The curtains suddenly ruffled and Madam Pomfrey appeared, approaching Teddy with a smoking vial of potion. "Ah, you're awake," she mumbled, though she had clearly been aware of this fact before she'd entered the enclosure. "Drink this."
Teddy opened his mouth to ask what it was, but all that came out was a hoarse squeak. Madam Pomfrey took his open mouth for granted and shoved the liquid down his throat. Teddy sputtered, but swallowed it in one, immediately getting the sincere impression that he may have just been poisoned based on the taste. "What'd you do that for?" he managed to choke hoarsely.
"I'm trying to figure out what the matter is with you," she responded irritably, "as I am a Healer and that is what we tend to do. Don't you dare!" she proclaimed as Teddy struggled to sit up. He stopped, staring at her with wide eyes and tried to figure out what he wasn't supposed to be daring to do. Immediately, Teddy's head started to pound; he shut his eyes tight and slid back down to a lying position, waiting for his vision to return to normal as the pounds receded. "You fell fifty feet out of the air, it's an absolute miracle you're not dead," Madam Pomfrey said as she bustled around the enclosure. "Your ribs were in dreadful condition, I don't mind saying, but you got away without any serious spinal injury; I've managed to patch you up well enough but it's only been twenty-four hours. You also had quite the concussion and rather significant whiplash, there is no way you're getting out of that bed for at least another day, I can scarcely believe you're already conscious with the injuries you sustained..." Her run-on sentence trailed off as she swept back through the curtains, taking the still-smoking vial with her.
Teddy's jaw would have dropped open in any other circumstance; he settled instead for a vacant stare. He'd been unconscious for an entire day. He wondered what exactly had happened to land him here... he remembered getting on the broom at the Quidditch tryouts, and then... that Chaser crashed... and... after that there wasn't anything. It was as though his memory had simply decided to stop working.He was vaguely aware of a fluttering in his right hand. He had enough strength to lift his head and glance down; the tiny golden Snitch was still flapping its wings uselessly against his grip. He grinned, but didn't know what to do with it. He moved his arm with difficulty and put it in the pocket of his robes, hanging on a rack beside him.
Teddy took the opportunity to take in his surroundings a bit more thoroughly. Remembering the sleeping figure in the chair, he moved his head to the side and saw that it was Julia snoozing peacefully beside him. He smiled at her gratefully as she slept on. He wondered vaguely how long she'd been there as Madam Pomfrey hustled back with a new potion for Teddy.
"Yes," she said tersely, helping him up so he could swallow the potion more readily. "There were a few friends wanting to see you, but this one absolutely refused to leave. I was about to take out my wand and float her out of here when your godfather intervened."
"Harry?" Teddy croaked after he'd finished coughing at the vile taste of the latest potion. "Harry was here?""Mm," she confirmed, obviously unimpressed. "I believe he's speaking with the Headmistress at the moment, but he said he'd be back soon." She frowned bitterly and swept from the room, accidentally nudging Julia as she passed. Julia blinked herself awake; Teddy watched her amusedly as she gazed confusedly at her surroundings before she caught sight of him watching her from his horizontal position on the bed.
"Hi," he grinned, voice barely above a whisper. She stared at him with wide eyes.
"Hi," she said back. "You're awake."
"I hope so," he said, "otherwise this is a pretty boring dream. No offence," he added hastily. Julia suddenly leapt out of her chair and flung her arms around Teddy's neck. He flinched in pain but attempted to return the gesture, instead more patting Julia's sides. At least his arms were moving now.
"No more Quidditch for you," she scolded as she pulled away.
Teddy winced. "Didn't get in, huh?"
Julia shook her head. "Winnie did though, she dragged Oliver off to practice with her about an hour ago.
Teddy's heart sunk. "She did?"
Julia nodded. She was good at the head gestures today.
"What position?" he said, trying to sound happy for her.
"Keeper," she said. "After they carted you away, she wanted to go with you but she was next in line for tryouts and Madam Pomfrey was being dreadfully pushy anyway, so she flew. Oliver said Samantha was really impressed; kept saying she lived up to her name or something."
Teddy thought this was an odd comment, but knew if he said anything about it, his tone would be bitter. Instead, he changed the subject. "Did Madam Pomfrey happen to mention what was wrong with me?"
"She said she didn't know, exactly," Julia said, but she was definitely not meeting his eyes.
"But..." Teddy prompted.
Julia shrugged nervously. "It must have been serious, your godfather burst in and just started yelling at Madam Pomfrey. Woke up half the ward, but you kept on being unconscious." Her voice wavered, but she swallowed and gave a watery smile.
"Did he?" Teddy asked amusedly. "What was he yelling about?"
