Willow Buds
With a whirl and a pop, Harry landed at the given apparition point, landing in a town in Falmouth. The streets were bustling with people doing their daily activities. Hermione said to be on the lookout for a cream-yellow building.
“Harry James, you need to stop having your owls redirected!” Hermione’s voice through the ministry howler was shrill. “I’m lucky you aren’t allowed to redirect communications related to work. Ron was the one who gave me the idea since that’s the only way he ever gets to speak to you. Andromeda and Ginny have been trying to get a hold of you. Teddy needs you. I am going to be at Draco Malfoy’s door in ten minutes. You best open it!”
Harry did open the door for Hermione, who entered in a flurry, clutching pamphlets and parchments, looking absolutely lethal.
“Andromeda is sick. She needs help looking after Teddy. She tried getting a hold of you and when you wouldn’t answer, she called Ginny.”
Harry furrowed his brows. “Why Ginny?”
This earned him a whack with the pamphlets in her hand.
“Because,” she huffed, “Ginny is his godmother. And his godfather,” she continued pointedly, “is off solving murders and having his communications redirected.”
“I mean,” Harry tried, albeit weakly. “I am off solving murders. I’m not sure exactly how to help.”
“We all know you’ve taken up the mantle of much more than solving murders. If you would just visit Andromeda, and listen to her, you would know that you’re perfectly capable of helping. All you would need to do is sort something out with another auror or two, make some schedule… Your family needs you. Ginny understands that you’re busy. She’s already been more than happy to have Teddy in her home.”
Harry happened upon the building rather quickly. Within ten minutes, he was standing in front of the doors of a creme-yellow facility with the name Willow Buds Behavioral Growth posted in blue letters across the face of the small building.
“Anyway, you have an appointment to sit in on one of Teddy’s mind-healing sessions. Ginny has already been to yesterday’s. Now, it’s your turn. And afterwards, you get to take him to Ginny’s and work out a plan to help Andromeda.”
“What’s happened to her?”
“She’s in St. Mungo’s with a bad case of Spattergroit. She can’t be near people without extreme precautions being taken at the hospital. When I went, I was covered head to toe in protection charms… Anyway, since she’s old, they’re struggling a bit to keep it from spreading more through her body.”
With a deep breath, Harry stepped into the centre, a small chime announcing his entrance. Distantly, he wondered how Draco was doing with Auror Dawlish. Inside the facility, Harry was faced with an empty room, housing a few chairs, two doors, and a reception window. The window was charmed so that people could not see inside, but a witch promptly un-charmed it, smiling brightly at him.
Harry was still for a moment, taking in the information. Then, “His Godmother?” Harry spoke. He knew it perhaps wasn’t the most pressing information of all that he’d heard, but it was nagging at his brain. “How? We aren’t together or even married.”
Hermione simply shook her head with a scoff.
“Hello, how can I help you?”
“Er… I’m here for Teddy?” Harry winced at his questioning tone. He knew what he was here for. And it was half past time that he became an involved Godfather, too. “Teddy. Lupin. Is he here?”
“Oh, you’re here for the parent session? Yes! Have a seat and his healer will come right out and get you.”
Just as quickly as she responded, the window was charmed again, leaving Harry in the empty, sterile room. He looked around, taking everything in. There was an illustration of a child under a willow tree, the name of the centre under it. Off to the side, pamphlets and brochures were decorating a section of the wall. Harry saw one for St. Mungos, one for Hogwarts (God, Hogwarts advertises? What for?), a few for various music lessons and duelling classes, one for summer school, several tutors, and a few for the Willow Buds facility itself. Briefly, he thought of Hermione smacking the pamphlets down onto his table “This is the facility he goes to every day.” Harry remembers being astonished that Teddy was here every day and “Yes, Harry. Almost all day, every day. Except weekends. This isn’t the kind of mind healing you think it is.”
