Teddy Lupin is many things- godbrother of James, Al and Lily, joyfriend of Fatimah, pseudo-brother of Nimah. Hufflepuff, friend of many, son of Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks, godson of Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley.
He is also twelve, a nerd, someone who likes cosplaying via metamorphagus abilities, an avid researcher of culture and someone with a sweet tooth to die for. He has had very minimal interaction with the Wizarding World before this.
Nobody knows this. To everyone else, he is Teddy Lupin, Werewolf Boy Supreme.
…
Teddy sometimes feels like he lives a…double life, of sorts. In the day, he’s bright and friendly, ignoring the sneers and talking to his godsiblings, even though he knows he’ll only get snapped at, because these are Potter children, what did he expect? He’s hurt for a moment, then he takes a deep breath, thinks of Mum’s bubblegum-pink hair, and smiles again. He’s alright. He pockets the weird-tasting lemon cake.
Day Teddy makes friends with everybody, is friends with nobody. He talks to his nowhere friends, they exchange pleasantries, someone looks away, and they part. It’s alright.
Day Teddy goes to classes, is smiled at by teachers who have come over to his Godfather’s house time and time again, talks to them, but also doesn’t, does his work, trades answer with a boy he still doesn’t know the face of, and leaves.
Day Teddy does adequately in sports, so he goes to the Quidditch Pitch, not for Quidditch, just to run laps, because in friends in Wales teased him about being slow after coming back from schools and he doesn’t want to feel that again. He keeps avoiding the jeers of the Quidditch players.
Day Teddy writes letters to his father and mother- cheery ones, with plenty of drawings and exclamation points telling them about his day and his siblings and his friends, and sends them off with a big heart on the envelope with a standard school owl.
This is where Day Teddy’s time ends.
Night Teddy takes out his phone from his trunk, suitably magic-proofed with his best friend’s help and listens to music while he works. His bunkmate is playing Exploding Snap outside, he won’t care. Teddy doesn’t know his name.
Night Teddy waits for lights out, and another ten minutes for his bunkmate to fall asleep, before he takes his phone out again, and uses it to find the passageway under the carpet under his bed, and find the hallway to Ravenclaw.
Night Teddy stays at one side of the hatch for exactly five minutes, on the dot, taking out the wrapped cake before his best friend opens it. Fatimah crawls into the junction, little sister trailing behind her, Hijab hastily put on, though Fatimah’s own Shayla is off for the moment. it usually is, unless she’s in class or mosque. Nimah is a bit more particular about these things.
Night Teddy laughs about dumb things with his best friend Fatimah, and her little sister Nimah, and pats their back as they suffer through Night Classes (Notice the capital letters?). He’s taught himself the art of Pepper-Up Potion and letting his friends sleep on the weekends for good reason, after all.
Night Teddy cries about the bad rumours with his best friends, and Fatimah holds his hand and guides him through the night. It’s a full moon. His Dad will be curled up in his study today, while he cried about school and eats subpar lemon cake. It must feel so unpleasant- nothing he’s feeling can possibly add up to that, ever. His Dad has it so much worse—
Fatimah slaps Teddy’s hand, telling him to shut up, that his feelings are allowed to exist, that he can feel bad. Of course, with notably more cursing.
Nimah doesn’t say anything, but the next day, there’s a bracelet on his bed.
…
It’s two in the morning, and Teddy comes back to Gryffindor Tower absolutely drenched.
Fatimah notices (she always does) and sizes him up, cocking her eyebrow in the oh-so-typical way she does (always has).
“What happened to you?” She asks, tapping her foot like a mother in those super old American cartoons. He smiles sheepishly, because she’s not going to be happy/
“I was trying to make small talk with the Mermen. Sorry?” Fatimah pinches her nose. Screws her eyes shut., and punches him in the arm.
“Ow!”
That’s what you get, dumbass! Scaring us to death, then telling us it was because of the damn MERMEN you absolute piece of cod.”