"She was trying to physically escort me from the ward, and he walked in, got really mad and whipped out his wand. He said some pretty intense magic-related stuff and kept calling her 'Poppy' in this really angry tone, so she backed off and he sat there" (Julia pointed to a chair on the other side of Teddy's bed) "until McGonagall came to talk to him. Then they went outside, and you could still hear him shouting from the Entrance Hall."
Teddy chuckled before remembering his ribs were a shambles and stopped immediately. "He always did have a bit of a temper," he joked in a pained voice.
Julia suddenly covered her face with her hands. "Oooh, I'm so glad you're okay," she said in her delicate voice.
Teddy winced heavily as he sat himself up in bed; even though one of the potions had apparently been to help dull the pain he was in, he still felt very nauseous and very stiff. "I think 'okay' might be a few days off," he said shakily. "I just wish I knew what happened."
Again, Julia avoided his gaze. "Julia... do you know something?" he asked her quietly. She looked up at him nervously, eyes wide, but was spared the necessity of response by the squeak of door hinges that signified someone had entered the ward.
"How is he?" he heard Harry's now mellow voice ask Madam Pomfrey.
"He is awake," came her bitter response. "You may see him, I suppose... not like I could stop you..."
"I... er... apologize," he told her, but Teddy could hear an edge to his voice that said he didn't particularly mean it. The curtain in front of him was flung open and Harry stood in dishevelled Muggle clothing, his hair as unkempt as ever. Harry took one look at the grinning Teddy, sighed with relief, and grinned back. "Hi," he said finally.
"Hi," Teddy grinned crookedly. "I'm not quite up to hugs yet," (Julia blushed guiltily) "but I'm mightily glad to see you, so I will offer a handshake." He held out his hand to Harry, who burst out laughing and took it.
"Glad to see your sense of humour hasn't suffered," he said, sitting down on Teddy's other side. "Hullo, Julia," he said, nodding. Julia smiled shyly and raised a hand in greeting. Harry looked guilty and leaned closer to Teddy, stage whispering. "I think I've scared her. I... er... may have done a bit of shouting when I first got here. Madam Pomfrey wasn't pleased."
"Everyone's making such a fuss," Teddy said, though happily. "I woke up and the first thing she did was shove a smoking potion down my throat. Tasted like poison, it was dreadful... the goblet kept on smoking even after the potion was g--what?" Harry had paled at Teddy's words.
"Really?" he asked with the sincerity of a true question.
Teddy blanched in kind. "It wasn't actually poison, was it?"
Harry looked up. "Er... no, I assure you, Madam Pomfrey only acts in... proper... hold on a second." He dashed back behind the curtain with an expression of determination. "Poppy!" he shouted immediately. Teddy flinched. Harry could do to be a bit more tactful sometimes.Julia was watching Teddy with wide eyes. "What?" Teddy asked her, now getting annoyed at the odd reactions people were having to innocent news.
"He didn't sound very convinced that it wasn't poison," she said shakily.
Teddy shook his head softly. "Harry wouldn't lie to me, regardless of what it was about. If he didn't know, he'd say he didn't know."
Harry swept back into the room. "Teddy, were you feeling nauseous before you fell?"
"I don't know, I don't remember anything past flying around near the ground, checking on a Chaser that fell off his broom. But I'd been feeling nauseous the whole day," he confided, "so yeah, probably."
Harry stared blankly. "Are you nauseous now?"
Teddy narrowed his eyes. "Why do you ask?" he asked slowly.
Harry didn't look him in the eye. "Be back in a minute," he muttered, and dashed back behind the white curtain.
Teddy was miffed. "Will someone kindly fill me in on what's going on?"
"Um..." started Julia. "The... the something I know but don't want to say..."
"Yeah?" he prompted, eager for information.
"Um..." she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Well, I was pretending to be asleep a few hours ago so Madam Pomfrey wouldn't try to talk me out of leaving again, and... she talks to herself while she works..." Julia swallowed. "She mentioned something about... about Wolfsbane potion..."
Teddy frowned. "What's Wolfsbane potion?"
Harry stepped back into the room, smiling. "Sorry about that. There's--er--a smoking potion like you described that's causing Ron and I a bit of trouble at work, so I just wanted to make sure Madam Pomfrey wasn't involved." He paused awkwardly and sat back down. "She's not," he concluded somewhat lamely.
Teddy caught sight of Julia giving him a stare that said plainly, "and you say Harry Potter doesn't lie."
"I wish people would stop side-stepping around me and give it to me straight," Teddy said, now feeling rather irritable. He felt his scalp tingle familiarly and figured his hair was turning black, which was an indicative sign of his improving health.
Harry looked uncomfortable. "Look, I just don't want to worry you over problems that aren't problems."
