The World Has Turned and Left Me Here

The next few days passed by in something of a blur. James and Teddy seemed to be in sync the whole time, alternating back and forth between actually forgetting their problems for a while and happily spending time together, and then being painfully aware of their problems but abiding by an unspoken agreement not to acknowledge that fact and awkwardly carrying on as though there was nothing wrong. Teddy had to admit, even the latter was probably still preferable to actually dealing with the problem, which did rear its head every now and then, mostly when James was talking about his work and how well things were going. A subject that was hard to avoid, since it was the whole reason they were both there in the first place.

By the time James was seeing Teddy off at the international portkey office, it was painfully apparent to both of them that they couldn’t go on like this indefinitely, but with neither of them having any suggestions as to what to do about it, all they could really do was defer everything until they would meet again at Christmas in about six week’s time. Teddy was still none the wiser as to what would happen then, because as far as he could gather nothing would really have changed. But what else could they do? At this point, Teddy figured he was just going to have to make it through to February, by any means necessary, and hope to god that James would just come home and put a stop to all of this madness then. But even in that best-case scenario, he had no idea what all of this meant for their relationship going forward.

Luke knew something was wrong, obviously, but Teddy was refusing to tell him anything about it, acting like he didn’t know what Luke was getting at whenever he started questioning Teddy. He knew that this was stupid and childish, and Luke being Luke might already know everything anyway, there was little point in trying to hide anything from him. He was almost certainly in contact with James, anyway, who would have given his side of the story. It was potentially even on his orders that Luke was now acting, keeping an annoyingly close eye on Teddy while he tried to pull himself together and go about his business.

Teddy had barely spoken to James at all since he’d been back. James apparently hadn’t followed through on his assertion that he would call more often, and now he’d pretty much stopped texting as well. Teddy couldn’t say he was really bothered by this at the moment - the one phone call they had had in the fortnight or so since Teddy had returned had been stilted and uncomfortable, the both of them painfully aware of the rift between them but neither willing to address it. Teddy for one had nothing else to say on the matter, and he could only assume it was the same on James’s end.

Teddy was dealing with his emotional pain the only way he really knew how, which was to bury himself under a mountain of work, making himself so busy that he didn’t have the time to think about what a mess his personal life currently was. It was perhaps quite fortunate for him then, that the case seemed to be approaching critical mass. Harry had indeed sent a courier for the mimic in New Zealand, which was now being carefully dismantled in the UK ministry’s evidence lab - but it seemed that they hadn’t really learned anything useful from it. Harry had told Teddy that it was being treated as somewhat low priority at the moment anyway, given the other developments they had made in Teddy’s absence.

On his first day back at work, Teddy had barely started sifting through the tall stack of papers in his in-tray when Harry had appeared in his office, looking rather pleased and telling Teddy to drop whatever he was doing and come with him. He had taken Teddy straight to the portal, where Draco was waiting for them both, and had shown him that they could now apparently pass an exercise ball through it, completely unscathed. Teddy was incredibly surprised at this progress, but Draco had explained that getting the door to open in the first place was the hard part. Once you had broken the first barrier, the successive ones were much easier to get through.

They were now proceeding with tests of sending organic matter through. This was more complex, for reasons that Draco had tried to explain, but that Teddy wasn’t quite sure he fully grasped. It was something to do with rearrangement of the physical structure of something during transportation, and when this went wrong, it was something akin to splinching. That was what it looked like anyway, when they sent an apple through and it came back with half of its skin missing. Teddy certainly didn’t want that to happen to himself or to Harry.

This problem also had a somewhat more complex solution. They were trying a number of patch-like repairs on the transportation spell itself, combined with protective spells on the fruit they were sending through, and so far were getting very mixed results. Teddy could tell that Harry was getting frustrated at being so close but not quite there yet. Draco, on the other hand, seemed quite engaged with the intellectual challenge that this puzzle presented, perhaps inappropriately so, at times. Teddy himself was caught somewhere in between the two, eager to catch the perp and finally close this case, but at the same time able to appreciate the intricacy of the problem, and looking forward to how satisfying it would be to find a workable solution.

Teddy was dividing his time mostly between the auror library, where he was researching possible ways to repair the transportation spell, and the actual portal itself, trialling a number of different options alongside Harry and Draco. It had gone on like this for a couple of weeks with no real progress on either front, but Teddy was trying his best not to get disheartened by it. At the very least, they had ruled out a bunch of potential fixes that they now knew didn’t work. And all it would take was one idea on how to overcome this final hurdle. They were so close.

Today, however, Harry had summoned Teddy to his office. Teddy wasn’t entirely sure why, perhaps he just wanted to check in, it had been a while since they really talked just the two of them. But even the most casual chats with Harry were invariably enlightening and thought-provoking, so Teddy was quite looking forward to it as he made his way there.

He knocked on the door when he reached Harry’s office, waiting for his usual call out of ‘come in’ before entering. Harry was at his desk, as he normally was, and looked to be examining two small objects with great interest. When Teddy got closer and took a seat at the desk, he recognised them as two different varieties of decoy detonators.

“Hey Harry” he offered by way of greeting.

“Teddy” Harry replied with a curt nod.

“Decoys?” Teddy asked, gesturing to the items on the desk.

“Hmm, I reckon it’s our best bet for distracting the perp when we go through the portal” Harry told him. It was a simple, but effective method they had used many times before.

“I’d go with the smoke bomb” Teddy said, taking a careful look at them himself. The other one was one which emitted a loud noise. “That’ll disorientate them for longer.”

“I thought that, but it might reduce visibility for us” Harry countered. It was a good point. They had no real clue where the other end of the portal would be, but Teddy envisioned it being underground somewhere, likely with poor ventilation.

“We could put a charm on it so it sucks all the smoke back in after a set amount of time” Teddy shrugged. Harry looked rather impressed by this suggestion, and Teddy chuckled lightly.

“That’s one of James’s tricks, actually” he told him. “Useful for distracting a teacher without them realising what you’ve done.”

“He’s so much like his uncles it frightens me sometimes” Harry said thoughtfully with a wry smile. “If only we could harness that ingenuity into something productive.”

“He’s plenty productive these days” Teddy countered reasonably, although he did somewhat agree with the overall sentiment. James had a truly brilliant mind when he decided to put it to good use, but he generally only did so for mischief.

“I got a letter from him yesterday, actually” Harry went on conversationally. “Seems like he’s doing well out there.”

“He is” Teddy smiled, hoping that it looked genuine, and he was doing a decent job of hiding quite how much he currently resented that fact.

“He also seemed a little worried about you” Harry added, clearly trying to keep his tone light and off-hand, but he wasn’t nearly as good at that as James was. Teddy’s good mood evaporated immediately.

“That’s not why you called me over here, is it?” Teddy frowned.

“No, it’s not” Harry replied calmly, and Teddy couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. “But while we’re here…”

“What did he say?” Teddy scowled. He couldn’t believe that James was dragging Harry into this now. Christ, talk about low blows.

“He thinks you might be lonely, with him being away” Harry replied, his eyes now full of something like fatherly concern. Well, at least James hadn’t given him the gritty details, but it was still extremely embarrassing. Teddy refrained from swearing, with a great amount of difficulty.

“Fffff… am I really so pathetic?” Teddy demanded irritably.

“You’re not pathetic” Harry told him kindly. “He just cares about you, that’s all.”

Does he? Teddy’s brain supplied petulantly, and he had to press his lips together to prevent himself form actually saying it. He really didn’t want to talk about this at all right now, and he REALLY didn’t want to talk about this with Harry.

“Harry” Teddy implored him, pressing his fingers into his forehead, as though it were possible to physically push the stress out somehow. “I know you mean well, but… I don’t know what he’s thinking trying to pull you into this. Can we just… can we NOT. Please?”

“Believe me, it’s weird for me too, to be talking to you as my son’s boyfriend” Harry said, with a bit of a grimace that did make Teddy feel ever so slightly better. “But you’re also my godson. It’s my job to make sure you’re alright.”

“I’m fine” Teddy insisted, knowing that wasn’t remotely true, but he sure as hell didn’t want Harry to know that.

“Are you?” Harry pressed him, studying him carefully. Teddy retracted his hand from his head, figuring that probably wasn’t helping his case.

“I’m fine” Teddy told him earnestly, his tone as even as he could make it. “I’m a little lonely. Wouldn’t you be, if Ginny moved away for six months?”

“Yes, I suppose I would” Harry conceded.

