Written for Remadora microfics day 9: candy. Teddy gets the latest Muggle toy, a Furby. Horror/crack/humor.
A blue and purple, furry toy sat inside a colorful box, freshly unwrapped for Teddy's first birthday. His chubby little hands reached out for it, babbling excitedly, as his hair morphed to match the toy's fur.
"What is it?" asked Tonks, looking down at her sprightly, 70-year-old grandmother.
"It's a Furby," Granny Tonks replied. "It's all the rage with children these days. You can't turn on the telly without seeing it!"
"What does it do?" Remus lifted the box, inspecting its details. "'The more you tickle and joke with me, the more I'll laugh and play'?"
"The sales girl said it was quite rare," Granny Tonks continued. "This cotton candy purple-blue one is the last one they had left! I even got the batteries for it, you know."
Teddy reached up for the figure, his lavender hair becoming redder as he struggled to get the box from his father. Granny Tonks lifted Teddy and then took the Furby from Remus. She led them to her sofa, where she unboxed it for the eager boy and inserted batteries into the bottom.
"He reminds me so much of my Ted . . . always keen for something new. He'd have just loved his grandson." Granny Tonks kissed Teddy's head and shook the Furby from side to side.
Tonks and Remus watched the toy come to life, with its ears twitching back and forth and its eyes opening and closing.
" Hee hee hee!" the Furby began. " Pet me!"
Tonks met Remus's eyes. There was no way they would be taking this monstrosity home with them.
"Oh, how darling!" Granny Tonks smiled at the furry, mechanical thing, and Teddy stared, transfixed at it.
" Aah aah ahh! Me scared!"
Teddy laughed and clapped. The Furby laughed with him, and Granny Tonks was smiling like she used to, before Ted died, so they took the toy with them.
It took an hour for Remus to remove the Furby's batteries, and a dramatic, one year old's temper tantrum to return them.
It took a day for Tonks to try silencing the Furby, but the batteries didn't respond well to magic, and it became louder.
It took two days for the Furby to begin talking to itself and anything that would listen, with increasingly disturbing messages.
" Uh-oh! Me no listen!" came after Tonks asked it to be quiet.
"Food! Me hungry! Tickle tickle!" was the reply Remus received when he told the Furby to go to sleep.
" Wah-wah-wah-wah me hide!" was the phrase that kept them all up at night, even when they stowed the Furby in Teddy's wardrobe. They gave up after three nights, when Teddy's accidental magic (or the Furby's apparent possession) let it out and dropped it in Teddy's cot.
The toddler seemed to be immune to the toy's intrinsic darkness, so two weeks into their stint as its hostage, Tonks knew there was only one way out.
The fire was set and the moon was full. Teddy was fast asleep next to Remus, who was curled up in front of the hearth, breathing deeply, his paws resting gently on their son. The fire that Tonks had set, unlike the one warming her husband and son, was kindled by hand. She wasn't going to let magic be the reason why the Furby lived to see another day.
" Borro borro! Hug me!"
The Furby's large, gleaming eyes seemed to look right into Tonks's soul.
" No like! Me scared! Aah aah ahh!"
"This is the end for you," Tonks warned, before chucking it into the bonfire, seeing its plastic fur melt and the sounds die, warbled and wonky. She stood there until it was a pile of scorched wires and a purple, oozing mess.
" Doo doo doo doo!"
The nightmarish sound woke Tonks the morning after the full moon.
"No," she whispered. "No."
" Da da da doo doo!"
"Impossible—"
Tonks wrapped her robe around her body, assuring herself that she'd completed the job. The Furby was gone by moonset, when she'd taken Teddy back to his cot and waited for Remus's screams to die down as he transformed back to a man. She helped him up to their bed, and now she was rushing back out, trying to convince herself the Furby couldn't have come back from its certain demise.
" Noo-loo! Party party!"
Tonks was halfway down the hall when she heard the hair-raising sound.
" Loo loo loo! Me very happy!"
She turned back, hoping she was hearing wrong, and burst through the door to her son's room.
Teddy was sitting up on the middle of the floor, the infernal Furby planted between his legs, blathering at it cheerfully.
"Mama!"
Tonks rushed forward and scooped Teddy up, to get him away from the toy, but both boy and toy protested.
" Me no like! Wah wah wah!"
Teddy wailed in unison.
"Is everything all right?" Remus croaked, pale and shivering in the doorway. He gaped at the Furby, and then glanced back at Tonks. "Why does it have scorch marks?"
"You will never believe me," Tonks said roughly. She set Teddy back down on the floor and gave him the Furby. "We're stuck with it for the rest of our lives. Don't ask me why."
She thundered out of Teddy's bedroom, her exit marked by the Furby's high-pitched, electronic laughter.