Teddy paced in his and Remus' bedroom. He was waiting for his father to come up and tell him if he was allowed to sit in on the Order meeting. A pit formed in his stomach: he wasn't even sure himself if he needed to be there, but he did need to talk to Dumbledore and the man had limited time. Finally, Teddy heard the stairs creaking and a slight thud. He dashed to the door and opened it before a woman with bubble-gum pink hair could even get herself up off the floor.
"Wotcher, Teddy," she grinned. "Took a bit of a fall, there—the stairs are uneven, you see. Anyway," she paused, "Remus was supposed to fetch you, but he looked so damn comfy sitting down, so I thought I would. The Order would like to hear what you've got to say—at least for a bit," she added, rising from her position as she brushed her hair aside and out of her face. Teddy stared at his mother. He reckoned she was about the same age as him, and was as young, vibrant, and clumsy as people had told him.
"Sounds good," he replied, unable to find more words than that. It was his mother most people compared him to, and he had avoided talking to her for that very reason. People would tell him that he looked like his father and pranked like a Marauder, but that he was Tonks' boy through and through. Only the very few who knew Remus well would point out their similarities. Tonks eyed the boy suspiciously.
"You're awfully quiet—would have thought to hear a bit more out of you, considering how you were the last time we met…"
"Tired is all," Teddy insisted. "Tired, cranky—I didn't sleep much." Tonks' face fell a bit.
"Oh…Sorry about that. Anyway, the lot will be wondering what I've done with you if we don't get down there," she winked, and Teddy felt his stomach turn slightly at the insinuation.
"So," she began, leading the way down the stairs. "Remus has good things to say about you—what do you think of him?" She asked bluntly. Teddy had not been expecting that.
"Er…I think he's brilliant," Teddy said truthfully. "From what I can tell, a great wizard and an even better friend." He paused for a moment. "Do you know him well?"
Tonks let out a short laugh. "Merlin, no. I don't think anyone does, except Sirius maybe. I'd like to, but he's a bit closed off. Rather like you—though I suppose you have a reason to be."
Teddy nodded silently. She's comparing me to him. He assumed his mother might have compared father and son at some point during his life, but if she did, Teddy couldn't remember it. It was strange to hear it now.
"Yes…about that," he began as they were about to head into the kitchen. "What do they want to hear from me?" Teddy asked. Tonks simply smirked.
"That's for me to know and for you to find out, Mr. Secret."
Tonks opened the door and Teddy looked to see an actual spot for him at the table—right next to the last person he wanted to sit near: Mad-Eye Moody. Remus, Sirius, and Molly all gave him smiles, as if they knew how little he wanted to be cornered with that man. Arthur Weasley and Severus Snape appeared to be gone—perhaps on some mission, or needed at Hogwarts, and there were a few people he didn't know seated around the table. But sitting at the head was someone Teddy had only seen in portraits, though he knew very clearly who he was: Albus Dumbledore. The young man couldn't help but widen his eyes at the sight of the greatest wizard of all time. In response, Dumbledore seemed to almost wink at him through his half-moon spectacles, and Teddy couldn't help but wonder why the man was so trusting of him. Did he know something Teddy didn't?
"Thank you for joining us, Teddy," Dumbledore began. "Apologies for my informality—I was not given a last name to go by."
"I can't—Ministry's Orders," Teddy blurted out. Get yourself together. That was barely English. Dumbledore only smiled.
"As expected. Please, take a seat," the old wizard said, motioning to the chair next to Moody. Teddy sat down, trying very hard to avoid eye contact with the Auror. Mad-Eye, on the other hand, did no such thing.
"I don't trust him enough to be here," Mad-Eye grunted, his magic eye's gaze shifting from person to person. "Does anyone disagree?"
Teddy gazed around the circle. He didn't expect those he didn't know to vouch for him, but he did expect something from those he did—after all, he had gotten this far, hadn't he?
"I trust him," Remus declared, breaking the silence. "We spent a great deal of time together earlier today, and I dare say if he had wanted to harm me, he would have done so by now."
Teddy smiled. At least his father was on his side. Moody, however, did not see pleased.
"Apologies, Lupin, if your opinion isn't much of a vote of confidence to me," Mad-Eye coughed. "You have may have biases—"
"I trust him too," Sirius interjected, winking at Teddy before continuing. "Moony's trust is good enough for me—I like him. And I think he's got value to add to the Order."
Mad-Eye grunted, mumbling something like 'we'll see about that.' Teddy didn't feel particularly safe sitting next to Moody as he made his next move, but it wasn't like him to not stand his ground.