“I’m fine” Teddy said again, wondering if he said it enough times would it actually start to make him feel better. “I’ve got my friends. I’ve got a standing invitation for dinner with you and Ginny” Teddy nodded to Harry, who smirked. “I’ve got regular phone calls with James. And he’s coming home for Christmas, isn’t he?” Christmas was now only about a month away, and Teddy was both looking forward to and dreading it in equal measures. But Harry didn’t need to know that.

“The two of you are both coming to ours, right?” Harry asked, suddenly looking rather worried that might not be the case. Teddy laughed.

“Where else would I be?” Teddy put to him. “Grandma’s coming too, right?”

“Of course” Harry smiled. When Teddy was much younger, he and his grandmother had generally done Christmas day just the two of them, playing with Teddy’s new toys and listening to the festive specials on the radio. But once Harry’s kids were all old enough that Harry and Ginny didn’t have their hands full looking after toddlers, they had both Teddy and Andromeda over every year. Teddy knew that Harry liked nothing more than when his kitchen table was so full of people that they barely had the elbow room to cut their food, and Teddy was quite fond of the large family gatherings himself.

“I just wanted to make sure” Harry added. “I didn’t know if you might have plans with your friend Luke.”

“Oh shit” Teddy let slip before he could stop himself. Harry shot him a slightly unimpressed look, but it was more habit than anything else at this point. Teddy was nearly thirty, after all, time had long since passed where anyone could really tell him off for swearing.

“I haven’t even asked him what he’s doing” Teddy admitted, internally kicking himself for this massive oversight. Luke probably had no plans whatsoever. He sure as shit wasn’t going to go to his Aunt Maria’s. Teddy suddenly felt terrible, for not even thinking about this. He was NOT being a very good friend lately.

“Could I invite him to ours, maybe?” Teddy asked Harry a little helplessly. “He doesn’t really have any family now. I don’t think he’ll have anywhere to go.”

“Of course you can” Harry replied warmly. “The more the merrier.” Teddy was quite sure that he meant that too, but his guilt was by no means assuaged. Maybe it would only make Luke feel even worse, being thrust into a happy family gathering that was practically a TV holiday special itself.

“I’ll talk to him” Teddy frowned pensively, resolving to do that as soon as he got home this evening.

“Let him know he’s more than welcome” Harry offered, and Teddy nodded vaguely.

“Yeah, I will” he replied, still thinking about what a selfish dick he’d been not to have thought of it himself.

“Anyway” Harry said, cutting through Teddy’s brooding and bringing him back to the present. “Shall we discuss the arrest?”

“You’re starting to frame out the logistics?” Teddy asked in response. It was a bit of a pointless question, that was clearly exactly what Harry was doing, if he was sizing up decoy detonators.

“I think it’s about time” Harry told him. “We’re very close on the portal now, so we need to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

“Have you already got a plan outlined, or did you want to brainstorm?” Teddy asked him.

“I’ve got some ideas, but I want your input” Harry replied calmly, and Teddy felt a small surge of pride.

“Alright, tell me your ideas” he smiled, feeling slightly more like himself again.

-

“Shhh, we don’t want that prefect to come back” James hissed at Teddy, in the process making much more noise than Teddy was himself as he pulled a large paper bag full of flobberworms out of his backpack, the paper rustling and crinkling in the silent corridor. They were kneeling on the floor at the end of the long corridor on the first floor, just underneath the window that looked out over the top of the great hall. The enchantment on the roof of the hall was only one-way, so from their perspective it was just a slate-tiled roof, the insides hidden, but if Teddy had his orientations correct they were currently situated at the Ravenclaw table end. The Halloween feast was about to start at any moment, and a prefect had just come by and asked them why they weren’t in the great hall themselves. Teddy had brushed her off, saying that they were on their way but one of them had dropped a quill and they were looking for it. A stupid lie, made even more stupid when James had piled on, insisting that the quill was a family heirloom, passed down through generations, and they just had to find it or his great grandfather would kill him. The fact that he rather famously didn’t have any living great-grandparents apparently hadn’t occurred to him. The prefect clearly didn’t believe a word of it, but she couldn’t be bothered fighting Teddy on it. He was head boy after all, and could literally order her to leave them alone if he wanted to. Still, the fact that she had seen them here meant that there was no chance in hell Teddy was going to get away with this one. Not that that would stop him from doing it.

James’s face was alight with youthful mischief, and it was all Teddy could do not to burst out laughing at that alone. Teddy knew he should really know better than this, he was seventeen now, technically an adult, in the eyes of the law at the very least. But something about James just made him want to be irresponsible. And he had to admit, this was one of their better prank ideas. That stupid Ravenclaw who kept beating Teddy in the mock exams was going to get a flobberworm shower – that would wipe the smug smile right off his face.

“Here, hold this” Teddy said quietly, handing the vaguely wiggling bag over to James, who peered inside it curiously. “You remember that multiplying spell I taught you?” Teddy asked him, and James nodded excitedly

“I’ve been practising” he said proudly, and Teddy snickered. James started shushing him again, looking around to make sure there was no-one else around. This was a big part of why carrying out pranks with James was so fun, if Teddy was honest about it. It was all so fresh and exciting to him. The thrill of doing something wrong. The excitement of narrowly evading being caught. Teddy, for his part, was quite sure they would be caught one way or another, and was fully prepared to face the consequences, which would probably be minor.

They heard the faint sound of applause coming from the great hall down below, and Teddy grinned.

“It’s time” he said to James, his voice low. He caught James’s eye for just long enough to note the faintest hint of fear there, holding back another laugh before turning to the floor. Eventually James would grow out of the actual fear of punishment, much like Teddy had himself, but for now he was a wide-eyed first year, probably still worried about losing house points.

Teddy slowly traced his wand in a small circle, muttering a string of memorised incantations. He’d been itching to use this spell for something since learning it in his advanced charms class, he just hadn’t figured out what until James told him that the potions supply had a fresh stock of live flobberworms (Teddy wondered vaguely whether he ought to ask James how exactly he knew that, but decided upon reflection it was probably best if he didn’t know).

Teddy concentrated hard on holding the faintly glowing ring he’d created, extruding it into a tube, which cut seamlessly through the floor at an angle, passing through the wall further down. It now looked something like a narrow tube slide, the sides of it made up of pure light, and the end of it revealing an array of floating candles, which Teddy knew were hovering high above the tables in the great hall.

He cast a quick sidelong glance at James, who was looking awestruck, and had to supress another laugh. James was also still young enough that complex magic was still something amazing to him. Teddy amused himself, looking at the reflection of the glowing tube of light in James’s wide, brown eyes for a moment or two, before turning back to it himself, peering through it, trying to discern exactly where the end of it was positioned. They really should get a move on, someone was bound to notice it sooner or later.

Once he had angled the tube so that he was quite sure it was directly over the Ravenclaw table, Teddy turned back to James, who appeared to have forgotten what he was there for, watching Teddy in wonderment.

“Jamie” Teddy whispered to him, nodding down to the bag in his hands. James seemed to come to his senses, grinning wickedly and lifting the bag up to the end of the tube, tilting it so the contents were almost spilling out.

“You got it?” Teddy asked him, and James nodded, clearly trying to look brave but his expression betraying the obvious trepidation he felt.

“You’ve got it” Teddy said again, this time framing it as encouragement. James smiled once more before lifting his wand to the end of the bag.

“Geminio” he said rather shakily, as he lifted the end of the bag and started pouring the worms down the tube. It wasn’t as effective as it would have been were it Teddy casting the spell, but it was good enough. The worms multiplied in number as they slid down the tube, a steady stream of them falling onto the now squealing and screaming students below. Teddy struggled to hold the tunnel steady as he started laughing, James joining in as he tilted the bag up further and repeated the spell, throwing another batch down on the Ravenclaws below.

The sound of benches scraping along the floor, and things being knocked over and onto the floor were added to the sounds of general ruckus coming back up through the tube, which only made Teddy laugh even louder, no longer even bothering to try and keep quiet. James was laughing brightly as he emptied the last of the bag down the tube, shaking it to make sure every last flobberworm went down. Teddy watched the last few stragglers drop down before pulling up his own wand, letting the tube slowly fade away into nothingness. Just before it disappeared, he heard Headmistress McGonagall’s voice coming through it, sounding furious.

“EDWARD LUPIN!” she yelled, and Teddy cracked up even more. She must be really mad, if she was using his proper name. James however stopped laughing and looked rather alarmed, turning to Teddy with a worried expression just as the last remnants of the tube disappeared.

“Run” Teddy advised him, still grinning. James didn’t need telling twice, unceremoniously dropping the paper bag and sprinting off up the stairs. Teddy laughed some more as he watched him go. There was no point in him doing the same, if McGonagall already knew it was him that must mean that prefect had already dobbed him in. He may as well just wait here and accept his fate.

