Teddy looked over the completed applications and sighed. New York, Austin and Denver. If they're going to make me apply, I'm going to make them think twice about it, he thought obstinately.
The task of filling out all three applications had been arduous, especially the essays. One had required him to write about a time when he had had a belief challenged. Another wanted to know what magical problem he hoped to solve one day. The last one wanted to know all about whatever in his life had sparked a period of personal growth.
Ugh, I'm sixteen, not a hundred and six! I don't even want to go to university! I just want to borrow a car for a night and be an Auror! He rubbed his aching hand—it seemed that magical universities hadn't yet caught on to the Internet and everything needed to be filled out in longhand, a task he'd found more trying than actually coming up with a story about personal growth.
"Well, no time like the present," he said, standing up from his desk with a huge stretch. Stuart uncurled from his spot in the middle of Teddy's bed, echoing his movements with a stretch of his own.
He found Harry on the sofa in the lounge, working through a pile of student papers in his lap. Ginny had gone out to do some Christmas shopping with James and the condo had been eerily silent all day with the both of them working.
Teddy sat down in the armchair with a loud sigh, making Harry look up. "All done?" he asked.
"Finally." He handed Harry the sheaf of papers and settled back in the chair, absently petting Stuart who had made himself comfortable in his lap.
"All right. Let's see what you've got." Teddy watched as Harry started reading through the application for the New York Institute for Polymagics. That was the one where he'd had to write about a belief being challenged. He'd chosen to write about when he was in primary school and had been told that Father Christmas was made up and he saw Harry smile. The two of them had had quite the serious conversation about it. "That's the belief you chose?"
Teddy shrugged. "It was a very important belief at the time." He watched as Harry read through all of the essays, painfully aware of the play of expressions across his face. After what seemed like an excruciating eternity, Harry put the applications down, rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses. "Well?"
"New York, Denver and Austin?" Harry asked, handing him the papers. "No Bay Area?"
Teddy grinned, riffling the paper edges against his thumb. "Hey, if you're making me apply to universities …"
"Indeed. Gin might have a thing or two to say about your choices."
"Wasn't she the one that came all the way over here first?" Teddy said with a raised eyebrow.
"Mmm, so she was. You've chosen some good schools at any rate. What do you want to study?" Harry asked, clearly tabling the location discussion for when he had backup.
How to catch bad guys, Teddy thought, keeping his expression neutral. "Um, well, I dunno. Potions is all right and Defense is always very useful. Transfiguration and Charms, too," he said, naming the exact subjects required to enter the Auror academy. "I thought I might take some law courses as well."
"Following in Ron's footsteps?" Harry said with a twitch of an eyebrow.
"I was thinking more of my mum's." He took a deep breath and steeled himself to ask the question at the forefront of his mind. "So, what about my application to the Auror academy?"
Harry sighed and leaned forward, giving Teddy his hey-I'm-an-easygoing-dad-type look. "Why don't we see where you get accepted to first and then we'll talk about it, all right?"
"Where I get accepted? Harry, that'll take forever! Universities move so slow and the Auror academy starts in August! I need to get my application in now. Duncan said—"
"Duncan. If Duncan said you needed to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, you'd probably do it," Harry said derisively.
"That's not true and you know it!" Teddy said, trying to control the spurt of anger that rose up inside of him at Harry's words. "I want to get out and do! I'm tired of sitting around in classes!"
"Going to university isn't all sitting around in classes."
"How do you know? You went into the Aurors right out of Hogwarts. You didn't even finish your seventh year."
"My seventh year was spent hunting down horrible Dark objects and then killing another living person at the end of it." Easygoing Dad was gone, replaced by Hardass Dad and Teddy felt a rising tide of frustration.
"Harry, I'm not going to kill anyone! I just want to be an Auror like my mum!"
Harry's eyes narrowed and Teddy felt a faint crackling in the air between them. "How do you know? How do you know what's going to be asked of you? I didn't go into the Aurors thinking I would be doing any killing, but they taught us. They taught us all of the nasty spells no one likes to think about. They taught us how to use a knife and guns and all of the other fun things Muggles have created to kill and maim each other with. How to hurt and disable if magic wasn't an option. How to hunt and stalk another man like an animal." Harry shook his head. "And I loved it. Loved every minute of it, until I actually killed someone with my own two hands."
