back from the mirror.
It had to be magic, he decided. His eyes darted to the engraved words as he came closer. He tried to read the inscription around the gold frame— "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi." It was no language he had ever seen before. When he returned his gaze to the mirror, he leapt back. He spun around to check if the room was still empty.
It's a magic mirror, he reminded himself as he took a cautious step forward to inspect it further. He could see himself clearly, blue haired and wide eyed. But behind him were two adults. The man had a gentle expression, complemented by a small, timid smile. His light brown hair was streaked with grey, and he had a thin scare the bridge of his nose. The woman beside him was a complete contrast. Her skin was fresh, her hair was bright pink. She grinned hugely, and it was Teddy's grin. But Teddy wasn't grinning.
His parents looked exactly as he had seen them in photographs. His father reached forward and placed his hand gently on his son's shoulder.
Teddy blinked hard. He looked around again, even laying a hand on his shoulder to check if someone was there. He turned back to his own reflection. The boy in the mirror smiled contentedly.
It couldn't be a real mirror, he decided. To test it, he changed his appearance back to his preferred look, but altered his hair to a bright, fire engine red.
In the mirror, it remained its usual blue.
He reached forward, pressing his hand to the glass. His mother's eyes flickered towards it.
It wasn't a real mirror. It was just magic.
Horrible magic.
He began to cry in earnest, falling to his knees, his open palm still resting on the cruel looking-glass. It was all he wanted, all there on the other side, but he couldn't get it.
He never went looking for that mirror again, despite being tempted. He knew that entertaining the idea of parents would never provide him with those he had lost. They were dead. He had to tell himself this often after that night, because it was easy to believe they were simply trapped behind the glass.
The mirror had exposed a hurt in him that had always existed but was rarely acknowledged. It forced him to search for new ways to bury it. When he looked back many years later, Teddy recalls the methods with grimaces. Those awkward first encounters. His desire to start fights. His desire to feel numb. Drinking became a big deal, as did smoking knotgrass. He became the main distributor of recreational potions, which he brewed himself in his dormitory and sold for pocket money. Detentions became more frequent. Despite his wide grin, his eyes became dull. Professor Longbottom always wanted to sit down and talk to him after Herbology, but Teddy became better at making excuses to leave. This behaviour escalated throughout his Fifth Year and continued early into his Sixth Year. He was doing terribly in his classes, although he always acted as if he didn't care. All he wanted, more than anything, was to stop feeling.
But the desire to be loved always outweighs the desire to feel numb.
One night, after a gripping Quidditch match where Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw, an after party was thrown in the Gryffindor Common Room. Digby Mullins had charmed a poster that hung on a wall, depicting a lion mauling a raven. Everyone caroused and joked around, cheering on the players. Teddy made a toast for each person in the team. Everything was a celebration for Teddy, another reason to raise a glass, another reason to get roaring drunk.
Victoire watched him from a corner of the room, still in her Keeper's robes, not touching any of the alcohol. When he made a toast for her—
"Victoire, my love—wait where is she, where's—Vic! Vic, to you, for being the only bird in the world who can catch a Quaffle like you can. Without Victoire we'd have no victory—haha, geddit?"
—She wasn't in the least bit impressed.
Everyone raised a bottle and drank. Victoire sat in her corner, feeling surly.
Samuel Thompson, in the year above, sauntered towards her with a cup in his hand. He sat on the arm of her chair, leaning down to speak.
"Great save today," he began.
"Thanks Sam."
She wasn't in the mood for Samuel Thompson. Many boys had shown interest in her over the past year, but Samuel was the only one to repeatedly ignore her rebuffs. It had forced her to become cold and detached, to be direct each time she spoke. Even then, she could not fully repel the stream of admirers, seduced by what she knew was just Veela charm. No matter how rude the fourteen-year-old girl would be, it was never enough to dissuade her devotees.
"You don't want a drink?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she replied tersely, not providing eye-contact, in fear that would encourage him.
"I was thinking, there's a Hogsmeade trip coming up—"
"No," she said, before he had even asked.
