RJL
Saturday, April 11th, 2014:
Teddy stomps through the snow to the beat of his own thoughts until the only thing left bouncing around in his mind is the last three letters he ever expected to see today.
RJL
He knows what they stand for, he knows whose initials they are. He’s not stupid , he knows exactly what that means.
RJL. Remus John Lupin.
He’s been accosted by that name far too many times to ever forget it, heard it in too many hushed whispers on the nights when he was supposed to be in bed asleep. The name ensnares him, cycling around in his head over and over until he forgets he’s even walking, forgets where he’s going in the first place.
He’s halfway back to the castle before he even realises that he forgot to say goodbye, completely abandoning his Gran after she came all this way to see him. He sees her sitting alone back at the pub with a glass of water still in hand, worrying herself sick over whether he’s alright. The image plants itself in the back of his head.
Guilt and dread prick at his stomach like shards of stained glass, bringing him back to the present if only enough to feel it.
He keeps the same iron-tight grip on the letter inside his pocket, his knuckles aching from the refusal to let go. He can’t risk it, can’t take the chance of it falling out or getting wet, he can’t let anything touch it before he’s alone in his dorm.
As Hogwarts begins to come into view, he realises that he’s started to walk slower. Maybe it’s because of the hill, but still he counts his steps with the rise of bile in his throat.
The path is completely empty. The rows and clumps of students that crowded it before are long gone– they must have already made it to town by now. It’s just him, and he doesn’t know how to feel about that. On one hand, he wants to lock himself in a room with the doors barred shut before he can even think of opening the letter. On the other, the air turns colder when he’s alone, no matter how big of a fire he makes.
He keeps snapping back and forth and in and out of focus on the path in front of him. It feels like the letter is consuming him, taking moments of time as payment for its torturous company until he wakes up farther along the path than he remembers. He hates how stupid it makes him feel, how incapable it makes him out to be. Yet, at the same time, he relishes in the last few moments of being able to hide it away in the darkness of his pocket. Somehow the relief makes him feel worse.
He spends the next few moments tracing the footprints that have trampled the snow beneath him, keeping himself grounded to the sound of the crunching under his feet. Thankfully, it’s enough to get him to the castle in one piece.
By the time he walks through the doors of the entrance hall, there’s nothing left to distract him. In a matter of minutes he’ll have to open the letter in his pocket and deal with the consequences of it. Consequences he never even fucking asked for. He was doing pretty well before all of this. He had made his peace with his parents as much as he could. He forgave them for fighting in the war, forgave them for everything, for the most part. Now, it’s all coming back just to slap him in the face and make it worse . He made friends without them, he found his first girlfriend without them, and now it feels like they’re back just to make him feel like a helpless kid again.
Tears fight their way to his eyes before he can even tap out the rhythm of “Helga Hufflepuff,” his knuckles dragging along on the barrels by the kitchens. The door to the common room hesitantly reveals itself to him around the blurs in his vision.
He doesn’t say hi to anyone, doesn’t answer the first year who asks him to a game of chess, he just keeps his head down and walks straight to his dorm. Though he’ll probably say sorry to them later, he can’t bring himself to speak with the sob clawing its way up his throat. He hasn’t even taken the envelope out of his pocket and yet he still feels the ghosts of the scars they’re bound to leave on his skin. They already sting.
He leans on the door of his dorm room as it closes behind him, wanting to lock it, enchant it, burn it to the ground, do anything he can so that no one can ever come through it again. The moment his back presses against the cold wood, it comes like a flood. All of the emotions of the past hour finally rise past their place in his chest, getting dangerously close to the lines of his throat no matter how hard he tries to swallow them back down. Soon enough, they’ll reach his mouth, and he won’t be able to find it in himself to stop them from spilling out in heaves and sputters. He feels it in his fingertips, tingling and pulling at his fingernails, building up and up until his hands are left buzzing. Oh fuck, oh fuck , he can’t do this, he can’t breathe with everyone on the other side of the door.
Teddy doesn’t even take his wand out, his hands instead just tighten themselves into fists. He just wants quiet , he wants iron bars and steel plates and armoured guards to keep the world outside at bay. Please, he finds himself begging, let it be quiet . The air seems to listen somehow, snapping away and leaving him in a vacuum that roars in his ears. The buzzing in his hands fizzes and he feels something click in his gut like the snapping of a twig. As the feeling settles under his skin, he hears the sounds of the common room dulling out into whispers. They stretch out into total silence within seconds, gone like they were never there in the first place. It puts a pit in his stomach, a knot holding all of the sounds he can’t bear to give energy to right now.
With the room finally quiet, his shoulders slump in relief and he sags down to the floor. All he can do now is sit in the calm before the storm.
