Letters Home
Tuesday, April 1st, 2014:
Ok, so maybe Teddy lied. Maybe he didn’t exactly have time after class yesterday to write to Harry. In his defence, it’s not his fault he had detention with Filch again. Well, even if it is , he couldn’t really find time regardless. Between class, detention, and the astronomy tower with V, it’s safe to say his mind has been thoroughly elsewhere.
Yet, now that he’s lying on his bed, completely done for the day, he feels like he’s fighting to find anything to do that’s not writing that letter. He’s so short on excuses that he’s even pondered doing assignments ahead of time. A dark day, indeed. That’s when he decided maybe it’s time to just man up and take out some bloody parchment.
He picks up his bag and finally stands up from his bed. Trudging over to the circular door at the end of his dorm, he pulls it open and steps out into the Hufflepuff common room. Thankfully, there aren’t many students lingering about at this hour. With things like dueling club and the quidditch season being in full swing, the room is almost eerily quiet. Definitely best to do this now, Teddy thinks to himself. Less distractions that way.
He goes over to the nearest desk, pulling out the honey-coloured wood chair and slumping into it as he sits down. He begrudgingly pulls out some parchment from his bag and grabs a quill. He needs ink. Maybe Harry would appreciate the humour in a letter written in bright pink. The black ink he has is so boring . With a letter of this tone, some added humour was definitely necessary. He remembers Eric being particularly good at colour-changing charms, so he should probably see if he’s around to help. He would do it himself, but the colour should be just right if it’s going to come across as more ironic than bizarre…
Teddy’s deflecting, he realises. He needs to focus. Normal ink for a normal letter going onto normal parchment. Merlin, why is this so hard to bring himself to do?
It’s hard to explain, but every time Teddy thinks about what he wants to say, his stomach begins to knot like he’s about to fall off his broom. The idea of trying to find the right way of talking about his dream, waiting for a response, and let alone writing itdown has become a quick way to make him completely freeze up.
Of course, he knows that no matter what he says Harry will be supportive. That’s just how he is. He could go to him about anything, no matter how embarrassing, and always know that it would be ok. This isn’t even the worst thing Teddy’s gone to him about, honestly. The time he hadn’t been able to change his feet back from duck flippers makes this seem like child’s play. Some silly nightmares, no matter how grueling, are nothing compared to all of the things Harry’s already done for him. He’s family.
This situation just feels different, like there could be something actually wrong. What if his dreams really were the grim? What if he doesn’t like what Harry has to say about it?
Nevertheless, Victoire is probably still just as right. He really should just get it over with. With a dramatic sigh, he sets up his usual ink well at the top of the parchment. Dipping his quill, he finally touches the top left of the page.
Hey Harry,
Don’t freak out
Nope. Definitely try again. He crosses it out and restarts.
Harry,
I am writing to request your assistance and expertise on
bad dreams
Yeah, no. Not that either.
Hi Harry,
Ok. Great Start. Might as well get on with it.
Hi Harry,
V asked me to write to you about these nightmares I’ve been
having, and since she’s usually right about everything, I
thought I might as well. Also, no offense, but you’re kind of the
king of nightmares, so I could use your advice.
So basically, it starts in the forest. It’s around midnight (i think?
there aren’t any clocks in my dream forest), and I’m running
at full speed, like sprinting , and I think I’m hunting or chasing
something. No, I know I’m hunting something. Something
specific. When I finally catch up to it, it ends up being this
shaggy, dirty-looking black dog. I have no idea what the dog
means, but my friends in divination say that black dogs are never
really a great sign.
The strangest part of it all is the look the dog gives me, like it
already knows me. I don’t know how, but the dog looks familiar
to me in the dream, too, like we’ve already been there before.
Of course, I’ve never actually seen that dog before, I don’t think.
The dreams started happening a few weeks ago, but since then
they have become an every other night thing. It’s really starting to
mess with my sleep, actually.
To make things worse, I don’t really feel like myself in the dream.
It’s almost like I’m this sort of wild animal. First off, I’m running on
all fours, which as you’re aware, I’m not really known to do. Second,
my senses feel super heightened, almost how a dog’s would be,
I imagine. Weird, I know.
If I’m honest, I don’t really understand any of the meaning
behind it, so if there’s anything you can think of, please let
me know.