“Cod’s gross!” Teddy whines petulantly, but only because he knows Fatimah finds it funny. She does, though she still tries to be a *disappointed parent* the best that she can. He likes that about her.
“All things aside, go take a bath.You are not about to be responsible for another mould infestation.” She says, in that faux-exhausted tone.. So he goes.
Later, they’re in the kitchens, sharing subpar lemon cake, Nimah climbing up to join them. Both of them have their hijabs off for the moment, and Teddy catches up, waving hands and cross-legged bodies in a triangle as they all sit on crates and rant ecstatically about the cool things they saw that day, because isn’t that lovely?
Day Teddy beams to anyone and everyone, waiting for the godforsaken day to end, while Night Teddy revels in the dark with his best friends In All The World, and hopes to all the powers out there that he never has to see the sunlight again, even if that power doesn’t listen.
…
It’s fourteen and it’s summer, so he’s back in Wales with his mum and dad, after the super customary, sort of stilted greeting he gave his godfather, who was clearly preoccupied with worrying about Albus to do anything.
(Even Teddy’s worried about Albus more often than not)
Dad picks him up in a hug (Dad’s hugs are the best and Fatimah can FIGHT HIM), and, even though he is fourteen and very-much-does-not-need-to-be-carried, Dad does it anyway. After leaving the platform, Mum joins them both, and takes hold of Teddy’s weight, so he looks seven and small all over again.
It’s the best.
He regales them with the adventures of Day-Teddy once again, with mentions of Night-Teddy here and there, but they still don’t know how big of a difference there really is between the two. Not until he says “Night me” for the fifth time.
“Hey, Teddy Bear, what’s the thing with ‘Night You’?” And he’s stunned into silence. They don’t know yet, that the kids have been mean, that Day Teddy is truly, a pretty fake person- The Happy Teddy who takes it all in stride, someone who doesn’t cry at night thinking about the horrible things that some kids say, how others still jerk away from him when he sits too close, even after the Werewolf Unit in Third Year.
“Nothing.” Teddy says, and they drop it, with Teddy watching what he says the rest of the while.
…
Teddy’s decided that he really, really likes talking to strangers and helping them.
He’s fifteen, and has gotten his first summer job in Diagon Alley, helping The Weasley brothers at the counter, showing the array of products that they have to customers. The smiles are worth all the idiots who clearly think that they know what they’re doing better than the staff.
Teddy meets a small girl, no older than eleven, and she’s crying, bundled up in a baby pink shawl. Nobody else seems to have noticed that she’s there, so Teddy walks up to her, puts on his kindest (maybe not his biggest, but size is not directly proportional to kindness, is it?) and crouches down, trying his best to meet the (ADORABLE! He internally screams) electric blue eyes hiding behind the curly brown hair.
“What’s wrong?” He asks, because the girl clearly looks scared of him.
She tells him that she’s scared, because she’s a Muggleborn and apparently people might tease her for it, so she wants a way to hide away.
Teddy’s heart aches for her, because he knows the whispers that follow him around everyday.
Werewolf Boy
Werewolf Boy
Werewolf Boy
He understands.
So, Teddy, takes her hand, and stands up, dusts himself off a bit, and takes her to the aisle of ‘Revenge Products’, to which it sings the song ‘Revenge party’ in a nasally voices and replaces some of the lines to better fit the theme.
“They’re some Revengeeeee Products, the products that end…”
“Why are we here?” She asks. He smiles, a bit wider, and leads her in.
“With somebody tossing their chunks!”
He crouches down again, in an attempt to meet her eyes, in front of the puking pastilles, and he tells her what Fatimah has tried to shove in his head for years now.