In time, he finds it in himself to stand up again, his joints creaking from misuse as he staggers to his feet. He doesn’t bother to stretch, instead keeping the feeling of sand in his veins as he slowly steps towards his bed. It feels heavy in a way that’s almost satisfying, like a thick blanket, not quite yet warm.
He sits down on the edge of his bed with a sigh, rubbing what unease he can reach from the corners of his eyes with the heels of his palms. Finally able to get his bearings, his mind is brought back to the letter in his pocket, its weight coming back with a vengeance from its place at his hip.
He reaches for it slowly, a weak battle between curiosity and self-preservation, and pulls it out to look at it once more. It’s exactly the same as it had been an hour ago. Same seal, same handwriting, same envelope. Teddy doesn’t know what he was expecting, really. Maybe some sort of secret to be revealed the second he was alone, or a hidden message like with the Marauders’ Map. Instead, it’s just paper, not an enchantment in sight. He’s almost disappointed.
With his hands starting to shake again, he carefully drags his thumb under the lip of the envelope, letting it rest there for a moment. He takes a deep breath, consoling himself from the peripherals of his train of thought.
Teddy takes one more look at the wax of the seal, glancing over its edges and divots before it's broken. Staring at its carved initials, he wonders faintly where the stamp is now. Probably long gone, lost to the world in some heap of rubbish somewhere.
Finally pulling the seal free from the bottom of the parchment, he tries his best to keep it intact. The envelope snaps open easily, the seal lifting off without a crack. He quickly peels it off of the other half of the paper and pulls it clean from the envelope. Stretching over the expanse of his bed, he rests it on top of his bedside table. For safekeeping.
He feels a bit lighter now, a bit more ready. It sounds stupid in his head, really, but Teddy likes having the seal there, unbroken and present. It’s almost like he’s not alone, even though that’s all he wanted just a few moments ago.
He takes one more deep breath and takes out the letter, the lump in his throat swelling the moment he touches it. His hands are still shaking as he unfolds the parchment. He wonders if he’ll even be able to read it with the way he’s trembling, his body rejecting every inch of the letter in front of him. With a hard swallow and the slight dig of a fingernail into his thumb, he focuses his scattered vision enough to read the ink-blotted handwriting of his sixteenth birthday present.
My Son,
I hope that you never have to read this. With any luck, this letter will be left forgotten for decades, serving only as a reminder of darker times. I hope that your mother and I can send our letters and gifts to you from home, our only worry being that it makes it to Hogwarts on time.
But, as I’ve regretfully found, the world is not a very lucky place. People die, people live, wars start and end with innocent people left to pick up the pieces. If that’s the world that has been chosen for us, then I’m so sorry you have to celebrate your sixteenth birthday with a letter.
I’m very sure, though, that you’ve gotten along just fine on your own. At this point, you most likely have friends that already love and adore you, even enough to throw you a birthday party (especially when you tell them not to. That’s how you know to hold onto them).
I hope that you know, even if your mother and I might not be there to celebrate with you, or if it’s just me that’s missing from the picture, that you are so very loved. Every moment of every day I will love you like breathing. Death can never change that, and I promise that it never will.
Even without me there physically, I’m sure Harry is taking plenty good care of you wherever he can. He’s an exceptionally good man, as I’m sure you know, much like his father. Next time you see him, tell him I’m thankful he sent me back to you. I haven’t regretted a single moment of getting to know you, Teddy, no matter how brief the moments have been.
If I have not been there these past sixteen years to cheer you up, dress your wounds, and help shape you into the man I know you will become, then let this help give you some of the guidance that I cannot. I hope even now I can help you make your time as a teenager as free and joyful as possible.
If there is anything that I wish I could teach you, it would be this:
First, there is no ounce of love you could feel that could ever be wrong. I spent years afraid of my own heart, and all it had done was delay the inevitable. Love wherever you can and as loud as possible. When your heart is broken, let your friends help it heal. When it is full, don’t hesitate to let it spill to whomever deserves it. There is no force more powerful, in more ways than you know.
Second, if you take after your mother and I in any regard, I’m sure it will be in stubbornness. However headstrong you are, never let it stop you from doing what’s right. And more importantly, never let it stop you from being kind.
Lastly, there’s quite the collection of secrets within Hogwarts, more than any of us can count. Learn the castle like an old friend and it will treat you the same. I spent so much time finding myself inside the alcoves and hidden treasures that lie inside those walls. Someday, I hope you do the same. Specifically, check on the one-eyed witch someday soon. Some of my best memories have been made in that tunnel. In case you get a bit lost, I’ve asked Harry to send you something to help you find your way.