Teddy sucked in a sharp breath. Everyone knew he'd killed Voldemort—it had happened in front of a ton of people—but the thought that he'd killed more than that one time was something he found shocking. "Things were different then," he said weakly, still unwilling to back down.
"We'll talk about this later," Harry said, looking tired rather than angry. "Thank you for completing the university applications. You can use the car for the dance."
Feeling dismissed, Teddy nodded and stood up, grabbing his hoodie from the stand by the door. "I'm going out for a while," he said, not waiting for an acknowledgement from his godfather.
"It's an absolute madhouse out there," Ginny said as she opened the door and came into the apartment, package-laden pushchair leading the way. "I thought I was going to get mowed over on Market Street by a gang of little old ladies!"
She bent over, picking James up out of the pushchair and bouncing him in her arms while he waved his hands and chortled. "And you were just the best boy ever, weren't you? Charming those ladies so I could get what I needed! Harry, you should see the tee shirts I found for the girls! They have the cutest sayings on them!"
Not hearing a response from him, she looked over to where he sat on the sofa, staring moodily at the telly. "Harry? Are you all right? Where's Teddy?" she asked, a tingle of alarm going through her.
"He went out a while ago," Harry said, standing up from the sofa. He took James from her, dodging the boy's grab at his glasses.
"What happened?" Ginny asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Harry let out a long breath and set James on the floor, letting him crawl around. "He finished his university applications and then we had a bit of a row."
"Oh, Harry. Over what?" she asked, pretty sure she already had a very good idea.
"He asked if he could apply for the Aurors again and I didn't handle it very well."
Ginny sighed and shook her head, reaching down to pick up James who was clinging to her jeans and making high-pitched whining sounds. "I'm going to settle him down for a nap and then you and I are going to have a conversation, all right? Did Teddy say where he was going or when he'll be back?"
"No. Just said he was going out." Harry followed her to the nursery, laying out the things she'd need on the changing table as she wrestled James out of his jacket and overalls. Soon he was nestled at her breast, industriously nursing away as Ginny rocked slowly, thinking about how to approach this conversation with her husband.
They're too much alike. Each convinced they're in the right or that they know more than the other. Teddy's at the age now where he's really starting to think of his parents and wonder who they were as people. He wants to break away from us and be his own person. She looked down at her son and thought about the new life growing inside of her. How are you going to challenge us? Maybe one of you will want to be a rock star instead of an Auror.
Once James was fed, changed and sleeping peacefully, Ginny went back out into the lounge, joining Harry on the sofa. There was a cooking show on the telly and she picked up the remote, shutting it off. "Now. Tell me exactly what happened."
"Well, he brought me the university applications and I read over the essays and we had a chat about them and that part was fine, but then he asked about applying to the Auror academy and I just … I just couldn't be rational about it." Clearly agitated, Harry stood and went into the kitchen, laying out things for dinner.
"Did you just lay into him about it?" Ginny sat at the breakfast bar, watching as he measured rice and water into the rice cooker.
"I tried to be calm about it. He said he was tired of sitting around in classes all day and that he wanted to be out doing something. I said that university wasn't all about sitting in classes and then he was all, 'How do you know?' and came at me about how I didn't properly finish Hogwarts. You know how he can get that snotty tone sometimes."
Ginny winced at Harry's words. She knew that he nursed a small sore spot about never having finished his proper seventh year at Hogwarts, even though doing so had been the absolute last thing on his mind at the time. She also knew that while Teddy was usually a very sweet boy, like all teenagers he seemed to possess a sixth sense for what would rile an adult the most. "And is that when you lost it?"
Harry nodded, a tinge of red coloring his cheeks. "Yeah. I just couldn't let it go. I told him that I ended my seventh year by killing a man and he insisted that he wasn't out to kill anyone." He shook his head, staring down at the granite worktop. "He just doesn't know. He doesn't know what Archimedes might ask of him one day, what he might have to do to save himself or a colleague or a civilian."