Just then, one of the doors in the room opened. Harry was met with Hannah Abbott, dressed fully in healer’s robes. However, instead of the usual lime-green that Harry recognised healer robes to be, her robes were midnight-blue. He bit back his surprise. How uninvolved must he be to have nearly forgotten that Hannah has been Teddy’s mind healer for the past year? Silently, he chastised himself. He noticed that Hannah was holding a tiny hand. When he followed the sight of the tiny arm, he saw Teddy, all bright eyes and teal hair, clutching a plush penguin toy to his chest and looking off into some distance.
“Hi, Teddy,” Harry began. He crouched down to Teddy’s level, and he could feel a smile tugging at his lips seeing his godson and God. It’s been too long, and-
“Teddy, somebody said hi to you,” Hannah said. Teddy waved his hand at the distance he’d been looking at, responding “hi”, and-
“Teddy, who are you saying hi to?” Hannah used her hand to guide Teddy’s sight by his chin, turning him to face her. “Harry said hi,” she tried again. Teddy then waved at her and said hi. Hannah tried again. “Not me, Harry.” She pointed at Harry. Teddy waved at Hannah again, this time not verbalising a greeting. She guided his chin towards Harry, then. He waved at Harry.
Harry’s heart just about burst into a million pieces, then, smiling widely, his brain big jumble of good job and how you’ve grown and I’m so, so sorry that I haven’t been here. He greeted Teddy again, the fondness threatening to swallow him whole.
“Hi, Teddy.” Harry was sure he looked like a fool, with how wide he was grinning. Even as Teddy turned away again, putting his hand in his mouth-
“No, thank you,” Hannah responded to Teddy’s actions, trying to gently remove his hand from his mouth. Harry stood, then, and the two finally began to speak.
“Hello, Harry. It’s good of you to come. Hermione had told me she would arrange for it today. Come inside. I’ll show you how everything works here.”
The centre was abuzz with children and midnight-blue mind healers like Hannah. In the middle of the centre, there was a large, brightly lit room with paintings on the walls and all the toys a child could dream of. Harry caught a glimpse of one pair of children playing a card game with the help of their healers. One of them reminded Harry of Terry Boot. Surrounding this room were many other much smaller rooms, with three or four toddler-sized tables occupied by midnight-blue mind healers and their children, and in each one, a lesser amount of toys, and, in a few of those rooms, were adult-sized desks, some occupied by even more midnight-blue mind healers.
They’re called behavioural mind-healers chimed an awfully Hermione-sounding voice in his head. They help children with problems, just like Teddy.
Harry continued down the narrow corridor, following Hannah and Teddy as she continued to point out rooms and healers and goings on. Harry’s glance caught a girl and her mind-healer cheering in celebration over something or other, when Harry was abruptly stopped by a sudden collision with a child. He paused, as did Hannah and Teddy. Harry looked down to see a boy with blond curls and bright green eyes.
“Matthew, you bumped into someone,” began his the mind-healer. “What can you say?”
“Excuuuuse me!” the blond boy, Matthew, had a large, toothy smile lighting up his face. Harry couldn’t help but smile back.
“That’s alright, thank you!” His mind-healer gave him a high-five while telling him he did well, and conjured a paper with what seemed to be a path and a star. As Harry continued down the corridor with Hannah, who was gently ushering him to catch up, he watched as the star moved closer to the end of the path, which made the boy’s smile grow wider.
In one room they passed, Harry could hear death-like screaming and cries of “help me, help me!” followed by a much more adult voice sternly speaking “You won’t get the doll unless you do your work!” Harry’s brows furrowed, his mouth half-open, unsure of what he wanted to say to Hannah, who continued to the end of a the corridor, to a green-coloured room. She seemed to notice his pause, though, waving him off with “That’s Rachel. Don’t worry. She tends to do that whenever she works on identifying household objects.” Harry snapped his mouth shut, eyes wide.
The green-coloured room had two other midnight-blue healers in it. Hannah let go of Teddy’s hand and instructed him to sit “In this chair, right here”. Teddy did as she said, putting his penguin down at the table with him and making small, indiscernible noises as he did so. It reminded Harry of a happily babbling baby. Hannah sat next to him and used her wand to bring forth a chair for Harry.