One thing he would say for old Prof McGonagall was that she was spry for her age. It took her almost no time at all to come thundering up the stairs and towards Teddy, where he was still sat on the floor, laughing to himself. She, however, didn’t look as though she found it remotely funny, and strode towards him purposefully, her expression fierce. Teddy knew logically that he wouldn’t receive more than a couple of weeks detention for this, at the absolute most. No-one had been hurt or anything. But even so, she was such an imposing figure that he felt himself shrink back against the wall slightly as she approached.

“WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, LUPIN?” she yelled at him.

“Sorry, professor” Teddy muttered, his voice slurred as he sat bolt upright, his brain caught somewhere between the sleeping and waking world. It took him a moment to realise that he had been dreaming, and that he was in fact not still at Hogwarts, dropping flobberworms onto the Ravenclaw table, and that he was an adult now, sleeping on his friend’s sofa in a flat in Stratford.

Teddy blinked dazedly as his eyes focused on the room around him. It was still the middle of the night, apparently. His eyes were accustomed to the darkness, so he could just about make out all of the furniture in the room from the small amount of light leaking through the curtains, outside of which Teddy knew there to be a streetlight just beyond the window. His heart was beating rather fast with the intensity of where that dream had left off, but it was starting to slow down now that he knew that Minerva McGonagall couldn’t possibly be coming to shout at him and give him detention. Teddy huffed a quiet laugh as he slouched down and rubbed his eyes.

The dream had been so vivid. He hadn’t thought about that prank in years, it hadn’t been a particularly memorable one in the grand scheme of things. He had been right about the anticipated punishment as well, two weeks of detention, that was all he’d gotten. Plus a stern talking to about setting an example as head boy, but that had been an almost weekly occurrence in his final year. He wondered why on earth his brain had pulled this one in particular out of the memory box.

“Borehole charm” Teddy gasped, dropping his hands from his eyes and staring into space. He hadn’t cleared his throat since waking, so the words came out as a hoarse crackle, but it didn’t matter, there was nobody around to hear it. That was why his brain had dug up this particular memory. Because Teddy had spent weeks poring over possible ways to safely pass through a virtual tube, travelling through magical space. But he already knew a perfect way to do that. Professor Flitwick had taught it to him at the age of seventeen.

“Fuck” Teddy breathed, putting both hands over his mouth while he ran over it in his mind. He’d never used the spell before for what they would need to do with it now, he’d only ever used it to transport objects through physical space. But that didn’t matter, the charm worked by creating a localised tunnel, allowing safe passage through whatever physical barriers were present. Teddy didn’t see any reason why you couldn’t open one up inside a magical portal.

He looked down at his watch, squinting through the dim light and holding it up close to his eyes to read the time. Not actually quite so middle-of-the-night as he had thought, it was five in the morning. But of course, it was winter now, so it would be pitch black outside until late morning. Teddy careless tossed the covers over him to one side, scrambling up off the sofa. He needed to get to the auror library.

He got dressed as quietly as he could, so as not to wake Luke up, but there was nothing he could do about the roar of the fire as he flooed into the ministry atrium. He could only hope that Luke would have slept through it. There was nothing to be done about it now anyway, so Teddy put the matter out of his mind as he strode across the eerily empty and quiet atrium towards the reception desk. It was out of hours, so he had to sign in before going any further, flashing his ministry pass at the rather bored looking receptionist.

Teddy then made his way down to the auror office, leaning lazily back against the wall of the lift as it descended. His brain was alive with theories and possibilities, but his body was tired. He got through the security corridor without incident, and made a beeline straight for the kitchen once he was in the office. He hadn’t wanted to wake Luke up by using the coffee maker at his flat, so the terrible office coffee would have to do, needs must. The office was relatively deserted at this time, but it wasn’t completely empty. The night shift workers consisted mostly of local enforcement aurors, who picked up misdemeanours that happened outside normal working hours. Teddy knew a couple of them in passing, and said hello to a few confused looking people that he passed in the corridor en route to the library, who asked him what on earth he was doing here at this time in the morning.

“Chasing down a lead” Teddy told each one in turn, too tired at the moment to think of any more elaborate response than that. He was quite relieved when he finally made it to the library to find it completely empty – not that he had expected there to be anyone in here at this time. Still, it was good to have free run of the place. He went straight to the charms section, placing his coffee down on the floor and selecting a few books that looked like they might have what he was looking for. He perused them right there on the floor, sitting cross legged and going through each of the books in turn. Many of the books referenced other works, which Teddy also took the time to study while he was here. That was why he hadn’t bothered to take the books over to a desk, knowing he’d just be constantly going back and forth if he did.

Often when Teddy was working, he got into this deeply focused zone, where he was able to shut out everything around him and concentrate completely on whatever he was doing. He’d been doing that since back at school, this ability being largely what enabled him to achieve such high grades. It was also incredible useful for making good progress at work. The slight downside to it however, if there was one, was that hours could pass by without Teddy even noticing. He probably hadn’t even looked up from the books (apart from to pull another one down off the shelf) in at least a couple of hours, when he was startled by a loud voice calling to him from behind.

“Teddy, there you are!” It was Harry’s voice, sounding rather surprised. “Leo said you were in here” he added, as Teddy twisted around to see him walking towards where Teddy was sat. By this point no less than half of the charms section books were lying open on the floor, spread around him in a semi-circle. Teddy blinked a little confusedly, it taking him a minute to pull his brain out of the focused zone it had been in. He had no idea who the hell ‘Leo’ was.

“I came in early to look into something” Teddy explained, his voice coming out still rather hoarse, since he hadn’t really spoken much to anyone since hauling himself out of bed, whenever the hell that had been. He looked down at his watch, and was both surprised and not-at-all surprised to see that it was now nearing eight o’clock in the morning.

“I can see that” Harry replied, looking mildly amused. Teddy looked back at all the books surrounding him, and realised he probably looked like a crazy person.

“I think I might have cracked it” Teddy told him, making efforts to get to his feet, but his legs had both fallen asleep. Harry reached out a hand to help him up.

“Cracked what? The case?” Harry asked him as Teddy scrambled to his feet.

“The portal” Teddy told him, shifting his weight from one foot to the other once he was upright, trying to get the blood circulating properly through his legs again. “I think I know how we can get through.”

“How?” Harry asked, his face falling into a much more serious expression.

“Borehole charm” Teddy told him simply. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner, it just came to me. In a dream, actually” Teddy huffed a breathless laugh at that. Perhaps he would share the details of said dream with Harry once they had gotten the serious stuff out of the way.

“I didn’t know if we’d be able to open one up inside the portal” Teddy went on. “That’s what I’ve been reading up on. I mean, I don’t see why not, but I wanted to know if there’s precedent.”

“And is there?” Harry asked, his eyes raking over the books on the floor.

“Some, not a lot” Teddy told him. “Enough to go on, I think.”

“Teddy, that’s fantastic” Harry said enthusiastically, looking extremely pleased by this news. Teddy smiled a little bashfully. “Borehole charm…” he added thoughtfully. “I’m not familiar with it.”

“Never took advanced charms?” Teddy asked him, a little surprised by that.

“Never did my final NEWT year” Harry reminded him.

“Right” Teddy replied vaguely. He often had to remind himself that Harry had been fighting a war at the age of seventeen.

“Well it’s not really for transportation, it was developed for investigative works, in the mining industry” Teddy explained. He had been doing a LOT of reading. “But it should work for what we want it to do. It creates a tunnel.”

“You want to create a tunnel inside the portal?” Harry asked, frowning.

“Yeah, why not?” Teddy put to him. “The problem is with the magical reconfiguration of whatever is trying to go through the portal, right? So let’s cut out that step altogether and build a tunnel, so we can just walk through.”

“Teddy, that’s…” Harry looked genuinely floored by this for a moment, running hand through his hair. “That’s brilliant.”

“I thought so” Teddy smirked. Harry smiled widely at him.

“We need to get Malfoy in here, right now” Harry said, business-like. “I’ll go and see if I can get hold of him, you bring whatever books we need to my office” he instructed Teddy, who nodded.

“Alright” Teddy grinned. “Let’s close this case.”

-

Draco, as it had turned out, was not quite as enthused as Teddy and Harry about the idea of using the borehole charm, and seemed rather sceptical that it would work. He had, however, come in straight away at Harry’s request, and was now working with Teddy to figure out how best to go about what he was proposing. In order to cast the borehole charm through the portal, Teddy would first need to enter it, which in its current state was still a rather dangerous thing to do. On his part, Teddy didn’t really see any way around this, and he thought that they would just have to deal with the risk. He had also worked with Harry for long enough to be able to tell that he knew this too, but he was doing his due diligence anyway in exploring all alternative options first.