"He's young and thinks he's immortal. I seem to remember a couple of Aurors-in-training that thought very much the same way." Ginny hopped off the barstool and came around the breakfast bar, wrapping her arms around him. "He wants to be his own person, love. We've done our best, but he needs to be able to spread his wings and see what he can do."
"I know, but … Tonks and Remus would never forgive me if something happened to him."
"Tonks and Remus are dead and Teddy will never get to know them. If becoming an Auror allows him to feel closer to his mum, who are we to stand in the way of that?" She felt Harry take a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You can't protect him forever."
"I know," he said after a long moment of silence. He turned around in her grasp, resting his chin on top of her head as he hugged her back. "Do you think he should apply?"
"I think he should do whatever he thinks he wants to do. If that's apply to the Aurors or go to university, it doesn't matter."
"What if he wants to run off to LA and become an adult film star?" Harry asked, a trace of a smile in his voice.
"That I might have a bit of a problem with, but if it truly makes him happy, I'd probably come around." She took a step back and looked up at Harry. "Please talk with him tonight and get this settled, all right? I don't want you fighting during the holidays."
"Well, I don't want to be the one responsible for ruining the holidays. I'll tell him tonight that he can apply."
"And no telling Archimedes not to accept him," she said sternly, raising an eyebrow at his innocent look.
"I would never do such a thing."
"Yes, you would. You forget Potter, I can read you like a book."
Teddy stood on the beach at Aquatic Park, moodily tossing small rocks into the water, listening to the splashes as they sank below the surface. So far none of the plunks and splashes had satisfied the turmoil inside of him and he cast around on the beach, looking for a rock that might be suitable for skipping on the calm waters of the protected cove.
Why won't Harry see things my way? Why does this have to be such a fight with him? Teddy bent over, picking up several likely-looking candidates and putting them in the pocket of his hoodie. I don't want to be a magineer or magizoologist or a Healer or a teacher. Mum …
As he thought of her, one of his favorite images of her swam before his mind's eye. In it she looked to be about his age, her hair standing up in hot pink spikes. It must have been her birthday because she sat in front of an enormous cake ablaze with candles, the light making soft shadows and highlights on her face as she eternally blew them all out with a single breath.
He felt an anguish rise in his chest and he swallowed roughly, standing up straight and tossing a rock out into the water with a sidearm sling. As he did so, another memory rose, this one of Harry teaching him how to skip rocks in the overgrown pond on the Weasley property. The rock gave only one halfhearted skip before sinking below the surface with a dissatisfying plunk.
"Here, try this one," a voice said as he drew back his arm to throw another one and he turned around.
A man with a brightly colored blanket wrapped around his shoulders held a rock out to him and Teddy studied him. He was about the same height as him with a smooth brown face that seemed incongruous against the white hair styled in two neat braids. Glancing down, he noticed the man was barefoot.
"Thanks," Teddy said, taking the rock from the man. He bounced it in his palm, testing the weight and looked at it. It was pure white and slightly translucent and he wondered if it was quartz.
The old man smiled at him and mimed throwing the rock, so Teddy did, counting the skips, grinning when it got to six before sinking into the water. "See? I told you it was a good one," the man said.
"Got any more of those?"
"No. That was my last one." Teddy shrugged and fished around in his pocket for another one, holding it out for his new companion's approval. When he nodded, Teddy slung it out into the cove, gratified when it went for four skips before sinking.
"You're my lucky charm," he commented, pleased to see the man smile, his eyes nearly disappearing in the wrinkles around them.
They stood quietly, looking out at the waves lapping gently at the sandy beach. Teddy felt a little bit better, the successful rock skips having released some of the tension generated by the disagreement with Harry and he blew out a long breath.
"Sounds like you have some things on your mind," the old man said, startling Teddy; he'd nearly forgotten the man was still there next to him.
"Yeah, a few." He was quiet for a moment and then found himself saying more. "It's my godfather. He wants me to go to university, but I don't want to go."
