Chapter 3:

The Prisoner

Granny finally let Teddy go enough for both of them to sit down on a bench she Conjured. Teddy could see that Bill and Fleur's girls all looked confused, except for Muriel, who, like Artie, just seemed mildly interested.

"Before we start," the priest asked, "I'd like to know about Millicent Bulstrode. Has she stabilized from the attack?"

Granny nodded. "Yes, Father Alderman. You may see her tomorrow to start counseling. She needs rest today. It was a vicious attack even by Greyback's standards."

"Her face?" Bill asked, and Teddy realized that he'd taken Bill's scars for granted all of his life - he'd once asked about them, but had forgotten after being told that he'd learn when he was older.

"Of course," Granny said. "The pack also mangled one of her arms, and she'll need a prosthetic leg. We had to take it from the knee down."

Victoire looked at her father, alarmed. "It was a werewolf who did that to you? That's what you didn't want to tell me?"

Bill held up his hand. "I was planning to tell each of you when you were eleven. I thought that was old enough. I'd have told you before you left for school. But now you all need to know."

"How come you don't turn into a wolf?" Marie asked, her confusion now turning to curiosity.

"He wasn't transformed when he bit me," Bill said. "And that's why I want you all to listen, even though it's frightening. I'd rather you be sufficiently frightened now than surprised later." He looked at Hermione. "Go on."

Hermione waved her wand and a thick file appeared. From it, she pulled out a photograph of a man with sharpened teeth and a tangled mess of filthy gray hair. He leered out at them. She held it deliberately in front of Teddy. "I want you to memorize this face," she said. "If you see it, run. Of everything we'll say here today, that's the most important part."

Teddy took the picture and practiced it, sharpening his teeth as he'd once done to frighten the rather horrible Honoria Higgs, forcing his hair out -

"Teddy, don't!" Victoire gasped.

He looked up. "I'm just learning the face."

"Learn it however you need to," Hermione said. "But don't just show up with it, because we're all cursing on sight." She sighed. "Bill, we're going to talk about things that I'm not sure the smaller children are ready for. Anthony Goldstein is doing desk work outside. I could ask him to watch Artie and Muriel. You and Fleur can find words for it for them later."

Bill considered this, then nodded. Hermione took his two youngest children to the door and beckoned the Auror called Goldstein. He took the children, and Teddy heard him offer to let them play with any number of funny little gadgets before the door shut again. Hermione leaned against it, then took up the folder again. "I've put together what we have, but I think it would make more sense if... if the people to whom I've spoken would tell everyone else what they remember. Some of us here don't know all that much about Greyback. Nearly everyone else has a little piece to add. Professor?" She looked to McGonagall.

McGonagall nodded. "Fenrir Greyback was a third year student when I began to teach Transfiguration. It was before he was bitten, of course. He was sullen and not particularly talented, magically speaking, but he caused no trouble in my class. We learned almost immediately that year that he had a cruel streak - he'd enjoyed learning about Dark Creatures in Defense Against the Dark Arts and been anxious to take Care of Magical Creatures from Professor Kettleburn, but Hagrid caught him burning bowtruckles to amuse himself. He was kicked out of that class in October. We kept an eye on him around animals. We thought he'd got it out of his system, as winter set in, and he didn't do anything else. But one day in February, after my first year Gryffindors were in, a little girl called Twyla Dorne came to me and said that Fenrir had cornered her in the Gryffindor common room. She said she thought he'd pulled his wand on her. He tried to bite her. I thought at first that she meant to say he tried to kiss her - which would hardly have been more appropriate, but would at least be comprehensible - but she lowered the cowl of her robe and showed me the bruise marks from his teeth."

"You expelled him?" Granny asked.

