Teddy Lupin and the Forest Guard

By: FernWithy

Fandom: harry potter

Summary: Teddy Lupin begins his Hogwarts life, he finds connections to his past that he never suspected... and manages a bit of mischief as well! (This is an older story, just being posted to FFN for the first time.) Cover by Papillon82.

Status: Completed

Fic type: Books/Harry Potter

Published: 2015-05-16

Last updated: 2015-05-27

Words count: 113,115

Chapters count: 20

Converted using www.FF2EBOOK.com
Date: 2020-11-06

1. The Great Pre-Hogwarts Orphan Tour

Author's note: This is an old series of four long novels, which I just never posted before at FFN. They should go up pretty quickly. Please note, this was written immediately after Deathly Hallows came out, and before JKR did any family trees. I decided, particularly, to leave Bill's family as I wrote it rather than trying to match it to later information.

Chapter 1:

The Great Pre-Hogwarts Orphan Tour

The car making its cautious way up the lane ran perfectly, but it was rusty and a bit dirty, and its faded window stickers became more antique with each passing year. Creeping along the road like a museum relic whose purpose had long since been forgotten, its windows had to be kept open in the summer heat, and bits of music sung by the dead were snatched up into the slipstream and thrown to the wind. Its line at the manufacturer had ended, been re-started, and ended again. It seemed to come from some fantastic, long-gone world, where barefoot girls in bell-bottoms danced on dewy hillsides and long-haired men played guitar by the light of the moon, where they sat together and dreamed soft dreams and sang to the coming dawn. It had, in fact, seen such days, and the tense woman now sitting behind the steering wheel had once been one of the barefoot girls, though if one had tried to tell the boy beside her that, he would have flatly refused to believe it.

In those days, the car had gone out frequently (if not entirely legally), puttering out into the hills for festivals, driven from summer job to summer job by the boy who had once owned it. It had been filled with food to be delivered, laundry to be washed, and ground mulch to be put in. Most of its wear and tear had come in those days, and it hadn't been new when the boy had bought it. When he came of age, he had other ways to move from place to place, ways that were faster and didn't tax his car, and the old friend went into storage until the man's daughter asked to drive it. It had a brief renaissance then, gaining a tape player and a pile of long-melted tapes that rattled around under the passenger seat (all of them showing squeaky voiced singers in colorful clothes), then went back into storage until the girl was a young woman, and needed it for one specific purpose. During this period of activity, the car had been washed and polished, and it had gained a parking permit sticker, now faded, for a school called "Smeltings," whose crest showed various types of metal being worked. That young woman had driven smoothly, with a graceful dexterity of movement that she had never mastered in her independent locomotion.

The woman now driving-the boy's wife, the young woman's mother-had known the car through all of its phases, but had never driven it before this year. Now she drove with the pale, nervous concentration of a teenager making her first attempt. The boy beside her knew better than to try and talk to her; last time he'd done so, she'd pulled over and lectured him for nearly ten minutes about letting her keep her head before she got them both killed. She'd finally grumbled something about putting fireplaces in the train station-though that wasn't where they were headed today; this was just practice-and pulled back out into traffic.

The boy looked at the mirror that stuck out of the car like a raised thumb, and stared at his own reflection. Concentrating, he turned his hair purple, then gold, then orange, then-

"TEDDY!"

The car swerved onto the verge, and Teddy Lupin's grandmother, the formidable Andromeda Tonks, screeched to a stop and turned to Teddy, eyes blazing. "You can be seen in this car," she said. "Honestly. How many times do I have to-" But the words caught in her throat. Teddy knew why. They'd only been driving for a week, going here and there to practice for the trip to London with all of his luggage in September, and she'd never told him anything about not morphing in the car. The scold had been to the ghost of a girl who had once sat here, or in the family's other, more respectable, car, changing her hair color as her son now did, possibly attracting attention from those who shouldn't have seen her doing so.

Teddy glanced out the window to make sure there were no Muggles looking out of their windows, at least not close enough to see clearly, and turned his hair sandy brown.

"Take the gray out," Granny said. "It looks a bit silly on an eleven-year-old."

Teddy hadn't put the gray in on purpose-it was just a bad habit he'd picked up looking at old photographs of his father-but he didn't bother making the argument. He just changed it. He thought that, gray aside, this was probably his real color.

Granny took a deep breath, then shook her head. "I'm sorry, Teddy. This driving business makes me nervous, and this is the furthest we've gone yet. I didn't mean to snap. I think we're running late-we should have left by dawn, I'm sure-and I'm sorely tempted to just park this... thing... and Apparate both of us over to Molly and Arthur's."

"It's all right, Granny," Teddy said. "I like riding."

She looked at him very dubiously, then turned the key in the ignition and went back out onto the road. Teddy looked out the window and watched the south of England roll by. He'd definitely got used to this over the past few days, as everyone in their circle of friends had sent notes saying that they just had to see him before he went off to Hogwarts. It was a sort of concentrated version of his whole life, which was filled with adults who went out of their way to make sure he was seen and spoken to as often as was humanly possible. "We want to make sure," he'd once heard his godfather's wife say, "that Teddy knows he's not alone." Teddy had been five then, and hadn't quite grasped the idea that Uncle Harry wasn't going to come back and live with him and Granny again, after the big party where the red-headed girl wore a pretty white dress.

It turned out that there were a lot of people who wanted Teddy to know he Wasn't Alone. He loved all of them and wasn't sorry to see any of them on the Great Pre-Hogwarts Orphan Tour (and he desperately wanted to ask Uncle Harry about a blank piece of parchment he'd received by Owl Post yesterday morning, with instructions not to mention it to his grandmother), but sometimes, all the assurances and hugs and pats on the back made him wonder if normal eleven-year-olds would get the same sort of treatment. He certainly seemed to be more hugged than nine-year-old Victoire Weasley, though he supposed that could just be because no one wanted to hug her. She'd probably tell them that they weren't doing it properly and then spend an hour explaining how their arms were in the wrong place, and it would certainly be done better in France. Teddy's dearest hope was that she would follow her love of France to Beauxbatons in two years, instead of following him to Hogwarts.

The car crested a hill, and Teddy looked down into the garden of the Burrow, where a rather large crowd of people had got together. There were three Muggle cars, but many more guests than would be accounted for by them. It looked like all of the Weasleys and Potters were here, even though he'd already seen Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny and their children twice this week. Bill and Fleur Weasley were here with their girls (and little Artie), as well as Ron and Hermione and their children, George and his Muggle wife (who was very, very big in the stomach just now), and he was willing to bet that Percy was somewhere nearby with a lecture waiting, and... yes, there was Charlie, who had brought a baby dragon to show off. There were more people who Teddy thought of as family, though he wasn't entirely sure how they were related, including two Hogwarts teachers-who he'd have to get used to calling Professor Hagrid and Professor Longbottom soon enough-and old Professor McGonagall, who had retired to, as far as Teddy could tell, follow Quidditch matches around the country. There were others, too, but he couldn't see everyone from here.

The car came to a bouncing stop, and Granny took a deep breath and pulled the keys from the ignition. "That's that," she said. "I think I'll ask Arthur to put more safety charms on it while we're here..."

They got out of the car, and Teddy had to duck from a sudden onslaught of small people running awkwardly at him. Five year old James Potter caught him around the legs, and his younger brother Al tried to follow, but toppled over onto Teddy's feet, which he enthusiastically hugged. Al's cousin, Rose Weasley, who was the same age, managed not to fall over, then grabbed Teddy by the hand and grinned up at him, making a strange sort of noise between her teeth. A Weasley cousin Teddy thought belonged to Percy launched himself at Teddy's midsection, driving him back into the car.

Teddy collapsed under the laughing pile, feeling warm and happy, if a bit dazed by the attack. He plucked Al up off of his feet and lifted him up to the crook of his arm as he stood up. James, not wanting to be left behind, hooked his fingers over Teddy's arm, and started telling a story about going flying with his father, which seemed to involve a dragon, a doxy, and quite possibly a Muggle submarine.

"You ought to have a hippogriff in that," Teddy said when James seemed finished. "It would be even better if you took Buckbeak next time."

James, looking delighted, ran off, flapping his arms like a hippogriff in flight.

"A hippogriff?" Harry Potter said, coming up the hill to greet him, smiling slightly. He hugged Teddy awkwardly around Al, who refused to be budged. "Come on, Teddy, you can do better than that. Give him a dragon."

"He already had one," Teddy said, and grinned. "Hi, Uncle Harry. Again." He looked at his grandmother, who had got involved in a conversation with Molly Weasley and wasn't paying any attention, and said, "Did you send me the, er... parchment thing?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Is it a present?"

"No. It belongs to you. It belonged to me, and I hope when you no longer need it, you'll pass it to the next person to whom it belongs, though as that person's parent, you ought not tell me if you do."

"A piece of parchment."

Uncle Harry grinned. "Just wait until you get your wand, Teddy. You'll see."

Teddy could see that he'd get no further answers, so he just followed his godfather down into the throng of family waiting for him.

He stuck close to Uncle Harry as they entered the crowd, feeling a little awed at the number of people here. There were nearly as many as had come to Uncle Harry's birthday party, and that had been shared with Neville Longbottom, so everyone who cared about either of them had been there. Teddy guessed that this wasn't all about being a goodbye party for himself, but he couldn't think what else it was.

"Teddy! Teddy!"

He ground his teeth, then turned and smiled. "Hi, Vicky."

Victoire Weasley straightened up and sniffed. "Victoire. Are you having trouble pronouncing it? I could teach you. I speak French with Maman every day."

Beside him, Uncle Harry's jaw was twitching with a laugh that he wasn't letting out, and Teddy felt his face burning. He morphed to cover up the color.

Victoire looked at him oddly. "Why did you make your face purple?"

"I, er... well..."

"It really doesn't suit you," she said, then flounced away to play with Percy and Penelope's oldest son, a fey seven-year-old named Gideon.

Uncle Harry let the laugh out in a snort, then leaned down and said, "You might want to check that morph, Ted." He Conjured a mirror and handed it over.

Victoire hadn't been exaggerating; his face hadn't gone the beet-purple of a deep blush, but an actual sort of royal purple. He concentrated on it, imagining his face back to its normal shade, and finally got it there. By the time he'd finished, Uncle Harry had wandered off to talk to George Weasley and his wife, and a group of other people who Teddy didn't know, and couldn't possibly be there for him.

"They are here for you, you know."

Teddy blinked and looked over his shoulder, where a kind-looking blonde woman with very large pale blue eyes was looking down at him. He recognized her dimly from pictures. "Luna Lovegood?" he asked.

She nodded serenely, and didn't correct him on the name, though she wore a gold band on one of her fingers. "We all came for you. You're the first."

"The first, er... what?"

"The first of our children to go back to Hogwarts," someone else said, coming up on Teddy's other side. He looked to see, of all people, Professor McGonagall, leaning on a walking stick. She Transfigured a rock into an easy chair and sat down in it. "The school's had a bit of a rest from the Order, but now you're going. You were born at the darkest hour, Mr. Lupin. And you're perfectly fine, and going on to school, just as we'd all hoped you would."

"So you're all here celebrating me making it to eleven? It's not like anyone's after me..."

"A matter which is also one for celebration," McGonagall said curtly. "Though, to be fair, we're also celebrating the end of the last of the repairs to the school. You'll be going to Hogwarts as it was intended to be. As Molly and Arthur had this party planned anyway, it seemed a good chance to celebrate both." She raised her hand, and a group of strangers came over. "Hestia, Dedalus, Arabella... have you met Remus and Tonks's son, Teddy?"

"This is Teddy?" the older woman said. "Why, I think he looks just like Remus!"

"No, no," the man said, pointing at Teddy's face. "Look, you can see a lot more of Nymphadora, right through the-"

"Ahem." Everyone looked up. Granny's lips were pursed. "Teddy," she said, "is a Metamorphmagus, and looks like whomever he chooses to at the moment. He is neither Dora nor Remus, and you won't find either of them hiding under his hairline, no matter how much it needs a trim, or at least a neater morph."

"It's all right, Granny," Teddy mumbled. He'd hoped that these people would have a few good stories of his parents once they finished prodding him, but he could tell by their red faces that Granny's scolding had put them off any further mentions of Remus or Dora Lupin. He made his excuses and snuck off, but hooked back around to listen. He could see McGonagall's face; Granny was turned away from him. The other three shifted awkwardly, then seemed to all simultaneously notice different friends, wave, and wander off (the woman called Arabella actually waved to the hedge, and looked a bit lost when she got there).

McGonagall raised an eyebrow and said, "You surprise me, Andromeda."

Granny took a deep breath. "Teddy is himself. I won't have any of us putting these expectations on him. Neither my daughter nor my son-in-law would want him to re-shape himself to replace them."

"I see." McGonagall raised her wand, and the chair she was sitting in expanded into a sofa. "Will you sit with me for a while, Andromeda? It's been a long time since we talked."

"Why does this sound like the prelude to a lecture?" Granny asked, but her voice had lost its cool edge. She sat down comfortably on the sofa and Summoned a glass of wine from a table in the garden.

"You always had a sharp tongue when you chose to," McGonagall said. "Arabella and Dedalus meant no harm. We always look for what's familiar when we meet someone new."

"Trust me, Minerva-as Bellatrix Lestrange's sister, I'm familiar with the concept. It's never done me any favors."

"No one is mistaking Teddy for Death Eaters."

"But they are expecting him to replace Remus and Dora. I work very hard not to do that. I want him to discover who he is, Minerva..."

Teddy sighed, and moved away. It wasn't the first time he'd heard this speech. He cast around for anyone else close to his age-anyone who wasn't trying to teach him French and criticizing his looks-but came up empty. Most of the younger children had age mates; that was one thing Teddy was looking forward to at school. He'd never actually met someone who was the same age he was. Frankie Apcarne-the son of his mother's friends, Daffy and Maddie-was two years older than he was, and their daughter Dorasana (universally called "Carny") was almost four years younger. The Weasley and Potter children, with the exception of Victoire, were very far from his age. The idea of being around a lot of other boys his own age sounded like fun, and, according to Uncle Harry, his father had found good friends his own age at Hogwarts, so why shouldn't Teddy?

He wandered through the party, listening to scraps of conversation among adults.

"...and of course Ernie said..."

"...that the bloody regulatory commission is going to put me out of business..."

"...and I couldn't believe what she did to her hair, that potion-maker ought to be glad he didn't lose his license..."

"...to go in front of the Wizengamot and try to get poor Vivian Waters an apprenticeship in the Department of Mysteries, but... Oh, hello, Teddy."

Teddy smiled at Hermione Weasley, who was fretting at Rose's hair and shaking her head disbelievingly at Aunt Ginny. "Who's Vivian Waters?" he asked. "Why don't they give her an apprenticeship?"

"Vivian is, er..." Hermione looked at Aunt Ginny, then said, "Well, she's actually... er... well..."

"She's a werewolf," Aunt Ginny said. "Your father once helped her. She couldn't go to Hogwarts because of it, and now she can't get an apprenticeship because she couldn't go to Hogwarts."

"How did my father help her?"

"He got her away from-" But Aunt Ginny stopped sharply as Hermione's foot slammed into her shin. "All right, another time. When you're older."

"Are werewolves allowed now?" Teddy asked.

"Er..." Hermione started, then said. "Well, not yet. But soon. Not that there are any your age trying this year. I suppose we'd need someone to try before we could make a law."

"I'm half-werewolf," Teddy offered. "Maybe they could try to stop me, and you could make them let me in, as I've already had my letter." Entranced with the idea, he morphed hair out of his face, sharpened his teeth, and growled. "Do you think it would scare them?"

Hermione went white, then gave him a tight smile. "Please don't morph like that, Teddy," she said.

Teddy put his face back. "Sorry."

She smiled and ruffled his hair. "No, I am. Come on. I think Molly's about ready to feed us all."

Teddy let her lead him to the table where Uncle Harry and Ron were playing chess, and Uncle Harry greeted them warmly. "I think Ron's got me trapped here," he said. "Do you want to take over, Teddy?"

"Oh, and the noble Harry Potter lets the eleven-year-old lose," Ron said, grinning.

Teddy examined the board, said, "Why should I lose?" and moved one of Uncle Harry's rooks to put Ron in check. Ron's grin disappeared, and he hunkered down over the board. They played until the dishes started floating out, then both of them lost interest (Ron's bishop allowed Teddy's queen to get the checkmate, and as they put the game away, Ron's king was wailing about being betrayed for a plate of chicken).

Granny and Professor McGonagall joined their table for lunch, looking like their talk had got much more pleasant than it had been when Teddy had stopped eavesdropping. The Potter children piled themselves around Aunt Ginny while Uncle Harry helped Mrs. Weasley bring out the food, and the Weasley children crowded onto Ron's lap while Hermione tried one more time to get Rose's hair in order. They tucked into the meal as soon as it flew over to the table. Teddy had always liked coming here to eat.

He'd got into a long talk with little James, which involved the possibility of sea serpents on Mars, and hadn't really been paying attention when he heard Granny talking about tomorrow's plans.

"London," she was saying when he happened to look her way. "I'm so nervous about taking the car, but it's best to try the traffic before I have to make the train on time. I think we should leave before sunrise on the first."

"You're going to Diagon Alley, then?" Uncle Harry asked, and grinned at Teddy. "I remember going to get my school things for the first time. It's very exciting." He pointed to Hagrid, who was sitting on the stone wall, chatting with Dedalus over a turkey leg. "Hagrid took me. Are you looking forward to it?"

Teddy nodded. "I've been before, though. Not as much new for me to see."

"I thought we'd save the apothecary for last," Granny said. "Nothing worse than dragging potions ingredients around all day. But I haven't heard much about how long it will take at Ollivander's since his granddaughter took over. Should we set aside a good amount of time for a wand, or does she have a quicker system?"

"I don't need a wand," Teddy said.

"Trust me, Teddy," Aunt Ginny said. "You won't get far without one."

"No," he told her, "I mean, I was just going to carry my mum's or my dad's. May I have the salt, please, Granny?"

He held up his hand and waited for the salt to zoom down, but it didn't come. He glanced up to see his grandmother looking pale and taut, and the rest of the table sitting in awkward silence.

Teddy looked from one face to another, uncomfortably aware that most of them were gazing at him with pity. "Er..." he started, and looked to Granny, who's nose was flaring. "I, well, that's to say, I thought I would... I..." He frowned. "I won't break them. I promise. I thought they were... mine."

"They are," Granny said thinly. "They belong to you as a memory, Teddy. But you should use your own wand in school. We'll go to Ollivander's first."

All of the adults looked at each other awkwardly, then Al Potter picked up a butter knife and said, "A-ko. A-ko," while pointing it at a piece of chocolate cake. Uncle Harry, his wand hand hidden, flew the cake over in response to the "Summoning Charm." Al clapped, and James gave him a cheer, and then the adults slowly started talking again, about other things. Granny looked down at her plate and didn't join them.

She reached across and squeezed Teddy's hand. "Sorry," she said.

Teddy shrugged, feeling like there was a very large rock on his shoulders as he did so, and went to get another cup of pumpkin juice from the big table where Mrs. Weasley had laid out all of the extra food. Victoire ran up to join him from the table where she was sitting with her parents, grandparents, and her uncle Charlie, who now had a box on the table with little holes cut in the side. It wasn't on fire, so Teddy guessed it probably wasn't another baby dragon.

"Have you got in trouble?" she asked brightly, looking at the table he'd come from. "Everyone seems quite angry at you. You can come to our table if you want. Uncle Charlie's got-"

"A surprise!" Charlie Weasley called, cutting her off. "Honestly, Vicky!"-Victoire pretended to cringe, though Charlie had never, to Teddy's knowledge, called her anything but Vicky-"What I've got, Teddy will find out about soon enough." Shaking his head, he got up and went to Granny, whispering something to her.

"What is it?" Teddy asked Victoire.

"A surprise," she said, putting her nose in the air.

"What sort of surprise?"

"You'll see."

Teddy finished pouring his pumpkin juice, and when he looked back at his table, Granny was smiling and nodding. Charlie Summoned the box, then stood on the bench beside Granny. "Attention, attention. I need one"-he pretended to check a scroll-"Teddy Remus Lupin, if such a person is anywhere nearby."

Teddy stepped up curiously. "What is it?"

"I own a cat," Charlie said.

"I, er... didn't know."

"A grand animal," Charlie went on. "Named Keys, as I left him with Hagrid the first time I went home, as I hadn't quite asked Mum's permission, and Hagrid was Keeper of Keys."

"I sneezed for two weeks!" Hagrid called good-naturedly.

"It was a grand sacrifice for him," Charlie acknowledged. "Now, Keys is getting on in years now, but still happens to be one of the friendliest cats in all of Europe." There was some snickering amongst the adults. Charlie went on. "Yes, Keys has friends in many places. Especially on a particular farm near the dragon preserve, where he is most warmly received, and just before I headed out, the lady who owns it came to me with a very special present that Keys left for her." He opened the box, and now Teddy could hear the high-pitched mewing of kittens. "She seemed to think there are quite enough cats in the neighborhood who look like this, and thought they might be fine and welcome additions to the British cat population instead. And so, in honor of your upcoming start of school, Teddy Lupin, you get to choose first to take along as your own pet. It's already been cleared with the Dear Lady." He nodded and winked at Granny.

Teddy looked over the edge of the box-which was roomier on the inside than the outside, and lined with fluffy pillows-and saw three kittens, all chasing a feather that Charlie had Charmed for them. Two of them were brownish and short-haired. The third had patches of color on his back and white feet, and Teddy thought he looked like Granny's old cat, Bludger. This one was blinking and batting at something in front of his eyes, and Teddy realized that one of his littermates must have scratched him, leaving a bit of blood. He reached in and cleaned it out. The Bludger-cat caught his hand and held on. He had great yellow eyes, and Teddy fancied that he was smiling.

"Do we have a winner?" Charlie asked, grinning.

Teddy smiled, and picked up the little scrap of fur. He nodded. "I like this one. He's mine."

"Well," Charlie said, "you probably ought to know that he's a she, before you name her."

Feeling better-like the conversation about wands hadn't happened-Teddy gathered up his new friend (Victoire and James started arguing over the other two) and went to sit by Granny, who looked teary again, though she didn't say why. After a while, she said that this one was going to have a bit of a charm done before she went to Hogwarts, so that she wouldn't be quite as friendly as her father.

There were a great number of naming suggestions over the next half hour. Victoire kept suggesting French names like Chérie or Jolie, which Teddy thought would guarantee him a life of being picked on if he said them in front of other boys in a dormitory. James suggested "Martian Seamonster Potter," and Hermione started going through a book for historical names. Granny tried to go with the family game pattern (Bludger's brother and sister had been Quaffle and Snitch), coming up with Gobstone, Fanged Frisbee, Exploding Snap (which Teddy rather liked, but the cat refused to answer to, even when shortened to Snapper), and Football. It was finally Ron who named her, though it was accidental-he'd got the chess board back out and started playing another game with Uncle Harry, who had promptly lost. Uncle Ron cried, "Checkmate!" and the kitten bounced and chased her tail, then crawled up Teddy's arm and enthusiastically bumped her head against his face.

"Checkmate?" Teddy tried dubiously.

Checkmate purred very loudly and tried to bury her head between his jaw line and his shoulder. Victoire declared it a very silly name for a cat, outdoing it a moment later, in Teddy's opinion, by naming her own "Beau chaton," as if saying it in French made it mean anything other than "Beautiful kitten," which was a hundred times more stupid than "Checkmate." He immediately started calling it "Bushy," which made her go back to her table and pout.

James would not be put off from naming the third kitten "Martian." "They're brother and sister," he said to Teddy, wide-eyed, as the sun set and Granny started to get the car back in order. He looked solemnly at his own baby sister, Lily, and said, "They must always know one another. Will you come with Checkmate when they visit?"

Teddy allowed that he didn't think his kitten would be making any trips without him, then had to remind James that neither of them would be there for Bonfire Night this year. James was still crying over this injustice when Teddy kissed the family goodbye and got back into Granny's car.

"I'm sorry about the wands," Granny said when she'd got onto a long stretch of straight road. "A wand is the most personal thing a wizard owns, and it should be his own. Do you understand?"

Teddy didn't, but nodded.

"But if you want something of your mum's, which she took everywhere with her, you may have the basket and toys she used for her cat."

Teddy smiled. "My mum had a cat?"

"Named Granny, after her Granny Tonks. I thought you might have seen her stone in the back garden when we buried Snitch last year." Teddy remembered seeing it, next to a very ancient stone that said "Dodger," but as it hadn't struck him as a cat's name, he hadn't realized that she was part of the family's pet cemetery. "She died of very old age not long after your parents got married. She was Bludger's mum." Granny chanced looking over at Checkmate, who was sleeping on Teddy's shoulder. "She was also Keys's mum, which means that you've got Granny's grand-kitten there. Does that help a bit?"

Teddy didn't know why it made him feel especially happy to have his mother's cat's kin with him, but it did. He scratched between Checkmate's ears and listened to her purr.

It was late by the time they pulled around the pond and up to the garage beside the house, and Granny didn't bother trying to drive into it, instead just charming the car and several objects along the wall to make room for one another before they went inside. They got Checkmate set up in her basket (or at least got the basket ready for her; she would hide under Teddy's bed, behind an old trainer, for most of the next two days). They fed her tuna fish the first night, and Granny promised to stop at the menagerie tomorrow, after Ollivander's, to get her proper food.

By the time Teddy went to bed, he was ready to drop on his feet, and sleep took him quickly. He found himself in the house alone, except for Checkmate, who was chasing her tail in front of the door to Teddy's old nursery. Teddy rarely went in there now-it was a baby room, but neither he nor Granny wanted to repaint it, as Teddy's father had made beautiful charmed drawings all over it, and they didn't want to lose them-but he went in now without hesitating. The chair beside the crib was empty. From the ceiling, the giant butterfly swooped across, bending at the right angle of the wall and going around Teddy. The mooncalves danced behind the crib, and Teddy noticed that the crib wasn't empty. It was full of a small baby with a shock of green hair, his fist curled around a very old stuffed rabbit. A framed photograph of a kind-faced man was placed behind an Unbreakable Charm, and the baby was reaching one fat fist toward it.

Teddy backed away, then gave an involuntary gasp. The chair was now occupied by a beautiful young woman with a heart-shaped face who seemed to be asleep and dreaming badly. She opened her eyes and put her hand to her heart and said, "Oh, thank God, only a dream, only a..." But then she looked at the low table where all of the baby's things were-looked at it for a long, long time.

She held up one hand and looked at it curiously, and Teddy was suddenly cold, cold to the core of himself.

She looked over her shoulder, then looked back at the crib. "Teddy," she whispered, her voice full of sorrow. "My own Teddy."

The baby woke up and looked straight at her, and as he did, she faded, reaching out one last time, touching his outstretched arm, disappearing...

The baby kept his arm up, and Teddy could see something glowing there, some trace of magic, then something sharp dug into his foot, and he looked down to see Checkmate attacking his toes, only he was back in his own bed now, and the sun was rising, and Checkmate was mewing for her breakfast between swipes of her claws.

He pushed back his covers, set aside his dream, and got ready to equip himself for Hogwarts.

2. Too Many Wands

Chapter 2:

Too Many Wands

Checkmate didn't seem to want to go into London, much to Teddy's disappointment, so they left her with a large bowl of water and more fish, and headed out in the old Volkswagen again. Granny seemed less tense driving today, even though it would be her first foray into the city proper, and she even managed to occasionally contribute a "Yes," "No," or "Where do you come up with these things?" to Teddy's conversation. They found a car park near the Leaky Cauldron, and walked the rest of the way.

Tom the bartender took a quick step back when Granny walked in, then smiled sheepishly and said, "Madam Tonks."

"I generally use 'Mrs.,'" Granny said shortly, then shook her head. "I'm sorry, Tom. Good morning."

"Good morning, Ma-er, Mrs. Tonks."

Teddy waved and followed her to the back of the pub. Granny had once confided in him that she had grown up in the wrong family to ever learn the normal ways to greet people. In thirty years, she said, she hadn't quite got the hang of it. Teddy thought of it as just the way she was-a little prickly on the outside. It didn't mean anything.

They went out into the alley and Granny tapped the bricks in the back wall to open the archway. Teddy remembered being frightened of the noise of scraping bricks when he was little, but now it seemed like a very wonderful sort of sound. He grinned at his grandmother, then went into Diagon Alley a few steps ahead of her.

Some of the shop fronts were empty again; shops had come and gone very quickly since the war, and Teddy found it hard to imagine the world Granny talked about, where most of them had been owned for generations. A tea shop had opened in what had been a curry place last year, and a curio shop the year before. Teddy had bought Uncle Harry's Christmas present in that one, a little ceramic pot to keep his quills in at the office, with a "never dry, never spill" inkwell on the side. Beside it was a shop that had sold used robes one year and exotic plants the next, and now had its windows boarded halfway up. Above the boards, there was a picture of a witch and wizard winking at one another, holding a sign that said, "Play." The tip of the wizard's wand peeked up between them. Granny blushed and steered them past it, muttering "...such things... right in Diagon Alley..." under her breath.

Beyond the "play" store, a pair of giant knitting needles held the banner for a yarn shop (it unraveled at the end, looping back around to be knitted again), and then Quality Quidditch Supplies, which had a big sign saying that it was under new management-Oliver Wood waved cheerfully from the banner-but at least the store was actually old. Next door, Flourish and Blotts stood where it always had, but Granny had already bought Teddy's books by owl order-she thought that neither of them would keep to the schedule if they started rummaging among the books-and they were already sitting in his trunk at home. Across from it, a news stand had opened, and a new rack of Quibblers was being put out. A photo of an animal Teddy had never seen before was on it, with the headline, "With the Wendigo!" Luna's picture was in beside it. Beyond it was the Fortescue Monument, a huge statue of a man with a dish of ice cream and pile of books, which nodded pleasantly at everyone who came by. Several trees had been planted in a park around it, and people were lolling happily in their shade. Granny took him into the Magical Menagerie and they equipped Checkmate extravagantly-the kitten now had more toys than Teddy did, when you counted the ones she'd inherited, and Teddy had never lacked for playthings-then went back out into the sunlit morning.

Granny took a deep breath. "All right," she said, "we're going to go to Ollivander's now. Are you going to really try to find the right wand?"

Teddy nodded.

"I trust you," Granny said.

She led him across the street, to the oldest shop Teddy could see. A single wand sat in the window. They went inside, and he looked up at the stacks of wand boxes, and suddenly he did want one of them, wanted to be chosen, to find something that was destined to be his.

"Miss Ollivander?" Granny called.

"Just a- oh!"

With a crash, a young woman-who seemed to look even younger in comparison with the store she was in-tripped down from an upper level, losing hold of an armful of wands, which scattered across the floor and washed over Teddy's feet in a wooden wave. Behind her, a door clicked open, and Teddy could see an old man, looking on with exasperation from a narrow, railed aisle that ran along the edge of the next floor. He continued watching, but remained silent as she greeted them, Summoning the fallen wands so they landed haphazardly on the counter.

"Hello," she said. "Mrs. Tonks. And you must be... er... Eddie?"

"Teddy," Teddy said.

"Right. Teddy, of course." She straightened the wands. "I knew your Mum in Hufflepuff. She was older than I was. Got me through Potions."

"Willow," the old man said from the top of the stairs. "Ten inches, with a core of phoenix feather. A good Auror's wand-powerful for defensive spells. Your father's was ash, with a unicorn tail hair. Eleven inches. It was a good healing wand, though of course he couldn't have become a Healer. I didn't think we'd find a wand to choose him, given his... problem. I was wrong. That wand chose him within five minutes." He said all of this coolly, then sat down in a small gilt chair and gestured to the young woman. "My granddaughter will help you discover your wand. Berit?"

Berit Ollivander's mouth twitched in a nervous smile, and she drew out several measuring tapes that began to crawl across Teddy while a quill floated beside them, recording measurements. She glanced at them and started Summoning boxes from the shelves, seemingly at random.

"Here," she said, handing him a pile. "You were born in April-try willow and alder wands first..."

Teddy started opening the wand boxes while old Ollivander looked on with an unreadable expression above (Berit kept looking up nervously). For an hour, he tried wand after wand. Alder and unicorn tail hair, willow and dragon heartstring, seven inches, twelve inches, whippy, solid, swishy, good for charms, excellent for transfiguration...

The pile of wands grew, and Berit began stashing the tried ones on the counter to leave herself room on the floor, looking more and more nervous with each failure. Teddy noticed that Granny was looking at him suspiciously, and he gave her a helpless shrug as he picked up, "Juniper, dragon heartstring, flexible, nine inches," and was rewarded with a feeble sort of twitch. Berit gave it a thoughtful look and put it on a separate shelf.

"Has he done any accidental magic?" Ollivander asked Granny. "Anything to show that he's not a Squib?"

"I beg your pardon! He's had his Hogwarts letter!"

"None of them seem to match, my dear."

"I made all of Granny's plants blow up once," Teddy offered as quickly as he could. "When I was pretending to be in a jungle."

"It's probably just me," Berit said nervously. "I'm hopeless. Try this one." She handed him another box. "Dwarf birch with"-she mumbled something.

"What did you say?" Ollivander called.

Berit bit her lip, then stood up and said, "Acromantula fang! I tried Acromantula fang shards, Grandfather, and I'm not sorry, and I'm going to try other things."

"That's not a core we use."

"I wanted to see if it would work." She handed it to Teddy with a hopeful smile.

He took it. Nothing happened.

"All right, all right," she said, and went back to phoenix feathers, dragon heartstrings, and unicorn hairs. After another half an hour, they'd found a dozen wands that responded-sluggishly-to Teddy. He thought about asking her if she'd tried werewolf hair for one of her experiments, but thought her grandfather might just explode if she said yes. None of the experimental cores she did try on him (graphorn horn shard, wood-nymph hair, occamy feather, shrake spines) seemed to have the slightest effect, which Teddy felt vaguely guilty about, as he would have liked to make her look good in front of the grumpy old man.

Granny had wandered over to the shelves of wands and was looking them over absently, and Berit leaned in. "Tell me the truth-have you already been using a wand?"

Teddy shook his head, growing increasingly panicked that, while his werewolf father had found a wand in five minutes, no wand would ever choose him.

"Because if you already have one that's chosen you..."

"I haven't. I'm really sorry!"

"No, it's all right. Some people are hard to match."

Ten minutes later, a dark-haired girl with cold blue eyes came in with her parents, and Teddy became very self-conscious about the unruly pile of wands around him. To his great relief, Berit finally stumbled on a willow wand with a unicorn core, ten inches, that at least managed to send a feeble shower of sparks when he touched it. He didn't feel any particular connection to it, but at least it would work. Maybe he'd be able to try again when no one was waiting. "Finally!" he said, coming up with a smile.

Berit let out a sigh of relief. "Mother's wood, father's core. Always worth a try in the end."

Teddy was sure he'd tried at least six other willow-unicorn wands, but didn't point this out. Berit had enough to do getting ready for her next customers.

"Sorry I was such trouble," he said to her as he helped her pick up discarded boxes.

"I ended up getting an O on my Potions O.W.L.," Berit said quietly. "I can spare a couple of hours."

"There," Granny said, leading him out around the new family (the young-ish father had nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight of her for some reason). "All done. Shall we take care of your robes next, or see to lunch?"

Teddy opted for lunch.

"I'll never forget when I got my first wand," Granny said, settling in at a table in the Leaky Cauldron. "Maple and dragon heartstring, nine and a half inches. I lost that one fourth year-a very bad hex war with my older sister; it just splintered into a dozen pieces-but it was such an amazing thing to have it. Let's have a look, Teddy."

Teddy got the box out dutifully and showed her the willow wand, looking at it curiously himself, wondering if he would soon start feeling more attached to it.

"It's lovely workmanship. I wonder if it's one of Berit's. Do you like it?"

"I... guess so."

"Don't be so enthusiastic, Ted," someone said behind him, and he looked up to see the tall, skinny shape of Daffy Apcarne, one of his mum's best school friends. "It's bad for the heart to get so excited."

His wife, Maddie, sidled up beside him and said, "Hello, Andromeda, Teddy-we're getting Frankie's things for the year. Are you getting ready to CARNY! GET DOWN FROM THERE!"

She ran off in the middle of her sentence to pull her seven-year-old daughter off a railing she was balancing on, trying to climb up it toward the rooms on the next floor. Carny's real name was Dorasana, after Teddy's mum and their other best friend, Sanjiv McPherson, but no one ever called her that. Maddie's real name was also Dora-he had no idea how she'd got to be "Maddie"-and Teddy supposed it would be strange to scream your own name in the middle of the Leaky Cauldron.

Daffy turned back with a smile. "To finish Maddie's sentence, are you getting ready for Hogwarts, Teddy?"

Teddy nodded. "Got my wand," he said, holding it up.

"Always a good day," Daffy said. "I'm sorry we couldn't make it to the party yesterday. Maddie's division had an emergency, and I had to take Carny over to St. Mungo's. She managed to blow her ears up until they were bigger than her head trying to eavesdrop on what Maddie was doing. We're going to have to break that habit."

As Maddie was an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries, Teddy guessed that this would be a real priority. "It's all right," he said. "I hardly had time to say hello to everyone who was there."

"Would you like to come to dinner tonight?" Daffy asked Granny.

Granny shook her head. "Oh, I'm sorry, Daff-yesterday, I got talking to Bill Weasley about the Gringotts Commission-the business with the lower vaults, and unclaimed treasures-and he and Fleur invited us to Shell Cottage-"

"What?" Teddy groaned. "Oh, but we saw them yesterday."

"And we're seeing them again tonight, and you will keep a civil tongue in your head," Granny said, then looked at Daffy. "I really would accept your invitation, but I accepted Bill's first, and it would be awfully rude..."

"Of course, of course," Daffy said.

"Will you join us for lunch?"

"Love to." Daffy Summoned over a second table, and settled himself in.

"Where's Frankie?" Teddy asked.

"He's at Weasleys' with his mates, stocking up for the year. He should be along in a few minutes."

Maddie finally managed to corral Carny and steer her toward the table, where she was unceremoniously dropped down into a chair. "Do I need to put on a Sticking Charm?" Maddie asked her.

Carny shook her head enthusiastically, blond pigtails whipping around like blades on a Muggle helicopter.

Tom took their orders, and just before the food arrived, Frankie blew in from the back, dropping a bag of jokes and apologizing loudly to a witch he'd nearly walked into. He caught sight of them and loped over, the ripped bag gathered up to his chest. Teddy waved.

Frankie grinned and took a seat. He took after his mum in looks-blond, round-faced, and thick through the waist-but it didn't come off quite as well in him. His clothes never seemed to fit exactly right, and there was always an ink stain waiting to happen if he was anywhere near a quill, which he seemed to have been during the course of the day. His thick, curly hair was grimy, and balanced on top of it was a tall top-hat in Hufflepuff house colors. Teddy had always liked Frankie, mostly because he didn't care a whit what he looked like, and always thought of amusing games.

"You're sitting with us on the train tomorrow, Ted," he told Teddy, dropping down into the chair next to his. "I already told Zach and Bernice."

"Teddy might want to meet the other first years," Maddie said gently.

Frankie shrugged. "They need to sit somewhere too, don't they? Oh, is that your wand? What did you end up with?"

Teddy resigned himself to telling Frankie about the wand, trying to infuse the tale with more enthusiasm than he felt, and, of course, Frankie answered by talking about the glory of getting his own wand two years ago, how he'd never felt anything like it, and there was nothing better than actually being allowed to use it. He started to make a joke about growing up and learning to properly use one's wand, but his mother shushed him with exasperated fondness. In fact, most of lunch was spent listening to the adults reminiscing about their first wands, and the great sense of power they felt in getting them. His mum's story was duly told (apparently, her first time using her wand, she'd turned Ollivander's counter green), and Sanjiv's (no great magic, but apparently he'd gone out and done a jig in the street, telling complete strangers that he'd just got his wand, and it made sparks). By the end of the meal, Teddy wanted to ask Granny if they might go back to Ollivander's to try again, as he really wanted to feel what they were all talking about-it sounded sort of fun-but a deeper part of him was certain that it would just be another two wasted hours. He could only hope that he hadn't absconded with someone else's perfect wand.

Instead, he went with Granny to Madam Malkin's to buy robes. She'd been afraid of a rush of first years the day before the Hogwarts Express left, but there was no one there, and they were in and out very quickly. Finally, they went to the apothecary and got a starter potions kit. Granny bought him a new cauldron and a decent carrying case for his ingredients, then glanced at the starter kit and added-without explanation-at least fifteen extra things, muttering that if she knew his Black blood, he'd need them by October, and she'd prefer that he didn't pilfer them from Slughorn's stores.

They got home at four o'clock, and Granny made a quick trip to St. Mungo's to check on some of her patients (she'd decided to take time off this week, and was due back tomorrow) before they were expected at Shell Cottage. Teddy played with Checkmate for a few minutes, his eyes repeatedly going to the wand box on the kitchen counter. He wasn't allowed to use it, but he could try touching it again...

He opened the box and took it out. The wand felt slightly warm, but it had been sitting in the sun. There was no jolt of energy. It might have been a borrowed quill, for all Teddy felt from it.

A high-pitched mew came from the living room, and Teddy put the wand back in its box and shoved it into his pocket to go rescue Checkmate from whatever trouble she'd decided to get into. He found her halfway up Granny's good curtains, and carefully pulled her down, urging her claws in as gently as he could. She tried to shoot out of his hands to climb further up, toward the top of the china cabinet, where the few good family pieces Granny had managed to sneak out of her house had ended up, along with a glass plate that had belonged to Granddad's mum. It was cracked down the middle and smudged, as it had survived the fire that had killed her, and Teddy had once asked why it had never been fixed. Granny told him that the plate was to remember her by, not to use. On the very top shelf was an ornate wicker basket, the front of it set with a picture frame, from which Teddy's mum and dad waved to him. The basket had always been there, and he hardly paid it attention anymore, but surely, if Checkmate-who after all was descended from Mum's cat-had wanted him to see it, it would be a good idea to take it down.

Curiously, he pulled over a chair and climbed up onto it, taking down the basket and bringing it over to the sofa. He'd gone through it before. They hadn't had many possessions, his parents-a handful of furniture and, for some reason, a collection of Muggle photos in which they appeared to be different ages-but what they had, Granny had told him, belonged to him. Aside from the pictures, there was a box of art supplies, now long stale and crumbling, that had belonged to Dad, a set of nondescript cutlery, a game called Jury of Jarveys, Mum's wedding band (Dad had apparently had very skinny fingers, and his had been lost in the battle where they'd died), and, of course, their wands. They'd had to be tested, to see that their allegiance hadn't shifted, but neither wand had been taken by force. Teddy had handled both of them before, but never with any standard of comparison.

He picked up his father's wand in one hand, and the wand he'd bought from Ollivander's in the other. There was no comparison. Dad's wand felt warm and nearly alive in his hand. His fingers tingled. It wasn't entirely what the others had described, but-

Teddy looked up, sensing more than seeing motion in the garden beyond the window. Granny had just Apparated in, and was walking toward the house.

Put them away, he tried to tell himself, but he may as well have told the sea to stop crashing on the shore. Instead, he put all three wands back in the Ollivander's box, shoved the basket back onto the top shelf, and had just got the chair back where it belonged when Granny came in, reading a scroll on which Teddy could see the name, "Lockhart, Gilderoy."

They were due at Shell Cottage in only twenty minutes, which were spent frantically packing. Granny didn't notice anything amiss. She suggested that Teddy might want to bring the new wand to show-people often wanted to see such things-and he agreed happily enough. The box was back down to a single wand.

The other two were safely stored in the inner pocket of his jacket.

They Flooed out to Shell Cottage at six o'clock, Granny fretting over a stack of scrolls that Bill had wanted to look at (something to do with Black family treasure that Teddy didn't even want to understand). When they spilled out of the fireplace into the Weasley living room-Teddy managing to trip on the laces of his trainers and fall out onto the deep pile carpet, as he almost always did here-he could smell a rich fish stew, and his stomach growled for it.

"Teddy's here!" Artie Weasley shouted from somewhere high above him, and he saw a pair of freckled bare feet dancing around. "Teddy's here, Teddy's here!"

Teddy reached out and tickled the handy feet, and Artie started hopping back and forth, finally falling down on his backside, giggling madly into Teddy's face as Teddy rocked back to a sitting position. Once he was secure, Artie launched himself like a missile into his lap and started pummeling him with tiny fists, sometimes switching to point a finger like a wand and say, "Whoosh, whoosh." He was four, the same age as Al Potter, but he talked a good deal more, having a houseful of bickering sisters to learn from.

"Yes, Artie," Bill said, coming into the room, "there are other boys in the world!"

Artie clapped for this happy circumstance, then got up and ran into the kitchen, where Fleur looked much more pregnant in a loose house-robe today than she'd looked in what she was wearing yesterday.

Bill reached down and helped Teddy up. "Artie's really hoping the new baby is a boy," he told Granny, who'd landed smoothly and was just poking her wand at a few bits of soot. "He feels quite outnumbered by his sisters."

Granny smiled. "It must be getting a bit crowded in here."

"Oh, I'm taking care of it. I asked Dad about the expansion spells he used on the Burrow." Bill pointed out the window, where Teddy could see stones and planks flying about purposefully. "I've decided to add a couple of rooms."

"I didn't even hear!"

"I have a Muffling Charm on it. Of course, there's so much magic going on over there that the girls know the Trace won't work, or that no one will pay attention to it, at any rate. Wait until you see Marie."

Granny smiled, then started straightening the files she'd brought. "Teddy, you should go and offer to help Fleur in the kitchen."

"Yes, Granny."

Teddy dusted himself off and went to the kitchen, where Fleur had several sauces simmering, plates cleaning themselves, and the table arranging itself pleasantly. He offered to help her, but she said she had everything under control, and sent him out to the garden, where Artie had run through the open door and was playing near the wall that blocked off the cliff (this had long been charmed to prevent climbing accidents). Aimee, five years old, was swinging from a rope that Fleur had fixed to a sturdy tree branch, her long blond hair flowing out behind her, tinged red by the setting sun. She let go with one hand to wave to Teddy, then held on tight again and screamed, "Higher, Victoire!" and Victoire, who was behind her, both spun and shoved her, sending her twirling into the evening sky. Seven-year-old Marie was sitting on the wall with a picture book open-

Teddy raised his eyebrows.

Marie had somehow developed bright green hair that stuck straight up. She gave Teddy a grin and jumped up, running to him.

"I tried to make my hair like yours!" she said. "Did I do it right?"

"Er..." Teddy blinked at it. "I'm a... well, I don't really do it by trying with magic... Can't your mum... well, oughtn't you put it back?"

"Maman," Victoire said, floating over, "says that Marie has to keep it tonight, as she wasn't meant to do it at all. She borrowed Maman's wand and took it to the construction site. This is her punishment." She looked with some disapproval at the green stripe Teddy had put into his hair in sympathy with Marie as she spoke.

"I like it," Marie said, preening at no one at all. She ran off and joined Aimee at the rope swing.

"Children," Victoire said, shaking her head in a world-weary way. "Will you write to us from Hogwarts?"

"I don't know."

"Please? I'd really like to hear about it."

"I thought you'd be going to Beauxbatons."

"Well, I don't know yet. Aunt Gabrielle has told me about Beauxbatons, and I visited with Maman, but I'd like to know about Hogwarts, too."

"Can't your dad tell you?"

Victoire's mouth drew in, and her blue eyes seemed suddenly bruised. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to ask too much."

Teddy winced. "No... I'm sorry, really. I'll write."

"Don't bother." She turned away sharply and ran over to her sisters.

"Teddy, Teddy, look at me!" Artie called, and Teddy noticed just in time that he was inching out on a high tree branch. Teddy scrambled up after him to keep him steady, and perched himself on the limb, holding Artie securely while they watched the ocean far below. Artie wanted a story, and Teddy obliged, making up some nonsense about a Muggle-born princess in a far away country who had to fight a dragon.

Fleur set out dinner at seven-thirty, and it was delicious. Though Teddy would not have said it in front of Victoire in a million years, he thought she might have a point about French cooking. There was a great deal of talk, and Teddy dutifully showed off his new wand, and Bill and Fleur took the opportunity to launch into their own wand stories, then Granny and Bill started talking about Hogwarts and the sorts of trouble they'd all got up to there. (Teddy tried to imagine Granny grinning wickedly at Great Aunt Narcissa and Transfiguring her robes into a little white pinafore, and failed badly.) All the while, he could feel his parents' wands in his pocket, resting against his side. There was a nervous moment when he put the other one back that he thought Victoire might have seen them, as she was sitting right beside him, but she said nothing. He looked at Marie, still thrilled with her green hair, bragging that she hadn't got caught by any Trace, and it came to him: He could find out for sure before he went to Hogwarts.

"Excuse me," he said, standing up. "I have to..." He pointed toward the toilet.

"Please be my guest," Bill said, then went back to his conversation.

Teddy slipped down the corridor toward the toilet and ducked in long enough to lose any suspicion, then slipped back out, opening the side door at the end of the corridor. It led out directly into the building site, and he had to duck to avoid a flying hammer. He found a seat on a crate of building supplies that had been set near the partially built outer wall. It was at the far edge, near the cliff, and he could look down straight to the crashing sea through a gap in the support beams. With a deep breath, he took out all three wands.

The new wand was first-he wanted to give it a chance. He held it up and said, "Lumos." It was the only spell he already really knew how to do.

The wand glowed in a feeble sort of way. He set it down and picked up his father's wand.

"Lumos."

The air around him was infused with a soft white light, which held in a kind of bubble of perfect clarity. He smiled at it. This one felt right. He tucked it back into his pocket.

He picked up his mother's. It seemed to thrum in his hand with a deep, almost frightening amount of energy.

"Lu-"

"I knew it!"

He jumped.

Victoire was coming toward him, ducking stones. "You're doing magic! And you have wands you're not meant to have!"

"Go away, will you?" he hissed, trying to keep his voice down.

"No! You'll get into so much trouble!"

"Not if you don't tell! I just want to see if my parents' wands work for me."

"Don't you have a new one?"

"Yes, but..." Teddy stopped, not wanting to tell her that the new wand felt weak and watery. That was none of her business. "Why do you care, anyway?"

"Your grandmother told you that you had to use a new one. She said that yesterday, at the picnic. I heard her."

Teddy bit his lip desperately. "Vicky-Victoire... please don't tell. Please. I only want to-"

But his plea was cut short by a sudden thud, and Victoire fell forward onto the crate, a rip on the shoulder of her robes. Another rock came flying in, and Teddy realized that he still had Mum's wand in his hand, that he was waving it at the rocks, that they were coming at him and he had no idea how to stop them.

He grabbed Victoire around the shoulders and pulled her behind the crate, tucking both of them safely between it and the partially finished wall. He could see his new wand still sitting out, right in the path of the rocks, and he shoved Mum's into his pocket beside Dad's and darted up to grab for it. A rock hit his wrist smartly and he swore as Victoire yelled, "Papa! Papa!" and threw a small stone at the kitchen window.

The back door slammed open, and suddenly several spells flew through the night. Stones veered away from the crate they were hiding behind, and the workings of the construction spell slowed and came to a stop.

Teddy could see Bill Weasley's dragon hide boots before anything else. He looked up the blue jeans, past the work-shirt, into the deeply scarred face. Over his shoulder, Teddy could see Granny, looking furious. Bill had one eyebrow raised. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Teddy was showing off," Victoire said, while Teddy was about to reach for his parents' wands, expecting them to be confiscated. "He was showing me that new wand." She pointed at the Ollivander's wand, which was, in fact, the one in Teddy's hand. "And then the stones started flying at us."

Teddy blinked stupidly at her.

"Is that what happened?" Bill asked.

"It was an accident," Teddy muttered.

"You know better than to try to use a wand outside of school." Granny took it from him. "I think I'll keep this until tomorrow morning."

She led the way back in, and Teddy had no idea what to say. He was quiet for the rest of the evening, claiming school nerves. He offered to help Artie and the girls clean up, and while he was drying the dishes, he overheard Bill talking to Granny and Fleur at the table, muttering, "I thought I'd have a few more years before boys started trying to show my daughters their wands." Granny, who'd had two glasses of wine, snorted a laugh into her third, and it spilled over the table. Teddy blushed, and quickly went back to the sink to help Aimee stack the dishes. When they finished ten minutes later, the adults were having a sedate conversation about interest rates on goblin loans.

"You'll write to me, won't you?" Victoire said, an evil sort of glint in her eyes.

He nodded, feeling he owed her that, as they got ready to Floo home. He apologized to Bill for the mess he'd made, and Bill rolled his eyes extravagantly (which made his ruined face quite alarming for a minute). The littler girls (and Artie) hugged and kissed him several times, then he and Granny stepped into the fireplace and headed home.

3. A Mission to Save the World

Chapter 3:

A Mission to Save the World

Granny gave him his wand as soon as he was buckled tightly into the passenger seat of the car with Checkmate sleeping in her basket on his lap, and told him sternly that if she so much as caught him using it to point to something, he'd be taught at home for another year. Then she ground her teeth, got behind the wheel, and headed out into the city traffic. She didn't speak. Teddy thought it was nerves about driving again, but when he looked at her more closely, he could see tears glittering in the corners of her eyes.

"I'll write to you tonight," he said. "To let you know my House, and who I'm living with."

"Thank you."

"I hope I'll like them."

"Teddy, I have yet to see you meet someone you can't get along with. You get that from your mum. And she had all of her best friends by the time she got to Hogsmeade." She blanched. "Don't feel pressured if you don't. You have a lot of your dad in you as well, and he was a bit more reserved. And of course, you're-"

"-my own self," Teddy muttered, glad that he wouldn't be hearing that again until Christmas holidays. "I hope there are enough school owls for the first night letters."

"Oh, there generally are." Granny looked down a stretch of road that seemed very straight, then nervously reached down and pushed a tape into the tape player. A guitar-heavy band started doing a song whose lyrics Teddy couldn't quite make out over the warping. He knew it had been his mum's music, so he listened to it with some degree of contentment. It was good music, though he liked the Weird Sisters better. He and Granny had got tickets to their reunion concert in Diagon Alley over the summer, and he'd managed to get Kirley McCormack's autograph, and Frankie had laughed at him, as he had Harry Potter's signature on hundreds of letters and cards-some of them actually thrown out-and that was a bit bigger than any guitarist.

They edged into London at ten, pulling up to King's Cross at close to ten-thirty. Granny turned off the ignition with relief, then sent Teddy to find a trolley. By the time he got back with one, she'd taken his trunk from the boot-he guessed she'd lightened it magically-and was pulling his book bag out from the tire well, where its strap had got caught on something. She cursed at it mildly and dislodged it as Teddy reached her. They put the trunk onto the trolley together (making it look like it was a great effort, though it weighed no more than an empty cardboard box), then set Checkmate's basket on top of it. Checkmate, whose sleep was magically enhanced for the rest of the trip, gave a garbled meow when she was jostled, then settled her chin firmly back on her paws. Granny pushed the trolley inside, to the barrier between platforms nine and ten, then stopped and took a deep breath.

"It's time, Teddy," she said. "I'm not sure I'm entirely prepared." She opened her arms for one of her rare hugs. Teddy could see other Hogwarts students milling around, none of them being hugged. Granny caught him looking and rolled her eyes. "Oh, all right. On the other side, though..."

She took him firmly by the upper arm, each of them with a hand on the handle of the trolley, and pushed through the brick wall onto the platform, where the Hogwarts Express was waiting in its cloud of steam. Granny swept them out of the way of the arch, toward an alcove where a grizzled looking old man with a shock of gray hair was sitting in a Conjured easy chair, then pulled Teddy into a hug, whether he liked it or not. He hugged her back.

"I promise to write," he said again.

"Hopefully," the old man said, "you mean to keep that promise to more than your grandmother."

Teddy frowned and inched over, a suspicion growing in his mind. He reached up to the man's gray fringe, pulled it apart, and saw a pale, lightning-shaped scar.

Uncle Harry winked. "You didn't think I wouldn't come to see you off, did you?"

"Why the disguise?" Granny asked. "I've actually seen you walk down the street without one, you know."

"I didn't want to get the attention on Teddy's first day," Uncle Harry said. "Besides"-he jerked his chin in the direction of the train, where Teddy could now see a knot of people with cameras, and an older witch with curly blond hair and acid-green quill floating beside her-"it seems that the press has been called."

"Who are they here for?" Granny said.

"No idea. Not me, and not Teddy."

"Head of the Auror department, and you can't find out who they're after?"

"Unless it's for Dark magic, it's none of my business."

Granny nodded. "I suppose that's fair."

Uncle Harry put his hands on Teddy's arms, then pulled him into a rough hug, mussed up his hair, and let him go. "I'm proud of you, Teddy," he said.

"I haven't really done anything yet."

"I know. But I'm proud of you anyway. Are you too grown-up for a kiss from your godfather?"

"I think so."

"All right, then." Uncle Harry held out his hand solemnly, and Teddy shook it. The grip tightened, and he was drawn back into another hug.

"Geroff!" he said, pushing away and laughing.

Uncle Harry looked at him for a long time, smiling but quite serious now. "You're a very well-loved boy, Teddy Lupin."

"I know that." Teddy smiled for him. "I love you, too, Uncle Harry."

"Say it a bit more dutifully next time," Uncle Harry advised. "Your classmates might have mistaken that one for actual affection, if they heard."

A whistle on the train blew.

"You'd best go," Granny said, then pointed with her chin. "There's Frankie."

The Apcarnes, looking harried, had just come through the barrier, and Teddy pushed his trolley toward them. Frankie noticed him when he was halfway and waved to him. His toad, Galahad, looked up without much interest.

Teddy looked over his shoulder at Granny and Uncle Harry, who were giving him encouraging smiles. He held up his hand, sighed, and went back, giving Granny a firm hug and sticking his hand out to shake Uncle Harry's again.

"Have a good year," Granny said. "We'll see you at Christmas. Write."

Uncle Harry winked. "Enjoy Gryffindor."

Granny rolled her eyes and said, "Ha."

Teddy gave them one more smile, then went to his trolley, turned it so it was beside Frankie's, and together, they started pushing their trunks toward the Hogwarts Express. Partway there, they started racing, and by the time they'd got to the door, they were out of breath and laughing. An older boy helped them pull the trunks up, and Daffy took the trolleys away.

"Come on," Frankie said. "I saw Bernice in the window near the end. She put up our sign."

"Our... sign?"

Frankie nodded. "You'll see."

He led them down the narrow corridor between carriages, past tall seventh year boys and impossibly pretty girls and Quidditch players placing bets and... really more older children than Teddy had ever seen in his life. He wasn't sure how he felt about not being eldest anymore.

Frankie finally reached a compartment that looked like all of the others, except for a piece of parchment stuck onto the window, on which someone had drawn a clumsy pine tree. Under it were the words, "The Forest Guard."

"Here we are!" Frankie said, pushing the door open with great aplomb. "Back again!"

A cheer went up, and Teddy looked around Frankie to see who else was in the compartment.

There were only three people, but they'd clearly settled in. One was a girl with hair the color of dirty dishwater. She had jumped up awkwardly on their entrance and was giving Frankie a suspicious look. The second was a boy with a huge nose and quite a lot of spots. He was wearing a t-shirt from a concert tour of an Australian band called "Didja Do?" The third was a small, neat looking boy with wire-rim glasses and thin blond hair. This one stood up and said, "Frankie, we were beginning to wonder where you were."

The girl stepped between them. "We should check his identity."

"Bernice wants to be an Auror," Frankie said to Teddy, then looked at her. "Go ahead."

"Who are you named after?" she asked, tilting her head wisely.

"The Fat Friar. Good to ask."

Teddy smiled weakly. Everyone who'd ever met Frankie Apcarne knew he was named after the Fat Friar; it wasn't exactly a security question. Then again, there was no reason for a security question in the first place.

Frankie pulled him forward. "This is Teddy Lupin. He's been my friend longer than you lot have. I vouch for him. He's definitely against evil." He winked, and Teddy realized that they were in the middle of some long-running game. He pointed at the blond boy and said, "This is Zachary Templeton, and the walking case of spots over there is Ken Lanagan. We're the Forest Guard. What d'you say, Lupin? Will you join us?"

"What, er... what do you do?"

Frankie sat down and grinned. "Funny you should ask. As turns out, we're on a mission to save the world."

Teddy frowned. "Save it from... what?"

"Dark forces!" Bernice said, and Ken put in, "Evil."

Frankie shrugged. "Mostly boredom. Though we did have an excellent row with a doxy colony last year, and lived to tell about it."

Teddy wasn't sure whether he was amused or disturbed, but decided that amusement would go further. He sat down, and took his place among the Forest Guard.

"We think it will come from the Forbidden Forest," Bernice said, pulling herself onto her trunk and crossing her legs. "There're plenty of bad things in there, no one even knows all of them, even Professor Hagrid."

"So we go out there every couple of weeks," Ken said. "At night, you know. After everyone's meant to be safely tucked in."

"What do you do there?"

Zachary gave a rather sheepish shrug. "We just muck about, really. We-"

"We look for evil things!" Bernice interrupted crossly.

"We tromp around a little. We know the Forest pretty well." Zachary grinned. "Sounds a bit silly, doesn't it?"

Bernice and Ken looked mildly irked that he'd say this, but Frankie seemed to take it as a matter of course, and just looked curiously at Teddy.

Teddy agreed with Zachary-it sounded more than a little silly. Then again, so did turning into animals to keep a werewolf friend company, and that had worked out all right. He smiled. "Sounds like fun."

"It's serious," Bernice huffed.

"Don't mind Bernice," Frankie said. "She'd find a way to make Weasleys' Portable Daydreams deeply serious."

Bernice pressed her lips together very tightly, but they were twitching, and a moment later, she smiled. It didn't exactly make her pretty, but it definitely made her look friendlier. "We also have a game of Muggles and Minions going in the Hufflepuff common room on weekends. If you're Sorted into Hufflepuff, you can join it. It only takes a few minutes to make up a character, and Frankie can mentor you until you get enough points to stay alive."

"I've never played that," Teddy said.

"Best game in the world!" Ken said. "You have to be a Muggle, and you can use any sort of Muggle thing there is, but you have to collect up points to buy big things, like cars..."

The others spent the next hour explaining the game as the Hogwarts Express wound its way out of London, all of them relaxing significantly as they got back into whatever habits they normally had at Hogwarts. Bernice pulled out a pipe and chewed on its stem, though she didn't have tobacco and didn't actually smoke. She played a character who stole cars, claiming that she wanted to learn to understand the criminal mind. Zachary's character was a detective, and Ken wouldn't say which side he was on. Frankie apparently made up all of the stories they used, and said he'd come up with something really good that ought to last until Christmas, if the lot of them didn't muck it up.

"We could start Teddy's character now," Frankie suggested after buying several cauldron cakes from the witch with the sweets trolley, leaving the door banging open behind him. "Then I'd have time to work him in."

"What if he's not in Hufflepuff?" Zachary asked.

"'Course he'll be in Hufflepuff. His mum was the ultimate Hufflepuff, or at least that's what my parents say. Totally loyal."

"Hmph."

A girl was standing in the door, and Teddy recognized her as the dark-haired girl who he'd seen in Ollivander's. She looked at him with great distaste.

"Have I got something on me?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I don't know. Is the moon full tonight? Maybe we'd best watch for fur. Well, I suppose you should be glad someone will take you." She looked disdainfully at the Forest Guard, then turned and went on down the corridor without looking back.