"What do you want to do instead?"
Teddy hesitated, looking at him from the corner of his eye. He had a slight accent, one that reminded him of some of the people they'd encountered on their river rafting trips through the Grand Canyon and he found himself trusting him, which made him wary. "I want to go into law enforcement, like my mum, but Harry thinks it's too dangerous."
"Harry is your godfather?"
"Yeah. My parents, um, they died when I was only a month or so old. My gran raised me and then my godfather brought me here to go to the school he teaches at." He threw another rock, not even trying to skip it this time. "There was a fight and they got caught in the crossfire."
"That's a hard thing, to lose your parents when you're so young," the man said, his voice full of sympathy.
"Yeah," Teddy said, feeling that familiar longing again. "One thing I don't get though, is that Harry used to be in law enforcement before becoming a teacher. I would think that he would be all for it, you know?"
"Maybe he isn't because he knows how dangerous it is and he just wants you to be safe?" When the old man said it in his calm, measured voice it sounded like the most reasonable thing in the world and Teddy found himself considering the possibility.
"I guess, but I mean … it was really dangerous when he was a, uh, cop. All kinds of crazy stuff was happening and it was in a whole other country besides. Out here, things are not nearly as weird or …" Teddy trailed off, keeping his eyes fixed on the old ships bobbing gently on the water.
"Parents only ever want the best for their children," the man said quietly.
"They're not—" Teddy started and then stopped, realizing his age-old argument was largely baseless. Ever since he could remember, Harry had been someone he regarded as a father-figure, for all that he usually behaved like a much older brother. And he couldn't really even remember a time when Ginny wasn't fussing over him in some fashion. Harry even gave me The Talk, he thought with a dawning realization as he remembered that uncomfortable yet somehow thrilling conversation.
Frustrated, he threw his last rock into the cove, smiling when it managed three skips. He dusted off his hands and turned to face the old man. "Thanks for that really good rock. Is there anything you need? I have a few dollars," he said, reaching into his pocket.
The old man smiled, eyes disappearing into deep crinkles once more. Teddy saw he had very white teeth and he felt a brief sense of vertigo. "No, I do not need anything, Teddy Lupin," he said, looking up at the darkening sky. "You should get home. I'm sure Harry and Ginny are worried about you."
"Hey, I didn't—" Teddy said, but the man was already halfway down the beach from him. "—tell you Ginny's name. Or mine." Shaking his head, he put his hands in his jacket pockets, watching the brightly colored blanket until he couldn't see it anymore. "What a weird old guy."
He turned back to look out over the water again, hands buried in the pockets of his jacket. His fingers closed on the rubbery cow toy and he squeezed it, mulling over his conversation with the odd old man. The sun was nearly down; the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin Headlands black against the orangish glow and Teddy heaved a long sigh. "Time to head back, I guess," he said out loud to no one in particular.
Scanning the ground, he looked for one more rock to throw, hoping to find one that would make a satisfying splash rather than a skipping rock. "What's that?" he said, peering closer at a feather on the ground. Bending over, he picked it up, looking at it closely in the waning light. It was not like any other sort of bird feather he'd seen before. It was a dark gray color and one half of it was striped with lighter bands of gray. The shape of it put him in mind of a sail on a racing sailboat with the striped portion notably thicker than the solid gray portion.
He held it by the end of the quill and he could swear it felt like the feather wanted to take off and fly. Taking a quick look around, he cast Detect Magic, disappointed when it didn't glow. Could this be another clue to Coyote's den? Standing very still, Teddy kept his breathing slow and even, enhancing his hearing to see if he could pick up any unusual sounds nearby. He heard only children, gentle waves lapping against the beach and the occasional scream of a seagull.
Looking at the feather once more, he tucked it into the inner breast pocket of his jacket. It might be nothing, but it's a cool-looking feather anyway. Maybe Kelly would like to have it.
On the way home, he brooded about his argument with Harry. That old guy said parents just want their children to be safe and do well, but my parents are dead and gone … He remembered Harry telling him about the things the Aurors had taught him to do and how his face had looked when he talked about learning to track and kill. Never seen him look like that, even when I'd broken Ginny's platter. I swear his eyes got darker.