Also hope everyone’s doing well and all that stuff. Has Lily
showed any more signs of her magic? I swear, that girl is
going to be a force to be reckoned with once she gets her
hands on a wand. It’ll take all of Godric’s Hollow just to make
sure she doesn’t burn the bloody place down.
Talk to you soon.
Much love,
Teddy
P.S. Tell James he still owes me 10 sickles from when he bet
I couldn’t eat that dog food flavoured jelly bean (I know he
doesn’t have any money, I just like how annoyed he gets when
I remind him).
Much much love (for real this time),
Teddy
Teddy looks down at the letter with a mixture of accomplishment and defeat. On one hand, this was probably the best it was gonna get. On the other, at least he was finally done with this Godric-forsaken thing. He goes over to one of the stationery cabinets, pulling out the top drawer to retrieve the last bit of twine in there before tying the parchment into a neat scroll.
Now, off to the owlery with that.
*****
When Teddy returns to the common room, the pre-dinner commotion seems to be in full swing for all of the other students. There are so many Hufflepuffs that there aren’t even enough chairs or tables to seat them. Some sort of muggle card game he couldn’t recognize had a group of third years actually sitting two or three to a single seat, all poured over the table in such concentration that they didn’t even seem to notice.
The usual calm demeanor of the room’s honey and charcoal decor that always comforted Teddy was completely drowned out by all the voices, laughs, and striped ties. Even the floors seem to be occupied by a cluster of first and second years scattered across the swirling, round carpet, their eyes all hyper-focused on the evidently tense final round of exploding snap. With a flurry of sparks and sharp crackling filling the air in front of them, a swell of moans and cheers adds to the already uproaring sound perpetually bouncing around the room.
The downside of being part of the house best known for friendship and teamwork? Everyone always wanted to be so bloody communal about everything. Like, Teddy understands that they should all be friends and hold hands and make memories and all that rubbish, but rightnow? Maybe it was the last of the nerves from the letter, but he could do with a simple lie down instead.
To his great fortune, most of the upperclassmen were effectively absent from the common room these days, either studying for exams until their eyes roll back or occupying themselves by running off to snog some sixth year Gryffindor. That meant that he wouldn’t have to dodge or deflect nearly as many casual greetings or invitations for a game of chess. Not that he’s even that good at chess. Yet, everyone who challenges him is such a damn good sport that even when they beat him they still congratulate him and compliment his playing style. Excuse him, but last time he mucked around with the pieces for the better part of ten minutes, the game ended with a handshake and a “almost had me with that modulated Vladimirov’s Thunderbolt! Amazing work!” Like what the fuck does that even mean . There’s kindness and good sportsmanship and then there’s just being patronizing.
Community and camaraderie is all well in good in Teddy’s eyes, don’t get him wrong, but this room already has far too much of that today for his taste, any more in the next few hours threatened to give him a proper migraine.
Wading and waddling through the waves of Hufflepuffs, he swears that they should just expand the common room, because at this point it was getting ridiculous.
After the war, as Harry had pointed out, a lot more muggleborns and halfbloods seemed to flood the halls of Hogwarts. By the time Teddy was a first year, the classes had basically doubled from when his Godfather was in school. Maybe it was a coincidence, but he remembers Harry saying that it’s easier for magical blood to grow when it’s not being stifled by fear. Whatever the hell that means, Teddy took it as more of a symbolic thing. The only problem with the classes doubling, though, is the class rooms stayed the same exact size. There’s been more than once in his years at Hogwarts that he’s seen students having to be sat in a row of desks floating above all the others just to make enough room in the cramped dimensions of the castle.
However cool it sounds to spend History of Magic flying above his classmates, Teddy couldn’t imagine the embarrassment of dropping his textbook from up there. The sound would probably be heard all the way to the courtyard, let alone the inevitable trip to the hospital wing should it land on someone.
Luckily, the dorm rooms were magically adjusted to accommodate even the largest of classes, so there would be no floating beds, at least. They could thank the school founders for that one. Why they didn’t extend the same enchantments to the other rooms, he’ll never know. Every time he’s tried to ask, he’s only met with “why are you asking?” and “I don’t know, ask the paintings or something.” Clearly, no one else is as concerned about this as he is. Also, are the paintings even alive? Do they have their own conscious thought?
In the end, he’s taken the stance of just being happy he’s not floating two metres in the air every time he goes to bed.