Teddy felt like he really ought to do something-rush off after her and curse her, perhaps-but he seemed to have lost hold of the ground he was standing on. He'd known, of course, that werewolves had a bad reputation. Hermione had even tried to warn him about just this sort of thing, but he hadn't believed her, not really. Everyone spoke kindly about his father.

Or, as the case seemed to be, everyone he knew had managed to follow some unwritten Teddy Rule against letting him hear otherwise.

"You all right, mate?" Frankie said quietly.

"Huh?"

"Are you a werewolf?" Bernice asked. "Not that it would matter, but we'd have to go out when the moon wasn't full, of course."

"What? No. I'm not." Teddy smiled tightly. "I'm going to go find the trolley again, if it's all right. Meant to buy some Chocolate Frog cards. Believe it or not, I haven't got Professor Longbottom yet!"

He slipped out of the compartment and leaned against the wall, swallowing hard. He could feel his parents' wands, safely in his pocket, and he wrapped his fingers around them. After a while, he felt a bit better. He should have known. Deciding that it would look suspicious to go back without some Chocolate Frogs (and thinking one would be tasty, at any rate), he started to pick his way down the corridor. A group of older girls went giggling by, talking about going to "Donzo"'s compartment, and off to one side, he heard an older boy pontificating on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team's chances. He finally came to an impenetrable crowd of people blocking the way, and could see the trolley witch's head bouncing in the middle.

"Oh, will you all please wait in an orderly line!"

Teddy glanced into the compartment they were near, and saw a boy his own age, dark-haired and slightly familiar, surrounded by girls who didn't really seem to be paying attention to him. They were fawning at him, but Teddy thought he looked like a trapped rabbit. With a jerky motion, he reached into a bowl of sweets and tossed a handful into the air. One rolled to Teddy's feet-it was a Music Bite, meant to play a song in your head. This one was wrapped in a picture of the boy, who was dancing frantically. His name was apparently Donzo McCormack, and Teddy realized that he must have been the cause of the commotion on the platform. He vaguely remembered now hearing at the Weird Sisters' concert that Kirley McCormack's son was performing these days-Granny had said it was getting a bit ridiculous, both Kirley and his son still using his mother's maiden name just because she'd been a Quidditch star, rather than their legal name, which was Duke-but he hadn't realized they were the same age. Or cared, once he'd heard the stupid little song he did. He supposed that most Weird Sisters fans were a bit embarrassed by it. From the looks of it, so was Donzo.

A camera flash went off, and an excitable boy crowed, "I got it, I got it!" and barreled into Teddy, knocking him over.

"Aren't you Harry Potter's godson?" he asked. "What a great year!"

Teddy, who was turned away, morphed quickly, borrowing Bernice's sour face before he looked around and said, "Not sure what you mean."

"Oh." The boy looked less than impressed. "Well, sorry. My mistake." He went off without saying anything else.

Teddy slipped into the crowd and bought a handful of Chocolate Frogs, then, releasing the morph, went back to Frankie's compartment and got back to spinning a much more interesting adventure than was to be had on the train. One of the frogs, which Zachary had taken, turned out to be Dad's, and Zachary started asking questions about him, then stopped abruptly when he noticed the death date. He muttered, "Sorry, Teddy," and went back to the game, reverently tucking the card-which Teddy had got the first copy of when they originally started printing it-into the edge of the window, so Dad smiled unknowingly across at Teddy for the rest of the trip.

As the ride wore on, more students seemed to have taken to wandering from compartment to compartment, looking for their friends. None of Frankie's group seemed to care to do this, but more than once, older students had looked in to say hello. Some seemed friendly-a fourth year Ravenclaw stayed for quite a long time, and they talked about a Muggles and Minions interhouse tournament-but the majority seemed to have stumbled onto the wrong compartment. At one point, a seventh year girl nearly ran out screaming when she realized who she was asking for the time.

"Ellie Cattermole," Frankie said, rolling his eyes. "She thinks she's the little Queen of Hufflepuff because she's pretty."

"But she's dumber than a Honking Daffodil," Zachary said. "Kind of undermines her."

There were no further visits from the nasty girl with dark hair, and no one else seemed inclined to break the Teddy Rule, so with that single exception, Teddy thought the trip quite a satisfactory first day. He decided that when he wrote to Victoire, he'd tell her she'd need to practice a lot if she meant to be the rudest girl in school, though.

The sun had set long ago by the time the train started slowing as it approached Hogsmeade Station, and everyone scrambled to put on their school robes (Bernice made the curtain on the window march across the compartment so she could change in peace, though if anyone was watching the train, she'd be seen perfectly well from the outside). Frankie, in celebration of his return to school, was wearing his Hufflepuff top-hat again, and Bernice had put in badger earrings. Zachary had a small badger tie-tack.

"All right," Frankie said, "Let's give Teddy some Hufflepuff energy for the Sorting Hat to pick up!" They pressed around him, jostling him out as they hunted down their luggage and got it out onto the platform, one of the few places in Hogsmeade where Teddy hadn't spent any time. None of the shops or homes looked the same from this angle, and he couldn't see the hulking shape of the Shrieking Shack across town at all.

"Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

"Ah, Hagrid," Frankie said. "Brings back memories..."

"From the vast depths of two years ago," Zachary said, mimicking Frankie's nostalgic tone. "However does the time slip away..."

"Firs' years!"

"I have to go," Teddy said. "First year."

"Right," Frankie told him, then came closer. "Look, Ted, really, I'd love you in Hufflepuff, but if you get Sorted somewhere else, you can still come for the game, as long as we finish before you're meant to be wherever you live. There's no rule against visitors in Hufflepuff."

"Thanks, Frankie."

"See you inside, one way or the other!"

Teddy watched them head off to a carriage pulled by an invisible thestral, then headed down the steep bank of the lake, where a handful of the other first years had already made their way to Hagrid. The dark-haired girl was there, and Donzo McCormack. They'd been joined by a plain girl with gapped teeth, a small, pinched-looking boy with black hair and beady eyes, a very pretty blonde who smiled at Teddy in a watery sort of way, and another boy, this one still in Muggle clothes, who looked miffed at something. There were a few others milling around by the boats; Teddy guessed maybe a dozen had got here. The others must still be trying to sort out their luggage.

"Pretty impressive, eh?" a boy asked beside Teddy, and his accent was completely unfamiliar. "I'm kind of glad I didn't end up at the school in Nunavut. My mom said her family had been at Hogwarts for six hundred years, and I wasn't breaking tradition no matter where I was born. I'm kind of glad." He grinned up at the castle. "But I'm not eating anything with kidneys in it."

"All right, firs' years?" Hagrid said, thumping down the slope toward the boats. "We'll get across the lake-good night for it, too-"

"Excuse me," the plain girl said, frowning, "but aren't we waiting for the rest?"

Teddy looked around. The group had grown by three, leaving fifteen eleven-year-olds standing on the hill... but the carriages had left, and the platform behind them was empty except for luggage.

He looked up at Hagrid, whose face was a study in misery. "This is all of us?" he asked.

"Of course it is," the dark-haired girl said. "Most of any year is half-bloods. Exactly how many of them do you think were born the year we were?"

4. The Smallest Year

Chapter 4:

The Smallest Year

Hagrid took a single boat to himself; the first years split into four boats, with the last one only containing three students. Teddy was one of them, the unpleasant brunette was another. The last student was the small, beady-eyed boy with black hair, who identified himself as Maurice Burke, and, without stopping to breathe, added, "Yes, from Borgin and Burke's, but that's my great-uncle and we don't take money from them."

The girl looked at him coolly. "Honoria Higgs," she said, then added, looking at Teddy, "That's Teddy Lupin. He lives with Andromeda Black. His father was a werewolf." She turned back and leaned toward the prow of the boat, looking ahead at the castle.

If the girl hadn't been as rude as she had on the train, Teddy might have asked her how she came to know so much about him, but as it was, he preferred to avoid talking to her altogether.

Maurice gave Teddy an apologetic sort of look and said, "Nice to meet you. Wonder what her story is. She seems to know yours."

"I'm guessing spoilt rotten," Teddy said.

Maurice laughed. "True. If it were anything more interesting, she'd have told us about it at length. Was your father really a-" Maurice stopped and winced. "Sorry."

Teddy waved it off absently as the wind blew, and a cloud passed from the full moon, lighting the castle with a silvery gray glow. The battlements high on one tower seemed brighter, where the stones were newer on the fresh repairs, and the new brass fixtures on the huge doors shone like lamps. These were only the most surface of repairs, Teddy knew-it had taken a decade to repair all of the damage done by the Dark spells that had broken Hogwarts' protections on the night his parents had died-but they stood out, a symbol of defiance. He imagined his parents storming in here, diving into the battle-

"We'd better watch out," Honoria Higgs said. "Who knows what happens to a werecub when it sees the full moon?"

Had Teddy thought for a moment about what he was doing, he probably wouldn't have done it, but he didn't. As Honoria looked over her shoulder smugly, he morphed as he had for Hermione at the picnic, forcing hair out of his face, sharpening his teeth, pointing his ears.

Honoria's composure broke entirely. She scrambled even further toward the front of the boat, which rocked alarmingly, then slipped over the side into the lake. She was halfway to Hagrid's boat before she looked back again to see Maurice Burke doubled over laughing.

Hagrid steered over and fished her out of the water, pulling her up into his own boat.

"He..." she sputtered, looking at Teddy, who had released the morph, and arranged his features innocently (though Hagrid would know well enough). "He frightened me, deliberately."

"Well, he can talk to his Head of House, once he gets one," Hagrid told her amiably.

Teddy smiled, feeling quite satisfied with himself.

The boats carried them silently across the lake. A veil of ivy-magically re-grown three years ago after the Carrows had cursed it during the war-was dead ahead; the boats skimmed under it and slipped into the underground harbor from which first years had been entering Hogwarts for a millennium. They clambered out of the boats onto the shore, then followed Hagrid up onto the grounds, into the shadow of Hogwarts, onto the grounds outside the door, where so much blood had been shed.

"Watch for the Red Caps!" Hagrid said gruffly. "Just give 'em a kick if they get in yer way. Yeh'll all learn to handle 'em yer first week, don' worry, nothin' to worry about..."

Teddy saw a Red Cap scurrying along, its iron-tipped club trailed out behind it, but it didn't come near them. Hagrid led them up the stairs, then the great doors opened, and they crossed the threshold.

Neville Longbottom was waiting for them in the entrance hall, a pleasant smile on his round face. Traditionally, this had been the deputy headmaster's job, but as soon as he'd become a professor, general sentiment had swung sharply toward the idea that he ought to be the one to greet first years, all of whom-well, at least the wizard-born among them-knew the story of his defiance of the Death Eaters, and how the Sorting Hat had been burned on his head.

"The firs' years, Professor Longbottom," Hagrid said.

"Thanks," Neville said, and Teddy corrected himself mentally, forcing himself to think of Neville as "Professor Longbottom." "I'll take them from here."

They nodded to each other at the end of the ritual, then Hagrid hurried inside to the head table.

Neville-Professor Longbottom-led them across the entrance hall, into an antechamber near the Great Hall, and sat them all at a single table that seemed lost in a sea of shadows.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," he said when they got there. "As I'm sure you all know, there are four houses..."

Teddy let the description wash over him; it was certainly nothing new, though Professor Longbottom's kindly voice seemed to calm everyone down.

"Now," he said when he finished, "I understand there was already an incident on the lake?"

Honoria came forward, dripping, and pointed at Teddy. "He scared me. He turned into a werewolf."

Professor Longbottom's face grew cool. "Is that true, Mr. Lupin?"

"I morphed at her," Teddy admitted, but decided not to start his school career by whinging to a teacher about someone being unkind.

"An interesting way you have of honoring your father," Professor Longbottom said. "Reminding people of the thing he hated most."

Teddy looked at the floor, suddenly feeling like he'd rather be the Red Cap outside, skipping mindlessly through the shadows toward the lake.

Professor Longbottom put a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up again. The expression was understanding. "I imagine you had your reasons," he said. Honoria snorted and he dried her clothes with an absent flick of his wand and said, "I don't want to hear about anything like this again." He was not, significantly, looking at Teddy as he said it. "I'll come back for all of you when we're prepared in the Great Hall. You might want to straighten up your robes."

After he left, there was some nervous straightening of clothes, but more nervous glancing at one another. Donzo McCormack seemed to want attention paid to him-kept looking over his shoulder like he expected a crowd to be there-but no one was looking. One boy didn't seem interested in putting on robes at all.

"Excuse me," a girl with curly strawberry blond hair said, "but you really ought to put on the robes."

"Why should I?" the boy said. "All this kowtowing to medievalism is ridiculous. I wouldn't be here if there were any other way to learn about this part of who I am."

"It's your school uniform," another boy said. "Put it on. You'd be doing exactly the same thing if you were in Muggle school."

"How do you know?"

"Do you think you're the only Muggle-born here?"

The first boy looked suspiciously around. "How many of you are like me, then? And just going along with this nonsense?"

Six of the fifteen, including the boy who'd asked, raised their hands.

"Fewer than I was expecting," Honoria sniffed.

"What did you mean?" one of the Muggle-born girls said. "Outside, about the half-bloods and such?"

"Most years, there are a lot of half-bloods," Honoria said. "But the year we were born, there was a dark wizard called Voldemort killing Muggle-borns, so they didn't have children. Other half-bloods left the country, or were at least smart enough not to try to get around pregnant or with a baby-most of them anyway." She looked smugly at Teddy, then sniffed and turned around. "Everyone figured half-bloods would be the next target, once the Muggle-borns were all gone. Even some pure-bloods left. It was dangerous to be here that year." She looked at the boy who had the strange accent. "Your parents went abroad, didn't they?"

"Well, yeah. My mom did, anyway. My dad's from Toronto to start with. They just stayed put."

"My mum's a model," the pretty blond girl said. "My dad's a Muggle. He was taking pictures of her. He said they should stay in Italy until the war was over." She looked suspiciously at the Canadian. "My parents came home after the war, though."

"Any other half-bloods? I mean, other than the werecub."

"Let up on that!" Maurice Burke said. "Anyway, it wasn't just half-bloods who ran. My father and mother headed out to the Falklands right after Cedric Diggory died. Said they saw writing on the wall. Quite a lot of pure-bloods died the first time around, too. A lot of us left."

Donzo shouldered in. "Yes, that's true. My father was on tour and my mother went with him, and as soon as they found out what was happening here, he sent her to live with his friends in the Pondhoppers-don't know if you remember them, big American group, they had quite a hit..."

No one was interested in the Pondhoppers, and Teddy actually felt a bit bad for Donzo, who looked crushed. Two other pure-bloods had got away through what they called "the Quidditch network"-one born to a Quidditch player and the other to a Quidditch manager, both outspoken against Voldemort, they'd been spirited away through international team connections, and seemed to believe Oliver Wood had arranged it. One had been born in Bulgaria and the other in Israel. Honoria claimed to have been born in Gibraltar while her parents were on an extended holiday (which just happened to coincide with the rise of Voldemort, she assured them; they had not fled). Only one of the other wizard-born students, the plain girl with gapped teeth, had been born in Britain. She introduced herself as Tinny Gudgeon ("Ernestine," she muttered when questioned) and quickly deferred to Teddy, saying that her parents weren't brave like his, only careful not to draw attention to themselves in the Ministry.

They'd got so deeply into this conversation (the Muggle-borns-with the exception of the boy who had finally, grudgingly, put on his robes and was now ignoring all of them-were listening with rapt attention, as if to a very good story that they'd missed most of) that they wouldn't have noticed the ghosts coming in at all if it weren't for a Muggle-born girl called Jane screaming.

Teddy smiled. He knew Nearly Headless Nick and the Fat Friar on sight, and they nodded to him happily.

"Ah, here he is!" Nick said. "I hope to see you in Gryffindor!"

"He's sure to be in Hufflepuff," the Fat Friar said.

The Grey Lady and Moaning Myrtle came next, speaking quietly to each other-the Lady had made a motion to allow Myrtle greater haunting privileges in Ravenclaw, and it had apparently improved her disposition-and the Bloody Baron nodded solemnly to the new students. Several other ghosts floated by, then passed through the wall into the Great Hall.

The door opened, and Professor Longbottom came back in. "We're ready for you," he said.

The first years gathered, and he led them in a silent parade to the doors of the Great Hall.

They looked nervously at one another as the doors opened, arranging themselves into something like two lines. Teddy found himself between Tinny Gudgeon and the strident Muggle-born boy who was making a great deal of fuss about how uncomfortable his robes were. The pretty blonde was across from him, chewing absently on her lip. She noticed him looking and smiled widely, then Donzo McCormack was offering her his arm, and she slipped back further in line.

They took their first steps inside.

Teddy had been here before-he'd come for a Quidditch match with Aunt Ginny, who claimed to be scouting for the Harpies but seemed mainly to be enthusiastically cheering the Gryffindor House team, and they'd slipped in for lunch with Professor Longbottom-but it was different now, filled with waiting students, the candles floating in the air above the tables, the tables dressed for the feast, the night sky appearing on the enchanted ceiling. The full moon sat above the highest arch. The strange combination of starlight, moonlight, and candlelight cast everything in deep warmth.

The long House tables stretched to the front of the room, the students waiting for the feast with varying degrees of patience. Toward the front, they'd left empty spaces-many more than would be needed even for a normal-sized class, Teddy thought, with the Gryffindor table looking particularly empty, all of its students crowded to the back-but no one commented on this.

He craned his neck to see around Tinny, and there it was-the Sorting Hat.

It was hard for Teddy to believe that there had been a time that incoming students-wizard-born ones, at any rate-were kept in the dark about how the Sorting was accomplished. The Sorting Hat had been splashed across the pages of the Daily Prophet, photographed and analyzed, debated by the Wizengamot... it was as famous as the Quidditch pitch. Professor Longbottom led them to the spot in front of it and lined them up, giving a few quick cues to students who still needed to straighten themselves up, then turned to the Hat itself and nodded.

The hat's brim tipped down respectfully, and this close, Teddy could see the shadows of its burning, black shapes like flames that writhed over its cloth in the constant motion of memory. The rip at its brim opened, and it sang:

"Once upon a misty time
When Hogwarts school was new
The Founders worked in harmony
And thus their project grew.

Hufflepuff's blood is in the earth,
the living growth you see.
Gryffindor built the battlements
To guard from villainy.

Slytherin made the secret ways
The mysteries to find,
And Ravenclaw built for knowledge
The turrets of the mind.

But even while the Founders breathed
Their Houses felt the strain
Of clashing hopes and warring dreams
And strife too often came.

To keep their four minds in these walls,
And balance to create,
Each mind gave a bit to me
Before it was too late.

Though they moved on, I still remained
And watched the Houses thrive
With new and burning tensions
Each century to rise.

Some tensions came to naught at all
While others led to war
But in the end a darkness rose
Like none that came before."

Teddy saw several of the teachers at the head table shift uncomfortably here, as if they didn't entirely care for what was about to happen. He frowned. The Hat continued its song, softer now, and sadder.

"The House of Hufflepuff stayed true
And its blood first was shed
Their loyal hearts are counted
Among the honored dead."

Above the Hufflepuff table, over the empty seats, several candles abruptly went out, their smoke forming hazy shapes in the air, which spun and drifted. One of them became a boy with a pleasant, handsome face that Teddy recognized as Cedric Diggory's, and he knew what would happen a second before it did-a puff of smoke twirled into a shape with spiky hair and high, Black cheekbones.

"Mum," he whispered, though the girl in the smoke was as she would have been when she had put the Sorting Hat on her own head. All of the figures that were now appearing were eleven years old, clear-faced, and transparent. Teddy felt Professor Longbottom's hand on his shoulder as other shapes of fallen Hufflepuffs appeared and floated away.

The smoke broke apart and drifted, and the Hat went back to its song.

"In the airy tow'r of Ravenclaw,
the final war began
In solving the last mystery,
the fear became mere man."

Candles went out over the Ravenclaw table, forming a boy whose face was, even then, a bit mad and wary-Mad-Eye Moody, unscarred but still somehow wild-a girl who would become the woman Teddy thought had taught Muggle Studies, others he didn't know.

"In the end, the darkness must
Be fought from deep within
And so the secret heroes rose
From shadowed Slytherin."

Fewer candles went out over the Slytherin table, but the two faces Teddy saw were deeply familiar to him-Severus Snape, whose name Uncle Harry's younger son had as his middle name, and Regulus Black, whose picture Granny had placed on the wall beside his brother Sirius's at home, both of them lit by the same candle. Snape and Regulus spun into the smoke and disappeared, along with the handful of other Slytherins who'd found their inner courage to fight what had begun in their own House.

"Bold Gryffindor, as always, took
the deepest cut of all
Their scarlet blood and banner
Laid claim upon this hall."

The light in the Great Hall nearly went out as dozens of candles blinked out of existence at the Gryffindor table, and smoky figures danced toward the ceiling. Teddy tried to get a glimpse of his father, but he was lost in the crowd.

Professor Longbottom squeezed his shoulder and pointed to a spot near the windows, and Teddy saw him, a boy with a thin face and shaggy hair, rendered insubstantial in smoke. He turned once, then disappeared. Teddy smiled at him, not knowing what else he was meant to do. He thought he also caught a glimpse of Sirius Black, looking cheekily down at the crowd, and James Potter, who looked disturbingly like Uncle Harry, and a long-haired boy in old-fashioned robes who Teddy thought with some wonder must have grown up to be Albus Dumbledore. But he couldn't be sure, and couldn't pick anyone else out of the crowd. There were too many.

The Hat waited for the smoke to clear, then finished its song.

"But battles fade into the past
And we, the left behind,
Rebuild and heal, move on and do
The tasks we've been assigned.

Throughout it all, I sort the lot-
It always shall be so.
They even tried to burn me once,
but I refused to go!

So I came back from fiery doom,
Despite a little singe,
To join the future to the past-
I stand upon the hinge!

You'll find a home in Hufflepuff
If your heart is kind and true
If you don't fear toil and love fair play
then Hufflepuff's for you!

For Ravenclaws, the world's a tale
To spin within the mind
A place for those whose thoughts fly free
In Ravenclaw, you'll find.

Slytherin has a subtle soul
And craves respect to win
If you long to prove yourself
Come home to Slytherin!

The broken heart of Gryffindor
Beats bold and pure as flame
If you stand both sure and brave,
then Gryffindor calls your name!

So come now and try me on,
As we've done right from the start,
And I will whisper in your ear
The House that's in your heart!"

There was general applause, though Teddy thought it was a bit subdued. The extinguished candles didn't re-light, but the others drifted slowly around, spreading the remaining light more evenly. Professor Longbottom waited for the applause to end, then came forward, a scroll in his hands.

"Atkinson, Corin."

The Canadian boy stepped up curiously, sat on the stool, and put the hat on his head. It tipped this way and that, then called out, "SLYTHERIN!"

The Slytherin table erupted in a cheer, and Corin was welcomed to an empty seat, not far from where the smoky apparition of Regulus had risen.

"Burke, Maurice."

"Good luck," Teddy whispered to Maurice, who was still standing near him.

Maurice rolled his eyes, mouthed, "Slytherin," then sat down with the hat, which indeed declared that he was also a "SLYTHERIN!" only a few seconds later. "Chapman, Laura," the pretty blonde with china blue eyes, became the first new Hufflepuff, and "Deverill, Constance"-one of the two who said she'd got away through the Quidditch network-joined the Ravenclaw table.

"Driscoll, Franklin." A boy tripped forward from the back of the group, looking down at the stone floor. He was one of the Muggle-borns, but he hadn't spoken yet. He put on the Hat, and it declared that he, too, was a "RAVENCLAW!"

"Duke, Donald McCormack."

Donzo strode forward importantly, and the loud boy who didn't want to be in his robes snorted, "His name's 'Donald Duke'? No wonder he goes by Donzo."

Teddy turned on him. "Turn it down, mate."

The boy rolled his eyes as Donzo also became a "RAVENCLAW!"

"Gudgeon, Ernestine."

Tinny took a deep breath and stepped forward, smiling at the other first years as she went. Teddy wasn't the least surprised to see her head to the Hufflepuff table a moment later.

"Higgs, Honoria," to absolutely no one's shock, was sent to the Slytherins, and "Hunter, Jane," another of the Muggle-borns, followed her there, which Teddy thought should make for an interesting year in the dungeons.

Professor Longbottom grinned. "Lupin, Teddy."

Teddy hadn't expected to be called quite so soon, and was taken by surprise. He tripped over his shoelace as he headed to the stool, but either no one noticed, or everyone was kind enough not to laugh.

He sat down, took the Sorting Hat, and put it on his head. It still smelled singed, and he could feel the magical motion of the long ago flames against his ears.

"Ah," a voice whispered in his ear. "Yes, I see who you are."

You do? Teddy thought.

"Oh, yes... yes... your mind is very good, you know."

Thank you.

"So many lines end in you. So many..." The Hat trailed off, and Teddy wondered if its near immolation had unhinged it a bit. It laughed. "No, Teddy Remus Lupin. You are merely difficult. Not the first difficult student I've had, or the last. No, you don't suit Slytherin, despite your family. Ravenclaw?... It would stir your mind, of course, but is that who you are?"

I don't know.

"Hufflepuff... you would do well in Hufflepuff... or Gryffindor..."

Teddy wanted to tell it that he'd prefer Hufflepuff, where he already had friends, but some bright fire rose up and stopped the thought from forming.

"Ah..." the Hat said again, sounding more interested. "I see, then, yes. In that case... GRYFFINDOR!"

He knew the Hat had spoken aloud this time, because applause came at last from the Gryffindor table, and a seventh year girl welcomed him warmly to the empty seats as Longbottom called "Lynch, Brendan" (the other "Quidditch network" escapee, Teddy thought) to the stool. Lynch was sent on to Slytherin, and "Palmer, Joseph," went to Hufflepuff.

"Phillips, Geoffrey."

The belligerent Muggle-born boy went forward, looked dubiously at the Hat, then put it on. It deliberated with him for a very long time, then declared him a "RAVENCLAW!" though Teddy thought it didn't sound enthusiastic. A moment later, "Richardson, Elizabeth," also joined the Ravenclaw table, and the last student, a small, bespectacled boy named "Young, Roger," seemed very happy to be sent to Hufflepuff.

There was a round of applause for the conclusion of the Sorting, but Teddy noticed that it seemed sporadic and confused in his general vicinity.

He looked from side to side, and realized why.

He was the only Gryffindor in his year.

The applause settled down, and suddenly, the tables were laden with food of all sorts. A rich stew that smelled like Shell Cottage in the winter, a steak and kidney pie, a roast turkey, all sorts of potatoes and vegetables...

"Oi, Teddy," an older girl said, "drumstick?"

Teddy nodded and took it, piling mashed potatoes onto his plate with his other hand.

Other older students started to drift down, filling the empty seats, spreading out until Gryffindor looked almost like the other tables. All of them greeted Teddy by name and seemed glad to see him. One fourth year girl, called Edie Abercrombie, expressed great envy of having a whole room to himself, much to the horror of a sixth year prefect, who scolded her for being "insensitive." Teddy waited until the scolding was over, then rolled his eyes and turned his hair deep blue to express sarcastic mourning. This caused a wave of interest in his Metamorphosing, and he spent the rest of the feast making different noses, changing his hair color, and trying to explain that, no, he couldn't become a girl. (He didn't add that he could do a pretty good imitation of one, as long as they didn't look too closely, because he didn't want to spend the next seven years doing it.)

Nearly Headless Nick floated up and down along the table, talking wistfully about the food. He stopped to talk to Teddy for a long time, reminiscing about his father, his godfather, his cousin Sirius, his father's grandmother (a brilliant Muggle-born girl who didn't sound unlike Hermione Granger, who Nick also duly discussed), his father's friends, and every other Gryffindor to whom Teddy had even a tenuous connection. He finally left to do some precision gliding with the other house ghosts as pudding was served.

At last, the feast was over, and Teddy felt good and warm. Professor Sprout, managing to look fly-away and dusty even in the fine robes of a headmistress, stood up at the head table and signaled for attention.

"Welcome back to Hogwarts!" she said. "And a special welcome to all of our new students. Before the term starts, there are some announcements to make, and before the announcements, I would like to acknowledge the hard work of our castle elves to bring you the feast you've just enjoyed."

She gestured with her arm toward a gathering of awkward-looking elves, most wearing Hogwarts tea towels, the one in the center wearing neat chef's whites, with a pillow cap on her head, from which her ears stuck out through holes cut especially for the purpose. She nodded nervously to the students, then said, "Elves, back to the kitchens. There is work to be doing!" They disappeared in unison, to the sound of thunderous applause.

"Very well, very well," Sprout said. "Mr. Filch would like to remind students that the swamp on the fifth floor of the east wing is not to be disturbed, littered in, or otherwise defaced." Teddy smiled to himself; George Weasley, in honor of his brother Fred, had snuck in during a Quidditch match two years ago to make the swamp shoot off fireworks at random intervals. "A list of prohibited items is available in Mr. Filch's office, and has been posted in the library. I would like to remind all of our students"-she looked significantly at the Hufflepuff table-"that the Forbidden Forest is, in fact, forbidden. It is also dangerous."

She gave several more start-of-term announcements, including Quidditch try-outs and club rules, then said, "And I'd like to announce that, for the first time in eleven years, there is no announcement about construction to avoid. Hogwarts castle is once again whole!"

This was met with an explosion of applause that set the candles shaking.

When it died down, the Houses started to get up and gather for the trek to their dormitories. A new prefect-a spotty boy who introduced himself as Andrew Stephens-put his hand on Teddy's shoulder and led him importantly to the front of the line as they climbed the winding staircases to Gryffindor Tower, and stopped in front of a portrait Teddy knew from its reputation as soon as he saw it.

"The Fat Lady!"

"The one and only," Andrew said, then turned to her and said, "Regnum leonis."

The portrait swung open, and Andrew led Teddy Lupin into the Gryffindor Common Room.

It was draped with scarlet hangings, dominated by a great fireplace, perfectly round. Comfortable looking chairs and sofas were scattered around. It was exactly as Teddy had imagined it from Uncle Harry's stories (all of which centered around Quidditch, illegal night-time tromps around the school, and cheating on Divination homework; the most threatening thing to appear in most of Uncle Harry's stories was a troll in the girls' bathroom). The only new thing was a large flowering plant with red and gold blooms that crept up around the fireplace and filled the room with a brilliant scent. A few fairies flitted among the leaves, festooned in glittering Gryffindor colors.

"All right, first years-" Andrew interrupted himself and smiled sheepishly, then dropped his voice. "Er, first year, sorry, been practicing since I got my badge..."

"It's all right," Teddy said.

"Well, you're up here. Girls go up the other staircase, but I don't recommend trying it. It's very noisy, trust me." He led Teddy up a staircase into the tower, stopping at the fifth floor. "Here you are," he said. "Home. It should be set up for you already."

Teddy nodded, thanked him, and stepped into his dormitory, closing the door behind him.

The room was vast and round, with narrow windows set into the walls, looking out over the grounds. A single four-poster bed, flanked by a set of book shelves, sat against the far wall, and Teddy's luggage was set neatly beside it. One small worktable sat near the windows. Checkmate's basket was sitting on the floor (she was just stirring from the enchanted sleep that Granny had put her into this morning), and a helpful elf had already set up her litter tray and food dishes near a window. Teddy leaned down and scooped her up, glad to hear her confused meow and feel her quick heartbeat.

"It's you and me, Checks," he said.

She gave him a gurgling sort of meow, kneaded his shoulder a few times, and went back to sleep.

Teddy walked around the room for a while, absently petting the kitten, then set her down on his bed and opened his trunk to get out his quills and ink and write the letters he'd promised. It took him a long time to write Uncle Harry's, doing his best not to make it sound morbid to be the only person in his year, and even longer to write Granny's, as he was sure she'd try to find a way around it. Victoire's letter went more quickly, since she'd just want to know about people he'd met and what Hogwarts was like. As he was finishing up, a soft knock came at the door.

He frowned and went to it.

Professor Longbottom was standing outside, looking troubled. "May I see you in the Common Room, Teddy? It's not good form for the Head of House to visit dormitories, and I need to talk to you about your classes tomorrow."

Teddy set down his quill and followed him back downstairs. They sat in two of the large chairs by the fire, and Neville-Professor Longbottom, he corrected himself again-stared into the flames for a long time.

"The professors have been talking," he said after a while. "We want to try to keep your year as normal as possible-I'm sure you noticed that it's not quite the same size as other years."

"We were talking about it. The war, right? I can't believe only fifteen of us were born!"

"There are a dozen more. Still a small year, but not quite as awful as it looks. Unfortunately, they all declined their Hogwarts letters. Some are still overseas-four in the States, five in Australia-and decided to go to school there. The other three..." He smiled bitterly. "We got some pretty colorful responses from Muggle-born parents who want nothing to do with magic anymore. It's lucky that someone had tried to steal the Hogwarts list a few years before; by the time the Carrows got here, Professor McGonagall had it much better protected, and none of this year's Muggle-borns were found. But it's your classes I came to talk about, Teddy. No matter how you look at it, you won't have the normal sort of Hogwarts classes. Some classes are already double by tradition-we'd scheduled Gryffindor to take Potions with the Slytherins and Herbology with the Hufflepuffs this year. But the classes which are traditionally single-house, like Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts... we feel you'd do better to be in class with students from other houses, rather than alone."

Teddy nodded. "That would be better."

"I'm glad you think so. Do you have any preferences?"

"I met people from everywhere," Teddy said, then grinned. "Maybe I should take Defense Against the Dark Arts with Slytherins. Sounds like a good chance to jinx Honoria Higgs."

Professor Longbottom raised an eyebrow. "I'm your Head of House here, Teddy. It's not really a good idea to tell me that."

"Oh. Right."

He laughed. "Don't worry. It'll take some getting used to. If you really do want to take Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Slytherins, that will fit your schedule well enough. But you won't be doing many jinxes this year, except in Charms. First year is mostly theory."

"All right."

"The Slytherins take Transfiguration opposite your Herbology lesson, so you'll need to choose another House for that."

"How about Ravenclaw? I haven't any other classes with them."

"Ravenclaw it is. Would you like to join the Hufflepuffs for Astronomy on Wednesdays, the Slytherins on Tuesdays, or the Ravenclaws on Thursdays?"

"Hufflepuff."

Longbottom waved his wand and a bit of parchment appeared. "It looks fine. You only have room to take Charms with Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw is there while you're in Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Slytherins, and Slytherin has it while you'll be in Transfiguration. That's a good number of classes with the Hufflepuffs, which I'm willing to guess you don't especially mind."

"No, sir."

"Would you object to History of Magic with the Ravenclaws? That would fit in with the least running about."

"That's fine."

Professor Longbottom stood up and said, "Well, I'll straighten up your schedule and give it to you in the morning with the others. It's a shame your year's like this." He headed to the portrait hole, and Teddy followed him. Just before he stepped over it into the corridor outside, he said, "Oh, and Teddy-while you were on the train, I got a Floo call from your grandmother, who says that a certain basket was disturbed, and two items were missing from it when she checked. If you have those items, you might, er... keep them safely set aside." He gave Teddy a sympathetic smile.

"Is she angry?"

"She wants you to get out of the past. She's worried."

Teddy nodded, and watched him go until the portrait swung shut behind him.

He went back to his dormitory, where Checkmate was now quite awake and jumping around, chasing after shadows that swam in through the window. He got out one of her toys and played with her for a little while, then went back to his trunk to get out his pajamas. Lying beside them was the blank piece of parchment that Uncle Harry wouldn't admit directly to sending him, despite giving him the instruction to try it when he had his wand handy.

Curiously, he took it out, laid it on the bed, and unfolded it. A smaller bit of parchment fell out of it, with the legend, printed in block letters, "TAP HERE. REVELO."

Teddy took out his wand-the new one-and tapped the small bit of parchment. "Revelo."

A small stick figure appeared on it, very obviously Uncle Harry's drawing (Teddy's godfather had many skills; drawing was not one of them). The stick-figure's hair changed color twice, then unfolded a piece of stick parchment. It pointed its wand, then a bubble appeared with the words, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." All of it disappeared.

Teddy looked at the larger parchment, then pointed his wand at it and said, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

The parchment burst into life, lines crawling over it, joining and splitting, jubilantly tracing the pathways and passages of Hogwarts. Words appeared at the top, and Teddy knew this handwriting as well, had seen it in letters his mum had kept. He grinned.

Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers
are proud to present
The Marauder's Map

He'd heard a whisper of the Marauder's Map once, only to have it shushed by Uncle Harry, who gave him a wise and secretive look. Now, it was his.

Dots appeared, each labeled with a name, and Teddy watched them, delighted, for a long time. He found Frankie-and Hufflepuff House-in the basement near the kitchens; he and Zachary were up and in the Common Room. He saw Professor Longbottom go into his office, and Headmistress Sprout sitting up in her own.

A flicker of motion caught his eye, and he noted Peeves. Peeves appeared to be traveling through a solid stone wall, which was quite mad, as Peeves wasn't a ghost, and couldn't do that.

Looking more closely, he noticed other places where dots were in places that didn't quite exist on the map. The castle had changed since it was drawn.

Teddy sat back, something cold and sick turning over in his stomach.

The Marauder's Map was out of date.

5. Teacher's Pet

Chapter 5:

Teacher's Pet

Teddy thought he was prepared for Hogwarts. He had, after all, grown up listening to stories of it from dozens of people, daydreamed about it, and read Hogwarts, A History: The Revised and Expanded Edition (a gift from Hermione which, for some reason, had brought great merriment to both Ron and Uncle Harry). But nothing could have prepared him for exactly how magical Hogwarts was. Disappearing steps, enchanted doors, wandering suits of armor, a vast network of portraits... hearing about them was one thing, living among them was something entirely different. He got lost on his way to History of Magic on his first day of lessons-just stepped through an enchanted door that took him to a part of the castle that he wouldn't have been able to find his way out of if it hadn't been for the Marauder's Map, though he still ran into a wall where an archway had apparently become unstable and been filled in, and had to find another way into the next corridor.

Even more embarrassing, given his circumstances, he got lost without any magical cause on his way to Defense Against the Dark Arts-not just his father's former class, but now taught by his mother's former boss, Gawain Robards. Robards didn't recognize him right away and was halfway through a joke about how confusing Hogwarts was when he noticed the scarlet and gold streak Teddy had put in his hair (mostly to irritate the Slytherins), checked his class list, then gruffly said, "Take a seat, Lupin, we just got our books out..."

Honoria Higgs had smiled unpleasantly, but didn't say anything until after class, when she simply turned to her dormitory-mate, Jane Hunter, and said, "Teacher's pet," while jerking her chin in Teddy's direction. Teddy was walking near Corin Atkinson, who turned out to be called "Corky" by nearly everyone; Corky rolled his eyes in Honoria's general direction.

Herbology with the Hufflepuffs the next morning was considerably more pleasant. He worked with all four of his year's 'Puffs, re-potting Flitterblooms and talking about the basic magical properties of several of the plants in the greenhouse ("Watch for the fanged geraniums," Professor Longbottom said, holding up a bandaged thumb). Laura Chapman seemed quite confused about the whole thing, asking Teddy to clarify nearly everything that Professor Longbottom said, which had Tinny Gudgeon laughing quite maniacally by the end of the class.

At lunch, Teddy got an owl from Hagrid, inviting him to tea, along with any friends he'd like to bring. Teddy extended the invitation to Frankie Apcarne, but Frankie had just returned from Care of Magical Creatures, and Madam Pomfrey had ordered him to stay inside with a foul-smelling poultice on his burnt fingers.

When Teddy got to Potions, the five Slytherins were knocking aimlessly around the dungeon, looking at Slughorn's carefully labeled jars and investigating the small cauldron he had brewing at his desk. Honoria looked like she was about to start in on "werecub" or "teacher's pet" comments again, so Teddy veered over to where Maurice Burke and Corky Atkinson had finally settled. He put his cauldron down beside them and said, "D'you mind?"

Maurice shrugged. "Don't know if we should put up with the hairstyle, though."

"Oh, this?" Teddy pointed to the scarlet and gold streak. "You're right, too provocative." He turned the streak gold, and the rest of his hair scarlet.

Corky laughed.

Slughorn came in a moment later with a great, friendly laugh, and got them all brewing a Laughing Libation, which, to Teddy's surprise, turned out to be quite easy. Slughorn went from one student to another, looking over their shoulders and commenting on their stirring techniques. When he got to Teddy, he also issued an invitation to a party on Saturday, but as he'd neglected to ask Maurice or Corky, Teddy thought it would be better politics to say no. After Slughorn left, Teddy invited them to come down to Hagrid's with him, to which they were enthusiastically agreeable, though Maurice fretted about being turned away because he was a Burke as well as a Slytherin. Teddy rolled his eyes and promised that, should such a thing happen, he'd remind Hagrid that he himself was a Black-sort of, anyway-born into a whole family of Slytherins. They headed out after class, into a tantalizing sort of late summer afternoon, with golden sunshine spread out like a blanket over the grounds. Tinny Gudgeon was coming up from the lake, her feet bare and wet, and Teddy invited her along.

"I don't know," she said, then widened her eyes and made her voice breathy. "I just don't understand how I could possibly get from the door all the way to Hagrid's cabin. Could you help me, Teddy?" She batted her eyelashes.

Maurice snickered, and Tinny gleefully reported the morning's Herbology class.

"It's not very nice," Teddy said. "Laura's not especially bright and-"

Tinny guffawed. "Oh, she's bright enough!"

Teddy raised his eyebrows, and the others looked puzzled.

Tinny just shook her head and muttered something that was probably, "Boys."

They walked down the hill toward Hagrid's cabin, chatting easily enough about classes, and Teddy wished that he was going back with one or another of them to sit up in a common room and work on their homework together.

"That's the Whomping Willow," Tinny said abruptly, and Teddy looked up to see the thrashing branches of the tree he'd heard of for so many years. Concealed among its roots was the tunnel his father had once crawled through every month, to endure his transformation in the Shrieking Shack.

Tinny's association was elsewhere. "My dad almost lost an eye to it," she said. "Warned me to stay well clear."

Corky and Maurice speculated along with her about why they would have planted such a dangerous tree on the grounds. Teddy kept his mouth closed, though there was no good reason to keep it a secret anymore. It just seemed like Tinny had a story to tell, and he didn't want to step on it.

Hagrid was sitting by his door, playing with a spotted puppy, when they reached his cabin, and he waved one giant hand at them.

"'Ello there, Teddy!" he said. "Come on in, got yer tea ready an' all, not enough cups..."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Teddy said. "I... well, we ran into one another and-"

"Don' worry a bit," Hagrid said kindly. "I told yeh t'invite yer friends, and I'm glad t'see yeh did."

Hagrid led them into his cabin, and Teddy felt very, very young-the last time he could remember feeling so small was when Granny's neat parlor had seemed as big as a ballroom, and he'd pretended that a dragon had attacked a royal ball, and only Teddy the Fearless could possibly defeat it. The chairs here felt quite large enough to get lost in, if one were to slip behind a cushion.

"Now, I saw yeh all at the Sortin', o' course, but I don't quite remember..." Hagrid looked at Teddy.

"Oh, right. Professor Hagrid, this is Tinny Gudgeon"-he nodded to her-"and Corky Atkinson and Maurice Burke."

Hagrid's eyes narrowed a bit at Maurice's name, then he shrugged and said, "Well, if Teddy says yer all right, I reckon yer all right." He rummaged for more teacups, and brought out three more, each the size of a soup bowl. "Now, let's see if I've got this..." He drew his wand and pointed at a teapot. Teddy knew the wand was brand new, given to him by Uncle Harry when Hagrid finally took his N.E.W.T.s in Care of Magical Creatures and Defense Against the Dark Arts-Hermione had pushed through this highly unusual administration of the examinations-and passed them last year. The teapot wobbled as it flew through the air, but managed to get to the table and not spill too much as it filled the cups. He offered cakes, and Teddy resigned himself to accepting them, despite having a working knowledge of Hagrid's baking skills. Molly Weasley had tried to teach him how to make his cakes fluffy, but the lessons hadn't taken. Teddy saw Tinny nibble politely on one. Maurice took a hearty bite and pretended to enjoy it. Corky appeared to have decided that it was more of a conversation prop than a food item, and waved it excitedly as he described their classes, and, at Hagrid's prompting, Niagara Falls.

"Bin lots of places," Hagrid said, "but never there. Too many Muggles. I stand out a bit, you know."

"Hagrid, you've been in the middle of London," Teddy said.

"Righ', but London's a big city, and I reckon there's not much surprises anyone there." He refilled his own teacup. "So, Teddy, are you enjoyin' Hogwarts so far? Shame, the business of being the only Gryffindor, but yer dad would be dead chuffed to see you in his House, one way or the other, and I'll wager Harry's already off tellin' everyone who'll listen that his godson's a Gryffindor. Yeh'd best get some new pictures to send 'im, or he'll have yer baby pictures out fer it." He grinned.

After tea, they headed back up to the castle for dinner. Maurice, who'd eaten his cake, seemed less than thrilled with the prospect, but the other three were quite keen on the idea of real food.

"Blimey," Corky said to Teddy, "you know everyone."

Maurice winced. "Don't try to say 'Blimey,' mate, you sound ridiculous."

"Can I say 'mate,' mate?"

"We'll take a vote. If you think the Canadian can say 'mate,' raise your hand."

Neither Tinny nor Teddy did; nor did Maurice.

"Sorry, mate," Teddy said.

"Fine, but you guys can stay away from 'eh,' then, eh?"

As they passed the Whomping Willow, a frond whipped out at them with lazy grace, and Tinny jumped back from it, cursing under her breath, even though it hadn't come anywhere near. Maurice advanced the opinion that it really should be cut down. Corky thought it was "cool," but agreed that it wasn't exactly in the best place.

Teddy said nothing, but as they walked back to the castle, he found himself looking over his shoulder, staring at its darkening silhouette, until they climbed far enough up the hill that it was out of sight again.

Teddy got two owls back on Wednesday morning-one from Granny (who reminded him to use his own wand, but had thankfully opted against sending a Howler) and the other from Victoire, who told him that Fleur had finally put Marie's hair to rights and Aimee was teaching Artie the fine art of long distance spitting. For a brief moment, Teddy wished to be at Shell Cottage, swinging on the rope above the cliff and listening to Victoire go on about how, in France, all ropes were made of silk and no one ever fell from them. He shook it off, reminding himself how much he hated it when she started going on. He'd known a letter from Uncle Harry might be a day or two more-he was busy, and Teddy guessed that he was thinking really carefully about what to say, and possibly asking Ron and Hermione what they thought. Teddy decided to wait until he'd at least got a response to his first letter before asking him about the Marauder's Map, though he supposed he'd have to think of an indirect way to talk about that.

After breakfast, Teddy had Charms for the first time. Flitwick examined each student's wand holding skills (he complained that Teddy didn't seem to wield his wand with any conviction), then worked with them on the simple Lumos spell, apparently to get a sense of how they connected to their magic. Laura Chapman was the first to master it completely, and she spent the rest of class entranced with the glowing wand. Tinny managed a huge flare of light which diminished to a pinpoint in only a few minutes. Roger Young, one of the Muggle-borns, was only able to get a brief fizzle, and Joe Palmer only got a shower of sparks, so Teddy didn't feel quite as bad about his own fully lackluster Charm, though Flitwick seemed deeply disappointed by it.

His other two classes during the day (Astronomy was after dark) were with the Ravenclaws. Transfiguration turned out to be a disaster, as he couldn't begin to make the slightest change in the toothpick he was meant to turn into a needle. At least the new Transfiguration teacher-a genial, balding man named Gardner-had neither taught nor taken classes with either of his parents, or his godfather, and didn't seem to have any particular expectations of him. In History of Magic, Binns, it seemed, had no expectations of any student as he droned along for the second day about introductory history of the school and wizarding Britain. He seemed more than a little bit annoyed that he'd been asked to come up with a curriculum that addressed more than the goblin wars he'd studied extensively in life.

He was just going through a recitation of the Founders' attributes when Geoffrey Phillips' hand went up.

Binns went on speaking.

"Excuse me," Geoffrey said importantly. "I have a question."

Binns stopped lecturing and looked at him, mildly surprised. "Yes?"

"So this stupid blood business that Slytherin liked in the middle ages is what you people had a war about in the nineteen-nineties?"

"Yes," Binns said, delighted that Geoffrey had grasped this point. "Quite right. What was your question?"

"You do know the rest of the world has moved on a bit since then, don't you?"

Binns seemed not to understand.

To Teddy's surprise, it was Donzo McCormack-now looking more like a normal student, perhaps Donald M. Duke, with his hair slicked back and his specs on-who said, "Has it? Things were a bit of a mess out there as well..."

"Oh, what do you know?"

"Just what I read," Donzo said, seeming surprised. "I've read things about Rwanda and Serbia..."

"Aberrations," Geoffrey said loftily, in a tone that made Teddy wonder if he knew what the word actually meant, or was just using it to show off knowing that it existed. "Of course, you don't mind all of this. You're a pure-blood, aren't you? It would have worked out for you either way."

"Put a sock in it, will you?" Lizzie Richardson said. "You're making all of us Muggle-borns look bad."

"He's only using some odd thugs to make it sound like he and the rest of the pure-bloods are no worse than we are."

"A lot of pure-bloods died to stop Voldemort!" Connie Deverill said.

"Yeah? Good bloody riddance. I hope they're enjoying a barbecue with Hitler and the Tsar." Geoffrey gave a nasty sort of smile.

"Enough!" Binns declared, looking more distraught than Teddy had ever imagined Moaning Myrtle. "This is not the material we are studying."

"'Course it isn't," Geoffrey muttered under his breath.

Teddy thought of his grandmother, who had lost everything, of Fred Weasley, of Uncle Harry's father, of Molly Weasley's brothers, and most of all, of the two photographs on Granny's wall-the Black brothers, the last of their line, the end of a great House, dying to bring down Voldemort. It was probably a good thing his wand wasn't working particularly well (or that he hadn't quite got the hang of it after only a few days, he supposed), as Binns didn't notice Geoffrey scratching a rash under his ear, but certainly would have noticed the spiny tentacles Teddy had meant to give him. Donzo noticed it, and gave Teddy a faint, perfectly normal, smile. He seemed much more at home in class than he had at the Sorting and on the train.

Astronomy was a more satisfactory class, taken with the Hufflepuffs. Teddy shared a star chart with Roger Young, who turned out to have spent most of his first eleven years in and out of Muggle museums and promised to take Teddy to a something called a "planetarium" if he came to visit over holidays. Roger was also fascinated by birds of all sorts, and wondered if Teddy could introduce him to Hagrid, who he thought might know of some interesting magical ones. Teddy promised to do so.

He got back late to his dormitory, which seemed larger and emptier than it had before his crowded day. Checkmate, who'd been left to her own devices, required a great deal of attention, so sleep wasn't really possible. He got out several of her new toys and set them rolling by the wand instructions on the packages (he was pleased that even his weak wand and three-day-old magic experience seemed to be enough to set off their pre-packaged charms), and sat on his bed to watch her bouncing happily around, leaping several feet into the air, and bounding from one side of the room to the other before she finally leaped onto the bed and curled up, purring, under his left knee. Teddy scratched between her ears then, trying not to disturb her too much, hooked his book bag over and pulled out his homework. The Marauder's Map slid off the top of pile of books.

He looked at it curiously, and unfolded it for the third time. Instead of telling it that he was up to no good, he tapped it with his wand and said, "Reparo."

Nothing happened, which was hardly surprising, as this spell wasn't meant for anyone under third year.

He tapped his wand on it absently. "Come on," he said. "Tell me how to fix you." Then, without knowing why he added it, he hesitantly said, "I'm Teddy Lupin," and repeated, "Tell me how to fix you."

Ink appeared on the parchment, not drawing the castle this time, not placing dots where people were. Instead, writing began to scroll across the map.

Mr. Wormtail greets Mr. Lupin, and wonders what's taking him so long.

Teddy blinked. Another line, in another hand, appeared.

Mr. Prongs wonders how Mr. Lupin got to be quite so slow, with a name like that.

"Hey!"

Mr. Padfoot wishes to express his amazement to Mr. Moony that such a person as Mr. Lupin is here to ask such a question.

Teddy blinked. There was only one left. He wasn't sure, given the tone, that he wanted it, but he had no idea how to stop it now that it was started. His father's hand appeared.

Mr. Moony is astonished that young Mr. Lupin hasn't been given the wherewithal to answer his own question, and certainly hopes he has better ways to ask, as he will certainly have been raised with better manners.

Teddy frowned, looking at the pseudo-formality of the statements. He shrugged and pointed his wand at it again.

"Mr. Teddy Remus Lupin requests the honor of learning the secrets of updating the Marauder's Map, so he might find his way around the school without running into new walls."

The four sentences disappeared, and the map went blank. Teddy was about to put it away when "Prongs"'s handwriting appeared again, in the middle of the parchment:

What binds is bound to the bonded. The bonded may bind more.

Teddy stared at this for a long time, then muttered, "Thanks, Mr. Potter. That clears it all up."

The line disappeared, and the map was blank again. Teddy stowed it back in his bag, and settled in to do his Transfiguration homework, thinking longingly of his mother's wand, which worked so well for him that it had nearly killed him with flying rocks, but knowing that, one way or another, Granny would find out. And besides, she might be right. Surrounded by ghosts and inscrutable messages from long-dead teenage boys, he was beginning to think it was time to move on.

He finally heard back from Uncle Harry at breakfast on Friday, with the arrival of three owls, two bearing packages, and the third-Ron Weasley's poor old Pigwidgeon-wheezing his way over with a letter. He took this one first and fed Pig some bacon while he read.

Teddy,

I know it's a bit bleak being alone, but I can't exactly not be glad to see you in Gryffindor. I'm imagining you trying to bargain with the Fat Lady as we speak-make sure you know the passwords; there really isn't any bargaining with her. Of course, as happy as I am for you getting into Gryffindor, as a Gryffindor, I'm much happier for my House for getting Teddy Lupin, I'm afraid.

That said, I spoke to Ron and Hermione about this business of you being alone-

Teddy grinned. Of course.

-and I'm afraid the conversation was at the dinner table. James was quite upset to hear that "his Teddy" was all alone, and so rallied the troops to send company. He and Al and Rose started coloring straight off-I knew there was a use somewhere for that wretched famous wizards coloring book that I've been sent at least fifty copies of-and of course Hugo and Lily wanted to join the fun. Aunt Ginny and I had quite a time cleaning up! James and Al also drew some pictures of their own. It's a good thing James has learned to write this year, as I never would have guessed the purple blob to be Martian if he hadn't labeled it. I ought to warn you that James seems to have made a mission of keeping you entertained, and you will undoubtedly be hearing from every Weasley he's figured out how to reach, which is all of them, as Aunt Ginny was his first recruit. She's sent along a large box of biscuits, and recommends that you take them to the common room. I told her you don't generally need advice on how to make friends-I've never seen you have trouble-but she insisted on passing the message along, as it can't hurt.

I was interested to read your thoughts on the Sorting Hat's new habit. When Professor Longbottom told me what it's been doing for the last several years, I thought it might be difficult for you, but judging by your letter, I was underestimating you. Your parents would be proud. Your godfather certainly is.

Teddy's spirits fell a bit. He hadn't been able to say what it had felt like to see his mother's form appear in the smoke, or his father, lit by the full moon he had never been able to enjoy, disappearing through the ceiling of the Great Hall. Would they still be proud if they knew he hadn't exactly been particularly brave about it?

I'm not at all worried about you not making friends. Victoire told James about several people you mentioned in your letter to her (apparently a bit newsier than the ones you sent to the old people!), and it didn't sound like you were having any trouble at all. You know that if things do get bad, you can write to me, and your grandmother has kindly agreed to come stay with us during Christmas holidays, so we'll all be together then. I might be up to teach a Defense Against the Dark Arts class someday before that, so I may see you even sooner. Have fun. If you get caught having fun, serve your detentions. No one gets away without any. Even Hermione had one first year-ask Hagrid.

We're all still thinking of you at home, and the children all hope you like their presents.

Love,
Uncle Harry

P.S.: May I assume you've carefully looked over any blank pieces of parchment you may have in your possession?

Teddy checked his watch; he still had time before History of Magic, so he dashed off a quick note to Uncle Harry, thanking the children for presents he didn't intend to open until he got back to his dormitory at lunchtime and mentioning that he had, in fact, found one curious piece of parchment that seemed to have got a bit antique on him, then bound the letter to Pigwidgeon and sent him off. The other two post owls-efficient but anonymous birds from the post office, as Uncle Harry didn't and wouldn't own a post owl of his own-waited to eat, then flew back to their official perches.

He went off to History of Magic, where the other Ravenclaws seemed to have decided to participate very actively, steering the conversation away from anything Geoffrey had to say and driving Professor Binns quite mad. When it was finished, Teddy had a free period before lunch, and he used it to slip up to his dormitory with his packages. He opened the one that smelled like fresh biscuits first, and found quite enough to feed the whole of Gryffindor house. He decided to take it downstairs and leave it with an unsigned note for everyone, though he pilfered quite a few to keep for himself.

The other box was full of raggedly torn out pages from the Famous Wizards coloring book, which included living wizards and witches, and wizards and witches who had been dead for a very long time. Teddy had once wondered why his parents weren't in it-they had Chocolate Frog cards and were listed as heroes as much as Uncle Harry and Ron and Hermione were, and he'd been ready to be quite angry about it Daffy explained that people's relatives might be hurt to see their loved ones scribbled on and ripped by clumsy toddlers. Teddy thought Mum might have liked being colored in great pink and purple swirls, but when he really thought about it, he couldn't very well imagine Granny putting such a thing up on the fridge with his careless scribblings of trolls and thestrals.

The drawings weren't exactly great art, but they were recognizable. Uncle Harry, colored in exuberant swirls of purple and green that were nowhere near the simple lines of the drawing, stood in front of the cottage in Godric's Hollow, and as the page fell onto the bed beside another, he seemed to be waving to a benign-looking Phineas Nigellus Black, standing at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Phineas had been colored much more meticulously, sometimes even near the lines (Teddy suspected this was Al's work), in shades of mustard yellow and bright, Chudley Cannons orange, with large blue circles colored over where his eyes were. A picture of Hermione outside what he supposed was meant to be a Muggle dental surgery had baby's hand-print tracked across her face in a swirling mix of colors that told Teddy they'd got out Weasleys' Wild Watercolors at some point and gone a bit wild. Beneath the pile of what was apparently every picture in the book, there were several original drawings, each with "TO TEDDY LOVE JAMES" written across the top in large, clumsy block letters. The purple blob labeled "Martian S. Potter" had kitten paw prints beside it, and its legend was "TO CHECKMATE LOVE MARTIAN." Teddy handed it Checkmate, who started chewing on its corner.

At the very bottom, too big to fit in the box, was a rolled piece of parchment. Teddy unrolled it and grinned. At the center was a stick figure with hair that was constantly changing colors-another Weasley product, Metamorphmarkers, which Teddy had been given the first-ever box of when he was eight. This figure was rather unnecessarily labeled "Teddy." Beside it, exactly the same size, was a grinning stick figure labeled "James," and much smaller figures labeled "Al" and "Rosie." More baby hand-prints were labeled "Lily" and "Hugo," and the rest of the page was filled with other stick-Weasleys-Bill's entire family, with triangular bubbles of blond hair, except for Marie and Bill, who had bubbles of red hair; Percy and Penelope and their children, Gideon, Telemachus (labeled "Machy"), Nausicaa, and Athena; George and a pregnant stick-wife named Sophie (Teddy was glad of the reminder); Molly and Arthur, stick-kittens Martian and Bushy (with four little circles apiece for feet at the end of their stick legs), stick-owl Pig, and of course, stick-Uncle Harry and stick-Aunt Ginny.

He imagined that if he had dormitory-mates, they'd never let him hear the end of it if he put this up, so he told them where in their imaginary anatomy to put this sentiment before he stuck it to the wall and went to lunch.

He ate quickly, not wanting to take a chance of losing his way and being late for Defense Against the Dark Arts again. Robards smiled at him nervously when he came in, then became more normal as the Slytherins dropped into their seats. Corky sat down beside Teddy.

"Was it food?"

"What?"

"The packages from home. Food?"

"Oh, yes. Biscuits. I'll bring you some at dinner."

Robards cleared his throat. "Did you all finish your reading?"

The class groaned and pulled out their books (Introduction To Defense: Curses and Creatures). All of them had been hoping that an Auror would give them more practical lessons, but Robards told them flatly that first years didn't have the magical strength to do most of what he taught older classes, which made it a good time to get the basics committed to memory. Or so he'd told the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. For Teddy's class, he'd just looked grief-stricken and said he was sorry, but this was the rule of the new curriculum.

"We'll see some of the minor Dark Creatures next week," Robards said. "I've asked to have them sent over. No reason you can't see them then!"

"What about cursed creatures?" Honoria asked, and Teddy ground his teeth. He should have realized it was coming, but he'd glossed over the single, simplified paragraph on werewolves so quickly that he'd forgotten it was there. Honoria narrowed her eyes at Teddy, then added, "Like Hairy McBoons, of course. Or werewolves."

Robards's face went white. "We're not really going to go in depth on the subject of wer... er..."

"Werewolves," Teddy finished for him.

"Right, just so, werewolves until your third year. This is only an introductory text to talk about different sorts of creatures which exist. You'll have more on the test regarding the simpler creatures, and much simpler curses."

Teddy sighed, frustrated, and Robards went on with the class, skimming through water demons and simple object hexes, answering questions from Muggle-born Jane Hunter about which creatures actually were native to Britain and how Muggles avoided them, and generally growing surer of himself the further from the w-word they got. When class finally ended, Teddy waited for the Slytherins to leave, then went to the front of the room.

"Professor Robards?"

He looked up skittishly. "Yes, Teddy?"

"I'm really glad to be taking Defense Against the Dark Arts from an Auror."

"Er... thank you."

"You can say 'werewolf' around me. I've read a lot of books about it. I don't mind werewolves."

Robards looked at him for a long time, then Conjured a chair and indicated that he should sit in it. Robards himself took the chair behind the desk. "I'm not being especially helpful to you, am I, Teddy?"

Teddy shook his head.

Robards took off his small wire-frame glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'd forgotten you'd be in this year. Your mum was one of my best Aurors and a good friend in the end. She got my wife and... another lady who was also a good friend... out of Britain for me. They were both Muggle-born."

"I didn't know that."

"And your dad seemed to be a good sort, though I didn't know him very well. He helped Ted Tonks-you're named after old Ted, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"He helped old Ted get a lot of Muggle-born Hogwarts students away from the Snatchers, along with as many other Muggle-borns as they could find. Do you know about that?"

"Some," Teddy said, not sure where Robards was going.

Robards leaned back, then said again, "I wasn't expecting you. I just want to be sensitive to your situation. Apparently, I'm not doing a very good job." He smiled faintly. "I can only imagine a few choice words Tonks would have for me. I'm sorry, Teddy. I'll... I'll try to be more insensitive from now on."

"Thank you, sir," Teddy said.

"Well, that's that, then. You really won't have werewolves again until third year. I never put them on the test for first year." He gave Teddy a still-nervous smile, and held out his hand with an air of ending a deep man-to-man talk. Teddy shook it.

He drifted over to the Hufflepuff table for most of dinner, making arrangements with Frankie to join the Muggles and Minions game in the Hufflepuff common room for most of the day tomorrow. Bernice got out her charts, and they made him a character (a uni student reading physics, which Teddy knew nothing about, but Frankie promised that it just gave him motion points and some advantages when he was rolling the dice). Zach said that Frankie had best have come up with a good quest, with some good "Tube crawls," whatever those were, and Frankie promised that he had done so. Tinny Gudgeon had been sitting close enough to listen, and by the time that the Houses all started to drift home for the night, she was already working on Frankie to let her into the game.