"No." McGonagall took off her glasses and cleaned them. Her face looked so naked that Teddy actually looked away, like he'd seen something he oughtn't have. She put them back on. "Dumbledore and I spoke to his mother. Astrid Greyback - she was a Squib, and she always maintained that her lover, Fenrir's father, had been taken by werewolves. She never named him. We strongly suspected it wasn't the truth, though she'd convinced herself by then that it was. I suppose it doesn't matter. It matters that Fenrir believed it wholeheartedly. The attack on the Dorne girl was at the full moon, though we didn't recognize the significance at the time. At any rate, we decided to give him another chance. He used it, the next month, to attack a first year boy coming out of the bath. Oliver Wood's father, actually - Roland Wood. He actually had managed to break Roland's skin, but Roland was still wet and slithered away. He got his wand and managed to Petrify him. He got dressed, then came to me. That was when we expelled Greyback. There were no authorities to notify about a violent schoolboy. He went back to his mother. Some time after that, he was bitten."

"Which he did on purpose," Vivian muttered.

Father Alderman, who'd been listening impassively, stepped forward. "It was three years later," he said. "When he was sixteen. Greyback boasted about it to us. In the pack." He looked cautiously around, then swallowed hard. "He said that he'd met a werewolf. He called her 'a silly little twist.' He didn't mention her name, though my Mum thinks it was a Muggle-born witch named Etta Huff, who disappeared around the right time. He said she didn't appreciate what she'd been given. He found her drunk between moons and took her home, and locked her in a cage. At the full moon, he put his arm in to take the bite. Not far enough for real damage, just enough to take the curse. The next morning, he - " He stopped talking entirely, looked at the littler girls, then looked at the floor. "He killed her."

Vivian nodded. "Right. He started collecting women right after. Old Mag said he was only eighteen when she joined him. She was a spot older. She hadn't found any work, because... well, you know. Werewolf laws. She'd found her own ways of getting gold. Greyback brought her in. Taught her to hunt and steal. He'd done that for all of them. All of them were equal then - just Greyback, and then everyone else. He started making up the alpha bit later on when some idiot told him about wolves. He'd forgotten how to read by then. I don't think he remembered until Lupin taught him again."

"What?" Teddy asked, his mouth dropping open.

Father Alderman smiled. "That's an entirely different part of the story. They made an agreement. Greyback taught your father to keep himself alive, and your father taught him to read. He taught all of us, actually. But that was years after all of this. I'm really not sure how Lupin ended up bitten, let alone how he got away. I read the report in Mum's file from the Werewolf Capture Unit, but I don't think they had all the details."

"They didn't," McGonagall said. "At some point over the next ten years, Lord Voldemort happened across Greyback. They shared a dislike of the Ministry, and Greyback certainly had no love for Muggle-borns. I don't imagine Greyback took quickly to having someone else in charge of him, but he adapted to the ideology quickly enough. One day in Diagon Alley, he saw a young Muggle-born woman and her son, meeting the boy's father - the Lupins. He made a rude comment about Muggle-borns polluting a wizarding line. John Lupin lashed out at him for the insult, returning... quite in kind. He had no idea to whom he was speaking. The next full moon, Greyback came for Remus. He was six. According to Julia - Dumbledore spoke to her at length before Remus started school, and Dumbledore passed most of it to me - Remus fought hard. He broke his ankle trying to hold on to a tree. That slowed him enough for John and Julia to catch up. Something had distracted Greyback by then. They set up fire spells to block Greyback, and they grabbed Remus back and got him to St. Mungo's."

"Greyback never forgave that," Vivian said. "He believed that wolves he had made belonged to him. Which was why it was easy for Remus to come to the pack when he needed to get information - Greyback thought it only natural that finally, he'd come back." She looked at Teddy, her magical eye rolling in its socket. "It's important that you understand this, Teddy, as little as you might want to hear it: Greyback believes your father was one of his. A traitor, of course, but his."

"And so are we," Father Alderman added. "Which is something else you need to keep in mind. Your parents helped take us away from Greyback - Vivian, me, ten others. They took what was his. I have no doubt that - if he knows you exist - he will attempt to take what was theirs."