There’s nothing I wouldn’t give to be there with you, but I hope that this letter helps you in the times where I can’t.
Teddy, you are so loved. Your father loves you. Your mother loves you. Be safe.
More than words,
Dad
P.S. I’ve left a piece of me along with this letter. Living without my own father, all I wanted was memories to carry with me, something to bring life to the photos. I hope that I can at least do that.
The moment he reaches the last word, his arms give out. The weight of it all: the air, the parchment, the dots of the i’s, they pull at him too much to keep fighting. He’s tired of fighting it, tired of forcing down the only thing he can seem to conjure up. With a single breath, he cuts every ribbon left strangling him together, letting each piece fall where it may.
And finally, Teddy cries. Without a goal, without purpose, he cries and sobs and yells until his head hurts. He can’t put words to what rips the sounds out of his throat, but he sits there with the comfort that no one else has to hear. It hurts to even hear himself, but he has no choice. He’s forced to listen to himself cry like his Gran used to, the hand she used to rub his back replaced by the splintered wood of the door he weighs himself to. He finds himself sitting there for what could be minutes or hours, listening to a boy who just turned sixteen cry over the parents he never knew enough to mourn in the first place.
He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he finally catches his breath, the gasps that wracked through his body simmering to shaky breaths that flow through his veins like a low tide. The tears stopped falling a while ago, like somewhere along the way he forgot he was even crying. His eyes still sting, though, burning at the edges with each deep inhale.
He brings his eyes back up to the top of the letter, bringing his arms up from their mounds of sand just enough to trace the way his father wrote the word “son”.
Teddy only realises he’s crying again when a tear comes down to stain the bottom of the parchment, a dark blot marking itself at the close. He wipes his eyes roughly on the back of his hand, going back to read it again and again and again.
He settles into himself more and more with each time that he makes it through the letter, the roaring in his ears fading out and the knot in his stomach slowly unravelling. He can breathe easier now, not knowing if he should or not.
It hurts the same way it seems to lick at wounds long left forgotten, the satisfying sting of a cut that’s already begun healing. Yet, he knows they’ll never close, no matter how many letters he reads from a man he can’t force himself to remember. He feels better and he feels worse, knowing what he knows now. Nothing has changed, and yet he feels like he doesn’t know how to carry on the same.
He neatly folds up the letter and picks up the envelope from its place on his bed, feeling its weight still hold itself against his hand. Looking inside, he finds the hard shape tucked into the bottom that he had left ignored, a dark reflection of glass staring back at him. A vial.
Taking it out, it’s cold to the touch, its cork stopper sealed in hardened wax. He puts the parchment down in his lap, rolling the vial around in both hands. It looks almost empty, the only thing inside being a sort of thread, swirling with a soft, ethereal glow against the confines of the glass.
Teddy can’t seem to figure out what it is. He spins the vial slowly, watching it languidly roll and curl into itself. It’s definitely magical, but not like anything he’s ever seen before. It almost looks like a Veela hair, like the pictures Victoire showed him as kids. He remembers her rambling on about their glowing skin and hypnotic dances, but nothing that could possibly explain why his father would want him to have a strand of their hair.
Not exactly the kind of women you’d want to make angry , he remembers her saying, their small hands running over the weathered pages of her mom’s old family photo album. They may look pretty, but the second the feathers come out and they start throwing handfuls of fire, most men run for the hills .
She always talked about the Veelas in her mom’s family with a swell of pride, her eyes bright as they left fingerprints on the dancing women in the photos.
Can you do any of that stuff? Teddy had asked excitedly. You know, with the fireballs and everything?
I wish! She replied. Sure would be helpful for dealing with boys .
With the vial still in his hands, Teddy chuckles in spite of himself. A weight in his chest seems to fade with the memory that passes through his mind, replaced by a familiar warmth that puts a soft smile on the edge of his lips. Leave it to Victoire to cheer him up even when she’s not here.
As the room seems to still around him, he feels the knot in his stomach unravel with the remnants of Victoire’s and his laughter still ringing softly in his ears. With something that seems to click back into place in his gut, the sounds of voices and footsteps build back up from outside the door, muffled but lively like they were never quiet in the first place.
Teddy gets precisely one moment of peace in this newfound calm before the door opens with an outrageous slam. Almost swinging off its own hinges, it curls around to smack against the wall as Eric comes tumbling in, falling to his knees on the floor as the inertia catches up to him.
“Fucking hell !” he gasps on his hands and knees, catching his breath as the warm lights from the common room bleed into the room.
Teddy sits at his bed, shaken from the sudden disturbance. As he watches Eric stand up and brush himself off, the other boy looks up to see him with the vial still in his hands, his grip tightening around it protectively.