"It doesn't matter if you trust me to be here or not. I have a job to do, and I'm not leaving until I do it. I need help," Teddy snapped. He looked at Dumbledore. "I assume your word is final here—do you trust me, Albus Dumbledore?" He looked right into the mysterious blue eyes of the bespectacled wizard. Dumbledore looked positively filled with mirth.
"Yes," he said calmly. "Yes, I believe I do."
The other Order members remained quite silent. No one would challenge Albus Dumbledore. Teddy nodded and looked around.
"Right…where do I begin?" He asked. Remus turned to Tonks.
"Dora, you didn't brief him? You were up there for a few moments—"
"I got distracted—tumbled—I didn't get the chance—"
Teddy coughed. As much as he enjoyed seeing his very much alive parents talk to each other, he really wanted to get to work. Remus smiled tightly.
"Right. Teddy…this group does have a few connections to the werewolf world—more than I thought. If you could explain a bit what it is we are trying to do, it would help immensely," he explained. "The Order wants to help—you'll be quite useful to the right people, convincing—"
"Useful?" Molly asked, a bit astonished. "Remus, that's hardly a way to describe someone—"
"It's alright, Molly," Teddy interrupted, feeling the gaze of the others on him. "I can here under the premise that I could come and go in one night with everything I needed but this is clearly not the case—I need to stay and help construct the very information I came looking for. I daresay I ought to be useful."
"What information do you need?" Asked Molly kindly.
"Evidence of werewolves who are, according to the ministry, examples of law-abiding citizens," Teddy said with a hint of malice.
Various members of the Order seemed to glare at Teddy, but only Tonks seemed to be able to vocalize their concerns.
"You've already got all the evidence of that you need," She spat, looking beside herself. Teddy imagined that this was what it must've been like to be chewed out by his mother—a woman who could give Ginny and Andromeda a run for their money. "We can tell you all you need to know: Remus—"
"Dora," Remus interjected. "It's alright, I promise—"
"It's not alright," she fumed. "It's a horrible thing to say to someone—"
"I'M INFECTED TOO!" Teddy yelped, getting out of his chair in a fit of rage. "You don't have to tell me that there are good werewolves out there—I'm not some self-loathing fool: I know
I'm a good person." Teddy sat down and sighed, rubbing his temples. He hadn't meant to get so angry, but he wasn't exactly operating at his best.
"I know enough about Remus—what he's done, what he will do, I've performed my research. I hold nothing against him—quite the opposite. The Ministry," he spat, "Says it's not enough. Remus, myself, my friends, my own family, we're all fine people but according to those right gits…" he looked around the table. Aurors. Kingsley. The wife of Arthur Weasley. "Not you lot," he insisted. "Others. Vocal minorities against what it is we are trying to do…they say we aren't enough evidence," he said dejectedly.
"I'm sorry," Dora began, looking right at Teddy. "I…I didn't know. I suppose we're a bit protective over Remus sometimes," she admitted. Teddy gave her a soft smile: what his mother had meant was that she was protective of Remus at times.
"I understand," the young Lupin began. "My temper…often gets the best of me at work," he admitted with a soft smile. "I do a lot of apologizing." He finally felt his temper begin to simmer and he heard Sirius Black chortle.
"No surprise there, you are a bit lippy," he smiled. Teddy rolled his eyes, while other members of the Order smiled. A woman with dark hair and an emerald shawl, whom Teddy did not recognize, began to speak.
"Not unlike you, Sirius—mess of black hair, an attitude—though I would say that could be offensive to our guest," she smirked, giving Teddy a kind smile. "Emmeline Vance. I went to school with Sirius and Remus." Teddy couldn't quite say if he had heard the name, which, with a sinking feeling, he realized was because she had likely died.
"Pleasure to meet you," he responded.
The rest of the witches and wizards of the Order went around the table to introduce themselves. There was Elphias Doge, a bit stout and wheezy, who sat next to Dedalus Diggle (top hat perched on his head) and Sturgis Podmore, a man with a mess of straw-colored hair. Across from them sat Hestia Jones, cheeks flushed pink, and a rather dingy-looking Mundungus Fletcher—something rang off about him to Teddy. Perhaps he had heard his name before. Kingsley and even Mad-Eye gave proper introductions—Teddy had realized he just knew who they were without them saying anything about it. Perhaps it was a bit unfair to the other members of the Order that he should only know some and not others—and her certainly wouldn't want anyone to make any assumptions about their own lifespans as a result of his words. Rather darkly, Teddy thought, most of the Order probably assumed they wouldn't make it out alive. After introductions, Kingsley looked at Teddy for his attention.
"There is just one thing I don't understand," he began. "You mentioned a list of sorts, but if Remus made it with your help, why don't you already have it?"