Teddy thought he should feel something - anger, fear, hate, anything - but he didn't. He just felt strangely cold, like an invisible ghost had chosen to sit in his exact spot here in Uncle Harry's office, settling over him like a chilly second skin. Somewhere in the room, a clock was ticking very loudly, but he heard everything else from a distance, like he was listening underwater. Somewhere above the surface, Granny had taken his hand. He let the talk go on around him, though he was very aware of Uncle Harry's wary eye.

"When we got the children away," Bill said, "the men were gone and Tonks had to neutralize the women - they transformed in a cave, and she used some sort of fire spell to keep them there."

Father Alderman was nodding. "Lupin had to leave at the last minute. He found out that Father Montgomery's brother had accidentally tipped everyone off, and he knew where Greyback had gone. He went to try and stop them. They'd already killed Montgomery, and the little boy got in the way. But Tonks had to stay with us. She had to get us through a magical gate. She used fire for that as well." He looked at Teddy and smiled tentatively. "She was very brave. They both were. She stayed with us after we transformed, overhead on her broom, pushing us through. There was a guard for each of us on the other side, in the Forbidden Forest, but it was just her on our side."

Teddy blinked. "How... how could Dad have helped if you were all transformed?"

"He challenged Greyback," Vivian said. "Distracted him long enough for the family he was protecting to cast spells. The daughters were away of course, but Greyback would have killed the parents and taken the little boy. As it was, the boy wouldn't even have died if he hadn't tried to run out to his uncle's body. Lupin was hurt very badly - he was no match for Greyback as a wolf - but he saved both parents."

Something slick seemed to turn over inside Teddy, leaving a trail of sick anger in its wake. He'd saved some other child's parents, but no one had bothered to save him. Or Mum.

Vivian's natural eye widened, as she apparently realized what she'd said, but she didn't try to take it back. She just looked down.

Professor Longbottom frowned and said, "Where does Bill come into this? I understand about Lupin, but I thought the attack on Bill was just part of the battle."

"He recognized me," Bill said. "I'd been helping Lupin get information on the children, and I went to the woods with Tonks once to help her sort out what she'd need to do. He saw me there. He recognized me by my hair. Tonks told me I should have hidden it. I was also one of the guards at the other end, when she sent the children through, but there's no way that Greyback would know who was there. He was busy elsewhere, and he's never found out about the sanctuary village." Noting several blank looks, he added, "Fleur's grandmother helped us hide them, along with Father Alderman's parents. They've got quite a little village in France."

"Which is exactly where you should all go," Father Alderman said. "Victoire will be at Hogwarts, but you and Fleur and the rest of the children need to be somewhere safe. The others will know how to look out for Greyback and - "

Bill shook his head. "I can't go to France. I'm staying to help with this search. Fleur, you should - "

"I do not theenk so! I am not leaving you alone 'ere to join a 'unt for a madman! I am not a child to be set aside!"

Teddy hadn't felt Granny get up, and it surprised him when he saw her approach Fleur. It surprised him more when she raised one flat hand and slapped the younger woman across the face. "Don't be an idiot," she said. "You have five children. You can't rush off on the scatterbrained notion that you'll make a damned bit of difference just because you're with him. You won't."

"But Tonks - "

"Died," Teddy finished.

Fleur looked at him guiltily.

Uncle Harry sighed. "I don't think it's necessary for all of you to go to France. If we could secure Shell Cottage against Voldemort, we can secure it against Greyback. Andromeda, I've already taken the liberty of securing your home."

Granny looked skeptical - magical protections had been shattered around their home during the war, and Teddy knew she didn't entirely trust them - but nodded.

"Does he know about me?" Teddy asked. "This Greyback bloke, I mean."

"We don't know," Granny told him. "Your mum was very careful once her pregnancy started to show, but Greyback worked with the Snatchers that year, and it was a group of Snatchers who murdered your grandfather." She pressed her mouth into a thin line, then said, "I don't know if he was forced to tell them anything before he died."