“Look, whichever way we look at it, some part of me is going into the portal” Teddy said, repeating himself for what felt like the thousandth time. At this point, they were just going around in circles, and Teddy was getting rather desperate for Harry to just make the call already so they could get on with it. He was sat back in a chair at Harry’s desk, his third cup of coffee in hand, with Draco next to him, while Harry paced up and down his office.

“Yes, but it will probably be less dangerous for you to stick your arm in than your head” Harry reasoned, and Draco interjected with a noise of scepticism.

“I would think it would be significantly more dangerous to go blindly poking around in there” Draco put to him, frowning. “At the very least you need to see what you’re doing.” Harry looked somewhat unimpressed at Draco disagreeing with him, but said nothing to counter this. Teddy thought it was a pretty good point.

“So probably most of my upper body is going in there” Teddy said wearily. This was exactly where they had started the discussion.

“And if the portal closes on you, then what?” Harry scowled. “It’ll rip you in half.”

“If it starts to close, I’ll get the hell out of there” Teddy told him. It wasn’t a particularly good plan, but they’d been at this for some time now and hadn’t come up with anything better.

“I don’t like this” Harry frowned, and Teddy could practically see the cogs in his head whirring, looking for a better solution.

“If all else fails, the two of you can pull me back out” Teddy told him, trying to sound confident in this plan, despite his own misgivings about it. “You’ll be holding onto me anyway.”

“I don’t like that either” Harry replied darkly, and Teddy sighed. They had already been over this, as well.

“There’s no way around it” Teddy shrugged, but his voice was firm. “If we disable the transporter the portal is useless, but as long as it’s active it’s going to try and pull me through.”

“The transportation component of the spell has been greatly weakened, as we know” Draco chimed in. “It should be feasible for us to prevent Teddy from being pulled through.”

“I’m not worried about us holding onto him, I’m worried about us pulling him back out through a tube of broken glass” Harry shot back at Draco rather irritably.

“Well, I have nothing to suggest on that front” Draco stiffly, looking a bit annoyed by Harry’s tone. “Unless you want to wait until I’ve repaired the portal more effectively.”

“The whole point of this plan is that we don’t need to repair the portal” Teddy raised, although he may as well have been talking to a brick wall by this point. He could see Harry’s frustration visibly growing.

“We can’t just keep waiting” Harry frowned, staring straight ahead of him. He looked like he was thinking aloud more than he was talking to Draco and Teddy. “Not if this could work…” He stopped in his tracks, looking to Draco.

“How much longer are we talking, for the portal to be useable?” he asked plainly. Draco frowned at the question. It certainly wasn’t the first time Harry had asked it, it wasn’t even the first time today that Harry had asked it, but Teddy knew the answer to it wasn’t very straightforward, and he empathised with Draco as he sighed before replying.

“What level of risk is acceptable to you?” Draco drawled, sounding like he was (justifiably, in Teddy’s opinion) sick of explaining this. Harry looked even more annoyed.

“What level of risk was acceptable to you?” Harry retorted. “You’re the expert on vanishing cabinets here.”

“I never claimed to be an expert” Draco replied defensively. “And that was completely different, the vanishing spell wasn’t nearly as damaged as this one is. AND we knew where the other end of it was. It was much less complicated.”

“I’m not asking you how you fixed that one” Harry shot back. “I’m asking you how far away we are from a similar fix here?”

“That one wasn’t nearly as ‘fixed’ as you seem to think” Draco frowned, and Teddy truly had no idea what they were talking about anymore. “Everyone who went through it had to force their way through with dark magic, and even then, there were some minor injuries” Draco went on.

“So you never properly fixed it, is that what you’re telling me?” Harry asked him incredulously, looking outraged.

“I was sixteen years old, Harry, what do you think?” Draco replied heatedly. “Did you have the expertise to fix a vanishing cabinet at sixteen? Hell, do you even have it now?”

“Careful, Malfoy” Harry said, in a low and dangerous voice that Teddy had rarely heard him use outside of interrogating suspects. “We’re not sixteen anymore.”

“Clearly” Draco replied smoothly, his tone cold. “You certainly never used to be so cautious.”

“I’m a bit less willing than you to gamble with my godson’s life” Harry replied angrily. “So excuse me if I’m taking a little bit of time to consider my options.”

“By all means then, Potter, let’s sit here and discuss it for another few hours” Draco replied irritably.

“Don’t call me that” Harry growled.

“YOU started it” Draco replied indignantly, and Teddy refrained from laughing with a great deal of difficulty.

“Gentlemen, please” he interjected loudly, and both Harry and Draco turned to him in surprise, as though they’d forgotten he was there. “Same side” Teddy told them, gesturing between the three of them. “We’re on the same side here” he re-iterated. He gave them both a minute to take a breath, and each shoot a dirty look at the other, before continuing.

“Harry, he’s right, it’s never going to be risk free” Teddy said reasonably. “So we can try it, or we can work on the portal some more. For what it’s worth, I think we should try it now, but it’s your call.”

Harry looked back and forth between Teddy and Draco for a moment or two, scowling all the while, before heaving an almighty sigh.

“You’re sure about this?” Harry aimed at Teddy in a low and serious voice.

“I can handle it, Harry” Teddy assured him, with significantly more confidence than he actually felt. He wasn’t really that sure about this at all, but he was more than willing to at least try. Harry looked far from convinced, but as he locked eyes with Teddy some sort of unspoken agreement seemed to pass between them. Teddy understood that given any choice in the matter Harry did not ever want to put Teddy in any sort of danger, but Teddy was not just his godson, he was also his colleague and partner on this case, and Harry had to let him to do his job. Handling danger had always been a part of that. Something in Harry’s expression softened just a split second before he tore his gaze away, glancing back to Draco, who was still looking rather sulky, his arms crossed.

“Alright” Harry muttered begrudgingly. “Let’s try it then. But I’m pulling you out of there if it starts looking dicey.”

Teddy nodded in agreement. That had always been a part of the plan, but he knew that Harry just needed to feel as though he was caveating his approval in some way. Draco looked as though he didn’t dare say anything about it, which Teddy thought was probably for the best.

“Alright” Teddy asserted. “Let’s do it, then.”

The three of them made their way in relative silence to the portal on the other side of the office. Teddy’s mind was whirring with all the possibilities of what might happen, as he was sure Harry’s was too. Draco still didn’t say anything, but judging by his impassive expression Teddy gathered that he still wasn’t convinced this was going to work, and was merely tagging along at Harry’s insistence. Teddy on his part didn’t see any reason it wouldn’t work, and was starting to feel a bit of nervous energy build up in him as it always did immediately before he went to apprehend a perp. This case could be closed within the hour.

When they reached the room where the portal was they took a few minutes to talk logistics, but in almost no time at all Teddy found himself with his wand raised, his upper body leant over the table and his face inside one of the halves of the trunk, where the invisible portal resided. Harry and Draco were both crouched on the floor, each one of them holding onto one of his legs, and Teddy was doing his absolute best not to laugh about that, because this was quite a serious matter, after all. But he couldn’t help himself from smirking as he imagined relaying this image to James once the case was over and he could tell him about it. However, the smirk was wiped very quickly from his face when he remembered with a horrible lurch why he was trying so hard NOT to think about James at the moment.

“Are we ready?” Teddy asked the other two in the room with him, as he forced all thoughts of his problematic relationship to the back of his mind. For the next hour (or however long this whole thing was going to take) he was Teddy Lupin the auror, and nothing else. This was going to require his sole focus.

Harry and Draco both made noises of assent, and Teddy felt Harry tighten his hold on the leg that he was clutching. Supressing a laugh about this again, Teddy pressed his wand against the spot inside the trunk that by now he was quite familiar with, and cast the barrier-breaking spell that Draco had taught him, with as much force as he dared.

Teddy was aware that Draco had made significant progress with the portal while he’d been in New Zealand, but he was still taken by surprise by quite how wide the allegorical door opened, and had to grip the edge of the desk to stop himself from being immediately pulled in. The pull was much stronger than he’d ever felt it, and even as he tried to physically resist it Teddy felt as though it was going to pull him through anyway if he hung around for much longer.

“I’m going in!” he called to Harry and Draco, unsure how clearly they could hear him over what sounded like rushing wind in his ears. A split second later, Teddy let go of the desk and gave himself over to the portal.