Then again the thought of Eric, someone notorious for rolling around in his sleep, on a floating bed made Teddy audibly chuckle as he finished crossing the Red Sea of black and yellow robes in the common room. As he reached the circular door of the fifth year boys dorm, he can already hear his roommates on the other side, most likely doing something too stupid to fit proper explanation.
And as Teddy opens the door, he’s never been more disappointed (and secretly very proud) to see that he was right.
Right in the middle of the dorm room floor, George and Victoire were sitting directly across from each other, wands pointed to the ceiling in a fit of intense concentration. While Teddy was trying to imagine how V got into the Hufflepuff dorms in the first place, he got immediately distracted by the telltale patchwork quilt of one of their beds seemingly being levitated by the two still sat on the floor. Now this is weird, Teddy thinks, why would you need two people to levitate a quilt? It really wasn’t that heavy, and hadn’t they both been doing that spell since first year? It really shouldn’t take that much concentr-holy shit there’s someone in the quilt.
As if Teddy’s fears were being answered, he looks over at the left end of the blanket to see Eric’s signature puff of short black hair sticking out at one end. Surprisingly, for someone suspended about five feet in the air, he’s staying relatively calm. He hasn’t even said a word.
A snore comes out of the floating blankets and Teddy lets out a sharp gasp. Looking at the quilt, he has to stop himself from letting it turn into a full-out cackle from shock alone. Though it was quite funny, he doesn’t think any loud noises would be in their best interests right now. Eric waking up two metres off the ground might cause a panic sudden enough to break the spell, especially if George and Victoire feel the need to concentrate so diligently. Still, taking in the entire scene in front of him, he decides this is likely one of the best things to ever grace the rounded walls of their dorm.
“What the absolute fuck are you lot doing? You do realise if you drop him, he’ll be pissed , right? And while he’s asleep?” Teddy attempts to whisper at his friends between nervous laughs, eyes still focused on Eric’s airbourne cocoon.
“Oh, keep your trousers on, Ted, you and I both know he sleeps like the dead! Besides, Victoire asked about body levitation, and I decided a more practical approach would be the best teacher.” George smirks over at the girl across from him deviously, speaking a tad too loudly for Teddy’s taste at the moment. As his eye contact breaks from the rumpled pile that is now proven to in fact be Eric Jiang, it seems to dip slightly on the end facing him, causing the sleeping boy's hair to whip back and stick up with the shift in orientation. Another loud snore that tries to ring out is interrupted as Eric stirs, shifting to lie on his side.
Everyone freezes, looking at Eric with eyes wide in anxious anticipation of what’s about to happen. Yet as quickly as it began, The boy’s breathing mellows out and he continues to snooze at a thirty-degree angle, still hovering two metres in the air.
“Yeah, and if you don’t concentrate he’ll actually be dead, George!” Victoire hisses, taking turns between staring daggers at the boy across from her and trying to concentrate on keeping Eric afloat. As far as Teddy can tell, though, she’s trying to hold in a laugh every time she looks back up at the patchwork cloud that’s luckily still visibly breathing. Disregarding what George said, he’s decided that this was definitely her idea.
George straightens his back and refocuses on his friend, levelling out his sleeping body in the air once again. At least that’s an improvement, Teddy thinks. Now if Eric happened to wake up, it wouldn’t be with all of the blood rushing to his head. It’s not much better, but an improvement nonetheless.
“I tried to tell them to at least wait until he’s awake, but they made some compelling arguments, so I ended up just letting them do whatever they please.” Colin chimes in from his bed at the other end of the circular room, looking up from his book with an amused smile as his eyes met Teddy’s.
“Oh, so I’m just supposed to believe you had no part in this? Just an innocent bystander?” Teddy shoots back, motioning to Eric’s unconscious body floating between them for added effect. He returns his friend’s gaze with a quirk in his eyebrow, silently trying to get the real story out of him.
“Innocent until proven guilty.” He promptly returns to his book with remnants of that same smirk on his face, occasionally stealing glances around the room. Teddy wouldn’t be surprised if he had been only pretending to read this whole time. So much for an alibi.
The funny thing about Colin, if five years of friendship are anything for Teddy to go off of, is that he loves to pretend to be above all the stupid and immature stuff almost as much as he loves to take part in it. If anything, he probably helped show V the spell or gave them tips on wand movements before conveniently switching to whichever book he was reading before Teddy arrived. He’s much more transparent than he thinks, especially when his friends know exactly what to look for.