Teddy bit his lip. "If he does know and you think he'll come after me, then I could just sit out in a field somewhere and you could watch me and maybe - "

The "No" came from at least four people - Uncle Harry, Granny, Professor Longbottom, and Vivian. Teddy had a feeling it was coming from elsewhere as well, from two voices that spoke silently. But instead of feeling cared for, the anger that had started with Vivian's comment just seemed to get worse. He couldn't quite pinpoint who he was angry at. Greyback, he supposed.

"I think we know everything we need to know," Hermione said after a while. "I spoke to Millicent. She said there are about two dozen werewolves in the group that broke Greyback out of Azkaban. They were led by a woman called Mina."

"I think Mina will regret it," Vivian said. "She was his favorite when they took us, but she's quite a bit too old for Greyback now, and he won't fancy it if she's got a taste for power."

"I'll ask Millicent for any help she can give us when I go to see her tomorrow," Alderman said. "It may help her to help us."

"May I go with you?" Teddy asked.

Alderman looked at him, surprised. "Why do you want to go?"

Teddy didn't know. He shrugged.

"We'll see," Alderman said. "It's up to your grandmother."

After that, there was talk of specific security measures, and Teddy ignored most of it. He felt something warm beside him, and found that Victoire had slid over. She was chewing on her lip. Teddy reached up absently and messed up her hair.

Once the arrangements were made, Teddy went home with Granny. He didn't notice the new security spells, though he and Granny had to Apparate nearly all the way to the pond, instead of just to the front garden, to get in.

He'd been gone less than the week he'd planned on, but it felt different, like he felt visiting his nursery after moving into the room across the hall. His cat, Checkmate, ran out eagerly and stopped in front of him, kneading the carpet with great energy until he picked her up. She began to groom his eyebrows. Behind her, old Bludger waddled out. He was her uncle, or half-uncle, or some such relationship. Mum's cat had been Bludger's mum, and was Checkmate's grandmother, at any rate. Bludger was the last of his litter, and didn't seem to know what to make of his energetic younger kin. He nudged Teddy's shoelaces with his graying muzzle, and Teddy squatted to scratch his ears.

Granny went to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a glass of brandy. She sat down on the sofa and didn't drink it. Instead, she picked up a picture of Mum that was on the end table. Teddy knew it well; Mum was about fifteen in it, and dressed up as a superhero for a costume party. It had been his favorite picture of her for a long time. Granny turned it over and set it, face down, on the couch, then covered her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said to the ceiling.

Teddy went to her and sat down beside her. She hugged him fiercely, and combed his hair with her fingers. He was much too big for that now, but he didn't make her let go.

Once her mood lifted a bit, she went to the kitchen to start supper.

Teddy went to his room, which his parents had once shared. There were fewer pictures of them now than there had once been - the walls were mostly covered with posters of Muggles and Minions characters (including one that Granny disapproved of, which showed a chemist in a short dress with the top starting to come unbuttoned, holding up a beaker) and pictures of his friends. There was even a poster from Donzo's tour with the Weird Sisters last summer. They all looked very stupid. He went to a drawer and pulled out a picture of Dad with his school friends, the Marauders - Sirius Black, James Potter, and Peter Pettigrew. All four boys were in their dormitory at Hogwarts, which was a cheerful mess. Teddy could just make out posters of girls in swimsuits on the wall, and a scattered deck of cards on a table they'd scrounged from somewhere. They were laughing and making obscene gestures at the camera.

Greyback had been somewhere out there then, too.

Teddy went to the large bed and lay down at the center of it, the picture held against his chest. He stayed there, still and quiet, until Granny called him down to eat.

Teddy woke up the next morning to the soft, repetitive sound of Checkmate grooming Bludger's face a few inches away from him. Bludger was purring and stretching his claws, pricking the edge of Teddy's neck with each lick from Checkmate.

He pushed back. "C'mon... whole bed... other side..."

