Author's Note: The age of majority was changed to 15 by the Ministry of Magic about 5 years after the Battle of Hogwarts when they recognized that most of the people who fought were very young. School still goes to 7th year but going that far is now optional and the curriculum has been changed to reflect this. Also, this story opens about a month before Bella moves to Forks. Thank you for reading!
I'm tired of the speeches, tired of the pity, but most of all I'm tired of living with Andromeda. Of course I love her, I'm not heartless, but she tries too hard to compensate for my lack of parents. I don't like being forced to live like I'm still a first year, with strict rules and early curfews when I'm at home. I hate sounding ungrateful but I enjoy solitude and freedom.
I don't like being constantly compared to my parents. I no longer want to hear, "your parents were heroes, they died so that you didn't have to," blah, blah all fine well and good but what I want to hear is that I am good at something. Not that my parents were good at this or that I'm just like my father because I always carry chocolate in my left pocket-oddly specific, but okay - and I'm good at the Defense Against Dark Arts or that my mother preferred to change her hair often too. I want to be myself and not some Frankenstein monster of theirs.
I guess I'm bitter. School isn't even an escape for me because I hate my classmates. I don't have it quite as bad as the Potter kids, they can hardly take a breath without someone telling them their father did it first, or even the Weasleys but I still need a change of scenery more than anything, one where the name Lupin belongs to me and me alone. And now that I'm finally going to be 15- in less than a month and I hardly see that as being of any consequence- I'm finally in a position to take one for myself. Technically.
So with my newly printed Apparition license in hand I close my eyes and think hard of the place I've been researching for months. There isn't anything special about the town, which is why I'll like it so much. It's been overlooked, like me. Anyways, it was the first place my eyes landed on the map. Let's call it fate. My Muggle studies tutor, who Andromeda should have monitored better if she didn't want me to leave the first chance I got, told me that it's more than secluded. I worked everything out with the American Minister through owls just a few weeks ago, before I left for Christmas holiday and he said that I was more than welcome. I can't go to their magical school because it doesn't take transfer students but I'm excited for Muggle school.
So Forks, Washington it is.
I walk a few steps and nearly crash into a boy with long, dark hair. My trunk tumbles to the ground.
"What are you doing here?" he asks.
"I'm new here. Really new," I say, just in case these woods belong to his family or something.
He's tall and muscular and the kind of casually attractive that infuriates me. Maybe that's what I should go for when I change my appearance, which I was planning to do in these woods. I've always been jealous of guys like him, the ones who don't have to try.
"That's alright. I'm Jacob Black,always willing to show people around,"he says.
Well..that's strange.
"Teddy Lupin," I say warily.
He smiles awkwardly at me while I tug on the strings of my sweatshirt.
"Teddy," he says, "I like that."
I lift the corners of my mouth into the imitation of a smile.
"I saw you appear out of nowhere," he says.
Immediately I panic. How have the Ministry officials not snapped my wand immediately? My first independent moment and I mess up this badly.
"You couldn't have," I say.
"The elders spoke of your coming, Teddy," Jacob says, "so don't worry or anything."
Don't worry? I blink my eyes in confusion. They were waiting for me? Me, Teddy, and not the son of Tonks and Lupin. That alone makes me want to follow him. But this just seems like a bad idea. A very bad idea. Maybe this prophecy thing is a mistake and he'll be obliviated. It was an accident and I am underage, however technically. Darn. I hadn't settled on what my new look would be, if anything. I never do much but I think I'd like to be taller. Now he's seen me and I can't just grow six inches overnight. And in a small town like this, I'm sure I'll see him again. He's sure to remember the materializing boy. He looks at me expectantly and I realize he must have asked me something.
"Why aren't you asking me more questions?" I ask instead of saying anything logical.
"Because I know the answers already. We've all heard them a million times. I could recite the prophecy in my sleep," he says.
"Could you? I'm confused," I say.
He sighs reluctantly. Maybe it's something he was forced to memorize simply by the sheer amount of times he heard it, the way I know stories from the war. I start to tell him that he doesn't have to.
"A boy is soon coming with secrets long held, repulsed by his past and afraid of himself. A wizard made known by appearing from air brings peace to the people. Uniter of enemies, savior of friends, a long held rivalry through this child will end. An unlikely union: boy, foe, friend, prey, tie together things once torn asunder by pain and history, bloodlust and hunger," Jacob chants.
I laugh out of shock. There's no way I can do anything like that. It must be someone else. Plenty of wizards can apparate. And maybe the words mean someone with an invisibility cloak or potion. It could be anyone, but I know that it isn't me. Jacob crosses his arms. Maybe a Potter. It does always seem to be the Potters.
"I'm sorry," I say, "I just think you have the wrong person."
I adjust my height while talking. I feel like I'm being ridiculous, switching from changing to not changing and back again, but alright. I guess this prophecy or whatever has allowed for some kind of loophole in the International Statute of Secrecy, and since I no longer have to keep it a secret from this guy I'm going to make myself look...better.
"I don't. What are you doing?" he asks.
"Fixing myself," I say matter-o-factly.
"What do you need to fix?" he asks.