"And yet you refer to these so-called non-problems as problems," Teddy pointed out. Julia raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Yes, but... you're ill, and I don't wish to..."
"What. Was. The potion thing about." Teddy gasped suddenly, ignoring the searing pain in his ribs and turned to Julia. "Was that the Wolfsbane potion?" he asked excitedly.
Julia and Harry exchanged a glance. That was enough of an answer for Teddy. "Okay, so what does it do?" he asked them, switching from one face to the other. Finally Harry sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose.
"Keep in mind that it's not a problem for you," Harry said. "We only thought it was, and it's better to be safe than--"
"Point please," Teddy interrupted, determined to get to the bottom of everyone's secrecy.
Harry sighed. "We thought you might have--"
A squeak followed by a loud bang reached everyone's ears. "Sorry," he heard Winnie say. "Hey, we're here to see--"
"May as well go in, I might get cursed otherwise," came Madam Pomfrey's voice, still indicating crankiness. "Do try not to make quite so much noise, though--"
"Teddy!" Winnie proclaimed at high volume as she came through the sheet, broom over her shoulder, Oliver grinning behind her. "How are you, you rascal?"
"Just ducky," he responded bitterly, arms crossed.
"Aw, you're just cranky because you just woke up," she said, stepping in front of Harry without even seeing him and ruffling Teddy's now definitively black hair. "Hey, not to bring up a sore subject or anything, but that was one spectacular capture of the Snitch, I've never seen anything like it short of professional players... 'course, it caused you to fall backwards off your broom, but still..."
"You didn't tell me you caught it!" Harry proclaimed suddenly from behind her.
Winnie jumped and turned around. Her face was quite comical to watch as she realized who was sitting in the chair in front of her; she gaped first, bringing a hand up to her forehead before bringing it down to cover her mouth, which emphasized her bulging eyes. Then she turned a brilliant shade of crimson and turned to face the other way, flattening her windswept hair down reflexively. When she turned back, she was wearing a very silly grin. "I've wanted to marry you for years," she breathed, clapping a hand to her mouth as soon as she'd said it.
"So would that make him Harry Potter or George Weasley?" Oliver muttered to Julia, almost unable to contain his laughter.
"Harry Potter," she confirmed, also suppressing spiels of giggles. Even Teddy smiled despite himself. Harry simply blushed.
"Er... I'm already married," Harry offered, shrugging. "Sorry?" he added sheepishly.
"Oh, no, that's okay," Winnie breathed, seemingly unable to decide whether to be embarrassed or ecstatic that Harry Potter was talking directly to her. "I knew that anyway." She ogled at him for a moment before emitting a sort of strangled laugh and, turning clumsily on the spot, she fled from the room.
Once everyone's tears of laughter and subsided into half-hearted coughs of amusement, Harry said weakly, "I take it that was Winnie."Teddy clutched his injured ribs uncomfortably, but decided the laugh was worth it. "That was Winnie, all right," he said, still smiling, his hair a jolly shade of turquoise.
"I'm Oliver," Oliver said, stepping forward and holding out a hand. "I--er--didn't know who you were until three weeks ago, and I can honestly say I haven't ever considered the benefits of marrying you."
Harry grinned. "I'm relieved," he said, shaking Oliver's hand. "I'm glad I got to meet all of you, it'll be good to be able to match faces to the names in Teddy's letters."
"If Winnie was here, she'd interject a comment gushing about how sweet it was you wrote about us to Harry Potter," Oliver muttered, emphasizing his name as Winnie always did. Teddy grinned.
"Yes she would," he agreed. "Hey, listen, is she any good at Quidditch?""I don't know what the standards are, but as far as I can tell, she's as good as the rest of the team, maybe even better," Oliver provided. "From my perspective, she's brilliant at it, but I wasn't aware brooms could fly until very recently, so a papaya on a broom would look brilliant through my eyes."
"She made the team?" Harry asked as Teddy chuckled. "She's in first year, isn't she?"
Teddy nodded. "She's Keeper, but she tried out for everything. Well, except Seeker, but that's because she knew I was trying out for it." Teddy suddenly felt disappointed in himself for being jealous of Winnie's Quidditch abilities, and pledged to congratulate her for it the next time he saw her.
Harry nodded impressively. "Good on her. Pass on my congratulations, won't you?"
"Absolutely," Teddy promised, nodding. "Now, about that Wolfsbane potion."
Teddy could tell Harry was suppressing a groan. "Look, it's nothing to worry about... why don't we let you get some rest."
"Nope," he said firmly, shaking his head, his hair reverting back to its jet black shade of determination. "Come on, guys, you both know something I don't, and it's ruddy about me, so I think I have a right to--" Teddy stopped and frowned at the empty chair to his right. "Where's Julia gone?"