Bludger rolled over after him, and Checkmate climbed over Bludger's body to continue his bath. She turned neatly and sat down in front of Teddy's face, brushing her tail back and forth over his nose.

He pushed it away. "All right, I'm up."

He rolled off the edge of the bed, not wanting to think about why he was so tired, why he had been up until well past midnight, lying in the center of his parents' bed, sandwiched between two cats and staring at the ceiling. He'd gone searching through his camp luggage, frantically digging for Dad's wedding ring, which he kept on a chain and wore when he wasn't swimming, and he'd found it and was wearing it, but it all seemed very distant in the morning light.

But of course, it came back. Insane werewolves who might or might not be hunting him down tended to do that.

Granny was getting her things together for work when he came downstairs, and she didn't look like she'd slept much, either. "Did you still want to visit Millicent Bulstrode?" she asked.

Teddy nodded and got a loaf of cinnamon bread from the cupboard. He peeled off six slices, and Granny toasted them with a flick of her wand while he hunted for butter, and perhaps some eggs. Sausage if there was any around. He found the butter, and grabbed a muffin from a box he found beside it.

Granny raised her eyebrows. "I think we'd do well to get two sets of school robes for this year," she said. "Unless you want to spend the second half of it morphed shorter."

Teddy smiled and started breaking his eggs into a bowl. Granny shook her head and took over magically while he tucked in to the toast.

"Why do you want to see Millicent?" she asked.

"I don't know."

"I was there when she was brought in. She's in very bad shape, Teddy."

Teddy thought about it. "I reckon Dad would've gone. Wouldn't she have been one of his students, if Uncle Harry knows her?"

"I can't argue there," Granny said. "But follow Father Alderman's lead. If he doesn't think you should be there, go."

Teddy nodded. His eggs finished scrambling and cooking themselves, and he ate them quickly. By the time he was finished, it was time for Granny to leave for her shift. She told him to follow by Floo to her office when he'd got dressed. He took his time on this, enjoying the emptiness of the house, playing some of the songs Mum had stashed away in the back of the desk she'd left behind and trying a few of the dance moves he'd seen at Donzo's rehearsals last week. They were harder than they looked, and he was rather glad he wasn't trying them while singing under a Sonorus charm to a lot of people. He ducked out into the garden and picked some fresh flowers, then pulled on a clean brown robe over his jeans, scratched both cats (and checked their bowls) and Flooed out to Granny's office at St. Mungo's, feeling much better than he had yesterday. He spilled out, arms akimbo, onto her floor, and from her desk, she flipped her wand without looking to clean up the ash.

She was going through a thick patient file, tapping it here and there with her wand, and she only looked up long enough to smile and say hello, and direct Teddy over to the books in the waiting area. There were reasons he only visited her here on rare occasions.

Five minutes after he arrived, the door opened, and Vivian Waters came in. "I see Teddy's here," she said. "Which means you haven't got the charm quite right, Andromeda."

Granny closed her file. "Hmm. That one always worked on Mad-Eye. I guess they've improved the eye over the years. Though I've never known why they found it necessary to make it possible to see through things."

"Compensation," Vivian said, then looked at Teddy, her mismatched eyes warm and friendly. "Alderman's finished talking to Millicent about private things, and he asked if she would mind a visit from you. She said it would be all right, as long as he and I stayed. Pansy Parkinson is there as well."

Teddy nodded and picked up the flowers he'd taken from the garden, which had spilled when he fell out of the fireplace, then followed her out. They went without speaking through the old corridors, up the stairs to Dai Llewellyn Ward, where Aurors were posted beyond a set of privacy screens. Vivian led Teddy through them. Inside the screens, Father Alderman was sitting soberly beside the bed, where a heavily bandaged woman was lying still. Her bruised eyes were visible above the linen, but other than that, Teddy couldn't tell what she looked like. One arm was wrapped tightly from the fingertips to the shoulder, and the blanket collapsed halfway down her right leg. Across from Father Alderman was an aggressively cheerful woman with dark hair and an upturned nose. She was speaking stridently.