“So, on to more important matters,” George segues with his eyes still fixed on Eric, seemingly determined to multitask between keeping his friend afloat and having a full-blown chat.
Honestly, Teddy admires their dedication to this whole thing. By this point he probably would’ve already gotten so bored that he would’ve just placed Eric in the middle of the floor (just to see the confused look on his face when he woke up) and gone to the kitchens for a snack. It had to be tiring concentrating on a spell for that long. At least, tiring for him, who had a self-proclaimed five-minute attention span.
“Such as…” Teddy prompts, slightly puzzled. What could possibly be deemed as “more important” than his friend’s indefinite hovering is beyond him.
Everyone in the room but him seems to share a smug smile, obviously already aware of what George is about to say. Even Colin had completely discarded the book he was reading in favour of taking part in whatever conversation that seemed to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue.
“Such as your birthday, you big swot!” George huffed out with a sound that seemed to be a half chuckle, half scoff at his friend.
“You’re still on that?” Teddy rolls his eyes and walks over to his bed, ducking slightly as he passes under his floating roommate. “I’ve told you countless times, we should’ve just merged Colin and I’s birthdays this year. They’re only like three weeks apart! The rest of the house will have our heads if we throw another party this soon.”
With this, he decides to finally give into the exhaustion of the day and falls into his bedsheets. Folding his hands across his chest, he ponders what George could possibly come up with this time in an attempt to get him to change his mind. Teddy’s not against throwing a party, just to make that clear. He is, however, against revisiting the absolute mutiny that came about after Colin’s birthday a week prior. Apparently, a drunken, half-assed silencing charm is not nearly enough protection for an onslaught of sleeping Hufflepuffs once a Strokes record comes on the queue. Halfway into what Teddy finds to be one of his best performances to date of Last Nite, the door was practically kicked down by Head Boy Henry Caligula, curses and insults being thrown out with a vengeance. On top of the crippling hangover, Teddy had been the only one of his friends to stop the fairly aggressive effect of the bobble-head hex, leaving his roommates bedridden for the first half of the day, heads barely small enough to fit in their beds.
“...Did someone say party?-”
“-JESUS FUCK”
At Eric’s drowsy interruption, George looks to have fully left the floor as he jumps in shock. In his fit of panic, any sign of concentration or focus vanishes from his face, his wand dropping to the floor as his hands jerk back in surprise.
“GEORGE NO!” Victoire shouts out. Her one free hand flies up to shield her face, as if preparing for impact.
As Teddy sits up at the sudden shout, the next few moments play out in front of him almost like a scene in a rather shitty movie. Time seems to slow to a near stop and all he can do is sit there and watch.
In this brief moment in time, three things seem to happen in exact unison: One, George leaps forward to his wand, scrambling under the shadow cast by Eric in his crumpled bedspread as he tries to recast the body levitation spell. Two, the spell is broken. Without the added power of two wizards, it seems to audibly shatter under the stress. This shockwave sends Victoire’s wand flying in the opposite direction, hitting the wall with a force strong enough to unleash a bright orange spark from its tip as it makes contact. Three, Eric starts to fall. The closer he gets to the ground, the closer George gets to his wand in the middle of the floor.
With every fraction of a second that passes, the two boys get closer and closer until Eric is only half a metre above him, both of their eyes widening in the realisation of what was about to happen.
Just before Teddy could pronounce George’s time of death, the great pile of Eric that is just about to reach terminal velocity is tackled in mid air. Colin, with his arms tightly wound around his falling friend, sends the two of them sailing across the room.
There is a deafening sound somewhere between a shriek and a groan that echoes around the room. From where Teddy’s standing, he has no way of telling where the sound even came from. Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was coming from him all along.
Colin and Eric hit the wooden floors with a hard thud, a sound only partially softened by the blankets that cushion some of the fall.
Everyone in the room seems to freeze, whether out of shock or worry for Eric’s condition, Teddy can’t even say for himself. No one makes a sound as their eyes stay peeled on the cluster of blankets now carpeting the floor in a big, unmoving mound.
In that moment of eerie stillness, Teddy finds himself going through every possibility in the span of five seconds.
