"Make sure you read the chapter in detail before next week and if you want to practise, make sure you use plenty of cushions!" Harry's voice drew to a close.

Teddy looked up to see his fellow seventh year Defence students deserting the classroom. He was oblivious to whatever Harry had been talking about for the last hour, his mind deeply preoccupied. This was it, this was his moment.

Since his chat with James last week, every spare thought had been directed towards this meeting.

Avoiding Victoire had been the hardest thing. Every part of him had wanted to challenge her, to find out exactly what she had been talking to Harry about, to find out why she hadn't told him. Deep down he knew he needed to speak to Harry first however. There would be no confusion with Harry; he could demand a straight answer and not let any other feelings get in the way.

The wait had been torturous. He knew if he'd have sent an owl Harry would have come sooner, but he didn't want a nicely prepared speech. He wanted brutal honesty, the honesty he should have had years ago.

"How's it going Teddy?" Harry beamed at him, unsuspecting. "I'm meeting James for tea in Neville's office. Are you going to join us?"

Teddy didn't smile. If he strayed into niceties he would lose his nerve. Instead he walked slowly up to his godfather, his expression unreadable.

"Teddy?"

Harry looked concerned now. He knew that something wasn't right. He was an Auror, for Merlin's sake. It was his job to pick up on odd behaviour.

It was now or never. Teddy took a deep breath.

"What happened to my parents, at the Battle of Hogwarts? We've never got past 'they died'. What happened to them?"

Harry's eyes widened and he ran a hand through his hair.

"James told me you spoke to Victoire about it. Funny that neither of you bothered to mention anything to me."

Harry ran his hand through his hair again, his face impassive. "Do you want to chat about this here or shall we go to Neville's office? I can stall James for a bit."

Teddy didn't move. "Here's fine."

Harry dragged out a chair and sat down, motioning for Teddy to do the same.

"Why have you never told me what happened to them?" Teddy's voice was filled with a hardness he didn't know he possessed.

"You know I've never deliberately tried to keep anything from you. There were just some things that didn't need to be said. Not until you were ready."

"Until I was ready? And when was that going to be? Why is everyone around here such a hypocrite? You all talk about me not being old enough but when you were my age you defeated Voldemort!" Teddy hadn't meant to shout but he found he didn't care. It was true. He was an adult now; he was fed up of being treated like a child.

"It's not an easy story to hear, however old you are. It's a hard story for everyone."

"I don't see how it affects anyone else! They were my parents."

Harry stared at him, almost angrily. "Surely you know by now that no one escaped that battle in one piece. Speaking about it is difficult...for everyone." His expression softened. "I know what it's like to grow up with no parents, Teddy; I know what it's like to hear rumours, to feel like you're being left in the dark. What I have also learnt, however, is that some things need to be treated cautiously."

Teddy scowled. He had given Harry seventeen years of caution. He wanted answers.

"You know that everyone was fighting here at Hogwarts. The Death Eaters had stormed the castle. It was hard to keep track of what was going on." Harry took a deep breath. "I didn't see either of your parents die...but I heard what happened from others. Your father was killed by a man called Dolohov, he was one of the strongest, most capable Death Eaters; he would have to be to take down Remus."

Teddy turned the name over in his head. Dolohov. It sounded vaguely familiar. He briefly wondered what had happened to him, but a more important question hung between them. Harry's edginess indicated that this was the question he was reluctant to answer.

"And my mum?"

"She was going to stay at home; she was going to stay with you. Only she couldn't bear the thought of everyone else here fighting and her not knowing what was going on. She couldn't bear not knowing what was going on with your dad, so she came to join us..."

Teddy swallowed hard, feeling a strange sensation of emptiness inside. He didn't know how to take that. She had left him, left him behind, knowing what the consequences could be. It was a thought he had suppressed for a long time and one he needed to ignore for a while longer. He steeled himself for his next question.

"Who killed her?"

When it came, the answer didn't surprise him. Maybe he had known for a long time, through the whispers and worried glances, through the documents stashed away where he couldn't see them.

"Bellatrix Lestrange; her aunt - your grandmother's sister."

Teddy felt sick. Family. His grandmother had always said that she wanted nothing to do with the Blacks, that she didn't want to be associated with them, but he thought it was just because of their reputation.

He remembered the day in Diagon Alley when a wizard had mistaken his grandmother for her sister, how she had dragged him away as quickly as she could. He remembered how pale she had turned when he mentioned the name later on, how he had desperately wanted to find out more, but she had refused to say a thing.

He had gone and written down what he knew, in the notebook, on the page that had disappeared...

He recalled the look on Victoire's face, the fake laugh, the suggestion he leave.

It hadn't been ripped out by accident at all. It had been ripped out in the hope that he would forget. It had been ripped out because she knew.

He was running down the corridor before he'd even thought about how to react to the news. He wasn't sure what was hurting more, the knowledge his mum had been killed by her own aunt or the realisation that nobody had bothered to tell him...that Victoire hadn't bothered to tell him.