Teddy went back to his room and wandered it aimlessly, sometimes carrying Checkmate, sometimes just trying not to trip over her. He stopped at the window not long after full dark had fallen and looked out over the grounds. A light was on in the greenhouses, and he checked the Marauder's Map to see that it was, in fact, Professor Longbottom, puttering about in greenhouse two. Teddy thought about slipping out to say hello, but decided not to.

6. The Kappa In Classroom Eleven

Chapter 6:

The Kappa In Classroom Eleven

After breakfast the next morning, Frankie swept over to the Gryffindor table to collect Teddy for the game, which was to be held in the Hufflepuff Common Room. Frankie's other 'Puff friends were fanning out to the Slytherin and Ravenclaw tables to gather up their friends, and Teddy was surprised to find, after Frankie had grabbed him by the shoulder, that they then went further up the Gryffindor table, to a second year girl with frizzy red hair and thick, magnifying glasses over her tawny eyes. He'd seen her here and there in Gryffindor Tower, but didn't know her name.

"Oi, Apcarne," she said. "This better be better than your last game. IRA terrorists?" She rolled her eyes.

"Oh, it's better," Frankie said. "Also less likely to get me into a tiff with Bobby O'Neill."

The girl looked around him to see Teddy. "I didn't know you knew our first year." She waved cheerfully. "Hi, Teddy."

He smiled.

Frankie shook his head and rolled his eyes at Teddy. "This is why you're not in Hufflepuff. Get out into your own common room sometimes, will you? This is Ruth Scrimgeour. We call her Ruthless."

A few Gryffindor girls snickered across the table, and their plates suddenly shot forward and flipped over into their laps. Ruthless glared at them as they got up, brushing at the mess with disgust. Glancing around, Teddy noticed that there was a great deal of snickering following the various members of the Guard around. Frankie had turned beet red, which Teddy had never seen him do before, but he just smiled tightly at Ruthless.

"They call me that because Frankie's not very creative," she said, "or doesn't know that every girl named Ruth in the history of the world is called Ruthless at some point."

"Or," Frankie said, leading the pair of them back toward the Hufflepuff table, where Bernice was waiting with Roger Young and the fourth year Ravenclaw from the Hogwarts Express, the high color fading back into something more normal for Frankie Apcarne, "it could be because she doesn't let a sewer rat go by without attacking it with her whole arsenal."

"Oh," Teddy said.

Tinny, Zachary, and Ken came back from Slytherin with another third year in tow. Altogether, there were ten people, which Frankie declared quite satisfactory. He looked at the group, then Teddy noticed him crane his neck toward the Ravenclaw table. Teddy turned and saw Donzo watching them with a forlorn expression on his face. Frankie looked at Bernice and raised his eyebrows to her. She shrugged and looked at Zachary, who went over to Donzo, spoke to him quietly for a minute, then got what looked like an enthusiastic "Yes" to a question. A moment later, they'd joined the group.

"I played on tour, with some of the-" Donzo started, then stopped. "Er, sorry. I didn't mean to do that. It's just..." He sighed rather hopelessly, then looked at Frankie anxiously. "Can you get my stats from this?" He pulled out his wallet and fished what looked like an oversized coin from his pocket. Other than the crossed swords on the surface, it looked like the little stat-coins that Granny sometimes used to store thick patient files if she needed to take them to a meeting. She was always careful to erase them afterward, as they were accessible for everyone who knew the simple release spell and had a wand.

"No," Bernice said, "we've never seen one of those before. It's totally new to us." She grinned and pulled an identical token from her own pocket. "Don't worry."

With that, they all tromped off toward a shallow staircase that led beneath the Great Hall. They passed a large still life of fruit, then turned a corner and passed a series of windows set high in the wall, each showing the back and bottom of plants outside the castle. They stopped at another still life, and Frankie went to it, wand drawn, while the other Hufflepuffs formed a barrier and smiled awkwardly. When they moved apart, Teddy could see that Frankie had moved some of the food in the painting around, but wasn't entirely sure how.

Frankie said, "We're home, with guests."

The portrait moved aside, and Teddy's eyes were flooded with the bright color of sunshine, even though the only real sun was coming from more high, narrow windows blocked by plants (here, some of them had been turned inward, and were basking in charmed sunlight that someone had created for them). The walls were draped with bright yellow hangings, interspersed with drawings that Teddy knew were of first years, waving frantically at him. Tinny pointed to one near the door, which showed this year's small group. He wondered where his mum's was, or if they took them down after a few years.

Little burrows ran off to the sides, and Teddy could just glimpse large, round doors that led to the dormitories. Other Hufflepuffs, including pretty Ellie Cattermole, passed by and looked at the Forest Guard with distaste.

"Wingardium leviosa!" Frankie commanded, and a round table rose into the air and came down in the exact center of the Common Room. At Bernice's command, several small bags flew onto it, as well as a stack of books with pictures of Muggle machines and detectives using spyglasses on the front. Frankie went to sit by the books, indicating that Teddy should come along, then grabbing Donzo. "Let me see your character," he said. "I can find a place to work him in."

Donzo handed him the stat-coin. Frankie set it down on a piece of parchment and tapped it with his wand, saying, "Revelo."

Writing appeared, and a drawing of a boy in white pants and a sort of white half-robe, tied with a black belt.

"You have martial arts?" Frankie asked.

Donzo nodded. "My dad's friend's son told me it would be a good idea."

"Well, it's extra defense points, but we play with handicaps. Martial arts means an aggression penalty."

"I know the rules. Do you play berserker if I roll too badly?"

Teddy was following none of this, but Frankie just grinned. "You'll pick it up, Teddy. I promise. For now, I'll stick you with Donzo. He'll be your dormitory-mate at uni." He looked up. "Food out!"

People emptied their pockets onto the table, Teddy contributing more of Aunt Ginny's biscuits (Ruthless, who had apparently taken some in Gryffindor Tower, told everyone to try them), and once everyone was settled with a pile of food, Frankie assigned all of the characters to their parts. Everything would start around the university grounds, the thieves and other lowlifes just happening to be in the neighborhood.

The first twenty minutes of the game turned out to be staged meetings among different groups of characters. Teddy had to roll dice-they were adamant about using Muggle dice-at one point to see if his character would order a sandwich or a cup of tea, but mainly, several turns were spent just gathering the team. After the fifth go-round of this, Zachary said, "Come on, Frankie-do we have a game to play or not?"

Frankie frowned impressively, then called in a character that he ran as "Urban Planner," who told them that an organized crime boss had kidnapped Prince William. There was to be a reward to whoever rescued him. This, apparently, was the real start of the game, as the experienced players nodded in satisfaction.

Teddy did get the hang of it as they went on, sometimes just having social scenes, establishing which characters liked and disliked which other ones, rolling dice for nonsense reasons. At one point, Donzo rolled badly and went berserk in a bakery. Teddy had a particularly good roll, and, despite his low strength, managed to leave the baker unconscious. Luckily, Tinny happened to be in the neighborhood, and rolled to see if anyone thought to search the place, and someone did. A roll turned up a clue on the other side of town, which led to the morning's first "Tube Crawl," a high-adventure trek through the London Underground, where every step seemed to have a mugger or a murderer or a gang war that needed to be fought through. The criminals were armed with exotic things like "handguns," which seemed to shoot Killing Curses that weren't always effective, and other things that exploded and moved and generally made passage difficult. In the course of it, Teddy managed to pick up something called a "bullet-proof vest," which apparently gave him more defense points if one of the criminals came after him with a gun. He suspected Frankie had worked into the game just for him. It was a good thing, too, as a mugger pointed a large gun at him next, and without the extra points, he'd have been out of the game.

At lunchtime, Frankie announced that three people could "train" for a few turns and come back to extra skills if they went to get lunch. Teddy volunteered, choosing "disguise" as his skill, and went off with Bernice (who had opted for "eloquence") and Ruthless (who chose "marksmanship" and grumbled that it ought to be "markswomanship"). They approached the large still life of fruit, and Bernice tickled the pear. A doorknob came out of it, and Teddy entered the Hogwarts kitchens.

"Oh, you is trouble!" the clothed elf said, shaking her rolling pin at them. "We is making lunch. You is should be eating in the Great Hall!"

Teddy winced. "Sorry, we didn't think about that. We were just getting lunch for friends in one of the common rooms."

"Is they sick?" the elf asked.

"No, Winky," Ruthless told her. "They're just playing."

"Then you is coming back for their lunches when we is having finished our work!" She turned and stomped off, and Teddy smiled. Winky-he knew the name. And he thought Hermione would like to know that she'd just stood up to three students with a request.

"Should we go back?" he asked as they left the kitchen.

Bernice shook her head. "I could stand a walk. Frankie won't get twitchy until we've hit the maximum training turns."

"So," Ruthless said as they headed up the stairs toward the Great Hall, "how's solitary splendor? I put in to have the girls' dormitory to myself to get away from my lot, but the Headmistress said it wouldn't be allowed."

"It's all right," Teddy said. If he hadn't told his grandmother, Uncle Harry, or Victoire about how deeply lonely it was, he wasn't about to tell a near stranger. "Plenty of room, anyway."

"And no one getting up at the crack of dawn for cosmetics spells," Bernice said, shuddering.

"I, er, don't imagine my dormitory mates would have done that, anyway."

They entered the Great Hall, and a few people having lunch looked at Teddy's companions and turned back with less-than-complimentary snickers. Honoria Higgs said, "Oh, look, the werecub has girlfriends. Just his sort, too." She made finger glasses around her eyes like Ruthless's, and stuck her front teeth out over her lip to exaggerate Bernice's overbite. "Must have had to fight off the whole pack for that pair. Must have-EW!" She ran off, swatting at something white on her neck, covering her hair. A strong smell of melted marshmallows came from it, and Teddy noticed Maurice putting his wand away while Corky laughed behind his hand. He nodded to them in thanks. Maurice gave him an exaggerated look of innocence and Corky made a finger-halo over his head.

Meanwhile, the girls were bright red and embarrassed, so Teddy let them lead the rest of the way out of the Hall. Once clear of teachers' ears, Ruthless let out a stream of words he doubted she'd picked up from her mother, and Bernice started talking about capturing the dark witch before she did any real damage.

"Honestly, if they would stop them while they're still here, we could-" She stopped outside the door of classroom eleven. "Oh, my!" she said. "Get back! It's a kappa, and it's loose!"

Teddy stopped walking and gaped at the figure in the door of classroom eleven. It was about the size of Rosie Weasley, had green scales, and made scrabbling and sloshing sounds as it dove toward them, grinning obscenely. A sunburst caught at the top of its head, and Teddy saw a little pool of water, hedged and protected by a round ring of bone. Instinctively, he rushed forward, pushing it back into the classroom. Ruthless came in beside him.

Kappa, he thought, his mind scrambling furiously through the piles of creature books he'd been obsessed with as a little boy, the shiny new ones that Granny had bought, the battered old ones from the box in he'd found in his parents' closet when he'd moved from the nursery into their room. Kappas belonged in the water, he remembered, seeing a picture in his mind of a little green monkey-shaped creature swimming in a river. They belonged in the water, and they caught swimmers and either strangled them or sucked out their entrails through their-

Teddy went hot in the face and backed up against the edge of the door, putting solid stone against the kappa's favorite entry point. He reached over to Ruthless and shoved her back against the other side of the door. Bernice was standing between them.

"Get help!" Teddy hissed at her. "I think if we get the water... but.."

Bernice nodded smartly and ran off toward the Great Hall. Teddy didn't imagine it would take long for her to get Robards or Flitwick.

"Try to make it bow," he told Ruthless.

"What?"

"The water on its head. It won't be strong if it loses the water. And, er... keep your bum to the wall."

She squinted at him through her thick glasses. "Are you making this up?"

"No, I swear. I had books when I was little. My dad used to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts."

The kappa made a sudden, jerky move toward them, and there was no time to explain further. Teddy flicked his wand at it, but the only spell he could think of was "Lumos," which accomplished nothing at all. He kicked at it instead, and it grabbed for his trainer.

Ruthless hit it with a Jelly Legs Jinx and it sprawled onto the floor. A bit of water sloshed from its head, but it righted itself before losing everything. It ran at Ruthless.

Teddy raised his wand and said, "Petrificus Totalis," but he either needed practice or a different wand-or, he supposed, kappas were a difficult animal to hex-as he succeeded only in shocking the kappa, making it jump several feet in the air, and infuriating it.

"I've got help!" he heard in the corridor, then Bernice burst into the room-not with Robards and Flitwick, but with the entire Forest Guard and most of the Muggles and Minions players. Teddy stared at them, perplexed.

"Teddy says watch your arse," Ruthless told them.

The Guard fanned out around the confused, jumpy kappa.

"We need to get it out of the castle!" Frankie declared. "It's not safe to have it wandering around. It could hurt someone."

"Er..." Teddy began. "Shouldn't we, well..." But he couldn't follow it up. He tried to imagine Uncle Harry deciding that teachers should handle this tiny little problem, and couldn't quite do it. Plus it would hardly look good if the year's only Gryffindor slunk off to get an adult while all of his mates from other Houses stood their ground. He straightened his back and raised his wand again.

"Lupin!" Tinny called. "What do you know about them?"

"Water demons," Teddy answered. "Dangerous. Plus... what Ruthless said. About your arse. It likes to suck out your innards through there."

This was greeted with several blank stares, and a "That's nasty" from Tinny.

"Do you think it got out of the lake?" Roger Young asked.

Something seemed off about this to Teddy, but he couldn't put his finger on it. They weren't exactly native, but Hagrid had the Forest stocked with dozens of things that weren't; he wouldn't be surprised to find out that the lake had its fair share as well. When you came down to it, the Giant Squid wasn't even native. "It must've," he said. "Mustn't it? Where else would it come from?"

"Then we should get it back there," Frankie said. "And then find out just who decided to let it into the castle," he added grimly, his eyes narrowing, and Teddy guessed that he meant them to look steely.

"Make it bow," Teddy said for the second time. "Make the water spill off of its head. It'll go weak and we can just carry it."

"Good call, Lupin," Bernice said, stepping forward with her shoulders squared. She bowed at the kappa.

Zachary hurried over and hovered behind her, saying, "I've got your bum, Bernice."

"Who's got yours?" she snarled, looking so deeply serious that Teddy felt the first hint of laughter rising up in his belly. He stifled it... for a moment.

Zachary seemed to realize that he had nothing behind him, and spun around so was arse to arse with Bernice, trying to match her movements by touch. Beside Teddy, Ruthless snorted, and he could see her mouth pressed tightly shut, her cheeks reddening. He felt his own wild laughter bubbling up. It came out in a clear explosion, and a moment later, Tinny started up, bending over. Roger ran over to her to guard her, but glanced at Zachary and Bernice and started laughing before he got there. The kappa glanced from one pair to another, looking for all the world like Victoire watching her younger sisters in a particularly juvenile mood, and that thought got Teddy laughing all over again.

Frankie, on Ruthless's other side, let out out a guffaw, and deliberately bumped his bum into hers. She bumped back once, but when he did it again, she raised her wand and sent him reeling into the far wall. The kappa chased after him, but quite unfortunately for it, Ruthless's spell had a lot of power behind it, and when Frankie hit the wall, he pistoned his arms out and went shooting backward, off-balance, straight into the kappa's path. He knocked into it at full speed, twisting his feet against it and sprawling both of them onto the floor, dazed. Frankie shook his head, remembered what he'd run into and scrambled up, hands covering the seat of his trousers, but the kappa didn't move.

The laughter was still coming in breathless fits, echoed by everyone in classroom eleven, when Teddy realized that his trainers were wet, and the kappa had been down much longer than it should have been just from the shock of bumping into a thirteen-year-old, even a big one. He could see this dawning on his friends' faces as well, their laughter draining down to hiccups, their faces pale.

Roger Young said it first: "Is it... dead?"

Frankie took a few steps forward, his eyes wide, and knelt beside the kappa. He put his fingers on its neck, then replied with relief, "Its heart's beating. What happened?"

"The water," Teddy said, pointing at the puddle on the floor. "It spilled. It lost its strength."

"Will it die without it?" Donzo asked.

"Someone should get a teacher," Ruthless suggested. "They're probably still in the Great Hall..."

Bernice shook her head, looking confused. "They were all gone already when I went through."

"We should get it back to the lake ourselves, then," Frankie said. "We can save it. It's not too late." An odd sort of shadow seemed to cross his open, friendly face, then it was gone, and Teddy was sure he'd imagined it. He gathered up the kappa and headed for the doors at a good clip. The rest of them looked at one another awkwardly, then followed.

The day had come up hot and humid and walking outside the cool stone walls of the castle was like walking into a steaming cauldron. Teddy felt like he was swimming through the air as he squeezed to the front of the group and ran ahead to catch up with Frankie.

"It'll be all right when we get water into its head again," he offered.

Frankie grimaced. "I just meant to get it out of the castle!"

"Right, and you couldn't do it with it trying to get to your entrails."

Frankie looked at him strangely; apparently, his personal sense of the heroic meant getting rid of it without incapacitating it or hurting it in any way.

They reached the lake shore and Frankie put the kappa down. "Hold him up, Ted," he said. "So he doesn't spill again."

Teddy sat cross-legged on the ground, then pulled the kappa's body upright. He could see the cone-shaped hollow at the top of its head quite clearly, ringed by purplish veins. Frankie ran to the water, scooped some up in his hands, and splashed what little he'd managed to carry into the hollow. The kappa stirred minutely, then was still again. Frankie ran back.

The rest of the group caught up, and Bernice saw Frankie running with his hands full of water. "I know a fourth year spell for this!" she announced, then raised her wand and said, "Accio water!"

Teddy realized what was going to happen an instant before the lake suddenly drew back from its banks with a horrible sucking sound, drawing itself into a great mountain of water that was pointing directly toward them. From halfway up the mountain, a trapped merperson dove down into the depths. Ruthless ran forward waving her wand wildly and yelling "Finite incantatem! Finite incantatem!"

The water fell back with a great splash, and then it was rushing toward them, borne not by magic but by the rules of gravity, foaming with unspent energy-

It stopped.

Teddy blinked. A five foot high wall of water was standing not a foot from his nose, foam trailing upward. Beyond it, he could see another swell of the lake, much higher. It was like standing at the bottom of a ravine.

Except that, at the bottom of a ravine, he wouldn't be able to see a grindylow swim serenely by.

He looked over his shoulder and saw Professors Sprout, Longbottom, Robards, and Hagrid coming down the slope, wands drawn, Red Caps capering gleefully around their ankles.

Students and staff looked at one another, and Teddy saw Professor Longbottom pressing his lips together, trying not to smile.

Professor Sprout cocked her head to one side, raising her her eyebrows at Robards. "Well, Professor Robards," she said, "it seems we won't have to go back to looking for your missing kappa after all."

Fifteen minutes later, the lake was sitting tranquilly in its banks again, Professor Sprout, through an interpreter, was apologizing to Merchieftainess Murcus for the disturbance, and the Forest Guard was lined up in Robards' office, backs to the window, looking nervously from Robards to Longbottom to Hagrid to the kappa, which was now swimming contentedly in a large tank near the office door.

Robards was pacing, his hands clasped at the small of his back. He stopped in front of Frankie, eyes narrowed.

"Apcarne," he said, "I'm going to ask you one question, and you will answer it truthfully."

"Yes, sir," Frankie said. His voice cracked on "sir," going up then dropping into the cellar.

Robards took a deep breath. "Did you let the kappa out of the tank."

Frankie was visibly relieved. "No, sir. We just found it in the castle. We thought it had come up from the lake."

"And it didn't occur to you call a teacher?"

"Well..."

"There was no one in the Great Hall when I went!" Bernice piped up. "You were all gone."

"She has a point," Longbottom said. "They couldn't very well gather us up while we were looking for your kappa in the dungeons."

Robards didn't look particularly inclined to take this from a staff member half his own age, war hero and Head of House or not. "I believe that there are other teachers who were in their offices, in quite easy reach. Professor Flitwick, for instance, was in his office when we passed."

"I didn't look," Bernice admitted.

"And you nearly drowned yourselves and undid a lot of construction work by misusing a Summoning Charm."

Ruthless snorted.

Robards turned on her. "And you nearly completed the job by ending the spell without considering the consequences." He narrowed his eyes. "Scrimgeour, I have told you a hundred times that you're going to get yourself into trouble because you can't see two seconds past the present." He turned on Teddy, all of his nervousness in class gone. "Lupin, you were the one who told them about the kappa?"

"Yes, sir."

"And it never occurred to you that they aren't a species we would have in the lake?"

"Well, sort of," Teddy admitted. "But I thought perhaps it was just brought in. Like the grindylows and so on. Just for Hogwarts." He couldn't help glancing at Hagrid, who was smiling in such an innocent way that Teddy was quite sure the lake had more than grindylows and the giant squid in it. He had a feeling that if Hagrid got his hands on a kappa, he'd have it in the Hogwarts lake quicker than a Golden Snitch, and then go off searching for a mate for it.

Robards frowned impressively. "All right. It's not as bad as it could have been, but you were all careless. Five points from each of you for your Houses. So that's thirty from Hufflepuff, ten each from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, and five from Slytherin. Plus, detention. Professor Longbottom, I believe you mentioned a fluxweed patch in need of attention?"

Longbottom nodded. "It's best done at dark. Meet me at eight o'clock Monday night at greenhouse one, and we'll head over."

The members of the Guard shifted uncomfortably on their feet until Robards gave them a signal to go. Gratefully, Teddy followed the others out, but Professor Longbottom caught him by the shoulder and steered him down another corridor.

"Teddy, there's something else I need to talk to you about. I was going to call you in later today anyway."

"Is there trouble at home?"

Longbottom looked confused for a moment, then understood and said, "No, Teddy. If there were trouble at home, I'd have got you much earlier, and wouldn't have let Robards lecture you about the kappa first. This is a school matter." He reached a door that looked like all of the others and pointed his wand at it. It opened, and the corridor was flooded with a jungle-scent of soil and growing green things. Ivy climbed the walls under magical sunlight, and mist rose pleasantly from the corners, keeping everything moist. Longbottom's desk and chair, along with a book case, a small table, and a visitor's chair, were all sitting in magical bubbles that glowed faintly. He waved his and the bubbles disappeared. "I had it rain in here this morning," he said. "But the furniture should be dry. Please sit down, Teddy."

Teddy sat in the extra chair. "What is it?"

Longbottom went around his desk and sat down, then steepled his fingers in front of his face, looking thoughtful. "You're doing quite well in Herbology," he said. "I know it's only been three classes so far, but I can tell you understand the basics."

"Er... thank you?"

"Professor Robards tells me you that you're also doing well with defense theory, and Professor Flitwick says your written homework in Charms has been quite good. The same is true of Transfiguration. But we didn't have a meeting about you to talk about how well you're doing on theory."

Teddy blushed. "You had a meeting about me?"

"Teddy, your magic is suffering."

Teddy's heart stopped, then started again at double-speed. "Maybe I'm just not very powerful."

Longbottom narrowed his eyes. "I don't believe that, Teddy. I don't believe that you believe it, either. I was there the day you accidentally turned your grandmother's conservatory into a jungle, remember? And I heard a story from Bill Weasley, involving you and a lot of flying rocks." He sighed. "Teddy, sometimes magic can be affected by personal problems. Are you... I haven't seen you morph much more than your hair since the night you came. Are you having any trouble... I only ask because..." He looked uncomfortable, and Teddy didn't need to wonder about that one-he'd heard quite a lot about the year his mother hadn't been able to morph because his father was in danger.

"I'm fine," he said. "Look." He stood and went to a particularly dense patch of leaves and pink flowers, and morphed his skin to match their pattern.

Longbottom laughed. "That's as good as a Disillusioning charm, isn't it?"

"Except that I'd have to re-do it every time I moved," Teddy said, relaxing it and going back to the chair. "Also, I'd have to be naked."

"All right. Do you know what's wrong, then? Is it the wand?"

"Maybe," Teddy said, not really wanting to get into it.

"I think..." Longbottom shrugged and shook his head. "I think I've said as much as I can as Head of House. Your family decisions are private."

Teddy nodded, feeling rather miserable, like suddenly Professor Longbottom really was a different person from Neville, who had once sat with him at Uncle Harry's and told him a grand story about his father, a boggart, and a hat with a vulture on it. Then Professor Longbottom grinned and said, "Of course, all the professional dignity in the world isn't going to stop me from writing to Harry to tell him about your first detention. I think he'd have been very disappointed if it had been for anything less than an adventure."

Teddy grinned back. "Hey, that's not fair. No one else's godfather is getting a letter."

"Yes, life is a horrible injustice sometimes," Longbottom agreed pleasantly. "Go on. And try to avoid any more adventures, at least until you've finished your detention for this one."

Teddy went back to his dormitory, meaning to play with the kitten a bit before settling in to do the written part of his homework (he'd try harder on the practical part tomorrow afternoon), but Checkmate wasn't actually in the room. He got out the Marauder's Map, told it that he was up to no good, and looked for Checkmate's dot. She seemed to have gone up by the girls' dormitories, and was prowling about near the seventh year dormitory. He gave it his name and an order, and the Marauders all duly insulted him, then he brought the map back and watched Ruthless and Tinny walk companionably along on the seventh floor, on opposite sides of a wall that the map insisted was there. He shook his head and put it away, drawing out his Transfiguration homework instead. The questions were easy. The practical assignment was to take a feathered hat-pin and turn it into a quill. He read the theory behind it quickly, and spent the rest of the afternoon getting the metal to go a slightly duller shade.

Checkmate came back just before he left for dinner, carrying a pair of dead spiders, which she dropped neatly into her dish. She ran to him to collect praise, and looked crestfallen when he left the room almost immediately after giving it. Just before he closed the door, he saw her jump up onto his bed, curl upon the pillow, and put her nose under her paws.

Ruthless waved to him in the common room, and he joined her to trek down to dinner, not sure whether or not he hoped she had some new adventure in mind. She didn't seem to. They ate together, and he was getting quite used to the way her eyes were magnified behind her specs. They were an interesting color, really.

Once they had pudding, Frankie and Donzo came over to sit with them, then Tinny wandered over as well, with Laura Chapman, following along looking awed at being with people who'd got detention. They sat together, talking, until their Heads of House shooed them all home.

7. The Willow Wand

Chapter 7:

The Willow Wand

Geoffrey Phillips managed to get around the Ravenclaw plan in History of Magic, and engaged Binns in a lopsided debate about the condescension toward Muggles implied in the Statute of Secrecy, despite Binns' efforts to bring the class back to the troubles during the era of its implementation. Lizzie Richardson finally lost her temper at him, and pointed out that there were good and solid reasons to keep magic hidden, not the least of which was to prevent wizards from having excessive power over Muggles. Geoffrey suggested that guns and nuclear missiles were more powerful than a few incantations. "Not if the incantation is Imperio, and it's directed at the Muggle with his finger on the button," Donzo pointed out, and Geoffrey could only bluster a bit after that.

Robards was apparently emboldened by Teddy's new status as a troublemaker, and taught Defense Against the Dark Arts to his class with the same excitement he supposedly had shown all of his other classes, rounding ferociously on Corky to defend his essay on the reformation of the Auror Division, and then spot-quizzing Teddy on which situations called for self-defense, and which called for notification of Magical Law Enforcement. He even made a joke about being glad that "Lupin gets the theory of it, at least." Honoria forgot to be horrible to him, though he discovered at dinner that it was because she'd started in on Franklin Driscoll, a Ravenclaw Muggle-born who'd barely spoken since the Sorting. Judging by Honoria's comments, he'd made the mistake of speaking long enough in their shared Herbology class for her to realize he sounded less than posh. She affected an accent that sounded more like a stage show than a real accent, then sprinkled with every northern cliché she could cram into a sentence. Donzo started to loudly declaim about how it was actually a truer form of the language, but Teddy didn't think that was helping matters at all.

After dinner, he rushed through his homework, glad there was nothing practical in tonight's round, then, at eight sharp, presented himself at the door to greenhouse one. He was actually rather excited about detention; all of the stories Ron and Uncle Harry told seemed to end in one sort of adventure or another.

The Hufflepuffs were there ahead of him, and a moment later, the Ravenclaws ran in, out of breath. The lone third year Slytherin sauntered in as Professor Longbottom came out. Professor Longbottom ostentatiously counted them. "We're missing a Gryffindor," he said.

Ruthless came thundering down the hill, breathing like the Hogwarts Express. She barreled into Teddy and punched his arm several times. "Waiting... Common Room... you... without me?"

Frankie laughed. "Lupin, you really need to come to terms with the Common Room. It's where you go for things you have in common."

"Like DETENTION!" Ruthless said, stomping on his foot and hitting his arm again for good measure. Teddy didn't think this was quite fair, as it wouldn't be sporting to hit her back.

"That's quite enough, Miss Scrimgeour," Professor Longbottom said. "I'm sure Mr. Lupin has learnt his lesson, and you don't need another detention for fighting, and I know Gryffindor doesn't need to lose any more points for it."

"She lost twenty points last year for it," Frankie said, leaning over to Teddy as Professor Longbottom led them down the hill toward Hagrid's hut. "Not that she's not usually the one who's right, mind, but..." He shrugged philosophically. Teddy rubbed his sore arm.

They continued down the hill until they reached the shadow of the Whomping Willow, where Professor Longbottom stopped and turned them slightly and led them to a flat patch of fragrant green plants. He looked back at them.

"We've got an infestation of Sap-Sucking Stealthweed getting at the roots of the fluxweed crop. I'm very glad such a large group managed to get detention so very early in the year, or I'd have had to pull it all myself, and it's nasty work." He grinned and crouched down, indicated that they should lean over as he lit his wand. "You can see it moving at night, which is how you'll tell the Stealthweed from the fluxweed. You need to follow it down underground with your fingers, loosen it up from the roots, and pull it out. You can feed it to the gnomes if you like, but don't let it back into the ground. And watch for the Whomping Willow on the castle side of the garden. The longest branches can reach you there. Don't upset it."

They all glanced nervously at the large tree (Teddy's nervousness equaled and possibly excelled by his interest in it), then spread themselves along the rows of fluxweed and started to work their way down. Teddy took the row furthest to the right. After five minutes, he saw Professor Longbottom's shoe beside him, and nodded his head to ask him to hunker down.

"Are you having a problem?" he asked.

"Should I stop the Willow?" Teddy whispered, as low as he could, so that Tinny, off to his left, couldn't hear. "I know how."

Professor Longbottom waved his wand, and a light buzzing filled the air. "We can speak freely, Teddy. I'm not stopping the Willow because we've decided that it's not a good idea for students to see that the Willow can be stopped. It's dangerous to get close enough to try it, and you know perfectly well that they all would. Someone could get hurt." He gave Teddy a shrewd look. "Can I count on you not to go around telling your classmates the secret?"

"I never thought of that," Teddy said, then added, "I mean, yes. I won't tell."

"That doesn't mean that it's your little secret passage into Hogsmeade. Gringotts still has the house hexed on the other end, so they know about any trespassers. I don't think you want to be harassed by goblins just to sneak in an early Hogsmeade weekend."

Teddy nodded. It hadn't occurred to him to sneak out through the Shrieking Shack-he knew a lot more about Hogsmeade than he did about Hogwarts, and he thought it would be that way for quite a long time, so there wasn't much of a draw-but it still struck him as deeply unfair that the goblins had repossessed it during the war, and hadn't even given it back after Dad had died. He'd looked at the Shrieking Shack every time Granny had brought him to the village, and he felt it was kin to him, and he really ought to be able to get there. Gringotts ought to have given it back. Professor Longbottom patted his arm, broke the muffling spell, and went away.

Teddy worked his way up the row of fluxweed, feeling for the movements of the Stealthweed more than he counted on the feeble light from his wand to find it. It was weirdly satisfying to follow it to its roots, disentangle it, and yank it away, even though he managed to bend two of his fingernails backward before he was a third of the way down. Now and then, the gnomes would run over, and he would feed them sprigs of Stealthweed. They seemed to enjoy it, though he had to be careful not to let them crawl into the pockets of his robe. He didn't think they'd enjoy their evening much if he accidentally brought them back into Gryffindor Tower to meet Checkmate in the dark.

By the time he was halfway down the row, the work had put him into a sort of dazed trance. He had always lived in his row of fluxweed, and would always live in his row of fluxweed, and life consisted of nothing but looking for wriggling stems of Stealthweed. There was a vague figure to his left who seemed to be doing the same thing, but she could have been a ghoul or a ghost or his own shadow...

She threw a wriggling piece of Stealthweed at him. "Oi, Teddy, wake up," Tinny whispered. "Longbottom's wandered over to the Willow. We're thinking about staying out after we're meant to go back. We all want a look at that tree."

"What... at the Whomping Willow?"

Tinny nodded, then looked to her left. Teddy saw a ripple start a few rows up from her, then she said, "Bernice reckons it might be evil."

"What?"

There was another wave of passed-down whispering. "Well, not evil," Tinny corrected herself. "Just dangerous. Something we ought to look into."

Teddy stopped cold, thinking of the kappa losing all of its water and lying paralyzed on the lake shore. "We're not touching the tree," he said, and bent down to his row again.

Tinny passed this on, and the whisper passed up the rows, then came back down to Teddy, via Tinny, who said, "But honestly, Teddy, it is dangerous..."

Teddy raised his head and looked over the fluxweed at their earnest faces. "I'll vouch for the Whomping Willow," he said. "It's..." He struggled for something that wouldn't sound like he was whinging about a tree, finally coming up with, "It's important in the fight against evil."

They seemed to consider this for a moment, then Bernice shrugged, muttered that it had just been an idea and went back to weeding her row. The others seemed to take this as a cue to get back to work as well. Teddy went back to his weeding-world, where nothing else existed, but before he slipped into it completely, he happened to glance toward the Whomping Willow, where Professor Longbottom was standing, just beyond the reach of the longest branch, his head cocked to one side. In the light of the waning moon, Teddy could see lines of wariness on his face. Professor Longbottom sighed, left the shadow of the moving branches, and sat on a rock to observe the rest of the detention.

Over the next few days, Teddy got several owls from home. Apparently, Professor Longbottom really had told Uncle Harry, or Phineas Nigellus hadn't been able to resist passing the information along through the portraits. Either way, Uncle Harry sent back a mock serious note asking Teddy where in the world he seemed to have come by a talent for trouble-making. He also found it entertaining enough to share with the rest of the family, which led to a letter from Victoire (asking him to tell her all about what it was like to have detention), a letter from Granny (a bit less thrilled with the whole matter, though she did find an opportunity to grudgingly tell him that his mum would be quite amused that it turned out to be Robards' kappa), another set of pictures from James which the labels said showed the battle with the kappa, and a congratulatory note from George Weasley on the occasion of Teddy's first detention. The last contained a series of reminiscences about George's own detentions, a box of fireworks for Bonfire Night (It's my impression that you may be in possession of an item which will help you get out of the castle, and I recommend a certain cove on the east bank which is well-sheltered from prying eyes), and a piece of leprechaun gold to toss in Fred's Swamp with promise that trouble was, indeed, still being made. He also sent a picture of a squalling redheaded baby boy named Fred-When you toss in the coin, tell Fred there's a new Fred in the world who'll need looking after.

Maurice marveled over these while they walked to the swamp after Defense Against the Dark Arts on Thursday. "If you want to rebel against your family, you're going to have to behave."

"Then I'd just get letters from Percy and Molly Weasley. Which might include food."

"Can we try Polyjuice Potion to trade some time? I'd get the food, you can enjoy the experience of being brooded at by all the Burkes."

"Or you could just come visit over holidays."

Maurice's eyes went wide; he seemed unable to even process the invitation.

Teddy rolled his eyes and smacked the back of Maurice's head. He'd grown a bit tired of the family merriment by the end of the week, and ordered the Marauder's Map to tell him what it really thought, just to have them point out that it had been a rather sorry excuse for a detention ("Mr. Padfoot sadly regrets the depths to which teachers have been forced to find reasons for detention," "Mr. Prongs can barely stir himself from sleep for this," "Mr. Wormtail thinks Mr. Lupin should at least have been in charge," and "Mr. Moony would have expected more creativity out of Mr. Lupin, but apparently it's skipped a generation"). Being insulted by his teenage father was beginning to lose its charm. He asked Frankie to show him his mum's first year picture in Hufflepuff, which showed her happily morphing between Frankie's dad and poor old Sanjiv, but the drawing was silent; she didn't have any words of less-than-wisdom to share with him.

Robards seemed to have found his stride with Teddy's Defense Against the Dark Arts class, though his notes on Teddy's assignments still seemed a bit over-polite. History of Magic became more tolerable after Binns gave the first detention anyone could remember him giving when Geoffrey disrupted his class again. After that, he affected the attitude of a martyred saint or a political prisoner (once even coming to class with Spellotape over his mouth), but as this was considerably quieter, no one took any notice of him. Donzo confided over a Muggles and Minions game that they'd begun to cautiously hope he'd opt to go back to his Muggle school next term, as he loathed everything about Hogwarts, but Teddy had a feeling that wasn't really any more likely than Victoire deciding on Beauxbatons. Herbology and Potions continued to be easy, and Teddy let Slughorn collect him for a dinner two Saturdays after his detention, though not without pointedly waiting for him to also ask Frankie, who happened to be in the corridor with him when Slughorn came up to ask.

The school had apparently decided that flying lessons were odd and sporadic enough that they didn't need to worry about maintaining their scheduling traditions, so Teddy's first flying lesson, at the end of his second week of school, was conducted with his entire year in attendance. Despite several toy brooms given to him by Uncle Harry during his childhood, Teddy had never developed any special enthusiasm for flying, and was perfectly satisfied with his ability to rise, hover, and land without breaking anything by the end of the lesson. The only standout in the year was Franklin Driscoll, who was so excited that he broke his silence to tell everyone in sight that his mum was a pilot in the R.A.F., and she did trick flying in air shows, and it must come from the same place mustn't it? He went on in this vein until Honoria-who'd barely been able to get off the ground-asked him to "expline," as those born in civilization had no idea what he was talking about. Pure-blooded Tinny chirped in with a full explanation of the Muggle military, gleaned mostly from Frankie's Muggles and Minions books. Driscoll, who had started to sag again under Honoria's teasing, perked up when she asked if he wanted to join them for Saturday's game, but declined the invitation, as he wanted to watch the Ravenclaw Quidditch tryouts, even though he wouldn't be able to play as a first year. He reckoned, now that he'd tried this flying business, that it might be amusing after all. (Tinny, who cheerfully hated everything about Quidditch, gave him a horrified look.)

Transfiguration and Charms continued to be nightmares. His homework questions got full marks; his practical wand-work earned him simple low marks in Transfiguration and deep, lasting disappointment from Flitwick in Charms. He wasn't sure whether or not he was meant to see the mournful look on the little wizard's face or not, but it was quite hard to miss every time he failed to make a spell work. The last week of September, he finally managed to get a pebble to hop lamely across his desk, which saved him from a zero on a test, but didn't exactly earn him high marks. Flitwick asked the same question Ollivander had asked-about his history of accidental magic-then shook his head and said that he thought Berit may have stumbled with his wand. Teddy allowed that it was possible he had wanted to leave the store before he'd found the right one, and Flitwick flew into his version of a towering rage (which consisted of gesticulating a lot while he spoke normally), telling him that, of all things to get impatient with, finding the right wand was the worst possible thing for a wizard, and he was to talk to his grandmother immediately about acquiring a new wand.

Apparently, no one had told Flitwick that Teddy had two more wands sitting in his trunk. Teddy himself had nearly forgotten about them, oddly enough-he'd set them aside when he'd found out Granny knew they were missing, and as he'd settled into the year and got used to his own wand, he'd simply put them out of his head.

The night after the Charms test, he opened his trunk and took his parents' wands out of it, setting them on his night table and looking at them. They were both light colored, Dad's ash wand a bit lighter than Mum's willow, but not by much. Dad's was a bit splintered and had broad finger-marks rubbed into its polish (Teddy marveled that fingers that large had still been too skinny to hold his wedding band on during his last battle; compared to his own fingers' marks, they seemed like vast craters). Mum's wand was in pristine condition, despite the fact that she must have used it just as often. He supposed it was just that it was thirteen years younger, and had lived in more hospitable conditions. He put his own willow wand beside them, then closed his eyes and let his hand travel over each of them, feeling the way they called. His own wand had developed the tiniest of tingles-he had, after all, been using it for a month-but the others seemed surrounded by crackling energy.

He took a deep breath and took out the large leaf that he was meant to Transfigure into parchment, then, with more than a few nerves jumping up and down, picked up his father's wand.

He looked up the incantation and studied what he meant to do, then pointed the wand at the leaf, concentrated all of his power, and said, "Chartula."

The leaf disintegrated into ash, and he had to smother the embers before they caught his bed hangings.

He carefully put his father's wand back in his trunk. He couldn't very well use it if it was going to randomly burn things, though after what had happened in Shell Cottage, he'd have expected that more from Mum's. Hoping that Mum's wouldn't do the same thing when he acquired a new leaf, he put it carefully in the pocket of his robes.

He went early to Transfiguration the next day, and found Professor Gardner sitting at his desk.

"I'm afraid I burnt my leaf," he said. "I didn't mean to. I just-"

But Gardner was already grinning. "Switched wands, did you?"

Teddy nodded. "Yes, sir."

"I wondered if that was the problem." He gestured for Teddy to have a seat. "I wouldn't worry too much. You've been working very hard with a bad wand, and burning things you're trying to Transfigure usually just happens because you're trying to apply too much magical energy to the task at hand. So what may have been not enough energy with your old wand turns out to be far too much with your new one. Here, give us another try, but don't work quite so hard this time." He Summoned over a new leaf, and gave Teddy an encouraging nod. "Go on, then."

Teddy raised his Mum's wand at the leaf and bit his lip.

"You're about to burn it up again," Gardner said. "Pull it back a bit, Lupin. Relax."

Teddy took a few deep breaths, then whispered, "Chartula," trying not to think too hard about it.

The leaf started to smoke at the edges, but didn't burst into flame. Then it turned the beige of a clean sheet of parchment (albeit with darkening edges that were beginning to curl up). It still had the veins of the leaf in it, and it was still shaped like the leaf, but it was Transfigured.

Teddy grinned. "I did it."

"You did it," Gardner agreed, though the parchment-leaf had now given in to the flame and was burning merrily. "And now, I'll expect more of you."

Teddy didn't care. He smiled at his mother's wand, and didn't put it away for the rest of the class. He wasn't the first to finish the day's assignment of beetles-to-buttons (that was Lizzie Richardson)... but he did finish it, and he wasn't the last to do so, either.

Teddy's Transfiguration mark went up steadily over the following weeks, though he didn't, to his disappointment, suddenly find himself at the top of his year in it. Charms went from being an ordeal to being easily his favorite class, and he found himself pushing through the textbook at night, trying Charms they weren't scheduled to study until spring. He ceased using the doorknob to his dormitory almost entirely, finding it much more amusing to let himself in with a whispered, Alohomora. He was the first in his class, at the end of October, to master levitation, which earned him a letter from Hermione Weasley (with a scribbled note at the end from Ron, reminding him not to get too swotty about it). When he got bored with simple levitation-the day before Bonfire Night-he set the feather to go around his head in a lazy figure eight. He hadn't really thought about how he was doing this; he just did it, then suddenly Flitwick delightedly squealed, "Now, that's the sort of Charm work I expect from someone named Lupin!"

He was immediately contrite, like he'd said something deeply inappropriate, but Teddy found himself oddly glad to hear it. Other than Defense Against the Dark Arts (and, in Mum's case, Potions), he had no idea what his parents had been especially good at, and the idea that Flitwick would expect someone named Lupin to be good at Charms was a new piece of information to put into his mental picture. (He was rather sure that if Slughorn had known Mum, he'd have heard all about her Potions achievements, but she'd been after his time, and apparently, Dad hadn't interested old Sluggy very much.)

"What was that about?" Donzo asked on the way out of class.

"I guess my dad was good at Charms," Teddy said, then glanced over his shoulder quickly. "I asked Frankie and Corky and Maurice already, but I haven't had a chance to get to you-I got some fireworks for tomorrow night. Do you want to sneak out and go down to the lake?"

Donzo looked surprised. "We'll have class first thing Friday morning..."

"You live with a band, Donzo, don't tell me you can't handle a late night."

"Well, when you put it like that..." He smiled. "How are we getting out?"

"Frankie's calling a game in the library, and we'll wait for Madam Pince to kick us out. They never follow. We'll just slip out to the entrance hall and wait until there's no one around, then go out."

"Go out how?"

"Trust me, all right, Donzo?"

Donzo gave him a dubious sort of look, but nodded. Teddy hoped that the little hidden door at the staff room led (or still led) where it looked like it would on the Marauder's Map. Even if it didn't, he had to marvel at his father's friends, venturing even into staff areas to get their map right. It was a good charm, even outdated, and he wondered suddenly, given Flitwick's outburst about Lupins and charms, how much of it had come from Dad himself. He guessed he was probably hoping too hard-James and Sirius, everyone said, had been the real geniuses. But still...

He sighed. There was no way to find out who had drawn it, who had charmed it, who had found-or created-the spell to make new people appear on it. They might have told their sons someday-a story at the dinner table maybe, or something to be told while tromping around the countryside-but thanks to Voldemort, Bellatrix, and Dolohov, the two sons of the mapmakers had to fend for themselves with it. It was a small matter in the grand scheme of things, but Teddy had often found that the little things were the ones that stuck in his mind, like songs he couldn't remember the words to. Who drew the map? Was it Dad, with the same talented fingers that had decorated Teddy's nursery? Sirius, with the restless mind and hands that Granny remembered so well? The mysterious James Potter, who everyone seemed to think of as "a great bloke" without ever giving any specific reasons why? Or the traitor Pettigrew, trying to impress them? Teddy guessed it had been Dad, but he also guessed that Uncle Harry would guess it had been James.

In Defense Against the Dark Arts the next day, Robards had moved into a discussion about defensive tools, and, to the delight of all the first years, let them try hexing one another while wearing shield vests donated by George Weasley. Teddy ended up with a great lump on his head when his own spell bounced back off of Corky and threw him onto the edge of Robards' desk. He didn't want to go to Madam Pomfrey, as he was afraid she would make him stay and he'd miss the others at dinner, but she fixed it in a trice, muttering something about retired Aurors being worse than dragons and Dementors combined when it came to getting students hurt.

"You'll come straight back here if you start to see double," she said. "Or if you feel woozy, or sprout tentacles on any part of your body, I don't care how embarrassing. Do you understand me, Mr. Lupin?"

"Tentacles?"

"You weren't trying Tentacula?"

"Rictusempra."

"Oh. In that case, come if you start twitching."

"Yes, Madam Pomfrey."

She narrowed her eyes. "Maybe I should keep you for observation."

"Er... no. Really, I'm fine."

"Mm-hmm." She shook her head. "Go on then, Mr. Lupin." Suddenly, she gave him a conspiratorial wink. "Do be careful not to track mud in the corridors. Mr. Filch enjoys following mud tracks."

He smiled. "Thank you, Madam Pomfrey."

"Go on," she said again, and Teddy thought her voice sounded oddly thick, like she had a head cold.

Teddy ate dinner quickly, barely noticing what he was eating, and slipped out to the library as soon as he was done. Frankie had set up a very quick game, including Corky, Maurice, and Donzo. To Teddy's surprise, Tinny Gudgeon was there as well.

"I saw him sneaking about," she said as soon as she saw Teddy. "He won't tell me what's going on, but said I was to ask you if I could join his game."

"Sure you can," he said, then pulled the fireworks out of his pocket enough for her to see them.

She nodded wisely.

They played in a desultory way for an hour, until Madam Pince came thumping down between the tables. "This is a library! It is not a common room! This nonsense doesn't belong here!"

On cue, they picked up their game pieces, apologized profusely to Madam Pince, and proceeded directly to the Great Hall, now dark and empty except for a ghost hovering near the windows. Teddy looked at them. This would be the time to either tell them or not tell them about the Map, and, without even making up a reason, he decided not to. "Give me a moment," he said, and went to the door, pretending to peek out. Instead, he drew the Map from his pocket and said, "I solemnly swear I am up to no good." Hogwarts appeared. He could see Madam Pince prowling the library, weaving among several older students. Slughorn was nearby, but not moving about, so he wasn't likely to suddenly appear. Robards was prowling around on the third floor, and Sprout was in her office. No one else seemed to be near.

"All right," he whispered back. "Let's go."

He led them across the entrance hall, down a hall toward the classrooms, but turned toward the staff room at the last minute. The door should be...

He smiled. It was still here, hidden carefully, camouflaged among the stones. It unlatched with a simple "Alohomora," and then they were out in the crisp November night. He supposed they didn't actually need to sneak out, as it wasn't curfew yet despite the dark sky, but it seemed better this way.

"We should have brought cloaks," Corky said.

"Right, that would have looked perfectly normal in the library," Tinny pointed out as they ran down the lawn. "Where are we going?"

"There's supposed to be a cove..." Teddy said, then trailed off as they got near the Whomping Willow. A small figure was darting at the moving branches, jumping this way and that, waving her wand. Flames suddenly licked up a branch, but were quickly blown out by the breeze.

Teddy forgot about stealth, and about the fireworks in his pocket. "Hey! You! What do you think you're doing?"

The figure raised its wand again, and Teddy raised his own. (Well, his mum's, he supposed.) "Petrificus Totalis!"

It worked this time. The figure went stiff and solid...

...just in time for one of the Willow's branches to snake out and hit it high on its back, throwing it toward Teddy violently. He thought he heard a bone snap, and just as the figure landed in front of him, he saw Professor Longbottom rushing out from the greenhouses. There was no talk as he knelt down and pulled the warm cloak aside, revealing Bernice Fletcher. Frankie groaned and sat down on the ground.

"She's all right," Professor Longbottom said. "Do all of you want to tell me what's going on?"

They held the conversation in the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey was mending Bernice's shoulder. Teddy's spell had taken strongly, and it had presented her collarbone in perfect rigid clarity for the Willow to shatter, but Bernice herself was in more trouble. She insisted that she'd been trying to protect the school from a threat, but as the Whomping Willow had stood for nearly forty years, no one could take her seriously. Madam Pomfrey seemed to think she had taken a knock to the head. Professor Longbottom cut closer to the truth when he turned on all of them and said, "You're not protecting the damned school from anything. Hogwarts is safe at the moment, and you all know that. Play your games if you have to, but don't involve the grounds, the trees, the ghosts, or any of your fellow students. Do you understand?"

They all did.

"And as for you, Teddy," Professor Longbottom said, "I know you were actually trying to stop her, but use your head! That was a powerful Petrifying curse, and you could have got her hurt. Think."

Teddy looked down at his mum's wand, thinking that she wouldn't be especially happy with him using it against one of his friends. When he looked up, Professor Longbottom was looking at the wand sharply. It wasn't anything he'd needed in Herbology, and Teddy realized that it was the first time Professor Longbottom had seen him with it.

Once they'd established that Bernice was going to be all right, they all went to their dormitories, never having set off the fireworks. It had turned out to be a sorry adventure, and Teddy found his stomach churning at the thought of Bernice, who wasn't very bright but had always seemed nice, going after the tree, even trying to burn it. He wished it had been Honoria or Geoffrey.

He was still miserable when he woke up the next morning and trudged through his classes, and he couldn't quite meet the eyes of the others. And just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, at lunch, the rumor began to spread among the first and second years.

"No, you don't think he's..."

"Well, he does come sometimes, I heard it from a fifth year..."

"He's meant to be a very good teacher..."

"Robards invites him..."

Teddy sagged. Of all the times, now, right when he was certainly in trouble, when Professor Longbottom might have told him about the wand...

"It's true then!" a complete stranger said from the end of the Ravenclaw table. "Harry Potter is coming back to Hogwarts!"

8. Uncle Harry

Chapter 8:

Uncle Harry

The next week was marked by students scrambling to raise their marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts, trying to catch Robards' attention so that he would think to call on them and introduce them when Uncle Harry came. Even Honoria Higgs was preening. There was also a rash of quizzing one another about the Battle of Hogwarts, challenges to see who knew the most. It was a subject about which Teddy was singularly disinclined to banter after dinner in the Great Hall or over a pile of books in the library, especially after he heard, behind the next stack, a fifth year Ravenclaw asking one of his mates, "Did that werewolf bite it on the grounds under the North Battlements, or was it up on the lawn by the door?" The mate said he was sure it was on the battlements, but the mad wife was probably on the lawn. Frankie, who had started staying around Teddy in common areas since he realized what was going on, hustled him out, and the next morning, Teddy found out that both of the older students had ended up bristling with spikes and twirling crazily until Madam Pomfrey stopped it. Frankie had got detention, but when Teddy tried to thank him, he said it was the easiest detention he'd ever had. "Longbottom supervised," he said. "He told me to do my homework in peace for a few hours, and gave me butterbeers and chocolate."

After that, Teddy took to leaving the library and the Great Hall-and even the Gryffindor Common Room-as soon as he'd finished whatever he'd gone there to do. He noticed a handful of older students who seemed to be doing the same, though he didn't recognize any of them. Had they lost siblings? Friends? As far as Teddy knew, his were the only parents-at least of children young enough to still be in Hogwarts-to die in the battle, which had been fought largely by the very young, but there were fifty names on the casualty list, and they all would have had someone in the world, and some of their someones might still be here. Teddy was interested in who they were, but not interested enough to stay in the crowds, and they seemed not to be, either. He was actually glad to have a dormitory to himself.

The Marauder's Map and Checkmate increasingly kept him company that week. He tried to teach Checkmate to do a back flip on command, morphing his eyes and ears and nose to look like a cat's and showing her what he meant for her to do. This had no noticeable effect on her learning, but it seemed to amuse her, so he continued to do it. He ventured down to the common room late to get a book he'd left there, and saw Ruthless, who burst out laughing, as he'd forgotten to remove the cat nose. He morphed lion teeth at her, and she practically rolled off the couch in merriment. "Oh, stay," she said. "They're all gone. Trust me. I'm not exactly interested in listening to them complain righteously about the Ministry the year before. Trust my parents to name me something that sounds just like my grandfather's brother. And Frankie Apcarne to make it even closer." She rolled her eyes. "Exploding Snap?"

Teddy took the game gratefully, even though she made him do a new morph every time he lost a hand (actually, he rather liked it, as no one had taken much interest in his morphing since the first night). If she lost a hand, he told her to do a cosmetic charm. By the time they were done, he had something like an owl's beak, cat ears, and skin the pattern of the upholstery, and she was decked out like she was going to a ball, with fancy colors on her eyelids, long eyelashes, and glittery lips.

"You don't look bad as a girl," he said.

"Want to find out how you'd look as one?" Ruthless asked, breaking all of the charms at once. They grinned at each other the next morning, but didn't find themselves with a common area to themselves again.

The Map was no more amenable to learning new tricks than Checkmate had been. With some trepidation, but unable to think of another approach, he tried to take a quill to it to draw in one of the new walls, but the ink pooled on the parchment, slid around a bit, then formed itself into a hand gesture Teddy had once been punished for making before expelling itself rudely up into Teddy's face. Thinking about it as he mopped at the thick bluish-black streaks, he supposed he should have known it would happen. A part of him was curious as to what would happen if someone tried to destroy it-something large and rude, he guessed-but he wasn't about to risk it by trying.

He got a letter from Uncle Harry Saturday night, just a paragraph saying hello, that he was looking forward to coming. It didn't seem like any warning about his wand, or a coming reprimand about what had happened to Bernice, so he relaxed at least a little bit.

The night before Uncle Harry was meant to come, Teddy had got the Map out again, and was trying some repair charms he'd found in a third year book from the library, trying to get it to update itself. Its responses to attempted magic were either nothing or explosions of indignity. Some of the drawings that appeared, he was absolutely certain were his father's; they could have walked off of his nursery walls, except that none of the characters in his nursery did such obnoxious things. He thought about trying again, but for the first time since Professor Longbottom had visited on his first night, someone knocked on his door.

"Oi, Lupin!"

Teddy cleared the Map and went to the door, hoisting Checkmate onto his shoulder (she often rode there like a trained parrot, as long as he kept her balanced) to keep her from rolling off of his lap. "Ruthless?" He opened the door to find her there.

"How long do you plan to keep hiding in here?" she asked, reaching up to scratch Checkmate's head.

"I'm not hiding."

"Mm." She shrugged in an indifferent sort of way. "Some old man is outside the portrait, looking for you. I asked what he wanted and he said he meant to kidnap you for ransom. I told him no one would pay for you. He said he'd have a go anyway, then he showed me a funny sort of scar on his face." She winked.

Teddy shut the door and slipped out, following Ruthless though she didn't seem to notice whether or not he was there.

Uncle Harry was waiting in the corridor, in the same disguise he'd used at King's Cross, craning his neck to see into the Common Room. He smiled broadly when Teddy came out.

"You might want to leave the cat," he said. "We're going to Hogsmeade."

"I don't think I'm allowed..."

"I have signed permission from your grandmother. I know... who'd've guessed it was so simple?"

Teddy pried Checkmate's claws out of his robe and called, "Oi, Scrimgeour!"

Ruthless, who was halfway to the fireplace, turned and came back.

"Would you keep an eye on Checks for me, or just take her back to the dormitory until I'm ransomed?"

"Only for the cat ears," she said. Teddy morphed; she grinned. "All right, then. And you're too easy, Lupin. It'll get you in trouble." She took the kitten and went inside without looking back.

"Nice morph," Uncle Harry said as the portrait closed. "You might want to lose it, though."

Teddy put his own ears back. "It really just takes permission from Granny to go out to Hogsmeade?"

"Well, I may have dropped my own name. I'm not above it if it gets me time with my godson." He smiled. "Honestly, I don't think I had to. It's allowed. It's just Not Done, as I'm sure you've noticed by now."

"Oh. Well, I'm awfully embarrassed to be seen with a grown-up."

"Yes, you'll have to hide your face for a month." Uncle Harry led the way downstairs, stopping here and there to tell stories of hiding behind various tapestries and suits of armor. He seemed genuinely happy to be at Hogwarts, despite the horrible things that had happened to him here. "How did your flying lesson go?" he asked as they got outside.

Teddy shrugged. "I didn't crash."

Uncle Harry looked crestfallen at Teddy's manifest lack of interest in flying, but covered for it by asking about what he had been doing for fun. He was fascinated by Muggles and Minions (or at least pretended to be), and by the time Teddy had finished explaining it, they were halfway into the village, and Uncle Harry had broken his appearance charms.

Teddy had walked with him before, and knew how most people reacted to him-except for a few nutters, they mostly just said, "Hello, Mr. Potter," but they did have a tendency to make certain that they got their hellos in. Walking down the street with Uncle Harry was often a time-consuming enterprise, and the high street of Hogsmeade was no exception. Shoppers wandered out, gaped at him, stopped to greet him and wish him well, and sometimes even asked after the children and Teddy himself. Hogsmeade wasn't nearly as bad as Diagon Alley, since most of the business owners remembered Uncle Harry as a scrawny, short, specky little boy, but it still took them until nearly seven o'clock to get to the Three Broomsticks, where a young wizard with curly blond hair led them to a private sort of booth in back. They ordered their meals and got butterbeer while they waited. Teddy was just starting to relax when Uncle Harry said, "I guess you know that your grandmother wants me to talk to you about the wands."

Teddy froze halfway through the motion of putting his butterbeer down, his head snapping up. "Uncle Harry... please don't take them. I need them... I mean, the other one doesn't work."

Uncle Harry held his hand up, shaking his head. "I know, Teddy. Professor Flitwick sent your grandmother an owl, telling her to take you back to Ollivander's-I'm sure you can appreciate how well it went over, telling Andromeda to do something-then the next day, another one, saying that he hadn't realized she'd already sent one. He told her how much your Charm work had improved. She knows that you can't go back to the first one."

Teddy finished putting the butterbeer down. "Then... it's all right?"

"Not entirely. You may use whichever you're using. Your dad's?"

"Mum's actually. I burnt something with Dad's."

"That can happen." He turned his cup a few times. "She wants to take you back to Ollivander's over Christmas holidays."

"Berit Ollivander said that some other wand might have already chosen me, and that's why I couldn't find one in the first place. Couldn't one of my parents' wands have chosen me?"

"I'm almost certain of it. They both may have an affinity for you, Teddy." He sighed. "We know that neither of the wands was taken by force. Your dad... you know that story."

Teddy nodded stiffly. He knew it. Dean Thomas had told him. "Your dad saved me... Dolohov turned on me... I didn't have a wand... your dad threw his to me in time to do a Shield Charm, but Dolohov was too fast after, he turned, and I couldn't throw it back..." Dad had died to save one of his former students. Teddy supposed that he himself would probably decide to die rather than let someone else die-it was the right thing to do, as everyone had always said; the heroes in the stories would never run off and let someone else die-but being a third party, if there was a choice between Dean and his father, he didn't think he'd choose Dean. Sometimes he played at having saved both of them, though, since the Dad who lived in his head never seemed to approve of just wandering off without Dean.

"At any rate," Uncle Harry said, "he didn't lose his wand. And your mum set hers down. We may never know why, but I'd guess it was just so Bellatrix wouldn't get it. If she heard Bella too late to do anything..." He shook his head, like he was trying to clear it. "I spoke to Ollivander when we first gave the wands back to your grandmother, to make sure their allegiance was clean. It's very important. He thought then-and I'm quite willing to wager, still thinks-that their last thoughts were of you, and their wands' allegiance followed suit. They loved you very much."

"Does Granny know?"

"No. I wanted to see what would happen, and I never told her what Ollivander told me. I'm sorry about that. I thought perhaps something else..." He looked down. "Teddy, your grandmother is worried about how other people will act around you. I'm worried about what it means to you. Dumbledore once told me not to dwell on dreams and forget to live. He told me that after I'd spent quite a lot of time and got into several tiffs with my best friend, looking for a chance to stare into a mirror and see my parents."

Teddy wasn't sure what he was meant to say to this, so he just said, "Oh."

"Why did you want their wands?"

Because they want me, Teddy thought, but said, "I don't know. They work." He'd thought about telling Uncle Harry about the funny things the Marauder's Map had done, or asking if he knew how to make it update itself, but he didn't think Uncle Harry would like that very well, if he was worrying about the wands. Instead he said, "Do you think Mr. Ollivander would tell Granny that the wands chose me, if I brought them along?"

"I think you'll find that your grandmother would be willing to listen if you asked to take them along. She's actually a bit upset with herself for making you take the other one. She's worried that you're angry at her, and I know you'll write to her and tell her how very many things are wonderful about her, won't you?"

"Yes, Uncle Harry."

"Well, then," Uncle Harry said, "that dispenses with the less pleasant part of the godfatherly duties. I did bring presents." He grinned, and waved his wand, and several parcels appeared. One was a bulky, wrapped parcel.

"What's this for?"

"A present from Molly. She started knitting as soon as she heard you were a Gryffindor." He tossed it over.

Teddy unwrapped it and found a bulky jumper in scarlet and gold, and he pulled it on immediately. "I'll write to Mrs. Weasley as well."

"You'd best. So... this Scrimgeour girl... she's a friend?"

The young wizard brought their meals, and Teddy spent the next hour much more happily, telling Uncle Harry about all of the people he'd met. To his delight, Uncle Harry didn't put much weight on what happened to Bernice, which he declared a mistake that could happen to anyone, and Teddy, after all, wasn't the one attacking a tree that hit back. Teddy suggested that Uncle Harry might discourage Bernice from trying to become an Auror, but he said he thought Robards was in a better position to judge things like that. While they waited for pudding, Teddy asked about everyone at home, other than what they'd sent letters about.

