Note: There are spoilers for Blood, Lies and Letters and Without a Trace in the chapter, you have been warned!
I apologize for my lack of updates, and for the fact that this is a rather short chapter. Hopefully I will be swifter and lengthier next time! Thank you to those of you who reviewed the last chapter, you always brighten my day!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I making any profit from this piece of writing.
8: The New Golden Trio
Crouched down upon the cold stone floor as he attempted to flatten himself up against the wall, Teddy Lupin slowly leant forward and peered out into the cobbled courtyard.
At the sight of the cluster of boys stood in the opposite corner, still chattering away to one another as they had been five seconds previously when Teddy had first peeked at them, the young Gryffindor gritted his teeth against a sigh.
"Come on!" he grumbled, hands balling into irritated fists. "Go to lunch already!"
"Mr. Lupin?"
At the sound of his name being called down the corridor, Teddy jumped, narrowly avoiding toppling backwards in surprise. He hastily scrambled to his feet and turned to look at the approaching teacher, plastering a neutral expression onto his face.
"Hello Professor Budden!" he greeted as the transfiguration teacher came to a halt, eying him somewhat suspiciously.
"What were you doing, Mr. Lupin?" Professor Budden asked, reaching to itch his pointy black beard with a small frown.
Teddy's mouth fell open slightly as he struggled to reply.
I was just spying on my best friend and his friends because I want to talk to him, but only if he's on his own...
"I was tying my shoelaces."
Professor Budden grinned.
"That's a good idea." he told the boy as he set off down the corridor again. "Genes like yours, Mr. Lupin, you need all the help you can get!"
Sniggering, Teddy was about to call after the professor to ask how he knew about his mother's clumsy tendencies when another question occurred to him. It had been something that he had first thought to ask his father, but it occurred to him that Professor Budden might be able to answer equally as well.
"My genes are interesting, aren't they Professor?" he called after the teacher, bringing him to a halt again. Teddy took a few steps after him as he was fixed with a questioning look. "I mean...what with my dad being a werewolf. I bet...I bet that doesn't happen very often, does it?
Professor Budden gave a snort.
"Merlin, no!"
"My dad says you used to work at the Werewolf Support Centre during the War." Teddy recalled, and Budden frowned deeply as he recalled:
"For a little, yes. Before Greyback and his lot reduced it to rubble."
"You've met loads of werewolves, then. Did you ever meet any like my dad? Ones who got married and had children?"
Budden shook his head without much thought.
"I'd not be surprised if your father was the only one in living memory, Mr. Lupin. Not got a lot going for them, most werewolves. Not really marriage material..." he shuffled his feet a little awkwardly and mumbled: "I best be going...staff meeting..."
As the teacher swept off down the corridor, Teddy let out a heavy sigh of disappointment.
Never mind, he thought to himself as he heard footsteps behind him, maybe Dad knows of somebody...
Somebody had come to a halt just behind him.
Teddy spun around, eyes coming to rest upon the boy who stood, hands shoved awkwardly in his pockets.
"Hi..." Chester mumbled, and Teddy glanced past him into the courtyard to find that the other boys were openly staring at them. Teddy turned back to Chester and told himself that he didn't care.
"Hello..."" he mumbled back, shoving his own hands into his pockets too. His fellow Gryffindor pursed his lips together thoughtfully for a moment before finally informing the werewolf's son:
"I think you're a git."
Teddy didn't quite know what he was supposed to say, so he simply stared.
"I think you're an ungrateful git and sometimes I think you don't deserve to be my friend because all you ever do it treat me like I'm an idiot."
Teddy opened his mouth to deny he did anything of the sort, but Chester ignored him.
"I stick up for you when Lynch takes the piss, I stopped everybody picking on you for putting him in the Hospital Wing, I looked after you that time you were being a sissy thinking your parents were getting divorced, I told your dad about the pensieve that time so he could help you out, and I got myself put in detention over and over to skip lessons and cheer you up when your dad was in the hospital. And what do I get? You treat me like crap!"
Again, Teddy was silent. He looked down at his shoes, ashamed.