But my mum learned the same things and my dad … he was a werewolf and neither of them were bad people. Harry's just got too much baggage, he thought, turning onto his street. He'd just unlocked the door to the building when his phone buzzed in Duncan's pattern.
Hey loser! How are your UNIVERSITY applications going?
Hey man. Got into a bit of a row with Harry over them. But I think I might have found another clue.
What? A row? Over what? What did you find? Duncan responded in rapid-fire fashion.
A feather. I'll send you a pic in a little while, all right?
Yeah, all right. Mom's hollering at me for dinner anyway. Teddy was about to put his phone away back in his pocket when it buzzed again. Let me know if you need to talk, okay?
Teddy sighed. I do need to talk, but not to you. I need to make Harry understand, he thought. Thanks, man. I'll call you later.
Aight. Later!
After dinner, Teddy lay on his bed, Stuart purring away on his stomach. His return home had gone unremarked and he was glad that neither Harry or Ginny peppered him with questions about where he'd gone, what he'd done and most importantly, why he'd left. Instead they sat down to dinner like any other night and he listened to Ginny as she chatted about her shopping trip.
"I went by Marianne's and picked up your new robes and waistcoats. I think you'll be quite pleased with how they turned out," she said, wiping gravy off of James's hands. "Maybe you'll give us a bit of a fashion show?"
"Maybe tomorrow, all right?" Parading around in new dress robes for Ginny's exacting inspection was the last thing he wanted to do. Ginny gave him a small smile and nod and turned her attention to Harry.
"What about you? Feel like giving a little turn on the catwalk?" she asked with an impish smile.
Harry's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. "Erm … I have loads of papers to mark. Midterms, yeah?"
"Both of you suck," she proclaimed, taking James out of his high chair.
"Suck!" he crowed, looking very proud of himself.
"Yes, they do! A couple of party poopers. Come on, love. Let's go get you cleaned up!" She swooped away dramatically, the motion making James shriek in joy and soon Teddy heard the sounds of the tub filling up.
He stood up and began gathering the dirty dishes and took them into the kitchen. He started to clean up, but Harry interrupted him. "I've got it," he said quietly.
"All right." Teddy shrugged and went into his room, where he'd been ever since. He had the feather in his hand, running the tip of it over his lips, enjoying the softness. Remembering Duncan, he sat up, disrupting the cat and pulled out his phone, dialing up a video call.
"Oh, God, it's you," Duncan said when he answered.
"Aw, you know you missed me!" Teddy made elaborate kissy face into the camera, laughing when Duncan recoiled in horror.
"Oh God! Never do that again. I don't know how Kelly stands you." Duncan made a show of wiping his eyes before getting down to business. "I'm assuming you didn't call to make kissy faces at me. Show me the feather."
Teddy held it up in front of the camera, turning it all around for Duncan to see. "It was the weirdest thing. I was over at Aquatic Park and then I was chatting to this really weird old guy and then he took off and I looked down and there it was."
"Maybe he dropped it?" Duncan asked, squinting at the feather. "Bring it closer."
"Maybe, but I have my doubts. This guy was … unusual."
"Unusual how? Did he have six fingers on his right hand?"
"No, stupid. He looked kind of Native American and he knew my name. And Harry's and Ginny's."
"Maybe he was a wizard," Duncan said, tossing a tennis ball into the air.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Well, I mean, Harry, right? Famous and shit?"
"Hmm, anyway, he took off and then this feather was there. Know what kind it is?"
"Lemme see it again." Teddy obligingly held it up. "No idea. Bring it to school and we'll ask Ms Chau."
"Good idea. Speaking of ideas, you come with anything about that castle drawing?"
"No. I asked my dad if there are any castles around here and he said that there's a few wineries that have fake ones, but all the real castles are in Europe."
"Maybe it refers to something or someplace Native Americans would consider a castle?"
"They didn't really build stuff though. They were more—" Duncan turned around and Teddy saw his door open. "Hey! Get out of here!"