"Well, we've all been trying to keep up with you," he said. "I imagine if James handled writing better than he does, he'd tell you all about a flying show Aunt Ginny took him to see in Portree. Your friend Donzo's aunt was the star."

"He talks so much about the band, I forgot the family was in Quidditch, too."

"Don't tell Aunt Ginny that. Not if you value biscuits."

They finished up pudding and headed out into what was full night now. It was a new moon, so the sky was very dark, even though there were no clouds. Teddy's eyes wandered up to the darker spot against the stars where the Shrieking Shack hulked on its hill, and thought about asking Uncle Harry if he might help get it back, but that was an awfully large thing to ask for, and he supposed if no one had done anything about it yet, it must just be too expensive.

"Victoire's very happy to get your letters," Uncle Harry said as they made their way toward the school gates. "It's certainly generous of you to remember her."

"She, er... saw the wands."

He grinned over his shoulder. "Yes, Teddy, we've all picked that up. But as you know we all know about the wands, it's quite generous of you to keep writing to her anyway. I think she'd be disappointed if you stopped."

"Well," Teddy said, "she tells me about how everyone is. Her sisters, the cousins..."

"I see." Uncle Harry picked up a stone and tossed it further along the road. "When I come up to the school tomorrow, it's to lecture," he said. "I'm afraid the first year lectures are all about things you can do without magic. I'll tell a lot of stories you already know, like Ron and the chess board, and Hermione solving the potions puzzle. So I don't know how much you'll get out of it, but I promise all of the others will be receiving great wisdom beyond their years."

"So they'll almost catch up with me?" Teddy asked, and winked.

"Some may come close, but only if they're quite clever." Just shy of the school gate, Uncle Harry stopped walking. "I think we're about as close as we can get without the terrible risk of anyone seeing," he said, and pulled Teddy into a hug, mussing his hair roughly and kissing his head. "I love you, Teddy."

Teddy pulled away, pretending to brush the kiss off. "Uncle Harry!"

Uncle Harry smiled warmly, then hooked an arm over Teddy's neck and started walking again, dragging Teddy along with mock roughness. "Think you can get away from the legendary Harry Potter do you?"

"'Course not," Teddy said, then morphed his head narrower and squirmed away, running toward the gate and laughing.

Uncle Harry chased him, and they both nearly ran into the iron bars, breathing hard. Uncle Harry flicked his wand, and a great white stag flew from the tip.

"Will you teach me that someday?" Teddy asked.

"Teddy, I will allow absolutely no one else to teach you, of all people, that particular spell. And I believe we'll do it when you're a third year."

"A bit ahead of schedule, don't you think?" Professor Longbottom asked, emerging from the shadows of the grounds and smiling.

"It's exactly on schedule for a Potter and a Lupin." Uncle Harry smiled. "How are you?"

Professor Longbottom shrugged. "Well enough. Will you come by the greenhouses after your last lecture? I've a nice bottle of"-he glanced at Teddy-"flavored water. A good year."

"Wouldn't miss it," Uncle Harry said.

Professor Longbottom opened the gate and led Teddy through it, then closed it, leaving Uncle Harry on the other side. Teddy waved.

Uncle Harry waved back. "I'll see you tomorrow." He turned and disappeared into the darkness.

Teddy followed Professor Longbottom up to the castle.

Uncle Harry was going to be busy here, Teddy noticed when he saw the schedule posted the next day. They had disrupted the class schedule a little bit, combining each year for double-length Defense Against the Dark Arts classes in the Great Hall, but it would still take the whole of two days for him to talk to everyone. The first day, he worked with the older students-fifth, sixth, and seventh years working on O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s. They had to be used to him by now, Teddy thought; he came nearly every year. But when Teddy chanced a peek in on the seventh years (having to crane his neck around the crowd of onlookers), he saw Ellie Cattermole looking completely flummoxed as Uncle Harry walked her through her Shield Charm. He corrected her aim, and she blushed furiously, dropping her wand. Someone in the crowd giggled. Uncle Harry shut the doors with an irritated flick of his wand.

At dinner that night, Uncle Harry sat at the high table with Professors Longbottom and Hagrid, the three of them looking not that much different from the groups of friends among the students at the House tables. At one point, Teddy half-expected them to start flicking vegetables at one another. To the delight of the whole of Gryffindor House, Uncle Harry stopped at the table during pudding and swiped a tart from Teddy's plate. He didn't sit down, but he did joke that he still felt that it was this table he ought to be sitting at. He was duly invited by close to sixty Gryffindors, but said he had to decline, as he was here as a teacher. He squeezed Teddy's shoulder, but didn't say anything until it was time to go and nearly everyone was paying attention to pudding again. "I didn't think you'd want the attention just now," he whispered.

"Good call," Teddy said, and grinned. Uncle Harry thumped the back of his head fondly, and went on out of the Hall.

The first years had the last class of the day with Uncle Harry, and at lunch, Teddy slipped in among the Forest Guard at Hufflepuff (Bernice looked deeply embarrassed to see him, but muttered something about everything being all right). Frankie had apparently taken down a boggart that Uncle Harry had brought for the third years-"It turned into a troll and started busting everything apart, but I put it in a tutu and toe shoes and it started twirling around, and we all had to laugh at it!"-and there was a great deal of excitement. The lecture before the practical work had been about dark creatures, and Uncle Harry had taken questions about any number of things. Teddy found himself, somewhat to his surprise, looking forward to his actual class.

After lunch, Teddy barely managed to concentrate through Herbology, though Professor Longbottom seemed to understand this, and had the class just shifting soil from one pot to another. They washed their hands after finishing, and Teddy walked back up to the castle between Tinny and Roger. They met the Slytherins and Ravenclaws outside the Great Hall.

The door opened, and Uncle Harry grinned. Robards was behind him; they'd clearly been sharing tales of the Auror Division. "Come on in. Who are we wai-" He caught himself, apparently remembering that they weren't waiting for anyone. "Well, let's stay cozy." He raised his wand arm, and the Ravenclaw table scooted over from the wall where it was stored and started twirling in mid-air, reshaping itself. When it came down, it was a round table that would seat all of them comfortably. Uncle Harry Conjured seventeen chairs and took one of them, indicating to the students that they should do the same. Robards sat across from him.

"Let's get to know each other, shall we?" Uncle Harry said. "I'm Harry Potter, and Professor Robards is kind enough to let me come here and talk to you. I know one of you, but the rest, I'll need names for."

The students introduced themselves in turn (Maurice muttering his name so incoherently that he had to repeat it twice, his ears burning), then Uncle Harry started telling them about his own first year, bridging into the lecture on defense so subtly that Teddy didn't notice he'd done so until he realized they were no longer talking about Hermione, but about how to handle a logical puzzle. The Ravenclaws all loved this, and Donzo in particular was entranced with solving a problem about how to recognize what kind of spell had been cast on a room that Teddy rather strongly suspected Hermione had provided.

He taught easily and comfortably, and Teddy wondered-not for the first time-why he didn't teach Defense Against the Dark Arts as a permanent post. He certainly seemed more relaxed here than Teddy had ever seen him at work.

"As first years," he said, "you don't know much magic. What's the smartest thing for you do if you find yourself in danger?"

Corky raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Atkinson?"

"Would that be going past a giant three-headed dog, dropping into a pile of Devil's Snare, and playing a mad chess game, just to get to a dark wizard on the other side?"

Uncle Harry laughed. "Decidedly not, but I don't think you'll need to. Besides, I'm sure they'll have thought of something other than Devil's Snare by now. What's your real answer?"

"Get out of it," Corky said. "As quick as possible."

"Much smarter answer. It's not always easy, though. What else can you do?"

"Keep an eye on the inside," Maurice answered quickly.

"It's the new Slytherin motto," Corky agreed.

"Seems not to be too far from the old one," Uncle Harry said.

"Of course it's not," Honoria said. "Slytherin House is honorable."

Teddy wondered exactly where in "honorable" she found continually insulting the war dead, making fun of Franklin, and genuinely being a horrendous busybody, but he said nothing, as Maurice was already glaring at her.

"Slytherin," he said quite clearly, "is planning on taking care of its own problems from now on."

Uncle Harry didn't miss the implication, though Teddy hadn't told him about Honoria. "I think Slytherin ought to make sure that it talks to its Head of House about any internal problems," he said carefully. "You wouldn't want to make things worse."

A look passed among the first years, but ultimately, no one said anything.

Uncle Harry finished up the lecture, then decided to teach them simple spells that would help them get away. He worked with each of them on a Point-Me spell, which Teddy thought quite helpful, and on Hermione's blue-flame charm. Teddy learned the spells, but whenever Uncle Harry wasn't working with him, he was watching Uncle Harry teach. He went to each student, speaking quietly, patiently walking them through difficulties. Students who did things particularly well were praised, students who were having trouble were helped with no fanfare, no disparaging. It wasn't like Robards' sometimes combative style, nor quite like Professor Longbottom's easygoing instructions. Teddy liked both of them, but thought that he liked Uncle Harry's way better. He felt like he was in one of the stories about Dumbledore's Army.

After class, they had to move quickly out of the Great Hall so that the elves could set it up for dinner, and Teddy didn't get a chance to say anything to Uncle Harry, who was also not at the high table during dinner. Professor Longbottom wasn't there, either, and Teddy guessed that they were off together somewhere. He went back to his room and checked the Marauder's Map, and found them sitting in greenhouse one. It was still early enough to be out and about, and Teddy thought he'd at least say goodbye to Uncle Harry before he left Hogsmeade, so he slipped out of Gryffindor Tower and onto the grounds.

He could see them from quite a distance, as several candles were lit in the greenhouse, so it glowed in the dark night. They were sitting in Conjured chairs, looking up through the ceiling, drinking something Teddy didn't think was flavored water. They looked comfortable, and happy to be spending time together. They hadn't even been the most closely bonded boys in the dormitory and-

What binds is bound to the bonded.

Teddy frowned. He hadn't thought of "Prongs"'s riddle since it first appeared on the Marauder's Map, and he wasn't sure why he thought of it now.

He started toward the greenhouse, hoping Uncle Harry wouldn't mind the interruption. There was a buzzing little light keeping watch, but Teddy morphed his skin to match the leafy wall he was passing, and it seemed to miss him. As he got close, he could hear them talking.

"...business with the Slytherin first years?" Uncle Harry asked.

"I'd guess Honoria Higgs."

"Are we looking at another Malfoy?"

"We're looking at a spoilt little"-Professor Longbottom called Honoria a name Teddy knew he wouldn't have used if he knew a student was listening-"who's spent far too much time with an old family friend."

"Which friend?"

"Rita Skeeter. She mentioned it in Herbology once. I suppose I should have guessed. She always knows everyone's business. It's not always easy treating them all well."

"You do a good job."

"I remember Snape threatening to poison my toad. It makes it easier to remember not to play favorites in class." Professor Longbottom leaned forward. "Sorry. I know he was working on the side of the angels, but that tends to stick in the memory."

Teddy reached the door and knocked.

Professor Longbottom stood up. "Who's there?"

"Teddy Lupin."

The pair of them passed an odd look. "Come on in," Professor Longbottom said, and Teddy did. Professor Longbottom rolled his eyes. "You morphed your way past the guard light?"

"Is that what that was?"

"Why would you morph if you didn't know that?"

Teddy shrugged and unmorphed his skin. "I wanted to see if it worked. I just wanted to say goodbye to Uncle Harry."

"Well, I was going to come back up to Gryffindor Tower," Uncle Harry said. "But we could do that here."

Teddy looked around and realized that he really had interrupted. Everything seemed different with him here than it had before he'd come in. He smiled awkwardly and held out his hand. "Well... goodbye. Until Christmas."

Uncle Harry shook the hand with great seriousness, then hugged him. "Be good, Teddy. We're all looking forward to Christmas."

"Could you tell James that I have his picture on my wall? I forgot to tell him when I wrote."

"He'll be very glad to hear it." He leaned down. "Teddy, I'm not sure how much you heard after you came past the guard light but-"

"Don't worry, I won't tell."

"Good."

They talked for a minute more, then Professor Longbottom pointed out that Teddy's time was up, and he had to go back to the castle. He looked back halfway and saw the two men talking again, comfortably boys together. Teddy wondered if all adults were like that when the children weren't around. He thought he might practice morphing older, just to find out, but then thought a stranger might throw off the balance just as well. He practiced the morph anyway when he got back to his room, broadening his jaw and nose, adding to his height, spreading his shoulders... it wasn't entirely right. He'd need a book on what changes he'd need to make.

He was exhausted by the time he went to bed, and he dreamed first of Professor Longbottom and Uncle Harry, in a little bubble of light in the dark, fitting easily together. Then it was his own room, and they weren't Uncle Harry and Professor Longbottom anymore, but Teddy's father and Uncle Harry's father. Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew emerged from the shadows, and they sat together in their own pool of light, hunched over a piece of parchment, their wands pointed at it, laughing. Lines flowed from it, spilling onto the table, reaching into the air, weaving around them, binding them...

Teddy awoke.

What binds is bound to the bonded.

He thought about the first thing his teenage father's avatar had said on the map. Mr. Moony is astonished that young Mr. Lupin hasn't been given the wherewithal to answer his own question.

But of course, he had been given the wherewithal.

Teddy scrambled for the Marauder's Map, laid it out on his bed, then pulled his father's wand from its place in his trunk.

9. The Mapmakers' Mark

Chapter 9:

The Mapmakers' Mark

Teddy froze, his father's wand poised over the Marauder's Map, unsure what would happen... or-worse, somehow-if anything at all would happen.

"It won't do anything," he told himself, trying it out to see if he could stand it. "It's just a different wand. I'm still not them, and perhaps they didn't make it do anything else at all."

Bracing himself for this possibility, trying not to hope too much, he pointed his father's wand at the Map and said, "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good."

The words "Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs..." didn't appear.

Instead, four animals formed themselves in the center of the page-wolf, stag, dog, rat-pulling the map outward by its corners, then taking their places at the points of the compass. The werewolf leapt to the center of the top, marking the north; the dog ran to the south. The stag took up the west, and the rat nibbled at a bit of ink in the east.

Teddy felt himself smile, though he wasn't sure what difference it might make. "Hullo," he said.

The animals fidgeted.

"What... er... what do I do now?"

He wasn't sure whether or not to expect an answer-the inspiration to use Dad's wand had come so suddenly that he hadn't really thought about what he meant to do with it-but the center of the map cleared almost immediately and showed a small picture of a boy bent over a map. The boy was labeled "Teddy Lupin," and it tapped the top of the map. A bubble appeared, saying, "Revelo Lupinus."

The boy disappeared, swallowed by the lines forming the center of the castle, and Teddy curiously tapped the top of the map, then realized in a flash that this wasn't exactly right. He tapped the picture of the wolf, sitting at "North," and said, "Revelo Lupinus."

The wolf jumped down from its compass point and began leaping from point to point on the Map, circling back repeatedly to Gryffindor Tower, but also flitting to the antechamber outside the Great Hall, the Astronomy Tower, and an office on the second floor where Robards was currently prowling back and forth. At each place it stopped, it left a tiny, inky pawprint. It finished its run and jumped back to its North point, its tufted tail curled around its feet and twitching slightly. It regarded Teddy coolly.

Teddy frowned, looking at the paw prints curiously. Most of them-five-were in the top floor dormitory, where the third year Gryffindor boys seemed to be jumping around quite madly at the moment (Teddy guessed they were having one of their periodic hex wars, which inevitably ended up with at least one of them in the hospital wing and another in detention), but three were in the Common Room. No one else was there yet.

He dressed quickly, checked again to make sure he'd have the Common Room to himself, then slipped down the stairs. He looked at the Map, comparing it to the paw prints. One was at a book shelf near the fireplace, another apparently on the sofa, a third at a seemingly random spot between the door and a cluster of study tables. None of them seemed particularly special to Teddy.

He went to the sofa first, examining it carefully. He guessed that if it had been charmed or hexed somehow, someone would have discovered it in thirty-odd years. Methodically, he ran his hand over the upholstery, then turned each cushion over. The elves kept it meticulously clean; there wasn't even spare lint. They'd repaired a tear in the base that had opened up when some of the second years jumped on it-

Teddy stopped.

He flung the cushions aside, revealing a pristine strip of cloth over the springs. He touched it. There were some wooden supports, but there were also spots where the cloth just stretched over the hollow part inside. He looked over his shoulder, checked the Map again for anyone coming, then-feeling guilty about the extra work he'd be making for an elf but unable to help himself-tore through the thin fabric at the back, near where the cushions would come to a rest. He tried to see through the small slash, but it was impossible, so he widened it, then probed into it with his wand.

"Lumos."

The inside of the sofa was dusty and one spring was broken. Teddy could see quills, balled up sweets wrappers, a few spare Sickles, and a long, thin box, lying forlorn and trapped behind a spring. The light of his wand picked up gold letters: "R.J.L."

Wonderingly, he drew it out.

It was a simple, leather-covered box, the initials its only decoration. Teddy opened it. There was a fine quill inside, and a crystal bottle with long dried-up ink. On the inner cover of the box, spiky handwriting said, Remus, it's not much for coming of age, but we'll call it hope for the things we talked about over Christmas. Work with Professor McGonagall-we know she wants to help with the apprenticeship! We hope you'll also enjoy your grandfather's watch; we know he'd want you to have it. Love, Mum and Dad.

Teddy sat down on the edge of the sofa, then hurriedly got up and put the cushions back, imagining his father sitting here, putting his birthday present down, maybe to open another one. It slipped between the cushions, into a hole in the fabric, down beside the spring, and before he noticed it was gone, the elves mended the hole and sealed it away. How long had he looked for it? Had his parents been disappointed when he didn't have it, or had he just never told them that he'd lost it?

He took the quill out of the box and held it in his hand, which was shaking. The feather trembled.

"What's that?"

Teddy's head jerked toward the staircases, and he saw Ruthless coming down. He grabbed the map and cleared it before she could see him over the top of the sofa (with no surprise, he noticed before everything disappeared that the paw print by the sofa was gone), then smiled at her. "A quill," he said. "What does it look like, dragon's gold?"

"It's a nice one. Is it your birthday or something?"

"No."

"Oh."

"It's my father's."

Ruthless nodded vaguely, and again said, "Oh. Are you coming down to Hufflepuff today? Frankie's got a game going, and he said something about planning a forest run. I was starting to think he wasn't going to do them this year."

Teddy thought about the other paw prints on the map, wanting nothing more than to spend the day chasing them down, but the Common Room would be overrun until bedtime, so he smiled and nodded. He wished desperately that he'd got the room two floors above his to himself-he knew now that all of the paw prints were there because it must have been their dormitory, the place where the other lost things would be, and he couldn't think how he meant to get in and search it. "Do you want to get breakfast?" he asked Ruthless.

"No, I thought I'd go hungry, and not have anything to bring for the game."

"I'll just get my character stats. Why didn't Frankie tell me there was a game?"

"Probably because you hid in your room for a week, and he figured I'd have to."

"Oh. Then why didn't you tell me?"

"I just did."

He ran back to his room, more to stash the map and the quill than to get his character stats, which could have been retrieved from a stat-coin. Checkmate attacked his shoelaces and mewed pitifully, so he picked her up to take her along. He ate breakfast with Ruthless, followed Frankie and the others down to Hufflepuff, played Muggles and Minions for two hours, and barely noticed any of it. When lunchtime came, Frankie put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Lupin and I will get food. The rest of you amuse yourselves, but if you touch my game plan, you'll find yourselves purple and green."

As soon as they got out from behind the still life, Frankie steered Teddy in the wrong direction entirely, into a broom closet where several plant-tending tools were stacked on wooden shelves.

"Wake up, will you, Ted?" he said.

Teddy blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Your brain's not with us. You tried to cast a spell. You can't do that. You're a Muggle in the game."

"Oh... sorry. I'll try to play better."

"Hang the game," Frankie said. "Where's your head? Did your godfather tell you something from home, or-?"

"No, no. Nothing like that." Teddy shrugged. "It's just... well, I found something of my dad's in the Common Room. That's all."

"Something was still there after all this time?"

"I know, that's why it's weird."

Frankie eyed him with kind suspicion. "Is there something you're not telling me, Teddy?"

"Yes," Teddy admitted. "But it's sort of a secret."

"It's not going to get you into any trouble, is it?" Frankie asked, evaluating this, not demanding to be let in. "'Cause you're not right in the head from it, mate."

"I'm fine," Teddy said, irritated. "And I have enough guardians."

Frankie shoved him against the wall without much force. "I'm not your damned guardian. But if I happen to notice you running out in front of a fire-breathing dragon, I'll probably say, 'Hey, Teddy, did you happen to see the flames shooting out of its nose?' You're just going to have to deal with that."

Teddy looked down, now annoyed with himself, remembering Uncle Harry's warning about dwelling on dreams and forgetting to live. "Sorry, Frankie," he said, then smiled. "Let's see if we can catch Winky before she loses her temper for the day."

Frankie stepped back and nodded smartly. "All right, then. Though with that one, I think we may be too late before breakfast..."

Teddy followed him, clearing his head with each step.

Teddy kept Frankie's words firmly in mind over the next several days-he had no interest in being thought mad, let alone in actually going mad-and was scrupulous about finishing his homework and spending time with his friends before his daily search for the lost traces of the Marauders that were to be found around the castle. His marks continued to rise in Charms, though they'd flattened out in Transfiguration, despite using Mum's wand (he was now more determined than before to continue using Mum's wand in class, as Dad's wand had other uses). He got full marks on a test that Robards gave, the first at least partly practical Defense Against the Dark Arts test. He helped Frankie and Tinny devise a visit to the Forest, using the hidden door near the staff room, and he went with the Guard, discovering nothing more threatening than a nest of sleeping fairies, though, as usual, they had to dodge Red Caps. Teddy brought up that they were actual Dark Creatures, but everyone else seemed to think of them as annoyances, rather like mosquitoes that happened to enjoy clubbing people on the knees. Hagrid caught them coming back, and gave them a detention that involved chopping lettuce for third years studying flobberworms, while he made the mistake of telling them all sorts of dangerous things that lived in the forest, piquing Roger Young's interest greatly.

A reporter from Witch Weekly showed up on Tuesday to follow Donzo McCormack around for a few days-all highly supervised by staff, and disliked by all of them-and Donzo warned most of his friends to keep their heads down, but Tinny got caught slipping him details for Saturday's Muggles and Minions game, and somehow ended up portrayed as his best friend, with an insinuation that she was his girlfriend. Her father sent her a Howler about being too young to have a boyfriend. She hid under the Hufflepuff table while it yelled, and Donzo answered the letter, trying to explain the press.

Honoria Higgs continued to find lower and lower ways to insult people, at one point opining that Teddy's parents had to be extremely stupid if they couldn't even figure out how to stop a baby from coming in the middle of a war, or maybe they just couldn't control themselves. Teddy didn't think Mum would mind when he used her wand for a Jelly Legs Jinx that sent Honoria face-first into a bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy. When she tried to explain how she knew that Teddy had been the one to curse her, Slughorn gave her detention and told the entire Slytherin table that he never wanted to hear anyone in his House insulting the war dead again. After that, Honoria kept it to hissing whispers. A blurb appeared anonymously on the letters page of the Daily Prophet suggesting that Hogwarts was slipping back toward the days of Dolores Umbridge, stifling the free speech of its students. Honoria looked quite pleased with herself on this count.

Through all of it, Teddy continued his search. The book shelves in the Common Room turned out to be difficult. There were no holes in the wall, nothing gathering behind the skirting board. He finally noticed fresh mortar around a stone on the third shelf and guessed that it had been replaced, but he had to trawl through fourth year Charms books to find something that would let him take it out without doing any damage. Behind it, he found a nearly complete essay, very complicated, about the Transfigurational potential of several different substances. Teddy couldn't really follow it, and couldn't imagine how it had ended up behind the book shelf. In contrast, the one that had seemed nothing more than a random spot on the floor turned out to be easy. Several stones had been etched with designs-bored students across the centuries, Teddy guessed-and one here had the letters MWPP faintly scratched onto it, twined around with leaves. It had been deliberately faded, and if Teddy hadn't known something was here, he'd have taken it for something done centuries ago, but since he knew it, he just pointed his father's wand at it and said, "Alohomora." It revolved twice then sank into the floor, revealing a hiding spot. Inside it was a dusty, wrapped package.

Teddy drew it out. There was a note on the front in large handwriting that he thought, from the Map, was Sirius Black's: Moony-Prongs and I have a bet that you won't remember this spot until May with the You Know What locked up in Filch's office. Well, Prongs says May. My gold's on June. Whenever you find it, happy birthday. But you have to tell us, so I can collect my gold. Padfoot.

Teddy wasn't at all sure whether or not he should unwrap the present, but he supposed, in some morbid way, that things for his father would probably be his, he finally chose to. There was a card signed by all three of them (showing a scantily clad witch winking over a stack of books), and the gift was a long-soured potion that was meant to make him confident and irresistible to some witch named Genevieve who he'd apparently fancied at the time. (Don't worry, Wormtail had written, I didn't let either of them near the cauldron, so it does what it says it does, and nothing else.)

Teddy didn't know what to do with this, so he just put it in a box with the quill and the essay.

In the antechamber where he'd come with the other first years, he found a half-written (and very horrible) love poem, unsigned but definitely in Dad's hand, shoved into a gap behind the mantle. This one was written to someone named Constanza. Teddy winced at it, but put it in with the rest. There was an ancient, dusty quill behind a box in the Charms classroom and an old button in greenhouse one. Jammed under a telescope mount on the Astronomy tower, out of sight for anyone not looking for it, was little rusted badge that said, "Stop Crouching." Teddy had no idea what this meant. Worthless or not, Teddy added all of this to his growing collection.

Two weeks after Uncle Harry visited, Teddy had exhausted all of the marks in the common areas, and the Map looked oddly empty without them. The wolf didn't seem to tire of making its rounds of the remaining hiding places-Robards' office and the third year dormitory-but Teddy couldn't think of anything else for it to do. He finished his homework late Friday night and sat in the Common Room, staring at the sofa where he'd found the quill, thinking.

A cloud of red, tousled hair flipped over the back of the sofa, and resolved itself into Ruthless, somersaulting onto the cushions in the shorts and t-shirt she slept in. Her glasses had gone askew in the tumble, and she straightened them as she lounged backward. "Going to the game tomorrow?" she asked.

"Frankie said there wasn't one."

"The Quidditch game."

"Oh. I forgot."

Ruthless smiled. "Are you sure you're Ginny Potter's godson?"

"Well, I'm not, actually, she's my godfather's wife..."

She feigned a yawn. "Are you doing anything else?"

"I wasn't planning on it," Teddy said. "Did you, er... want to go to the game with me?"

"Not in the least, no. I have better things to do than watch a lot of coddled flyers chase balls." She shrugged. "Besides, I tried out for Beater and they didn't take me."

"They were probably just afraid of giving you a bat."

"You're all right, Lupin," Ruthless said, laughing, then sat up and leaned forward. "What are you up to, anyway? You have to have been doing something to miss the Quidditch talk."

Teddy's first instinct was to brush it off, tell her he wasn't doing anything, and let it drop, but he remembered Frankie telling him to keep his head on straight. Even more, he thought about Uncle Harry, and how he talked about everything from defeating Dark Wizards to worrying about his godson's loneliness with Ron and Hermione, and decided, on the spur of the moment, to say, "I want to break into the third years' dormitory."

Ruthless looked surprised, her eyes getting even bigger than usual behind her glasses. "I hope you mean the boys' dormitory. Unless you can morph further than you say you can, you won't get up the girls' staircase."

"The boys," Teddy said.

"Are you playing a prank on them?" Ruthless asked, warming to the subject. "They deserve it, right little pains in my arse, they got in one of their hex wars and broke my ink bottle all over my Defense-"

"No, no prank. I just... there's something in there that I want. It belongs to me," he added quickly.

"Did they take it?"

"No." Teddy sighed, wishing he hadn't opened the subject. He was sure Ruthless would demand a full accounting, and he wasn't sure he wanted to tell her about the Marauder's Map (though a part of him did; he imagined her eyes getting even wider, watching all of the things it would show).

Instead, she thought about it for a minute, then shrugged again. "All right. They'll all be at the game. Chet Fleming made Chaser this year. Two of them are his friends. The other two hate him-they say they're all playing in their hex wars, but they really aren't-but they'll be there anyway, hoping he falls or something. I could keep watch if you want to go in."

"Would you?" he said. "I mean, would you really?"

"No, I just thought I'd say that to tease you," Ruthless said, then grabbed his nose and twisted it a bit harder than was necessary to show she was joking. "Honestly, Lupin. If I can help Frankie sneak out of the castle, I can help you sneak into a dormitory."

Teddy took a bit of grief about not going to the Quidditch game, with some of the Gryffindors joking-he hoped-that having friends in Slytherin was splitting his loyalties. (Corky and Maurice didn't help in this regard by turning his tie into a cloth snake during Potions; it started hissing at the dinner table on Friday before Teddy had noticed it, and he was forced to turn their robes scarlet and gold as soon as they stood up.) Still, by breakfast on the morning of the game, it didn't seem to be of any great interest to anyone whether or not he went. They were all arguing about flying speed and past history and whether or not the try-outs had been fair. The team, resplendent in its scarlet robes, left the Common Room with an escort that consisted of nearly everyone other than Ruthless and Teddy. According to the Map, which Teddy had hidden in his Transfiguration book, Ruthless was alone in her sixth floor dormitory, pacing around (he pictured her in her pajamas, muttering under her breath about Quidditch); two sixth year girls were huddled in theirs, and one fourth year boy was off in the showers. As Teddy watched, Ruthless left her dormitory and started down the stairs. He cleared the Map and put it under his robes.

She appeared at the bottom of the girls' stairs (not in her pajamas; she'd picked Muggle jeans and a Lee Jordan tee shirt for the day) and said, "Ready, Lupin?"

Teddy nodded and led the way up the stairs to the third-year dormitory, all the way at the top of Gryffindor Tower.

"What do you need in here, anyway?" Ruthless asked.

"Not sure, yet."

She took this well enough, and leaned against the wall. "Close the door while you're in there," she said. "If they come back up, I'll be loud and obnoxious long enough for you to hide. I mean, there's not really anywhere you could go if they start coming."

Teddy looked down the narrow stairwell and decided she was right, though he had no idea how long he could hide.

He looked at the dormitory door. Unlike his own, this one was heavily decorated. All five boys' names were painted in large red letters (Chet Fleming had clumsily added ", Chaser" to his), and they were surrounded by posters of Quidditch games and bands, including the Moonhowlers, a band that idolized werewolves and howled through their songs. They'd actually been popular several years ago; now they were considered "classic," and they sent Granny into a towering rage. He thought he would have to use Alohomora, but when he tried the doorknob, the door swung open easily.

His eyes watered, and he heard Ruthless making a gagging sound. "I think," she said, "that I'm happy to stay on the girls' side."

"Don't blame all of us," Teddy said, and gingerly went into the room. He'd never thought of himself as particularly neat or clean-and he had several extremely loud lectures about this at home to prove it-but he suddenly felt like a paragon of housekeeping virtue. The third years' room was strewn with every item of clothing they had, much of it smelling more than a little bit ripe. Some of it had actually landed in the bins the elves would take, but most was nowhere near them. Some kind of food had to have rotted, though he couldn't see where, and the water in someone's toad's cage was green with algae. The toad looked hopefully at Teddy, who raised his wand and did what he could to at least clear its drinking water. He gave Ruthless-still pretending to gag-a helpless look, then closed the door behind him.

The third years had taken bright red tape and split the room in a jagged line from the door to the far wall, with three beds on one side and two on the other. Trunks were arranged to make pillbox fortresses. Teddy imagined they hexed one another from behind them; he'd joined the Weasley girls once for a marshmallow war and the set-up looked something like this (he and Marie had beaten Victoire and Aimee quite handily). He shook his head, trying to accustom himself to the stench, and pulled out the Marauders' Map and watched the animals drag it to the margins. He tapped it with his father's wand, but his eyes were watering and he missed the wolf. The stag, which he'd hit with a glancing blow, looked at him curiously.

"Sorry," Teddy muttered, then pointed more carefully and said, "Revelo Lupinus." The wolf jumped down and marked all of its places. There were four here, three of them gathered at a spot under the window. The fourth seemed to be at a wardrobe. Since Teddy could see nothing under the window, he tried the wardrobe first, knocking it to find hollow places, running his hands over it for tiny pockets. Finally, he got down on the floor by the clawed feet, lit the wand, and looked at the base. A blank piece of parchment, curling at the edges, was stuck there. Teddy tried to pry it loose and got nowhere, so he used the wand and tried "Libero," which Granny used to get things down if they had Sticking Charms on them.

The parchment floated down to the floor. Only the side which had faced out was blank. The other, he recognized straight off: towers, battlements, corridors... they had tried to start another Map. He smiled. It was in his father's hand. He had drawn the first one, at least the basic parts of it. The style was the same. This one wasn't charmed, and no figures appeared on it, but Teddy was happy to fold it up and put it in his pocket.

He went to the window and began to examine the wall beneath it. All around the base, there was a wooden skirting board, which, if it was like the one in Teddy's dormitory, contained a Warming Charm. He knocked at it, hearing the muffled tone of sound against the stone behind it as he edged across it, carefully hitting every bit of it he could find. He was finally rewarded at the very bottom, toward the right side of the window, by a hollow kind of boom.

He couldn't see any finger-holds, so he tried opening it magically, and wasn't in the least bit surprised when the previously unbroken surface of the wood split and rose, revealing a single missing stone beneath it. The tower had obviously been built with a small gap between the inner and outer walls, and as Teddy crouched down, he could see that four inches of gap-space had, indeed, been used repeatedly to stash treasures. A hand-shaped area near the opening had been cleared, like someone had quickly stuck a fist in and grabbed, but it was obvious that there was more beyond it. Not everything here was accounted for by the marks on the Map, and he guessed that he'd find James Potter's things, and Sirius Black's, and Peter Pettigrew's... and that's if they were the only people to find it. He suspected they were, but told himself not to think of them as so very special, as he was bound to be disappointed.

He reached in and grabbed for whatever he could get.

Ancient, crumbling sweets came out (one paw print disappeared), along with Chocolate Frog cards that had been mouse-gnawed over the years. A magazine with an unpleasant, greasy feel to it came next, and a witch with very large, very water-warped breasts jiggled and smiled in Teddy's direction. He looked at the Map; none of the paw prints had disappeared, and he was glad. The poem to Constanza had been quite bad enough. Beyond the magazine, he had to crane his neck to see what his wand was lighting up. A small, Muggle notebook was lying against the wall, and he pulled it out. Statistics on Quidditch teams-dated around thirty-five years ago-spilled down from the margin, along with notes on bets. He shook his head and looked further. A box of very ancient dog treats came next, and a handful of Muggle money that had been hidden away for some reason. Teddy didn't have much of a notion of what Muggle money was worth, but he had a feeling this wouldn't buy much. He checked the map; another paw print had disappeared. There was only one thing left that belonged to his father, and it was meant to be here in the wall, but try as he might, Teddy couldn't see anything more in the direction he was looking.

He rolled over and pointed the wand further along the wall in the other direction.

A letter had been jammed very carefully against the inner wall, and he pried it loose only with difficulty. It was addressed to Sirius, and, though the hiding had led Teddy to believe it was something he might be ashamed of, like a love note from a girl or some such, it turned out to be a quick, bland note from his brother Regulus, telling him about a Potions detention they'd both apparently got at the same time. Puzzled, Teddy put it with the rest. A fairly large box was jammed in behind this, and he pulled it out, scraping the floor as he did so. It looked like a jewelry box, and there were snakes carved into it. He opened it. There were pictures here, of the two Black brothers mostly, though he thought he saw Granny, as a very pretty young girl, hanging about in several of them. The one on top showed Sirius with his brother on his back, carrying him around Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, laughing. Regulus looked deliriously happy; Teddy was reminded of Aimee on the rope swing at Shell Cottage as Victoire pushed her, twirling, into the sky. This had, at some point, been crinkled into a ball, then flattened and shoved back into the box. Teddy couldn't imagine why they would have left all of the pictures here. He put them into the pile and tried to think of a way to explain them so that he could give them to Granny.

He was about to give up, even though the last paw print was still there, when he caught a glimpse of a scroll, stuck almost too far back to reach without a Summoning Charm, which he was nowhere near mastering.

Lying on his side, Teddy reached into the hole. His fingers brushed the scroll, but he couldn't quite get to it, so he morphed his arm longer (and a bit thinner), grabbed it, and dragged it out. The last paw print disappeared.

Teddy unrolled the scroll. It was blank.

He frowned.

"There you are!"

Teddy jumped at the sound of Ruthless's voice outside, and heard her stomp across in front of the door.

"What're you doing here, you freak?" one of the third years said.

"We're going to talk about hex wars and my ink bottle and-"

"That was an accident! I told you I was sorry about that. I have to get back to the game, I'm just getting-hey, out of my way!"

As Ruthless started a high-pitched diatribe outside, Teddy cast about for somewhere to hide. The wardrobes were all full and probably had spills of rubbish on their floors, and the spaces under the beds were crammed. He also had the board open-he shut it quickly-and a pile of thirty-year-old trash on the floor.

The doorknob rattled.

Teddy shoved the lost items unceremoniously into a pile of dirty robes, then flopped down on top of them himself, morphing his skin to look like more cloth, making himself as thin as he dared without crushing anything he needed. He flung a few more real robes over himself just as the door opened and a very annoyed-looking third year stomped in, muttering about mad girls. Teddy watched him through eyes he didn't dare open to more than slits.

"Bloody, damned... Next time something happens to her, it's on purpose..." He flung one of the trunks open and pulled out a large scarlet banner, then left. Ruthless harangued him down the stairs.

Teddy decided to wait for an all-clear. A moment later, the door opened again, and Ruthless said, "Lupin? Lupin, did you get out?"

He stood up.

Ruthless jumped. "All right," she said, "that's an interesting way to scare me to death."

Teddy relaxed the morph. "You? Scared?"

"Well, you know... startled," she corrected herself, though her face was paper white. "Did you get it?"

Teddy nodded and gathered up the pile of things he'd found.

"That's quite a lot."

"There was more than I was expecting."

"And it's all yours? Really?"

"Would you steal things from this?" Teddy pointed around the room.

"I see your point."

He carefully closed the door behind them as they left and went down to his own dormitory to drop off the pile of Marauder rubbish on his bed. He very much wanted to examine the blank scroll that had been so carefully hidden, but it seemed rude to shut the door in Ruthless's face just now, so he went back outside, did some homework with her, and had lunch in the nearly empty Great Hall. After, she wanted to go to the library, and Teddy gratefully declined, claiming he'd left his Potions assignment in his room. A few minutes later, he slipped behind his closed door, got out the scroll, and unrolled it.

He pointed Dad's wand at it and said, "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good."

A moment later, words appeared:

THE KEYS TO THE CASTLE

10. Reparo

Chapter 10:

Reparo

The words remained on the page for a long time, then sank back into the parchment. Writing began to scroll across it, in different hands, some on top of one another, in crazy, cock-eyed angles. It looked like a tangle of graffiti on a wall for a moment, then the mad jumble started to organize itself, each hand gathering in its own space, all of the notes turning upright, sailing to the corners of the scroll, forming somewhat neater lists. There weren't enough words to account for everything Teddy had seen flash by, and he guessed that all of it was layered inside.

He shook his head, trying to remind himself that the boys who made this had only been a few years older than he was.

The top left corner was in his father's hand, and it was labeled "Moony's Charms." The list beneath it was mostly Latin incantations having to do with appearance and detection. Teddy wasn't altogether sure what any of them would do precisely, but if he had to guess, he was looking at the charms that made the map appear and disappear... and updated it. He would need to look up the Latin to find out for certain, but it felt right.

In the upper right corner, "Prongs's Charms" were almost entirely in English, and Teddy realized with a start that James Potter must have actually invented most of them. They were simple and to the point-"Identify," "True Name," "Conjure mark"-but Teddy couldn't begin to understand the magic that had to have gone into making them work. He marveled at this, looking at the Map itself, and feeling slow and stupid in comparison. James Potter's spells, still working, found and identified everyone on the Hogwarts grounds. How could it find and name people born long after the original spell-caster died? But there he was himself, a dot on the fifth floor of Gryffindor Tower, labeled "Ted Lupin." Not Edward or Theodore, not even Teddy, which he always used, but Ted, just as it was on his birth scroll. And there were all of the other students, spread out through the school, some of them the children of children who hadn't been born yet when the Map was new. (Teddy supposed he qualified for this as well-Mum would have only been a baby, no bigger than Hugo and Lily-but he guessed the Map would think of him as his father's son, as much as maps could think.)

The lower left corner was taken up by "Padfoot's Protections," mostly in French for some reason. Teddy barely spoke enough to get the essence of them (and most of that, he picked up from the Latin Granny'd had him study carefully at home), but he guessed that he was looking at the spells that were responsible for the impenetrable walls that had gone up around the Map. He wondered if Sirius Black had picked up some of the security spells at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, and cheerfully re-applied them here. The final list was "Wormtail's Secrets." It was in a mix of languages, including what Teddy thought were ancient runes, and the few that he could decipher seemed to be about finding things... apparently, it had been Wormtail's spell that found their lost items. Teddy wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that.

Tentatively, he touched the spell that he thought would update the Map. In the center of the parchment, between the lists, his father's handwriting scrawled out a complicated sort of spell with a Latin incantation-Reficio-along with some theory that Teddy didn't understand, and an absolute condition (this had been inserted in Sirius's hand) that the person using the spell must "Pass 'Identify.'" In large, block letters beneath it, it said, "PURVEYORS' USE ONLY."

Teddy's heart sank-the Map did identify him... as "Ted Lupin." Distinctly not one of the Purveyors of Magical Mischief, no matter whose wand he was using.

"Oh, come on, Dad," he said. "Give me a hint."

He hadn't really expected a response and didn't get one.

Ten minutes later, the portrait hole opened and the Gryffindors poured through it, jubilant at their first win of the Quidditch season. An elated older boy swept into Teddy's dormitory and grabbed him, saying he didn't care who was at the match, everyone was to be at the party.

The party lasted until dinner time, and Teddy put all thoughts of the Map out of his head. A seventh-year girl who was the team's new captain, Priya Patil, had got a holiday-in-a-box from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes for her birthday, and she turned the Common Room into a dance club for three hours, complete with wandering fireworks and a band (the band was strictly an illusion, and played popular music straight from recordings Teddy had heard on Wizarding Wireless, but it was a good bit of magic nonetheless). Food was nicked from the kitchens, though it didn't seem right to call it "nicking" when Winky brought it herself and was asked to dance by Elliott March, who the girls all seemed to think very good-looking. Teddy asked Ruthless to dance, but she said she only danced alone (and when he saw her, he could see why, as she looked a bit dangerous to be close to), so instead, he danced with one of her dormitory mates and then with Priya herself, who had decided to celebrate the victory by dancing with every boy in Gryffindor. Somehow, Teddy ended up morphing for the amusement of the rest of his House, each of them in turn saying, "Oh, can you do my face, Teddy?" He was a little tired of it by the end, but he still felt warm and good when they all went down to dinner together, and happily re-did his hair in scarlet and gold for the occasion.

Professor Longbottom came by the table, telling them with deep sincerity that they should comport themselves with dignity and good sportsmanship, though this was largely drowned out by the lion roaring from his hat. "Priya gets it now," one of the older boys told Teddy as Longbottom, indeed, put it on Priya's head. "Longbottom got it from some friend when he became Head of House, and now the captain always wears it after the first win."

The lion roared; the Gryffindors cheered it.

During pudding, Frankie came by, breaking his yellow and black rule in honor of the occasion by wearing a Gryffindor rosette. "Good game," he said. "Kind of thought you'd be there."

"I think I might go to the next one," Teddy said. "I don't usually like Quidditch but-"

"Right, it's not about Quidditch." Frankie smiled. "We're all meeting in the library tomorrow to... study." He flashed a piece of parchment that said, "Slipping outside." "We'll be there around eleven."

Teddy nodded, and Frankie ceremoniously gave him back to the Gryffindors.

The next morning, Gryffindor Tower was given to furious work, as no one had touched an assignment all day Saturday. The roaring hat was returned to Professor Longbottom, as it was distracting everyone. Teddy got up as early as he could and finished all but his Potions homework for Slughorn, then went to the library an hour before he was supposed to meet Frankie. He went to the desk and asked Madam Pince for dictionaries in French and Latin, and if she happened to know of any spells which would identify a language so he could translate it properly. To his surprise, she got him the books without comment, though she said there was no truly reliable spell for language identification. "If you've a sample of the text you mean to translate," she offered, "I'm familiar with several myself."

He smiled uncertainly, never having heard of Madam Pince being generous, but said, "I'll have a go at the French and Latin first."

Her mouth grew tight and sour again, and she waved him off with no further comment.

Teddy started with his father's spells in Latin, but most of the ones he needed referred him to other spells, including James Potter's complex English ones and several of the protective ones from Sirius. There was no chance of him understanding Potter's, so he tried translating Sirius's spells-Je lie ceci, "I bind this"-seemed to be the one that was most often in his way; it was definitely the spell that kept anyone other than the Marauders from changing the map. But "Prongs's" riddle had suggested that they could also "bind more"-that new people could be added. Teddy wondered briefly if they'd always meant to pass it to their sons, but he guessed they really meant to give it to another group of students after they left school. He doubted any of them were exactly thinking about sons who wouldn't be born for years. They hadn't been anyone's fathers then, he reminded himself. They were just like him-students at Hogwarts.

Really smart students at Hogwarts.

He ground his teeth and tried to translate backwards, to find the spell that would bind him in, but he got lost in a nest of security spells that he couldn't make kettles or cauldrons of. Frustrated, he cleared the scroll and put it into his bag. He pulled out his Potions book. It caught on something solid, and before he recognized it, his ink bottle was tumbling out. It crashed to the marble floor and shattered.

"Tergeo," someone said, and Teddy looked up to see Frankie, who was pointing his wand at the spreading pool of ink. It disappeared. He shifted focus to the bottle and said, "Reparo." The shards flew back together, and Frankie grinned. "Just learned that one," he said. "I've been practicing. Do you have anything else that's broken?"

"Sorry, no." Teddy looked around. "There's a crack in the window, though." He pointed at one of the narrow panes.

Frankie looked at this with great delight and repaired it with a flick of his wand and a firmly pronounced incantation. "They must not have noticed it yet," he said, then sat down beside Teddy. "We're going to have a jaunt out in the forest before curfew," he said. "We're allowed outside then..."

"Not in the Forest."

"It's such a shame that it's so easy to take a wrong turn." Frankie grinned. "Come on. The others are waiting over by the creature shelves."

Teddy followed Frankie around several sets of high shelves to a little nook amongst the books on animals. Dragons and phoenixes swooped up and down the spines, and a gold-leaf werewolf prowled the length of an encyclopedia of Dark creatures. It growled menacingly at Teddy. Teddy rolled his eyes at it and sat down at the table where Roger, Tinny, Bernice, Ruthless, Donzo, Zachary, and Ken were huddled. Frankie looked up, squinting into the stacks. "You, back there!" A pause. "Yes, you. Are you looking for us?"

"Saw Teddy," Maurice Burke's voice said. "I'll go."

"Is this a friend of yours?" Frankie asked.

Teddy nodded. "It's Maurice. He's all right."

"Can you keep secrets?" Frankie asked as Maurice slipped out of the shadows.

Maurice shrugged. "I'm a Slytherin. What do you think?"

"Oh, good. Full set of the Houses," Donzo said.

"The Sorting Hat will be so pleased," Zachary added solemnly.

"Where are we going?" Teddy asked.

"Just a quick patrol," Frankie told him. "Bernice thinks there may be something brewing. We should look into it."

"Saving the world and all," Zachary said.

Donzo raised an eyebrow. "And we're sure it's not going to turn out to be something Longbottom's growing for Herbology students, or Hagrid's raising for his classes?"

They all laughed, remembering the kappa. Frankie organized them into a loose group, and they headed out of the castle casually, trying to look like they meant to go to the lake. Hagrid, who was feeding the giant squid, gave them a suspicious look, then shook his head and looked away.

Something hard and sharp hit the side of Teddy's knee and he tripped into Maurice. The Red Cap grinned at him wickedly and raised its club for another blow. Teddy hexed it back-everyone in school got Red Cap lessons from the first day on-and it retreated.

"Couldn't we work on getting rid of those things?" he muttered to Frankie.

Frankie shrugged. "They'll fade out on their own eventually. Place was overrun with them during the goblin uprising of 1612, at least according to Binns. Mind, he wasn't quite old enough to have actually seen it, but I reckon, as obsessed as he is with goblins, that he probably knows what's what."

"You'd think their caps would be dried out by now."

"What?"

"When you dry the blood in their caps, they're supposed to die or disappear."

"Oh. Right. It's magic. Doesn't dry unless you force it, and you practically have to burn them up to do it, which half the time ends up with the rest of them attacking, so there's more bloodshed, and the next thing you know-"

"More Red Caps," Teddy finished.

"I saw Longbottom dry out a handful of them once when I was a first year-they'd got a really stupid fourth year girl cornered-but I guess most of the teachers have just decided to let them die out on their own." He flicked his wand at one that was trying to come through the undergrowth and muttered a Curse; it scuttled back. "They're just a bother, really, as long as you can see them and have your wand. It's Muggles who have to worry about them, as they can be beaten half to death without ever seeing them."

They'd entered the outer fringe of the Forest now, and Frankie signaled for the others to come close.

"All right," he said. "Stay in pairs, at least. No one alone. I'm with Lupin. No one's-"

"-seen the spiders for years," Zachary said impatiently, "but watch out for them anyway."

"And don't try to fight with them if you see them," Tinny added.

"Fine, go then. Look for anything odd."

They all split up. If it was anything like the last forest jaunt, they'd come back with weirdly shaped pine cones and maybe a strangely colored rock.

"Frankie, do you really think there's something evil in here, or is it just a game?" Teddy asked as soon as the others were out of earshot.

Frankie stopped. "I don't know. There's something really weird, though. Come on." He nodded down a shadowy path, indicating that Teddy should follow him. Teddy did so. "I saw this last time, but I didn't show the rest. I don't want Bernice trying to burn it."

"Burn what?"

"We're nearly there. It's up where the old spider nest was. You can still see where the webs were." He bent and went under a low branch, then said, "Here."

Teddy followed him. He hoped that Frankie knew the way back; he'd got entirely twisted up on the way here. At first, he couldn't see anything strange at all. The glade was full of a very pale ivy, growing in great profusion over old stumps, winding its way up the trees. It was just a pretty sort of forest glade. "What is it?"

"I've never seen leaves this pale," Frankie said. "They're nearly white."

"I don't know every plant there is..."

"Also, Teddy, it's the sixth of December. This is fresh growth. I may not be the best Herbology student in my year, but I know that doesn't entirely match."

Teddy bent and reached out to touch the creeping vines, which were almost beautiful. "I think it's fine," he said.

Frankie yanked him back. "You don't know it is. Don't stick your hand into it."

Teddy almost suggested taking a leaf back to Professor Longbottom, but the thought of pulling a leaf of this plant seemed somehow horrible to him. Far back, one leaf shivered. "Well, maybe we could-oh, bloody... watch out." Another leaf had shivered, further up, then a third. He raised his wand just as the Red Cap pounced up out of the ivy, waving its club. It fell back with a cheated sort of squeal. Teddy looked at Frankie. "Thanks for not letting me in there; it's probably crawling with the things."

"I didn't see that coming," Frankie said.

"The leaves were shaking."

"If they were, it was about as much as a mouse would shake them. You have eyes like a hawk."

Teddy morphed his eyes to look like a raptor's eyes, and Frankie laughed. They walked around the edge of the strange growth-keeping their eyes out for Red Caps-and saw nothing else that seemed suspicious. Teddy made a mental note to find out what this kind of plant was.

They picked their way back along the dark forest path, and found Maurice and Tinny hunched over some large mushrooms, which they all decided not to gather up. Tinny checked her watch; to Teddy's surprise, it was already late afternoon. He couldn't remember spending so much time in the old spider's nest. Frankie raised his wand and sent up a shower of sparks, and a moment later, the other groups wandered in. Bernice and Ken were sure they'd seen a ghost they didn't know, but couldn't tell anyone anything about it. Donzo, who'd been off with Roger, Zachary, and Ruthless, leaned over to Teddy conspiratorially and said, "We passed them. She didn't see a ghost unless she was looking up his nostril for one."

"What?"

"They were kissing."

Teddy looked at them, not quite believing it, then shook his head. "All right. I guess."

"Well, at least she didn't burn anything this time."

They got back to the castle just before the doors closed for the night and there would have been trouble for still being outside, and separated to their House tables for dinner. Teddy ate with Ruthless and wondered if she had kissed anyone, which seemed like a very strange thing to wonder about.

When he got back to his dormitory, Checkmate ran to him eagerly to confirm that he was there, then hid under the bed to pout until she thought he'd been properly punished for not being here. He settled in to do his Potions work, and had got about halfway through when he heard something tapping at one of the narrow windows. A post owl was perched there, and he let it in. It had started to rain outside, and the bird brought in a rush of water. It was carrying a letter addressed in Victoire's "fancy" writing, which was her regular, round handwriting with a lot of curlicues added around it. Teddy dug around for something to feed the owl, finally settling on some of Checkmate's cat food and a bit of pumpkin juice he'd brought up from the Great Hall, then taking the letter.

Dear Teddy, she'd written, I asked if I could be the one to tell you, and they said it was all right, even Uncle Harry, as it's my own sister in question.

Maman had the new baby. Artie is very angry, as it is another girl. Maman has named her Muriel, after old Aunt Muriel, since she's the first girl born in the family since Aunt Muriel died. Maman doesn't seem happy about the name, but I think she is a very sweet baby, much nicer than Aimee, and I was allowed to hold her. Artie tried to switch baskets with Uncle George so that we could have baby Fred instead, but they caught him at it, and it was sort of silly, as Muriel was only two hours old and not in her basket.

I hope you are still happy at Hogwarts and you don't need to answer, as it will be Christmas soon, and you can meet Muriel and say hello yourself.

Your friend, Victoire

A picture slid out of the envelope, showing Victoire holding something that was red and squirming. Teddy stuck the picture beside the stick figures James had drawn of the rest of the family.

He smiled at it and finished his homework, then settled on the floor beneath it to spend a cheerful hour accomplishing nothing at all with the Marauder's Map.

Two days after the trip to the Forest, Teddy awoke before dawn to the sound of howling wind and snow scraping against the stones of Gryffindor Tower. Through his window, he could see billowing curtains of white against the black sky, caught by the light of the waning moon.

"Hey, Checks," he said. "Look at this!"

Checkmate meowed sleepily and let him pick her up and take her to the window, but seemed unimpressed at the storm. As soon as he sat down on the chilly window seat, she buried her nose in the crook of his elbow and went back to sleep. Teddy leaned back and watched the snow until the sky turned muddy gray, enjoying the play of shapes in the air. A face seemed to appear once, only to be ripped apart and whipped into a swirling Catherine wheel, then pulled up into a towering Christmas tree. Another sheet of snow blew by with a leaping deer that became a waterfall, and exploded down into a blazing white bonfire. On mornings like this at home, he and Granny would curl up by the big parlor windows and drink hot chocolate and tell one another what they saw-he remembered, once when he was very small, Granny cuddling him because he was frightened of the storm and saying, "The wind makes the snow into a shapeshifter, just like you." Then she'd told him that his mum had been the one to say that first, when she'd been five, and then they'd started looking for all the shapes they could find, and everything had been all right. Teddy had never been afraid of storms again, and had always felt, in some strange way, that Mum was there with them when the wind howled. For the first time in weeks, Teddy missed Granny painfully, and was glad that the holidays were nearly upon him.

He got dressed when he heard the other Gryffindors start to stir, and went to breakfast with them, forcing himself not to look up at the show on the enchanted ceiling. Hagrid announced that his Care of Magical Creatures classes were canceled for the day, but said he intended to use it for "a bi' o' decoratin'," which caused the older students to cheer.

"Christmas trees," Ruthless said. "He means he's going to get them. In the middle of this." She pointed at the ceiling, and shook her head in a way that could be considered as either disbelieving of his carelessness or admiring of his courage. Teddy rather suspected the latter.

The holiday spirit continued in Transfiguration class, where Gardner had brought in several wooden balls, and the class was meant to transfigure them into glass ornaments. He did several himself-wonderful little confections with little moving figures inside of them-while the class worked. Geoffrey tut-tutted about being forced to participate in a religious holiday. Franklin Driscoll, with the air of a long-suffering saint, imposed himself as Geoffrey's partner then began a stream of holiday cheerfulness that even Geoffrey couldn't entirely resist. Donzo, to Teddy's surprise, decided that he desperately wanted to work with Lizzie Richardson, so Teddy himself ended up working with Connie Deverill, who he hadn't really talked to before, and she turned out to be quite nice.

"I'll try to get it dark blue and gold," she said. "With Puddlemere bullrushes."

"Sorry," Teddy said. "If I don't go with Holyhead colors, I may go without Christmas dinner."

She laughed. "Well, you can't very well starve, can you?"

Of course, neither of them quite managed to be so particular straight away, as changing wood to glass was, in itself, quite enough of a challenge. After fifteen minutes, Connie picked up her wooden ball and made a hissing sound at it. "Come on, you! All you need is a bit of shine!"

Teddy, who had let his attention drift and was presently doing a Charm that made the ball dart around like a Golden Snitch rather than actually working on it, smiled. "That's it, Connie. Give it a lecture." He flicked Mum's wand toward his own and brought it up to face level. "Now, now, all you have to do is this." He morphed his nose into a ball shape and made it a bright, glittering green.

"I can't believe you can do that to your nose, but not a little wooden ball," Connie said. "Your nose is all sorts of things..."

Teddy shrugged. "It's different."

"Not necessarily," Gardner said thoughtfully, coming up beside them. "It's still changing the nature of a thing. Try thinking of the ball the way you just thought of your nose."

"It's not really part of me," Teddy said. "I don't think it can morph for me."

"I'm trying to get you to think of it differently. Will you humor me and try? I've never tried teaching a Metamorphmagus before."

Teddy didn't think this was a very useful approach. He concentrated on the ball, but nothing happened.

"Now try it with your wand and the incantation," Gardner said dryly. "I didn't mean you could actually Metamorphose it, Teddy. Just think of it as... wanting to change."

"Oh," Teddy said sheepishly. He tried to imagine the ball as a part of his body, wanting to go into the shape he needed, the pattern he wanted, and he raised the wand at it and said, "Vitreus."

The ball shone brightly for a moment, then turned a shiny green.

"Good," Gardner said, looking excited. "That's what you needed to think about. Think of what you're Transfiguring as wanting to change. All of you try it now, if you're having trouble." He bent and looked at Teddy's ornament. "It's not quite glass, though. It just looks like it. That's probably because I told you to think of it the way you think of yourself, and I don't imagine you actually make yourself glass."

"No."

"Now just take one more step. Think of it as wanting to be something else, rather than just look like something else."

"Like the difference between putting on a cat nose and actually being an Animagus?"

"Exactly."

Teddy screwed up his concentration and pointed the wand again.

"Teddy, you're going to burn it," Gardner warned.

He nodded and pulled back a bit, then said "Vitreus" again, trying to hold the image of what he wanted in his head.

With a bright flash of light, the ball in front of him changed. The dark green, shiny surface turned brittle, and Teddy knew without picking it up that it was hollow. To his even greater delight, a little talon-the Harpies' symbol-appeared on top with a hook to hang it by. "I did it!"

"You certainly did."

"May I have another?"

Gardner laughed and gave him another wooden ball. This one, he made Gryffindor colors, but when he got a bit too ambitious and tried to then Charm it to travel around in little figure-eights, it got overexcited by all the magic and burst apart, reverting to little chunks of wood when it shattered.

Teddy took them down to the Great Hall for lunch anyway, figuring Frankie would want to put it back together, and in this he wasn't disappointed. Frankie fixed the wooden ball with an ostentatious swish and flick of his wand, and a carefully pronounced "Reparo." He then hunted for broken rungs on chairs, bent quills, and cracked branches on the twelve Christmas trees Hagrid had brought in, claiming that no magical skill was more important than the ability to repair things that had been broken.

Teddy re-Transfigured the wooden ball into a Gryffindor ornament, which he hung on a repaired branch, then looked for something else to Transfigure. Now that he had the feel of the thing, it seemed like too much fun to leave in class. Unfortunately, he didn't have the proper spellwork mastered to make more than glass, needles, and buttons, but that was enough to keep him entertained until it was time for Charms.

The breakthrough in thinking about Transfiguration was just in time for the end of term tests, and Teddy nearly flew through them the next week. He toasted his mum at the feast the elves made for them the night before the Hogwarts Express was scheduled to take them all home by tapping her wand against a glass of pumpkin juice. He didn't know if he'd end up top of his year-Lizzie was still ahead of him, as far as knew-but he thought he might be in fairly good shape.

The Forest Guard met as the feast wound down, all gathering around Frankie at the Hufflepuff table. They'd all agreed not to exchange presents unless they saw one another over holidays (Teddy knew he'd see Frankie; they had a standing holiday trip to make), and proceeded to invite one another wildly around the country in impossible schemes. Donzo had to say no to everyone; he would be in rehearsals until a concert the Weird Sisters were doing on the Wizarding Wireless Network on Christmas Eve. Tinny had a huge family to visit and Ruthless cited a long list of family traditions she claimed to find boring, but no one failed to notice that she didn't try to get out of them. Teddy had no intention of leaving Uncle Harry's for longer than a day with the Apcarnes and a trip to Diagon Alley with Granny, but invited a few of them who were in London to come by. (He'd always had standing permission to invite friends when he was staying at Uncle Harry's, though he'd never used it before.) Maurice, who had dragged Corky over, allowed that he wouldn't mind visitors if visitors didn't mind that his flat overlooked Knockturn Alley. Corky was catching a Portkey back to Toronto. He offered to bring everyone maple syrup. They were talking until curfew, when their respective Heads of House shooed them all back to their dormitories.

The next morning, sleighs arrived, drawn by thestrals that most of them couldn't see, to take students and their small, traveling suitcases back to Hogsmeade Station, or into Hogsmeade itself, where some parents were waiting to take them by Floo or Side-Along. Honoria's parents were among these, and Teddy thought they looked incongruously cheerful at having to see her again. Corky waved forlornly and followed Professor Slughorn to the Three Broomsticks to catch a ten o'clock shoelace home.

The ride back to London was much jollier than the ride to Hogwarts had been. Bernice and Ken, who had finally admitted to kissing one another, were chased up and down the train by charmed mistletoe, and Donzo entertained the Guard's compartment by leading them in slightly fractured Christmas carols. Teddy was happy to be with them, but kept looking out the window, waiting for his first glimpse of London's outskirts, imagining the smell of Molly Weasley's cooking and the sound of Granny singing. By the time the train finally pulled in at platform nine and three-quarters, he couldn't wait to get off it, and he wasn't the only one. There was a great deal of jostling in the aisles before he was finally able to get to a door and climb down into the steam.

Something thudded through the white, and he'd barely managed to turn around when someone waist-high barreled into him at top speed, grabbing him around the middle and knocking him over his suitcase so that he slammed his elbow into the stone floor.

"My Teddy!"