“In the world, there’ll be lots and lots of people who will want to make fun of you, or make you feel like you shouldn’t be here. Instead of running away, do your best to fight back.” Teddy indicates at the Skiving Snackboxes that will certainly do horrible things to the people that eat them. It takes one, two three, four moments for the implications to sink in, and the kid grins, almost maniacally, and, after checking the price tags on the racks, gives Teddy five galleons, and picks up two Snackboxes, listing Owl-Order on them. She carefully gives these to him, and then proceeds to get some invisibility powder from the next shelf and go to the checkout, motioning for him to follow.
Teddy smiles as the girl leaves, chattering with her dads about somethings, looking brighter than he’s ever seen her, and he silently prays for Filch.
And if he sneaks her some bad lemon cake and a few Puking Pastilles under the counter, then that is for him to know, and nobody else.
…
Sure enough, Madeline Carmichael is one of the quad who call themselves the next Hogwarts Legends by the time Hallowe’en comes about that very year. She looks at him after setting off Dung-bombs on her way out of the Owlrey, and gives him the biggest thumbs-up she can conjure with those pudgy hands. He does it back, and spends the rest of the day on a happy buzz which makes Fatimah squeal.
…
Teddy realises that he has a crush on his best friend when he’s sixteen, and he’s not one hundred percent sure on what to do.
Because Fatimah is amazing- snarky, cool, there for him whenever he needs it. She’s so smart, juggling wiggle school with wizard school and somehow maintaining er sanity as he slowly loses it all to the hell that was OWL’s.
(She tells him one night, while he’s hyperventilating over studying for his Potion’s OWL, that the only reason that she’s still so sane is that she’s not really bothering about the WIzarding Tests too much. She won’t stick around, anyways. It brings a spark of hope to his chest.)
But Teddy is well…Teddy. He’s a bit plain, except for the bright blue hair, and he never really uses his metamorphagus abilities till he really needs to, and he’s not very smarter and he gets upset at every little thing and—
He breathes. Fatimah would kick his ass if he tried being this self-deprecating at four in the morning, even if she’s busy with muggle finals.
Teddy gets himself together. Tomorrow, as soon as she’s done with those last finals, he’ll ask her out.
(She says yes, super yes, but according to her faith, they aren’t allowed to touch each other till they either marry or break up, and as much as that tears him and her both up from the inside, she’s one hundred percent willing to give this a shot.)
They don’t tell Nimah yet. That’ll be a trip.
…
Teddy is seventeen when his godfamily loses their damned minds when Albus and his friend Scorpius go missing.
He remembers an Albus before Hogwarts, and he thinks Scorpius is pretty nice, but overall, he doesn’t know enough to end up searching. It is, however, up to him to provide comfort.
It breaks his heart a little to see James, usually so loud and vivacious, slumped on the armchair in the Gryffindor common room, staring at nothing as if it would give him all the answers in the world. It doesn’t.
Surprisingly, it’s Nimah who does the most. She perches next to him, and stays for a while, joining his staring.
After a while, Fatimah has classes and Teddy needs sleep, so fo their little pseudo-fist bump thing and say their goodnights.
(He can’t stop worrying)
…
Albus is found, but James never pieces himself back together.
He and Nimah stick together like the failed prism experiment that created superglue (wow, he is spending too much time around Fatimah), and James stays sad. Every time Teddy sees him, he looks like he might be having an existential crisis.
James is nicer, though. he teases less. He actually interacts with Teddy at mealtimes. He makes time for his brother. Teddy does his best to talk to Lily, but she seems to be doing her best to distance herself from the entire thing, staying with her ever expanding group of friends. Teddy wants to tell her that they’re nowhere friends, but she wouldn’t listen.
The Werewolf rumours have stopped, mostly, because everyone seems to be to preoccupied with NEWT’s, but people still avoid him if they can. He’s given up on being nice and cheery to those people, making the executive decision to just ignore it.
(If the teachers realise, and in some kind of worry arrange a meeting with the counsellor, he tells them to go see Al instead. They don’t, and the worst part is that Teddy isn’t even surprised anymore, just a bit of a dull rage, covered by years of numbness)
Madeline starts tagging along with him at mealtimes. Hufflepuffs with friends solely in other houses stick together, after all, and by now Nimah is with James and Fatimah’s too busy with college entrance exams, to the point where most of the time they spend together is flat and job-hunting in the states.)