What followed next was series of very strange and unpleasant sensations. Being pulled into the portal felt like the downwards drop of a rollercoaster, a swooping sensation in Teddy’s stomach as he felt his upper half accelerate through magical space. He barely has time to process this however, before the pull into the portal met the resistance of Harry and Draco holding him back in the office, and Teddy felt the whiplash of this sudden loss of momentum somewhere around his abdomen in rather painful jerk, followed by an uncomfortable stretch. He could still feel Harry and Draco holding onto his legs, but he was starting to lose some sensation there, with what felt like pins and needles creeping down from his waist towards his feet. Unsure how concerned he ought to be about that, Teddy thought he’d best be quick about things.

It was dark where he was, but Teddy could see a dull glow of light in the distance, presumably at the other end of the portal. It was too far away to make out the source, but it provided just enough light that Teddy could see the sides of the tunnel he was half in. The walls looked something like obsidian - deep black but with something of a reflective quality. The surface was jagged, like roughly hewn rock, and Teddy could certainly imagine that he would be killed or gravely injured if the walls of this tunnel weren’t wide enough for him to pass through. As it was, he just barely had enough room to draw circles with his wand, which he did directly in front of his head while reciting the string of incantations that he’d been practising earlier in the library, to make sure he still knew how to do it. A glowing ring of golden light appeared, and Teddy widened it as quickly as he could without losing any of the intensity of the spell, before carefully extruding the glowing circle into a tube, just like he had all those years ago over the Ravenclaw table at school.

As the borehole tube lengthened towards the other end of the portal, Teddy felt the pull on him that was tugging him forward lessen, at the same time the pins and needles in his legs started to dissipate. Teddy was extremely pleased with this, as it could only mean that it was working. He continued to extrude the tube, whilst at the same time pulling it backwards to encapsulate himself. It was a tricky manoeuvre; even though the edges of the tube were made up of light, they were hard to the touch, and Teddy had to essentially slot the tube over himself and wiggle himself into it in order to extrude the thing backwards and into the room where his lower half still was. It took a couple of minutes of awkward repositioning, but Teddy eventually managed it, feeling the pull of the portal disappear entirely as the borehole tube reached his knees. At the same time, the roaring sound of wind in his ears disappeared, and Teddy could hear Harry and Draco again.

“Are you alright in there?” Harry’s worried voice was slightly muffled by the tube that Teddy was still in, and he still had a vice-like grip on Teddy’s shin, even though he must have felt the pull of the portal stop.

“I’m fine” Teddy assured him, his voice echoing off the sides of the tube. Teddy squirmed to try and look back towards his feet, but the tube wasn’t really wide enough to allow it. “Can you pull me out?” he called to them, unsure of how he would manage to get himself back out of there otherwise, not wanting to risk widening the tube anymore in case it got too big for the portal to sustain.

Rather ungracefully, Teddy was dragged backward out of the tube by the other two men, but he emerged with a wide grin. All the indications were that this had worked exactly as they had planned.

“Are you alright?” Harry asked again, his tone worried, as they pulled Teddy’s upper body out of the tube. A task Teddy was probably making quite difficult for them, since his focus was largely fixed on holding his wand arm firm to keep the borehole charm in place as he slid out of it onto the floor of the room back in the ministry, his legs scrambling for balance.

“I’m fine, really” Teddy assured him, keeping his wand pointed at the borehole, but turning his gaze over to Harry and Draco, who were looking rather relieved. Harry offered a hand to pull Teddy to his feet, but Teddy shook his head, kneeling instead in front of the tube he’d just come out of. It was angled downwards, so he needed to be crouched on the floor to look through it.

“I couldn’t see what was on the other end” Teddy told them, peering back through it and still seeing nothing more than that dim, distant glow of light. “We might be able to if I send the tube all the way down there, but I thought I’d best get myself out of it first.”

“You think it’s worked, then?” Draco asked from just over his shoulder, his unexpected proximity making Teddy jump, as he hadn’t noticed Draco silently crouching down next to him.

“Looks like it to me” Teddy replied, glancing up at Harry to see what he thought. Harry knelt down on Teddy’s other side to take a look for himself.

“You think that’s the other end?” Harry asked, his voice relatively quiet, since the three of them were all so close together, gathered around the end of the tube.

“Don’t see what else it would be” Teddy shrugged. Harry looked past him to Draco, apparently expecting him to weigh in, but Draco didn’t say anything and continued to examine the inside of the borehole tube and the passage beyond with great interest.

“Well, go on then” Harry told Teddy encouragingly, nodding towards the tube. “Let’s see what’s at the end.”

Teddy grinned back before focusing his full attention once again on the charm he was casting, slowly and carefully extruding the tube further towards the glowing light at the other end of the portal passage. He wasn’t consciously aware of leaning forward as he did so, but realised after a minute or so that his head was once again fully in the tube, presumably blocking Harry and Draco’s view, but neither of them had said anything, letting him work. Teddy stayed where he was, pushing the tube the last half a metre or so until the fuzzy glow of light at the end of the tunnel came into focus, and Teddy was no longer looking down a long and dark tunnel, and was instead peering through a tube of pure light into what was unmistakably a small, empty room with bare concrete walls.

He pulled his head back out of the tube and turned to Harry triumphantly. Before he had managed to get any words out, Draco’s voice broke the tense silence.

“I’ll be…” he said in a rather dazed manner, and when Teddy turned back to him he was staring down the tube with wide eyes.

“It worked?” Harry asked, leaning past Teddy to take a look for himself.

“It worked” Teddy grinned, running a hand through his hair as he huffed a small laugh. Part of him hadn’t been entirely convinced that it would.

“This is remarkable” Draco said in the same awestruck voice as he pulled back to look at Teddy. “Truly, I’ve never seen anything like it. Creating a physical passage through magical space. You could publish this.”

“We’ve got somewhat more pressing matters at the moment, Draco” Harry reminded him with a wry smile as he pulled back from the mouth of the tube as well. He clapped a hand on Teddy’s shoulder. “He’s right though, Teddy, this is outstanding work” Harry added, and Teddy grinned, feeling extremely pleased with himself.

“But” Harry went on, business-like. “First things first, we have an arrest to make.”

“You want me to stay here until you’re through the passage?” Draco asked. Harry looked like he was considering this for a moment before answering.

“Makes sense to have a spotter” he shrugged. “Although I’m not sure there’s anything you can do from this end if things did go sideways.”

“At the very least I can force the portal open again if it starts to close” Draco offered calmly, and Harry nodded.

“Alright” Harry agreed. “I’d say it’s unlikely we’ll be coming back this way, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that our perp might, so I want you to leave this room once we’re through” he added seriously.

“Understood” Draco nodded. “You’ll let me know once the arrest is done?”

“You can wait in my office for us if you like” Harry offered, to Teddy’s slight surprise. Teddy did feel that this was Draco’s case too, in a lot of ways, but he hadn’t been sure how Harry felt about that.

“I will” Draco replied, sounding rather surprised himself. “I’d like to know how it all turns out.”

“Looking forward to getting some answers myself” Teddy chimed in, and Harry gave him a wry smile before peering back into the borehole.

“Looks like an empty room” Teddy said to him, somewhat unnecessarily, since Harry could see so for himself.

“No need for decoy detonators then, you reckon?” Harry asked him by way of response.

“My guess would be that when we get into the room some sort of alarm will go off, alerting the perp that we’re there” Teddy replied. “Decoys aren’t going to help with that.

“Agreed” Harry nodded. “Disillusionment charms, then?”

“I think so” Teddy replied. “You’ll have to do mine though, this is going to start fading away the second I pull my wand up” he added, gesturing to the tube.

Harry apparently saw no need to respond to that, tapping his wand on Teddy’s head without further delay. Teddy felt the familiar but still quite unpleasant sensation of cold liquid dripping down his head and body as the charm took effect. A moment later, Harry had cast the same charm on himself, and Teddy could see nothing of him besides an almost imperceptible outline next to him.

“Alright, are you ready for this?” Harry asked, his voice serious. Teddy nodded firmly, before realising that he was virtually invisible.

“I was born ready” Teddy replied, his voice matching Harry’s tone, but a smirk on his face.

“Yeah, you were” Harry chuckled. “Move over then, I’m going in.”

“After you” Teddy replied, himself and Draco moving out of the way so Harry could climb into the tube. The air around the mouth of the tube looked blurred for a moment or two, until Harry was inside the tunnel, presumably commando-crawling his way to the other end. Teddy took a moment to enjoy that mental image, laughing quietly to himself, before making to follow him in.

“See you on the other side, Draco” Teddy offered him as he positioned himself to re-enter the tube, and Draco gave him an amused smile.