"...Order of Merlin, Millicent! First class. That's something. A hero! Perhaps you'll be on the Wizengamot someday. Oh, you must be Professor Lupin's son." She stuck her hand out in Teddy's direction. "I'm Pansy Parkinson. I rather liked him despite..." She shrugged casually, and Teddy wasn't sure if she meant "Despite being a werewolf" or "Despite being on the other side of the war." He was reasonably sure he'd heard this name before, and not in a kindly light. She smiled brightly at Millicent. "You remember Professor Lupin, don't you? They're not all what you saw."

"Mmm," Millicent said. "Cats..."

"Oh, I'll take care of your cats, don't you worry even a little bit about that. I'll bring them right to my own house. And you may stay there if you like as soon as you're all better." Pansy Parkinson looked stunned by her own generosity in this matter. She preened a bit and said, "Well, I'll leave you to talk to your new friends. But don't you forget your old ones!" She gave a glassy, dazed smile, and ducked out, walking quickly.

Millicent's eyes moved over toward Father Alderman. "Not staying... Pansy's."

He smiled. "You'll be welcome in France, as soon as you're well enough to travel. Nate and Evvie Blondin have room in their house. You'll like them."

Teddy took a tentative step inside and held out the flowers. "Here," he said. "I picked them for you. I thought... well, that my Dad would have wanted to see you."

She blinked slowly in acknowledgment. Teddy wasn't sure what he meant to say to her. He just said, "You were really brave."

She tried to smile, and made a horrible sound as her hurt face rubbed against the bandages.

Teddy let Vivian and Father Alderman take over, and just sat helplessly beside the bed, wishing he hadn't come. He didn't have anything to add. But then he thought about Dad, six years old, lying in a bed somewhere in this ward. He'd have wanted people to visit.

The Healers came to tend her an hour later, and Teddy left gratefully with the others. Granny still had most of her shift left, but she didn't want him home alone, so he Flooed to Uncle Harry's, where he spent the day playing hide and seek with James and Al. Lily was toddling madly about, but couldn't quite figure out the rules of the game yet.

The next day, Granny insisted that he return, and the day after that, he was sent to Shell Cottage to help Fleur with things that she couldn't even think of ways for him to help with. He realized, with dawning mortification, that Granny had been arranging babysitters for him. At thirteen! She didn't even bother to deny it when he confronted her about it. He asked if he might at least spend the day at Frankie's, but that was out of the question, as Maddie and Daffy both worked - Frankie looked after Carny, and baby Mac went to work with Maddie, carried in a sling - and besides, Badger Hill wasn't secured. Nor, she said before he could bring it up, was Donzo's house, or Tinny's, or Ruthless's, or Maurice's. "Your choices are Shell Cottage, Uncle Harry's, or the Romp." The Romp was Ron and Hermione's house - named for what they called a great lot of otters, as Teddy understood it, though the adults made off-color jokes about why it was really named that, much to Hermione's annoyance - and he'd never spent any real time there. He opted to go there next. Ron and Hermione both worked, but Molly watched the children during the day, and Teddy didn't mind having her cooking handy. He spent most of the day buried in Hermione's library, with Rosie curled up ostentatiously in front of him, reading a book of fairy tales. Teddy himself read a pile of news clippings about Greyback's escape. Rita Skeeter had published an article wondering why Greyback had been in Azkaban at all, when Ron and Professor Longbottom, both experienced fighters, had been fighting him. She insinuated that their notorious fondness for werewolves - via Dad, of course, though she went out of her way to say that naturally, that was justified - had kept them from the logical step of just killing Greyback when they should have. Teddy found it hard to argue with the sentiment.