Eric’s fine, no doubt about it. Just maybe a little bruised… But what if he broke his arm? Madame Pomfrey could surely fix that, right? She fixed his broken toe after the tarantallegra incident, so this should be a breeze… But what if he broke his neck? Surely, no magic could really right that wrong. Unless it was dark magic. Then again, having Eric as a vampire/demon/zombie thing as a result of a dark spell gone wrong does sound like it would have its pros. Given the fact that he was still Eric, of course, he doesn’t want to lose his friend just to have an occult-driven bodyguard. Just same old Eric, with maybe a few cool other worldly powers mixed in here and there.
No, this is ridiculous, he is just fine and he’ll be up and ready to head to dinner in just a few seconds.
A few seconds go by. Eric’s most certainly dead.
Colin breaks the silence by detangling himself from his roommate’s possibly-dead-but-staying-positive body, sitting up on his feet to lean over the pile of blankets in front of him. He lifts up the bedding to reveal his friend’s face, as sullen and unmoving as a corpse.
“Is he breathing?” George asks, hiding his face behind his hands with his back up against the foot of his bed. Teddy can only see his eyes through the gaps he’s made in his fingers as he watches over the scene unfolding.
Teddy looks over at Victoire, who is still completely stunned where she sits. Her hands covering her mouth, eyes wide in shock.
Eric’s eyes snap open as his mouth grows into a huge grin. “Of course I’m breathing, you tosser!” He throws the remainder of the quilt covering his torso straight up into the air and bolts up, standing over the rubble of the scene as if nothing happened. “But, of course, I do accept any parting gifts or favours of money should you wish to pay your respects.”
“Jesus Christ , mate.” George sighs.
“How many times do we have to remind you, George. This is Hogwarts. Muggle Jesus can’t hear you through McGonagall’s protective enchantments.” Colin sighs from his place on the floor, still trying to catch his breath.
“Eh, that’s probably for the better.”
Eric draws attention back to him as he motions to the crumpled blanket still in a pile on the floor. “Um, excuse me, back to the man who saw his life flash before his eyes. What even was that? I come back from class for a bit of a lie down, next thing I know George is screaming like a baby and I’m almost touching the bloody ceiling!”
“It was just a bit of an experiment!” George offers. “Vic wanted to learn about body levitation and I gave her a mere introduction. A tutoring session, if you will!”
“I most certainly will not .” Eric turns to Victoire, motioning to his rather guilty-looking friend behind him. “and in what world would you trust him to be a tutor? He can’t even get through transfiguration without sending someone to the hospital wing! He’s a danger to himself and others!”
“Ok, first off, that was twice . Second, what about you? Why the hell did you just lie there like a dead fish?”
He thinks for a moment, hand raising up to his chin. He shrugs. “For the dramatics, I ‘spose.”
“Oh bugger off! You had us scared to death !” George protests.
“And you had me brush with death, dickhead! I was just returning the favour!” At this, Eric picks up his quilt in tufts, dragging it over to his bed before throwing it over the mattress in the sorriest excuse for a made bed Teddy has ever seen. “Next time you decide to experiment with human trials, at least make sure I’m awake for it.”
He pauses, falling back onto his bed, the remnants of the grin still sticks to his face as he turns his head to look over at his friends. “...It was pretty fun though.”
Victoire seems to slightly relax upon seeing that at least Eric’s light-hearted nature wasn’t broken by the fall, her shoulders slumping forward as she pushes herself up to a standing position. “-Eric I am so sorry. It was completely my fault. I was the one who wanted help on body levitation spells. It got completely out of hand and we definitely should’ve put you down after the first five minutes.”
“The first five minutes ? How long was I up there?” Eric asked, his jaw practically on the floor. For someone who just had a two metre drop, he looks suspiciously like someone trying not to laugh.
“We sort of lost count after a while…” She pauses for a moment, the worried crease in her eyebrows not able to hide the twitches of a smirk. In the end, she fails to keep a straight face and a hesitant laugh breaks through. “But like you said, it was pretty funny.”
Eric replies with a laugh and a wave of his hand. “Vic, relax , I’m not mad. Or hurt, for that matter, thank you very much for asking . Honestly, this is nothing. George and I have done worse to each other this past week alone .”
He abruptly sits up, eyes locking onto Teddy with a mischievous grin creeping onto his face.
“Now, back to the point… Someone say party?”
