Aki- Hey, finally, another chapter. This one is way longer then the others, but I really like it. It's for Teddy Lupin. I really love him. Who else does loves Teddy?

No Normal Kid

Teddy wasn't a normal kid, even by Hogwarts standards. Wearing your hair a bright shade of turquoise often got you more attention than other kids. It didn't help that his godfather was the Harry Potter. It got him barraged with curious admirers when he started his schooling at Hogwarts. He basked in the glory of the individual attention he wasn't familiar with from being an unofficially adopted member of the large Weasley clan.

However, it got annoying after about one week, when he realized that everyone was less interested in him and more in his godfather. He couldn't blame them, Harry Potter was much more interesting than him a turquoise haired, slightly shy, orphaned, seemingly untalented freak like him. He didn't mind being a freak; he wore the self-label like a badge of pride.

Although Teddy discovered, much to his surprise, he really liked school (but not to a nerd level), and he loved to watch Quidditch games, really enjoyed the house rivalry, the dorms were awesome, independence was great, and he had earned an reputation as a great prank master (he made up that term himself) because he believed it was his civic duty to live up to both his father's and godfather's name, resulting in week extra's worth of detention that would cry over into the next school year (Gran was horrified; Harry tried not to look proud)…anyway, he discovered at his welcome home party at the end of his first school year that he loved his family and the time that he spent with them a million times more than he did the friends he made and his time at Hogwarts. The realization came with the bittersweet pang that of the entirety of his extended family he was referring to, only one was blood related.

…

Teddy wasn't a normal kid, even if he didn't realize it all the time. I mean, he never used to consider being an orphan abnormal. He had his whole life to get used to it. One time, when he was 12, Victiore asked him what it felt like, not to have parents. He didn't have an answer. He never 'felt' anything different. Sure he was sad at times about it, but his life was fundamentally the same. He had a million people who loved him and cared for him: Gran, Harry, Ginny, Victoire…the list could go on and on. But the more he thought about it the more he realized that something…someones…was missing.

He was hardly the only Hogwarts student who had a parent or relative listed on the memorial that stood in the entrance hall for the people who died at the Battle of Hogwarts. Most people pointed out the engraved names of a late relative with mild interest, receiving glory for their family's bravery. Teddy never pointed out his parent's names, although he had been asked about them once or twice. He was hardly the only student with a relative's name on the memorial statue, but he was the only one with both of his parents on that statue.

…

Teddy wasn't a normal kid and he didn't really care anymore. No normal kid would be spending the Saturday of the Quidditch championship game on a beautiful spring day inside the castle. Especially if it was the last game of your seventh year. No, the castle was quite quiet, abandoned even. Perfect prank set up time, he had learned from previous experience (Hogsmeade trips were good too), but he wasn't in the mood.

In fact, he was in a downright horrible mood. Some of his friends might have called it early NEWT's stress and he let them believe the false assumption. He didn't want to talk about it. All his friends had their parents. So maybe that's why he found himself all alone in the Entrance Hall during the Quidditch championship, tracing his parents' engraved names almost absently with his forefinger.

Teddy was six years old when Harry explained to him that his father was a werewolf, although he didn't understand the implications of that until years later when in his first year that jerk Andrew McLorren broadcasted quite proudly to the entire student body about Teddy's father's secret and got everyone to avoid him for weeks. Ever since then Teddy has stayed up all night on nights of the full moon, staring out the window or laying on the roof of his house. He could never quite get over how something so beautiful and magnificent as the sight of the full moon could bring something so horrible. He also thought he owed it to his father, maybe just to know the weariness of the day after if not the pain of the transformation. Because blood was blood and, no matter what, he was proud of where he came from.

Teddy had been able to change his appearance at will for as long as he could remember. He had complete control of it by age nine and a half. It was then he liked to experiment greatly with his appearance. Pig-like noses, bright orange eyes, height a few impressive inches taller than his peers, pointed-elf ears, hair of various shades and styles…the novelty wore off after a while, although he was always willing to oblige for the amusement of his classmates. Most of the time he kept his eyes their natural shade of honey-brown, like his father's. But he always kept his hair a ridiculous shade, usually turquoise (although he admits experimenting with pink to discover what allured his mother to it so much). It was a tribute to her; he thinks she'd appreciate it.