“What spell did you put on that door? I swear I was about to resort to exploding charms to try and get the damn thing to open! Did you not hear me knocking on the other side?” He chuckles, walking over to his side of the room. Unwinding his scarf from around his neck, he begins to take off his coat and snow-dusted boots at the edge of his bed.
Teddy sniffs quietly in response and tries to pull the last of himself together, hoping the redness around his eyes will go unnoticed. “Yeah, sorry mate. I don’t really know what happened with the door, to be honest.”
His thoughts curl around the memory of the pit in his stomach, the buzzing under his fingernails. Did he charm the door without even realising? In the moment, he was just grateful for the quiet. Now, it’s quickly becoming yet another thing he’s left to decipher today.
“Well, bloody good job with that one, first of all. But what could possibly have made you want to lock it down in the first place? There is such a thing as a sock on the door, you know.” Eric smiles at Teddy teasingly, his cheeks still splotched with red from the cold.
All of a sudden, Eric’s smile drops, quickly replacing itself with a worried crease in his eyebrows. He looks at Teddy with a question in his eyes, staring intently as he studies his friend from across the room. He takes his wand out of the pocket of his jumper, flicking it wordlessly towards the door. It immediately pulls itself shut, closing with a quiet creak of its hinges.
Eric begins to walk over to Teddy’s side of the room, his wand left on top of his pillow.
“Teddy, are you alright? Did something happen?” There’s genuine concern in his voice as he comes up to sit beside Teddy on the bed.
Teddy supposes he’s not as subtle as he’d hoped.
The letter sits on his other side, obscured from Eric’s view. He almost wants to hide it, keep it a secret from anyone else. Some part of him is embarrassed to be this upset, to be the orphan you can’t help but pity. He doesn’t want anyone to see this side of him and forget all of the others. The thought alone makes him sick.
Yet, there’s something in the way Eric looks at him that makes him believe that might not be the case. It’s concern, not pity, that comes through the look he gives Teddy. It seems to stem from a place of worry that still somehow feels like affection. It’s comforting, even, and maybe a little bit of what Teddy needs right now.
He wipes the last of the tears from his eyes, steading himself as much as he can before he opens his mouth again. “Um…well. I got this letter.”
He already feels that lump in his throat returning. It only grows as he tries to swallow it down, shifting like it’s deciding where to go next. His eyes fall back down to the vial in his hands, its soft glow still resting against the glass.
He takes a deep breath and looks up at Eric, his eyes starting to well up again. Eric meets his gaze without hesitation, his hand coming up to rub Teddy’s back gently. He doesn’t say anything. He just waits for Teddy to speak, whenever he’s ready.
“It’s-It’s from my dad , believe it or not.” Teddy gives out a cold laugh, a tear surfacing at the mention of his father.
Realisation instantly passes over Eric’s face, his features softening as he holds Teddy’s gaze. They’ve never really talked like this before. Teddy’s never talked about his parents with any of his friends, save the drunken night or two he and Colin spent musing about perfect families and what could’ve been. It’s incredibly exposing, talking about his dad like this. He can’t decide if it’s in a good way or not.
“We don’t have to talk about it yet, if you aren’t ready,” Eric says quietly. “We could just run around the castle like dickheads or head to the room of requirement and put on some Talking Heads, if you want the distraction.” He gives Teddy a soft smile, waiting patiently for a response.
Teddy weighs the options over in his head. Did he want a distraction? He’s already here, so he might as well get all of this pitiful soul-searching out of the way now. Then again, he thinks Eric’s right. This is all coming into view so fast, he doesn’t think he’s even ready to face more of it right now. He feels fragile, like a pot two seconds from boiling over. It might be nice to put these feelings in a drawer somewhere, waiting for him to be steady enough to come back to them.
Distantly, he thinks about what his father said about Hogwarts. Learn the castle like an old friend and it will treat you the same . Maybe this could be a good compromise, listening to his advice and tucking the rest away for later. Yeah. Later sounds good right about now.
“Well, actually, there is one thing we could do, if you fancy,” Teddy starts, tossing the beginnings of an idea around in his mind.
“Yeah, of course, Ted. Whatever you want.”
He leans over to his bedside table, taking one last look at the wax seal resting on top before pulling out the first drawer. Inside are just a few odds and ends, nothing of significance at first glance. Just some extra quills, a book Colin lent him that he never got around to, and a blank, folded piece of parchment. He takes out the parchment and pushes the drawer closed, at the same time grabbing for his wand left forgotten in his pocket. Holding them both in his hands, he remembers what Harry wrote to him in a letter that feels like so long ago: I solemnly swear that I am up to no good .
“...Ever heard of the One-Eyed Witch passage?”