She’s a welcome presence, thirteen and loud and proud in the haze of solemnity that he seems to be living in. He smiles too, laughs, and internally rejoices about how different Madeline seems now from the shy girl in Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes who wanted to vanish. If he quietly enables her ambitions to become a bit of a prank inventor herself, then well, there’s no evidence.
…
When Teddy sees James properly break down at two in the morning at the old Astronomy Tower, whimpering about how he doesn’t deserve to be forgiven, about how he’s bad, his heart breaks, and crumbles down to rubble.
It hurts, but there’s nothing Teddy can do, so while Nimah whispers things under her breath that only James can hear, he and Fatimah get on either side of him and lean close, because dammit, this boy is theirs now.
…
Teddy is working a service job in a local coffee store when he’s eighteen, Fatimah in the neighbouring flat and eternally groaning at James and Nimah’s antics, and their utter lack of sleep. Of course, he’s throwing rocks from a glass hut, but nevertheless.
Teddy is nineteen when he and Fatimah get married, with no real party, just the signing of papers and inviting everyone over that summer for sickly lemon cake and half-assed firewhisky. He and Fatimah lean into each other and hold hands and Nimah and Al tease them the entire goddamn times and both their parents are looking at them fondly, and Teddy laughs along, enjoying the moment. Lily takes the best pictures of the wedding rings- opalescent charmed metal with a tourmaline in the middle, blue and gold and glowing bright while he and his Joyfriend Partner laugh throughout the night and do horrible Pink Floyd karaoke.
Teddy is twenty when he sees Harry Potter for the first time since he’s graduated, and they apologise (Well, Harry more than him), and try to interact. It’s a bit awkward, but he leaves with a bit of warmth in his heart, like something is just about to happen.
Teddy is twenty-one when Fatimah graduates Med School and becomes a practicing neurosurgeon, and they celebrate with the same shitty lemon cake and shittier wine with James and Nimah, and they get tipsy and laugh the day away. He sees Albus out of school with Scorpius. Scorpius looks tired, but he’s interning at St. Mungo’s, so that’s just par for the course. Albus is under Charlie, and he lets Teddy pet Noberta.
Teddy is twenty-two when Rose, Lily and Hugo finally graduate from school, and he sees them all in Diagon Alley, whenever he goes (which is frequently, especially now with a fireplace in his apartment.) to see them. Lily has her own Jewellery Store, and Rose and Hugo are making gender neutral Hogwarts robes and other wizard clothing.
Teddy is twenty three when he, James, Nimah, Fatimah and Ginny (just Ginny) go to see the Quidditch World Cup together, and Ginny tells them about the first time she ever came, when the dark mark was cast and why she was so scared, all those years ago, when Nimah and Scorpius, two Slytherins entered her family’s lives on the regular. But she clasps Nimah’s hand and apologises, and Nimah, stunned, accepts. Ginny smiles and they wish her luck as she exits the stadium to play against Viktor Krum again.
Teddy is twenty-four when his grandmother, Andromeda Tonks dies and he cries with his Mum and Dad for days, because the house feels so empty, and that’s just not allowed. But they move on, too, as Gramma would have wanted them all to, and laugh and celebrate her memory instead, making sure that there are always fresh Azaleas on her gravestone, because what are they, animals?
Teddy is twenty-five, when he’s curled up in the fire escape of their notable better apartment with a fireplace in central Birmingham, even as Nimah and James stay in the states, as they hold hands, share secrets and eat that shitty lemon cake again anyway and talk about Madeline, who’s been raising hell at the coffee shop he owns, as the favourite and least favourite staff member all at once. They laugh, they cry, and even though there is a long future coming for them all, it doesn’t matter right now. The only thing that does is the stairwell, the awful cake, the worse wine and the laughter.