It was a beautiful Monday morning at Hogwarts. Spring had sprung and the newfound sunlight poured into the Great Hall as owls delivered morning lettered and parcels to students. A bright white owl by the name of Hedwig Jr., affectionately known as 'Hedy,' flew over the Gryffindor table and plopped right by a certain Mr. James Potter.
"Now, as I was saying…" James drifted off in mid-conversation to see Hedy staring at him impatiently. She dropped a rather large letter with a red stamp at his place. Young Potter's eyes widened.
James Sirius Potter and Edward Remus Lupin
He knew exactly what this was: a Howler. And he knew what he had done to get it.
"Oi Potter!" Exclaimed James' good friend Marcus Grimshot. "You've got a Howler!"
The Gryffindor table around James turned to look at the boy and he gulped.
"I suppose…perhaps if I leave it alone—"
"You can't," Quipped his cousin Rose who was sitting a few chairs down. "Dad got one once and it was horrible—would have been worse if he waited," She insisted.
"It's to Teddy too," James grumbled, growing red. "Oh, he's going to be so annoyed…" James cast his glance to the neighboring Hufflepuff table. Teddy was laughing with his friends. He certainly wouldn't be in a moment.
"You best get up," Marcus said, nudging James with his elbow. "You've got to tell him." Sighing, James heeded his friend and cousin's advice and marched over to the Hufflepuff table, feeling the gaze of his older cousin's friends as he approached. This wouldn't be easy.
"Er…Teddy?" He began. The young Lupin swung his head around and grinned.
"Hey, Jamesie!" He cheered. "Why so glum? We're still on for work tonight, yeah?" He winked. Teddy locked eyes with James for a moment before his gaze drifted down to the letter in his cousin's hand. Teddy muttered something under his breath and his face fell. "Oh."
"Oh is right," said one of Teddy's friends who James didn't know. "Our Ted's got a howler!" The boy exclaimed, sniggering.
"Isn't he already a howler?" Asked Teddy's friend Arthur Bates, whose dark eyes flashed with mischief. "Awoooooo!" He yowled, causing Teddy to narrow his eyes and elbow his friend right in the chest.
"Bugger off, Bates," he spat, turning back to Teddy. "You see this lot I have to deal with? Anyway, I'm guessing this is about…" The metamorphagus pursed his lips in thought. "Actually, what is this about?"
The boys had pulled a number of pranks within the past week. It was no surprise to Teddy that at least one of them got found out, but that didn't mean he knew which one. James looked astonished.
"You don't…clearly the flobberworms we let loose in the dungeon!" James said, exasperated. "They crawled into Slughorn's robes."
"Oh," Teddy said, pausing and stroking his chin. "Well, I don't understand why I would get in trouble for something that happened to some old fart," He reasoned. James rolled his eyes.
"Please—you're supposed to be the responsible one. Dad says—"
"Harry says I'm responsible for every little thing you do?" Teddy scoffed, hair turning red. "Oh, this is rich—open that letter, I want to know what he has to say to me," He huffed.
Teddy's friends grinned, and James opened the letter. It fell onto the table with a thump before crinkling into a face-like, puppet-looking thing. Where one could have imagined eyes, there was a thin outline of spectacles.
"JAMES SIRIUS POTTER AND EDWARD REMUS LUPIN."
The Great Hall fell silent. Any chance to hear a Howler from Harry Potter was extraordinary—though not all that rare. While James had only been at the school for a year, Teddy had gotten quite a few Howlers from his godfather.
"I AM UTTERLY ASTONISHED THAT YOU TWO WOULD CONSIDER RELEASING FLOBBERWORMS IN THE CASTLE—NOT ONLY DID YOU TERORRORIZE A PROFESSOR I RESPECT DEARLY,"
Somewhere in the front of the hall, Slughorn was beaming.
"BUT YOU CAUSED GALLEONS OF DAMAGE TO POTIONS BOOKS WHICH HAVE TO BE PAID BY YOURS TRULY. YOU BOYS HAVE REALLY DONE IT THIS TIME. DO ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND AT THE CASTLE—I HAVE DECIDED TO TAKE AL AND HUGO TO THE QUIDDITCH GAME SINCE YOU LOT ARE SO UNDESERVING OF THE HONOR!"
"No!" Teddy and James bellowed at the same time.
