This chapter was quite upsetting to write, so here's your warning for distressing content. But this one is also one of my favourites, so I hope you like it too.

"He's sent to the floor, a pure mess of grief,"

- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Part Two

What It's Really Like

Half of the objects in the kitchen had exploded. Ginny was going to have to take this outside. She hooked her arms around Teddy's waist and attempted to drag him towards the back door, but he squirmed free, threw himself down on the carpet and started thrashing his little limbs.

"I hate Albus! I hate Albus!" he howled, pummeling the floor. His hair had turned scarlet with wrath.

Ginny scooped him up, tossed him over her shoulder and kept a firm grip on his legs as she carried him in a fireman's lift out into the garden. Teddy's small fists hammered on her back as he tried to kick his legs free.

"Lemme go! Get off me!" he screeched. He was average size for a nine-year-old but rage had made him strong; there were scratches and toothmarks up Ginny's arms from where she'd already tried to restrain him. Anger had made Teddy powerful too, and the kitchen was littered with crockery that his untrained magic had shattered. Ginny had never seen anybody so angry. It was frightening to see such a small boy possessed by such intense fury.

"Put me down!" Teddy shrieked, twisting so suddenly that Ginny dropped him onto the grass. Teddy scrambled for the back door but Ginny flicked her wand to shut and lock it. Teddy reached the door and banged his palm on the wood, kicked it, then wheeled round.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill Albus! I'm a werewolf, I'll kill him!"

"Teddy," said Ginny seriously, "It would break your Dad's heart to hear you call yourself that,"

"Good! This is- all- his- fault!"

Teddy punctuated each word with a kick, then hurled his whole body at the door. His head thwacked onto the wood but he didn't seem to care because he did it again. And again. And this, Ginny thought, was what the war really was. It wasn't the smell of Ron's sweaty t-shirt when he hugged her after the Ministry, it wasn't Dumbledore's solid coffin, it wasn't the sound of her blood thrumming in her ears as she pelted down corridors with the Carrows at her heels. The war hadn't been about danger or unity or her Order of Merlin. The war was her polite, artistic, introspective, talkative, cheerful godson, repeatedly smacking his head on a door.

Ginny grabbed his arm and tried to pull him away. "You'll hurt yourself,"

"I don't care!" he hissed.

"I care. You can break whatever you want out here, as long as don't hurt the boys or yourself,"

"I hate you all! I hate Albus, I hate James, I hate you, I hate Harry, I hate Granny, I hate Mummy and Daddy!"

This is what it had all been about. They'd fought so that fewer children had this pain tearing at their insides. But it had been too late for Teddy. Teddy was another casualty.

"I know, I know," Ginny said soothingly, "Teddy, st-"

"No, you don't!" Teddy roared. His face was almost as red as his hair. "Harry pretends he understands but he doesn't understand! They didn't want to leave him, they were killed! Harry pretends it's the same, but it isn't the same and I hate Albus, I hate him, I'm going to-"

But Teddy never told Ginny what he was going to do to her baby son, because he abruptly started to twitch, then retched, and then was sick down his t-shirt and onto the patio. He started trembling and Ginny thought he was going to pass out. She dashed over and caught Teddy as his knees gave way, but he didn't faint. His little body shook with grief.

"Why did they go? They didn't have to go," he squealed, curling into a ball, "They didn't have to go and they left me,"

"I know, I know. Shh, Ted, shh. Deep breaths," Ginny whispered. The two of them had ended up in a tangle of limbs and Teddy burrowed his face into her neck, smearing vomit and saliva over her while she rubbed circles onto his back, "It's alright, baby, it's okay. Deep breaths, good lad,"

"Why didn't they stay?" Teddy squeaked into her shoulder, "Harry parents stayed with him. Why didn't mine stay? Why didn't they stay?"

He asked over and over, like a prayer. All Ginny could do was tell him to take deep breaths and that he was a good boy and that she was there.

"Good lad. Shh, shh. Let's get you cleaned up, shall we?" she suggested.

"Yuh 'kay," he mumbled.

Teddy clung to Ginny like a monkey as she stood up and carried him back inside her house. Thankfully Albus was still asleep in his cot, and James had taken cover from Teddy's tantrum upstairs and hadn't reappeared. He was probably jumping on his bed or chucking all of Ginny's Quidditch figurines onto the floor, but Ginny was happy to leave her oldest son to whatever mischief he was up to if it gave her more time to calm Teddy down. She sat him down on the sofa, poured him a glass of water and tergeo-d his sticky t-shirt.

