A/N: I went back and adjusted how long it has been since the war. I don't have much experience with little kids, so I'm not concerning myself too much with making sure that Teddy is at the right point developmentally, but he did seem to be speaking much too clearly for a two-year-old, so I pushed it back two years to make that fit better.
"Uncle Harry, Uncle Harry. Auntie Mynee. Look what I can do." The sound of small feet pattering across the floor fills the living room as the four-year-old rushes through the open door.
Hermione and Harry both look up from the map spread out on the floor in front of them. A sheet of plastic, covered with bright crosses and squiggly lines, rests atop it. Itineraries, Harry is discovering, aren't easy to create. Even a holiday as simple as taking Teddy on a road trip is proving time consuming. Hermione, ever the perfectionist, wants each detail to be organised so as to ensure that it runs smoothly, and Harry is equally invested in the process despite his own inexperience with the things.
"We're watching."
"Keep looking," the boy insists. "Don't even blink."
"We'll watch you like a hawk," Harry promises, and they precede to do just that.
To Hermione's confusion, however, the boy inexplicably squeezes his eyes shut and scrunches up his face. Her gaze subconsciously flicks over to Harry for a fraction of a second before focusing back on the toddler. That brief glance alone is enough to tell her that her best friend is as in the dark as she is. Teddy's expression looks much like it did when he used to soil his nappy, but the boy is long past that stage by now.
A minute later, however, things start to change. Teddy's pale hair darkens and thickens as his tight curls grow wilder and messier. His face thins out, growing scrawnier than he has ever been. And, when he opens his eyes, they're a vibrant green instead of the light blue Hermione has grown used to seeing staring up at him.
The resemblance is striking and unmistakeable, and she can't help but look between her two companions in shock as she compares their features
"See?" Teddy asks, pride lacing his voice. "I done it! I look like you, Uncle Harry!"
"Yeah," Harry says, sounding shell-shocked. "You do."
"That was very impressive," Hermione adds despite feeling a pang of sadness as the distant memory of a young woman changing her nose into a pig's snout crosses her mind. "Did you learn to do that while you were upstairs?"
"Yes," he replies. "I done it without trying. Then I pic – pictured Uncle Harry and done it again."
Finally finding his metaphorical feet, Harry says, "I'm so proud of you. Do you think Auntie Mione should take a photo of us and add it to the album?"
Enthusiasm lights up the boy's face, and he nods eagerly. "Yes."
Harry nonverbally summons the camera before turning back to examine his godson's appearance again. It really is uncanny. The boy's Metamorphagus abilities have been showing up at random for a while now, but this is the first time he has managed to control it for anything longer than a few seconds.
And, although Harry, Hermione, the Weasleys and Hagrid have all been frequent sources of inspiration for his ability, it has never before been this major of a change. Rainbow streaks and Rudolph red noses in no way prepared him for this.
"You really are a clever boy."
"Stop trying to get him into Ravenclaw," Harry chides Hermione good-naturedly. She, it seems, has decided that the house of the eagles would be the best place for him; according to her, it would provide him with opportunities without throwing him headfirst into the dangers that the house of the lions is so often entangled with.
"I'm not – this time," she protests as the camera finally flies into view. Harry grabs it and passes it to her as she adds, "I'm just saying what a clever boy he is."
"I'm clever," Teddy declares with the blunt lack of self-consciousness of a four-year-old.
Beckoning for Teddy to follow him to the lounge, Harry replies, "Yes, you are."
The two wizards huddle up together with broad smiles on their faces as Hermione starts taking a string of photos. The trick with photographing Teddy, they have found, is to take as many pictures as possible in the hopes that one of them will end up alright. Unlike with Muggle pictures, the issue isn't making sure that his eyes are open and he's smiling and he's looking in the right direction; the problem is making sure that the split second immortalised in the image is one where he's in a good mood rather than getting distracted by food or an itchy nose.
As Hermione snaps away with the camera and his little lookalike sticks his tongue out from his perch at his side, Harry feels a rush of renewed empathy for Sirius. Even now, when he doesn't look a thing like them, Teddy is still so like his parents. Their natural curiosity and humour never fails to show through whatever he might be doing at the time, serving as a constant reminder of his parents and their tragically short lives. He can't imagine how hard it must have been for Sirius to grapple with Harry's presence; the Animagus always welcomed him, but it must have been difficult for him to be constantly torn between wanting to be there for Harry and struggling with being reminded by his late friends every time he saw the young Gryffindor.
"Harry, your smile is slipping," Hermione prompts.
He feels Teddy's fingers digging into his side as the boy, so used to Fred and George's tactics, tries to tickle a smile out of him, and a fond grin stretches across his face once more.
Wanting to be there for him, indeed; the similarities hurt sometimes, but it's impossible not to love Teddy.