By the end of the second week of this, he was fed up and tired. He'd got an invitation to Donzo's concert, with backstage passes, but the security against Greyback wasn't deemed good enough, and when the rest of the Weird Sisters heard the reasoning, they decided that it might be best not to be a target anyway. Donzo wrote him an apologetic letter, which didn't help matters, as he mentioned that they'd all got together the next day for a game of Muggles and Minions. Teddy invited everyone to Granny's house, but only Maurice and Tinny could come, and they couldn't make much of a game with just the three of them. Teddy felt they were only coming out of charity, and he didn't try to invite people again.

There was no sign of Greyback, even as the next full moon approached, and the fear Teddy had felt the first day was replaced almost entirely by anger and annoyance. He found himself arguing with Granny, snapping at James during a stay at Uncle Harry's (James went off to his room and cried, though he wouldn't admit it, and Teddy felt like the world's biggest bully), and not answering concerned letters from his friends. When it came time to buy school supplies in Diagon Alley, three days after the full moon had passed uneventfully, Ron and Uncle Harry escorted both Teddy and Victoire. Victoire didn't seem to mind - she was still bubbling with enthusiasm about getting her wand, and Teddy had to watch her try several at Ollivander's before she came up with a holly and unicorn hair wand that worked for her. They had to be fitted for robes at the same time at Madam Malkin's (Madam Malkin helped Victoire while her apprentice measured Teddy), and were marched through the apothecary at startling speed. All of their required books were ordered by owl. There was no leisurely stop at Tinny's parents' restaurant, or a butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron. They just went back to Granny's.

Bill's family was waiting, along with Hermione, Aunt Ginny, and their children, and they all had dinner together in the garden. The cats were happily chasing gnomes as Victoire sang the praises of her new wand, and Uncle Harry agreed that holly wands were the best to be had. Marie and Aimee wanted to play tag in the garden, and sulked when Teddy said he didn't want to. Artie practiced standing on his head.

"Are you looking forward to the new school year?" Hermione asked Teddy. "Rosie said you were reading my old Charms textbooks yesterday."

Teddy shrugged. "Just looking a few up." He watched Checkmate dart after a gnome. Bludger had run under the fence to grab one for himself, as he couldn't keep up with her.

"I'm sure all of this will be over soon," she said soothingly.

"Right," Ron added. "We'll catch him. We just have to find out where they're hiding themselves. We thought they might give themselves away at the full moon, but Greyback's got them under better control than that. We'll get them though."

"And kill him?" Teddy asked.

"Not if we can avoid it," Uncle Harry said sternly.

Teddy didn't answer this. He just stared gloomily out at the hills beyond the security bubble, wishing he could be out there. "I'll bet they've just left," he said. "I would. I'll bet they've gone somewhere else entirely, and all of this is for nothing."

"Well, I'd rather do it for nothing than not do it and have something go wrong," Granny said.

"That's because you don't have babysitters."

"Teddy - "

"Well, it's true. I'm going inside." He scooped up Checkmate, who protested loudly, as she was about to chase a gnome under the fence.

Granny took him by the arm and pulled him aside, leading him to the fence on the far side of the garden. "I don't care how unhappy you are, you will stop being rude this instant, Teddy, or so help me, I will Scourgify your mouth."

"But this is so stupid! I can't even - "

But he stopped, as Granny had suddenly stood up, losing interest in the conversation entirely. Her face went white.

"Bludger?" she called.

Teddy turned and looked over the fence, in the direction she was looking. Bludger was slinking along in the grass coming from the pond, just inside the security line. He looked up miserably and made a plaintive sound, then fell down and rolled over.

Teddy forgot the argument and handed Checkmate to Granny. He clambered over the fence and ran out, ignoring Uncle Harry's warning - both Uncle Harry and Ron were running after him anyway. He reached the bundle of fur and saw that Bludger's white underbelly was bright red. He rolled his glassy eyes in Teddy's direction, then they went empty.

Uncle Harry and Ron caught up to him, then looked at each other and ran out to the edge of the barrier, and beyond. Hermione stopped behind Teddy, and crouched to look at Bludger. She closed her eyes and muttered a word Teddy hadn't realized she'd known.

Teddy didn't need to ask who she was swearing at.