“Hello,” chimed the midnight-blue healer at the adult-sized desk. “I’m Mary; Hannah and Teddy’s supervisor. You must be Mr. Potter. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Eh, hello, likewise.” Harry took her proffered hand and shook it. “I’m glad I could be here to learn about Teddy and help Andromeda out.”
“Yes, we heard about her Spattergroit. How is she?”
Harry settled into the much-too-small toddler-sized chair that Hannah had put out for him, still facing Mary. “I’m not sure. With work, it’s been difficult to check on her.”
“Of course, I understand. Well, we’re glad that you found the time to meet with us.”
“Yeah,” Harry replied lamely. He turned to face the desk, sitting with Hannah and Teddy. Hannah was rifling through a folder to find picture cards and laid them out in a neat array on the table.. Each photo was of one person: Andromeda, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Hannah, Mary, and, Harry was surprised to see, himself.
“One of the goals he has in his program is identifying significant people in his life. This is important for him,” Hannah explained. “When he knows who matters, he’s less likely to get swept off with a stranger. He knows who to go to for help.”
“How did you get a picture of me?” Harry recognized the photo, too. It was from the burrow, when he and Ron had gotten their auror jobs. Molly had thrown a party.
“We requested it when Andromeda fell ill and we learned that they would be calling on you and Ginny to help,” she replied simply. Then, she turned to Teddy.
“Do this.” Hannah began waving at Teddy. Teddy promptly stopped making sounds and waved. “Do this,” she put her finger on her nose. Teddy followed suit. “Perfect. Do you want to play with penguin?” Hannah accioed the stuffed toy penguin into her hand, holding it up for Teddy. He nodded.
“Okay. For penguin,” Hannah directed Teddy’s attention to the table. “Show me grandmum.”
Teddy was quickly able to plop his finger down on the photo of Andromeda, who was smiling up at the camera and waving.
“Perfect, now show me Hannah.”
Again, Teddy quickly identified the photo of Hannah in her midnight-blue robes.
“Beautiful. Show me Ginny.”
Teddy stilled for a moment, this time, his finger trailing towards Hermione, before correcting and landing on Ginny, with her flaming red hair blowing in the wind wherever she was when that picture was taken.
“Good job, Teddy! Show me Mary.” Teddy pointed to the photo of Hermione, this time, and Hannah switched a few of the photos around, then asked him again. He chose correctly that time.
When Teddy finished his exercise, he was promptly given his penguin, which he had begun reaching for as soon as he was done.
Harry found himself full to the brim with question upon question. How do you know what you are doing? And am I supposed to do this when I’m with him? And what if I mess up? What will happen then?
“Do you do this all day?”
“Well,” began Hannah “Not exactly this exercise. Teddy has plenty of exercises in his programme. Here, let me show you.”
Hannah waved her wand in some complicated, Harry suspected also coded, way, and in front of them both, materialized graphs, notes, and a large array of sectioned off lists of acronyms and, what Harry suspected were goals and exercises, for Teddy. Some things that caught his eye were “Teddy will have one bite of non-preferred foods”, under it showed a counter, saying 0/5 trials. Another that Harry noticed was “Teddy will make eye contact when manding for something.” under it, 4/No Maximum and one that says “Teddy will mand for help when needed.” 6/no maximum
The list was extensive. Harry saw the exercise that Hannah had just done, accompanied by 7/7 trials.
We help him with nearly everything, here. We teach him how to get by, essentially. You’ve been invited here simply to observe, since you will be seeing him much more. We always encourage parents and guardians to be involved in a client’s treatment, as it shows great benefits for the client. Being understanding, patient, and knowledgable goes a long way here.”
Harry nodded, furrowing his brows as he continued to read. At the top of the list was a tab titled behaviour reduction.
“Can I see what’s under this tab?”
“Yes, of course. This is a list of all of his maladaptive behaviors. We log everything, here,” Hannah explained as she opened the tab with a flick of her wrist. Harry’s eyes widened. At the behaviors listed, feeling a spike of anxiety blooming in his stomach.
“Aggression towards others?” He asked, his voice going thin. “Teddy?”
“It’s typically accompanied with his tantrums,” nodded Hannah. Harry exhaled, not knowing how to react. He looked back at the list.