"Your bloody father—"
"He's punishing me for your idea—"
"JAMES, YOUR MOTHER IS ABSOLUTELY BESIDE HERSELF—SHE WANTED VERY BADLY TO TAKE YOU TO THE GAME AND IS INCREDIBLY DISAPPOINTED. TEDDY—EDWARD—I EXPECTED SO MUCH MORE FROM YOU. YOUR FATHER WOULD BE INCREDIBLY HEARTBROKEN—HIS ONLY SON, BEHAVING SO CARELESSLY WITH HIS OWN EDUCATION AFTER YOUR FATHER WORKED SO HARD TO GET AN EDUCATION HIMSELF. YOU BOTH SHOULD BE UTTERLY ASHAMED."
Teddy's entire face grew hot and red as his hair. He wished he could yell right back at the Howler. It was a harmless prank—no one got hurt.
"IF EITHER OF YOU BOYS ACT OUT SO SEVERELY AGAIN, I WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO DRAG YOU FROM SCHOOL AND TAKE YOU RIGHT BACK HOME WHERE I CAN ASSURE YOU THERE WILL BE NO FUN. YOU BOYS ARE NOT MARAUDERS—DO NOT STRIVE IT FOLLOW IN THEIR GRISLY FOOTSTEPS."
With that, the boys expected the letter to rip itself up. Only, it didn't. Instead, a new, quieter voice began speaking,
"You don't think I was too harsh, do you dear?" It was Harry Potter. Teddy looked to James and grinned.
"Too harsh?" That was Ginny. "Try morbid! The boys unleashed flobberworms, not a stampede of bloody Hippogriffs. You're far too harsh on them for doing the exact things your father and Professor Lupin did all the time in school. You know I was looking forward to that game with my son, Harry Potter, and Lyall picked up a ticket and was so looking forward to surprising his grandson. Now, you've what—disappointed a kind old man?"
James grinned. This was turning into a classic Ginny Weasley Howler to his own father.
"I didn't—"
"You didn't THINK! And now you've got poor Teddy thinking his education hangs in the balance—which we know is absolutely not the case! If anything, your position at the school more precarious—first, you nearly kill yourself looking for some bloody stone—"
"That wasn't—"
"Then you go and nearly get yourself killed by a book—"
"That was more you than me!"
"MORE WHAT? I was ELEVEN, Harry, what was I supposed to do? Merlin, then you nearly gave Professor Lupin a million heart attacks, got abducted, nearly killed, nearly killed again, nearly killed yet another time, nearly got killed a thousand times after that and then actually got killed…not to mention you continually disrupted everyone's education time and time again—"
"—it was a war, Ginny—"
"—One year! It was a war for one year! I barely learned a bloody thing at school thanks to you—and you're the one who gave James that bloody map and cloak in the first place! You've got no one but yourself to blame—"
"I didn't give it to him, Teddy did! The boy nicks all my old things—"
"They remind him of his father, Harry. You twat, you know that's why—and don't you forget you'd never have the map in the first place if it wasn't for my brothers—"
"Who nicked it from Filch! Merlin, we never stood a chance, did we?"
"We certainly didn't—now send that Howler and meet me in the bed—"
"NO!" James yelped, grabbing the Howler as it began to rip itself up. The boy turned absolutely pink, and the entire Great Hall was looking at Lupin and Potter. Teddy looked at James incredulously before snorting, then cracking up laughing. James began to grin and followed suit as students across the hall chuckled before returning to their conversations.
"I can't believe it—Harry Potter, chosen one, chewed out by his own wife," Teddy laughed. James narrowed his eyes.
"At least you don't have the image of your parents…you know…" James shuddered, and Teddy grinned.
"Yes, well, perk of dead parents," he began darkly, "You know they aren't shagging." James nearly choked.
"You know I don't like how nonchalant you are with that," he insisted. Teddy shrugged.
"Hey, mate, that's half the reason I do it. So," Teddy paused, clapping his hands, "Next week. I still have some flobberworms in the shed," he said, referencing the 'most haunted house in Britain.'
"Teddy," James groaned. "We just got caught—"
"No, your parents got caught admitting we didn't deserve what we got—that's a green light, little one! It's go time!" He exclaimed. "Now, I've got to eat and bask in my glory, you should go back to your little lions," he joked. James rolled his eyes but did as he was told. That night, the boys would brainstorm even more uses for flobberworms.