"Who are you talking to? Is it Teddy?" Teddy groaned as the image on the screen of his phone showed Duncan's walls, bed and ceiling before Duncan's little sister Katie's face came into view. "Hi, Teddy!" she sang, pushing her glasses up on her nose.
"Hi, Katie," Teddy sighed. She had an abiding crush on him and he thought it was cute at first when she was a little girl of eight, but at twelve it was becoming more embarrassing.
"Give it back, Katie! Me and Teddy were talking!"
"Well now we're talking! You talk to Teddy all the time and I never hardly get to." Katie turned back to him and smiled. "I hear you asked Kelly Taylor to the Winter Formal. How come you didn't ask me?"
"Um …"
"Because you're like five years old!" Duncan interjected off-camera.
"I'm not five! I'm twelve. Even you should know how to count by now," Katie said scornfully. "Hey, what's that?" she asked, catching sight of the feather still in Teddy's hand.
"It's a feather I found today at Aquatic Park. Pretty cool, huh?" He held it closer to the camera and Katie peered at it closely.
"Do you know what kind of bird it's from?"
"Not yet. I'm going to ask Ms Chau."
"You don't need to do that. I know what it's from."
"You do?" Teddy and Duncan said at the same time. "What's it from?" Teddy asked eagerly.
Katie's face took on a calculating expression. "Why should I tell you? You didn't ask me to the dance."
"It's very important that I know what kind of bird this came from. You'd really be helping me out." Teddy consciously enhanced his appearance, deepening his skin tone and playing up his eye color. She still looked doubtful and he smiled. "Listen, you tell me what bird this feather comes from and I'll have lunch with you tomorrow."
"Really? You promise? In the cafeteria and everything?"
"I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die." Teddy heard Duncan groaning in the background and ignored him. He held up the feather next to his face, giving her his most winning smile. "Now, Katie, what bird does this come from?"
"It's from a falcon," she said promptly, eyes shining at the prospect of eating lunch with him.
"Okay. Do you know what kind?" Teddy asked, carefully keeping his voice calm and steady despite the building excitement in his guts.
Katie frowned and her face got larger in his screen as she brought the phone closer, the corner of her mouth turned up in thought. "I'm not sure. It could be from a gyrfalcon or a merlin. Are you sure you found it at Aquatic Park?"
"Yes, I definitely found it there. Thanks so much for your help, Katie. I'll see you at lunch tomorrow, okay?"
"I'll bring lunch for the both of us!" she said brightly. "Just bring yourself."
"Sounds great," Teddy said with a sinking feeling. "Listen, I really appreciate your help, but I need to talk to Duncan about some school stuff, okay?"
"Okay. See you tomorrow!" More craziness on his screen and then Duncan's smug face appeared.
"Oh, Teddy's got a lunch date," he sang as his door closed behind him. Teddy could just hear Katie shouting to her mother and he shook his head.
"Not a word, Sutton. It's for the greater good."
"The greater good," Duncan intoned. "I had no idea she knew about birds. You think she's right?"
"I dunno. I mean, a castle and a merlin? What could it mean? Niyol is convinced Coyote's den is on Mt Diablo, but nothing we've found so far points that way, you know?"
"Have you ever heard of any connection between Native Americans and Merlin?"
Teddy thought for a moment, mentally riffling through index cards in his head full of legends and lore that he'd picked up in classes and books. "I haven't, but I suppose anything's possible."
"Maybe you should ask Harry? He knows about some weird shit," Duncan ventured.
"I told you, I'm not asking Harry for help. You know how suspicious he is. He'd figure it out in two seconds and then we'd be out of it and Niyol would be super pissed at me." Teddy shuddered at the thought of the young thunderbird coming after him with those wings and that wicked beak.
"Yeah, but—" Teddy held up a finger when he heard a knock at his door.
"Yeah?" he called, not really surprised to see Harry stick his head in.
"Got a minute?" he asked, stepping in and closing the door behind him.
"Gotta go, Dunk. See you tomorrow," Teddy said, angling the camera so Duncan could see Harry.