Sure enough, tantrums was listed right below it. And below that, property destruction, throwing, mouthing, noncompliance, elopement, verbal stereotypy. Harry’s brows furrowed in confusion and his mouth dropped in shock.
“What’s…” Harry squinted to read it properly, “Elopement, like marriage?”
“No,” Hannah chuckled. “Not marriage. He walks away from people, gets lost.”
“Oh,” Harry responded. “And… mouthing? And verbal stereotypy?”
“Mouthing,” Hannah began, “is when he sticks things that are not food in his mouth”, Hannah’s eyes strayed to Teddy, causing Harry to follow her gaze as Teddy began to stick his toy penguin into his mouth-
“No thank you, Teddy. Hannah was taking the penguin away from him, now.
“Do this,” Hannah knocked on the table. Teddy repeated the action. “We don’t put toys in our mouth.”
Teddy whined, showing a face of discontent. His hair turned purple. “Do not put toys in your mouth,” Hannah repeated, before giving him the penguin again.
Andromeda dealt with all of this?
“And verbal stereotypy,” Hannah continued, recomposing herself quickly, “Is just him making sounds. He doesn’t do it too much, but he does it. We only correct him when it gets out of hand.”
“How do I know when it gets out of hand?”
“I’m sure you will see it at some point over the next four hours.”
Harry knew, of course, thanks to Hermione, that he was to be here for four hours, however, hearing it again made him steel himself. Give me patience.
The session went mostly well, with Harry watching as Hannah worked with Teddy the way she has been for a year, and learning a bit more of what Teddy was like.
Teddy is nonverbal. That’s what they call it. He mostly doesn’t speak, though, at the centre, they are pushing him to speak. They start small, with having him repeat simple words like hi, bye, help, no, and more. Harry quickly realised that he is not very good at pronouncing more- which comes out more like mo- or help- which comes out more like hep, or hap.
Teddy keeps to himself, and needs encouragement to play with peers. Even when he wants to play with them, he will not approach them himself.
When he walks away, “that’s elopement,” Hannah said, when it happened, he seems to not understand that he’s doing it. He had seen a toy car and wanted to go get it, effectively walking away from Hannah and Harry. He could have sworn he’d only looked away for one second, and Teddy was already halfway across the large room in the middle of the centre. “Teddy, where are you going?” she had announced, already making a move to find him. Teddy took that as cue enough to realize what he’d done and walk right back to Hannah. “Do you want that toy car?” a nod. “Okay. We can get it together,” she explained.
He tends to forget things exist when they aren’t in front of him. “If you ask him whether he would like to play with something that he isn’t very familiar with and you don’t show it to him, he may not know what you are talking about.” But he’s gotten better, she says. He knows to ask for water wat, and his penguin pin.
And, he absolutely loves his penguin. It is by far his favourite thing to play with. Harry noticed he especially likes to put the pinch the cloth of the penguin and rub it between his fingers.
At around the two hour mark, it was time for Teddy’s snack.
“We’re working on feeding today, which is good. You’ll get so know about his eating habits,” Hannah explained, preparing a small bowl with beans. Then, she removed some biscuits with Teddy’s name on them from a cupboard the centre’s kitchen area.
“The biscuits will be a reward if he eats his beans. He only likes to eat hard, crunchy foods. Oh, and he calls biscuits cookies, just so you know.”
Teddy was soon ready to eat, sitting at the same table where he did his exercises.
“It’s time to eat,” Hannah told him, putting the spoon to his mouth. Teddy ate, rather normally in Harry’s opinion. For every bite of beans, he was allowed two bites of a biscuit. Then Hannah began to speak as she slowly fed Teddy.
“We’ve been working on feeding for several months, especially with beans. If you do ever decide to introduce him to a new food, understand that he may have difficulty with it. Don’t become angered if he wants to touch and play with the food before eating it. These things take time. If you’ll notice, he still makes faces about the beans,” she explained between exclamations of “good job,” and “I’m so proud, Teddy!”