Lying on the floor of the platform, Teddy started to laugh, despite the pain in his elbow, and another, taller shape emerged from the mist. Uncle Harry smiled. "We knew if we let James go, he'd find you in the crowd." He held out his hand and helped Teddy up, prying James off long enough to let Teddy find his feet. "Come on," he said. "Everyone's waiting."

11. Missing Pieces

Chapter 11:

Missing Pieces

Teddy thought there was quite a crowd at the station-along with Uncle Harry and James, Granny had come (he hugged her this time without worrying that anyone would see), and Hermione with Rosie, and Marie Weasley tagging along (her hair back to its normal wild red), and George, carrying a cooing little redheaded bundle who he introduced-to Teddy and several Muggle passers-by-as his son Fred. They had to take two taxis back to Grimmauld Place, and both were full.

This was nothing compared to the house itself, where all of Aunt Ginny's brothers' families were hanging about. Uncle Harry had hired two free elves to help, but they were apparently under strict instructions to take their orders from poor old Kreacher, who was pointing arthritically at various cloaks that needed to be picked up, and directing the decorating that Victoire, Fleur, and Aimee were doing. Teddy made a point of going to say hello to him, as Uncle Harry had always insisted (even when Kreacher was in one of his foul moods), and got a distracted "Happy Christmas" in return.

"Where should I put my cat's things?" he asked.

"Cat? The shapeshifter has a cat?" Kreacher looked at him helplessly, then said, "Mr. Lupin is sharing Master James's room."

James made a great crowing sound, then swept Checkmate's basket (where she was still in her enchanted sleep) into his arms and announced "Teddy's home!" to the various people in the parlor. He ran upstairs, carrying the basket and repeating, "Teddy's home, Teddy's home, Teddy's home!" Doors began to open, and cousins started to drift downstairs.

"He's missed you," Aunt Ginny said, coming up from the kitchen with Lily balanced on one hip. She kissed Teddy and gave him a one-armed hug. "I think he's entirely forgotten that you don't live here when you're not at school. You're in all of his stories now. You'd be amazed at the number of dragons the pair of you have fought over the past few months. It's usually to rescue Al, but I think you may have seized a treasure or two in the process."

"Oh, well, that's always good."

A warm arm came around his shoulder and then Granny was leading him into the parlor. "James isn't the only one to miss you," she said. "That old house is so big and empty with just Bludger and me in it!"

Teddy submitted to a solid cuddling until she ran out of it-Granny occasionally had cuddling moods, but they passed quickly-then told her all about his friends and his classes and his teachers, trying to think of things he'd left out of letters. If he accidentally repeated himself, she didn't seem to mind. By the time he'd finished, Percy's son Gideon had wandered in and was listening with great interest, and Victoire had curled up in the chair across from him, holding baby Muriel's basket in her lap, her face avid with curiosity. James thundered back in as well, Al in tow, and asked if Hagrid had shown Teddy any good monsters yet.

"Er, well, not since the kappa, really, and that wasn't Hagrid's..."

"Oh."

Fleur, who had finished hanging holly boughs around the fireplace, gave them a shrewd look and said, "Weasleys and Potters, we ought to 'elp Aunt Ginny set ze table, no? Let Teddy and 'is grandmère say 'ello."

The children griped for a minute, but left good-naturedly, as soon as Teddy promised to play with all of them later.

"Thank you, Fleur," Granny said.

Fleur nodded and left, closing the door.

Granny smiled and hugged him again, then let him go. "I'm sorry. I know you're big for this, but I'm so happy to have you back!"

"I missed you," Teddy told her. "I'm, er... sorry I stole the wands. But they work. Both of them."

She sighed heavily. "I was disappointed in you when I saw that you'd taken them, but I suppose I pushed you at Ollivander's. I want to go back and talk to Berit and old Mr. Ollivander about it, though-I'd like an expert opinion. I thought we could go after Christmas Day."

"All right," Teddy said, then dutifully added, "What've you been doing?"

"Oh, this and that. I've been working on a family history. It would serve Auntie Walburga right if I'm the one to do it." She grinned sharply, and in it, Teddy could see the mischievous girl she had once been, though her eyes were deep and sad now. "It started out to just be about Sirius and Regulus, but you can't talk about them without talking about everything that made them. It's kept me busy. Lots of things I didn't know before. I've been talking to Daffy-he works over at Whizz Hard Books-and he thinks it could really be published. Would you like to read it?"

"Sure."

"You're not remotely interested in it, are you?"

"I like stories about Sirius and Regulus," he said, thinking of the pictures that were in his suitcase at the moment, still in their box. He'd need to ask Uncle Harry for a good way to explain them to Granny, but he meant to give them to her. "Do you know why they all spoke French?"

"What a very odd question," Granny said, narrowing her eyes.

"Well, the family motto and all. And I... heard somewhere that they spoke French."

Granny didn't look like she believed him for a moment, but said, "It was an affectation. French was the world language for a long time. Everything sophisticated was in French. So the Blacks spoke French."

"Is that all?"

"I don't know, Teddy. I never thought to ask. We all just learned it." She looked at him with deep curiosity. "Why on Earth is that the first question you've asked?"

"Should there be another one?"

"I thought you might like to know if the Lupins came into it. They don't, not that I've found, but I thought you might ask that before asking about French. There's something you're not telling me, Ted."

"Yes."

"Is it dangerous?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

She raised her eyebrow at him, then shook her head. "All right, then."

Aunt Ginny called everyone to dinner a few minutes later, and Teddy was jostled from Weasley to Weasley, introduced formally to baby Muriel by Bill, who'd just got in from work and ate with Artie on his lap. Molly Weasley, who'd been buried in the kitchen when Teddy arrived, fussed over whether or not he was eating well at Hogwarts, and Arthur asked after the teachers they knew. Percy and Ron joked that Teddy at least knew he'd be a prefect. Hermione turned on her husband in a frustrated way and said, "RON!" but Teddy didn't mind them making jokes about his only-Gryffindor status, and pointed out that it also got him a huge room all to himself.

"I can think of times that'd come in right handy," Charlie said, only to get a glare from Granny. He adopted a pious sort of look and said, "You know, when you're trying to finish your homework in peace, of course."

Victoire, sitting across from Teddy, steered the conversation back to schoolwork, anxious to know what she'd really, really need to learn in the next year to be prepared, then on to the question of friends, with which she was greatly concerned, as she really only played with her sisters, her cousins, "And of course, you," she added. She gave him an awkward, pained sort of look, as if pointing out that Teddy wasn't actually related to anyone here other than Granny was a huge social gaffe that would end her Hogwarts career before it started.

After pudding, he offered to help Aunt Ginny clean up, but she winked and said, "No, thank you, that's why I have five brothers. If you could keep James and Al entertained with something other than the flying dishes, though, I would be very grateful."

So Teddy took the Potter boys upstairs and made up a game for them, in which they were hunting for treasures. James insisted that it should be at Hogwarts, and really ought to involve a kappa, so Teddy put the treasure in the lake, and gave it a whole colony of kappas guarding it. Several of the littler cousins joined in, then, to everyone's delight, Uncle Harry left the sisters-in-law in the drawing room (where they were all having tea with Arthur and Molly, on Ginny's orders, while the original Weasley siblings did the clean-up). He jumped in, Conjuring little golden fish to fly around them, and hiding leprechaun gold in the sofa and chairs for them to sneak past the imaginary kappas. Teddy, as eldest, decided that he ought to help, and so morphed himself into something resembling a tall kappa for them to fight. James promptly declared him a "nice kappa," though, and said he ought to have a piece of treasure as well. Uncle Harry shrugged and grinned.

The Weasley brothers finished up in the kitchen and gathered their families in a big rush of activity. The ones who lived in town wrapped themselves in heavy cloaks, as Percy's son Telemachus had begged until George's wife Sophie agreed to get them all home by Muggle bus, and the ones old enough to understand this novelty were nearly dancing with excitement. The others shooed the children downstairs to the kitchen fireplace for Flooing. Once all of the children had left, Molly, Arthur, and Charlie all Apparated back to the Burrow, promising to be back on Christmas Eve, and the house was left to Teddy, Granny, and the Potters until then.

Kreacher and the two hired elves, apparently eager to prove themselves better than the humans at such things after the Weasleys had taken care of the dishes, made fast work of magically cleaning up the chaos while Teddy followed James up to the room they were to share. A camp bed had been set up, which James tried to insist on taking while he gave Teddy his own bed. Teddy made up a story on the spot about how sleeping in a camp bed was a very great treat, to which he'd been looking forward, and James nodded solemnly and allowed him to take it, as guests ought to have the best things. He changed into his pajamas and climbed under his covers (decorated with a new comic character called Neddy the Kneazle, about a kneazle detective). He smiled at Teddy, his eyelids drooping. "I wish you were always here," he said.

"Well, I'm here now."

"Kiss?"

Teddy rolled his eyes and kissed James's cheek. James closed his eyes, and, with astonishing speed, dropped off into sleep, snoring lightly.

Teddy opened his suitcase to get his own pajamas, though he wasn't especially tired yet. On top of everything, his father's wand rested beside the Marauder's Map and the Keys to the Castle. He picked them up and looked at them thoughtfully, then tiptoed out of James's room and closed the door.

He passed the parlor, where Granny and Aunt Ginny were talking about some sort of political thing, and went to a small study on the second floor, where Uncle Harry kept his work papers. It was his own little spot, and Teddy guessed he'd be there, recuperating from the crowd. The door was ajar, and, sure enough, Teddy could see the glint of candlelight on Uncle Harry's glasses.

He knocked.

Uncle Harry looked up from a stack of papers and smiled. "Hullo, Ted. Not enough company yet?"

"Could I talk to you? Or are you busy?" Teddy pointed at the papers.

"It can wait. Just paperwork."

"Good," Teddy said, and held out the Map, the Keys, and Dad's wand. "Because I, er... solemnly swear that I need some help."

Uncle Harry smiled, looking a little puzzled, and Summoned a chair over from the other side of the room. He Banished several stacks of papers from his desk (they landed neatly on top of a file cabinet) and took the Map, unfolding it onto the newly cleared surface.

"You said you'd learned to use it," he said, then raised his holly wand and started the incantation.

Teddy held up his hand. "No, wait. Look." He raised his father's wand, then smiled sheepishly and said, "Well, maybe you should. Here." He handed Uncle Harry the wand.

Uncle Harry looked at him quizzically-using another wizard's wand was a bit personal-but took it and said nothing except, "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good."

The animals appeared and dragged the Map out, and took their places at the compass points.

"They must have tied it to their wands," Teddy said. "Tap the wolf and say 'Revelo Lupinus.'"

Uncle Harry did it, and saw the wolf jump down from its spot and leave its sole remaining paw print, in Robards' office (Robards was there, in the residential quarters off to one side, walking in a looping path close to the paw print). "What is it?" he asked.

"It finds things they lost. They had a place to hide things in Gryffindor Tower, and I found a lot of things of Sirius's, and your dad's Quidditch book..."

"Does it work for the others?"

"I don't know. I didn't think to try. I only have Dad's wand."

"I don't imagine they'd mind being able to find one another's things," Uncle Harry said thoughtfully, but Teddy could see a kind of hunger in his face as he let the wand hover over the deer. He understood. "Revelo... Potterus?"

The deer looked at him comically, but nothing happened.

"Potter's a real English word," Teddy suggested. "Perhaps they used the real Latin word."

"I'll need to get a dictionary for that one. But I'm willing to bet..." He touched the dog and said, "Revelo Nigellus."

The dog leapt up eagerly, wagging its inky tail, and started to leave prints around the Hogwarts grounds. There were a few more up in the third year dormitory, one near the Whomping Willow-Teddy guessed it was something dropped in the tunnel, quite possibly another loose button-and another near the Gryffindor fireplace.

"This is amazing," Uncle Harry said.

Teddy smiled and handed him the Keys to the Castle. "It's out of date."

"What?"

"All the construction. There are walls in new places, and not in old places. And some of the tunnels have fallen in. And I can't get into it to fix it. There are all sorts of protections." He put the Keys to the Castle down. "This was in their dormitory. It has everything-same incantation." He waited for Uncle Harry to do it, and when the spells appeared, he said, "I don't even understand most of it. But I know that you have to be bonded, and I can't figure out how to be bound to it, because I think they have to do it, and they can't do it, because I don't think they thought they'd be dead."

Uncle Harry was reading the spells, his eyes wide and appreciative. "I'm sure they didn't," he said. "I doubt they thought they'd lose it."

"Well, one of the things I found was a replacement they'd started, but not finished."

"Hmmm. I wonder... That would have been after they lost it, and so would whatever was in the Defense office... I wonder if your dad updated it when he had it again, or if it just kept finding things." Uncle Harry smiled, and Teddy thought he looked very much like his own son for a moment-excited and imaginative. He didn't remember seeing this exact look on his godfather's face before. Uncle Harry tapped the Keys idly, pointing at one spell after another, shaking his head in admiration when the detailed theory appeared. Finally, he looked back at Teddy. "You know, Teddy, I'm not sure it can be updated, if you need to be bound to it. They may have made it so only they could."

"But they could bind more. When you don't use their wands, it says it's an aid to magical mischief makers. They must have meant to give to-" He stopped before saying, "us," as that probably wasn't true, then shrugged and said, "To younger students. Before they left school."

"But Filch took it before they had a chance," Uncle Harry agreed.

"They could have done it. There's a riddle, if you ask the map nicely how to update it."

"Ask it nicely?"

"You know... be polite. Don't tell it. It only insults you if you order it around. Though that's always fun."

Uncle Harry tore his eyes away from the Keys and the Map and said, in disbelief, "You've been deliberately making your father insult you?"

Teddy shrugged.

"You're a strange child on occasion," Uncle Harry said. "What's the riddle?"

"'What binds is bound to the bonded. The bonded may bind more,'" Teddy said. "It's in your dad's handwriting, if you want to see it."

"Perhaps later."

"It's one of Sirius's spells, I think," Teddy said. "But all of them need to pass your father's Identify spell. And it identifies me as Ted Lupin, even when I'm using Dad's wand, so it knows I'm not him."

"It's a whole different sort of security," Uncle Harry told him. "At least that's my guess. I'd think that they originally bound it to their wands-to open it to their own view, add enchantments and so on-but the further they got, the more they were able to tie it into the spellwork they'd already done. They relied on the fact that the Marauder's Map never lies."

"Can we get around it?" Teddy bit his lip. "I don't think it should be out of date. And... and I sort of want to be bound to it."

Uncle Harry stared at the Keys again, then cleared both pieces of parchment and looked at Teddy. "I'm not sure how yet. But if I can't find a way to think around four teenage boys, it's quite possible that I oughtn't be head of the Auror Division. Do you mind if I hold it while you're here? I'll give it back before you go to school."

"No secret blank parchments and pretending not to pass it on?"

"I'm not passing it on anymore. It's passed on. All of the choices are yours, and you chose to come to me." He sighed. "As your godfather, I have to be an authority figure, and not give you this dangerous item-you know. That's why your dad kept it when he was my teacher and gave it back when he wasn't anymore. That's why I shouldn't know when you give it to James. But for this? We're working together. This isn't about me being your godfather. This is about both of us being their sons. We'll figure it out. You've already got quite a long way. I'll take the next part."

Teddy felt himself smiling so widely that his face ached. "There's one other thing," he said.

"What?"

"Could you Summon something for me?"

"What?"

"Sirius's pictures in my suitcase."

Uncle Harry, curious, picked up his own wand again and said, "Accio Sirius's pictures in Teddy's suitcase."

Teddy heard the wooden box thump around a corner, then it came zooming through the study door. Uncle Harry caught it neatly and handed it to him. Teddy opened it and pulled out the stack of pictures of the Black brothers. "It was hidden in the wall, jammed back there. The Keys were behind it."

Uncle Harry took the pictures and looked through them, his face growing sad. "They seem so close. They could be James and Al."

"I want to give some of them to Granny-she's writing a book about them!-but I can't exactly explain that I found them with the Marauder's Map and snuck them out of the wall of the third year dormitory."

"Oh, that's simple enough," he said, still looking at the photos with a strange, choked expression. "We'll tell her you found them behind a loose skirting board. We just won't specify exactly where. If she happens to assume you found it during your visit here, so be it."

"Would you like any of them before I give them to her?"

"Yes, thank you." He pulled out four from the stack, most of them showing Sirius grinning, teasing Regulus (who seemed not to be too damaged by it, as he was giggling happily), even kissing his brother's cheek in one. He was careful not to take ones that were unique-there were other pictures of them doing the same sorts of things to give to Granny-but he seemed quite delighted to have them. He tucked three of them into the frames around the glass squares in his book case. The last, in which Sirius was making finger bunny-ears behind Regulus's head and Regulus was pretending to pummel him, Uncle Harry propped up beside a picture of James and Al, who were, in fact, doing almost exactly the same thing. Both sets of brothers looked very happy.

"I wonder if brothers are always like that," Teddy said.

Uncle Harry sighed. "I don't know, Teddy." He shook his head sharply. "Come on," he said, "let's see if we can find a Latin dictionary around here. See if my dad conveniently dropped a letter explaining what to do if they're not available."

They scoured the study for a Latin dictionary, and tried Summoning one from elsewhere, but finally had to give up. Apparently, no one had thought it necessary to get one. Teddy decided to get Granny to go to Diagon Alley before Christmas. He knew what he meant to give Uncle Harry this year.

Granny agreed that it would make more sense to go to Diagon Alley before Christmas rather than after, and gave Teddy four months worth of pocket money-for which he'd had no need at Hogwarts-to shop with. "We'll take care of the shopping in the morning," she said, "then go to Ollivander's. I called to reschedule our appointment, and he could only see us this afternoon."

Teddy agreed to this, and put both of his parents' wands-along with the willow wand he'd bought in August-into his book bag, along with a quill, ink, and his Christmas shopping list. James and Al wanted to go with them, but Teddy told them they couldn't-"How could I buy you Christmas surprises if you're right there?"

James perked up a bit at the mention of a present and promised to be very good until Teddy came home-Aunt Ginny, who was trying to feed Lily her breakfast, looked skeptical-but Al claimed that he could pretend to be surprised, if he could go with Teddy. "It's not fair," he said. "James gets Teddy in his very own room and I barely get him at all!"

"But I'm asleep when he's in my room!" James protested. "Mummy, tell Al he gets Teddy as much as I do!"

Aunt Ginny pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. She looked extraordinarily like her mother, but when she spoke, her voice was soft and dangerous: "James, did you just order Mummy to do something?"

James blanched, realizing his mistake, and was entirely distracted from the issue of Teddy's time by the necessity of talking his way out of it. Teddy and Granny took the opportunity to slip out, grabbing handfuls of Floo Powder from the mantle and going off to the public pavilion in Diagon Alley, which let them off in the middle of a plaza, in a specially built outdoor fireplace not far from Knockturn Alley. The first time Teddy had made this particular trip, Uncle Harry had warned him to be very, very careful not to go a grate too far.

He spun out of the fireplace off balance and fell directly into a Nativity scene in front of someone's shop, knocking down a wooden Mary, who gave him a less than beatific oaken glare before getting back up to tend the Baby. Fairies decorating a nearby tree chittered at this, and one of the wooden lambs ran for the tracks of a toy train. Teddy scooped it up-less to save it than to keep it from derailing the train-and set it back down in the dried grass that was serving as hay.

"Have you done quite enough damage?" Granny asked, her voice wryly amused.

Teddy shrugged. He'd never figured out how she could come spinning out of a fireplace at top speed and still have the slightest idea where her feet were.

Granny led him away from the pavilion, toward the proper business district. Since August, there had been more changes. A curio shop had opened in one of the empty storefronts, and the "Play" shop had been abandoned (though a poster on the boards in front said it could now be found on a side street). Another empty store had been converted into a theater, where a troupe of actors was putting on a play version of A Christmas Carol, but the yarn shop had closed, and was replaced by a shop called Smoke and Mirrors. The windows were full of all sorts of mirrors and pipes and barrels of tobacco. To Teddy's surprise, Bernice Fletcher seemed to be arranging a display.

Granny was also looking at the place, her nose wrinkled distastefully. "It's Dung Fletcher's new place," she told Teddy. "Probably bought with money he made selling off Sirius's things."

"That's my friend Bernice," Teddy said.

"She must be his cousin's child; I understand they're in business together." Granny gave Teddy an awkward sort of smile. "Well, I'm the last person to judge someone by her family, but I think we'll visit her outside the shop if it's all the same to you. I'd rather not look like I'm giving Dung any business."

Teddy, who hadn't meant to visit Bernice anyway, agreed. He just knocked on the window to give her a quick wave, then followed Granny to Flourish and Blotts.

A young woman wearing a shop smock came forward, smiling. "Hello, Mrs. Tonks," she said. "Did you want the study room again? I don't think Mr. Blotts has put your books up yet; they should be right where you left them."

"No, thank you, Angelina. I'll get back to my subscription work after the holidays. Teddy and I are just shopping."

The woman turned to Teddy and her large, dark eyes changed somehow, and Teddy knew without asking that she'd been one of Dad's students, even though all she said was, "Hello, Teddy."

"How's Dennis?" Granny asked.

Angelina moved her eyes away from Teddy and smiled more normally at Granny. "He's fine. At least until the next time he makes a joke about his sophisticated older wife. After that, I may have to send him out to sleep in the snow."

"That sounds quite justified," Granny said, giving Angelina a grin. They exchanged Happy Christmases, and Teddy and Granny went upstairs to the hobby books, as Teddy's easiest item of business was getting Frankie a new Muggles and Minions guidebook that gave all the game stats for computer skills. On a whim, he also bought an introduction to the game for Arthur Weasley, thinking he might find it funny. He wanted to buy a paperback of Hogwarts, A History for Victoire, since she asked so many questions, but Granny reminded him that he wouldn't be able to buy presents for all of the children, and it would be better to buy the same thing for all of Bill's children to share.

He went downstairs, into a dusty and little used corner of the shop, and found a Latin dictionary for Uncle Harry. Granny thought this an odd present, but didn't question it. She went off to the spellbook section and found a new book of charms for Aunt Ginny and a history of Magical Law Enforcement for Hermione, who'd finally given in to the pressure and transferred to that department. Teddy decided to spend all of his money for the Potter children on one very large book of fairy tales with lovely illustrations that popped up and ran about. He could read to them while he was here, and reckoned that James might like to take over when he left. By the time they left Flourish and Blotts, they had a respectable number of presents; Granny charmed them feather-light and they went back out.

Before lunch, they made it to the Magical Menagerie, a new toy shop (Teddy bought a second present for the Potter children, a board game about Merlin and King Arthur), and Weasleys'. They didn't buy anything there-there was nothing the family would be surprised by at George's-but they did have lunch with George and Sophie, who let their shop girl take over for an hour. Sophie said that baby Fred's lunch would be a bit later, and in private. Teddy was allowed to hold the baby for a few minutes, which he hadn't done since Lily was born. He still didn't know exactly what he was meant to do with a baby, which couldn't talk and didn't seem to like stories, so he gave it back to George quickly.

Granny checked her watch while they had tea and said, "Oh, dear, we'd best run to Ollivander's, we're nearly late!"

Goodbyes were quick and perfunctory, and Granny set a very quick pace down the crowded street, cursing herself for losing track of time, "...like some spoiled princess who thinks everyone's time is hers, just like always..." Teddy followed her, keeping a hand on her bag so he didn't lose her. They got to Ollivander's only three minutes late, but Granny apologized profusely, and Mr. Ollivander accepted it formally, as though she'd wasted an hour of his day. Once this was over, however, they seemed to get along capitally. Teddy looked at Berit, who seemed as confused by it as he was. At Mr. Ollivander's instruction, she went to the door and turned the sign, closing the shop to customers for an hour during a consultation.

"All right," Ollivander said to Teddy, Summoning four chairs and a table into the center of the room. "Let's have them."

Teddy reached into his bag and pulled out all three wands. He'd put the new wand back in its box. "I... I hope I didn't take someone else's wand," he offered.

"Most wizards can be chosen by more than one wand," Berit said. "I'm sure that no one went without."

Ollivander looked at her oddly, then said, "You knew this wand hadn't chosen you?"

"I felt like I was wasting Berit's time," Teddy said. "I'm sorry. I knew that Honoria Higgs was waiting, though I didn't know her name then, and I had already taken up two hours."

"And it didn't occur to you that the wands belonging to an orphan's parents may have already attached to him?" Ollivander asked Berit.

"It occurred to me, Grandfather."

"She asked," Teddy said. "I told her I hadn't used them. I hadn't. I'd handled them, though."

"Mm." Ollivander picked all three of them up, discarded the new one by Banishing it to a set of dusty shelves in back labeled "Used but clean," and said, "We'll discount this consultation by seventy-five percent the cost of that wand," he said. "It's clearly of no use whatsoever to young Mr. Lupin. Berit, I'd like you to get these wands." He gave her a list of numbers, and she went to the shelves and started picking them up.

"You don't think I should use my parents'?" Teddy asked.

"Try them for me," he said. "And don't worry-I have to sell wands to Hogwarts students; there is a minor lifting of the ban on underage magic in the confines of this shop, though I ask that you attempt to not destroy anything."

Teddy picked up Dad's wand. "What should I do? Lumos?"

"Too simple. I've found Hermione Weasley's bluebell flames to be a good test-have you learned that charm yet? I believe it's in the first year book, though of course Mrs. Weasley has made vast improvements on it."

"I've learnt it," Teddy said.

Ollivander summoned over two boxes. "Try the one on the left. Keep the flames in the box, if you please, Mr. Lupin."

Teddy said the incantation and used Dad's wand. The blue flames appeared inside the box, casting a warm glow over the table. Berit, who had returned with an armful of wands, set them down and watched the process with interest.

"All right. Try the other."

Teddy switched to Mum's wand and pointed it at the box on the right. With a rushing hiss, blue flames leapt up from it, curling into patterns.

"Quite amazing," Ollivander said, and his tone suggested that he didn't mean Teddy's magic, which he'd certainly seen bettered over the years. There was an avid sort of look in his silver eyes that Teddy wasn't at all sure about. He turned to Berit. "Berit, please explain to Mrs. Tonks and Mr. Lupin just why we don't use experimental cores."

Berit sighed. "They're too specific, and they almost never choose anyone."

"My grandfather told me that," Ollivander said. "He wouldn't allow experimental cores in the shop, and eventually, I grew to agree with him. But there was a time-oh, perhaps not in my youth, but certainly closer to it than I am now, when I, like my granddaughter, thought to revolutionize my craft. I wouldn't try different cores, but different sorts of wand wood. Berit, the wands you brought-all of them ought to have dates on them. How long have they sat unclaimed?"

She glanced at them, then frowned. "Close to forty years, some of them."

Ollivander nodded solemnly. "All trees have some trace magic in them," he said. "Even Muggles have noticed. But some, of course, are a bit more magical than others. I used the Peregrine Pine, whose forests wander, and the great winding olive tree from the Mediterranean, and the Wh-"

"The Whomping Willow," Teddy guessed.

"Right in one. Professor Sprout brought me a limb she'd been forced to cut when the tree attacked a student, and I made it into twelve wands. Only one of those experimental wands ever chose a witch, and by then, I didn't care to share my youthful folly with customers. It was, of course, still willow, so there was no lie involved. Merely an omission, if Mrs. Tonks will forgive it."

"Why on earth would you have thought to try it with her?"

Ollivander launched into an explanation involving Mum's status as a Metamorphmagus and being worried about possible difficulties, and Granny seemed interested, but Teddy didn't listen. Dad's wand worked, but it was only Dad's. Mum's wand was Mum's... and made from a tree that had been planted to hide Dad's transformations-to protect him. It tied him to both of them.

Berit nudged him. "Would you like to try the others from the tree?"

"No. This one is mine," Teddy said, and smiled. "You were right the first day."

"Thank you."

Teddy chanced a glance at Ollivander, who'd managed to steer the subject to why wandmaking was not an art for the experimentalist and was quite involved with this, then leaned over to Berit. "Would you like to try Metamorphmagus hair? I can always grow it back."

Berit waited until her grandfather was fully involved in his discourse, then did a quick severing charm and came away with a handful of Teddy's hair. Teddy had never had a haircut in his life, and was interested to see the lock she'd taken first fade from its Gryffindor scarlet, then turn light brown, then curl slightly. It had never occurred to him that his hair might be naturally curly. Berit pocketed it.

"He can obviously use both wands," Granny said, finally managing to drag Ollivander back onto the subject at hand. "Is it... advisable to keep them?"

Teddy's stomach clenched-it was obvious that he was to keep Mum's wand, but he couldn't give up Dad's. He needed it for the Marauder's Map.

Ollivander said, "There's no harm in it, Mrs. Tonks." He nodded at Teddy. "If Mr. Lupin feels he needs both wands, it is my opinion-the one for which you asked this consultation-that he should have them."

Teddy's mouth fell open. "Really?"

"Unless you feel you'd rather leave one."

Teddy smiled. "Thank you, Mr. Ollivander."

"I don't advise going back and forth on routine tasks. Let your mother's wand bind itself to you more tightly. You have years ahead of you to master a second wand."

Teddy morbidly subtracted his age from the age at which his mother died, and came up with exactly thirteen years that could be stretching luxuriously ahead of him, but chose not to say anything. There wasn't, after all, a war on anymore.

After they finished at Ollivander's, Granny took him to the Leaky Cauldron for hot chocolate-she had a dollop of Madam Mayne's Minted Malt in hers-and said, "Teddy, I'm sorry. I was wrong. Forgive me."

Teddy squirmed. "Er... all right. But it's all right, really it is." He looked around quickly to make sure no one was looking, and said, "I love you, Granny."

She smiled faintly. "Best be careful, Ted. I think the poinsettias may have overheard."

They laughed, finished their hot chocolate, and Flooed back to Uncle Harry's

12. Family Tree

Chapter 12:

Family Tree

They spent the week before Christmas cozily, playing games and talking, sometimes piling up in the kitchen and listening to Lee Jordan on the Wizarding Wireless, doing his show, "Wizardwatch." According to Uncle Harry, it used to be called "Potterwatch," and Teddy's father had been a frequent guest on it, but now it had expanded. He still talked about politics-Lee had some words about some decision the Wizengamot had made about Azkaban, and none were "Happy Christmas"-but he'd added a lot of things to it over the years, including music, book reviews, and famous guests anonymously reading scenes from Muggle films in a segment called "Guess Stars." It was a great game for most people, but Teddy didn't think it was much of a challenge on the day Lee had Ron and Hermione reading from some adventure story. Of course, other people didn't have his first clue-Rosie and Hugo were visiting Uncle Harry on their own at the moment. Rosie and Al were tucked one under each of Teddy's arms while they listened (James was making a concerted effort to do the same with the squirming Lily and Hugo, but they didn't seem especially agreeable), and Rosie clapped her hands and said, "Mummy and Daddy!" Lee gave the audience half an hour to guess, then introduced Hermione, who argued with him about the Azkaban decision, which had something to do with allowing prisoners to send letters.

On Christmas Eve, Granny took Teddy caroling with her choir. They were raising money for famine relief in a country whose name Teddy couldn't pronounce, and had a folding board set up showing pictures of malnourished children there. This time, when James begged to come along, Teddy told him he could, as long as he was good. James managed a sedate and quiet air for nearly ten minutes before he climbed up on a crate the choir director had brought, looked at Teddy's music, and began earnestly mangling the carols with them.

By the time they'd set up at their last spot, at their church near Grimmauld Place, Bill's family must have arrived, because Victoire and Marie ran out to join them, dropping Muggle money into the jar and jumping in on the last song ("Joy to the World"). James ran to greet Victoire-Teddy was absurdly jealous that she got nearly as big a greeting as he had, even though James had seen her a lot more-then insisted on walking home holding one of Teddy's hands and one of Victoire's. They hoisted him over a snow-covered bench between them, of which he declared himself the king, then took him inside. By the time he'd finished telling the story to his parents and the others, he had half-convinced Teddy that they'd personally gone and magically fed the hungry children.

"There were a lot of them," James said, wide-eyed. "It was very sad. They were so tired they couldn't even move."

Uncle Harry smiled at him fondly. "That happens when you only see them in Muggle photographs, James."

Teddy convinced them to listen to "Weird Christmas," the show with the Weird Sisters where Donzo would be performing. It turned out to be a good hour, and Donzo didn't sing the stupid song he'd done this summer, instead coming up with a perfectly normal "O Holy Night." He also got to talk a bit, and said how much he loved Hogwarts, especially his House, Ravenclaw, and his friends in his year. A minute later, he dragged someone else on stage, who turned out to be Maurice Burke, who Donzo said had been hanging about rehearsals all week. Teddy was glad to hear this, as it seemed both of them were having a better holiday than either had expected.

After the show, the smaller children went to bed (Marie protesting at the top of her lungs to no avail) and the adults went to the drawing room, leaving Teddy and Victoire alone in the kitchen, playing hand after hand of Exploding Snap until they, too, were sent to their rooms to sleep. Teddy thought she'd got a lot more bearable since she'd turned ten. She'd only corrected him six times and complained about English food once.

Christmas morning was loud and boisterous, as family arrived and presents were opened with abandon. The adults, to save Kreacher cleaning, just Vanished the wrapping paper. Teddy got a book from Hermione and Ron called Fifty Simple Charms to Keep Yourself Amused, which featured useless but fun spells. Molly gave him a scarf, as she'd already sent the jumper (which he was wearing, along with all of the Weasleys), and Charlie gave him a complicated sort of exercise box for Checkmate, who was jumping around and scratching on it before he'd even finished unpacking it. Bill's family gave him a Shield Hat that was modified to include blocking physical attacks (as long as they weren't too determined); Bill winked-which was a sort of disturbing look for him-and said, "Just in case you happen to come across flying rocks somewhere." Granny gave him enough new clothes to cover one of the villages they'd raised money for, and Uncle Harry gave him a very handy pocket knife and advised him not to forget that he had it.

Arthur Weasley wasn't merely amused with Muggles and Minions, he wanted to be taught the game from the ground up, so Teddy spent the time until lunch teaching it to Arthur, Hermione, Sophie (who had played a similar game, except about magic for Muggles), George, Victoire, Fleur's sister Gabrielle, and Professor McGonagall, who'd arrived as the last presents were unwrapped. They'd just finished a sample tube crawl from the book (Professor McGonagall's character, an athlete, beat a mugger with a cricket bat) when Uncle Harry's Muggle cousin, Dudley Dursley, arrived.

Dudley made a point of awkwardly speaking to Teddy for a few minutes-he always did, without explanation, which made Teddy think it had something to do with his parents, though he couldn't imagine what-then watched the game for a while. He stayed through lunch, which was served as a buffet, with people finding a seat wherever they could, but left before the afternoon visits began with the arrival of Ernie and Susan Macmillan, who offered condolences to Teddy on not making it into Hufflepuff before sitting down to talk to Uncle Harry for a little while. Others came and went, nearly all of Dumbledore's Army as Teddy understood it (this was why Christmas was almost always spent at Uncle Harry's; it was a place for everyone to find everyone else). Parvati Patil, who Teddy privately thought the prettiest woman in the world, came with another new gentleman-friend, who she proceeded to ignore entirely as she watched the clock and gossiped until the doorbell rang and Professor Longbottom arrived (with Winky, who'd been invited separately), which appeared to be her goal, even though neither one seemed particularly happy to see the other, and Parvati left after a few stilted words.

Luna and her husband, who turned out to be called Rolf Scamander, were much better, and had brought along a furry little thing called a jackalope for the children to play with. Rolf kept an eye on the jackalope-which he said was just a baby-while Luna huddled up with Professor Longbottom and Aunt Ginny. After a while, when Teddy looked over, Aunt Ginny had left and it was just Luna and Professor Longbottom, both of them looking a bit sad, even though they were smiling and talking cheerfully. Then Teddy got distracted talking to Rolf, who turned out to know quite a lot about kappas and had heard all about Teddy's adventure with one. He seemed impressed that Teddy had known what they were and how to handle them. "Perhaps someday, during summer holidays, you'd like to join Luna and me to look for animals?" Teddy thought this sounded delightful, but also didn't want to spend the summer away from Granny now that he was away all year, so he said he'd think about it. After that, Rolf went off to sit with Luna, who perked up quite a lot, though Professor Longbottom didn't.

Teddy drifted over to Professor McGonagall until dinner, joining Granny, Hermione, and the Potter boys, who desperately wanted her to change into a cat for them. She did so to great applause, then Teddy asked her idly if a Metamorphmagus who became an Animagus could still change his appearance in animal form, and it became something of a debate, as no one could think of anyone who was both and had made the experiment. McGonagall said that she wasn't able to accomplish much magic as a cat; Hermione suggested that the Metamorphmagus magic was so intrinsic that it wouldn't be dependent on human form. Teddy was keen to try it, but McGonagall told him that-"unlike some Animagi"-he was to wait at least until he'd got an Outstanding O.W.L. in Transfiguration, and then to study and register properly. "And I assure you, Mr. Lupin, you will have lost interest in this pressing question by tomorrow, let alone five years from now." Granny was watching him suspiciously, and he had a feeling she'd be watching his books carefully over the next few years.

Several of the adults disappeared downstairs, and Teddy could hear the house groaning as they magically expanded the kitchen. When Aunt Ginny called them downstairs, they found it quite roomy and decorated with great aplomb. Two more tables had been Conjured, a long, low one for the children, and a smaller one for Kreacher and Winky, who couldn't very well be expected to eat at a full sized table, but were not to be treated as children because of their size. Both of them looked a little uncomfortable eating with humans, but warmed to it once they were allowed to actually serve the meal. Partway through the meal, Granny actually asked their permission to join them at their small table, and Teddy heard her asking Kreacher respectful questions about the Blacks. She even asked Winky about someone named Barty, who had been Regulus's friend at Hogwarts. Rosie Weasley found a piece of Charmed mistletoe, and got up to follow it around, kissing everyone it stopped at. Percy's daughter Nausicaa joined her.

Hermione and Ron and Bill and Fleur decided to stay for Boxing Day, after everyone else left, so the house remained pleasantly full, though Teddy noticed that Uncle Harry was starting to look alarmed at the size of the crowd, and wasn't surprised when he asked if he might borrow Dad's wand to go work on the Map. Teddy got it for him, and was happily surprised when he said, "You can join me, if you'd like."

"Thought you wanted to sneak off," Teddy said.

"I do. But I think I can still handle one person at a time." He grinned.

They got the Map and Keys out, and Uncle Harry opened the Latin dictionary Teddy had given him. "All right," he said. "Let's see what we can make of your dad's spells."

Not wanting to risk damage to the real Map, they tested the appearance spells on a fresh sheet of parchment. Neither of them could draw well enough to get the initial shapes of the house drawn, but the clumsy lines they made started to appear and disappear at Uncle Harry's command. James Potter's identity spells needed more than one person to cast them-they'd needed a boost from at least four people-so there was no chance to name the dots Uncle Harry managed to Conjure, not that they needed to, as they knew everyone.

Sirius's security spells were all explained in English, but neither Teddy nor Uncle Harry was at all certain how to pronounce them.

"That can be dangerous," Uncle Harry said. "I assume Professor Flitwick has mentioned-"

"-Wizard Baruffio," Teddy finished. "Was he even real, or did Flitwick make him up to talk about water buffaloes?"

"I have no idea."

Teddy looked at the stream of French spells and shook his head, then the most obvious thing in the world dawned on him. "Uncle Harry, may I tell anyone else about the Map?"

"That's your choice, Teddy. It's yours now. I don't think you'd want to take out an advertisement in the Daily Prophet about it, but if you think you can trust someone, I don't see why you shouldn't. Ron and Hermione know about it, and the Weasley twins gave it to me after they found it. I'm sure they'd shared it with Lee Jordan, too."

"Good," Teddy said, and ducked out of the room, ignoring Uncle Harry's rather puzzled look. He ran down the stairs quietly, avoiding the littler children, who were now playing a game of hide and seek, and found Victoire mooning about under the Charmed mistletoe Rosie had been following earlier. "Vicky," he whispered, trying not to catch anyone else's attention. "Come here."

She made a face at him over the name, but just said, "What?"

"Can you keep a secret? From everyone, I mean."

"What sort of secret? Are you doing something you oughtn't?"

"No. It's just... a secret. And I need your help with it."

"My help? What kind of help?"

Teddy shrugged and said, "Well, as it turns out, I need to learn French."

Teddy led the way back to Uncle Harry's office, and when they got there, Uncle Harry raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes. "Teddy," he said, "you never cease to surprise me."

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind. Have you told her?"

"Showing is easier," Teddy said, and pulled out the Map. He took it to Victoire. "This is the Marauder's Map," he said. "And it's a secret."

She looked at it. "Is this Hogwarts?" Teddy nodded, and Victoire took the Map, looking at it eagerly. "And these dots... with the names... there's Professor Flitwick, and Neville's there, too! Neville's right out in the greenhouses and Luna and Rolf are there with him. Is this real? Is this where people really are?"

"Yes."

"And there are Hagrid and Buckbeak!" She laughed, delighted. "But why do you need to learn French?"

Teddy brought over the Keys and explained about Sirius's French spells, dipping into Flitwick's first lecture to tell her about Wizard Baruffio.

"But you'll have to pretend you haven't heard it before when you get there," Uncle Harry told her.

Victoire nodded and scanned the spells, her eyes bright and wide. "These are simple," she said. "The words, of course. I don't really know how the spell works, but the words here-limite you must have guessed, that means that the spell is limited. Sometimes he uses lie, which is 'bind.' Je vous lie-he uses that to finish every other spell-just means 'I bind you.' What's he binding?"

"The Map," Teddy said. "To make sure no one else can change it. Only we're trying to figure out how to bind someone else into the group that's allowed to change it." He tapped one. "The English part says this is the spell for it. How do we say it?"

Victoire pronounced the spell easily, then Teddy tried it. She laughed. "It's French, Teddy, not Mermish. You don't need to make faces to pronounce it!"

Teddy exaggerated the faces he was making by morphing his mouth wider and his nostrils higher the second time he tried.

Victoire frowned. "Well, if you don't really want me to help, I'll just-"

"Sorry!"

"Let me see if I've got it," Uncle Harry said, then mangled the spell more than Teddy had.

Victoire didn't quite dare to tell an adult that he was speaking French, not Parseltongue, but she did shake her head sadly and coach him through it twice more, looking utterly without hope.

She finally declared herself satisfied with Uncle Harry's efforts, and he sat down to practice it while studying the theory behind it in English. Teddy and Victoire sat on the small leather sofa, sideways and cross-legged, with the Map between them.

"Where did this come from?" she asked.

"Our dads," Teddy said, nodding at Uncle Harry. "And Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. We think they wanted to bind other people to it."

The thought occurred to Teddy that Victoire might ask to be bound as well, which alarmed him, but she said, "It's a special thing, then, with your fathers. I'm glad to help. My maman and I have secrets, too. Well, my sisters know them."

Teddy was very tempted to ask what they were, as he was sure she intended, but didn't especially want to give her a chance to tell him that she was allowed her own secrets if she was meant to keep his.

Instead, they leaned over the Map together, watching the few dots in the school with interest. The ghosts were all in the dungeons, possibly having a Christmas, and Peeves was zooming around in Ravenclaw Tower, where three students were in the Common Room. Luna, Rolf, and Professor Longbottom had left the greenhouses, and seemed to be touring the grounds; as Teddy and Victoire watched, Hagrid's dot wandered across to join them, and Buckbeak moved very rapidly off the edge of the Map (Teddy guessed he was off his tether and flying free).

"Where do you live?" Victoire asked. "If I'm a Gryffindor, where will I be?"

Teddy found his level in Gryffindor Tower, then told her which years lived on the other floors. "You're two years behind me," he said, "so you'd be where the sixth years are now, as they'll leave just before you come."

Uncle Harry, at his desk, set the Keys down and said, "Well, Teddy, I can't find a place where it's necessary to state a name. Let's see if it's fooled by the wand."

"Can you bind yourself?" Teddy asked.

"No, it definitely can't be auto-cast. You'll need to test it. I'm sure that Victoire and I will be paying attention to something else if you happen to, just accidentally, speak Latin while holding a wand."

"Did I just get a pass on underage magic from the head of the Auror Division?"

"I don't know what you mean, Teddy." He raised Dad's wand, and said the Binding incantation.

Teddy didn't feel any different as he took Dad's wand back. He waited until Uncle Harry and Victoire were talking about the Weird Christmas concert, their backs carefully turned, then pointed the wand at the Marauder's Map and whispered "Reficio."

The result was sudden and catastrophic.

The lines on the Map melted away, swirling into meaninglessness, then formed the head of a wolf wearing an eye patch. Words appeared over its head, scratched to look like claw marks: "THIEF! WHO GOES THERE?"

"It's me, Teddy!" Teddy answered it aloud, but the wolf just snarled soundlessly, and the Map went blank.

Uncle Harry had turned at the sound of it. "What happened?"

"I think I erased it!"

"I doubt that," Uncle Harry said, then tapped it with his holly wand and swore that he was up to no good. The scrolling of "Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs..." began, and he cleared it, then tried again with Dad's wand. The animals appeared as usual, apparently undisturbed by the previous accusation of wand theft. "Just one of their tricks."

"It still works, then?" Victoire asked, again looking over it, trying to see the dots.

"It does. I'll definitely need to find a way around Dad's Identity spell, though. I think this is the first time I've wished he was here just so that I could hire him."

Teddy grinned.

"Teddy, do you mind if I keep the wand for a few days, to see what I can do with this?"

"I can't use it anyway. I might find myself accidentally speaking Latin."

"Right. I really wish I'd talked to Lupin and Sirius about all of this, or they'd thought to bind me to it. That would make all of this a lot easier."

Victoire was still watching the Map, and Uncle Harry had actually handed it to her. She traced one dot or another with her finger, and said, "Could we play at this again tomorrow? I like this."

Teddy shook his head. "I can't. I'm going to see my mother's friends tomorrow. We're visiting Sanjiv."

"Again?"

"We go every year. You know that."

"But does he... know?"

"I don't know." Teddy squirmed and looked to Uncle Harry.

Uncle Harry looked thoughtful. "I don't, either," he said, "but the rest of the Dementor victims from the war gave up years ago. Sanjiv is still hanging on. Your grandmother and the Apcarnes visit a lot. That may mean something."

He didn't add Or nothing, but didn't need to. Teddy had gone to St. Mungo's every year since he was old enough to read the message on his birth scroll from the man who promised to teach him that friendship was the highest of callings, but the only change in Sanjiv McPherson since the day Dolores Umbridge had fed him to the Dementors was that his hair was going white as he lay still on the pillow, his unfocused eyes staring up at the ceiling. At the age of eight, Teddy had protested that he didn't want to go, that it was boring, but Granny had told him, in the coldest of her cold voices, that spending one hour a year in the service of someone who had saved his mother-"While you were inside her, Teddy, mind that"-wasn't too much to ask of anyone. So Teddy continued to visit the day after Christmas, and tell Sanjiv what was happening in his life, and then put it out of his mind as much as he could. He sometimes thought that Mum had got the better deal, just dying, but that felt like a horrible thought, so he tried not to think of that too often, either.

"I'll have to go home," Victoire said. "I could visit by myself if you need help again. I could use Floo powder."

"If it's all right with your parents, you're always welcome," Uncle Harry said.

There didn't seem to be anything more to do, and Uncle Harry was already frowning over the Identity spell again, so Victoire suggested that she really ought to go look after her younger sisters, and Teddy said that he'd promised Al, Rosie, and Artie a good story before bed. Uncle Harry kissed them both and sent them along.

In the corridor, before they reached the stairs, Victoire stopped and said, "I really will keep it secret."

"I know."

She smiled. "Thank you for telling me. I won't tell anyone when I get to Hogwarts, either."

Teddy shrugged. "You can borrow it sometimes, if you need it to do something with your friends."

"Won't you be my friend?" Victoire asked, alarmed.

"I mean, your friends outside the family."

"Oh," Victoire said, for some reason looking completely crushed, though Teddy had meant it to reassure her. "All right. Good night, then, Teddy." She moped down the stairs and scolded Marie, who had run out of a door off to the side, chasing a purple robe that had apparently been hiding in one of the wardrobes, and barreled into her sister without looking.

Teddy went looking for Al and Artie, who, with Rosie, had crawled into Kreacher's cupboard and were begging the old elf for stories of the past. (Al especially wanted anything about ghosts in the house.) Kreacher looked helplessly at Teddy, who nodded and took the children away.

Teddy woke up the day after Christmas to James pouncing on his camp bed. "Breakfast! Mummy's making breakfast for everyone, and there are eggs! And sausages! And all sorts of things! Mummy said to get you up before Al eats everything."

Teddy rolled groggily out of bed and made his way down to the kitchen, which smelled delicious. He loaded up a plate with everything he liked for breakfast (Hermione, who was feeding Hugo a bit of scrambled egg, looked at the pile with astonishment), then sat down with Marie and James, who seemed to be planning an adventure in the attic. Uncle Harry said a grown-up ought to go with them if they were going to play up there, and Bill volunteered. Granny said she might join them later, and have a peek around for her book, if it was all right with Uncle Harry (it was).

"Are you coming, Teddy?" Marie asked.

"No," Teddy said. "I have to visit someone today. My friend Frankie will be here at ten-thirty."

James, apparently getting used to him being around, didn't pester, but did promise to bring him any interesting treasure that he happened to find.

"Well," Bill said, "if you're going treasure hunting, you'll need the proper equipment." He waved his wand and Conjured several toy shovels, toy wands (these were carefully constructed to not channel any accidental magic), and two plastic shields meant to keep off dragon's breath. "There," he said, handing them to James and Marie, "just like mine, when I was off treasure-hunting."

James ate the rest of his breakfast wearing his shield on his left arm.

After he'd finished eating, Teddy wandered upstairs, following Granny, who'd disappeared with Kreacher. He found her in the drawing room with the elf, peering at the family tree. Victoire, who had apparently slipped out of the kitchen without Teddy noticing, was padding along after her, trying to look deeply serious.

Kreacher stopped at a spot on the tree and said, "This is where Miss Andromeda belongs, of course. Mistress..."

"Mistress was unwell," Granny said, as kindly as she could.

To Kreacher, Walburga Black-referred to in anyone else's presence as "Mad Auntie" or, more commonly, by names Teddy wasn't allowed to use-was called "unwell." Bellatrix Lestrange, who had killed Teddy's mother, wasn't accorded this euphemism, and Kreacher himself had come up with a way to deal with his memories of her, saying that "Nasty Miss Bella tricked Kreacher once." He now passed over her spot on the family tree with a wrinkling of his nose, but didn't make a comment. "And Master Sirius," he said.

"I know where Sirius and I are, Kreacher," Granny told him. "And Uncle Alphard. But do you know who belongs in these other spaces? And why Auntie burned them off?"

Kreacher frowned at some of the ancient burn marks. "Kreacher isn't sure," he said, then brightened. "But Miss Andromeda might ask the portraits!"

"Very good! Kreacher, would you be kind enough to send whatever portraits you pass on the way to Phineas Nigellus's, then call for Phineas to come from Hogwarts? I'd very much like to speak to him."

Kreacher hurried off, clearly happy to be about this business. He passed Teddy in the doorway and gave him what Teddy thought was meant to be a smile.

"Why are so many named for stars?" Victoire asked Granny, running her finger over the tapestry.

"It's one of the mysteries," Granny said. "I actually found the answer. I have to double-check it, though, before I polish off that chapter. Would you like to see where the Weasleys belong? I don't know all of the burn marks, but I know where Cedrella's was. She was your grandfather's grandmother."

Teddy coughed to let them know he was there, then came in, glancing at Granny's burn mark, as he usually did in here. He sometimes imagined being able to repair it, to see Granny's name come back, and have Granddad's appear beside it, then a line would come down and show Mum connected to Dad, and then, beneath them, his own name, in the same gold thread as everyone else's. But the tapestry, apparently, was unfixable. Surely, someone would have fixed it before now if it wasn't.

"Are you coming with us to St. Mungo's?" Teddy asked Granny.

She shook her head. "I sit with Sanjiv every day that I work. If he's hearing anything, I'm sure he's quite bored with my voice by now. Besides, aren't you going around with the Apcarnes after? Daffy mentioned something about looking at all the decorations at the Palace, and maybe catching a Muggle film. There's some Muggle money in my bag." She waved her wand, and her handbag flew in. She rooted around in it, then said quietly, "You may want to tread a bit carefully. Maddie's been working very hard lately, and last I knew, she was a little short-tempered."

Teddy frowned. This didn't seem like the Maddie he'd always known, whose temper was about as sharp as a stick of half-melted butter.

The Black family portraits began to arrive a moment later, and Granny was occupied with asking them questions. One portrait told her stiffly that she ought to have learned the answers to her questions before she abandoned the family, but most were intrigued by her plans to actually write the stories down. An Arcturus Black-Sirius and Regulus's grandfather-seemed to think that she meant to save the name from being erased, even if neither of his grandsons had taken the time out of their personal wars to find suitable wives. Teddy personally thought it would be a very long time before anyone forgot the Blacks, even if no one did have the name anymore.

The doorbell rang just before ten-thirty, and Teddy ran down, grabbing his winter cloak and calling a goodbye to Uncle Harry. Frankie was waiting on the front step, his father behind him, with Carny holding one hand from each of them. She grinned at Teddy and he saw that she'd lost two teeth.

"Hi," Teddy said, and looked behind them.

"Maddie's held up at work," Daffy said tightly, and Frankie shuffled his feet in the snow.

"Oh. I-"

"She'll join us at the hospital."

They set off together to the Muggle bus stop, and caught a route across town to the abandoned storefront that was the concealed entrance to St. Mungo's. "Visitors," Daffy said, and the mannequin let them in. They went up to the fourth floor without speaking, and a Healer let them into the Spell Damage ward.

A man with carefully curled white hair wandered out to them, smiling. "Hello and Happy Christmas!" he said.

"Hello, Gilderoy," Daffy said. "It's good to see you again."

"Have I seen you before?"

Teddy smiled at him. Poor old Lockhart had got as far as he was going to get-he remembered who he was, and how to write, but he never managed to remember visitors from one visit to the next. Granny said that he even forgot some of the Healers, if he didn't see them every day. "He's forgotten your grandfather," she'd said once. "I gave him a picture of the two of them in school, so he'd remember, and he always asks me who the nice fellow in it is."

Behind a curtain at the end of the ward, Teddy could hear Professor Longbottom's voice, but couldn't quite make out what he was saying. The sharp voice of his grandmother said, "Well, Alice, I told him that girl was never good enough for him, but..."

And then Daffy led them past another curtain, through a Muffling Charm, and there was Sanjiv, lying still on the bed where he'd been since Teddy was only a week old. Healers cleaned him and turned him so he wouldn't get sores and moved all of his limbs so they wouldn't curl up, so he looked like he was just sleeping deeply.

"Hey, Sanj," Daffy said. "It's me, Daffy. I brought the children. Frankie's thirteen, believe it or not. And Teddy's eleven!"

"I'm eight!" Carny announced, sitting on the bed and grabbing Sanjiv's hand happily. "I turned eight last month, and Daddy took me to see ice skaters who were dressed up like cats and had a swordfight. Mummy couldn't come, but then she let me stay at work with her the very next day and I got to play with a ghost!"

"Maddie's working on a way to help you," Daffy said. Teddy didn't think he looked very happy about this. "Go on, boys. Tell Sanj about Hogwarts."

Frankie and Teddy looked at one another awkwardly, then Frankie started the story of the Forest Guard and the kappa and detention with Professor Longbottom-they both looked over their shoulders toward the gap in the curtain to see if he was somehow listening through the Muffling Charm-and Muggles and Minions. Teddy took over to talk about being the only Gryffindor, and tell him about the other first years and Ruthless.

"Oh," Frankie said, finally having warmed to it, "tell him about that Slytherin girl-Higgs, isn't it?"

"Right," Teddy said. "Honoria Higgs. A right spoiled brat. But there's another one, a Muggle-born boy, who's just as bad, just the other direction. He's-"

Daffy looked up, and Teddy looked over his shoulder. Maddie was coming through, smiling faintly. "I'm sorry I'm late."

"We're used to it," Daffy said, and from the corner of his eye, Teddy saw Frankie flinch.

Maddie sighed and sat down beside Sanjiv, taking the hand that Carny wasn't holding. "I finally got clearance to transfer to the Identity Division," she told him (which surprised Teddy, as no one was meant to know exactly what the Unspeakables did). "I'll find where you are. I'm working on everything we know about Dementors and what happens... after."

Daffy shifted uncomfortably, then seemed to take on a heavy burden and put his hand on Maddie's shoulder. "If anyone can help," he said, "it's Mads. You know that."

"May we go to the tea shop?" Frankie asked.

Daffy nodded. "We'll pick you up there."

Frankie grabbed Teddy's arm and led him out, nearly walking into Professor Longbottom and his grandmother. Mrs. Longbottom looked at them in an irritated way, but Professor Longbottom said, "Let it be, Gran." He frowned at Frankie and said, "Come see me when you get back, if you'd like."

Frankie nodded, but kept moving, bringing Teddy along in his wake. He didn't speak until they'd got hot chocolate and biscuits and settled themselves in a red-velvet-lined booth with a Privacy Charm on it. "She worked on Christmas Day," he said.

Teddy wasn't sure what to say to this. "I-"

"They fought about it, but she thinks she's got some lead on things. Dad yelled at her and said she needed to accept it. She said it was an abomination and she never would. I never heard her say anything like that before. Dad started yelling about her trying to bring back the dead-he asked if she meant to bring back-" He stopped abruptly.

"My mum?"

Frankie nodded miserably. "Sorry. I didn't mean to say that. She's off on a tear, anyway, ever since they let her go to Identity. They weren't letting her for a long time. I'll bet they knew this would happen."

"Maybe she'll find something," Teddy said. "No one knows what happens after Dementors kiss someone. Well, to the part they eat anyway."

"I just wish they wouldn't fight about it. Dad just wanted her to spend some time with us, but..." He stirred his hot chocolate. "She promised to stay the rest of today. I hope they won't fight again. I don't like it."

Teddy looked down at his biscuits, not really wanting them, but picking crumbs off of them for something to do.

"So," Frankie said jovially, and Teddy looked up to find him smiling, as if he hadn't been upset only seconds ago, "what shall we do when we get back to Hogwarts? Sneak into Hogsmeade? Try to get further into the Forest? I think Roger wanted to see if we could find any of the spiders..."

Grateful for the change in subject, Teddy let him start to make grand plans for their next term, and they were both quite cheerful by the time Daffy, Maddie, and Carny came up to gather them. Daffy and Maddie seemed to have maintained their truce, and even held hands through the film they all went to see (a story about a spy who tried to make up for his bad deeds by helping the innocent). By the time they brought Teddy back to Uncle Harry's, he might have imagined the tension of the morning. Frankie clapped him on the shoulder and said they would sit together on the train going back.

The cousins had all left by the time Teddy got back, and the house seemed oddly empty. Victoire had left a note reminding him of everything he needed to remember about pronouncing French. Granny was still working with the family tree, now sitting on the floor with piles of notes around her, commanding several quills to take down names and dates. Uncle Harry had been called out on an emergency, though when he came back, he rolled his eyes and complained that Savage would declare an emergency if the weather forecast turned out to be wrong. Teddy thought he still looked troubled about something, and wasn't surprised at all when he retreated to his office for the rest of the evening, though he was surprised that Granny went to talk to him there. Teddy supposed they'd got used to talking to one another about work problems when Uncle Harry had still lived with them during his apprenticeship. After that, things returned to normal.

The day before Teddy was scheduled to go back to Hogwarts, he and Uncle Harry were having one last go at the Map. Teddy was poking at the dog's paw prints, trying to figure out where on the grounds they were, exactly, and idly said, "We never did find out if we could find your dad's things."

"True. I meant to look up how to say 'Potter' in Latin. I suppose we could look up Pettigrew, but I don't really want Wormtail's things." He Summoned the Latin dictionary, which had started to look well-thumbed indeed, and tapped it to open to the word "Potter," then shrugged and said, "I think this is right." He pointed Dad's wand at the deer and said, "Revelo Figularis."

The deer perked up and leapt gracefully over the Map, stopping here and there-James Potter seemed to have been fond of what Teddy suspected were more loose floor stones in the common room-leaving hoof-prints around the castle and on the grounds. Uncle Harry was smiling, then abruptly looked puzzled. Teddy looked down. The deer had stopped beside the lake, about where the White Tomb was now, though with the Map out of date, it didn't appear. After leaving that mark, it jumped into the Forbidden Forest and left a heavy print deep inside. It cast around a bit more, then jumped back to its place.

Uncle Harry blinked at this for a long time, and Teddy said, "What is it, Uncle Harry?"

"Something I need to think about quite carefully. Teddy, will you wait for another letter before you do anything with this? I want to keep the Map, but only for a few more days. I'll owl it back to you, I promise."

"All right."

"I wish I'd tried this a week ago. Oh, well. That's stuck in a broken Time Turner now. I'll get it back to you soon."

Teddy went to bed feeling excited about his return to Hogwarts and optimistic about the Map, now that Uncle Harry seemed to have something in mind. He dreamed of the castle. He was near the great outer wall, and glowing paw prints trailed off into the shadows. At the crest of a hill, lit by the full moon, was a thin, pale man, waiting for him. He smiled. It was Teddy's own smile, and knowledge flowed over Teddy like a summer wind.

"Dad!" he called, running up the hill.

Dad winked and handed him a golden key, which promptly faded into Teddy's hand and disappeared. "Some things are yours now, Teddy," he said.

"Is Mum with you? Are you together still? You're not fighting, are you?"

"We're together always, and there's no fighting. Your Mum is watching over you." He put his hands on Teddy's shoulders. They seemed to have no weight, but weren't cold and unpleasant like a ghost's. Teddy had never felt anything like them, and wanted them to stay there always. Dad was still smiling, but his face was very serious. "Find what's yours, Teddy. Find what was always meant for you." He faded away, and Teddy saw the gray stone wall of the castle behind him. The paw prints in the grass glowed brilliantly for a moment, then were gone.

13. Revelo Lupinus

Chapter 13:

Revelo Lupinus

James held his chin up bravely, though Teddy could see it was trembling. "I'll write a whole letter to you," he said.

"I'll be waiting for it," Teddy told him, then glanced over James's head and saw a group of familiar faces. "Would you like to meet my friends before we go?"

James's eyes widened, and Teddy led him over to Maurice, Donzo, Bernice, Zachary, Roger, Tinny, Ruthless, and-surprisingly-Corky, who had apparently all been waiting on the platform to gather up the group.

"Frankie's saving a compartment," Corky said, then added, "Dad had business in London, so I got him to add me to the Portkey so I could take the train back."

"That's good," Teddy said. "I'd like you all to meet James Potter. Hogwarts had best watch out when he gets there."

Each of them shook hands with James in turn, exchanging names (James marveled at Corky's accent), then Uncle Harry came over with Granny. Bernice and Maurice seemed a bit awed, but the rest accepted his presence easily. "I think the lot of you best get on the train before James decides to go back with you, and I'm not quite ready to let him, yet." He picked James up and balanced him on one hip. "Watch out for kappas," he advised them, "and mind the school motto about dragons as well."

"We'll be sure to follow your example," Ruthless said smartly.

"See that you do, Scrimgeour." Uncle Harry winked solemnly at her and she laughed.

After they said their goodbyes (all of Teddy's friends dutifully including James, who waved them on, wide-eyed), they boarded the train and found their way to the compartment Frankie had saved. Ken was already there, but he seemed to have broken up with Bernice, as they weren't talking now. Frankie watched this nervously, so Teddy distracted him with the new Muggles and Minions book he'd bought as a Christmas present and forgotten to give Frankie on the day they went to St. Mungo's. This led to a talk about computers, and exactly what they did. According to the book, you could communicate considerably faster than with Floo powder, and with more people, and Tinny and Donzo speculated on exactly how this worked. Roger tried to explain-he said he spent most of his summers "online"-but Teddy couldn't quite visualize what he meant by it. By the time they'd got close to Hogsmeade, Frankie was in a better mood, though he hadn't wanted to start a game.