Once again, eyes turned on Teddy, including his father's. He briefly looked at Sirius, whose eyes were a bit hazier than he remembered—perhaps because the man was holding back tears.
"Was it destroyed, Teddy? A fire, a battle, a raid?" The Animagus asked, helping keep the truth at bay. Teddy shook his head—he appreciated Sirius' help, but if he admitted something it could change the course of history, whether he knew it or not. The gut feeling within him had a different idea.
"I don't know," he replied, quite exasperated. "I don't know. No one told me," he said truthfully, "And I didn't bother to ask—I was angry when I left my time for here, as I'm sure I made quite clear to you lot—especially Mad-Eye," he said, shooting the Auror an apologetic look.
"I detest time travel, I don't believe it should exist, and I made it very clear to my superiors that I did not want to be here long term—or at all. I told them that it was ridiculous that we didn't already have 'enough proof.' What I do know is it's highly possible that without Remus' and my help, there will be more injured and killed as You-Know-Who uses his rhetoric to convince werewolves to fight for him for a future he has no intention of granting."
"But you know the future. You can tell us what to do!" Mundungus exclaimed. Teddy shot him a stone-cold look.
"The less you know and the fewer who know, the better off your timeline is—the one you've all been working so hard for. Your sacrifices, and the sacrifices of those who came before you, would be in vain," he snapped. Mundungus, however, pressed on unwisely.
"But you could save innocent lives—use the power of time travel as this could all be over within—"
"ENOUGH!" Teddy yelled. He stood up, shooting Mundungus what could only be described as a look that could kill. "This is why I am so against time travel in the first place: you can't bring back to the dead, you can't change the past: you can't alter anything in any way without grave consequences. Now, if you could get it into your thick, pea-sized brain that I'm here to observe and nothing more, I won't have to do anything I don't want to do," he said icily. Mundungus audibly gulped.
"Teddy is right, Mr. Fletcher," Albus said at last. "Time is a particular little thing, not to be trifled with. He is merely ensuring that his own future remains as it is—something I believe we all should keep in mind, lest we want to be the target of his ire," the old wizard said with a twinkle in his eye. "I believe we can help you, Teddy. I know of a few who, like Remus and yourself, could be convinced to give our enemy a second look."
"You'll…help?" Teddy asked weakly, taking his seat. With his outburst, he wasn't sure anyone would still be willing to trust him. Mad-Eye grunted.
"Of course, we'll help—especially if it gets you out of here and we can get back to our usual work. But you'd best be bringing that temper of yours—and your wand," he huffed, pulling Teddy's wand out of his pocket: 10 and ¾ inches and slender, made of Holly Wood with a unicorn hair core. Teddy's face lit up and he reached for his wand excitedly. Just holding it in his hands was enough to ease his temper.
"Lupin!" Mad-eye barked. "Take notes. I've got—"
"One moment, Mad-Eye," Remus began kindly, grabbing a piece of parchment and a quill form the center of the table.
"Right…as I was saying…"
Mad-Eye, Hestia, and even Mundungus all had leads which Remus vigorously wrote down. Dumbledore also had a few leads of his own—though he said he would send those Remus's way within the week. Things at Hogwarts, he claimed, had been challenging at best. Speaking of the school, Mad-Eye rose and claimed he needed to be off as well: as a professor, he barked, he needed to spend as much time there as he could.
Teddy still got the feeling that he didn't like Mad-Eye much, but it appeared to him that the man was at least starting to come around to him. His support, Teddy assumed, would be invaluable in late Order meetings.
"I ought to go as well," Teddy said, rising from his chair. "I'm sure you all have pressing matters to discuss—"
"Sit, Teddy," Dumbledore said kindly. "You belong here at this table."
Teddy looked a bit astonished. He hadn't expected to actually be able to hear what the Order was up to or get an inside look into their operations. He took his seat silently, looking around the room at smiling Order members. They actually wanted him here, even after he had gone off about never wanting to come in the first place. He hoped they didn't take it as offense—it wasn't that he didn't want to meet the Order of the Phoenix. If anything, it was the exact opposite. These were the people who had been the heroes of his bedtime stories as a child. They were the subjects of history books, of war memorials, of monuments to the great efforts against Dark Magic. It was Teddy's childhood dream to meet them: but it had been his fantasy to meet his parents. People who, without even knowing who he was, seemed to take a liking to him and trust him. To Teddy, that was amazing and more than he could have ever expected. He was broken out of his reveries by the shifting of chairs. Kingsley took some parchment into his hands and cleared his throat.
"Right, then. Now, there's been a disappearance…"