However, it was by the fifth bite of food that things began to change. First, Teddy jerked his head away, his face scrunching up as hs did so. Gently, Hannah prompted him to take a bite. Teddy’s hair then went from weasley orange to brick red. He whined, shaking his head and pushing at Hannah’s arm.
Harry didn’t quite catch the rest of the progression from irritated to angry, all the way to tantrum. By the time his brain caught up with the ever worsening events, The room was cleared save for Hannah, Mary, Harry, and Teddy, who was screaming, crying, and now, threw his chair at Hannah. A two-and-a-half year old just threw a chair, his mind supplied numbly. Hannah deftly blocked it and redirected it with her wand, then, also with her wand, used what she called a gentle restraint.
“I need you to calm down, Teddy,” she sternly spoke. “All you need to do it touch the beans with your mouth. You do not need to eat them.” With magic, she attempted to guide his motions to the beans, which lay abandoned on a spoon on the table, half-spilled. Teddy, though, all wild fury and jet-plack hair, with steam coming out of his ears, fought Hannah’s magical restraints, to Harry’s utter shock. He wailed and cried, his screams piercing at Harry’s ears. And he was actually, physically, fighting Hannah’s magic. Hannah strained, beads of sweat gathering on her forehead, as she guided the spoon with beans to Teddy’s mouth despite everything. The moment that the spoon touched his mouth, smearing bean onto his lip, the spoon, plate, napkins, and beans all vanished.
Harry found himself trembling, his face pale, as Teddy cried red, angry tears. He sagged as Hannah’s magic no longer tried to force his movements. Hannah still kept him magically restrained, and just as Harry was about to protest it, Teddy had one final attempt at hitting and throwing, before giving up lamely. Hannah removed the restraints, then, leaving Teddy to calm down on his own. Maria offered him his cracker, and he took it wordlessly, eating through sniffles and hiccups.
Harry was gaping. Hannah took a breath, turning to him. “That,” she said, “was a tantrum.” She pulled up the programme with Teddy’s goals again, double checking that everything was there. Magically, the duration of his tantrum was logged at thirty-three minutes. The noncompliance numbers had gone up to 36, and throwing had 2. Property destruction had 6.
“Teddy never destroyed anything,” Harry tried, though he felt way out of his depth, a bit lost, and more than a bit tired.
“Property destruction is anytime he tried to break things, even if he doesn’t actually break or destroy anything.”
Harry looked at Teddy, who was wiping his eyes, now, quietly eating his biscuits. His chest clenched.
“I don’t understand. Why do you force him to do it if he’s so upset?” Harry felt confused about it all, and a bit small. He felt like, by standing by, he had hurt Teddy. His eyes burned slightly. He hated it. He felt awful.
“He threw a tantrum because he wanted to escape from eating. Even after I told him that he didn’t have to eat it, simply touch it, for the past 12 minutes. There’s no reason why he had to refuse to touch the beans, Harry. If you just give him what he wants every time he’s being difficult, he’s never going to improve,” Hannah explained, her face serious. Then, Mary spoke.
“I understand that it hurts to see him like this. I promise you we are not hurting him. This is a part of behavioural mind-healing that a lot of people tend to back down on: persistence. Don’t worry, though. We are trained and certified. We know what we are doing, and we know what we are telling you.”
Less than thirty minutes later, Teddy was behaving as if he hadn’t ever, and would never throw a positively horrendous tantrum over touching a spoonful or beans. He did the majority of his work with little-to-no protest or problem, and he and Harry even played together, around the three hour mark. Harry’s heart just about burst when Teddy squealed with laughter and clapped at Harry pretending to be a dragon.
Harry learned that Teddy also loves to play with toys that have odd textures. Hannah called them sensory toys. However, none of them were played with nearly as often as Teddy’s penguin plush.
At the end of the day, Hannah and Mary asked Harry if he had any questions. His head was swimming, though, and it felt as though it was full of cotton. He was sure that he had too many questions to count, and he didn’t even know what to begin with. He was assured that, if anything, he could always contact Mary, ths supervisor. Harry left with Teddy holding his penguin and clutching one hand and Mary’s card in his other hand.