"When are we going back to the Forest?" Roger asked. "I read all about Dark Creatures over hols. Someone said there were werewolves in there, but I don't see how there could-" He stopped. "Sorry, Teddy."

"There aren't werewolves in the Forest," Teddy said. "At least not until the end of the month." He considered mentioning that he was aware that this January had two full moons, one of which had been a few days ago, in the interest of telling them that he wasn't too fragile to think about werewolves, but decided it might be overkill. He didn't always keep track of full moons, but he'd noticed the blue moon this month and thought it was interesting.

"I don't think there's anything evil in the Forest," Frankie said suddenly.

"What?" Bernice shook her head, confused. "But you said..."

"I was wrong. I shouldn't have." He shrugged. "We can still go look around, if you want. But I don't think there's anything evil there."

Teddy let this pass on the train, but caught a carriage back to the castle with just Frankie and said, "What made you change your mind?"

"You did. You were right. There's power, but it's not evil." He scratched indifferently at an itch under his arm, then said, "It's more powerful than anything in London. I think Mum's looking in the wrong place. What happened to Sanjiv is too magical for anything in the city. I think the answers are up here, where the magic is still too strong for anything to interfere with it."

Teddy started to question this, but Frankie changed the subject, and started going on about the film they'd seen, and talking about his parents making up on New Year's Day ("Urgh, and I thought the fighting was disturbing..."), and complaining that Carny had already broken two of his Christmas presents, and by the time they reached the school, there wasn't really an opportunity to bring up the Forest again.

The teachers seemed to take the return from holidays as a sign to add more and more work, so Teddy found less time to lounge around the Hufflepuff table during the first week, and the subject of Frankie's new views on the Forest faded further away. Teddy managed to ascertain that Frankie was entertaining the notion of the Forest as a magnet for lost souls these days, as Frankie was rarely seen now without a library book on the subject of either magical places or the nature of identity, but Frankie just shrugged and said it was nothing to worry about, just something interesting to think about. Teddy wasn't sure he believed him.

He was thinking about this on Friday night when he came back to his dormitory, Checkmate running excitedly around his feet. He'd tried to bring it up with Ruthless, but her notion that he should just let Frankie get the craziness out of his system didn't sit all that well with him. He opened the door, and Checkmate ran inside, then stopped with a hiss.

A large post owl was tapping at Teddy's window, a letter and a box tied to its leg.

Teddy let it in; Checkmate took a swipe at it, then hid under the bed when it swooped at her.

"Hey!" Teddy grabbed it from the air and set it down on his work table, untying the package and taking the letter. "You're not meant to attack pets," he told it.

It looked balefully at Checkmate, who had, of course, started it.

"I'll talk to her later," Teddy muttered, and gave the owl some cat treats and a sip of water. It ate with studied nonchalance, then flew out the window into the night.

Teddy opened the box first. It contained Dad's wand, the Keys to the Castle, and the Marauder's Map. Teddy ran his hands over them, not really doing anything with them, just glad to have them back, then picked up the letter. It was addressed to him in Uncle Harry's handwriting.

Dear Teddy, Sometimes, the most obvious things don't happen to strike us at the right moment. Do you remember when I said that I wished Sirius or your dad had thought to bind me to the Map? Apparently, one of them did. I assume it was your dad, as Sirius never had the Map to himself again, and your dad had it for months. He probably thought I'd found all of the interesting new things it did years ago, but they made a mistake with the spellwork. I know-we spent so much time admiring it, I think we both forgot that they weren't much older than you are, and sometimes didn't think things through entirely.

I realized that I must have been bound to it when I tried the Revelo Figularis spell, because it picked up things I know belong to me. As those things were left deliberately, I've removed the marks from the Map-I created a spell to do that, and added it to the Keys. I realize that most of the finding spells were Wormtail's, but oddly, I chose to add it to my father's list instead. Because I share my father's family name and was bound to the Map, it picked up my lost things as well. I have bound you to the Map-I had Victoire there to double-check my French pronunciation, under the guise of a day at the Auror Division-so, since you also share your father's name, now you should be able to find anything you've happened to lose using the same spell. If James passes the Map on to little Fred Weasley-who is also part of its lineage; the twins rescued it and gave it to me-then they'll need a new spell, but we'll worry about that when the time comes.

The reason I never knew about this before, though, is that the Marauders used two different sorts of spells. The first spell bound the Map to their wands. That goes for most of the early magic. I can't say for sure, but I think they must have originally just had it sense people moving around, and find their things for them. But then Dad created the Identity Spell, and they started to wind all of the security around it, and it must have been after that when it occurred to them that they might want to pass it along. That spell is bound entirely to identity, and wasn't fooled by simply using one of their wands-in fact, since it identified the "wrong" person holding one of their wands, it blanked itself. (I would suggest that this means Ollivander is right, and it is your mother's wand which has chosen you.) So you must use your own wand within the Map once you've been bound, but the Map can't be opened to use without one of their wands. I doubt this was deliberate, as it doesn't seem likely that any of them meant to hand a wand to a younger student (or even to us), and I don't think they ever realized it. Your dad and Sirius probably thought I was using the Map to find my things and tweaking it to do new things all along.

It is, at any rate, fully yours now, and you should be able to find your way around it; just remember to use your own wand when you try to do any new spells. I've left the updating for you, because I know it was your idea first. I'm very glad you asked for my help, both because I'm glad you feel comfortable doing so, and because this was actually quite fun.

Use it well.

I love you (I know, you're wincing and making sure no one is looking over your shoulder), Uncle Harry

Curiously, Teddy picked up the Map, then both of his parents' wands. He trained Dad's on the parchment and said, "I solemnly swear..." and the Marauders' totems appeared, bringing the map out to the corners.

Then Teddy picked up Mum's wand-his own wand-and said, "Reficio."

The lines faded, and Teddy had a moment of wild fear that he would be rejected again, but then they came back strongly and began to rearrange themselves, adding walls here and there, subtracting walls in other places. Dumbledore's tomb appeared on the lake shore, and an extension ran out behind Hagrid's hut, where he'd expanded the paddock over the years. Around the edge, a new border seemed to have appeared. It was purely decorative, and Teddy couldn't imagine why it had been included in an updating spell. It was mainly swirls of black ink, broken at regular intervals. A tiny bird of some sort fluttered in the top left corner, and a second stag, about the size of Teddy's fingernail, looked up at it from the bottom right.

He shook his head and pointed the wand at the wolf. "Revelo Lupinus."

The wolf leapt first to Robards' office, leaving its mark in the living quarters again, then jumped to Gryffindor Tower. It left a paw print where Teddy's bed was, and Teddy looked under it. The fourth-year Charms book he'd taken from the library to figure out how to remove the stone in the Common Room was lying forlornly beside Checkmate, a curl of dust blown up against its pages.

Teddy went back to the Map. It had found something he'd left in the Hufflepuff Common Room, probably during a game, and...

He froze.

The wolf had jumped to the top of the castle, on the north side, and dropped to the ground far below, leaving a solid footprint at the base of the wall.

Under the north battlements, a place Teddy had assiduously avoided since coming here.

Find what's yours, Teddy. Find what was always meant for you.

"Dad," he whispered.

Sleep was a long time coming that night, and at least six times, Teddy thought he might just slip out and have a look, curfew be damned, but he didn't want to be caught. He thought, close to midnight, of asking Ruthless for help, but she was in her dormitory, her dot on the Map moving only minutely as she tossed in her sleep. He told himself that he wasn't doing it because he was afraid of being caught, and couldn't think of a good lie to tell the Fat Lady, but it rang false. He knew that what he really feared was finding something pointless-a button, a rotting scrap of a robe, a spare Knut-and not what his heart was telling him would be there.

So he told himself it was late, it was silly to go out at night so close to the new moon, when there was barely any light to work with, that he needed sleep, even that what he feared might true, that it was nothing at all.

But the thought of what it was, what it had to be, gnawed at him, kept him turning over in his bed until Checkmate finally fled to the pillow he'd set up near her litter tray, and when he did finally sleep, his dreams were plagued by thoughts of his father's thin fingers, of a gold band slipping off of one of them. He awoke several times, his mind racing around the idea. He had never thought much of the manner of his father's death, of what had happened before he made the decision to give his life to protect a former student, but now his imagination began to search for details. Had Dad, in a moment of desperation, flung himself physically at Dolohov, jarring his hand and sending his wedding band flying into the night? Or had it fallen earlier, unnoticed in the heat of battle, nudged off a ledge by someone who had never seen it? Or had someone come along after Dad was dead and taken it from him, flung it away from the cooling body with contempt? In Teddy's mind, a hulking figure with glinting eyes did this, a monster from a child's storybook, grinning maniacally as the ring flew out into the night.

Whatever had happened, it had been lost, fallen onto the ground that had been broken up and pummeled by rampaging giants only moments before. Had there been a rainstorm soon after? Had the ground opened up to swallow it? Teddy imagined it sinking, season by season, deeper beneath the earth as the soil loosed and shifted around it. Had it been fully under when Teddy had spoken his first word? ("Granny," of course-though he suspected it was more like "Gan-Gan"-as there had been no "Mama" or "Dada" to call for; "Unka" had been hard on its heels.) Was it twisted around with grass roots when Teddy had cried himself to sleep at the age of five, having finally understood that his beloved Uncle Harry had gone away to live somewhere else and wouldn't be coming back after his holiday with Aunt Ginny? Had a bug crawled through it as Teddy was Sorted in the Great Hall, so close by?

The last time he looked at his watch before he dropped off in exhaustion, it was four-thirty, and the wind was beginning to pick up. By the time he woke up three and a half hours later, the worst storm of the winter was raging outside, throwing half-frozen, viscous raindrops against the window. The ground below was shrouded, the Quidditch pitch entirely invisible and the greenhouses only blurry boxes. The snow was pockmarked and dirty, and Hagrid's path to the castle from his cabin was a river of gray slush. As Teddy watched, chain lightning arched across the sky.

Unlike the first snowfall, there was nothing beautiful about this storm. When Teddy got down to the Great Hall for breakfast, the candles were actually lit against the uninviting light that came from the enchanted ceiling. Professor Sprout announced that the storm was likely to last all day. Students were to remain inside unless accompanied by a teacher (or in the case of years five to seven, went out in a group of three or more), as the Red Caps would make short work of anyone who fell on the quickly-developing sheet ice and lost a wand. "Right," Ruthless muttered, "because I really fancied going out in the freezing rain today."

Teddy smiled at her weakly, thinking of the map and the paw print by the battlements.

Tinny suggested that it was a perfect day for a game, but Frankie said he had other plans, and Teddy couldn't have concentrated if he tried, so the Guard did without them, Zachary taking over Frankie's urban planning duties. Teddy followed Frankie to the library, but didn't bother him when he saw the stack of books on enchanted places.

It wasn't something he was meant to do with a partner, anyway.

The teachers kept a watch on the entrance hall, reminding older students to stay in their groups, sending back younger students who weren't out with a teacher. Teddy sat on the steps for a long time, watching Neville Longbottom do this for a time, then Hagrid. He drifted back up to Gryffindor Tower before lunch and stared at the Marauder's Map, at the teasing paw print, and gritted his teeth. He should have found the spine to sneak out last night. He could only hope that the storm would be shorter than they thought, and end before curfew.

In the meantime, he unpacked his book bag and put the Marauder's Map, Dad's wand, and the knife Uncle Harry had given him inside of it. Granny had cast an Impervius Charm on it before she gave it to him, so his books and papers wouldn't get sodden going back and forth to the greenhouses, and he'd found a simple Umbrella Charm in a second year book to keep himself dry if it started again. Thunder crashed outside the window, and Teddy jumped. Checkmate crawled onto his lap and started kneading at his thigh, her sharp claws pricking through his jeans.

All of this seemed to be happening to some other boy while Teddy waited, the only thing in his mind that paw print, and his own imaginings about how it had got there. He saw his father die in his mind, over and over, the ring knocked loose somehow.

By two o'clock, he was fully miserable, and crept down to the Common Room with his book bag, less because he had a plan than because he thought he'd go mad if he stayed alone any longer. The floor around the fireplace was quite crowded with Gryffindors trying to stay warm, and people were draped over one another on the sofas, wrapped in bright blankets that older students were practicing Conjuring. Priya Patil and two other seventh-years came in, looking like drowned rats, and hung their soaking long cloaks over the hooks by the door.

Teddy looked at them for a long time, a thought beginning to dawn on him.

He ran back up to his room and put on his loosest robe, opting to put nothing beneath it, then belted it so it didn't look odd. He walked slowly down to the Common Room, where he pretended to take a great interest in Priya's cloak. He looked at it carefully, squeezing at the wet wool, until Priya finally noticed him.

"Did you need something in my cloak, Lupin?"

"I just wondered," he said, "if you'd mind if I practiced my Drying Charm on it. I haven't burned anything for weeks."

"Please feel free," Priya said. "If you muck it up, I can practice my repair charms."

"Thanks!" Teddy said, and took it from its hook. He asked an older boy whose dripping boots still hadn't been seen to if he might try them as well, and got a positive response. Both dripped as he carried them out through the portrait hole. He checked the Map quickly as soon as he was away from the Fat Lady-there weren't many empty rooms, but there was an empty broom closet on the ground floor. He made for it.

The Drying Charm was easy, and as soon it was done, he unbelted his robe, took off his shoes, then put Priya's cloak over his shoulders and the boy's boots on his feet. Priya was a tall girl, and it pooled out a foot beyond his feet. He thought she was around Charlie Weasley's height.

Teddy closed his eyes. Morphing by color was easy, and thinning himself down was nearly as simple, but this would take a bit more work if he was going to be unnoticeable. He decided to use Charlie as a model, and broadened his shoulders, thickening the muscles in his arm, making his neck wider and his nose and jaw broader. The height was different-he didn't want to just grow his legs, which would make his gait seem off, so he had to grow himself proportionally, a bit here, a bit there. His bones ached at the stretch, especially in his feet, where they pressed against the still damp leather. The hem of Priya's cloak finally pulled up the boots, then exposed their tips. That was the best he could do.

He checked his reflection in a mirror on the back of the door, and the boy who looked back at him seemed at least sixteen. He was built like Charlie, but his face was a warped version of his own. He thought he looked like he'd drunk a Swelling Solution, and deeply hoped that he wouldn't look like this as an adult.

He drew up the hood, put his book bag over his shoulder, then waited in the shadows, watching for a group of older students going by. Luck favored him-Professor Trelawney was patrolling the hall, and if anyone was likely to let an unknown older student pass, it would be her. It didn't take long before a group of three Hufflepuffs came out of the Great Hall, laughing about braving the great danger of bad weather. Teddy carefully slipped in behind them, trying not to attract their notice.

Trelawney let them pass after counting them absently. Teddy followed the 'Puffs until he was sure she was no longer looking, then cut away, running against the wind to the side of the castle. A curtain of freezing rain pinned him against the wall. He ignored it, turning his face inward, inching, bit by bit, around the vast building, finding his way to the north. A Red Cap rushed at him and he hit it with a Tarantallegra hex, and it danced away, slipping on the ice. Teddy continued. When he thought he'd gone far enough around the building and was clinging to the north face and trying not to slip down the hill, he cast the Umbrella Charm and opened his book bag, calling up the marks on the Map. His dot was nearly on top of the paw print. He moved until he was actually on top of it.

A thin scree of ice had formed over the mud, and Teddy broke through it with the knife, shattering it into shards. There was no sign of the ring.

"Further down," he muttered to himself. "Come on, Dad, I'm trying."

He clawed at the ground with his fingernails, setting his wand down beside him, but it was nearly frozen. His fingertips were so numb that he didn't notice they'd started to bleed until he happened to look down at them. He pulled the knife out again and started cutting furrows in the earth, trying desperately to loosen it. The first chunks came out whole, and he imagined the ring lodged in one of them, frozen. He would have to take them back with him, thaw them, see-

The knife turned over another bit of soil and Teddy saw the edge of it, a mild gold band, its beveled edge filled with grit. Carefully, he hooked the tip of the knife under it, prying it from the ground, holding it up to the cleansing rain. For a long, long moment, the world stopped.

Something struck him from the side, and he barely had time to recognize the Red Cap before it was on him, battering him with its iron tipped club. He shoved it away, and then noticed several more around it, creeping up the hill on the ice, their sharp teeth bared, their caps dripping blood over their ears.

"Stay away!" he shouted, grabbing for his wand, pointing it with one hand while the other still held the knife, Dad's wedding band precariously balanced on the tip. "Stay away!"

One scurried forward. Teddy blasted it back with a Petrifying Curse. More climbed over it.

"Petrificus! Tarantellegra!"

They backed him up against the wall, and the knife clanged against the stone. Dad's ring fell back to the ground and a Red Cap went for it.

"No!" Teddy leapt at it, not caring that there were more, only wanting its filthy hands far from the ring. He shoved it, then lost his footing on the ice, sliding down the hill, his wand jarred from his hand.

He felt the skin on his legs ripped against the ice, and his chin left a trail of blood as the Red Caps dragged him down the slope. His wand had rolled after him for a few paces, then lodged against a rock. The ring and knife lay at the base of the wall, forgotten by the Red Caps in light of more interesting treasure.

"Get off!" he shouted, forcing himself onto his side, grabbing one of them by the throat. He threw it away, but another jumped into its place, waving its club wildly. The iron tip came down on Teddy's cheekbone with a sickening crunch, and the world started to go black and red.

"EXSICCO MAXIMUS!"

The shout came from somewhere far above him, and three of the Red Caps fell away, clutching at their heads. The ice crumbled and fell into dust. It came again.

"EXSICCO MAXIMUS! Priya, I have them, get Teddy!"

Arms pulled Teddy up, and the world swam back into focus. Priya Patil was dragging him up the slope. "Wand," he managed to say.

She pointed her own wand at it, and it flew to Teddy. He tried to get away from her, to get to his knife and the ring, but he couldn't, and to his horror, they were gone, lost again-

"I have them, Teddy," Neville Longbottom said softly. His wand was still aimed at the retreating Red Caps, and Teddy's book bag was hooked over his shoulder. More Red Caps, Teddy saw, were starting to come up from the gully. "We have to get out of here. Priya, help me get him to the hospital wing, and let's do it without attracting undue attention. There's a door here, and I swear I'll Confund both of you and the whole student body if I hear about it being used for little jaunts." He turned quickly and pointed his wand at an apparently empty spot on the wall. The stones moved and revealed a wooden door. Professor Longbottom led them through it, and then Teddy was being led to the hospital wing by routes he didn't know, through the dungeons and the cellars, but not near Slytherin or Hufflepuff. They saw no other students.

Madam Pomfrey jumped to her feet as soon as they got him inside, and guided them to a bed. Priya set up privacy screens while Madam Pomfrey and Professor Longbottom got him settled. While Madam Pomfrey did the initial diagnostic spells, Professor Longbottom went to Priya and said, "We'll keep this among us, all right?"

She nodded, looking pale, then came to the bed. "You'll be all right, Teddy," she said.

Madam Pomfrey touched an injury on Teddy's arm and the pain flared up, waking him entirely. He fought not to scream. "Sorry..." he told Priya "...about your cloak."

"Don't worry, there's nothing wrong with it that I can't fix. I'll bring Bangs's boots back as well. We'll say you... I don't know, fell down the stairs or whatnot. I'll fix the boots."

"Thank you."

She smiled at him nervously, took her cloak and the boots, and scurried off.

Professor Longbottom stayed quietly while Madam Pomfrey took care of Teddy's injuries, muttering darkly to herself as she repaired each one in turn. "Red Caps... bloody-damned... told them we should get rid of them, the injuries since they came..." She finished up in fifteen minutes and re-cast the diagnostics, making sure she'd got everything, then pointed her finger sternly at him. "You're staying here tonight, Mr. Lupin. I don't care if everything is healed, you're in no shape-" She stopped and put her hand on her head. "You're staying here for the night, Teddy," she said again, then went back to her desk.

Professor Longbottom waited until she was sitting with her head bent over her papers, then took Teddy's knife and Dad's ring from a pocket in his own cloak. He set them down on the night stand.

"Priya's a very bright girl," he said. "When she realized you'd also absconded with a pair of larger boots, she understood what you must have done, and she came to me. You may think your House-mates take no notice of you-Ruth Scrimgeour duly excepted-but they all notice you, Teddy. Andrew Stephens came to talk to me about you specifically, because he thinks you're hiding away, and he's worried that people are doing something wrong because of your situation."

"What? No. I just... well, they all have friends already, and I have friends as well, in other Houses..."

"I know, Teddy. You're in an awkward place, and I told Andrew that trying to make up events to include you in was hardly going to make you feel less awkward. He admitted that when people socialize normally, you seem willing to join in. I only mean to tell you that you're not as alone in Gryffindor as you seem to think you are. When you do something, people notice it." He Conjured a chair and sat down, picking up the ring from the night stand. "I'm not going to ask how you found it. I have a lot of theories, most of them quite ridiculous, but I don't think it's my business."

Teddy had a wild urge to tell him everything, and if he'd just been Uncle Harry's friend Neville, he would have. But he was also Professor Longbottom, Head of Gryffindor House, and if he knew about the Map, he'd have to take it away, and Teddy had a feeling that he'd feel just as bad about it as Teddy himself would. So he just shook his head. "Thank you for picking it up."

Professor Longbottom nodded and looked across at the window. The gray rain cast shadows over his face, and Teddy thought of the writhing flame-shadows on the Sorting Hat. "For years, my mum used to give me bubble gum wrappers when I visited her at St. Mungo's," he said. "I pretended that she used to like chewing it, before she was hurt, and that she would let me pop the bubbles, and that's why she always gave them to me. She stopped doing it when I was twenty. I don't know if it's because she realized I was grown, or because she's entirely forgotten who I am." He looked at Teddy sheepishly. "Luna took the last few and put them in a frame for me. It's in my desk drawer."

Teddy didn't know what to say to this declaration, so he said nothing.

"I think your father would be grateful to you for getting the ring back, but more than a little annoyed that you went out when you were forbidden to do so and ended up getting into exactly the sort of trouble you were warned about. It was there for a long time, Teddy. You could have waited until the storm broke."

"I couldn't."

"I suppose I know that," Professor Longbottom said. He handed Teddy the ring. "I polished it a bit in my pocket to get the grit out of it."

Teddy took it, feeling its weight and its reality. He knew that the paw print would be gone from the Map now, and he knew that, for whatever reason, the Map considered the ring to be his now, rather than Dad's. It hadn't shown up until he was bound. The gold was plain and unadorned except for a gently beveled edge. There was no inscribed message on the inside, no magical sense of union with his father. It was just a wedding band, lost for eleven years, now found.

The tears rushed up before Teddy had a chance to stop them, and he closed his fist around the ring to keep from flinging it away again. He thought of the dream he'd had of his father, about seeing him there in the starlight, talking to him, feeling the non-weight of his hands. All of his life, Teddy had been loved and cared for by every adult he knew, and when the other children came, he had become "their Teddy," and he loved being their Teddy, didn't care that James called him this because, as he'd put it, "he's not the same a brother, but he's still mine." Uncle Harry was devoted to him and genuinely liked him. Ron and the Weasley brothers made sure he had a life full of rowdy fun, Arthur Weasley did his best to be a grandfather. But no love he'd got, no caring for, had fallen on his ears like his father's voice, no pummeling with affection had felt like those ghostly hands on his shoulders, and he'd never been as hungry for a smile as he was for the one his father had given him there, so like his own when he was unmorphed and calm. Getting the ring, getting what had been meant for him, had seemed like the most important thing in the world, the thing that would make that smile stay, that would make him feel that touch again, but here it was, and it was no more than a ring, no more than a memory, like the funny Muggle pictures and the crumbling crayons in his drawing box.

An arm came over his shoulders, and it was the wrong arm, and he drew away from it.

"Teddy, here," Professor Longbottom said, and Teddy opened his eyes to find a handkerchief. He took it and wiped his face, which was swollen and hot. He was suddenly aware of his surroundings again, aware of the privacy screens (Professor Longbottom had apparently pulled them closed so Madam Pomfrey wouldn't see), and of the continuing rain outside.

He blinked and swallowed hard, trying to stop the painful spasms that were twisting through him. "I'm... I'm sorry... I know... lucky..."

"Yes, you're overflowing with luck," Professor Longbottom said. "I always think that when I see a child whose good parents were stolen from him when he wasn't even a month old-how lucky he is. You were cheated, Teddy. It's all right to be angry about it sometimes, as long as you don't let it run your life."

Teddy sniffed and wiped his face again. "I hate crying."

"Would you like some tea? I have a fresh pot in my office, I can call it here."

"Yes, thank you."

Professor Longbottom waved his wand, and the teapot appeared and poured out two cups. The sugar, milk, and tongs appeared right after, and Teddy sweetened and lightened his. Professor Longbottom took it black. "I'm going to have to give you detention," he said. "Otherwise, the other students will ask a lot of questions I don't think you want them to ask."

"Yes, sir."

He sighed. "Would you like to work on the Whomping Willow with me? It needs some pruning, and as long as you know the secret of how to stop it..."

"I'd like that, thank you."

"Good." He turned his cup, then said, "Teddy, you know I've been talking to you more as Neville than as Professor Longbottom, and I know you won't say anything to anyone about bubble gum wrappers."

"Of course not!"

"But Professor Longbottom does have one very big concern, and I have to address it."

Teddy gulped and set his tea on the night stand. "Yes?"

"The way you got out today-morphing older-you know perfectly well we can't stop you from doing any morph you like. Even if the Ministry became a dictatorship again tomorrow and started tracking magic, they wouldn't be able to stop you, because it's outside the realm of what we can control."

"I know."

"But I want your word of honor that you won't do that again. Morph as you like otherwise, but don't use your talent to slip away from the people who are meant to be looking after you."

"I won't do it again. I looked sort of stupid anyway."

"Not exactly a word of honor, Teddy."

Teddy opened his hand. The ring was still there. He held it up for Professor Longbottom to see, closed his hand around it again, and said, "I promise not to morph older to get away from the teachers again."

"Thank you." Professor Longbottom smiled faintly. "I'll release you from that if it turns out that a teacher is evil. You can use anything you want to get away from one of those. I did." He stood up. "I'll expect you for detention Monday at nine. Meet me at greenhouse two."

Teddy watched him leave, then looked down at the ring again. He slipped it over the third finger of his left hand, where it hung like a loose necklace. He held it level with the other hand, morphed his finger to fill it so that it wouldn't fall off, then tucked his hand under his pillow and dropped off into a dreamless sleep.

14. The Forest Guard

Chapter 14:

The Forest Guard

Apparently, no one believed Priya's story about Teddy falling down the stairs, as he woke up that evening to most of the Forest Guard shoving aside the privacy screens and dropping down on his bed. Frankie pushed a swinging bed-table over to Teddy, with a large covered plate on it.

Corky grinned. "Heard you morphed your way out," he said. "Wicked. Personally, I wouldn't have gone for the rainy day, but if it's your thing..."

Teddy had lost the morph on his hand, and could feel Dad's wedding ring hanging flopping about, so he slipped his finger out of it and closed his fist around it before pulling his hand out from under his pillow and sitting up. Ruthless flopped down on her belly in the place where his feet had been and said, "You could have snuck me out with you, you know."

Teddy forced a smile. "Have you started Metamorphosing without telling anyone?"

"Brought you dinner," Frankie said, and uncovered the plate with a flourish. There was a prodigious pile of food on it, tall enough that Teddy was reasonably sure someone had used magic to keep it from collapsing and rolling all over. "Sorry we're late, but we had to wait for Pomfrey to slip off. She'd have never let all of us in."

Teddy took the fork Frankie had set down-carefully slipping Dad's wedding ring under his thigh to keep it hidden-and poked at the food pile experimentally. "I'll never eat all this!" he said, smiling.

Ruthless, Maurice, Corky, and Tinny all produced forks from their pockets, gathered around the plate, and dug in along with him.

"Can't have you eating alone," Tinny said. "That's antisocial, is what that is."

Donzo dragged a chair over from near the windows and sat in it cross-legged. "I, er, sort of dragged your character into a mess. I forgot that Frankie left us shackled after that bit with the street gang before hols, and sort of ran into another fight before Zach reminded me that you were supposed to be there, so I rolled for you. Hope you don't mind. Got us unshackled, anyway."

"It's fine."

"Well, I felt bad about it, so I gave you a free karate lesson. Your fight skills are up a bit." He tossed Teddy a new stat-coin, then fumbled around his bag for a piece of parchment while Teddy tried to retrieve his wand from the night stand without moving his leg enough to reveal the ring.

"I could've used some karate lessons before going out on the ice with Red Caps," Teddy said.

Frankie laughed. "Teddy, you can't even come out of a fireplace without falling on your face-trying karate on an icy hill might not have helped you much."

Teddy waved a gesture at him that might have earned him another detention if a teacher had been nearby, then took the parchment Donzo was offering and set the stat-coin on it. "Revelo," he said, pointing his wand at it. His character's name appeared. It was currently "Doran McManus," though Teddy thought he might change it a fourth time, as he still didn't like it. Most of them used his "code name," Wings, as he'd lucked upon an small airplane during a Heathrow crawl in November and obtained it against all odds by getting a perfect roll. He hadn't learned to fly it yet, of course, as no one in the game had the skill to sell him, but Frankie thought he needed a nickname ("You can't settle on his real name!") and it had stuck. The stats for him started to scroll over the sheet, including a drawing up in the right-hand corner. "Hey, who did that?"

Roger gave him a little wave. "I drew everyone's. I'm not very good."

Teddy smiled. It certainly wasn't as good as one of Dad's drawings, but it was better than he himself could have done. Doran seemed to be a redhead vaguely reminiscent of Percy Weasley, which made it quite amusing to see him posed to fight a Muggle-style duel.

"Revelo," Corky muttered, disgusted. "Why use that one? Everyone uses that. My mom uses that to retrieve the grocery list she uses every month."

"I don't know," Ruthless said, feigning sudden interest. "I'll bet it's a vast government conspiracy to make sure people can use the things. Can't have that. Clearly instigated by a new rising evil, quite possibly lurking in the Forbidden Forest."

"Your mum uses the same grocery list every month?" Donzo asked.

"Yeah, she's not very creative. Also, she doesn't have band groupies to shop for her."

Donzo started to make a gesture, then leaned over to Teddy and stage-whispered, "Is it one finger less in Canada, or do they do it the way we do?"

Corky made both signs, one with each hand, in Donzo's general direction.

"Apparently, they just can't make up their minds," Teddy said.

"It's a sad lack of self-knowledge," Ruthless agreed.

"I know some Italian ones, too," Corky said, and demonstrated one for her.

"Excuse me!"

They all looked up. Madam Pomfrey was storming down the ward, her hands on her hips. "Teddy is meant to be resting!"

"Oh, we're just cheering him up," Maurice said.

Madam Pomfrey ground her teeth. "One of you can stay to cheer him up. For about five minutes. The rest of you, get back to your Houses! It's nearly curfew anyway."

"Would you lot mind...?" Frankie asked. "I could do with a word with Lupin."

The rest gathered up their things, jostled Teddy fondly, and made their way out.

Frankie waited until they were gone and Madam Pomfrey had taken up a watch at the door to make sure they weren't coming back, then said, "I've been thinking."

"About Sanjiv?" Teddy asked carefully.

"Yes." Frankie looked over his shoulder to make sure Madam Pomfrey wasn't listening in. "I couldn't sleep the night before we left, and I overheard Mum tell Dad that the Dementors tried to get in through the Forbidden Forest during the war. She and your mum found something in there. Some kind of secret place. They had to go through spiders, she said." He bit his lip. "Spiders, Teddy. In the forest. That weird ivy. D'you think...?"

Teddy wasn't even sure what Frankie was asking. "Er..."

"Well, I was thinking, if there's someplace in the Forest that's even more magical than the rest of it, maybe that's where-you know-souls go, if their bodies are still alive."

"I don't know... It seems a little... well, I'm sure if it were that simple..."

"I want to find out. If we could get his soul back to his body, then-" Frankie shrugged. "Well, it would be good, wouldn't it? Something we could fix?"

"I... have you talked to your mum about this?"

"She's always at work, and I can't ask her about things she does at work, because she's not allowed to tell me."

"But she told your dad, it must not be about Unspeakable-ing-"

"Teddy, I want to go back there when the weather breaks." He sat down miserably in the chair Donzo had left. "It may not be anything, but I have to know. Mum wouldn't have mentioned the place if she hadn't thought it had something to do with this, it's all she thinks about now! Will you come with me?"

"Sure," Teddy said quickly, hoping to find ways to delay this until Frankie got it out of his head and started thinking straight again. "But you're right, we should wait until it's warmer. I don't fancy another go with Red Caps on the ice. Even with extra karate points."

Frankie smiled faintly. "All right, then. We'll do what our mums did-just head out into the Forest and find something."

Teddy nodded, hoping quite fervently that what they found wouldn't turn out to be the lost Acromantula colony. "As soon as it's warm again."

"Thank you. I'm really glad, I was afraid you'd think I'd gone round the bend. Though I guess if you thought that, you'd go with me anyway, wouldn't you?"

Teddy shrugged. "I'd go with you," he said. "You asked."

"I don't know whether or not to take that as you thinking I've gone mad."

"I don't," Teddy said.

"All right, then." Frankie shook himself out, like he'd been relieved of a great burden. "So, what were you really doing out there today?"

Teddy actually considered telling him. Frankie wasn't on the outside; they'd always known one another, camped out in the Apcarnes' back garden more than once, fallen asleep chummily on Granny's parlor floor, got in trouble for daring one another to eat slugs in Granny's garden when Teddy was four. Frankie knew what Teddy dreamed about when he woke up screaming or crying, the same way Teddy knew that Frankie adored his baby sister (despite frequent appearances to the contrary) and was scared of the dark. They'd never told each other these things, but having eaten slugs with a person tended to make telling unnecessary sometimes.

But in the end, he just said, "Oh, I was out enjoying the weather. You know."

Frankie rolled his eyes, not believing, but not pressing. "You're mad, Lupin. You beat me in that by quite a long way."

"I'll remember that when the Acromantulas are eating us..."

They talked lightly until Madam Pomfrey, exasperated, pointed out that Frankie had been there for twenty minutes when he'd been given five. She escorted him out. Teddy took the opportunity to slip Dad's ring into his book bag, which he then tucked behind his pillow. He ignored the odd look this got him when she brought him a Sleeping Solution.

Professor Longbottom made a great show of collecting Teddy for detention on Monday night after supper, and the other students all smiled knowingly, some whispering to those who didn't know that Teddy Lupin was a Metamorphmagus, and had morphed his way right into trouble on Saturday. No one seemed to think anything of this beyond a generalized admiration for the ability. Teddy pulled on his cloak, which he'd brought down with him on Professor Longbottom's instructions, closing its fasteners as they went outside (Granny'd had the fasteners made specially, with his initials worked into the silver). The night was brittle and cold, and lit only by the stars, as the moon was new and black. Professor Longbottom lit his wand and indicated to Teddy that he should do the same, and they walked across the grounds in a bubble of clear light, coming at last into the shadow of the Whomping Willow. A branch took a lazy swipe at them.

Professor Longbottom Summoned a long branch, then handed it to Teddy. "Would you like to do the honors?"

Teddy took it and pointed his wandlight at the gnarled, above-ground roots at the base of the trunk. The knot wouldn't be obvious if you didn't know it was a switch of sorts, but if you knew there was a switch there, it couldn't be anything else. He reached in with the branch and nudged it. The branches stilled.

"My wand is made from this tree," Teddy said.

Professor Longbottom looked around at him. "Is it really?"

"Yes. I found out at Christmas, from Ollivander."

"Pomona-Professor Sprout-told me that she'd given him a large limb once. She didn't know if he'd done anything with it."

"He said this is the only one of the wands to choose anyone. And it chose Mum and me."

"Did you tell Harry? He's interested in wandlore. I'm sure he'd like to know."

Teddy realized that, for no reason he could imagine, he hadn't told Uncle Harry; other than the people who'd been in Ollivander's, Professor Longbottom was the only one to know. "So... what do we need to prune?"

"There's some brave but foolish mistletoe that's decided to give the Willow a go. They aren't getting along well. We'll have to pull out the leaves so we can get a clear view, then prune whichever branches it's attached itself to." He pointed up to a clump of fresh leaves that formed a ball in the Willow's upper branches. It had wound itself tight around the wood, and the tree had obviously tried several times to pummel it off, as twigs were broken off sharply and tangled in the parasite's tendrils. "I thought we could take broomsticks up there. And don't look at me like that, it is your detention, so you don't have to like it, and Madam Hooch says you're perfectly competent. Accio broomsticks!"

Two broomsticks came flying out over the fluxweed patch, and each of them caught one. Teddy was glad to see that Professor Longbottom didn't look any fonder of this than he himself was. They kicked off and flew to the top of the tree, circling the ball of mistletoe. "We'll have to get inside the branches," Teddy said.

"I think you're right. It's a bit tight, though."

"I'll go." Teddy flew close to the thickest nearby branch without checking, then let go of the broomstick with his hands and looped them around the trunk of the tree, thin this high up. He hooked his knee over the branch, then let the broomstick fly off where it would.

"Teddy?"

"It's easy."

"I meant we ought to stay on the broomsticks."

"Oh. Well, I'm here, and it's an easy reach."

"Are you sure you're all right there?"

"Yes, of course."

Professor Longbottom, frowning at him between the branches, said, "All right, Teddy, but I'm keeping my wand on you, in case you slip."

Unconcerned, Teddy scrambled out onto the branch, then sat down at the edge of the mistletoe growth and started pulling it, thrusting it out to Professor Longbottom as it came off.

Professor Longbottom Banished the detritus to a pile on the ground. "There are only a dozen Whomping Willows left in the world," he said. "It was very plausible that Hogwarts would want one, so Professor Dumbledore thought it would make a good cover. At least that's what Professor Sprout said. Dumbledore wanted the school to buy it, but your grandmother insisted on paying for at least half of it. That would be your grandmother Lupin, not your Granny Tonks." He caught another ball of mistletoe and sent it flying away. "Your grandparents didn't have a lot of money, as I understand it, but they wanted to do everything they could. They were listed as 'contributors,' and your grandfather took something of a crash course in Herbology so that he could act like an excited amateur who just couldn't resist helping Hogwarts acquire a rare tree. Quite a lot of surprising people were listed as donors to cover it up. Some of them were even real."

Teddy smiled and pulled himself further along the branch to reach more of the mistletoe. "Granny Tonks said she never met my grandmother Lupin. She was a Muggle-born, but that's really all I know. Oh, and a Ravenclaw. They were both Ravenclaws. Granny and Granddad met my grandfather Lupin once-I guess Dad was ill and his father came to visit him at St. Mungo's-but they didn't talk about trees." He yanked out a larger clump, and realized the mistletoe was almost gone. To his disappointment, there didn't seem to be any more.

"Get your wandlight in there," Professor Longbottom said. "We need to see how far up the limb it's been taking root."

Teddy ran his wand over the branch, which showed scars halfway back to the trunk. Professor Longbottom winced and decided that they'd need to lose this limb entirely, but was relieved that the tree hadn't allowed any further infestation. "Teddy, you'll need to get out of the tree now," he said. "I'll sever the branch. How's your Levitation Charm?"

"Professor Flitwick thinks it's good."

"Well, he'd be the one to know. So, why don't you... Teddy?"

Teddy, who had climbed halfway down the tree, looked up. "What?"

"I was going to call the broomstick back."

"Oh. Oops. This is quicker."

"Can you get a good aim on the branch?"

Teddy reached the bottom limb and jumped to the ground, in the shady area under the gently swaying outer branches. "I can see it," he said.

"All right, then. Let's do this. Levitate it before I cut it."

Teddy trained his wand on the branch and said, "Wingardium Leviosa."

The limb seemed to shudder, then, far above, Professor Longbottom made a jagged motion with his wand, and suddenly the branch was free, held up only by Teddy's charm. The Levitation was steady and sure-more than it usually was in class-and Teddy wondered if the tree recognized his wand somehow and knew he meant to help it.

"Pull it away from the tree. Put it down by the mistletoe."

Carefully, Teddy urged it over, delighted with actually using magic for something, not just doing class work with it. He felt quite grown-up, and very carefully set the bit of the Whomping Willow down with its former parasite. Professor Longbottom set up protective spells to prevent any damage to the surroundings, then set the lot of it on fire. He stood with Teddy for a long time while they watched it go. "Good work," he said.

Teddy smiled, enjoying the firelight on his face, and enjoying the clean branches of the Willow above him. "Can I help with it again, if you need it?"

Professor Longbottom agreed to ask, though he qualified it by pointing out that the Whomping Willow largely took care of itself-"barring mistletoe and Miss Fletcher"-so it probably wouldn't happen often. Teddy went back to his dormitory, feeling good, and played with Checkmate for an hour before doing his homework.

By the time he got to sleep, it was quite late, and he fell into a dream without noticing it. He was sitting on the bank of a river, looking up through the branches of the Whomping Willow. Everything seemed quite peaceful, though he couldn't see the other side of the river. This seemed all right and natural. A bridge stretched over it, going into misty nothing. A bird flew high overhead, and, from the limbs of the tree, he could see a wolf looking down. A butterfly landed on his hand, and he set it carefully on one of the Willow's pale leaves.

"Help! Someone help!"

He jumped to his feet. "Frankie?"

"Teddy, help me!"

The voice was coming from the mist, which had crowded in over the river now. Teddy ran for the bridge, but as soon as he set foot on it, there was a horrible crunching sound, and the mist flooded up around him. The bridge had come undone from its moorings, and he felt it spinning madly in the river. He was thrown hard against the rail, but not shaken loose.

"TEDDY! HELP!"

"I can't! The bridge! It's gone! Mum, Dad, help!"

But they were dead; they couldn't hear him, and the bridge continued swirling and tilting, splashing Teddy with freezing water as it skimmed through the rapids.

"TEDDY!" Frankie's voice was further away now, far up the riverbank, and drowned under a growing thunder.

Teddy woke himself up. His room was still dark, but dawn was starting to seep in and give shape to his belongings. Checkmate, who had curled up on a ball on top of his wrist where it stuck out from under the pillow, gave him a surprised sort of meow, then climbed over his face and settled on his side, going back to sleep draped over him in a u-shape. Teddy petted her absently until the last of the dream went away.

Teddy hadn't really thought about how he meant to dissuade Frankie from a pointless Forest jaunt once the weather broke, but if he had, he would have guessed it to be more difficult than it was.

For starters, the weather didn't break for a week, and the Hogwarts grounds were, in any place not directly attended to by the staff, a large sheet of shining ice. Hagrid kept the path to paddock and his cabin clear, and Professor Longbottom made a path to greenhouses, but there was no question of navigating the sharp drop-offs near the lake or behind the castle. Frankie decided this would be useful research time, and recruited Teddy to help him in the library. Together, they worked through a stack of books on the soul. Teddy got stuck with Eternal Identity: Foundation or Sham? by Psyche Numen, Dialogue With the Departed by Gilderoy Lockhart, and a bestseller Frankie's dad had edited, dramatically titled Soul Survivor: Final Proof of the Final Transition which was a collection of tales from ghosts, dictated to Daffy and revised carefully for dramatic wording by Helena Ravenclaw, talking about the moment of choice, and their sense that something lay beyond... which, to Teddy's mind, didn't seem like proof, but he supposed they knew more about it than he did. Frankie had taken up books on Hogwarts, including both editions of Hogwarts, A History, several articles Luna Lovegood had written about the Forest wildlife after she'd left school but before she'd settled on a life of traveling, Rita Skeeter's biographies of three or four headmasters, and the Encyclopedia of Magical Britain. Between them, they ascertained that the Forest had been home to a lot of dangerous creatures and a handful of mysterious ones, and that a lot of people argued about the nature of the soul.

"We need to know more about Dementors," Frankie hissed one day in early February. "But Pince has all the books about them in the Restricted section. What can we tell her?"

"We need a note," Teddy said, grasping at this as a good chance to derail Frankie's obsession. "And I can't think of any reason to give..."

"Could you morph into an older student?"

"No, I promised not to, and they need notes, too. I think a teacher would notice if a student he never had before suddenly asked for a note."

"Well, you could look like someone who they do have."

"I promised not to," Teddy said again.

Frankie looked mutinous for a moment, but then nodded. He understood promises. "I'll ask Robards. Tell him I need it for... damn, I can't think of anything."

"I'll ask him," Teddy heard himself say, and Frankie looked too relieved to take the words back, so after Defense Against the Dark Arts the next day, Teddy found himself approaching Robards's desk, thinking idly of the last paw print, the one in his office, wondering what Dad might have left there, then shaking it off and clearing his throat.

Robards gave him a real enough smile. "Teddy-did you need something?"

If he was going to lie, this would be the time for it, but he decided not to-though he thought the whole, unvarnished truth might be a mistake as well. "I've been reading about the war," he said. "About souls, especially. Thinking about the Muggle-borns who were kissed. I wondered... could I get a note to get some books on Dementors from the Restricted Section?"

"Why would they be in the Restricted Section?" Robards asked. "I never heard of studying them being dangerous."

"I don't know. But that's where they are. Maybe they're afraid we'll try to summon them or control them or whatnot. Could I have a note?"

Robards pointed to a chair. "Have a seat, Teddy." This didn't sound good, and what Robards said next didn't help: "Your homework is slipping, Teddy."

Teddy gulped. "I've finished it all."

"Finished, yes. You've got all of the answers carefully parroted back from the textbook, which I'm willing to accept from students, but not from you, because you've already shown me that you can do better. Is this because of spending all your time in books on the war?"

Teddy sighed. "Maybe."

"I wouldn't be helping you very much by giving you more access."

"I'll do better."

"What are you trying to find out? I might actually know, you know." He nodded encouragingly.

Teddy bit his lip, wondering. Robards might know about Dementors; he'd never thought to ask. "Do you, er... know what happens to souls they eat?"

Robards sat back. "That's quite a question you're trying to answer."

"Do you know, Professor?"

"No. No one knows." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "We know that the body can survive quite a long time without the soul. Years, really, as long as there are people to feed and care for it. But our knowledge of what happens to any soul when it's separated from its body is scanty at best, even in the more standard cases. I assume you've read Soul Survivor?"

"Yes, sir."

"We know that the soul survives beyond the body, but we don't know the mechanisms or the nature of the survival. And when it comes to Dementors, we don't understand how they consume a soul-or how a soul would be consumed, as it's normally indestructible. No one has ever studied or dissected a Dementor to find out how it feeds. It may take whatever it needs, then, er... expel the rest."

Teddy thought of what happened to his own food when his body was finished with it, and didn't like connecting that to anyone's soul. "Do you think it's possible that their souls are just... out there somewhere? Trapped or whatnot? Or maybe they've gone to whatever there is?"

"Teddy, I don't know," Robards repeated. "There isn't a way to know."

"Couldn't they catch a Dementor and study it?"

"Who do you plan to feed to it so you can observe what happens?"

Teddy recoiled from this question, and didn't ask again for the note. Frankie was disappointed in him, and was sure the Ministry knew more about Dementors than Robards had let on-"They were Azkaban guards for years! I'll bet they've got loads of files about them."

"In that case, maybe your mum-" But Teddy stopped, as Frankie shook his head sharply. The subject of asking his mum about any of it was taboo. His whole notion was that she should be less involved.

The days weren't entirely caught up in Frankie's morbid search as February blustered along into March, which came in like a lion with another storm (to Teddy's relief, as they were running out of books on the proper subjects). There was the ring, which Teddy found a box for and looked at regularly for the first few weeks, though as time wore on, it seemed more and more distant, less urgent, and it stayed in his drawer more often. There were Muggles and Minions games in the Hufflepuff Common Room, the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw Quidditch match (Ravenclaw won, which was the cause for a consolation party in the Common Room), and a mad hex war in which he and Donzo squared off against Corky and Maurice. All of them had ended up in Madam Pomfrey's care, Teddy with what appeared to be a stalk of celery growing out of his eyebrows. The detention for that was with Filch, who had them scrub the floor of the entrance hall. Teddy found another stone with the "MWPP" mark in it while he was scrubbing. The Marauder's Map didn't show anything there, but he snuck back later, in case it was something of Peter Pettigrew's, as he hadn't found the right Latin yet. The cubby hole turned out to be empty, though.

There were also classes, and tests as Easter holidays approached. Teddy bent his mind to his homework again, often studying deep into the night to make sure his marks didn't fall again. He'd had enough trouble with that when his wand had been off, and he couldn't afford another drop-off. After he finished a particularly nasty essay for Slughorn, he was congratulated in class and invited to a party. This time, Slughorn invited Corky and Maurice as well, so he went. It turned out fun, though Donzo was deeply embarrassed to find that his father had come up for it. Kirley McCormack Duke turned out to be a rather fun guest for everyone else, though, and by the end of it, he was singing songs on request.

Unlike Christmas hols, nearly everyone stayed during Easter. On a Saturday near the end of March, in the middle of the Easter holidays, Frankie called a Muggles and Minions tournament to get everyone calmed down. Teddy was quite glad of this, as it seemed much more like the old Frankie than he'd acted all term, but when they got there, his game planning was slipshod, and he didn't really seem to have any objective in mind. Tinny covered most of the gaps with very creative solutions, but Teddy didn't think anyone there failed to notice. Just before lunch, Teddy deliberately had his character sent to a mind hospital-which seemed to be something like the Closed Ward at St. Mungo's-by having him attempt to do a spell, which meant he had to roll perfectly to avoid being declared mad. He charmed the dice to roll low, then suggested that, as long as he was otherwise occupied, he and Frankie should go get everyone's lunch. Frankie, rather shockingly, handed his game plan over to Tinny, who was already tweaking it subtly by the time Teddy led Frankie out. He marched him to the same broom cupboard they'd stopped in when Teddy was off-kilter, and shut the door.

"Wake up, Frankie," he said. "You said it to me, now I'm saying it to you."

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not. This is mad."

"What's mad is a bloke lying in the Closed Ward while his soul is off wandering around somewhere. It's... it's an insult."

"Yeah, it's really bad, but we can't do anything about it. Remember about dragons and fire-breathing and all that business you gave me? Well... you're walking in front of one and it's going to burn you."

Frankie looked at him truculently. "Fine. Whatever."

He opened the door, grumped his way down to the kitchens, and they picked up lunch. While they'd been away, Ruthless had staged a rescue attempt for Teddy's character, and he had to roll to see if he survived a run from security. He had to use karate to knock out a guard, and it turned out that the guard had a keyring, and he had to roll to get the keys. Once he had them, it apparently raised his power level. This was duly recorded on his stat-coin. Wings was edging solidly into the middle level of characters, and Donzo's character no longer needed to support him, which was a good thing, as they'd gone in wildly different directions.

Frankie avoided him for the rest of the game, and didn't drift over to the Gryffindor table during dinner.

Feeling low and tired and useless at the ineffectiveness of his speech-or even reverse effectiveness-Teddy sat numbly at his work table, a blank piece of parchment waiting for his Transfiguration homework. Instead, he put down his stat-coin and dully said, "Revelo," prodding it with his wand. Wings's stats appeared. They bored Teddy. He cleared the parchment and tossed the stat-coin into a drawer. It clattered down beside the box Teddy had found to put Dad's ring in. He took it out again, looking at its unmarked gold, the beveled edge, wondering how his father would have handled all of this. Better, probably. He could hardly have done worse.

He set the ring down on the parchment, letting the light from his candle play over it. It was a pretty thing, an old thing-the rings hadn't belonged to Mum and Dad first-and it seemed wound through with a history he couldn't read.

He prodded it absently with his wand, muttering "Revelo," as if it were a stat-coin or Corky's mother's shopping list, not really expecting anything to happen, not really believing that anything was happening until the page was half-filled with his father's thin, spidery handwriting.

15. Love Stories

Chapter 15:

Love Stories

My dear Teddy, Dad had written, and Teddy let his eyes trace the lines over and over. They were addressed to him, they were meant for him, written to him by his father. He forced his glance onward, to read the rest.

As I'm writing this, your mummy is asleep, and you're sleeping a few feet away from me. Your hair is changing colors. If this letter is shorter than it ought to be, you've no one to blame but yourself. I can't seem to look away from you for long. I can't believe how small you are. I'd forgotten. I suppose Harry-your godfather-must have been this small, but I can't remember what it was like.

I hope, actually, that you'll never read this, that all of the things I want to share with you, I'll tell you over the dinner table, or bore you with on long tromps through the countryside. I started training you for those this afternoon. We had ourselves a nice tromp in Granny's garden, and your hair turned exactly the color of the rosebush leaves. I don't imagine you'll remember any of the stories I told you there, though.

But there's a war on, and it's brutal. I've escaped death often enough that it's not a stranger to me anymore, and realistically, I know that this letter may be needed.

Before Sirius Black died, he and I had talked about gathering our memories of James Potter into a Pensieve for Harry, but somehow, it was never done. Your grandfather's Pensieve was destroyed when his office was ransacked, and Dumbledore's is locked up at Hogwarts, so there's been no option of doing that this year, but I wanted to give you what I could. Mummy thought you might want to know me, for some odd reason of your own.

Most of the things I want to share with you can't be shared in a letter. They're beyond words. As winter went on, I worked on a way to share things with you, in the event that things needed to be shared. I always had talent with charming objects-perhaps, by the time you read this, you'll have made the acquaintance of a certain map that's in Harry's possession just now-and after a lot of trial and error, I finally found a way. It's not as clear or objective as a Pensieve, and I'm afraid there was no way to take the memories from outside my own head-you'll be seeing through my eyes, rather than actually seeing me-but it's the best we can do with what we have. If there's one thing your mummy has finally managed to teach me, after years of trying, it's that sometimes, the best we can do with what we have is enough. Better than enough. Sometimes, it's the best it's possible to be, and we appreciate it more because it's hard-earned and precious.

I don't know how old you'll be when Mummy decides to show this to you. I'll tell her that I've added the letter, so she won't have to explain-

Teddy blinked hard, his chest and throat tight, the words blurring in front of him. The possibility of his own death had occurred to his father. The idea that Mum could have died, that she wouldn't be here to share this...

He leaned away from his work table, not wanting to cry, and if he did cry, not wanting it to fall on the parchment and blur it. He waited for the wave to pass.

...so she won't have to explain.

I chose to charm my wedding ring because it's the most important thing I own, the only important thing, actually. The other things in my life are just things, but this ring means everything. I taught Mummy to add some memories of her own, which I'm sure you'll find, and maybe you'll actually get a look at me in them-Mummy and I knew one another for a very long time-but most of what's here is mine. I'm sure you know I'm not a perfect man, or always an especially good one, but please forgive me-the memories I'm giving you are the best I have, the ones that I hope will let you know who I am, and who you are, and what you mean to me. Mummy knows how to retrieve them, but I can already hear her telling me to add the instructions here. Just in case. How I hate those words.

What you must do-or have Mummy do if you don't have a wand yet-is set the ring down on a piece of parchment (the one it's releasing this letter to will do well), turn it counterclockwise three times, and tap it with your wand once and use the incantation Cordis Patronum.

While I don't imagine myself to be a deeply fascinating person, I know the temptation to linger in the past quite well, so I've made sure that the charm isn't infinite. It will end on its own after thirty minutes. You'll be able to go back in a day or two, if you're so inclined, but it won't let you get lost. I won't let you get lost, not as long as I have any power to act.

I love you more than I thought it possible to love another person. I feel selfish and lucky and greedy to have taken such a great gift from life. Everything I am, everything I've done, everything I've learned is all for you. And that will be true even if you never have to read this letter or see the memories in the ring.

I give you this ring with all my love, Daddy

Teddy read the letter over and over, imagining his father sitting in the nursery, perhaps at the table where they'd kept all of his own baby things, quill in hand, stealing glances at the crib as he wrote to the child sleeping there, knowing that the war was closing in around them. The image was so clear it hurt his eyes, even though he wasn't actually seeing it. In his imagination, Dad reached through the bars of his crib with the end of the quill feather, and tickled his nose.

The rage he'd felt on the day he found the ring tried to push itself back up, to fill his head with screams and fire. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all that this was all he should have left of the man who'd written it. But it was something, something he was meant to have, something that had been made for him especially, and addressed to "My dear Teddy."

He fought the anger away, and pulled out a fresh piece of parchment, not wanting to risk losing the letter. He set it very carefully down on his trunk, then set the ring in the center of it.

"The charm broke during the winter underground," he told himself to forestall disappointment. "Or Dad made a mistake, and it all faded after only a few months. Nothing will happen."

He turned it counterclockwise three times, tapped it, and said, "Cordis Patronum."

The ring glowed a soft golden color, then suddenly the light in Teddy's room changed. It was sunlight, and he was warm and there were flowers and long grass, and he was running toward the house at the top of the hill, running after the big man with the light yellow hair, and they were both laughing. The big man swung around and caught him and swept him toward the sky, and he laughed, and it was a free, high sound, and Teddy understood that he was Remus Lupin, and he was five years old, and the man was his Daddy, John Lupin, who had promised they might put up a tent in the field later, and have stories and a campfire. This was the most important thing there was in the world.

They reached a stone wall, and John swung him up onto it, and they walked along, side by side, nearly the same height now (well, Remus's face was at the level of his daddy's shoulder, but that was close enough, like two blokes just walking along the street as friends). He thought of himself as a knight, going along beside the King of Greenland, and they were going to rescue the queen from a horrible dragon. A stick had blown up against the wall, and he picked it up, brandishing it like a sword.

"Ah," John said, "the mighty Sir Remus is ready for action, is he? What sort of thing shall we fight today?"

"The dragon! It has Mummy!"

"Well, then we ought to get about rescuing her, oughtn't we? It looks fierce! Can you see it, Remus? It's got black scales and red eyes."

Teddy peered out through his father's eyes, and saw the house ahead, where a black blanket with red markings was fluttering on a clothesline. A tall, thin woman who looked exactly like Dad-and he knew she was his mummy and her name was Julia-was using drying spells on it, and she shook her finger at them, laughing, and said, "Oh, you are not having a battle with my laundry, John Lupin!" And then the blanket went flying, and they rescued her, and then there was a strange moment of blurring, and they were somewhere else, and Dad wasn't as happy because he'd been bitten and survived three transformations, but now there was the amazing weight of a great bird on his wrist, and the full moon seemed very distant. The bird was hooded and had a sharp, curved beak. Julia was behind him, her hands on his arms.

"My father used to do this with me," she said. "He used to hunt, but we won't do that today, will we? We'll just watch how beautiful he is." She prodded his arm, and the hawk flew up into the sky, and it circled around a tower, and she clapped and cuddled him. "Look at it! Look how wonderful it is!"

It was wonderful, and free, and he laughed, and it was the first time he'd really laughed since the monster came out of the dark and stole all of his games from him.

"The world is full of wonderful things, Remus," Julia said. "And they'll always be there. No matter what, you must always remember that the world is full of wonders."

Remus didn't know why she sounded so sad as he watched the hawk circle up into the sky. The sad things had gone up with him, dragged into the cold air and casually dropped into the ocean. He took the feed bag she offered him (she was watching warily) and the hawk was coming back, coming back to him, to Remus John Lupin, but before it landed the world blurred again, and he was at Hogwarts, in Gryffindor Tower, only two floors above the place where Teddy really was.

He felt himself grinning across a poker hand at James Potter, who looked eerily like Uncle Harry, and had a Tarot card stuck to his forehead.

The first thing Teddy noticed about this memory was how much more there was in it. The memories of Dad's distant childhood were bright-colored and warm, but fuzzy around the edges and far away. The boy whose eyes he was now looking through lived much more vitally in his father's head, the memory was vivid and complete. Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew made up the other sides of their little square, each sitting at the edge of someone (Sirius's) winter cloak, and there was a small pile of Chocolate Frog cards, Knuts, and Sickles in the middle.

Teddy could feel a Tarot card against his own skin-well, against Dad's-and the Sticking Charm wasn't exactly expertly done, and it tingled. The window behind him was open; the breeze was warm. An owl (James Potter's; its name was officially Hildegard, but everyone called her Garters) was tapping for food on the bars of her cage. The room smelled strongly of cedar because the trunks hadn't been unpacked for the year yet, just opened long enough to dig for what they'd need right away. Teddy seemed to know things he doubted his father had recorded on purpose-Dad thought that James reminded him of his father, with his restless imagination and never-ending store of good games, though a herd of hungry thestrals could not have torn this from him. Most clearly of all, Teddy was aware of a deep, desperate rush of affection for all of these boys, affection shot through with ropes of paralyzing fear. Would they realize he himself wasn't "cool" enough to be with? Would they start calling him "Squeamish Lupin" and laugh at him? Or would they start caring for him the way James and Sirius cared for Peter-looking after him and helping him, but not thinking he really measured up? And, most of all, pounding like a drumbeat in Dad's skull, would they figure out the truth? The full moon was only in two days, and he couldn't think of any story to tell them that would be plausible, and they'd been asking what sort of thing his parents had been dragging him around to do all summer and he couldn't very well tell them they were looking for a cure, but what if they found out what was being researched in the Black Forest and-

"Lupin! Your bet!"

The card facing out from James's forehead was the Ten of Swords. On his left was Sirius, his face animated and much sharper than it was in any of the photos Teddy had seen. Sirius had the Five of Staves, and was looking avidly at everyone else's cards and fumbling with a handful of gold. On his other side, seen through the corner of his eye, was Peter. He turned with a smile, and the card on his head was The Tower, and Dad knew that it would be almost impossible to beat, there were only five cards above it.

"Er..."

"Well, I wouldn't bet against you," Peter said.

"You have to," Sirius told him. "I'm in for a Circe, plus a Sickle, which I'm going to lose, I know"-he looked at Dad and shook his head-"and James is still looking for something small enough to bet."

Dad squirmed-Teddy could feel this-and felt in his pockets for money. He didn't take it very seriously when they said they wouldn't bet against him. The whole object was to try and get people to bet more than they ought to on lousy cards, and since there was only a five in seventy-eight chance that his card was better than Peter's, he guessed they were just pulling his leg.

Peter finally tossed a Knut onto the pile.

Dad bit his lip, then shook his head. "I fold," he said.

James raised his eyebrows comically, and Sirius fell over, grasping his sides and laughing, managing to gasp out, "I call!" Peter was red-faced and leaning against his knees.

"What is it?"

"Finite incantatem totalis," James gasped out. Teddy felt the card fall from Dad's head. It was The World, the highest card in the Major Arcana, the best in the deck.

"Leave it to Lupin," Sirius said, rolling back up to a sitting position, "to have The World and fold."

"We practically told you, mate," James said.

Peter made a superior sort of face and started gathering up his winnings while James picked up the cards and shuffled.

"So," Sirius said, "do you need anything Thursday night? Do you want us to do your homework?"

James nodded. "Right, we could you know. Just make a few deliberate mistakes, and your teachers won't know the difference..."

Dad's heart was suddenly pounding, the light around the candles breaking into prisms. "What do you mean?" Teddy heard, and felt, him say.

"The full moon," Peter said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and now everything seemed like glass, like it would break. "Do you want us to do anything while you're howling at it?"

Dad blinked, and Teddy could feel his throat tightening.

The others all looked at each other and started to laugh. James swatted him lightly on the forehead. "Come on, Lupin, what do you take us for? We all have that advanced piece of magical technology called a calendar. Did you think we hadn't noticed that you're away once a month?"

