"Hey, Teddy! Is there room for me?"

Teddy looked over through the crowded Quidditch stands. Victoire was beaming at him, waving a handmade Hufflepuff flag furiously.

He held out a hand to help her climb over to them.

"I take it your friends aren't much for Quidditch, then?" Teddy asked, noting their absence.

"Millie loves it. She's over there." She pointed a few rows behind. "I just wanted to come and help you support Josh. Surely I can spend some time with my favourite person, can't I Teddy? Don't you want me?" She gave a very fake pout.

"Course I do!" He ruffled her hair, prompting her to swat him away playfully.

He couldn't keep up with this. One minute he was her favourite person, the next she was swanning past him with hardly a wave, like he was only a vague acquaintance. Girls!

Oh well, might as well make the most of it now she was here.

"How's he feeling?"

"Nervous!" Teddy looked anxiously back to the ground where Josh was stood tapping his Beater's bat against his palm. It was his first match.

"He'd look a lot better if the Ravenclaw beaters weren't so huge!" Aiden exclaimed.

Just then, the whistle blew and the players shot off into the air. The next few hours were rather gruelling, with neither team really pulling ahead. Victoire took the opportunity to fill Teddy in on all that she had been doing over the last few weeks and give him an in depth character study on all of her Professors, roommates and anyone else she had happened to come across. It almost felt like old times and Teddy was beginning to hope that they had put the strangeness of the last few weeks behind them.

By the time the snitch was disappointingly caught by Ravenclaw's seeker, the night was drawing in and they were all beginning to shiver. Victoire had pressed herself tightly into Teddy's side, wrapping his cloak around her for extra warmth. It left Teddy feeling incredibly cold when she got up to leave.

"I'll see you next week..." she proclaimed, "...for Gryffindor-Slytherin. And I want to see your flag Teddy!"

...

And so their strange new arrangement bumbled along; they would go for weeks at a time hardly speaking and then all of a sudden she would turn up, all smiles and for a few hours it was like nothing had ever changed.

He had been foolish to think that him and Victoire would keep their closeness at Hogwarts, he realised that now. They were growing into different people; they didn't have to be in each other's pockets anymore. The more he thought about it, the more he began to question why they were so close in the first place. It wasn't like they were actually family or anything. He had only spent so much time with her growing up because their grandmothers were friends and because Ginny and Bill were siblings. As they got older they probably wouldn't spend any time together at all.

Still, when he didn't see her, he missed her terribly. She had always been the person he would turn to whenever something was wrong or whenever he had exciting stories to share. At least before she started at Hogwarts they had been able to write each other letters; now even that privilege was denied to him. Teddy desperately hoped that when the Christmas holidays arrived, things would finally shift back to normal and they could go back to how they had always been. Much to his disappointment however, she spent the whole of her holidays in France. As fun as it was spending time with James and Albus, it wasn't quite the same.

By the time they got to Easter, Teddy had almost given up on the idea of them spending time together. However, the first few days of the holidays were blissful. Each morning Teddy woke up to glorious sunny weather and his grandmother, realising how much he missed Victoire's company, took little persuading to take him to The Burrow, where she sat and drank tea and chatted with Molly. Meanwhile, for the first time in forever, he and Victoire could run about in the orchard and play all of the games they used to, tell jokes and share secrets. This was better, Teddy thought. He could almost cope with things being different at Hogwarts, if they could always go back to this.

The first week of the holiday was nearly over when Victorie approached him with a look on her face that Teddy knew to mean 'I need to talk to you'.

"I found something out," she stated quietly.

They took their next opportunity to slink off to the orchard, away from the other Weasleys.

"What's up?" Teddy queried.

"I asked my dad about his scars..." Victoire began. "I always wanted to, but maman always said it was rude to ask about someone's appearance, and I always figured she was talking about my dad. They were talking though, about a battle, and I happened to overhear them and then he told me."

Teddy nodded. "And...?"

"He was attacked by a werewolf!"

Teddy felt a cold wave pass over him. He had never talked about his father with Victoire. Not because he was ashamed but because he wasn't sure what she would say. He had always been a little scared that she would treat him differently, not intentionally, but in a pitying sort of way, like some people did when they learned about his parents.

"I mean, it's okay, he wasn't cursed or anything, thank Merlin, but can you imagine how bad it would have been? What if he had been bitten? What if he was a fully fledged werewolf? It would have been...terrible..."

Teddy couldn't breathe. His mind wouldn't work properly, he couldn't think of anything to say. From what Victoire had said, she had every right to hate werewolves, but hearing her talk about them brought back every insecurity he had ever felt.

"I even panicked that I could turn into a werewolf, but maman said that was just silly." Victoire giggled. "Hey, Teddy, are you okay?"

Suddenly, her eyes widened and her face went white.

"Sorry Teddy, I didn't mean...I know your dad wasn't...I only meant it would have..."

Teddy closed his eyes. He didn't want to have this conversation. He was vaguely conscious that his hair was changing colour; his metamorphing abilities always took a hit when his moods were severe.

"Teddy? I'm really, really sorry. That came out all wrong." Victoire sounded more anxious than ever.

Teddy felt the panic completely take over his body. What could he even say to her?

"I'm not feeling too good," he managed to stutter. "Got to...get back home." He clutched his stomach in what he hoped was a semi-convincing way and made a dash for the house, ignoring the cries that followed him.

...

Somehow he made his way back into Molly Weasley's kitchen. He desperately sought out his grandmother amongst the throng of red heads.

"Can you take me home please, I...I don't feel well."

Andromeda looked at him questioningly.

"Sure Teddy...you want to go right now?"

Teddy nodded, "quickly, please!"

"Okay, I'll see you soon," she said to the others, her face full of concern.

She took Teddy's hand and used her other to grab some Floo Powder.

They were just disappearing in a swirl of green as Victoire ran into the kitchen, desperately shouting his name.

...

An hour or so later, an owl knocked at the window.

Andromeda opened the window and let it in. "It's addressed to you, Teddy."

Teddy unrolled the parchment. The ink was badly smudged and there were lots of blobs which he suspected were tear stains. He thrust it aside, not even bothering to read it. There was nothing that she could say that would make things any better.

Teddy spent the next week doing as much as he could with his grandmother and with Harry. He kept pretending to himself it was because he hadn't seen much of them in the preceding week, but he knew that in reality it was because he wanted to avoid seeing Victoire.

When they finally did cross each other's paths, on the night before they returned to Hogwarts, they didn't speak at all. She came over to him just as they were about to leave, and opened her mouth to say something. Teddy shook his head. There it was, a silent resolve to never mention it again, to pretend it never happened. He could see the tears forming in her eyes, but right now he really didn't care. She wasn't the one who deserved to be upset by all of this. He was the one with the werewolf father; he was the one who had been hurt by her words, why should she get any sympathy?

The following morning she would be back with the giggling girls and gallant Gryffindors and werewolves and orphans would be the least of her concerns. There was no point in trying to patch things over now.

Filled with a bitterness he didn't know lived within him, Teddy turned away and left her to deal with the heartache this time.

...

A/N: I know I'm being evil to Teddy. Things will get better for him, I promise.

I'm going to continue exploring his insecurities around werewolves in the next chapter, things were just getting a bit long and drawn out here.