Arriving at Ginny’s modern yet cozy flat, she was already expecting Teddy, greeting him with an enthusiastic smile and open arms. He hugged her, then took her hand tugging her towards the telly.
“You want the telly?” She asked.
Teddy continued to point and tug, before stopping entirely and furrowing his brows in concentration, then voicing, with apparent difficulty, “T.”
“Let’s go put the telly for you. Good job telling me!” Ginny responded with enthusiasm. Then she turned, her long hair falling as she walked Teddy to her sofa. “Hullo, Harry. Thanks for bringing him,” she said. Harry watched Ginny interacting with Teddy, and the thought she seems better than the last time I saw her swept up into his mind. Of course, the last time he’d seen her, they’d only broken up one month prior, and she was sulking because of a pro quidditch rejection, and how is that going, anyway?
“Let’s put you some Disney,” she continued with Teddy, then back at Harry. “How was his day, today?”
Harry wiped at his forehead. “He threw a tantrum over eating some beans. Threw a chair at Hannah and everything.”
“Oh? That’s good. Last time he set the supervisor’s parchments on fire with accidental magic. Progress.”
Harry did not know how to respond to that, so he didn’t.
Ginny finished putting a tv channel for Teddy, and then went over to Harry. “So, I’m sure Hermione’s caught you up with everything, right? Between that, and sitting in on Today’s session with Ted, you understand everything that’s happening?”
“Er, mostly, yeah,” Harry responded weakly. “Andy’s in Mungo’s and can’t take care of Teddy. Since we’re his godparents, we need to step up to the plate.”
“And,” Ginny added, “I can’t do it alone. And I don’t think you can either, since you’re even busier than Ron is, and Ron’s the head of the case.”
“Yeah, Teddy is… a handful. I understand. But, Gin, you understand I’m on a witness protection round-”
“Yes, with Malfoy. I also know that you have somebody in the auror department you can rotate with, and Ron’s already cleared you to set a schedule with Robards and Dawlish, so that you can help me ‘respond to a family emergency’”.
Bollocks, Harry sighed. But I’m invested, he wanted to say. Or perhaps Malfoy needs help, right now, in more ways than just that,or maybe I’m going mad for him. I want to be around him. I already have a system set up to do paperwork in his flat.
“Surely I can’t be expected to take him to Malfoy’s flat,” Harry tried. “It’s dangerous.”
“Of course not, you git. Take him too yours.”
Oh, that’s right. My own flat. His own flat that isn’t even fit for himself to stay at, let alone for a child, or a child like Teddy.
“I…” Teddy began saying bat rather loudly, just then, rhythmically, over and over, while happily watching the tv, jumping up and down in his seat.
“Teddy,” Ginny called out. “Please be quiet.” Teddy continued, though, causing Ginny to stand in front of him and crouch down to his eye level, waving in front of him. He promptly stopped. “Please be quiet, Ted. Thank you.”
Harry walked to be next to her. “I’ll go to Robards first ting in the morning and puzzle out a schedule,” Harry said, scratching the back of his neck. Ginny needed help, and it wasn’t fair of Harry to leave her with Teddy, especially when the only reason she got saddled with the problem was because she used to date his godfather, who is too deadbeat to pay attention to anything outside of aurors and murder and blond gits with mental issues.
“Are there any days in particular that you can’t have him for?”
“Monday’s Wednesdays, and Fridays, I absolutely can’t. I just got a contract with a league and those are our practice days. And of course, if I ever have a game, I’ll let you know, and we can figure something out then.” Ginny bit her lip. “What about you?”
“Sundays,” he said suddenly. “I can’t do Sundays. And I could be called in to the ministry or to a scene whenever. Any time of day, so…”
“Yes, that is rather tricky… Hm. Would you be alright to take Teddy Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and Saturdays?”
“Gin, that’s a bit much,” Harry began. “I’m still working on this case, and Malfoy-”
“Yes, hm… I’ll take Saturdays. But if I have a game, then I may need you to take him.”
“Okay,” Harry conceded. “What about days where both of us are busy?”
Ginny was silent for a moment, then, “Mum! Or, Hermione? Probably better Hermione. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind having Ted once in a while.”