"But somebody's got to put up with you." Chester concluded, causing Teddy's eyes to snap back up to look at him. "You're too much of a wuss to put up with stuff on your own and you can't have Victoire Weasley as your best friend...she's a girl!"
At last, Teddy cracked a smile.
"Thanks, Ches..." he began, only for a call from outside to cause him to trail off into silence.
"Chester!"
Both boys turned to regard the speaker, a blonde haired Hufflepuff boy who had taken a step out of the cluster of staring third years. He motioned somewhat hurriedly to Chester as he called:
"C'mon, we're going to lunch!"
"Let's go, Ted." Chester announced as he began to hurry back towards the group, and Teddy paused, eying the hostile, staring boys worriedly. When Chester looked back at him expectantly, he took a few reluctant steps forward.
"I um...I don't think you should come..." the boy called, sounding somewhat pleading as he shuffled back a few steps, and Teddy saw Chester's shoulders visibly tense.
"Of course he should come!" Chester cried, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "He's probably as hungry as the rest of us, what do you want him to do, go wait outside the kitchens and hope a house elf sees him?"
The boys exchanged nervous glances. Teddy was just considering pretending that he was not hungry when Chester seemingly lost his temper.
"Look!" he bellowed, hands balling into furious fists, "I already told you, that Moirai girl is a bloody nutter! She's totally loopy, I bet she couldn't even predict her own birthday!"
At this final exclamation, Teddy couldn't help it, he burst out laughing, wrapping his arms around his stomach as it ached with amusement.
At his laughter, the boys looked more alarmed than ever. Chester march back to Teddy, reaching to grab hold of him by the arm.
"Let's go this way!" he muttered darkly, and Teddy found himself being dragged back through the doorway and down a corridor.
"Thanks for sticking up for me, Ches." the metamorphmagus managed halfway down the corridor, having finally managed to halt his laughter. He tried to slow their pace a little so that he could fix his friend with a sincere look, he felt he owed Chester that much at least, but Chester was too busy glaring ahead of them to notice.
"I don't know why you had to laugh so hysterically," he grumbled, though there seemed to be a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Now they probably think you're a proper psycho! Anyway, I need to ask you something. Have you done that History essay yet?"
"I did it on Wednesday." Teddy recalled, causing Chester to puff his cheeks in exasperation.
"Bloody hell!" the muggle born exclaimed as they rounded a corner. "Binns only set it that morning! See, I told you! this is what happens when you leave a wuss to deal with their own problems. They hide away from everybody and do pathetic stuff like writing homework essays and reading textbooks!"
Teddy opened his mouth to argue, but thought better of it.
"Anyway...I was wondering...can I borrow your essay?" Chester asked hopefully, and Teddy rolled his eyes.
"Are you going to copy it?"
"Nah, of course I won't...well...not all of it, at least..." At Teddy's raised eyebrow, Chester elaborated: "I'll change by Theodore Lupin to by Chester Burton."
With a sigh that did little to hide his amusement, Teddy told him:
"I'll give it to you later, there's something I've got to tell you first. But we have to find Victoire before I can tell you."
"Why?" Chester asked, face contorting a little in irritation, for he was not a great fan of girls. They were all together a bit too silly for his liking and they talked far too much.
"Because," Teddy said as they reached the marble staircase and began to hurry down the stairs, ignoring the stares of a group of passing Slytherins, "three heads are better than one!"
The two boys spotted second year Victoire sat at the Gryffindor table with a number of her friends, busy selecting an assortment of sandwiches from a silver platter. When they approached, she turned to look at them with a bright smile, shifting up the bench to make room for them.
"Move up, Emma!" she told the girl beside her, only for Emma and the other two girls to hastily get to their feet and mumble something about some Potions homework that they had all yet to finish. Teddy was glad to see that Victoire seemed unfazed by their hasty retreat towards the Entrance Hall, instead she turned to regard the two boys again before telling Chester:
"Keep that look on your face and it'll get stuck that way forever if the wind changes direction."