Merlin, his friends are ruthless. Not even his own funeral would get in the way of a good old-fashioned rager, it seems. While he knows that his birthday party (of epic proportions, George always loves to add) is an inevitability, he’ll be damned if it comes back to bite him in the arse on the only day of the year where things are supposed to be all about him. They are going to need some ground rules, but since rules and parties never really go hand in hand, these will just be… stipulations. Stipulations For Teddy to Not Get His Arse Handed to Him.
He slumps his shoulders in defeat, returning Eric’s gaze. “Ok, fine. FINE. We can have a party.”
Teddy’s friends all seem to perk up, beaming at the prospect of another excuse to “exercise house pride”, as they like to put it, which really just means Eric and George will probably get drunk enough to take turns taking shots out of the House Cup again. Even Victoire’s eyes grow wide with excitement, only having been to two or three parties herself. Sometimes he forgets she’s in the year below, so she’s just getting to the age where Teddy and his friends started throwing parties in the first place. Well, parties with alcohol that is.
It’s only over the past few months that these parties started becoming a multi-house thing, opposed to the first few which were just George sneaking muggle booze in after Christmas break so they could all drink in their dorm room and play drunken rounds of exploding snap. Lately, they’ve been getting a bit of a reputation for their birthday bashes, sometimes having to turn away students after it started to get too cramped to even dance. And not dancing to Rebel Rebel? That was downright criminal. One his Gran would probably never forgive him for, should she ever find out.
In order to prevent all those nasty bits that could downright ruin a birthday, he was going to have to set some boundaries.
He was usually pretty bad at damage control, that was just a fact. Last year alone was proof enough. He had the expectedly grand idea of collecting a sack full of young bouncing bulbs from the greenhouse (a very difficult feat at that) and let them loose to wreak havoc in the potions classrooms (an even more difficult feat should you not want to get caught). Listen, If he had known that they were mature enough to turn aggressive, of course he wouldn’t have done it, but he had fallen asleep in herbology that class, apparently. It. Was. Madness. The second he untied the sack, the fury those bloody bulbs unleashed would’ve made Merlin himself clutch his beard-covered pearls. Cauldrons broke, potions exploded, and Teddy’s pretty sure he saw someone writing out their last will and testament under their desk. What makes it worse, the plants can apparently smell fear, because they eventually started ganging up on some fourth-year Ravenclaw, the poor guy. He left that classroom with two black eyes, which Teddy still feels the need to apologise for whenever he sees him.
So maybe he should talk to Colin about that before charging fullspeed into this. Eh, too late. Teddy already agreed, so they could all figure out the logistics in the next two weeks before the big day. For now, just the concept of a stipulation was enough to put his mind at ease about all this.
“-BUT!” He interrupts his friends’ mental victory lap by raising a hand in the air, catching their attention once again. “There will be a few conditions to make sure Professor Sprout doesn’t have our absolute heads before we can even get a drink in!”
“Yeah, sure mate, whatever you want, but we gotta start thinking about decorations ! I mean, you’re turning sixteen ! That’s surely cause for upping the ante a bit. Did you want a theme? We could do a theme ! How do you feel about an ‘everyone dresses like Helga Hufflepuff’ party? If done right, it could be hilarious and tasteful!” Eric begins rambling at 300 kilometres per minute, stacking ideas on top of each other like a giant pile of old laundry. So far, Teddy has only been able to make out the words streamers, fire whiskey, and braid crowns. Why does he already feel like this is a mistake?
Victoire jumps up suddenly, completely ignoring the exasperated sigh coming from her boyfriend in favour of joining Eric in his bizarre campaign for various party themes. How she is able to keep up with his excited babbling, Teddy couldn’t say, but the concept of her being there for his birthday makes him already feel more excited about it.
To hell with it, stipulations could wait until later. Everyone’s already far too animated to focus on them at the moment anyways. When even Colin started to butt in, he knew it was hopeless to try to get them back down to talk about something rational. Book laid forgotten on his bed, he looks more excited then the rest of them put together. Teddy could only imagine the absolutely ridiculous things he would want to have, and his birthday was last week.
While they continue tossing out themes, Teddy lies back down in bed, letting his friends’ voices turn to white noise. He closes his eyes and decidedly accepts defeat on trying to help with planning. They can do whatever they want for his birthday, but for now, a pre-dinner nap never killed anyone.