“Good luck, Teddy” he said smoothly, just as Teddy pushed himself into the tunnel.

It was very narrow, so there was nothing for it but for Teddy to slide along on his belly, pulling himself forward on his forearms. About a third of the way through, it occurred to him that if the borehole charm failed for any reason, both he and Harry would be dropped onto the jagged, rocky surface below it and would probably be gravely injured. Pushing that horrible thought to the back of his mind, Teddy gripped his wand a little tighter, and focused his gaze on the room ahead of him, trying to think of nothing else besides getting there in one piece. His traitorous brain didn’t seem to want to do that, unfortunately, and instead turned to thoughts of James, and the fact that he’d probably crawled through tons of spaces like on his treasure retrieval missions – albeit probably not with the looming danger of a magical portal collapsing in on him whilst he was inside it. He thought of James keeping himself in shape for his job by doing sit ups and press ups on the living room floor of their flat, Teddy watching him in amused incredulity. Teddy huffed irritably, lamenting the fact that he was considerably less in shape than James was, his own biceps burning with the effort of pulling himself along. Maybe he ought to do some press ups along with his boyfriend some time. Not that the opportunity was likely to come by any time soon.

Scowling at that unpleasant notion, Teddy hastily pulled his mind away from it as he neared the end of the tube. He couldn’t be distracted by thinking about James right now, he had to have his wits about him. He finally reached the end of the tube and clambered haphazardly out of it, his hands hitting the floor and holding most of his weight while he slid his legs out of the tunnel. At least this was easier than getting out of it backwards had been.

As Teddy got to his feet, he looked around the room taking in all the edges that they hadn’t been able to see from the other end of the borehole tube. There wasn’t really anything much to see, the space was completely empty, with no doors or windows and only a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, which had been the source of the dim light Teddy had seen from the other end of the tunnel. Considerably more light was coming from the borehole tube itself, which Teddy still had hold of, not wanting to let it fade away until they were sure there was another way out of here.

“Not much to go off” Teddy ventured, and he heard Harry chuckle over by one of the walls. He wasn’t very far away, so once Teddy knew where to look he identified Harry’s slightly blurry shape quite easily.

“There’s got to be another way in and out” Harry replied, and Teddy assumed he would be running his hands over the walls, looking for a hidden door of some sort. There was a minute or so of silence while Harry searched, his blurry figure moving slowly across the room.

“Got it!” Harry announced suddenly, sounding pleased.

“A door?” Teddy asked hopefully.

“Think so” Harry replied. There was another moment of silence before a door appeared in the wall, whatever concealment charm had been hiding it apparently now broken.

“Nice one” Teddy said appreciatively. He cast one last glance down the borehole tube, seeing the shadowy outline of Draco in the distance and giving him a wave that he may or may not have been able to see, before finally lowering his wand and letting the borehole charm dissipate.

The tube slowly faded away into nothingness, the room becoming steadily darker as it did so. Teddy walked over to the new door that Harry had found, standing next to Harry and waiting for instruction. Whatever was on the other side of this door was almost certainly something they were going to have to fight their way out of, and Teddy steeled himself for what was about to happen.

“Ready to press on?” Harry asked him calmly.

“Ready” Teddy confirmed, pleased that his voice came out steady. He wasn’t exactly scared, he had been in this exact situation a hundred times, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t affected by it at all. His heart was pounding uncomfortably quickly, and Teddy took a deep breath to steady himself, as Harry slowly pulled the door open.

Teddy was fully expecting there to be some kind of trap behind the door, but what he wasn’t expecting upon stepping into the next room was to walk face first into an invisible forcefield, smacking his forehead on it. He staggered backwards, one hand on his head, blinking rapidly in confusion. Harry apparently had done exactly the same thing and stumbled backwards as well, although he recovered slightly quicker than Teddy, who was still trying to clear his watering eyes when Harry called out across the room.

“I can see you there, show yourself.”

Teddy raised his wand again, standing to attention. They were clearly in a basement (why was it always basements?) – a rickety looking wooden staircase on the far side of the room led upstairs. Between that and where Harry and Teddy were trapped behind the forcefield, the room was littered with cardboard boxes and wooden crates. Teddy immediately spotted the person Harry was talking to, who was lurking in the shadows behind one particularly high stack of boxes. They were tall, whoever they were, and looked to be wearing some rather billowy deep blue robes.

“I could say the same to you, Mr Potter” a deep male voice answered. “You may as well reveal yourself, I know there’s two of you.”

“What makes you think that’s all there is?” Harry countered calmly.

“Because I’ve been listening to you for a long time through my mimic” the voice replied, sounding quite smug about it. “I know that Mr Malfoy has been helping you. You did well to bring him in, your progress sped up considerably once he was on board. But I doubt you brought him here with you. No, you’re accompanied by young Master Lupin.”

Teddy looked at Harry’s outline, raising an eyebrow that he knew Harry couldn’t see. Whether Harry looked back at him or not he couldn’t tell, but Harry continued to talk to the perp in a very casual tone, as though none of this concerned him in the slightest.

“Mr Lupin is actually the one who figured out a way for us to get here safely” Harry told the hidden figure. “Not to say that Malfoy didn’t help us, he did, but Teddy’s my right hand man. I wouldn’t underestimate him if I were you.” Teddy knew he was probably just saying this to let their perp know he wasn’t going to be able to push either of them around, but he was touched none the less. Having Harry describe him as his ‘right hand man’ was something that would make pretty much any auror’s day.

“He’s proven himself capable, certainly” the voice replied lazily. “But I must say, I found it rather vexing how quick he was to joke around whilst he was supposed to be on the job. That sort of youthful exuberance is quite irritating to someone of my age, you know.”

“It doesn’t mean I’m not serious about bringing you in” Teddy chimed in. If they were talking about him he might as well be a part of the conversation.

“Not serious enough to bother postponing your vacation, it would seem” the voice replied, and Teddy was rather taken aback. “You didn’t think I knew about that” the voice sounded pleased again, interpreting Teddy and Harry’s silence correctly.

“I did tell you, I’ve been listening for a long time” the voice went on and Teddy frowned. They really should have been more careful about how much they talked when they were in the same room as the portal.  “Prancing off to New Zealand to visit your boyfriend” the voice sneered distastefully. “Truly, I do not understand your generation. They didn’t allow that sort of thing in my day. I also won’t pretend it didn’t irritate me that the message I sent to your beau barely made an impact at all. You’ve taught your children well, Mr Potter.”

“It was you who send the mimic to James” Teddy scowled.

“You didn’t think it was coincidence, did you?” the voice replied disdainfully. “I had to keep your eyes on the goal, Mr Lupin. And if it sent a message to Mr Potter as well in the process, well, so much the better.”

“And how did that work out for you?” Teddy asked the voice coolly, and was met with a humourless laugh in response.

“Not exactly as I’d hoped, but here you are, merely one week later” the voice replied haughtily. “So it seems you got my message after all.”

“If you really have been listening, you’ll know that my son killing your mimic without breaking a sweat had nothing whatsoever to do with anything I’ve taught him” Harry interjected, his voice still very calm and collected. Teddy had to admire him for that, because he knew that the idea of a criminal using any of Harry’s children to get to him was something Harry didn’t take lightly at all, but he couldn’t let their perp know that. “Your putting it in his path made no difference one way or the other. We were always coming for you.”

“Big words, coming from a man who at this moment is standing exactly where I planned for him to be” the voice replied.

“If you’ve been listening to us for a while, you probably know what our theories are about you and why you’re doing this” Harry replied, apparently opting to ignore that statement. “Tell me, how close were we?” The perp didn’t respond immediately, clearly wrong footed by the sudden change of subject.

“You were right on most counts” the voice admitted begrudgingly, and Teddy couldn’t help himself from grinning, feeling immensely pleased with his own detective work. “With one notable exception. I don’t want to kill you, Mr Potter. I never did. But you have something I need.”

“And if I let you take it without a fuss, you’ll let me live?” Harry asked sceptically.

“I can see why you would doubt that” the voice replied. “You think you know me, Mr Potter, but I assure you, you do not. I am not a violent man. I take no pleasure in killing. I am simply not willing to surrender to an untimely death.”

“I knew someone else once who was willing to do whatever it took to achieve immortality” Harry replied, his tone turning cold. “He felt like he was entitled to it. Like the terrible things he did were just a means to an end. That no-one could argue he deserved it.”

“You’re comparing me to the dark lord?” the voice asked, sounding unimpressed. “Do you even know who I am? The things I’ve done? How many people I’ve helped?”