"Aw, c'mon, Victoire. You don't even know what I was going to ask."
"You were going to ask if we could go to Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, and spend the day together. The answer is no."
He seemed surprised that she had guessed it, perhaps forgetting that he had asked her twice before.
"You just need to give me a chance—"
"Tell me, Sam." Victoire half stood now, levelling with him. "What do you not understand aboutno?It's very simple. I do not want to go on a date with you. I am not even remotely interested in you. Why can't you get that through your thick head?"
His face was steadily turning red. She knew several people were looking their way but she didn't care. She was mad, madder than she had ever felt before and she wasn't sure why.
"What's your problem?" he said, his humiliation turning to anger.
"Oi!"
They both turned.
Victoire's stomach summersaulted. Merlin, why now? Why did he choose now to be brave? She didn't want to deal with this.
Teddy stumbled towards them, his expression furious. "Why are you bothering her?"
"Mind your own business, Lupin," Sam snapped.
Teddy pushed him hard in the chest, buffering Victoire out of the way. "Thisis my business, you scumbag."
That's all it took to begin a scuffle.
In reality, it was not Teddy's business at all. The attention he gave Victoire was fleeting. It was usually spurred by jealousy or rage or cupboard love. He would forget about her for weeks on end sometimes, until suddenly, he remembered he had an obligation to protect her. Caught in a drunken stupor, this was one of those times.
Teddy was pounding into Samuel's face, pinning him onto the floor with his knees. He had only landed a few good punches when Victoire pulled him off, yelling for him to stop. Sam remained on the floor, whimpering. She shoved Teddy further away. "What the hell?" she demanded.
Before he could supply a justification, Samuel Thompson was up and hitting him with a curse. "Stop it!" Victoire shrieked as the burst of light erupted from his wand. But she was too late, for the Toenail-Growing Hex was already doing its work. Teddy's shoes split open. He howled.
Victoire grabbed him roughly by the arm and walked him out of the Common Room, pushing him through the portrait hole.
"Why did youdothat?" she said as she extracted her wand and hastily performed a counter curse.
He sunk down onto the floor, cradling his head in his hands. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." His voice was cracked with anguish.
He was skinny and sixteen and tired from running himself into the ground and finding new reasons to laugh. She prised his hands from his eyes and held firmly onto his face. She forced him to meet her clear eyes. "You must promise me to stop this."
"I was trying to help," he offered her weakly.
"No, Teddy.All of this," she retracted her hands to gesture at him. "This is not you. You were never the sort of person who needed to hide behind drugs and grog and your fists…You hit someone! Do you have any idea how uncivilised that is for a Wizard? You should be ashamed."
He was ashamed. It was there in his hazel eyes. He was ashamed.
"I'll stop," he said.
She nodded, knowing it wasn't a dismissal like the few other times he had been confronted.
"I was only trying to help," he added.
"I know."
"I wanted to defend you," he explained.
"Well, I suppose you did a better job at defending me than you did yourself."
"Can I get a kiss?" he asked.
She smiled coyly. "I'd rather die," she said. In spite of this, she leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
"Alright, I can be satisfied with that for now."
She stood and offered him a hand, hauling him up. He was taller than her. She hadn't noticed when he had caught up.
He finished the year going cold turkey. Victoire ordered Digby to raid out the boy's dormitory, finding cigarettes and whatever other illicit items he had accumulated in books and pillowcases. Digby obliged, always impressed by the authority Victoire seemed to carry, and handed the hoard over to her. With Teddy watching on, she flushed it all down the lavatory toilet.
Despite the sleepless nights, pounding headaches and unpredictable mood swings, he was clean after a month. There was a mounting horror attached to this—the realisation that he had been pushing so much down, smothering what needed to be heard. He spoke to Digby one night, and told him about the mirror, and what he had seen in it. Digby had never heard of such a thing before, but told Teddy not to worry about it. "You're right. It's just magic, and there's no use fretting over it. If you focus on what you don't have, you make yourself sick. You feel empty. You have to focus on who is here."
And the advice was good. So, he took it.