Sirius nodded and squeezed his eyes shut, sticking a new card onto his forehead (The Emperor). "We thought you might secretly be a girl at first-that was James's idea, as he reckons the older ones go off monthly and take mood potions-but we checked and it was always the full moon. So we all talked about it over the summer, and were relieved to figure out that you're just a werewolf." He leaned forward and stuck a new card on Dad's forehead, then onto James's (Three of Swords) and Peter's (Four of Cups). He looked around. "Bets?"

Dad reached up and touched the card on his head. "But..."

"What, can you read it with your fingers? If so, it's cheating," Peter said.

"But..." Dad looked from one to another. "You're still... I mean... You like..."

"No, we can't bloody stand you," James said, rolling his eyes. He gave Dad a friendly shove. "Stupid git."

"Oh, no, he's falling toward me!" Peter said and shoved him again.

Sirius made a dramatic warding gesture, and the memory dissolved into a cheerful wrestling match as they happily insulted one another and ended up hexing each other, and they knew and they didn't care and they were still his friends and the memory twisted and changed and they were in a place Teddy had never entered, but knew right away-the Shrieking Shack.

They were older now. Peter's cherubic baby fat had entered a less attractive stage (Teddy thought, with some horror at the near-traitorous comparison, that he looked a lot like Frankie, just shorter and less confident). Sirius, on the other hand, looked like he'd stepped off the poster from a Muggle film. James continued to look like Uncle Harry.

"You have to leave!" Dad said frantically. "God, how many times do I have to tell you..." But he stopped, because James had disappeared, replaced with a large stag with prongs that stretched halfway across the shattered room.

"Change back, you moron," Sirius said. "You won't get outside like that. Go out to the garden. We'll meet you there."

"But-" Dad started, then James was back but Sirius and Peter were gone, replaced by a large dog and a plump rat.

"Come out to the garden," James said. "We'll keep you out of trouble."

"You can't-you..."

"We've spent the last two years working on this little surprise for you. You're not going to waste it, are you?" James grinned.

Dad couldn't find words, and Teddy felt gratitude rise up in him, blocking his throat until James was already halfway through the kitchen.

Dad looked nervously at the animals who were really Sirius and Peter.

"I, er..." He bit his lip. He always took off his robes before transforming. Unlike Animagi, his clothes didn't make the transformation with him.

"We've all seen you starkers before!" James called backward from the door. "I don't think you have to worry about us jumping on your skinny giblets." The door squeaked open, and he was gone.

Dad took his clothes off, acutely aware of the others, covering himself with his hands as they walked beside him until he was outside. He didn't want them to see him change, didn't want them to know that he screamed, but it was too late, and the pain came. He muted this memory somehow, or maybe couldn't remember it as clearly, and Teddy only felt the echo of it. What he felt more clearly was the warmth of the other animals around him as he lay curled up in pain, pressing against him, comforting him.

The memory twisted again, and the light changed, and they were younger again, and they were at King's Cross, and Dad was the first to look through the steam and see them there, see them hiding in a back corner beyond the barrier.

"Sirius," Dad hissed. "It's your cousin."

"I don't want to see my..." But Sirius trailed off and smiled broadly, and all four of them went through the steam to the two huddled figures who were Granny and Granddad, impossibly young, Granny achingly beautiful. In her arms was a squirming pink thing with a shock of black hair, wrapped in a blue blanket with stars on it. Sirius put his arms around both of them and said, "Is this her?"

"This is Nymphadora," Granny said. "Would you like to hold her?"

There was a tug on the shoulder of Dad's robes, and he turned to James, who was nodding toward a tall woman with black hair and gray eyes. She was scanning the platform in an irritated way, a smaller boy held firmly by the shoulder. Regulus... and Mad Auntie.

Dad, James, and Peter all formed a barrier so that she wouldn't spot Sirius and Granny. She looked at them suspiciously, and Peter gave her a jaunty wave. Beyond her, Teddy could see Julia Lupin, who was also suspicious, but nodded wisely. She swerved over to Mad Auntie and said, "Mrs. Black, I've been hoping for a chance to speak to you..."

She somehow-against all probability-managed to steer Mad Auntie off course (Regulus gave one last look over his shoulder before they disappeared into the crowd), then the baby who would become Teddy's mum someday was passed from boy to boy. She flinched at the sunlight on James's glasses, and Dad took her, and the only thing he felt was a kind of warmth. She smiled at him around a fat fist and her hair turned brown like his and then the memory really changed, and Teddy felt different, his body oddly shaped and centered, and he realized he'd stumbled on one of Mum's memories.

Through her eyes, Teddy could see a rocky hillside, marked by weathered signs with wizarding symbols on them, groggily pointing the way up a steep path. Teddy knew that she was nearly nine, and had been looking forward to this since Christmas, when Mr. Lupin promised that he would take her to see Merlin's Cave while the Squib school he was teaching in that year had its Easter holidays. The view shifted up, and he saw Dad, higher up the slope, looking young and quite graceful as he balanced on the stones. Mum was jealous of this as she watched him nimbly climb over a fall of jagged rocks that had spilled over the path. At Christmas, she pretended that she would grow up to marry him-Teddy found himself amused by this-but now she pretended that he was her teacher again, and he was teaching her to be graceful and not fall over her own feet. She took a deep breath and leapt, as he had, over a washed out gully. Landing safely from this, she felt confident that she could do anything, that she would never fall again, and the pain in her ankle came out of nowhere, like the rocks had come alive and bitten her, and she fell face first into a scattering of pebbles in the dirt.

"Dora!"

She looked up, and Teddy felt her face get hot, then-to his great pleasure-recognized the sense of mental push combined with a physical pinch as she tried to morph to cover it up. Having tried this many times himself, Teddy had an idea that she hadn't quite got it right, though he had no way of knowing how it was wrong. "Sorry!" she said. "Just... the, er... the rocks..."

Dad had reached her now, and squatted down beside her, pushing down on her shoulder as she tried to get up. "Your ankle is already swelling, Dora. You twisted it pretty hard." He pulled her leg straight, looking at it to check for breaks, and cursing under his breath. "The Ministry doesn't take care of these sites at all. No wonder there are no tourists." He finished his inspection. "It's just a sprain," he said. "I'm not as good at fixing this as your mum would be, we should really go back-"

"I trust you," Mum said, and her voice felt strange and high to Teddy. "You can fix it. And we can see the cave, like you said."

Dad bit his lip, looking unsure. Mum was hopeful, as, before they'd left, her parents had made a joke about wanting "alone time," and she didn't know exactly what they meant, but she thought Mr. Lupin was meant to have her all afternoon. "I'll try," he said tentatively, and raised his wand.

Mum's ankle grew warm and tingled, and Teddy could feel the swelling going down, but it was still sore. Dad helped her to her feet, and she tested it. It held her weight. "I'm fine!" she said. "You did it just like Mummy."

Dad looked at her suspiciously. "Walk." He waved his wand and cleared several stones from the path.

Mum took a few steps, trying to force herself not to limp, and on the last one, she hissed as her ankle tried to turn again.

"Mm-hmm," Dad said. "Dora, when someone asks if you're all right, you shouldn't lie. It could make it worse."

Mum sat down miserably on a boulder beside the path. "We can't go to the cave because I'm clumsy and I fell."

"We'll go some other..." Dad looked down the hill, then said, "Oh, what the hell." He pointed his wand at Mum and suddenly she felt light as a feather, like the wind might pick her up and carry her away, and she realized that he meant to carry her the rest of the way, and she loved him completely in that moment. Teddy felt this like sunshine breaking in the cloudy sky as Dad crouched down and let her sling her arms around his neck, then scooped her up, her sore ankle pointing up over his arm. She thought it looked like she was kicking a cloud.

Dad started climbing again, and he talked to her as he did, telling her stories about the cave, and Merlin seeing the dragons under Vortigern's tower. They finally reached the top, and the cave opened up, and suddenly the dreary Welsh countryside was gone. They were surrounded by sparkling crystals, lit by magic Mum didn't understand. Dad showed her how she could look in them and see the faces that she loved best, and how in another place, there were faces from the past.

"I want to see the future!" Mum said as he set her down so she could get closer to the past. She hobbled over to it, not feeling clumsy or embarrassed at all now. "I want to see who I'll be, and how everything turns out."

"No one's seen the future here since Merlin," Dad said. "If he did."

Mum turned, feeling horror. "Oh, you don't think he didn't, do you? Do you think the stories aren't true?"

"I don't know, Dora. But I've wondered... what if he wasn't seeing the future? What if he saw his own dreams of the future, and just made them happen?"

Mum turned the idea over, then smiled, then there was a shift in the memory, and it went dark, and Teddy was in his dormitory again, sitting at his work table, staring at Dad's wedding ring on a piece of blank parchment.

He looked at his watch. Thirty minutes had passed. A terrible, crashing wave of pity seemed to loom above him as he thought of the boys he'd seen, all lost, of Mum, with the light in Merlin's Cave flashing over her legs as her Mr. Lupin carried her around, of Dad, who had never been able to help him rescue the queen from the horrible dragon on the clothesline. They had been real.

But they had also been happy sometimes, and had loved one another, and had loved him enough to want him to know it.

He turned the ring counterclockwise three times and said, "Cordis Patronum."

Words formed beneath it, in his father's hand. "Don't get lost. Wait."

They faded and left the parchment blank. Teddy stared at it for a long time, his mind settling, thinking of the words, thinking of the hand that had written them so long ago.

"All right, Dad," he said, and picked up the ring. He started to put it back in its box, but found that he didn't want to lose sight of it just yet, so he rummaged through his trunk for a bit of string, hoping against hope that there would be one, and there was. It had been wrapped around the box of fireworks George Weasley had sent him. He looped it through the ring, tied a knot, and put it over his head. The ring now rested over his chest.

He wanted to go back into the past, but he didn't feel frustrated that he couldn't. Even the rule against going so soon was a gift from Dad, and he wasn't angry about it. He imagined having grown up with quiet proddings like this when he was about to make a mistake, and liked it. He guessed Dad must have lost his temper sometimes-once, when Uncle Harry and Granny had thought he was asleep, he'd sat on the stairs and listened to them talking, and Uncle Harry had said that Dad had lost his temper in a rather large way-but Teddy was quite sure that this was the father he'd meant to try to be, if he'd had the chance. It was the father John Lupin had been, and Teddy thought of the first memory again, of walking along a wall with the man who would be his grandfather, telling stories...

Like I do with James.

Teddy sat up, suddenly smiling. He hadn't even known anyone else had done that, but his grandfather had done it with his father, and if Dad had lived, perhaps they'd have played games like that together, and now he was doing it with James, and it was part of everything. He suddenly wanted to be back at Uncle Harry's, looking for treasure behind Aunt Ginny's knitting basket while James spun one of his endless tales about monsters.

Laughing, he reached for a quill and a small bit of letter parchment.

Dear James, he wrote in careful block letters, I don't know if you remember the game some of the grown-ups were playing at Christmas, called Muggles and Minions, but I play it quite a lot here at school, and my character has found an airplane, only I don't know how to use it. I thought we could share it. It might come in handy on treasure hunts, if you learn to fly it...

Teddy slept soundly that night, dreaming easily of the glade by the river. The fog was still there, but no one was screaming, and when he tried the bridge, it held. He walked into the shapeless mists on the other side, peering curiously into them, knowing he could go back when he needed to.

He woke up on Sunday feeling rested and relaxed, and played with Checkmate until it was time for breakfast, then sealed up his letter to James and nipped up to the Owlery before going down to the Great Hall. Ruthless caught him as soon as he got to the table.

"Watch out," she said. "Frankie's still fuming."

Teddy stopped. He'd nearly forgotten that Frankie was even angry at him. "But I-"

"I know," Ruthless hissed, "but he's annoyed."

Teddy started to go over to the Hufflepuff table, wanting to work this out, but when Frankie caught sight of him, he turned away, burying his nose in a book.

Ruthless caught him by the arm and dragged him back to Gryffindor. "Let him work it out, Lupin. He's not stupid. Usually."

"But he's-"

"Come on," she said. "Have breakfast. I didn't see you at dinner last night. You must be starving."

Teddy didn't feel especially hungry, but he let her pile food in front of him and he ate it, stealing glances across the Great Hall over bites of breakfast he didn't bother looking at. Frankie left as soon as he'd cleared his plate, and didn't talk to Teddy for the rest of the day.

16. Loyalty

Chapter 16:

Loyalty

"What's going on, Tinny?" Teddy asked across the Flitterbloom he was tending with her on Tuesday morning, after another day of snubs that had now managed to include Bernice, Ken, Roger, and even Zachary, who usually had his head on better.

She bit her lip. "Well... I can't very well... Frankie's a Hufflepuff and..."

"And Hufflepuff loyalty means not trying to help?"

"No, but..." She looked miserably down at the plant and trimmed a few stems. "Frankie started fuming right after you left on Saturday. Said you thought he was stupid and tried to trick him."

"What?"

"I don't know what... He said you thought you were fooling him, pretending to help, but really just thinking he'd forget about it if you played along. Or something like that. You aren't, are you?"

"Well... I can't tell, it's personal, but there's a reason."

"You were trying to fool him, then?"

"For his own good. He'd have done the same for me. He did do the same for me."

"He pretended to help you with something for a long time, then told you it was stupid?"

Teddy blushed. "No. I just-he... well, he told me when I was doing something mad. And I didn't say he was stupid!"

"No, you just acted like it," Tinny said. She bent back over the Flitterbloom, and didn't say anything more than "Pass the pruning shears" for the rest of class.

"Don't worry about it," Corky said later, as they headed down toward Hagrid's cabin with Maurice and Donzo (Maurice had actually been the one to get the invitation; Hagrid had, against all expectations, taken a shine to him since Christmas). "He'll get over it. And the 'Puffs think he's off his rocker. They just don't tell you that. Loyalty."

"Then you're not angry?"

"Let's see," Maurice said, "you used a sneaky technique to get something done. I wonder which House is least likely to be angry at you."

"I'm not angry, either," Donzo said. "Frankie's getting weird."

"And when a guitarist's son says that," Corky pointed out, "it must be really true."

Teddy would have preferred not to talk about the subject at all, as he couldn't very well tell them that he was worried about Frankie, since that would mean telling them everything, and that wasn't his business. To his relief, they reached Hagrid's before anything else was said.

Hagrid was out front with Buckbeak, tossing him ferrets. "Have a go at it?" he asked, offering the basket to Maurice.

"Will he bite me?" Maurice asked.

"Not if yer feedin' 'im. Just give 'im a bow, then, to be safe."

Maurice bowed to Buckbeak, then wrinkled his nose and plunged his hand into the dead ferrets and started tossing.

"Wicked!" Corky said. "What year do we study this?"

"Oh, I don't cover hippogriffs anymore," Hagrid said. "Too ruddy dangerous the governors say. No, Beaky's just a pet." He winked at the hippogriff. "By which I mean an old friend, o' course, Beaky."

Corky circled Buckbeak, looking at with delight. "What do you mean, too dangerous? What does he do?"

"He nearly took a student's arm off," a strident voice said, and all four boys looked at one another and groaned.

"Yeh're meant to be havin' yer detention, Missy," Hagrid said to Honoria Higgs, who was standing on the path to the paddock. "And yeh'd be wise not to be spreadin' old rumors around."

"It's not a rumor. I heard it directly from Mr. Malfoy. He can't believe they've let you bring that animal back to Hogwarts. I shall be writing about it in my first issue."

"Issue?" Teddy repeated.

"Don't get her started," Corky said, affecting an exaggerated shudder. "She doesn't shut up about it."

"Nor do I intend to," Honoria said primly. "The school governors, following his"-she wrinkled her nose at Donzo-"little visit from the press during autumn term, decided not to allow any more coverage in Hogwarts from the outside. And the Daily Prophet insists on more than students' words to print anything about Hogwarts these days, so if there's to be any voice, we'll have to write our own paper. We used to have one, you know, back before the first war. It was called The Weekly Charmer, and I've permission to call it that again, right from its first editor. I'm talking to Professor Slughorn about sponsoring it as soon as I get back from detention."

"And yeh'll do it sooner if yeh actually do yer detention," Hagrid said. "Off with yeh, yeh're meant to be feedin' bowtruckles, and mind yeh don't start steppin' on 'em again."

Honoria turned her nose up and disappeared into the paddock.

Maurice made a face at her back. "She couldn't have ended up in Ravenclaw?"

"We don't want her," Donzo said.

"Maybe she and Phillips would have killed each other, and we wouldn't have to deal with either of them," Corky suggested.

"Don't yeh start with that," Hagrid said. "Yer year's small enough without talk o' killin' each other. There's bin enough killin' to be gettin' on with."

"Tell that to Geoffrey," Maurice said. "He said the other day that the pure-bloods were like the Tsars and had to be got rid of. I went and read about that. There was acid. I don't fancy it."

"I don't think he really means it like that," Donzo said, then awkwardly added, "I live in a dormitory with him. He goes off a lot, but he never says anything about killing anyone. I think he just thinks we should leave or whatnot."

"And go where?" Corky asked.

Donzo shrugged and shook his head, bewildered. "I don't think he's really thought it out. Perhaps he means us all to go to Canada."

"We don't want you," Corky said, and winked.

They managed to avoid Hagrid's cooking by occupying themselves with Buckbeak until dinner, when they all expressed shock and regret at how much time had passed. Honoria, apparently finished with her detention, breezed by them on her way back to the castle without looking at them. When they got to the Great Hall, she'd cornered Slughorn at the Staff Table and they seemed to be having a disturbingly productive talk.

Teddy ended up sitting with Priya Patil for dinner. She'd made a point of being friendly to him since the incident with the Red Caps, and Teddy thought her very nearly as pretty as her older sister Parvati, now that he'd had a good look at her. She seemed to spend quite a lot of time talking about clothes, though. Ruthless, who was across the table, made revolted faces every time Priya turned away.

Just before pudding, Teddy looked over at the Hufflepuff table and saw Frankie get up and duck off in the direction of the library. Teddy excused himself from Priya's tale about a huge sale at Gladrags and followed him.

By the time he caught up, Frankie had walled himself in behind three stacks of books. Teddy pulled out a chair and sat down, peeling two randomly from the top of the center stack (Power Lines: Where Muggles Know Magic and something that seemed to be written in Ancient Runes). Frankie snatched them back and returned them to the pile. "You're not really helping, Lupin."

"I'm trying to."

"No, you're not," Frankie sneered. "I should've known when you didn't find anything. You always find something. Clever Teddy Lupin. You just thought you'd stall old Frankie until he stopped thinking he could actually accomplish anything important." He pushed his nose ostentatiously into his book.

"That's mental," Teddy said, and took the books back.

Frankie grabbed them again and slammed them down on the table. "I'm using those. And you already had one of them, though I'm not surprised you don't recognize it. It's not like you were really reading it." He put his hands between two of the book stacks and pushed them apart, looking pugnaciously at Teddy. "What do you think I am, some kind of sidekick who's just been sitting around waiting for you to show up so I can have a mission? You think that being surrounded by war heroes makes you special?"

"What? Frankie, that's-"

"Mental, I know, you already said that."

Teddy stood up. "You kept me out of trouble. I tried to keep you out. What's your problem?" He turned to leave.

"I had a letter from Carny," Frankie said quietly. "She's visiting my Aunt Isolda."

"Oh." Teddy sat back down.

"She says she's riding horses and having fun, but I can't think why she'd be there. No one said anything about it."

"Maybe it's a treat for her," Teddy tried. "With horses and so on."

"Yeah. Sure," Frankie said. "Or maybe Mum and Dad didn't want her there for another go-round about who's being disloyal."

Teddy held out his hand and pointed to Power Lines. "Come on," he said. "Hand it over here. I'll have a real look this time."

After a long time, Frankie handed it over.

Teddy stayed in the library with Frankie until curfew, and Frankie promised to tell the rest of the 'Puffs that things were all right again. "Sorry about that," he said. "They wanted to know why I didn't talk to you, and I just sort of... you know. They already think I'm crackers about this. I didn't want to remind them."

"Will you get steamed again if I say maybe you ought to do some school work instead tonight?"

"No. You're right. I've got Potions, and I'm not one of Sluggy's favorites."

They said good night, and Teddy went back to Gryffindor. He thought enough time had passed for Dad's ring to let him in for another half hour. He wondered if it would take him somewhere Dad thought he needed to be, and give him advice, but it didn't. It was still fun to go back inside of Dad's head and remember his teaching apprenticeship, and a time he and Mum had been undercover in a Muggle school and made friends with the other teachers. They'd played a lot of card games that year, which Teddy normally thought were very boring, but which Dad liked, so they seemed quite interesting through his eyes. Teddy had the impression that his parents were falling in love that year, but Dad had carefully avoided remembering exactly how that felt, much to Teddy's relief. Once the ring had nudged him back to the present, he settled in and did his Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts homework, then amused himself for a little while doing Charms from the book Ron and Hermione had given him for Christmas. Flitwick was planning to start a new dueling club next year, and was quite keen for Teddy to be in it. Teddy wasn't sure about it.

The 'Puffs were all right with him over the next few days, but there was still a certain wariness that made Teddy want to shake them. Had Mum been like that? Or Granddad?

On Thursday morning, he had a letter back from James, with one tucked in from Uncle Harry telling him that James had been quite over the moon getting a letter of his own, and wondering what had prompted Teddy to write it. Teddy wrote back during lunch and told him about the ring-including Dad's built-in caution against getting lost in it-and added everything he'd learned about Uncle Harry's father. This took fifteen minutes. The remainder of the hour was spent on the last paragraph:

I'm having a bit of trouble with Frankie-just a little fight-and he thinks I thought he was stupid or something along that line. I don't suppose you know of a good way to fix things? Frankie says it's all right now, but I suddenly don't have a lot of friends in Hufflepuff, and that's my mum's House.

It seemed nondescript enough and didn't get into Frankie's business, so he sealed it and sent it back with the post owl that had brought James's letter. Uncle Harry's letter back came on Saturday, and said that, lacking any information on it, he thought the best thing to do was wait it out. Ron had apparently also got angry for no reason on occasion, and it always passed. I know it's difficult, since it's your mum's House, but think of it this way-you of all people should be quite grateful that Hufflepuffs are loyal even when someone is acting like a prat.

This wasn't especially helpful, though the thought of Dad acting like a prat-something Uncle Harry had told Teddy very carefully years ago that he did on more than one occasion, in case he heard it less kindly from someone else-while Mum patiently pruned Flitterblooms like Tinny heartened him a little bit. He thought he was acting more like Mum than the 'Puffs were, though. She'd expected Dad to come around, after all.

He met Frankie at the library after lunch. Frankie had taken down the picture of Mum's first year group, and it was propped up against the books. In it, Mum was morphing her nose for everyone-Teddy morphed back at the picture, and it laughed soundlessly-and Sanjiv was making faces.

"I may be wrong about the Forest," Frankie admitted. "I can't think of a good reason why a soul that was taken in London would be drawn all the way up here, but it might have gone to one of the other magical places. Stonehenge, or Tintagel. They're not close, exactly, but they're closer. It could be attractive. Or maybe there's somewhere in London proper. I can't think where, though; it's all nearly buried under concrete."

Teddy tapped his quill beside today's book and looked at Mum and Sanjiv in the picture. He thought maybe the dead could help the Demented out-sort of like a job, since he reckoned they'd need something to do; especially after seeing their memories, he didn't think either of his parents would fancy sitting about on a cloud, playing harps and occasionally checking in on him-but if it was easy, he didn't think Mum would have left Sanjiv wandering around for so long. "Have you talked to the ghosts?" Teddy asked.

"No, that's brilliant," Frankie said. "Let's find the Friar. He likes me."

Teddy briefly wished that he'd brought the Marauder's Map with him to make it easier to find someone, but didn't really want to bring it into this business.

They closed up their books and left them (earning an exasperated look from Madam Pince, who muttered something about getting all of that out and barely using it as they passed), and headed down to the antechamber outside the Great Hall, where Frankie said that the Fat Friar could often be found with ghostly friends. He wasn't there, but a buxom ghost called Rosmerta, who'd run the Three Broomsticks until she died in battle, said that she'd seen him haunting the Charms classroom all morning. "I would take you," she said, "but I mean to talk to the elves about their serving technique. They should smile more when they can't escape without being seen." She floated off in a vague way toward the kitchen.

Teddy led the way to the Charms classroom, and they found the Friar kneeling near the blackboard.

"Brother Francis?" Frankie said.

The Friar rose, smiling. "Ah, Frankie. And Teddy Lupin. How good to see you! This was a chapel in my day, you know. I once married a pair of students in here. The girl's father wasn't happy with me." He moved his rosary beads, and Teddy saw a smudge of small, round bruises. Apparently, he'd been strangled with them. "An ancestor of yours, I believe, Teddy. Andromeda wasn't the first in her line to disappoint the Blacks by her marriage! But that was a long time ago. Did you need advice of a spiritual nature?" he asked eagerly.

"We're trying to find out what happens to Demented souls," Frankie said. "While their bodies are still alive. Do you know if they're like ghosts?"

The Friar sighed. "I know they are quite distinctly not like ghosts," he said. "We have all chosen to remain, to serve as we can among our former fellows"-Teddy didn't think this quite fit with what Uncle Harry had said about ghosts being just shadows, afraid to move on, but he didn't mention it, thinking it might be rude-"while those whose souls have been ripped from them were given no choice. It is possible, of course, that they've gone on..."

"Do you think they have?" Teddy asked.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I have never heard of any instance where one has chosen to stay," the Friar said. "Anecdotal, perhaps, but having experienced a moment of choice, I cannot believe that no soul taken by the Dementors, often at the prime of life, would have chosen a ghost's existence. Perhaps the majority wouldn't, but there should be at least one or two. I would have expected it of several who died in Azkaban, who I cannot imagine would anticipate a happy continuation... beyond. So I must conclude that they are not faced with the choice, that they are not properly separated from their bodies."

Frankie leaned forward avidly. "How would we find a soul like that?"

The Friar, who seemed taken aback, said, "My son, why would you occupy yourself with such a question?"

"For Sanjiv. Don't you remember him? My mum and dad's friend."

"Of course I remember him. But his soul is not your responsibility."

"My mum thinks it's hers," Frankie said.

"I see." The Friar looked at Teddy. "And you?"

"I'm helping. Sanjiv was my mum's friend as well."

This earned a suspicious look. "It's not... other souls... that you seek?"

"No," Teddy said, "I'm just looking for Sanjiv."

"Teddy's just helping me," Frankie said. "He thinks I'm mad and wishes I'd stop."

The Friar turned back to him, his usually jovial face quite serious. "You would be wise to listen to people who care about you. This is not a task for the living, let alone for children."

"Well, then whose is it?" Frankie demanded. "If their souls haven't been separated, then they're not dead yet, which means they're living."

"But their souls have been taken," the Friar said. "The connection between the soul and the body is a deep mystery. We understand something of it, but not all of it. These souls seem to be trapped."

"Or destroyed?" Teddy asked, and saw Frankie's pained expression only from the corner of his eye.

"It's possible," the Friar told him. "But unlikely. The soul isn't a potato to be digested. It ought to regroup and recover. Only the owner of a soul can damage it irreparably." He looked unsure.

"So you do think they're trapped," Frankie said. "A sort of soul-prison..."

"That's not entirely what I said."

"And if we freed them, they'd come back to their bodies."

The Friar shook his head, looking bewildered. "A soul cannot return to a body that it has left. If these souls are freed..." He stopped. "There are no answers to your question, my son. I'm sorry."

"There are answers," Frankie said. "We just haven't found them." He turned and left.

Teddy looked at the Friar. "I have to go with him."

"Of course you do." The Friar nodded raised his hand to bless Teddy (Teddy braced himself for the cold touch). "Peace be upon you," he said, and turned back to the blackboard.

Teddy went out after Frankie.

The next few days were frustrating. Frankie became enamored of the idea of staging a mystical soul-prison break, but as no one had accomplished it before, there was nothing to look up. Teddy sat up with him and helped him with what he called "preliminary experiments" in Charms, which all seemed to involve releasing trapped energy in one way or another. He didn't seem to be sleeping much, and tended to snap when something didn't work as planned. Teddy reminded himself that Mum had been patient, and tried to emulate her. He found one of Dad's memories, about Mum-who had never been a good housekeeper-cleaning up the Shrieking Shack a little bit at a time, and imagined himself doing the same, slowly and methodically reclaiming something hopelessly broken.

He ignored the fact that his parents had been forced to re-destroy it and move out when Gringotts foreclosed on it right after their marriage, forcing them first into a tiny London flat, then finally into Granny's house.

School life continued, and Teddy managed well enough. He found himself spending more time with Ruthless in the Gryffindor Common Room, playing Exploding Snap and chess, or working on homework problems together. She'd been keeping a close and suspicious on on the business with the impending school newspaper, as she'd heard Honoria's "werecub" slurs against Teddy, and claimed to be waiting for a good excuse to Curse her.

"I think we should draw straws," she said four days after Teddy and Frankie had talked to the Fat Friar. She dropped down into a seat in the library, where the Forest Guard was making quick plans for a Muggles and Minions game next weekend.

"Draw straws for what?" Frankie asked vaguely. He was barely concentrating on the game, let alone anything else.

Ruthless tossed out a piece of paper, obviously pulled down from the Gryffindor announcement board. It was trumpeting the return of the free press, in the form of Honoria's newspaper, which would have its first open meeting on Tuesday afternoon. "I'd volunteer, but I thought I'd give the rest of you a chance."

"At a newspaper?" Donzo asked.

"With Honoria?" Maurice put in.

Teddy wrinkled his nose. "Deliberately?"

"Well, she just seems the sort that it might be better not to leave to her own devices," Ruthless said. "I heard her say she's got a whole collection of those Skeeter biographies. Did any of you read the one about my Uncle Rufus?" She shuddered. "I don't trust anyone who collects those bloody things."

Teddy hadn't read Rufus Scrimgeour: Drunken Disgrace, but it had been a hot topic on the WWN for a while last year. Skeeter had talked about Scrimgeour's unhealthy obsession with Dumbledore, his supposedly abusive temper (she'd talked to an ex-Auror named Dawlish, which had made Uncle Harry laugh very bitterly), and how much he drank. In interviews, she also seemed very interested in the fact that he'd never married, and listed a lot of friends he had. Teddy wasn't entirely sure what the connection was meant to be.

"Anyway," Ruthless said, "I thought it would be a good idea to go, before she starts writing articles about whether or not Donzo's a party animal and Teddy gets loopy at the full moon."

"And if she decides you're the one who ought to write them?" Teddy asked.

"Well, I'll have to tell the truth, you know-that you're both dead boring and get your homework done on time."

"We could all go," Maurice said. "Pack the meeting and vote down everything she says."

Frankie shook his head. "I can't. I have other things to do."

"So do I," Teddy said.

Bernice offered to go, and Roger thought it might be amusing to work on a paper ("I could write a column about Muggle things for wizard-borns!"). Maurice suggested that Donzo might join in self-defense, before Honoria decided he was a handy celebrity to gossip about. Older students and their gossipy proclivities were duly discussed. In the end, they didn't finish setting up the game, much to Teddy's disappointment, as he'd been looking forward to it and hoped that it would distract Frankie for a little while.

Instead, it was all Teddy could do to distract Frankie enough to do his homework, as, while half of the Guard went off to the Charmer meeting, Frankie had an epiphany-Sanjiv was stuck because he personally needed to be found and called. "He's forgotten who he is! That's why he can't find his way back!" This led to trying everything they could (without actually asking anyone who'd known him, of course) to find out about him. Teddy found one of Mum's memories on the ring that was about Sanjiv taking her dancing while she was upset about Dad being a complete idiot, and told Frankie about it, implying that it was something Granny had told him. This, at least, made for an hour or two of trying to learn the dance, which ended up with both of them laughing. Frankie was still keen to go out to the Forest, despite his change of heart about where souls went, as he thought it held a lot of power that wasn't fully explored. Teddy agreed with this, but didn't mention it, as he wasn't entirely sure that a third year and a first year were the right ones to rectify the situation. After a long discussion about it, Teddy dreamed about the patch of pale ivy that Frankie had shown him, and in the dream, he wanted to dive into it, even though he could see the Red Caps waiting with their clubs raised. He had the impression, in the dream, that he would be able to talk to Mum there, and she would tell him everything while Dad kept him safe from any number of monsters. He never did find them, though.

He got a long letter from Victoire two weeks before his birthday, giving the gory details of a fight she was having with Marie about who got a particularly desirable room in the new addition. Victoire thought it ought to be hers, as she was eldest, and Marie thought she ought to have it, as she would live in it longer before she went to Hogwarts. There had been accidental magic involved, and Victoire thought it terribly unfair that she'd been punished, even though it was entirely Marie's fault that she ended up with a nose like Pinocchio. She asked Teddy if he needed to learn more French, and if the Map was doing anything new and interesting. Teddy wrote back and told her about the ring and all of the memories he'd found on it, though he asked her not to tell anyone. He wasn't sure why he felt it necessary to keep it a secret.

On a whim when he finished, he took the Map back out, using his own wand as he had when he'd first discovered it, to get it to insult him. (Mr. Prongs believes that Mr. Lupin needs a hobby.) A bit of motion in the library caught his eye, and he frowned. Frankie was prowling about in there... and it was long after curfew.

And Filch had started his night patrol.

"Damn," he hissed, and checked the quickest routes down. The Common Room was nearly empty-just Nat Bangs and his girlfriend, and Teddy doubted they'd notice the entire Quidditch team going by-so he snuck out carefully. The Fat Lady gave him a cross sort of look when he closed her, but didn't try to stop him. Teddy supposed they couldn't make the doors impassable after curfew, in case of an emergency, or they'd have done so by now. He morphed himself to a blank gray sort of color to blend better with the shadows. Keeping an eye on the Map, he dodged Filch, his new kitten Master Norris, and Robards, who was wandering aimlessly about on the fourth floor (when Teddy passed him, he was reading a letter and muttering mutinously about whatever was in it).

The door to the library was ajar, and Teddy slipped in, letting go of his morph. According to the Map, Frankie was in the school history section. Teddy closed the door and tiptoed over. "Frankie!" he whispered.

Frankie jumped.

"Teddy, what are you doing here?"

"Filch is doing his rounds, and Robards is right around the corner. We need to put this stuff away and get out."

Frankie looked at him, shaking his head in a confused way. "How...?"

"Just come on!"

Frankie shoved some of the books he had out onto the shelf and put several more in his bag. "We can hide behind the desk," he said.

"Just leave them! Get them out tomorrow!"

"Pince says I'm past my limit in the subject."

"Then put them away and we'll come back and look at them tomorrow."

Something made a noise outside the door, and they both jumped. Frankie ran for Madam Pince's desk and dove behind it, book bag in hand. Teddy followed.

A moment later, the doorknob rattled and light played across the library. Teddy could see the top of Filch's head, and at the base of the door, a kitten's paw was making a beckoning sort of gesture. He held his breath.

Filch passed.

He sighed and sank down beside Frankie. "He's gone."

"How did you find me?"

Teddy bit his lip-there was no question of making anything up. "Remember when I told you that I had a secret?"

"Yes."

"Well... this is it." He pulled out the Marauder's Map, brought up the basic view (he only had his own wand with him), and told Frankie everything. "It's how I found this," he finished, holding up the ring, which was still on its now-tattered piece of string. He didn't mention the memory charms on it.

Frankie blinked at it, and Teddy thought he was going to lose his temper again, but instead, he just said, "You've been playing with your dad's friends' map all year? Is that what you've been shutting yourself up with?"

"Sort of."

"And here I was worried about spending my time looking at a few old photographs." He pulled the books out of his book bag; they were scrapbooks put together during the time Mum (and Frankie's parents and Sanjiv and Charlie Weasley) had been at school, and he'd marked out a handful of pages.

Teddy didn't think this was very fair, as he'd been careful with the Marauder's Map, and didn't think it was going to bring anyone back to life, but he'd had enough fighting with Frankie this year. "Right, well. You're the first non-Gryffindor to know about it."

"And I'm sure that's why you weren't telling me," Frankie said. "Honestly, Teddy. I told you what I was up to, even though I knew you'd think I was mad." He sighed and stood up, stacking the scrapbooks and heading back to the shelves with them. "You're right, though. I should come back for these tomorrow. I don't need them at this exact second."

Teddy helped him tidy up, and they checked the Map together for obstacles. When Robards had finally gone up to the sixth floor, they slipped out into the corridor. There was no one in Frankie's way going back to Hufflepuff.

"Does Ruthless know?" Frankie asked. "I mean, she's a Gryffindor."

"No. None of the others know. Just you. And Victoire, at home."

Frankie raised his eyebrows. "Victoire Weasley?" He shook his head. "Victoire and me. That's an odd combination of people, Teddy."

"What do you mean?"

He smiled weakly. "Nothing. Thanks for telling me. I'll go now." He disappeared into the shadows.

17. Noble and Most Ancient

Chapter 17:

Noble and Most Ancient

The night before Teddy's birthday had been warm and nice-the first warm, nice night for several months-and he'd left the window open at the top while he slept to enjoy it. Checkmate had slept on the sill, looking out longingly at the open grounds. Not trusting this very far, Teddy had looked up a charm in a third year book that was meant to keep babies from climbing through things, and he cast it on the window so the kitten-well, she was really nearly a cat these days-wouldn't be able to make a jump for it. It only went in one direction, though, and Teddy woke up to the sound of two owls flailing against the charm while Checkmate yowled at the intrusion.

Teddy sorted out the argument by giving Checkmate several treats and charming her favorite stuffed mouse to run around under the bed for her, then feeding the owls, taking their parcels and releasing the charm so they could get out. The first owl was Pigwidgeon, and he had a present from Ron, Hermione, Rose, and Hugo. This was a Transfiguration hobby book that was the companion to the Charms book they'd given him at Christmas-Useless Shapechanging For The Very Bored: From Cushioned Pebbles To Transfiguration Duels. The other owl was from Uncle Harry, and had brought-along with a long and rather thoughtful letter about the day Dad had come to tell them that Teddy had been born-a full set of Muggle dice with a bag to carry them in that automatically sorted them out and always presented him with the one he needed, a deluxe urban planning kit, and a map of the London Underground. George and I tried to translate from Quidditch, he wrote on the card, and these seemed like a good set of gloves, a broomstick repair kit, and Quidditch Through The Ages, though as I don't really play this, I'm not sure if I got it right. George thinks he might ask for your help to stock up on this sort of thing this summer, and will pay you regular wages if it's all right with Andromeda.

Teddy smiled, picturing Uncle Harry and George trying to "translate from Quidditch" to get Muggles and Minions supplies. He thought they'd done a fairly good job, and wondered if Sophie, who'd played the Muggle version of the game, had ended up helping. He thought Granny would let him work for a few days if he asked nicely. He'd heard enough stories about Granddad setting aside a Knut here, a Sickle there, and a few Muggle pence somewhere else, that he couldn't imagine her objecting to Teddy starting to gather up some gold for when he grew up.

He got two more owls in the Great Hall before breakfast had finished appearing. One was a box from Bill and Fleur and their family that contained French chocolates, a guide to fighting minor dark creatures (To be kept close by for Red Cap attacks! Bill had written), and several seashells that Artie and Aimee had found on the beach; the other was from Molly and Arthur, and contained enough biscuits to put out for the Quidditch team this afternoon, after their last game. Ruthless came down groggily and asked if it was his birthday, wished him a-yawn-happy one, then brushed frantically at her hair as another owl swooped down over her and dropped a double package in Teddy's lap. The top package said, in Granny's handwriting, Open this first; it's the real birthday present.

Curiously, Teddy separated the packages. The one on the bottom was clearly another book, but the one on top was quite small and thin. He wondered if it was a fancy quill, like the one Dad's parents had got him when he'd come of age. The paper wouldn't come off until he pulled the card from it and opened it.

Dear Teddy, Granny had written, Sorry to use magic to keep you from opening your present before reading your card, but I'm not sure you'd understand it otherwise, and I'm not there to explain it. How I miss you today!

I'm not sure whether or not you know this, but when a student is hurt at school, the family is always notified. When you got into your scuffle with the Red Caps, Poppy Pomfrey wrote to me and told me that you were fine, and explained what happened to the best of her knowledge. I was quite irritated with you, as you might imagine, and was ready to send you a nasty letter-possibly a Howler-when your Uncle Harry told me what you'd found on the grounds.

As your godfather has been quite dodgy since the last letter he got from you, I am assuming that you've already discovered that there is more to the ring than gold and nostalgia. Your father worked very hard on that during the months they waited here for you, and I've always been heartbroken that it didn't come to you.

I can understand why you wouldn't tell me about it right away. I know I've been quite strict about keeping you distinct from your parents, and it's led to some bad feelings. But I very much wanted you to have what I knew your father had intended for you, and I'm very glad that you've found it. I won't even ask how. You will find in the other package I've sent that I've done some other thinking about your connections to your past as well.

Teddy glanced curiously at the book, wondering what it had to do with him, then went back to Granny's letter.

The present isn't new. Something new wouldn't be quite right for this.

I wish very much that you were at home, and I could make you a cake as I have since you were old enough to eat one, but I trust that you are quite well-fed at Hogwarts, and will probably have a smashing day even without old Granny tagging about. I love you very much, and hope you understand why I've given you what I have.

Granny

Teddy set the card down (carefully away from Ruthless's curious look) and peeled the paper from the small, narrow box. It was plain and white, and inside of it was a gold chain. On the inside of the top of the box, Granny had written, This was your Granddad's father's. I think it would be a good way for you to keep your dad's ring close and safe.

Teddy smiled, slowly pulling the chain from its box. The links glowed warmly in the morning sun.

"What's that?" Ruthless asked.

"Present from my grandparents," Teddy said, then pulled Dad's ring up from around his neck and severed the now fraying string.

"Is that a wedding ring?"

"My dad's," Teddy said, and threaded the gold chain through it. He put it back over his neck. It felt considerably more solid.

"That's a very Tolkien fashion statement," Ruthless said.

Teddy expressed his opinion of this nonverbally-she laughed and cleared away the package wrappings-then moved on to the larger package. The brown paper fell away easily, and for an instant, Teddy thought he was looking at a photo album. From within the nest of paper, Sirius and Regulus Black laughed up at him from one of the pictures he'd found behind the wall of the third years' dormitory. It was the one where Sirius was carrying his younger brother around on his back, both of them looking delighted. The family tree was in the background, though no one was looking at it. As Teddy watched, Regulus tapped Sirius's shoulder, and was rewarded with being turned in that direction. They galloped off to the side of the picture.

Then he realized that he was holding a regular book. Above the picture was the title: Noble And Most Ancient: The Heroes and Villains of the Fallen House of Black. Below it, it said, by Andromeda (Black) Tonks. Granny had marked a page at the beginning with a slip of paper, and Teddy opened to it.

It was the dedication, and it read:

To my grandson, Ted Remus Lupin, who reminded me that we all need an anchor. I hope this will be part of his, as it has and always will be mine, regardless of everything. We are the past's future, Teddy, and the future's past.

Under this, she had added by quill, Just remember that your own grandchildren will want good stories of you as well, so take care that you act in the present. You wouldn't want them to be bored now, would you? Love, Granny P.S., I trust you won't bring up page 517 the next time we have an argument. Good heavens, I was a silly girl once.

Curiously, Teddy flipped to page 517, which was near the end of the book, and started laughing before he even read the text. He had no idea when the picture had been taken-the chapter heading above said it was the nineteen-seventies; beyond that he couldn't tell-but it showed Granny in a perfectly ridiculous flowered dress, barefoot, in the company of many other young people, in the entrance hall at the Ministry of Magic. They were all waving their fists and carrying signs, and as Teddy watched, Granny made the exact same gesture he'd just made to Ruthless... only she was doing it in Bartemius Crouch's direction, and, though the picture had no sound, he could read lips well enough to know she wasn't saying, "Good morning, Mr. Crouch."

"What is it?" Ruthless asked.

Laughing, Teddy leaned over and slid the book toward her. "Want to meet my family?" he asked.

She was amused with the book for a few minutes, mainly looking at old pictures and claiming that she saw a family resemblance between them and Teddy. The only one Teddy could see it with was Phineas Nigellus's older brother, a Metamorphmagus who'd died in childhood. She had homework to do before the Quidditch game, though, and lost interest quickly. Teddy didn't mind. He stayed in the Great Hall, absently feeding another few owls that dropped off birthday presents which he left unopened. He'd only meant to glance at a few chapter titles, see the pictures, maybe find out about whatever Granny was doing on page 517. Instead, after skimming several parts, he found himself lost in the story. Even the acknowledgments seemed interesting to him-Granny had thanked people he expected, like Uncle Harry, who'd given her access to the family tree, and Angelina Creevey, who'd helped her at Flourish and Blotts, and Kreacher (who she simply described as "indispensable"), but she'd also thanked her sister, Narcissa Malfoy and Narcissa's son Draco, who she said had given her access to Malfoy family papers with information she'd never even thought to wonder about, and, of course, "Mad Auntie Bugga, who taught me in the most vivid terms possible that all of those burned out spaces were real people with real lives, who were also part of the House of Black."

Teddy marveled at this, then turned to the first chapter.

Chapter One: A Handsome, Dangerous Face

The first definitively identifiable member of the Black family rose from the mists of history in the ninth century. He was a foundling child, a shapeshifter, feared by the Muggles around him and hunted through the streets of Anglo-Saxon London. As a child, he was called Banan the Black, for his long, jet black hair. A contemporary Muggle account describes him:
The changeling child was striking of face, with eyes like a stormy sea and the sharp features of the fair folk stamped upon him, but he need not appear this way. He might appear as an old man, or a stripling youth, or anyone with whom you might speak easily and later regret it. He could be dark or fair-skinned, tall or short. Nearly anyone might have been Banan, but all knew his true face, for he always returned to it. And why not? It was a handsome, dangerous face...
Nothing is known of Banan's origins with any certainty. Was he the son of highborn wizards, as he would later claim? Or was the founder of the Black family born to Muggles, cast out to the elements when they saw his shape begin to shift and feared him as a demon child? Wherever he came from, the first time he appears in history, he is the target of a mob hunt in London, running, finally cornered. He enters wizarding history with a spectacular display of wandless magic, casting a wall of fire around himself, separating himself from his pursuers. Wilona of the Weald, a witch in the court of King Alfred, found him there and took him back to court, where she had him as an apprentice for the remainder of her days. It was her child, Mayda the Magnificent, who became Banan's wife, and the earliest matriarch of the House of Black. (Rumors that Banan was in fact Wilona's child-possibly by the king-and therefore inadvertently married his own half-sister, did not appear on the record until nearly two centuries later, and seem to have originated among those who thought Banan's descendants had grown too powerful.)

It is almost certainly Wilona who gave Banan the idea that he was descended from highborn wizards, which would later have such tragic consequences, but in the context of giving comfort to a traumatized and lonely child, perhaps she can be excused...

Teddy chewed on his lip and turned the page, imagining Banan, a lonely Metamorphmagus on his own in the violent world of Viking invasions and tribal wars, left to die, then feared as a demon when he didn't. He pictured Wilona as kindly Molly Weasley, Mayda as Aunt Ginny. For all he knew, they had looked like that. The rest of the chapter talked about Banan's rise in Alfred's court. He had a talent for reading the stars, learned from centaurs, and he and Mayda were the first to give their children the names of stars and constellations. According to Granny, the reasoning had largely been forgotten over the years, or shunted aside along with its implied connections to such undesirable roots as centaurs. He'd certainly been fond of the story Wilona had made up for him, about being of high magical blood, but in his lifetime, it never seemed to have got beyond a story he happened to believe about himself without much evidence, no more harmful than Dad's imaginary play that his father was the King of Greenland. It wasn't until the Norman invasion-chapter three-that the family had adopted the Toujours Purs motto, and all of the disturbing nonsense that went along with it.

Granny had written:

The Normans brought new wizards to the island with them, among them a group of loosely related wizards who called themselves the Order of the Dragon-but who the Norman soldiers called the Order of the Evil Faith-the mal foi.

Here she paused with a lengthy footnote-Teddy guessed at the urging of her sister-pointing out that very few families still fit their names. Were Potters meant to understand fine clay? Grangers to till the land? Teddy thought this sounded a bit desperate, especially given that everyone in the wizarding world knew exactly which side of the war Lucius Malfoy had been on, but he supposed if she wanted their help, she had to at least make an attempt.

With the new Order, the leaders of the old were faced with a brutal choice-go along, or get out of the way. The Blacks, it hardly needs to be said, have never been particularly fond of getting out of the way. It was at this point that notions of blood purity, championed nearly a century before by Salazar Slytherin and seized upon by several of the more prominent families, became central to Black family thinking. The struggle for control of wizarding Britain was brutal and dark, with families from all of the factions striving for dominance. The Blacks leave no record of this era, and the Malfoys mention only in passing that the wife of one Cepheus Black disappeared. Given the fate of other "disappeared" witches and wizards of the time, it is perhaps not overreaching to assume that she met with foul play. We know that within five years of her disappearance, the Black children had fully integrated with the newcomers, and what may have been desultory play-imagining one's ancestors-had become fanatic dogma.

Any number of scenarios might account for this. Perhaps Cepheus was persuaded by his new friends, and his wife's fate came at his hands because she disagreed. Perhaps the loss of her unhinged him. Or perhaps she was an object lesson of what would happen to his family if he didn't get them more fully in line-your children had best learn this and mean it, or they, too, will disappear. While it is tempting to accept this last, to sympathize with a parent in an impossible situation, it behooves the reader to remember that Cepheus chose his side before his wife disappeared, and that other great families-including the Weasleys, the Prewetts, the Potters, the Lockharts, and the Lovegoods, among others-must have been faced with similar choices, and did not choose to fill their children's minds with poison. There were options. They weren't chosen, and the path to a dark and tortured future was laid down.

"Lupin!"

Teddy looked up, surprised, somehow, to find himself in the comfort of the Great Hall with his breakfast dishes cooling around him. Priya Patil, dressed in her Quidditch robes, grinned at him. "Happy birthday. Want to celebrate by watching us pound the tar out of Ravenclaw?"

"Sure. Let me put my things upstairs."

"Well, hurry, you'll miss the beginning."

"Good luck," Teddy said, and gathered up the unopened presents. He ran up to Gryffindor Tower and dropped them in his room, but kept the book with him. With his luck, it would be a three day game and he'd never finish if he didn't bring it along. Besides, he'd only dip into it between plays.

So he sat in the back of the stands, ostensibly with Ruthless, his nose buried in his grandmother's book. She couldn't possibly have done all of the research this year and written it; he supposed she'd actually been indulging this interest for a long time. She'd found the threads of madness that appeared in the family, and grudgingly put her sister Bellatrix among the mad (though neither she nor Teddy believed this excused her in any way). To Teddy's great personal interest, she also had a chapter devoted to Shapechangers-Metamorphmagi (of whom she'd found fourteen over the years), Animagi (six confirmed, many more suspected, including old Banan, who the Muggles believed could spy on them as an owl), and a handful of suspected shapeshifting creatures like Veela and Selkies. He guessed she'd done this particular research for Mum a long time ago. Through it all, she told the story of the family's chosen image, but threaded it through with the rebels, the exiled, the burned away. In an era when Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald were discussing "The Greater Good," Phineas Nigellus's second son, who was named for him, was writing articles and haranguing the Wizengamot about Muggle rights. As Voldemort gained power, Alphard Black doted on his rebellious niece and nephew, setting Sirius up with gold right under Mad Auntie's nose. And of course, as Walburga Black had campaigned to have all werewolves destroyed, her son Sirius had befriended Dad and risked everything to ease the burden of the curse. Of herself, she wrote, I am not a villain, but neither have I been a hero. I left for love, and stayed safe while others fought.

Teddy barely noticed the cheering around him, and didn't pay attention until Ruthless dragged him to his feet to give an ovation for the win. He felt vaguely guilty, but then, he had never especially been interested in Quidditch, and this was not the only book he'd ever found himself enthralled with.

Nor was he the only one. Noble and Most Ancient arrived in book stores that Monday, and was an immediate sensation. A fully filled in version of the family tree, which pulled out of the book and expanded, caused a stir as people tried to find where on their lines they were descended from Banan and related to one another. This game swept the school, and Teddy found himself with several eighth and ninth cousins he'd never suspected.

The Daily Prophet reviewed it well.

The inaugural issue of The Weekly Charmer tore it apart.

The paper appeared with breakfast on Wednesday morning. Its name was stamped across the top in letters charmed to sparkle:

The Weekly Charmer
Hogwarts... Express to You!
Volume 1, Issue 1
Honoria Higgs, Editor-in-Chief

It was two pages long. The front page had an introduction from Honoria, a report on the Quidditch game from Maurice, an editorial inveighing against the O.W.L.s by a fifth year Slytherin, and the beginning of an interview with Robards (by Ruthless) which would continue onto the second page. But the focal point was a copy of the cover of Noble and Most Ancient, beside a review by Geoffrey Phillips called "Whitewashing the Blacks." In prose stiff enough to stand up on its own, Geoffrey managed to misread nearly every chapter of Granny's book, misrepresent her participation in the war (taking her statement that she hadn't been a hero to mean that she truly had been on Voldemort's side and brushing off her marriage to a Muggle-born as "no more than a 'some of my best friends are' defense," and coming very close to calling Granddad names for having anything to do with a pure-blood marriage), and accuse her of trying to recreate a privileged class by glorifying blood history. When he finished it, Teddy looked back at Honoria's self-righteous introduction to the paper, in which she claimed that she was going to be open to every point of view and intended to prove it immediately. Teddy guessed that this translated to, "Every point of view that will provide me with a nasty, vindictive cover story, and the more people it hurts, the better."

He saw Geoffrey giving him a nasty look from the Ravenclaw table, and made a point of turning the page to read Ruthless's interview with Robards instead. She'd asked him about his wife, who lived in London, but his answer didn't really seem to match the question. Most of it was taken up with stories of his life as an Auror. Roger's column on "Muggles for the Magic-Born" was a sidebar; in the first issue, he was explaining films, and talking about his favorite ones, and promised to discuss computers next time. Off to the side was an unrelated cartoon, drawn by a third year Ravenclaw named Simmons, that showed the Black family tree as the Whomping Willow, thrashing around at innocent looking people.

Teddy deeply wished that his friends hadn't chosen the strategy they had, as he couldn't very well incinerate the thing, satisfying as it might be. He settled for folding the cartoon under, so he wouldn't have to look at it.

He heard grumbling during the rest of the day-some Muggle-borns seemed to agree with Geoffrey's position, others accused them of just feeling like they were left out of a fad. Joe Palmer-the other Muggle-born Hufflepuff, who shared Roger's dormitory-had spoken to Teddy for the first time in Herbology, nervously saying that he thought he might be descended from Isla Black, as his Mum had been a Hitchens, whose grandfather had been Bob Hitchens, who'd married a girl called Isla Black. "I might be wrong, mind," he said, "but it's not exactly Jane Smith, is it? And no one knew where she came from, and she wouldn't tell." Teddy agreed that it seemed likely, though it was surprising that her children hadn't all been magical. He wondered if she'd hidden it or found a way to suppress it somehow until it popped out in Joe, though he didn't mention this. In History of Magic, Geoffrey made a point of pontificating about "elitist codswallop," which had nothing to do with Binns's topic (he had returned happily to goblin wars once the school governors' curricular requests were satisfied). He got another detention, despite a contorted effort to tie the two subjects together by pointing out that the Blacks, after all, had a vault at Gringotts.

Of course, it wasn't just the Muggle-borns who found nasty things to say. He found Honoria in the Potions dungeon on Friday, reading the chapter Granny had called "A Thread of Madness." She raised an eyebrow at him and asked if he'd be in the next edition. Corky "accidentally" mis-measured the fluxweed in the potion they were working on together, and when she confidently drank it, she developed purple stripes all over her body, and was thoroughly distracted from the House of Black.

"She's tied to it as badly as we are, anyway," Maurice said. "Who does she think she's kidding?" She had left behind her belongings when she rushed to the hospital wing, and Maurice-from memory-sketched out her line of descent from Phineas Nigellus, through his son Arcturus, then the Crouches, through the Higgs family. He helpfully circled a Yaxley and a Rowle, then said, "Do you suppose it would be overkill if I went back on the Rackharrow side and pulled up the Notts and Macnairs?"

"I can't believe you know that off the top of your head," Corky said.

"The Burkes have good memories for good customers," Maurice said, then picked up Honoria's bag and headed back to Slytherin.

In all, though Teddy loved having the book, he needed to get away from it as the week went on. He eagerly followed Dad's memories through a trip he'd taken with his parents to the States to search for a cure-during which he was followed relentlessly by owls from the other Marauders-and many games played with Sirius during the year they'd spent at Grimmauld Place. Teddy wasn't sure whether he was feeling how much Dad missed Sirius that last year, or if he was starting to actually miss him himself. He was glad the next Saturday for a Muggles and Minions game, which would take him away from all of it. Frankie had said nothing at all about the book during their library stints, probably guessing that Teddy'd had enough of it elsewhere, and most of the Guard was only tangentially interested. Ruthless was just annoyed that it had taken attention away from her interview, and promised that the next issue, she'd find something more hard-hitting than a D.A.D.A. teacher.

Frankie looked like he hadn't slept much, but summoned all of his old energy anyway. He levitated the table to the center of the room and called for snacks.

"First of all," he said, "unless someone else wants to take over as urban planner, this might be the last game of the year-I'm swamped."

"I'll do it," Tinny said. "I'm already on top of it."

"Good." Frankie grinned. "Second, I'm going out in style. This one's big. We're starting out at uni..."

He went through the opening motions of the game quickly, getting everyone gathered at a pub. Ruthless kept rolling badly, and ended up having to climb in from under a sewer grate, then came up short on getting a shower. Only Roger rolled low enough to have to sit next to her. Once they were gathered, Frankie announced that there was a great catastrophe-one of the Channel Islands turned out to be an active volcano-a super volcano-and it was erupting. The game would include lava and fires as well as muggers and murderers, and they'd have to rescue as many people and as much property as they could. He had brought out a book on a volcano called Krakatoa, and was carefully following all of the steps. There would be, he promised them, many pre-eruptions and then finally a great collapse, involving sea water and steam and pyroclastic flows. They would need to gather people up and get them north, but first they'd have to convince them of the danger.

Zach declared this the best game ever, though Bernice seemed a little confused by the lack of a criminal element. They set to it with a vengeance, finding dozens of little paths Frankie had taken the trouble to lay down for them. He'd even constructed a series of adventures that finally got "Wings" his flying lessons, and Teddy was able to use the little airplane to start lifting people north. At lunchtime, he asked Ruthless to just keep him doing this over the next several turns ("Just don't crash me") while he headed out to the kitchens. Frankie ceremoniously handed his plan to Tinny and offered to go along.

"This one's great, Frankie," Teddy said as they went down the corridor outside Hufflepuff House. "You really went all out."

"I've been ignoring them a lot," he said. "I caught Zach trying to plan something, and it sounded boring as anything, so I decided I owed them a good game. And I owed you the flying lessons. You've been... well, for helping in the library."

Teddy shrugged, uncomfortable, wishing Frankie hadn't brought up their library jaunts again. "Well, I know you'd do the same."

"I didn't, though, when you were distracted. I tried to make you stop. I'm sorry about that."

"No, you were right. I wasn't paying attention to things." He hoped Frankie would pick up the hint on his own, but he didn't seem to. "Why end the game now, though? Is something going on? Are you having trouble in class?"

"No," Frankie said. "I just need Saturdays. I'm going to start going into the Forest again."

"What? Why?"

"I looked at Filch's files." Frankie stopped and looked over his shoulder. "I did it last night. I was going to ask you if we could use the Map, but you left before I caught you. They made that new room for him, down here. It's easy to get in, and his desk isn't there. It's for all of the really old files. Sometimes he has people copy them for detention. I don't know why he keeps them. But I found a lot of them on our parents and Sanjiv. They snuck out quite a bit, and Sanjiv got caught in the Forest a lot. I think I was right in the first place. I think there's something magical there, and that's where he's caught. I-"

"Frankie, no," Teddy said. "Stop it."

Frankie stood back, looking like he'd been slapped. "What?"

"You think it's the Forest because it's the closest place you can get to that's really dangerous. What are you going to do in there?"

"I'm going to... find him! You know... like we've talked about. Or was that just an act for stupid Frankie again?"

"No. I've never said you were stupid, but you're being stupid now. Do you really think that you're going to do something an Unspeakable can't figure out? And do you really think that if Demented souls were just wandering about in the Forbidden Forest, your mum wouldn't have been here already looking? She's the one who got obsessed with it first!"

Frankie stood back coldly. "Go back to Hufflepuff and get your things, Lupin."

"No. Frankie, I'm not doing that! I'm not leaving if you're just going to go off and do something mad!"

"It's not my family that's got that thread in it," Frankie said.

If he'd chosen anything else to say, any other insult, Teddy probably would have ground his teeth and gone on with the argument, but the fact that he said what Honoria had said, that he was calling on the ghosts of all of the Blacks, that he knew the madnesses that Granny hadn't talked about (Granny had entirely skipped Mum's debilitating depression, but Frankie damned well knew about it)... the last several weeks of carefully trying to steer him, trying to get him out of trouble, trying to help seemed to rise up in Teddy's mind like a fist. He shoved Frankie across the corridor.

"I've had it!" he said. "You know what, I will leave, and you can do what you want. I warned you about the dragon, and it's breathing fire right at you, just like your damned volcano in there. If you want to keep standing there trying to get burned, it's on your head! You are crazy."

Teddy didn't bother going back to Hufflepuff. Ruthless would think to bring his things. He pushed past Frankie, turning sharply at the corridor across from the kitchen and nearly running into Honoria, who was scurrying toward the dungeons with a bag of food. It didn't occur to him just then to wonder if she had heard anything.

18. The Charmer

Chapter 18:

The Charmer

Teddy got out the Marauder's Map when he got back to Gryffindor Tower and watched the others, in Hufflepuff, ignoring Checkmate's pleas for attention. Frankie seemed to have stormed to his room, while Tinny continued running the game. Ruthless kept drifting back and forth to the door, and he wasn't surprised to see her leave. He watched her come up the stairs, pause at the portrait, then come right through the Common Room and up the stairs. He put the Map away when she knocked on the door.

"Teddy?" she said.

He went to the door and opened it. "What?"

She dropped his dice and his book bag on the floor. "Your things. Do you plan to explain on your own, or am I going to have to start hurting you?"

"Frankie's being an idiot, and I called him on it. I put up with it last time when he blamed me but this isn't my fault."

Ruthless shrugged. "All right. For what it's worth, I think the 'Puffs are more worried about him than mad at you this time. He didn't even bother with the rest of the game. Tinny ran it. I'm sure you're anxious to know it, but we managed to rescue everybody and get a lot of priceless works of art out-"

"I don't care."

"I didn't actually think you would. It was a bad day for a fight."

"Yeah," Teddy grudgingly agreed, now also angry that he'd missed a good game. "But I'm tired of it, anyway. All the stupid hero stuff."

"Well, it is risky to sit around and roll dice, I know, but sometimes, you just have to call on that Gryffindor spirit."

Teddy picked up his things and tossed them onto his bed. "Did you want something?"

"To know what's going on."

"Nothing."

Ruthless stood at the door, shifting from foot to foot, then shook her head. "All right," she said. "I'm meant to go to a newspaper thing this afternoon-"

"You're still on that?"

"Yes."

"With Geoffrey and Honoria?"

"You'd rather leave it to them?"

"I don't care."

She shook her head. "I'll see you at dinner."