Chester, who had been busy glowering at the girls' retreating backs, turned to direct his scowl at her instead. As Teddy sat down beside the silvery blonde haired girl, Chester announced:
"That's such a girl thing to believe! I bet one of your girl friends told you that!"
"Actually," Victoire told him, reaching to gather up a few sandwiches to dump onto Teddy's plate. "It's what my mum says to Dominique whenever she throws a tantrum."
"I bet you and your sister believe her, too." Chester grumbled as he sat down, and Teddy rolled his eyes so that Victoire could see. Before the Christmas Holidays, Victoire and Chester had got on reasonably well on the few occasions that the three of them had spent time together. Chester seemed to have come to realize what Teddy had known pretty much ever since he had first played with Victoire out in the garden of The Burrow, when they had both been in nappies: Victoire Weasley was not a girly girl. Of course to most observers she appeared to be exactly that; she took great care of her appearance, she liked to paint her nails a different colour every few days, she wore skirts and dresses, owned and fussed over a exceedingly fat and fluffy tabby cat, and liked the colour pink.
But in truth liking pink gave away nothing: Tonks had pink hair most days and Teddy could think of at least a hundred other words more appropriate to describe his mother than girly, as a matter of fact Teddy himself was quite fond of the colour (not that he would ever admit this to Chester.) And just because she dressed like a girl and liked to start off the day looking perfectly smart, didn't mean that Victoire was a girly girl. She was perfectly happy to finish the day looking as grubby and muddy as any self respecting boy, she was not adverse to the odd hexing or two; and whilst her little sister had carefully brushed her cuddly toy kneazles' fur and tucked them up in their cardboard box house, eight year old Victoire's toy dragon had swept across the girls' bedroom and, with a blood curdling roar, ripped the cardboard roof clean off of the structure and tossed it across the room.
No, Victoire Weasley was not a girly girl. And for this very reason, Chester Burton had liked her.
But over the Christmas holidays, when his Auntie Linda's horde of female offspring had descended upon his house for two whole weeks, Chester's tolerance for the female race had been battered and beaten beyond recognition until he seemed unable to tolerate girls in any real capacity at all.
Luckily, Teddy thought, Victoire seemed to have accepted this alteration with perfect, girlish grace and seemed to find it bordering on amusing. And so Teddy ignored Chester's grumbling in order to tell them both about the conversation that he had had with Remus about the prophecy and his disappointment that Professor Budden had not seemed to know anything else of interest.
"So...so you reckon there's some other kid at Hogwarts with a werewolf as a father?" Chester concluded, seemingly forgetting his irritation to be sat with Victoire as his eyes lit up at the prospect of excitement.
"Maybe...or outside of Hogwarts, perhaps. Moirai never said it had to happen here, did she?"
"No..." Victoire mused, taking a small bite of her cheese and pickle sandwich in thought. "She didn't, which makes this all much more difficult." she mumbled as she chewed, tapping her fingers thoughtfully upon the table. "You better ask your dad about it, Teddy Bear. See if that gets us anywhere."
Now that he had Chester back on side and Victoire to help him puzzle things out, Teddy felt a sudden surge of enthusiasm for their little investigation, and he stuffed the remainders of his sandwich into his mouth before jumping to his feet.
"I'll go and ask him now!" he announced excitedly, but when Chester too got to his feet, preparing to pile up a few sandwiches to eat on their way, Victoire said:
"Go on your own, Teddy, he's bound to tell you more on your own."
"What am I supposed to do?" Chester asked, sounding bordering on insulted, and his face contorted irritably when the girl offered him a bright smile and told him:
"You're going to come with me to the library, we've got some reading to do!"
Teddy failed to suppress a rather mocking chuckle at the repulsed expression upon Chester's face at the idea of having to read a book that wasn't part of his homework, and as he dashed away towards the Staff Room, ready to ambush Remus the moment he stepped out of the staff meeting, the werewolf's son felt yet another swell of excitement in his chest.
There's a new Golden Trio at Hogwarts, he told himself excitedly. And we're going to solve this puzzle just as well as Harry, Ron and Hermione solved theirs...