"All right, man. Later." Duncan saluted and disconnected, the screen of the phone reverting to the usual jumble of icons. Teddy tossed it onto his bed and turned to face Harry, surreptitiously putting the feather behind him.
Harry stood next to the door for a moment before shooing the cat off of Teddy's desk chair and sitting down. Intrigued by the new person, Stuart promptly jumped up into Harry's lap, kneading his thigh with his enormous paws.
Taking advantage of Harry's distraction with the cat, Teddy sat up, crossing his legs and waiting for him to say something. The only time he could remember Harry taking this long to start a conversation was when he came to give him The Talk. Oh God, there's not some supplement to that coming, is there? he thought with alarm as his godfather cleared his throat.
"I want to apologize to you. I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you this afternoon," Harry finally said, his voice calm and solemn. Not sure what he was supposed to do, Teddy only nodded. "I didn't intend for my objections to your application for the Aurors to be quite so … strident."
Teddy nodded again, wishing he was still holding the feather so he had something in his hands to manipulate. This was not a side Harry showed to anyone very often and a heavy awkwardness filled the room. Harry took a deep breath and started again. "Listen, being an Auror changed me in some not very nice ways, all right? Sometimes I really didn't like who I was and I know Ginny didn't." He looked down at the cat and gave a half-smile. "Lots of girls didn't, in fact."
Lots of girls? Burning with curiosity about these changes and the girls, Teddy held himself back with an effort, simply nodding once more, feeling rather like one of those bobblehead dolls they gave away at baseball games. Harry looked back up at him and shrugged. "I don't want you to be changed the way I was. I don't want to see you go from … you to someone else entirely. It's a hard, dark job and with your abilities, I just know you're going to be in the middle of whatever emergency is happening."
The thought of being in the thick of things sounded absolutely amazing to Teddy and he schooled his features to neutrality. "But my mum did it, didn't she?"
"She did and she was fantastic at it. She was the one that got me thinking of it, to be honest. I don't know what price she paid for it, though. Maybe she wasn't an Auror long enough for it to have left a mark on her, but I know it would have eventually." Harry fell silent once more, absently stroking the cat as he looked off into the middle distance, eyes full of memories.
"D'you think … do you think my dad would have made her quit?" Teddy asked, voicing a question that had long been on his mind.
"Oh, no one could make your mum do anything. She was rather like your godmother in that respect." Harry shook his head. "No, your dad was older and had seen more of the world than Tonks had and he knew what sort of woman she was. I think that's what drew him to her."
Teddy wanted to get out the photo album his gran had made for him when he left England to come to school in California. It was full of pictures of his mum and dad, including a portrait of his mum in her formal robes when she qualified as a full Auror. One of his favorite pictures was from when they must have been courting; his mother was sitting on the same flower print sofa he'd jumped around on as a child and his father was perched on the arm. In the picture, his father leaned down and whispered in his mother's ear, making her hair turn an even brighter pink as she covered her giggle with her hand.
He was definitely drawn to her, he thought with a soft sigh. I would have been, too.
"So, if you want to apply to the Auror academy with Duncan, I won't stop you. But I still want you to apply to university," Harry said, breaking into his reverie.
Teddy hardly dared to believe what he was hearing and he felt his heart speed up. "Are you serious? Yes, yes, I'll apply to a dozen universities!" He sprang up off the bed and pumped his fists in the air as Harry shook his head.
"Well, a dozen is overkill, yeah? And you may not be thanking me a year from now when you're arse-deep in Potions and obstacle courses." Harry pushed the cat off his lap and stood, watching as Teddy continued to dance around the room.
Teddy stopped his capering and looked at Harry. He stood next to the desk chair, looking at him a little uncertainly and Teddy felt a surge of affection for the man that had always been there when he needed him. Before he knew what he was doing, he'd wrapped his arms around his godfather in a tight hug, feeling Harry stiffen in surprise before relaxing, hugging him back.
Feeling the sting of tears in his eyes, Teddy hugged Harry tighter. "I won't let you down," he said, his voice rough.
"I know you won't. You never do."