…

Teddy wasn't a normal kid, but he didn't mind most of the time. He didn't mind not being normal because his hair alternated between shades of turquoise, pink, or black. He didn't mind not being normal because he was unnaturally good at pulling pranks. He didn't mind not being normal because he was deep and reflective at times. He didn't mind not being normal even because his godfather was Harry Potter. He didn't care about those things. In fact, he enjoyed them.

But he did mind not being normal when it came to his parents…

"Teddy!"

He turned around on spot to see a laughing and loudly talking crowd filing in the front doors. The game must be over. Victoire, blonde hair floating behind her, ran up to him.

"You weren't at the game. You alright?" she asked, head cocked to the side in concern.

"I'm…," he glanced behind him at the memorial, "Fine."

She wasn't convinced. "You miss them," she stated sadly.

Teddy nodded.

"Maybe you can talk to Uncle Harry—"

"I've talked to him. And to Gran. And to everyone who's known them. A million times…it's just not the same." He looked at the floor.

He felt Victoire move up closer to him, her hand brushing against him in invitation. He took her hand in his own, thankful for the small comfort.

"Teddy, you know I'm always here."

"I know," he said, meeting her blue eyes with his brown ones. 'And I wish that was all I needed,' he added mentally. "It's just…"

"Yes?" Victoire gently prodded.

"Sometimes I wonder…I wish they were here…"

"They died heroes—"

"I don't care!" he said, anger boiling out of him, directed more at the unfairness than at Victoire. "But they're not here! If they really loved me they would be here to see me graduate or praise me for good grades or scold me for all the detentions I've got. They would be here to assure me about the future and giving me a talk on how to treat my girlfriends right. If they really loved me they wouldn't have gone, they would lived, they would have stayed and Gran and Harry wouldn't have had to raise me because my parents would have been there…" Angry and embarrassed tears filled Teddy's eyes, but he refused to let them fall. He had never spoken those words despite the long years they had been in his head.

Tightening her grip, Victoire silently lead the unresisting Teddy away from the crowd into the privacy of an abandoned and rarely trod corridor.

"Teddy," she said, demanding eye contact. She gently swiped a long strand of his hair, which had unknowingly turned to a dull shade of brown, off his forehead. "They loved you. They had to."

"But how do you know?" Teddy demanded weakly.

"Everyone says—"

"So what? How can I believe anything when they are not here to prove it?"

"Because they died for you! Like Uncle Harry's parents did for him," she argued.

"That's different. Voldemort brought the fight to them. My parents went to the fight."

"Because they had to!"

"No, they didn't!"

Victoire took an exhausted sigh. "Look," she said, calming herself, "Remember in your third year when McLorren was taunting that real little, shy kid,…um…Kevin Richards?"

"Yeah?" said Teddy uneasily, not sure in what the direction this was heading.

"Then you hexed McLorren for it and got a week's worth of detentions and lost twenty-five house points for it?"

"Vividly." It was those points that lost their house the cup that year.

"Then why did you do it?"

"What?" asked Teddy, confused.

"Why did you defend the kid? You knew you would get caught and get in trouble. Why did you do it?"

"Because it was the right thing to do…I couldn't just stand around and do nothing."

"There," said Victoire, proving her point with triumph. "Your parents died doing something that was the right thing to do. They couldn't let injustice reign. It wasn't right."

"Fine," said Teddy with a small, forced grin, "I get it."

"Good, now I think it's almost time for diner. Would you escort me?" she said with a teasing smile.

"Anything for you, milady," Teddy replied with a small chuckle.

Once her attention was averted from him at the noise Great Hall, where everyone was talking about the Quidditch game, Teddy allowed himself to sulk again. He knew his parents had loved him. Deep down, he knew it. He could tell from their smiles in the photographs and the anecdotes of their friends he had collected over the years, but that didn't ease the doubt that filled him from within. Their something that couldn't replace witnessing it for yourself, living it, like everyone else seemed to take for granted.

Although he appreciated the concern and effort, knowing it was coming from the heart, but Victoire's confidences did little to ease his worry and heartache. He let her think that she did, because he didn't want to worry her with his problems. She cared too much about him to let him be distraught by himself.

He remembered his fifteenth birthday and how Harry had told him that his parents, Remus and Nymphadora Lupin, had died to make the world a better place for him. They were heroes, but for all it was worth, he sometimes wished they were cowards. Part of him thought that he could have faced the world at its worst, full of prejudice, Dark Lords, fear, and war, and could have dealt with it all if he just had his parents with him. Because growing up with this normal, happy world without them seemed near impossible.