"Better?"

"Albus gets a Mummy and Daddy, why don't I? Why did they go?" he whispered, gripping his glass tightly.

"You're going to be okay," Ginny promised, lifting him onto her lap, "I've got you and everything's going to be okay,"

Teddy dropped the glass and crumpled with sobs. It was taking everything Ginny had not to cry too. When James got upset she told him to think of nice things, but what nice things could cheer up a boy whose parents had been killed? Had left him to go and die? Ted was right, it was different to Harry. And even thought it had been worth it, Tonks and Professor Lupin had still left Teddy. They had made that choice.

"I'm here. I love you," Ginny murmured into his hair. The scarlet was fading into a reddy-brown. She adored this little boy; everybody did. But it wasn't enough.

After a long moment, Teddy peeled his face away from Ginny's neck. He looked up at her with his mother's eyes and asked, "If it all happened again, would you go?"

Poor kid. Her brave and beautiful boy. Ginny squeezed him tight. "Ted. Your Mummy and Daddy loved you very, very much," she told him, because she hoped that was what he was really asking.

"But would you?" he persisted.

Ginny considered. She thought of James' squeaky giggle, his wet and clumsy kisses and the way he pronounced "Th" like "F". She thought of Albus' green eyes, just like Harry's, and the feel of his warm tummy under his vest. She thought of the way Harry balled his fists up when he was excited and of Charlie's rumbly laugh and of Mum's jam roly-poly. She remembered the time George had shown her how Fainting Fancies worked ("See, Gin, it's a liquid-form stunning spell,"). Ginny thought of Tom's handwriting, Bellatrix's hysterical cackle, and the sting when Amycus Carrow had first slapped her. "Mudblood", "Blood traitor", "Half-breed", "Freak", "You're a disgrace to the name of wizard", "Magic is Might", "Call yourself a pure-blood, Weasley? Where's your pride?", "Freak", "Mongrel", "Mudblood. Mudblood!". She remembered pulling Harry away from Dumbledore's corpse, and Colin's bony body in Oliver Wood's arms. Fred. She thought of Harry's nightmares and how tears sometimes dribble down Mum's face when she doesn't want anybody to see. She remembered Professor Lupin inviting her to his office at the start of second-year for a hot chocolate, and Tonks hurdling up the stairs at Grimmauld Place calling, "Ginny, I've finally cracked the monkey nose!". And then she remembered them lying dead on the floor. Ginny thought of Sunday morning cuddles with Harry and Albus and James.

She gripped Teddy's shoulder in case her answer made him explode again, and said quietly, "I don't know,"

Teddy didn't explode. He nodded carefully and took another sip of his water. "Ginny?"

"Mmm?"

"Can I shut my eyes and pretend you're my Mummy?"

It was almost as difficult for Ginny not to gape at him as it had been for her not to cry.

"Just for a little bit?" Teddy added, "Just pretend? I know it's pretend. Please? Please?"

He was begging her. Her precious godson, whose parents had left him forever and he couldn't understand why. She owed it to him, and to Harry, and to Tonks, who was younger when she died than Ginny is now and who never got to watch Teddy grow up.

"Alright. Okay, baby, just for a while,"

Teddy smiled, wriggled down so that he was slumped against Ginny's chest, and closed his eyes. Ginny stroked his hair (brown now) and it wasn't long before Teddy fell asleep, exhausted by all the shouting and violence and the emotions too big for his body and brain.

"So many people love you," Ginny whispered, "You are so loved and so special, and…" and having this tiny baby around during the first months after the war made given them all a purpose and a distraction. Harry, who wasn't used to not having anything to fight for, channeled his excess energy into his godson. Even George had wanted to see the baby, and Ginny had overheard Andromeda telling Mum that Teddy had given her something to live for when she'd lost everything else

"…and I'm so sorry about your parents. I'm sorry they left you and they died. I wish they could be here, Teddy, I'm so sorry…".

She wiped her tears with her sleeve and wrapped her arms around Teddy's back and held him safe, like his mother should have been able to.


Thank you for your time. I'm very grateful to everybody who has reviewed so far and any feedback on this chapter would be great. If you want to see more of Teddy Lupin in happier times (because we know that this kid turns out alright), please take a look at my new story, Boy. Thanks.