What do I need to fix, I laugh to myself. What don't I need to change now that Andromeda isn't here to tell me I can't? There's my proximity to the ground, my freckled, my eyes could use darkening, and I've never been in love with my feet. She never let me fix myself. She said it would hurt my self-esteem. I scoffed at her and told her the only thing hurting my self-esteem is my gigantic troll ears.
We get to his house fairly quickly. I guess they were his woods. He leads me to a garage and has me sit on something I think is a workbench.
"What am I doing here?" I ask while propping my trunk beside me.
"The thing is, before we get in there I want to know all of the things they aren't going to ask you," he says.
"Like... what?" I ask.
"Like why you change your appearance. Why you think I have the wrong person. What you like to do, eat, watch on tv. I want to know everything that makes Teddy Lupin you," he says.
There it is again. He seems to care about me and not my past. In this moment I feel more joy than I ever felt at Hogwarts or anywhere else. There's this warmth in my chest. He doesn't want to talk about what I have in common with my parents. He doesn't want me to tell him how I became a Metamorphmagi (birth) like everyone else did and he doesn't ask me to look like any celebrities or teachers or friends. He wants to know me. He sees me.
"I guess I fix myself because I can. If I don't like my height, the curve of my nose, this spot here I can change it until I do like it. So I do," I say.
He's quiet for a moment.
"Can I see what you look like without all the changes?" he asks.
Another question that I've never gotten. I almost don't want to show him, but something about the way he phrased it and the open, accepting look in his eyes makes me let all of my improvements go. I sit before him, a mousy haired boy with pale blue eyes that's too short and has too many freckles on his nose. A boy with giant ears and knobby knees whose very existence screams, "before picture."
"I don't think you should put them back," he says quietly.
I nod my head but peer into a wrench to darken my eyes and lengthen my hair. Have to cover the ears somehow. Jacob stares at me until I return my eyes to their normal color. This is so awkward. It's more...intimate than when Andromeda would make me do it, in a way.
"Er, what else did you say?" I ask to change the subject.
"What do you like to do, eat, watch on tv," he says.
"I like playing wizarding chess and reading. I like roast beef sandwiches and what was the last one? Oh-we don't have those," I say.
He nods.
"How old are you?" he asks.
"14 for a bit more," I say.
"I'm 14 too," he says.
I smile because there's nothing else to do.
"We should go in now," Jacob says, "Signal me if they're too much, okay?"
I'm grateful that if anyone had to be there when I arrived, it was him. I wonder if everyone here is this nice.
"Hey, Dad, I found the boy the elders were talking about," he says while rifling through the refrigerator.
My mouth falls open. How can he say that so casually? Oh, look, I found the answer to that one prophecy. What's for dinner?
"What?" his father asks, properly flummoxed.
"The boy who appears from thin air? His name is Teddy," Jacob says.
I wave awkwardly and sit on a small couch.
"Hello, Teddy. I'm Billy Black. You're how old?" Billy asks.
Or is it Mr. Black? When adults don't introduce themselves the way they want to be addressed I get confused.
"14, sir," I say.
"Just Billy. I'll be right back," he says.
Jacob shrugs and tosses a bowl in my lap as he flings himself onto the couch beside me.
"It's a roast beef Hot Pocket. All we had. Not even sure why we had that, my dad hates roast beef," Jacob says.
Whatever it is, it's really good. Really, really good. I eat about three while Jacob explains the movie he turned on to me.
"But why does it matter?" I ask.
Why does it matter if the girl chooses this boy or that boy? After twenty minutes, I've decided all three of them are stupid.
"It matters because people like stories to have happy endings and there can't be one until she chooses a guy," he says.
"But they're all stupid," I say.
But why can't it be a happy ending if she never has to choose, I don't.
While Jacob's laughing and I'm trying to understand the point of love triangles, Billy comes in with a lot of other people. Tall, majestic looking people. I wish that I could look the way they do. Stately. Authoritative. They all stand around the couch and look down at me. A strand of my hair flickers from brown to black. I lengthen it and pull it into my mouth nervously. I hate being stared at. When people stare at me they can see my flaws. And because I'm humoring Jacob, I have a lot of them. The men go around the circle introducing themselves. Jacob peers at me and makes a strange face.
"I assume Jacob told you the prophecy?" an old man with a kind face asks.
I nod. I'm horrible at remembering names in situations like this. If my hair would just stop then I could control myself enough to think.
"The part I know," Jacob confirms.
There's more?
"Because of this, it is our duty to protect you. You will live here with us," Billy says.
"With you?" I ask.
I guess it is better than whatever magical group home I was headed to, but it all seems too put together. Too easy. They aren't saying much. I can tell the real meeting happened while we were watching the movie and I don't like that they made plans for me without me, even though I don't mind staying.
"We're going to buy some stuff for him, then," Jacob says, "is that alright?"
Everyone agrees and then, surprisingly, starts handing money to him.
"We provide for our own," the kindly man says to my confused expression.
I'm their own? Just like that, I'm one of them? There must be more to this prophecy if they're treating me like, like I'm Remus Lupin instead of Teddy Lupin.
Escape, as easy as that. Jacob bumps his shoulder against mine.
"Let's go," he says.
So we go.