“I know that I don’t care” Harry replied coldly. “Because there’s nothing you can tell me you’ve done that I’ll think justifies killing all of those innocent people.”

“I never really thought I would convince you” the voice replied, sounding resigned. “but since you are here, and you have nowhere to go, you are going to hear me out anyway. I’m not the monster you think I am.”

“Is there any chance we can skip the monologue and get straight to the part where we arrest you and take you to prison for the rest of your life?” Teddy interrupted. This wasn’t his first perp who thought they had some ground breaking take on the world, and if their pursuers only heard them out they would change their minds. Never once had Teddy’s mind come even remotely close to being changed by anything a perp like this had to say.

“Oh, you won’t take me alive. Of that much I’m certain” the voice replied quite calmly. “But as I said, you have nowhere to go. So you are going to listen to me, whether you want to or not. But first, show me your faces. I want to see your reactions, when I tell you who I really am.”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” Harry offered calmly.

“That seems fair” the voice replied, sounding pleased again. A moment later, the man who the voice belonged to sashayed out from his hiding place, swishing his robes in a rather ostentatious manner that had Teddy choking back a laugh. And the man had had the audacity to take shots at Teddy for his sexuality. Teddy was far from the campest man in the room.

The perp had a face that looked quite young at first, but the longer you looked at it, the less real it seemed - like someone who had had a lot of plastic surgery. There was a moulded quality to it, that just didn’t look natural. The eyebrows were just a little bit too high, the skin around the eyes a little too tight. The chin a little too pronounced. The man’s hair was long, hanging down his back, and was pure silver in colour. All in all, he actually looked rather like an off-duty drag queen, and Teddy had to stifle another laugh as that thought occurred to him.

Harry appeared next to Teddy, having lifted his own disillusionment charm, so Teddy followed suit. He and Harry were stuck in a fairly narrow bit of space between the forcefield and the door, so there really wasn’t much point in them being invisible anyway. The perp looked them both over carefully, grinning eagerly as he studied Harry, but merely surveying Teddy impassively.

“So, we finally meet” the perp smiled widely. His teeth also looked false, unnaturally white and even. “I’ve seen you in pictures of course” he addressed Harry, before turning to Teddy. “You look exactly as I thought you would” he directed to Teddy, his tone making it clear that this was an insult.

“Funny” Teddy replied, his voice aloof. “I haven’t thought about what you’d look like at all.”

“So you say, but we both know I’ve been occupying your every thought for the past several months” the perp replied, grinning smugly.

“Well you just had a go at me for going on holiday and not giving you enough attention, so which is it?” Teddy shot back. Harry’s strategy may well be to keep his cool and not let the perp rile him up, but Teddy had no intention of taking shit from this lunatic.

“Disrespectful as ever” the perp spat back at Teddy, before apparently deciding to ignore him and talk directly to Harry instead. “Perhaps you want to know my name” he said thoughtfully. “I have several. When you’ve lived as long as I have one tends to collect a number of identities. But the one you will probably know best is Adalbert Waffling.”

Teddy reeled in this shocking revelation for a couple of second before whipping his head around to see Harry’s reaction, but he merely looked as though he was trying to recall something. Whether it was an act or not, Teddy couldn’t tell, but either way it was successful in angering the perp, who looked incensed that Harry didn’t react more strongly to this name drop.

“Adalbert Waffling!” he repeated loudly. “Author of Magical Theory! I know you have read it, Potter! It is required reading for Hogwarts students.”

“Right…” Harry said vaguely, and Teddy still didn’t know if he was doing this on purpose or not, but the effect was brilliant. The perp looked like he wanted to take down the forcefield and throttle Harry there and then. “Thought it rang a bell” Harry shrugged calmly. “I was never much of a keen student though, you see. My friend Hermione, she was the one who read the books.”

“I am one of the most influential and respected magical theoreticians of all time!” the perp declared indignantly. “My work has changed the world! All the spells in most common use today were developed off of MY theory. The very one you used to get in here today-“ he turned to Teddy, who honestly sort of sympathised with this reaction. If the man was who he said he was, it was kind of a big deal. “You think you would have been able to use a borehole charm through a magical portal if it were created from Gamp theory? NO! Only a spell built using MY theory could transcend both the magical and physical realm. MY theory is what made that possible!”

“Um… thanks?” Teddy offered, unsure of what the perp was expecting him to say. He sure as hell wasn’t about to lower his wand and tell the man that he was some sort of hero.

“You have no idea” the perp replied angrily. “No idea what I’ve done. How important it was.”

“He might not, but I have some idea” Teddy told him, gesturing to Harry. “I was a keen student, as it happens. And in other circumstances coming face to face with Adalbert Waffling might have been a great honour for me. But like Harry said, nothing you have to say is going to change our minds about the people you’ve killed.”

“You don’t understand” the perp replied, sounding disappointed. “What do you think the single biggest challenge is in the field of research? The biggest barrier to progress?”

“I assume you’re going to say that there’s not enough time” Harry replied, sounding unimpressed with this argument.

“Continuity!” the perp cried. “The average life span of a mortal human is nothing! Gone in the blink of an eye. By the time you’ve learned enough background to actually achieve anything, it’s too late. So you try and pass that knowledge on to the next generation, but so much of it is lost. No real progress can ever be made that way. But if we could extend our lifespans… just think about how much could be achieved. Look at how much I have achieved! You think I could have written Magical Theory in a single mortal lifetime?”

“I already told you, I don’t care” Harry told him flatly. “You think you’re the first person I’ve come across who thought the end justified the means? That you’re the first person who thought they could do whatever they wanted because they were changing the world? You’re not. You’re not special. And you’re not above the law.”

The perp looked momentarily wounded by this. Teddy could tell that he had really expected Harry to be impressed, and to sympathise with where he was coming from. They always did.

“Well, as I said, I didn’t expect to convince you” the perp said, eying Harry reproachfully. “But you see, here we have a problem. Because I need something from you. And if you won’t allow me to take it from you peacefully, I’m going to have to do it by force.”

“You can try” Harry replied simply, his tone striking the perfect balance between calm and threatening, almost as though he was daring the perp to do exactly that. And there was a hint of something in his expression that gave Teddy chills. Almost as though he was looking forward to seeing what would happen if the perp did indeed try to take him on. God damn, he was good at this. Teddy was in awe, and he could see it had exactly the desired effect on the perp, who faltered for a moment before replying.

“Just a couple of vials of blood, that’s all I need” the perp said, in what he clearly considered to be a reasonable tone. “There’s no need for you both to die.”

“Oh, we’re not going to” Harry replied calmly and confidently, and Teddy knew that all three of them in the room knew he was the one in control of the situation here. “And you’re not getting my blood. But just out of interest, why do you want it? Mine specifically, I mean?”

Teddy was quite interested to learn that himself, actually, and gave the perp his full attention as he looked confusedly back at Harry for a moment before speaking.

“Surely you know why” the perp said, looking rather suspicious.

“I’m not sure I do” Harry replied evenly.

“Because” the perp offered, as though it should be obvious. “Your blood contains that of the dark lord. One of the most powerful wizards in history. And one who pushed several boundaries of experimental magic. I need it for my research.”

Teddy looked back at Harry in surprise. If that was true, it was something that Harry had kept pretty well to himself.

“So this was never about mixing my blood with your own?” Harry asked, sounding a little surprised himself. “You just want to study it?”

“I told you, I’m not the monster you think I am” the perp replied. “My biggest crime is that of intellectual curiosity.”

“It definitely isn’t” Teddy interjected drily, but they both ignored him.

“Well” Harry said, with the air of someone about to deliver some mildly disappointing news, and both Teddy and the perp waited for him to go on. “I’m not sure who told you that I have Voldemort’s blood in me” he said slowly. “But I’m afraid that they were wrong. I don’t.”

“You lie!” the perp hissed.

“They got it the wrong way around” Harry went on calmly. “He took my blood, he used it to revive himself. But I never had any of his blood. Why would he have given it to me?”

The perp said nothing to that, his eyes flicking back and forth between Harry and Teddy suspiciously, as though he thought this was some sort of trick. Teddy had no idea whatsoever if Harry was telling the truth or not. If the perp was right, it was doubtful that Harry would just outright admit it, that could potentially open him up as a target to who knows how many other people who would be after his blood. But on the other hand, what Harry was saying made sense. Why would he have Voldemort’s blood?

“You can believe me or not, but it’s a fact” Harry shrugged unconcernedly. “I’m almost tempted to give you a sample, so you can see for yourself. But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to arrest you. So, how about you take down this forcefield, and we end this thing?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” the perp sneered. “I’ve invented spells the likes of which you’ve never seen, Mr Potter, but even I know that two against one isn’t a fair fight. So here’s my counter offer. I’ll take down the forcefield, if you stun your partner. You have my word I won’t harm him. Unless you force me to, of course.”