He had spent the last week convincing himself that the reason she hadn't said anything about talking to Harry was because she hadn't found out anything new, because Harry had refused to tell her anything, but that wasn't true at all. They had been there together, talking about his mum, talking about him and nobody thought it was important enough that he should be told too.

All of the feelings he had been trying to make sense of recently, his idea of a future with her...that was obviously a joke. Was this how he was always going to be treated? As a poor orphan who couldn't quite cope with the truth? Didn't they think he deserved to know? He hated them all: the students who gaped at him as he ran past, who had little to worry about in their carefree lives, Harry for his silence, his grandmother for being related to such pure evil, his parents for leaving him in this mess and Victoire for failing to help him out of it.

He was vaguely aware that he was crying, but his sobs became lost amongst the deep pants caused by his sudden exertion. Still, he didn't stop until he was facing the Fat Lady.

"Let me see her, I need to see Victoire Weasley."

"You're not a Gryffindor. Absolutely no entry for members of other houses," the Fat Lady stated.

"I need to see her," Teddy snarled.

"Manners, manners. You'll have to wait."

"I won't bloody wait!" Teddy snapped. "Let me in!"

"Now there's no need to be rude. You cannot enter this common room."

Teddy turned around and kicked the wall opposite. At that moment a couple of first years arrived. Teddy seized his opportunity and shoved them aside as soon as they had uttered the password, ignoring the Fat Lady's shrieks of "intruder!"

Silence descended in the common room as every face turned around to stare at the cause of the commotion. Teddy didn't care.

He didn't need to look far for her. She was already rising from a sofa in the far corner, casually shaking out her long hair and walking elegantly across the common room towards him. She didn't offer up a word, merely motioned for him to follow her. Perfect Victoire Weasley. Perfect liar more like. Still, Teddy turned round after her, back out through the portrait hole, thumping the wall once more for good measure.

He was vaguely aware that James and Fred had followed them too, but Victoire glared at them and they retreated in silence.

"In here."

She led him into an empty classroom. Teddy slammed the door behind them.

"I've just been chatting to Harry about Bellatrix Lestrange," Teddy snarled. "Funny thing is, I think you already know what she did, don't you? You knew and you never told me!"

Victoire said nothing. Teddy took her lack of response as an opportunity to carry on with his tirade.

"What about sharing everything with each other, Victoire? I found out from James that you went to see Harry last summer and that you've been carrying around some sort of secret ever since and today I find out that you knew who killed my mother! You knew and you didn't bother to tell me! Why not, Victoire? Couldn't you find the time in all of your worrying about James and Fred? Or maybe Harry told you not to? I've always told you things, whatever anyone else has said. But you, precious little Victoire, you've got to do the right thing all the time, haven't you? Well, what about what's right for me?"

Teddy braced himself for the return onslaught. In fact he wanted nothing more than to have a screaming match with her right now. Instead she remained infuriatingly silent.

"She killed my mother! She was family but still she killed my mother. Didn't you think I had the right to know?"

"It wasn't my place to tell you, Teddy." Victoire said quietly.

"Let me guess...you were trying to protect me? Bloody hell, haven't I got enough people trying to protect me? I thought I could trust you to be the one person to always tell me the truth? It's my family. I deserve to know. Why won't anyone ever tell me what happened?"

"I wasn't protecting you," Victoire stated defiantly. "I didn't even mean to find out about your mum. I was just trying to help Grandma. I thought Harry would know what to do."

Taken aback, Teddy looked at her curiously. "I don't understand."

"Do you know what happened to her," she continued cautiously. "To Bellatrix?"

"I know she's dead." Teddy spat. That too filled him with anger. How dare she be dead? How dare she have an easy way out? Why couldn't she have survived and gone to Azkhaban, be made to suffer every day for taking his mum away from him?

"Grandma killed her. She tried to kill Ginny, just after Uncle Fred died. Her and Grandma got into a duel and she killed her." She stared at him for a moment, almost challenging him to say something. "She still has nightmares about it, about what would have happened if she hadn't been able to defeat her. I guess you wouldn't have noticed how she never sleeps when we stop over? She doesn't want to scare us if she has a bad dream, so she stops up all night. I heard her shouting in her sleep once, shouting Bellatrix's name; Maman and Dad wouldn't tell me about it so I asked Harry. Honestly Teddy, I never meant to find out about your mum; Harry was telling me about some of the things she had done and it came out. We both agreed that it was Andromeda's place to tell you, not ours. Don't be too hard on either of them though, they were only trying to -"

"Look out for me? That's what everyone keeps telling me. It doesn't work though, does it? It never makes any of this any easier." It was as if all of the emotions inside Teddy were suddenly colliding. He wanted to scream some more, to punch things, to break them yet at the same time he just wanted to run away, to be somewhere quiet and completely alone. He could tell his hair and eyes were changing, yet he was powerless to stop them. Victoire's arms wrapped around him and as much as he wanted to push her off, he couldn't find the energy.

"I know you hate me right now," she whispered, "but I'm here for you. Always."

Unable to respond, Teddy began to sob.