Oliver looked shocked. "I was standing here the whole time, I didn't see her leave," he said, holding his hands up as though someone had a wand trained on him. Teddy's gaze snapped back to Harry, who likewise looked concerned but shook his head.Teddy frowned even harder. "She is so mysterious!" he proclaimed, genuinely confused. He shook his head, however, and decided to keep on task. "But anyway, we were talking about Wolfsbane Potion."
Harry rolled his eyes behind his glasses.
"I don't mean to interrupt, but what's Wolfsbane Potion?" Oliver asked timidly.
"That's the question," Teddy said, smiling now that he had a teammate. He stared at Harry, arms crossed, waiting for his response.
Harry ran a hand through his hair. "Are you sure you want Oliver to hear this?" he asked Teddy in a low voice, nodding at the boy behind him.
Teddy frowned. "Of course, why wouldn't I?"
Harry sighed. "It has to do with... with your father."
The colour drained from Teddy's face. Slowly, he turned and faced his friend. "I'm sorry... do you mind--?"
"Of course not," Oliver said immediately. "Glad you're okay, Teddy. See you later. Good to meet you," he said to Harry, who smiled at him and waved as Oliver disappeared behind the sheet. Teddy looked down wearily at Harry, who again sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
"Wolfsbane potion is what your father took before a full moon. It let him keep his human mind and stopped him from feeding while he was transformed." Harry sighed once more, as though contemplating how much to tell Teddy. "Madam Pomfrey was worried that, because you collapsed on the day of the full moon, you might have... inherited some of his werewolfish attributes."
"But that's not possible," Teddy said shakily.
"Not as far as the wizarding world knows, but..." Harry's face showed his internal struggle. "When he found out your mother was pregnant, Lupin panicked. He was certain he'd condemned you for life, as he was condemned throughout his own existence. I... questioned his judgement, to put it delicately, when he came to me with these concerns, and assumed he was projecting his own issues onto you, but it... it occurs to me now that it might have been paternal instinct."
Teddy was speechless. He could tell Harry was alarmed when he saw how pale his face was. "But Madam Pomfrey assured me that she was only giving it to you as a precaution. She checked in on you repeatedly in the night, and you looked perfectly human each time she did. If you did inherit anything from the werewolf side of your father, it certainly wasn't any physical attribute."
Teddy sighed with relief. He'd heard about the persecution his father had been at the wrong end of, and wasn't terribly keen on being a werewolf. He noticed, however, that Harry was hesitating. "There's more, isn't there?" he asked quietly.
"Only a bit," Harry said quickly. "You know how you tend not to feel well about every... oh, say, four weeks or so?"
"Y--" Teddy cut himself off and closed his eyes reflexively. "My illnesses are in time with the full moon, aren't they?"
Harry nodded. "I figured it out a couple of years ago, when you stayed with us for those consecutive months because your gran was in hospital. I'm sorry I didn't say anything, Teddy, I really am... I just didn't want to alarm you."
"It's okay," Teddy said quietly, hoping he sounded convincing as anger bubbled in the pit of his stomach. Harry stared at him for a minute before smiling grimly and getting to his feet.
"I'm glad you're all right," Harry said softly in what Teddy recognized as his Dad voice, putting a hand on Teddy's shoulder. Teddy usually found his comforting, but today it was only upsetting him further. "I'm going to let you alone to sleep... would you like me to come back when you wake up?"
Teddy shook his head. "It looks like you were in the middle of something," he mumbled, indicating Harry's unusual attire. Harry smiled grimly.
"Let's just say it involves Muggles, magical power drills, and a whole bunch of unhappy goblins. Listen, stay in touch, all right? I haven't gotten a letter from you in a while."
"I meant to send one yesterday after Quidditch tryouts to tell you how they went, but I was indisposed." Teddy winced at his own bitter comment. Harry pursed his lips and took the hint.
"Take care, kiddo."
"Harry?" Teddy called after him without meaning to. He poked his head back around the curtain with a questioning look on his face. "Did you... only come because of the possibility I might have been a werewolf?"
Harry stepped back into the room, stunned. Teddy hastened a glance at his expression, and he was shocked to notice that Harry looked almost offended by the question. "Of course not," he breathed, staring at Teddy. "I didn't even learn of the Wolfsbane potion until you mentioned it, Teddy."
Teddy's face reddened. Now he remembered. "I'm sorry," he whispered."Don't be," Harry said. "I'm sorry for giving you that impression." He started to leave again, sensing Teddy's desire to be left alone, but stopped just inside the curtain. "I love you, Teddy."
By the time Teddy finally found his voice, Harry was long gone.