“That’s not going to happen” Harry replied immediately.

“Well I’m not taking down the forcefield until you do” the perp said firmly. “And you have no other way out of there.”

“So… we’re doing this the hard way?” Harry said, his voice passive.

“We’re doing this MY way” the perp asserted, smiling triumphantly. “We are in my house, after all.” Teddy knew that the perp thought he had the upper hand now, but he also knew that it only seemed that way because Harry wanted it to. He also knew that part of the reason Harry had kept him talking for this long was so he could assess all of their options for getting out of this, and that if Harry was now trying to make him act then that meant he had made up his mind about what he was going to do. They were now seconds away from go-time. Seconds in which Teddy had to do his best to pick up on whatever subtle clues Harry was giving him about what was about to happen. His heart was now racing.

“It’s a house, is it?” Harry asked vaguely, looking up at the ceiling above him, and Teddy understood. Just in the nick of time, it seemed, as he had probably less than about two seconds to prepare himself before Harry jabbed his wand suddenly upwards, blasting the ceiling wide open. Whilst this was happening, Teddy conjured a series of different sized wooden boxes, stacking them to form a makeshift sort of staircase, which Harry scrambled up, hastily making his way to the floor above, while fragments of wooden floorboards and general building debris rained down on them. Teddy followed him as quickly as he could, while the perp screamed in frustration, and Teddy saw him run up the staircase on the other side of the room to meet them on the ground floor of the house.

Teddy pulled himself up into what he barely had time to register as a large and empty room in what looked like an old, long abandoned building, thick cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling and black mould spotting through the aged and peeling wallpaper. He only had a split second or so to take this in before a jet of sparks flew at him and he had to roll to the side to avoid it.

Harry and the perp who said he was Adalbert Waffling (Teddy had no real sense of whether to believe that or not at the moment) were locked in a fierce duel. Harry was stood not too far from the hole he’d created in the floor in a wide stance, whipping his wand so fast that it was little more than a blur, and sending a series of different spells, half of which Teddy was sure he’d never even seen before, at their opponent. The perp was twisting gracefully to dodge and deflect the spells that Harry was firing at him with what Teddy recognised as practised ease. The deflected spells were flying in all directions, hitting the walls and leaving large charred burn marks in their wake, or smashing dents or holes in the structure, adding a lot of smoke and flying debris into the air.

The perp was clearly no amateur dueller, and managed to fire back a good number of attack spells at both Harry and Teddy in between defending himself. Visibility was rapidly reducing between the dilapidated house literally crumbling around them and the sheer number of spells flying through the air. Teddy could scarcely believe that this amount of magic was coming from only three people – and really most of the spells were coming from just two of them. Teddy felt like he was hardly contributing anything.

Teddy had for a long time admired Harry’s aptitude for defensive magic, and watching him duel had on several occasions left Teddy awestruck, but he’d never seen anything like this. Not a single one of his opponents spells came even close to touching him, his lightning-fast reflexes enabling him to block them before Teddy had even seen them coming. And the attack spells he was firing – some of them beams of light or showers of sparks with unknown intentions, some of them streams of fire, some of them swarms of swirling matter. Teddy didn’t even know how he chose which spells to fire, he clearly had so many in his repertoire.

Perhaps it was the skillset of his opponent that brought this out of him, because Teddy had certainly never seen Harry (or indeed, anyone) meet their match quite like this. Teddy was very much coming around to the idea that this man was exactly who he claimed to be, as only someone who had carefully studied magic for several decades could wield it like this. He seemed to have the ability to cast several spells at once, and to re-direct them in mid-air. The more Teddy watched, the more certain he became that Harry could not hold him off indefinitely, and that if they had any hope of bringing him down, Teddy was going to have to do something to tip the scales in their favour.

That was much easier said than done, of course, as Teddy had his hands full just defending himself. He tried more than once to move further away from Harry, make themselves a less concentrated target for their opponent, but the perp fired spells in just the right direction to herd Teddy back. And as far as attacking went, if Harry couldn’t land a single spell on the man then Teddy had no hope.

He needed to do something though. The perp deflected one of Harry’s spells into the ceiling above him, smashing a large hole in it not unlike the one in the floor immediately behind Harry and Teddy that they had come up through. There was a loud creak, accompanied by the sound of splitting wood as large chunks of debris fell down in between them, and Teddy wasn’t sure the structure would hold for much longer if they kept this up. A concern evidently shared by Harry, who managed to cry out “Ted-“ in between the spells he was firing, his voice frantic. Harry wasn’t the sort of boss to yell at people for not taking action when he hadn’t given them a specific action to take, so Teddy could only assume he had a plan in mind for Teddy to execute, but given that he could barely get a single syllable out between casting spells, Teddy was going to have to work it out for himself. And he was going to have to do it quickly.

The perp fired a forceful spell at Teddy, who just barely got his shield charm up in time. Even so, it pushed him backwards by a foot or so, and Teddy felt his left heel teeter over the edge of the huge hole in the floor behind him. In an instant, he knew what he needed to do. He had no idea if his plan was the same as Harry’s or not, but there was no time to stand around thinking about it. Without hesitation, Teddy threw himself backwards, down into the hole behind him.

He fell with a crash into the heap of wooden crates he’d conjured earlier, pain blooming out from where he’d landed sideways on his hip. Ignoring this as best as he could, Teddy set to work disabling the forcefield in front of him, scrambling towards it on his hands and knees, performing the series of counter enchantments which he hoped would bring it down. He didn’t really have a back-up plan for what to do if they didn’t.

Fortunately it seemed to be a fairly standard forcefield, the kind Teddy encountered all the time, and within a minute or so Teddy had weakened it enough to shoulder-barge his way through. There was no time to stop and congratulate himself, they weren’t out of the woods yet and Teddy could hear the battle between Harry and the perp still going on overhead. It was hard to tell from down here exactly where above him the perp would be standing, so Teddy figured he’d best cast his blasting spell in a fairly large radius. He did exactly that, blasting the ceiling open, having to jump back and shield himself with both arms to protect himself from the already weakened ceiling now fully caving in.

Debris didn’t stop falling for some time, and there was nothing Teddy could do besides crawl to a corner of the room and try not to breathe in the thick dust in the air while he waited for it to be over. He could only hope Harry had been able to get the best of their perp while all of this was happening. But either way, it was too late now.

After several minutes the noise finally stopped and Teddy delicately removed his arms from over his head, squinting through the dusty air. All he could see was a huge pile of rubble in front of him.

“Teddy, are you alright down there?” Harry’s rather worried voice called down from somewhere above, and Teddy looked up to see Harry peering over the edge of the huge hole that now covered most of the ceiling.

“I’m alright” Teddy replied, gingerly getting to his feet, the pain in his side from where he’d fallen now worse than ever. He wondered vaguely if he’d cracked a bone somewhere. “Did you get him?” he added quickly.

“I did” Harry replied, looking pleased. “Thanks to you.”

“Let’s call it a team effort” Teddy replied shrewdly, carefully climbing up the side of the pile of rubble towards Harry. He wouldn’t soon forget the duel he’d just witnessed, and Harry deserved a lot more of the credit for this arrest than Teddy did.

The rubble was piled high enough that Teddy was able to climb from the top of the mound up to the floor above where Harry was – or what was left of it, anyway. Harry extended a hand to help him, hauling him up, looking him over carefully all the while.

“I’m alright” Teddy repeated reassuringly. “Landed on my side. It hurts like hell, but there’s no major injuries, I don’t think.”

“You took one hell of a tumble back there” Harry said, unable to supress an amused smile. “I was impressed.”

“Was that what you wanted me to do?” Teddy asked, genuinely curious.

“Well I didn’t expect you to just hurl yourself down there like that” Harry laughed. “Credit for that. But that was my basic plan, yes. Get him from underneath.”

“Good” Teddy smiled. He and Harry did think along the same wavelength after all. Harry was looking down into the hole again and Teddy turned to follow his gaze, spotting their perp some distance away, half buried by rubble, unconscious and bound tightly by thick ropes. He glanced back to Harry and noted that he had two wands in his right hand.

“So let me get this straight” Teddy said incredulously. “While the floor was caving in underneath you, you disarmed him, stunned him AND bound him.”

“All in a day’s work” Harry grinned and Teddy laughed.

“You’ll never cease to amaze me” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Right back at you, son” Harry replied, with a fond smile.