"I'm not hungry."

Ruthless frowned at him, then shrugged again. "Well, feed your cat at least. Her bowls are empty." She turned and left.

Teddy looked down at Checkmate, who was glaring at him in an accusatory way. Her food bowl had, in fact, been licked clean. The elves refilled the water magically, but the food was his job. "Sorry, Checks," he said. "Should've listened." He scooped some food into the dish and sat down against the wall to pet her while she ate. "And I probably shouldn't have snapped at Ruthless." He scratched her ears. "Any ideas, Checks?"

Checkmate had no thoughts on the matter, or if she did, she didn't share them.

Teddy wanted to go back into the ring's memories, hoping for some fight they had all made up from or some such thing, but Dad's limits wouldn't let him in until tomorrow. He wished Mum had made hers separately, and that he'd brought it with him. Or, as long as he was wishing, that she was sitting at home with Granny and Dad, listening to the Weird Sisters and saying, "Oh, don't worry about Teddy, Remus. He'll be fine. Frankie's being a little berk, but Teddy's right, and Frankie will figure that out, and everything will be just like it was."

The daydream didn't help, and in fact made him feel worse, as it reminded him that he had no real idea what Mum would say about this. Maybe she'd be angry at him. Maybe she'd be out looking for Sanjiv's soul. Maybe she'd think Teddy was being disloyal. The daydream shifted its shape into a day-nightmare-a daymare, Teddy guessed-where Mum was alive, but telling him that her son oughtn't be calling his best friend names, that she was ashamed of him, that...

"Ouch!"

Checkmate had finished her lunch, and jumped on his bare foot, claws extended. Teddy had an urge to raise his foot and toss her away, but caught himself and scooped her up instead. "Sorry, Checkmate," he said. "I won't kick you. Sorry I thought it. I won't. I wouldn't ever."

Checkmate had apparently not considered the possibility of being kicked, and happily nuzzled up against his shoulder, wiggling her wet nose against his collarbone and purring loudly. Teddy reached over and got the Marauder's Map, thinking he might like to get them to insult him, but not really feeling like it in the end. Instead, he just called up the castle view and watched the dots. The castle seemed normal. On the grounds, he could see Buckbeak the hippogriff moving around Hagrid's paddock. Hagrid was standing still inside the fence. Professor Longbottom was standing outside of it, and Robards was beside him. A dot Teddy didn't know, labeled Vivian Waters, was around the corner, half-in and half-out of the paddock. Teddy imagined them there, Hagrid throwing food to Buckbeak while Robards and Longbottom leaned casually on the fence, maybe talking about classes, or maybe the latest Puddlemere United-Montrose game. He wanted to be down there with them.

And why shouldn't he be? Uncle Harry had visited Hagrid a lot when he was a student, and had tea with Dad, and Teddy knew all of them perfectly well (except for the woman). He cleared the Map with finality, put it in the pocket of his light spring cloak, and headed out.

He thought about leaving Checkmate, but didn't. Instead, he carried her outside of the castle, then let her run along beside him as he made his way down to Hagrid's paddock. The scene was almost exactly as he imagined it. None of them saw him. Professors Longbottom and Robards were leaning on the fence, their elbows stuck out at an identical angle, and Hagrid was tossing dead ferrets high into the air for Buckbeak to jump at. The woman, Vivian Waters, was sitting on a rail of the fence. She seemed young and pretty, until she happened to look in Teddy's direction, and he saw that half of her face was mangled by scars, and in place of one of her eyes there was a huge, round magical eye.

"I told you he was coming," she said, and slipped down on the outside of the paddock to stand by the professors. She tapped her cheekbone beneath the magical eye and said, "Three hundred and sixty degree vision. It's almost worth trading an eye for."

"Hello, Teddy," Professor Longbottom said. "Did you need something?"

"I just thought I'd say hello. Is there anything that needs doing? I could feed something." He grabbed Checkmate before she decided to visit Buckbeak. "Or clean something." He looked from one to another of them. "Er... sorry. I should've asked."

"Don' even think about it," Hagrid said. "Would yeh like to have a go with Buckbeak?"

"Sure." Teddy set Checkmate down with a stern admonition to stay. He climbed the fence and bowed, then, when Buckbeak had bowed back, took the bucket of ferrets and started tossing them.

"Yeh're all right, Teddy?" Hagrid asked. "Yeh're not usually by yerself."

"He's not by himself now," Vivian said. "He's with us."

Teddy smiled at her, then remembered her name from the picnic last summer-the werewolf who Hermione was trying to help. "You knew my parents!" he said.

"That's an interesting thing to guess before you've been introduced to someone properly," Professor Longbottom said. "This is Vivian Waters," he added quickly. "I'm sure you recognized her by the eye, having heard something about it somewhere."

"Er... right."

"Vivian came because she's had a letter from your friend Frankie," Robards said. "About the Forbidden Forest. Do you know anything about that?"

Teddy knew nothing about Frankie writing letters, so he shook his head.

"I wrote some articles on its history," she said. "He must have read one. He wanted to know about plants that might trap souls. He said he was working on a project with his friend Teddy-do you happen to know what he needs? I wanted to talk to Professor Longbottom about the plants and Professor Hagrid about the Forest, and I thought Professor Robards might be able to help with any Dark powers, but it would be quite a lot easier to put our heads together and answer the question if we knew what the pair of you were looking for."

Teddy ground his teeth. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't know he'd written to anyone. I'm sorry he bothered you."

Robards started to say something, but Professor Longbottom, his eyes narrowed, raised a hand and stopped him. "It's all right," he said.

"And I'm not bothered," Vivian added. "Just interested. And I'm always happy to come up here."

Very briefly, Teddy considered telling them exactly what Frankie was doing, but he didn't want to be drawn back into it. He went back to feeding Buckbeak, and they went back to a talk that didn't sound like it had much to do with Frankie's question, anyway, or with the Forbidden Forest or Hogwarts. It didn't actually seem to be about anything at all, and Teddy knew that they were deliberately keeping off of a subject for him. Vivian perched herself back on the rail, now sitting beside Checkmate and petting her. He shouldn't have come. He should have waited for an invitation or detention. He got through the bucket of ferrets and smiled at Hagrid. "I'll, er... I should go. Dinner. Sorry to interrupt."

Vivian handed Checkmate to him. "She's a very cute cat," she said.

"Thank you."

"Tell Frankie we're working on it."

Teddy looked down and muttered that he would do so, and when he looked up, Vivian was also frowning, but she didn't say anything else. Professor Longbottom told him that the invitation to his office for tea was a standing one, and he should feel free to come if he needed to talk about anything. Teddy thanked him, and left as quickly as he could, wishing that he'd stayed in his room.

When he got back to the castle, it was time for supper, and he thought he should at least go through the motions of eating, even though he still wasn't hungry. He sat down at the Gryffindor table and looked across at Hufflepuff by habit. It was still early in the meal, and only a few 'Puffs had come up. One of them was Frankie.

Teddy sighed. Maybe he ought to go over and try to fix things. Maybe he owed Frankie an apology for calling him crazy-adults were taking his letter seriously, so maybe he was onto something. Maybe...

Frankie moved and Teddy froze, all thoughts of trying to make amends over. Frankie was pontificating on some subject that Teddy couldn't quite hear. Across from the table, an acid green quill poised over a piece of parchment, taking down every word he said, was Honoria Higgs.

Fifteen minutes later, he was waiting at the bottom of the girls' staircase. Ruthless lived on the sixth floor, and according to the Map, she was there, so he'd asked Edie Abercrombie to go up and get her. Edie looked less than thrilled that she might be seen talking to a freckly second-year with thick specs who spent her Saturdays with sloppy Hufflepuffs playing a fantasy game, but she'd gone. It had only been two minutes ago, but Teddy felt like he'd been waiting here forever. The third-year boys were looking at him and smirking.

Finally, he heard feet on the stairs and looked up to see Ruthless running down. (Edie was walking behind her and was still up several floors when she burst out of the door.)

"Hi, Teddy," she said. "What's this?"

"Well, unlike you, I can't just pop up and knock on the door."

"I know, it's stupid." She rolled her eyes extravagantly. "What did you want?"

He nodded toward the portrait hole. "I have to ask you something."

She narrowed her eyes. "What?"

"I'll ask you outside."

The third years fell forward onto their table, laughing and pointing. Ruthless raised her wand, and their chairs shot backward, dumping them onto the floor, then marched Teddy over to the portrait hole and let them out. Teddy cast around for someplace they wouldn't be interrupted. When he looked around, Ruthless was looking at him with a species of curious horror.

"You're, er... not getting googly-eyed on me, are you, Lupin?"

"What?"

"Never mind. What is it?"

Teddy found an empty spot behind a tapestry and pulled her into it, thinking it would have been much easier to just have her up to his dormitory, but the third years would have laughed about that, he guessed. "The Charmer meeting," he said. "You said there was one this afternoon. But Honoria was down in the Great Hall when I came in and-"

"She said she was interviewing someone before dinner," Ruthless said, looking confused. "She was going to do a feature on the history of the Forbidden Forest. She said there was someone doing research on it. It sounded dead boring, so of course Slughorn loved it. Said it was much better than the gossip she wanted to do last week. Why?"

"Because it's Frankie she's talking to."

"Frankie? As in our Frankie? Hufflepuff Frankie?"

Teddy nodded, then looked down miserably. Of course... Frankie hadn't just gone off to tell her about how horrible he was-he wouldn't. She'd just found a way to get him to talk that would make him feel like he was talking about something else. "She heard me say something nasty."

"She didn't say anything about that," Ruthless said. "I don't think Slughorn would let her run anything like that..."

"He let her run that bit about my granny that Geoffrey wrote."

"That's different. She wrote a book. It's not personal." She bit her lip. "We meet Tuesday to look over everyone's things before they go in. If it's bad, we'll vote her down. That's what we joined for."

Teddy still had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he supposed that was true. Half of Frankie's little bunch of friends were on the Charmer-they wouldn't let Honoria get away with anything that would make him look bad. He nodded uncertainly and opened the tapestry. A pair of fourth year girls headed for the portrait hole giggled, at least until Ruthless hissed "Tarantallegra," and one of them began tap-dancing furiously down the corridor. The other one rushed after her, trying to catch her.

Ruthless put her wand away, blushing furiously and calling them names under her breath. She headed toward the portrait hole, then stopped and touched her face. "I'm going to visit Myrtle," she said, and headed off abruptly. Teddy went back in, ignoring a sarcastic cheer from a seventh year boy. He decided to work in the Common Room for the rest of the evening, rather than seem to scurry off.

The next day, he hurried to the library after History of Magic, hoping to catch Frankie there, which was usually a good bet these days when he had a moment to spare. He found him in the usual spot, reading a heavy tome with metal catches on the sides, and sat down across from him.

"Hi."

Frankie looked up. "Go away. No games this time, Lupin."

"I'm sorry about what I said. I saw Vivian Waters, she said you wrote to her, and maybe-"

"Maybe I'm not crazy?"

"I'm sorry I said that," Teddy said again. "I think Honoria Higgs might have overheard..."

"She heard us talking about the Forest. It turns out she's interested. I told her about a lot of odd things that have happened there. She doesn't care what you said. Believe it or not, not everyone in the world is waiting for Teddy Lupin's opinion on everything."

"But Frankie, Honoria's-"

"What? Someone who didn't like you right away, so she must be evil?"

"She gossips!"

"As opposed to what you're doing just now?"

Teddy cast around for anything to point out that Frankie would believe. He hadn't mentioned most of Honoria's little slights throughout the year, not wanting to think about them longer than necessary, and as far as he knew, the only time Frankie had met her was on the Hogwarts Express in September. "Don't you remember," he tried, "on the train, she was talking about the full moon and Dad and-?"

Frankie bit his lip and started to say something, then looked down at his book. "I have work to do," he said.

"Frankie..."

Frankie took off his glasses, and rubbed at the deep red "V" on the sides of his nose. "She just wanted to know about what I was reading, Teddy. You're wrong about her. I asked her about what she said about your dad, and she said she was awfully sorry about it. She was just nervous."

"All year?"

Frankie frowned in a cloudy, confused way. "She's been... still...?" He shrugged apathetically. "It's done. I didn't tell her anything about Sanjiv or souls."

"There are other people she can talk to," Teddy said.

"Like people who think I'm crazy?" Frankie asked pointedly.

"I'm sorry!"

"Good for you." He looked up, and Teddy imagined that he looked guilty when he said, "Go away, will you, Teddy?"

Teddy went away. He picked at lunch and only ate a few mouthfuls before heading out to Defense Against the Dark Arts nearly forty minutes early. The classroom was empty. He took a seat at his desk and pulled out the Marauder's Map. He prodded it and watched the dots moving around without a great deal of interest. He put it away when he saw Robards coming, wondering what he was meant to do for another half hour with the teacher in the room.

"I saw you leave the Great Hall," Robards said when he came through the door. Instead of going to the teacher's desk, he sat in the desk on Teddy's right, where Corky usually sat during class. He pointed to Teddy's hair. "I noticed it was all brown yesterday. And still is today."

"I know." Teddy shrugged. "I didn't feel like putting the streak into it."

"Would you mind? Just for my peace of mind."

Teddy concentrated. It was harder than usual, because he didn't care at all what color his hair was, but he felt the change. "How's that?"

"Better." Robards leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked at the board. "Though it's changing back. You're too young to be in love, so I'm going to guess that you're having a problem with a friend."

"I know about the year Mum couldn't morph," Teddy said. "Granny told me." He'd also seen it in her memories-not deliberately, but as part of other memories, especially the one where she'd gone dancing with Sanjiv-but he didn't mention that to Robards. "And I know that it was Dad's fault."

"Partly. And partly mine, and partly Dumbledore's. And we oughtn't forget Voldemort. But it was also Tonks's fault. She kept hanging on, even though it hurt her." He smiled. "I thought she was mad, but it turns out she was right and I was wrong. She wouldn't have been herself if she hadn't done it. But I still think she'd have done well to let other people in, so it wouldn't hurt her as much as it did."

"I'll bet she never said Dad was crazy," Teddy said.

Robards looked at him. "No. No, I doubt she ever did."

Teddy bit his lip and looked down at the laces on his trainers. "D'you reckon she'd hate me?"

"Tonks? Not in a million years." He smiled. "I spent some time with her the year she was expecting you. She spent a lot of time talking to her belly. Not just baby talk, either. She'd have whole conversations and tell us you were answering. Your dad was so happy when she did that. Nothing would ever make her hate you. And I mean nothing. If you committed cold-blooded murder she would, I'm sure, lecture you repeatedly when she visited you in Azkaban, but she wouldn't hate you. Never imagine that she would. Not for anything."

"Thank you," Teddy said. There didn't seem to be anything else to say. Robards went to his desk, and Teddy took out his book to do the assigned reading again.

On Tuesday night, Ruthless came back from the newspaper meeting to say that Honoria's article was just a boring feature-"She's not quite done with it, said she needs to get a few more quotes, but honestly, Teddy, I think she's trying for a post at some travel magazine. Nearly put us all to sleep."

Teddy went to bed feeling fairly hopeful. Perhaps it would all just blow over-that Honoria really had grown up, it would be nothing, Frankie would come around.

He went to breakfast in this frame of mind, putting the scarlet and gold streak back in his hair as he settled down. The food appeared on the table, along with the rolled three sheets of The Weekly Charmer. He unrolled it, wondering what else was going to be in it, and could nearly feel the color fading out of his hair.

The Forbidden Forest: Third Year Alleges 'Soul Prison' by Honoria Higgs

For those who see Francis Apcarne in the library, don't imagine he's doing mere homework. No, the Muggles and Minions master has more important things in mind-he believes that the Forbidden Forest is crawling with the souls of the Demented. His obsession perhaps stirred by Dementor victim Sanjiv McPherson, a constant companion of his parents until the war, Apcarne has come to this unusual position after interviewing ghosts and reading questionable texts.

Eccentric, perhaps? On the edge? His best friend, Ted Lupin (godson of Harry Potter), has a simpler word for it: "Crazy."

Teddy was staring at this, dumbfounded, when Honoria Higgs came into the Great Hall.

He didn't know this because he saw her. He knew it because Ruthless, who was sitting across the table from him, got up, scrambled over the table, and launched herself toward the doors. A moment later, he heard someone scream, "My hair! Let go!"

Teddy tore his eyes away from the paper and saw them there at the doors. Ruthless had a fistful of Honoria's hair, and was trying to land a punch around Honoria's flailing arms.

"We didn't agree to this! This isn't what we voted on!"

Honoria tried to wriggle away. "I made an-OUCH!-editorial-let me go!-decision!"

Ruthless shoved her toward the wall (they were gathering an interested audience by now) just as Professor Longbottom came in from the greenhouses. He dropped an armful of plants and pointed his wand at both of them. They flew apart. He grabbed Ruthless as she tried to run at Honoria again, and Slughorn thundered up from the staff table to collect Honoria.

Professor Longbottom marched Ruthless back to the Gryffindor table and set her down not far from Teddy. "Explain, Scrimgeour."

"She... we didn't... Look." She grabbed Teddy's Charmer up from under his nose, and Teddy watched Professor Longbottom reading it, and remembered his parents at St. Mungo's, and wanted desperately to crawl under the table.

Professor Longbottom set the paper back down and wiped his fingers on his robes. "Ruth," he said, "you've heard everything there is to hear about picking fights. Detention. Two nights. Be at greenhouse one at seven tonight and tomorrow, and no, it's not going to be for a late tea. You can't just attack people. I don't know how many ways there are to tell you that. Twenty points from Gryffindor. Now, if you don't mind, I'll have a word with Professor Slughorn." He picked the paper up again, looking like he had found a particularly fat dead flobberworm rotting at the bottom of a flowerpot. "I don't imagine you want to keep this, Teddy?"

Teddy shook his head violently. If he could forget having seen it in the first place, he would. Professor Longbottom took the paper to the staff table.

Ruthless sat down miserably. "This wasn't what she showed us," she said. "I'm sorry, Teddy. We should've realized. I should've told Maurice; he'd have called her on it. I'm going to hex that little"-she called Honoria something quite unladylike-"until she wishes I'd just beaten her up."

Quite unfortunately, Andrew Stephens overheard her, and went into a long prefect-lecture about responsibility and told her he'd take ten points from Gryffindor any time he so much as suspected she was pointing her wand at any other student, no matter how much the other student deserved it. This was still going on when Teddy slipped away from the table, having eaten almost nothing. He scanned the Hufflepuff table, but Frankie was already gone. Tinny glared at him so hard that he felt like he might simply burn to a cinder. Laura Chapman turned her pretty blue eyes down to the table, and he thought she might be crying. Roger looked at him guiltily, but turned away. Ken was-

His feet slid out from under him, and he went skidding down the aisle between the tables. He looked up to see Zachary pushing Bernice's wand down before a teacher spotted it. Zachary didn't look angry, but he also didn't offer to help Teddy up.

"Nice landing," Corky Atkinson said, dropping down beside him and offering him a hand up. "Slytherin House apologizes for the existence of Honoria Higgs."

Teddy got to his feet. "Where's Frankie?"

"No idea, but I wouldn't try the Hufflepuffs right now. Come on. If you hurry, you can still see Honoria whine."

"Whine?"

"Whinge, whatever."

"I mean, why?"

"Slughorn took her toy away. He's letting the paper keep going, but he won't even let her go to meetings about it. And he told her that it's until he's convinced that she's not out to spread gossip, which she's not going to prove to him if anything should suddenly show up under some grown-up reporter's byline. She's pouting."

"That's all he did?"

"Well, she thought she'd spend the next six years running it and leave school straight to a great job at the Prophet. I bet she had her office half-decorated already. And she knows Sluggy's got connections there. But mostly, it's the idea that she started something and he's taking it away from her. She just kept saying, 'But it's mine! You can't!'"

Teddy looked over at the Slytherin table, where Honoria was actually crying on her crossed arms. Her housemates were studiously ignoring her. Corky looked a bit uncomfortable, but shook it off. "Come on. Potions." He nodded to Maurice to join them-Maurice seemed to have snuck over to the Ravenclaw table at some point in the festivities-and the three of them headed down to the dungeons, where Slughorn had the instructions on the board for a Comforting Concoction, which seemed like a very good thing to Teddy. They set to chopping ingredients while they waited for class to start. Brendan and Jane came down a few minutes later and set up their cauldrons on either side of a table. Honoria, her eyes red, tried to join them, but they turned her away. She approached Corky, Maurice, and Teddy, then looked down, apparently realizing there was no point in bothering.

Corky squirmed a little, but Maurice said, quietly, "Slytherin House solves its own problems now." He looked at her. "Just once is enough for her."

So Honoria set up on her own, working with a short-tempered, cool Slughorn when he came in. She didn't do the Potion well. Teddy managed well enough, but didn't take it. He thought he might see if he could slip some to Frankie, though. Maurice managed to botch it entirely, and Jane Hunter, who was usually quite good in Potions, ended up with something that ate through the goblet she dipped in it. Corky's turned out the way it was meant to, and after he drank his goblet to show it, he definitely seemed calmer. It made him very mellow, actually, and he offered a goblet to Honoria, who hexed the goblet to explode in his face, then ran from the room while Slughorn fixed the damage.

He looked for Frankie in the library before dinner, but he wasn't there, nor was he in the Great Hall, though Teddy stayed from the beginning of the meal to the end. He saw Bernice gathering things up to take back. He dreaded going to Herbology the next day, and his worst suspicions came true. He ended up working on his Alihotsy with Professor Longbottom.

"It'll pass, Teddy," he said. "I promise."

Teddy nodded rather miserably.

"Come back to greenhouse two after supper," he said. "There'll be something to cheer you up."

Teddy frowned, confused, but finished up what he was doing and went through the rest of the day vaguely curious about what Professor Longbottom had up his sleeves. He ate quickly and went down, opening the door to greenhouse two slowly. "Professor Longbottom?" he called.

Someone shaped very differently than Professor Longbottom unfolded himself from the shadows and grinned. "Sorry, he's setting up your friend's detention."

"Uncle Harry?" Teddy dropped his book bag and stared, not quite crediting his eyes. "What are you... why...?"

"Later," Uncle Harry said. "Hello, first." He came across the greenhouse and put his arms around Teddy, and Teddy couldn't remember wanting a hug this much since he'd been about six years old, which made him feel quite stupid.

He pulled away. "Hi, Uncle Harry."

Uncle Harry Conjured a couple of chairs, and a box of Aunt Ginny's gingerbread showed up on the table. "Neville told us what happened. Aunt Ginny thought you could use these."

"Please thank her for me. I mean, I'll write, but you know... tell her so, too, please."

"It's a wrench, but I may give her a kiss for you."

"You came up to give me biscuits?"

"No, I was coming up anyway. Business. Frankie's letter to Vivian got them looking around in the Forest, and there's something there I want to have a good, hard look at. I'll be here now and again for a few weeks, but not to teach, so I'm trying to keep a low profile. But I wasn't about to miss a chance to see you. So, tell me... what else is going on around here?"

Teddy happily settled into the talk, and stayed in the greenhouse until curfew, then walked back to the castle with Ruthless, who was finishing her detention. She saw Uncle Harry, but didn't comment.

The next two weeks went along the same way. Frankie reappeared in the Great Hall, and when Teddy approached him, he managed a gruff, "Not your fault," but didn't look up. His face was very red. The other 'Puffs let up a little bit in class and there was no more hexing from Bernice, but there were also no more comfortable wanderings over to their table, and no more Saturday games. No one felt like playing. Frankie still tended to leave public places quickly, as several older students made fun of him any time the teachers weren't looking. Teddy caught a fourth year Ravenclaw hexing Frankie's bag so that it said "Cuckoo" every time he opened it, and sent the boy tap dancing down the stairs, bouncing wildly off the railing. It didn't make a difference. Now and then, Teddy would check the Marauder's Map and see that Uncle Harry was at Hagrid's, or holed up in the greenhouses with Professor Longbottom, but there wasn't much of a chance to talk.

The Charmer was taken over by a sixth year Slytherin who Teddy had never heard of. Ruthless said she seemed all right. Most of the Guard had dropped from the staff, though Roger doggedly pursued his column on Muggles, producing a column on mobile telephones and another on airplanes.

The rumor of Uncle Harry's repeated presence did finally spread as the spring days became warmer. Some thought he might have come to observe the anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, but the date came and went-to Teddy's great relief-with no fanfare. (Teddy himself went to the slope under the north battlements where he'd found Dad's ring, and sat there on the place where he'd fallen to watch his memories. He stumbled that day on the memory of his own birth, and felt a wave of painful happiness that was too big for him, and when the memory ended, he cried for no reason at all-it had been a happy memory-which he hadn't done since the last time he'd come to this place. He decided not to make a habit of coming here. He didn't think Dad would like it if he did, anyway.) Once it had passed, the question of what Uncle Harry was doing seemed less pressing to most students, but a few still seemed quite interested. One was Honoria, who had decided to prove she was a serious journalist, and thereby be allowed back on her paper, by trying to find the answers to important questions about Hogwarts news-or what she perceived as important questions, anyway. Another was Frankie Apcarne, who finally broke his silence. He came to Teddy, biting his lip, ignoring one of the Gryffindor third years who was making "crazy" sounds at him until Ruthless decided it was worth ten points to curse him.

"I need to talk," Frankie said.

"Now?"

"I'm sorry. It's not you. I haven't... well, I haven't really been talking to anyone... Talking got me into this."

"Come on," Teddy said, and led the way into the antechamber where the first years had gathered before Sorting. Madam Rosmerta was floating about in here again, inspecting the dusty mantle with a disapproving expression, but she disappeared through the wall when she saw them. "What is it?" Teddy asked.

"Do you know what they're doing in the Forest?"

"No."

"Do you have the... you know? The Map? I just want to see where they are. I think I know, but..."

Teddy opened his book bag and pulled out the Marauder's Map. He looked toward the Forest, where Hagrid, Uncle Harry, Professor Longbottom, and Vivian Waters were all wandering around in the same area.

"It's where that glade is," Frankie said. "They found it. Do you think they're going to do something about it?"

"I don't know." Teddy frowned. "Frankie, is this still about... I mean, I don't want to get into it all again..."

Frankie looked miserable. "Haven't you ever just had to answer a question?"

Teddy, who'd spent the year in the company of his dead father, looking for answers to questions he hadn't even known he had, could hardly say no. "I guess."

"If I ever start talking about being an Unspeakable," Frankie said, giving Teddy a ghost of a smile, "remind me about the 'crazy' part. This doesn't make me happy. I'd rather not ask this question again."

"I think you'd best have a Hufflepuff do that," Teddy said. "They don't seem to take it well if someone else does."

Frankie laughed weakly. "Yeah. Sorry about that. I told them it wasn't your fault. But they... well... I guess they've got a bit of flak for sticking by me."

They talked awkwardly for a few minutes more, but Teddy felt more hopeful than he had for a while. Not that Frankie would drop it-Frankie had all but admitted that he wouldn't, even though it was making him unhappy-but that, once he got his answers, he'd start to come around again. Teddy went to Defense Against the Dark Arts that afternoon, then back to Gryffindor to settle down and do his homework in the Common Room. Ruthless joined him. It was an hour short of curfew when a commotion broke out beyond the portrait hole.

"Someone forgot a password," Priya joked. "How long should we leave them?"

"Sounds like more than one person," someone else said.

Teddy listened. There were many voices, and they sounded quite keen to get in. Something sank like a stone inside of him, and he dashed across the Common Room and pushed the portrait open.

Tinny was standing at the head of the Forest Guard, looking panicked. "Is Frankie in there?" she asked.

"No," Teddy said, as Ruthless came up beside him. "Why?"

"He slipped out halfway through Care of Magical Creatures," Zachary said. "No one's seen him since."

19. The Shadow in the Smoke

Chapter 19:

The Shadow In The Smoke

Teddy and Ruthless climbed out through the portrait hole. Corky had joined them, apparently following Maurice, and Ken, Bernice, Zachary, Donzo, and Roger were all behind Tinny.

"Does Hagrid know he's gone?" Teddy asked.

Bernice bit her lip. "We told Hagrid he wasn't feeling well. We thought he'd be back at dinner!"

"You thought," Zachary said. "I didn't notice he was gone until we were on our way back. I thought maybe he came here to work out... you know."

"He didn't," Teddy said. "Come on. We'll get him." He led them down the stairs. On the second floor, he held up his hand. "Wait here. I have to see..." He ran down the corridor to the nondescript door Professor Longbottom had taken him through in the autumn. He pounded on it. "Professor Longbottom! Professor Longbottom! It's Teddy!"

There was no answer. He ran across to Robards' office and tried that one, and got no response there, either. He reached for his bag, but it was back in the Common Room, the Marauder's Map with it.

"Teddy!" Tinny called.

He went back. "Bernice, get your Head of House," he said.

"But-"

"Go. We'll go ahead and hopefully, he's fine. But get your Head of House."

Bernice looked like she might refuse-she was a third year, after all, and Teddy was a first year-but ultimately, she nodded, and disappeared up the stairs.

Teddy looked at the others. "All right," he said. "He's probably in the Forest. We should split up, look in the places we've been with him. Groups of two or three. Ken, Zachary, Ruthless... you all went around with him last year, right?"

They nodded.

"Okay-I went somewhere else with him this year. You three, take first years."

"And you?" Ruthless prodded.

Teddy grabbed Tinny, who was handiest, and the others took the hint and corralled their nearest neighbors. They looked at each other, then at a nod from Teddy, went downstairs and slipped out the great front doors.

It was late enough in the spring that it wasn't dark yet, but the grounds were wrapped in softening shadows, and candles were already appearing in windows. Teddy glanced down at the greenhouses, but they were dark. They reached the Forest path where they'd stopped in December, and Teddy checked the groups. He nodded, and Ruthless led Roger off to the west. Ken took Maurice and Donzo off on a crooked path that led uphill.

Zachary looked at Teddy. "You know where he is, don't you?"

"Maybe," Teddy said. "But if I'm wrong, just... go."

Zachary went off with Corky, and Teddy and Tinny set off along the narrow path that led toward the spiders' abandoned nest.

"I've only been here once," Teddy said, moving under the low branches that disguised the path. "Frankie thought it seemed..." He emerged into a more open place, Tinny behind him. He could hear things moving in the Forest, scuffling through the undergrowth.

"Seemed what?" she asked.

"I don't know. Powerful. Strange." He looked back toward the tunnel of branches, and groaned as he saw another figure creeping along after them.

"What's strange?" Honoria Higgs asked, her eyes avid.

Tinny turned, a look of fury on her face. "What are you doing here?"

"Trying to find out what's going on. Harry Potter was here earlier, with quite a lot of professors. They all went back to Hagrid's. Now you're all sneaking out."

"It's not a lark, go back," Teddy said, starting to push ahead.

"No, I-"

"Petrificus!"

The word was faint, snatched up on the breeze, but it stopped the conversation.

"Frankie," Teddy said, and ran down the path, Tinny and Honoria behind him.

"Petrificus! Rictusempra!"

Frankie's spells were getting louder now, but they were taking on a panicked note that Teddy didn't like. He could see the dim twilight on the pale leaves of the ivy between the branches ahead of him. The leaves were waving wildly and-

"UGH!"

The Red Caps burst from the foliage on the ground, knocking Teddy off his feet. He kept hold of his wand and hexed one of them away. Three more had grabbed Tinny. Honoria, still a few feet behind, was backing away slowly, her wand drawn uncertainly.

"Go to Hagrid's!" Teddy yelled at her.

"But I..." She pointed her wand at a Red Cap. "P... Petrificus!" It fell backward. She looked up with a madly delighted sort of smile. "I can help!"

"You can help by doing something useful for once! Go to Hagrid's!"

She stumbled backward and Teddy saw two Red Caps going for her. He hexed them. She ran back, disappearing into the shadows.

"Frankie!" Teddy called between hexes. He and Tinny were back to back now, moving sideways along the path, blasting hexes at anything that was moving. A Red Cap got through and hit the side of his leg with its club. He pointed his wand at it and tried the spell he'd heard Professor Longbottom use: "Exsicco Maximus"

The Red Cap burst into flames and ran off.

"Teddy!" Frankie yelled back. "Get out of here! Red Caps!"

"Yes, we noticed!"

Something sizzled, and Teddy noticed a tendril of smoke snaking up the bottom of a pine tree. A spark flickered up from the burning Red Cap and ignited the lower branches. He reached the edge of the ivy. Frankie was surrounded by waving leaves, and Teddy could see the flashes of red underneath them, even in the shadows. His glasses were gone, and he was bleeding from one ear.

"Get over here!" he called.

"I can't! I-" A Red Cap hit his wand elbow, throwing his aim off, and he Cursed a tree.

"Petri-UFF!" At his back, Teddy felt Tinny collapse sideways. He turned. A Red Cap had smashed her knee; it was bent sideways and swelling. She raised her wand and said, "Taranta-" but another came out of nowhere and hit her face. Teddy cursed it away. More were coming.

He gathered Tinny, now whimpering and semi-conscious, and tried to find somewhere to put her that she'd be safe, but the fire had spread in the lower branches, and if he put her up out of the Red Caps' reach, she'd burn.

"Frankie, we need-"

A burning branch fell from a tree and landed in the ivy, setting it aflame in an uneven line. It burned with a strange, ghastly smell, releasing white smoke.

"Frankie!"

"My wand!" Frankie yelled. "I lost my-"

He was interrupted by the sound of scuffling Red Caps, more than Teddy could count, more than he could see, and then there was a horrible thud, and the sound of meaty strikes.

There was no choice.

Teddy heaved Tinny to her feet, putting his arm around her waist, and waded into the clearing. He had to look after both of them, and that meant getting them together, and he was the only one who could still move.

"Exsicco Maximus!" he called again, figuring that if the ivy was already burning, it couldn't make it any worse. Several Red Caps ran away, their hands on their flaming heads. More of the undergrowth caught, and Teddy's eyes were watering from the smoke now. He dropped to his hands and knees, trying to get under it, dragging Tinny awkwardly along. He could see Frankie ahead, surrounded by Red Caps.

"Petrificus!" One fell away. "Pe-Petrificus!" Another.

Teddy stopped moving, coughing violently. He grabbed at a stalk of the huge plant for balance, and it came up from the dry ground, showering his hand with pebbles that were caught among the roots. They stuck to his hand as he started crawling again, poking him painfully. One particularly large, cold one refused to be dislodged, though he managed to flip it all the way around trying to shake it off.

He hexed away more Red Caps. The world had shrunk again, to nothing but smoke and Frankie and Tinny and Red Caps, and it was shrinking further. His hand landed on polished wood-Frankie's wand-and then he was there, he'd reached the center, and Frankie was bloodied but breathing... breathing in the smoke and unconscious from the Red Caps' blows.

With a last effort, Teddy dragged Tinny forward, putting her down beside Frankie. He crouched beside them, trying to keep warding off the Red Caps, trying to remember any Healing spells he knew, but he'd never really learned any, not even from Granny. All year spent learning silly, useless Charms, and he couldn't think of anything that would help. Maybe if he Levitated them...

"Wingardium..." He coughed as he pointed his wand, and it shook wildly. "Wingardium Levi-o-sa..."

Nothing happened.

A Red Cap appeared out of the smoke and hit Teddy's head-only a glancing blow, but it made his eyes go blurry. He fell forward, dizzy, shielding Tinny and Frankie, taking blows to the back of his shoulders. Dad's ring slipped out from under his robes, and he grabbed at it, tugging the chain taut, thinking in a disjointed way that it was fitting somehow for him to die like this, with Dad's ring in one hand and Mum's wand in the other. His skin stung from where the pebbles had cut into it, and he wanted to shake them off, but his hand seemed very heavy. Dad's ring seemed lodged around the large, cold pebble. He curled his fingers around it, felt it turn in his hand, wanted it to bring him into a good memory now, someplace safe and cool, where he could see forever.

The world shrank more, and darkness invaded the fringes of Teddy's vision. He could see the Red Caps moving in the smoke, their wicked faces looming like castle gargoyles come to life.

"Dad," he whispered. "Mummy, please... help me..."

The darkness moved in further. His fingers loosened, and the ring turned again in his hand. The world was shifting white smoke and nightmare faces with blood dripping down their ears. It was the sound of crackling flames and soft footsteps in the ivy. He looked up and saw a tall, thin shadow, insubstantial and frail, and then the dark closed in completely.

He knew he was dreaming as soon as he was aware of anything at all.

He was very aware of his body, of the burning in his lungs from the smoke, the pain of bruises where the Red Caps had hit him, the heat of the encroaching flames. His fist was closed tightly around Dad's ring, and the pebbles embedded in his skin stung like fire. He also knew that no further blows were falling and something seemed to be blocking the smoke, and he had a sense of long, thin fingers resting lightly on his head, smoothing his hair, coming to rest on the back of his neck. It was a familiar feeling, though he couldn't remember when he'd felt it before. He opened his eyes to see to whom the fingers belonged, but in his dream, he was somewhere entirely different. Both places seemed to exist simultaneously.

He was curled up among the roots of the Whomping Willow, looking down into the tunnel that led to the Shrieking Shack. It took a moment to recognize it, though, because the world around the tree was a strange, warm shade of yellow, the grass on the hillside oddly flat and cracked. The castle, far-off, was drawn in ink, and he could see flickers of motion as dots moved about. As the dots came closer, they seemed to take on shape and reality, becoming human as they moved down the hill. He could see dark shapes swimming around their feet, and knew that their names would be there, floating along beside them like shadows on the ground.

Their right names, of course, because the Marauder's Map never lied.

He sat up groggily-in the other place, he continued to lie still, and the fingers continued to caress his head comfortingly-and moved toward the tunnel, hobbling on all fours with one fist closed. A pair of pale gray eyes looked out at him, then a huge dog jumped up, blocking the entrance entirely. The name "Sirius Black" trailed along beside its forepaw. A hoof crunched the twigs on Teddy's other side, and the words "James Potter" snaked over his wrist.

Teddy tried to look around him into the tunnel. Sirius growled, warning him off.

"Wotcher, Teddy," someone said. "You don't need to go into the tunnel, not for a long, long time."

Teddy turned slowly, his eyes to the ground. Her name came into his field of view first, or part of it, skimming over the parchment earth: "-adora Lupin." He looked up, and she crouched down to look him in the eye. She was young and beautiful, with bright pink hair and the high cheekbones and glittering gray eyes of the Black family. Beside her was a cat with white feet and a pattern on its back just like Checkmate's, and the name beside its paws was "Granny."

"Mum," Teddy said.

She smiled. "Yes."

"I'm not dead. It hurts to breathe."

"You'll be all right. Help is coming."

Teddy looked from the dog to the stag, then glanced frantically around the Map. "Where's Dad?"

"Where he belongs," Mum said.

Teddy blinked. "Am I dreaming?"

"Yes. You have no business as near to this particular border as you are, and I don't want to see you here again, but you're not really close to crossing it."

"Then how... how are..."

The Map went white and shadowy as a painful series of coughs ripped through Teddy's body, dragging him back to the clearing. He could feel Frankie and Tinny beneath him. Behind him, he could feel someone else, someone crouched in the smoke, one hand on his neck, comforting him.

He slipped back into the Map.

Mum was watching him, concerned. "Teddy?"

He tried to take a deep breath, but in the real world, the world away from this dream, there was too much smoke. It burned and his eyes watered. "Frankie," he said when he could speak. "And Tinny..."

"They're all right as well," Mum said, and pointed to the other roots of the tree, where Teddy could now see both Frankie and Tinny sleeping. "If you can hold on a bit longer." She looked toward Hagrid's cabin, and Teddy followed her eyes to see ink dots forming themselves into men as they rushed toward the Forest. Teddy could see flames, drawn in black ink, rising up from the trees.

Teddy blinked at her, wanting to say a million things, unable to find words for any of them. He had a feeling that she understood them anyway. She reached across and touched his face. Her hand was like cool mist rising from the ocean.

Teddy coughed again, not so hard this time, not hard enough to wake himself up and return to the Forest, but enough to make him lightheaded. He lay down again among the roots. Sirius came closer and lay down beside him, comforting him as he had once comforted Dad during transformations. James dipped his head and nudged at Teddy's cheek. Teddy felt, oddly, that there ought to be a rat here as well, nuzzled up under his elbow. Sirius let out a bark like a laugh, and Teddy realized that there was no privacy in his thoughts.

Mum smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm afraid Mr. Pettigrew couldn't make it."

"Is he... there?"

"Not that we've noticed." Mum sat down, cross-legged, and closed her hand over Teddy's fist. "You'll need to let go soon," she said. "They won't see you if you don't let go."

Teddy suddenly didn't want to let go. He wanted to keep his fist closed, stay here, inside the Marauder's Map, Mum's hand on his, the Marauders close by, comforting him.

Mum prodded his face, turned him to see Frankie and Tinny again. "They won't be found, either," she said sternly.

"I don't care."

"Yes you do. You wouldn't have been out in the woods if you didn't."

There was no proper answer to that. "Frankie went to the woods," he said, and his voice sounded petulant to him. "Frankie went to the woods to look for Sanjiv, and he's not here."

"I'm looking as well," Mum said. Her eyes became faraway, shifting their color.

Teddy looked around, baffled. "Don't you have the Map?"

"The Map is yours."

The words seemed to float in his head, as they'd floated to the top of the Marauder's Map: What binds is bound.

He didn't know what the words meant, or why it seemed important to tell this to the dead, who must know it already. James stood back and regarded him thoughtfully through the stag's deep brown eyes.

Mum looked at him, then sighed. "Frankie also needs to let go. This isn't his responsibility. You'll need to help him, Teddy."

"I've tried!"

"Shh. He knows. And you'll help each other." Her eyes narrowed. "It's time to let go, Teddy."

"But... Dad! I haven't seen..." He breathed convulsively, and the smoke poured into his lungs. He woke up, coughing and flailing. He felt the strong hand on his neck again.

"Shh," another voice said, this one soft, hoarse, and known deep in Teddy's own blood. "Let go, Teddy. Let go so they can find you."

Teddy lifted his head. He could see shadows moving about in the smoke, huge and towering. They were calling him, although they were quite close by. Their voices seemed to come from a great distance.

"Teddy, where are you? Teddy? It's Uncle Harry. Are you here? Let me see you!"

Teddy tried to turn over, to look at the figure behind him, but his head was swimming, and when he managed to turn onto his back, his eyes were watering, and the world was a white and gray blur. He had to squeeze his eyes shut. His fingers ached from where they were holding the ring, and the big pebble dug painfully into his palm. The chain the ring was on was pulled taut against his neck, cutting.

Fingers traced the line of his jaw, and the voice said again, "Let go, Teddy. Now."

There was no argument with that voice, that imperative. With more effort than it had ever taken, Teddy forced his fingers to curl outward. He felt smoke burn across the scrapes on his palm, and the ring fell free, dragging the pebbles along with it. The sense of a hand on his face disappeared.

"Teddy!"

He blinked and coughed hard, his lungs feeling like someone had used a Scrubbing Charm on them. "Uncle... Ha...!" He broke into another series of painful coughs.

A dark shadow swooped down out of the smoke, and suddenly strong arms were around Teddy, real ones, warm and clumsy. "I've got them!" Uncle Harry called. "Hagrid, Neville! Get the others, and Robards, keep these bloody Red Caps off of us!"

Teddy felt himself lifted up, hoisted and swung until he was lying in Uncle Harry's arms, being carried like a small child, one arm slung over his shoulders, the other hanging down toward the ground.

"Give me some help here, Teddy," Uncle Harry whispered, sounding almost frightened. "It would help a lot if you could put both of your arms around my neck. Can you do that?"

Teddy fought to bring his free arm up, flailed with it until it found the other wrist, grasped it weakly. He couldn't imagine it was helping much, but Uncle Harry just kept saying "Thank you" as he carried Teddy up the uneven path to the castle.

Teddy was only partly aware of the walk. He knew that at some point, they'd met the rest of the Guard, running back to the edge of the Forest when they smelled smoke. He got a clear, long, meaningless look at Roger Young, who was filthy and seemed distraught. He heard Professor Longbottom send Ruthless, who ran fastest, ahead to the hospital wing so that Madam Pomfrey could prepare for them. Corky was talking about something-Teddy recognized his accent-but the words didn't string together properly and it was all gibberish.

Mostly, he was aware of the quick sound of Uncle Harry's pulse as it pounded in his neck, the rocking motion of being carried, the retreating smell of the smoke. He tried once to say that they needed to go back, that Dad was still there, but partway through, he realized how mad that was. Uncle Harry just kept shushing him and telling him that everything was all right, and everyone was all right, and he didn't need to worry.

They got to the castle and the uninjured students were sent away. Teddy, Frankie, and Tinny were all put into beds, and Uncle Harry and Professor Longbottom made themselves available to help Madam Pomfrey any way they could. Hagrid said-and Teddy heard this very clearly and remembered it for no reason at all-"I'd best get Higgs an' bundle 'er back up here before she starts misquotin' Buckbeak."

After he left, Madam Pomfrey did a spell to keep all of them awake-"Sorry, but you can't slip under until we're done." This made Teddy marginally more alert, which he'd rather not have been, as she followed this up with a horrible spell that seemed to pull everything inside of his lungs out of them, making his head swim and his chest burn. A great, foul-smelling haze gathered around his head-mostly smoke, but wound through with strange yellowish goo and infused with a red mist that might have been blood. Madam Pomfrey Banished it, then let Teddy breathe again. After one gasping breath, he vomited something thin and milky all over his robes, but once that was over, he felt better-worn out and somehow obscenely clean, but better. "You take care of his cuts and scrapes," she told Uncle Harry. "I know I taught you that much while you were training."

Uncle Harry nodded, but didn't act immediately. He just put his arms around Teddy, ignoring the mess on his robes, and held onto him gently, mindful of the sore spots (Teddy guessed he'd had a few sore spots himself and knew to do this). Finally, he let go, smiled faintly, and said, "Let's get you put back together. Professor Robards has gone to get your Granny and Frankie and Tinny's parents." He took out his wand and started healing the many cuts Teddy had picked up. The one on his neck, where the gold chain had cut him, was deep, and tingled. Finally, he turned to the hand where all of the stones had been caught. There was a deep circle cut into it, where Dad's ring had pressed. Even the smooth round stone that had been caught in it had left a circle of abraded skin. This resisted Healing spells-Teddy guessed it was because the ring had powerful Charms on it-so he just cleaned it very carefully, then Conjured a soft white bandage for it. "That may leave a scar," he said. "But I don't imagine that scar will hurt you at all." He put his hand on Teddy's forehead. "You need some rest. Your lungs need to heal on their own; there's no good spell for them." He Summoned a goblet from Madam Pomfrey's desk and said, "It's for dreamless sleep."

"I had a good dream..." Teddy started.

"I know," Uncle Harry said. "But you need rest now."

Teddy took the goblet and drank it. The last thing he was aware of before drifting off was Uncle Harry's hand on his face, his voice saying, "I love you, Teddy, and so do they." Then there was nothing at all until late the next morning.

When he woke up, the sunlight was streaming through the high windows of the hospital wing, turning the motes of dust into tiny suns. Privacy screens had been put up between his bed and Frankie's, but Teddy could see through the gap between the screen and the wall. Daffy's back was filling most of it, but over the top of it, he could see the top of Maddie's head as she bent over Frankie, who was still sleeping.

He turned his head. Granny was sitting in the chair beside the bed. She was still wearing her lime green Healers' robes from St. Mungo's, and Teddy guessed she must have come from a night shift at work. She was holding his hand, but her eyes had slipped shut. She looked tired and too old.

"I'm sorry," Teddy said, and was surprised that it hurt his throat.

Her eyes flew open, and she stood up to lean forward and cover his face with kisses. "Teddy-you're back-you're fine-you'll be all right..."

Teddy let this run its course, glad of her embrace and voice.

She finally sat back, wiping her face. "Do you need anything? Is your throat sore?"

Teddy nodded.

Granny picked up the goblet Uncle Harry had brought over last night, cleaned it with a flick of her wand, and filled it with a red, sweet-smelling potion. "Here."

Teddy drank it. His throat and chest were soothed. "Sorry," he said again. "I didn't mean to make you leave work."

She looked at him like he'd said something in a particularly obscure dialect of Gobbledygook, then shook her head violently. "No, Teddy. Don't you dare get into the habit of apologizing for accidents. Your friends said you did everything you ought to have. You looked for an adult, you didn't go alone, you were careful. It just got out of hand. Frankie, on the other hand-"

"Frankie was just trying to help Sanjiv," Teddy said. "And Maddie."

Granny rubbed her head. "Sanjiv started slipping away last night," she said. "That's why I was still at work. Maddie and Daffy and Carny were all with me when Robards came to find us."

They found him, Teddy thought, but he wasn't sure what to do with it-a part of him felt like he ought to be happy that they'd found him, that they'd pulled him from whatever prison he was in. But mostly, he remembered the memory Mum had shared, in which Sanjiv had taken her dancing, and made her laugh during a year she'd thought she couldn't, and now they were both gone, and nothing about it seemed happy.

The privacy screen suddenly moved, and Maddie stood there uncertainly. She was wearing black robes, and her eyes were sunken and red. "I, er..." She looked at Granny. "May I take a moment to thank Teddy?"

"How's Frankie?" Teddy asked.

"He'll be fine, thanks to you," Maddie said. "I'm so sorry for everything. I didn't know... I didn't think..." She closed her eyes and took a series of deep breaths, then opened them again, seeming calmer. "This won't happen again. Thank you, Teddy." She smiled very faintly, then darted back to Frankie's bed. Teddy saw Daffy put his arm around her, and she clung to him. With the screens open, he could now see Carny curled up in a large, puffy chair, her thumb in her open mouth, sleeping deeply.

Frankie woke up a few minutes later, and asked if they could just move all of the screens. Tinny, awake on the far side with her leg splinted around the knee sprain, was sitting with her parents, a couple in their late middle age, who introduced themselves as Dave and Susannah. The adults all seemed more self-conscious with the screens open, and fell into a lot of forced laughter about how children would be children. Teddy didn't fail to note that all of them stayed near their respective charges. Granny actually kept her hand in his hair while she gave a high laugh and mentioned how Mum had always been off on adventures, and how she had often gone out onto the grounds to meet with Granddad.

Susannah Gudgeon grinned. "Late night Quidditch matches?"

"Just so," Granny said.

"Wow," Maddie put in, her eyes unnaturally wide. "And here Daffy and I just went out to snog."

At noon, Madam Pomfrey came to check on the patients, and sent the adults to go have lunch in Hogsmeade. She put the screens back up, ordered them to rest, and went off, cursing the Red Caps, the spells they used to get rid of the Red Caps, the existence of the Forest, and the nature of boys. She amended this last, glancing at Tinny, and said, "All of them, honestly..."

Teddy leaned back into his pillows, but wasn't surprised when, a moment later, the screen moved and Frankie came through. He looked down at the floor. "Sorry, Teddy. That's not much to say, but..."

"We're all right."

Frankie looked up nervously. "Really?"

"Sure."

"I should've listened to you."

"Yes."

This got a small laugh. "I thought I could solve it. It was stupid. Mum couldn't solve it, either. Why would I be able to?"

"It's not stupid," Teddy said.

"Yes it was."

Teddy and Frankie both looked up at the new voice. Uncle Harry had come back. He was standing just inside Teddy's area, and his robes seemed to be dusted with light ash. He smiled at Frankie and said, "It was stupid, but I'm the last one to hold that against someone. Would you mind if I talked to Teddy for a bit?"

Frankie nodded and ducked back behind his screen, closing the gap behind him. Uncle Harry Summoned a chair and sat down in it. "Neville and I have made the clearing Unplottable," he said. He took a very deep breath then said, "There's part of the story you don't know, Teddy, and I don't think you're old enough for it. So I find myself not telling you something that's important. And understanding what I thought I wouldn't. I promise to tell you later."

"My father was there," Teddy guessed.

"Yes. And no. Can you live without knowing yet?"

Teddy found-surprisingly-that he could. He knew what he did know. He nodded.

"Thank you, Teddy." He stood up, then kissed Teddy's forehead. "I don't suppose there would be any point to telling you not to scare me like this again."

"I'll try not to."

"Sure you will." He smiled and mussed Teddy's hair. "I'd best get out before Madam Pomfrey comes in and Banishes me."

"Are you done? With your work here?"

"Yes. I'll stay around until you're all right."

Teddy smiled, then sank into his pillows as Uncle Harry tiptoed out.

20. The Last Paw Print

Chapter 20:

The Last Paw Print

Madam Pomfrey kept Teddy in the hospital wing for three days, mainly to keep an eye on his lungs, which she worried might still be injured. Though they remained sore, there was no more blood, and his breathing became easier by the day. Frankie and Tinny, who'd been lower to the ground and taken less smoke, were released on the first day, though Tinny's knee was still splinted, and she had to walk with a cane for a week. Ruthless brought Checkmate down the first morning, saying she was crying so loudly for Teddy that no Gryffindor could sleep or study. Teddy wasn't entirely sure this was true, but when Checkmate climbed into his hospital bed and crawled up onto his pillow, she was purring madly, and fell asleep with her wet nose pushed up behind his earlobe.

Uncle Harry went home at night, but took time from work to come to Hogwarts during the days and sit with Teddy, as he'd promised. A few curious students craned their necks in, and he nodded to them politely, but didn't let them engage him in conversation. Granny was also there, and for a little while, it seemed like the ancient, half-forgotten days when Uncle Harry had lived with them, and he and Granny would banter comfortably while Teddy leaned over the edge of his high chair and tried to feed his vegetables to the cats. Teddy sometimes wished that Granny would move in with Uncle Harry, but he didn't fancy giving up her house-and his own nursery, with the decorations Dad had made with such care-and he supposed it wouldn't make much sense to have the house if no one was living in it.

On the day Madam Pomfrey released him, they fussed over him for a few more minutes, then Granny took a deep breath and said, "Uncle Harry and I have to get back to work, and so do you. You have end-of-year exams coming up."

Uncle Harry drew a little leather-bound book from under his robes. "This is from Hermione. She thought you might have got behind and would need it." He smiled ruefully.

Teddy took the book. It was a planner, and when he opened it, Hermione's voice reminded him that things sooner begun were sooner done. She'd blocked out his best subjects and put in a first year study guide. On the inside of the front cover, she'd written, It will be easier to keep to this schedule if you stay out of the hospital wing... not to mention easier on Uncle Harry.

"Ron and I never followed ours," Uncle Harry said. "And we managed to pass most of our classes, Divination aside."

Teddy laughed.

Madam Pomfrey gave his lungs one more check, then gave him a potion that he was meant to pour onto his pillow and breathe in while he slept for the next few days and a strict instruction to come back if he saw so much as a speck of blood when he coughed. Teddy thought this an eminently reasonable notion, though he didn't think it would happen.

At dinner, he discovered that Headmistress Sprout had given Gryffindor twenty points on Teddy's behalf for trying to rescue Frankie (Frankie thought this was stingy, for trying to save someone's life), and Honoria had earned ten for Slytherin by going to get the professors. This seemed to have got her back in the good graces of her House, and during dinner, when Teddy wandered over to sit with Maurice and Corky for a bit, she sat down opposite them, and told the story of her great escape from the burning Forest.

"That Red Cap followed me," she said. "I cursed it, but it kept coming, so I had to run quite fast to get to Hagrid's. At first, they wouldn't listen to me, but when I said you sent me, Harry Potter was out the door before I finished talking."

"Right," Corky said, "because if she'd just said that Tinny and Frankie were trapped out there in the middle of the fire, they'd have had tea instead."

Teddy was glad that Honoria wasn't on the Charmer anymore, as he could just imagine the article she might write on that theme. "Well," he said, "thank you for going."

She bristled. "Of course I went. Slytherins can be useful." She turned up her nose and left.

"What was that about?" Teddy asked.

"Well, clearly your 'thank you' was sarcastic and an insult to the House," Maurice said. "We shall have to avenge ourselves on you for it." He gave a bewildered shrug. "Girls."

Donzo sidled over with his plate and sat on Teddy's other side, and Tinny and Roger spotted them and joined them. Tinny waved toward the Hufflepuff table with her cane (which she'd decorated with bright yellow paper, striped with black), and a moment later, Frankie and Zachary came over as well, causing several older Slytherins to roll their eyes in disgust.

"Bilingual?" Maurice said to Corky.

"Just so," Corky said.

They each flashed both versions of a rude gesture down the table, and lost two points each, as Slughorn happened to be passing by.

The next day, Frankie was summoned to Professor Sprout's office to take a Floo call from his mother, and was waiting for Teddy after Defense Against the Dark Arts to tell him that Sanjiv MacPherson had slipped away quietly. The adults were having only a tiny service on Saturday, and Frankie wanted to have one in the Hufflepuff Common Room as well. Teddy went to it, and was surprised to find that the entire House turned out for it, even though Sanjiv hadn't been there for nearly twenty years, and none of them knew him. Frankie did a eulogy, and wrote it up for the Charmer under the title, "The Last Casualty." It turned out that he wrote well-calmly and reasonably-and the last lingering jokes about him died away, at least for a little while. (The Gryffindor third year boys tried to make weeping sounds at him, but someone hexed them so that they started actually crying, in high baby voices, and couldn't stop until Madam Pomfrey reversed it. No one seemed to be able to identify who'd cast the hex, even though at least ten people, including Teddy, saw Ruthless draw her wand.)

Teddy studied, actually following Hermione's instructions, which made good sense, caught up on the homework he'd missed, and started looking through the second year textbooks in the library. Each night when he finished, he took out the Marauder's Map. He didn't do this with the desperate craving for company that he'd had earlier. It was more a sense of something that had been left undone. He remembered the dream of being inside it, of being close to James and Sirius and his mum, and he thought he had a job to do.

He began by finding the things James Potter had lost around the school-other than the Quidditch betting book that had been upstairs, he found a spare pair of specs that had fallen behind a book shelf (one lens was cracked in a spider web pattern that left it milky; the other was just covered with thirty years of dust), a homework assignment under another marked Marauder stone that someone had hidden from him (Teddy suspected Dad, from the drawing of a laughing boy that had been left pinned to it), and a dusty collection of Chocolate Frog cards that had been left under Hagrid's front step and forgotten for some reason. There was also a paw print from Padfoot there, and Teddy found a rotting lead for a dog. Dad's ring showed him a memory of a puppy they'd found in their third year, which Sirius had named Fizzing Whizbee, and Hagrid had kept for them. Sirius had also left a book in the Transfiguration classroom, along with the spare book collection, with many scribbled notes. Teddy had looked at these eagerly, hoping they would reveal tricks like the Potions book Uncle Harry had found in his sixth year, but mostly, Sirius seemed to have amused himself by amending the spells so they would Transfigure objects into embarrassing sorts of things. He had to use the Keys to the Castle to find Peter Pettigrew's spell-which turned out to be fake Latin, anyway, so he wouldn't have guessed it: Revelo Pettigresis. Teddy found many food stashes inside the walls, all of them long-turned to greasy dust-Peter's Animagus form would have allowed him access, and he seemed to have used it. Teddy thought quite a few of them may have been hidden not while Peter was a student, but while he was masquerading as first Percy's, then Ron's pet rat. One or two of these sites also had magazines, probably nicked from older boys' dormitories, that were dated in those years. The girls in them all wore odd make-up, big hair, and not much else.

There was nothing left in their old room, other than what he'd already found. Five generations of students must have found anything that wasn't as carefully hidden as the baseboard cubbyhole. He looked into the ring, and thought he might be getting some control over where it took him-though he didn't know how-as he saw them leaving the room the last day of their seventh year. They'd overslept because they'd spent the night up drinking Firewhiskey, and had gathered things up in a rush before they missed breakfast and the carriages down to the trains. Dad had bent down to the cubbyhole and opened it, reaching around frantically and drawing out handfuls that he could reach.

"I can't find the Keys to the map!" he said, distraught.

"Well, Moony," James said, "as we haven't had the Map for quite a long time and are leaving the place it covers, it's possible we can live without the Keys."

Dad hadn't been happy about this and had glanced down in the direction where the Keys had actually lain, but his view was obstructed by the box of pictures. "D'you want these?" he asked Sirius.

Sirius-who must have run away by then, Teddy realized-said, "I wouldn't have shoved them in the wall if I wanted them."

Dad didn't believe him, but also didn't fish out the box, as he knew Sirius would just tell him to put it back. So there it had stayed for thirty years, waiting for Teddy to bring it back into the world.

All of the things he found (except for Peter's rotted food), he put into a cardboard box. Over the summer, he thought he'd buy something sturdier, like the basket where Granny kept his parents' things. He didn't know what he intended to do with them.

At last, there was only one paw print left, one of Dad's, in the private quarters off the Defense Against the Dark Arts office. He didn't want to break into Robards's private place, not after Robards had been so nice to him all year, and he couldn't think why it seemed so important to find every last piece of the Marauders-however silly or rubbishy-and gather it together to take away with him, but the problem of the last paw print occupied him increasingly during the two weeks of exams. He haunted the corridor outside the office, walking back and forth between it and Professor Longbottom's office (Professor Longbottom looked at him quizzically, but didn't ask any questions), trying to think of some way to ask if he might go inside and have a look around.

The day after Teddy took his last exam, he finally just knocked on Robards's door, hoping that something would come to him. Robards was sitting at his desk, going through a stack of papers. There was a letter on his desk, addressed to him in Uncle Harry's handwriting, but he swept it into his drawer when he saw Teddy looking, and Teddy guessed it was Auror business.

"I'm glad you came to see me, Teddy," he said. "I've been thinking-I have something you might like. A picture of your mum and dad that we took that last Christmas. You're in it as well, of course, in your own sort of way. I have it in the back, if you'd like to see it."

He stood and opened the door to the private quarters, which consisted of one tiny room with a large bed, a dresser, a night table, and a little set of drawers that was actually set into the wall to save space. Teddy hung back at the door while Robards went to the drawers and opened the top one. He frowned. "Oh, dear," he said. "I'm afraid it's fallen behind here. This silly thing; I don't know why I use it. I'd wager things have been dropping out of this drawer and into the wall since Godric Gryffindor had this room, and it's a right pain to get anything out. It's probably a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor museum back there." He smiled faintly, Teddy thought about the letter from Uncle Harry that he'd hidden so quickly, wondering if it might have had nothing to do with Auror business after all. "I don't suppose you'd like to give me a hand?"

Teddy took a few tentative steps into the room, thinking that he ought to mark entering a new place that his dad had been in some creative way, but he couldn't think of anything. It was a rather anonymous room, owned by too many people over the years to really carry the mark of any of them. It definitely seemed more like Robards's room.

Robards smiled encouragingly, and crouched down beside the little chest of drawers. It was about the height of a night table, and had three narrow drawers above a little swinging door. The door popped open, and Teddy saw a pipe holder-three old and beaten pipes hung from it-and a bag of tobacco that filled the room with a soft, sweet smell. Robards closed it and pulled out the top drawer. It was filled with letters, all the way to the edge. Most of them had return addresses on them with various initials before the name "Robards." Teddy thought they might be his children, though there were no pictures in the room suggesting that he had any.

"I put it in with this mess," he said. "I don't know what I was thinking." He tried to stick his arm behind it but it didn't fit. He pulled out the second drawer, then drew his wand. "Lumos." He peered over the edge. "I can't really see it, but there's quite a pile of junk back there. Shall we have a look?"

Teddy nodded, craning his neck to see into the shadowy recess in the wall. The chest was integrated into the wall; there would be no way to pull it out. "Could you Summon it?" he asked.

"An excellent idea," Robards said, and pointed his wand at the space behind the chest, and apparently cast the spell non-verbally. There was a rushing sound, and a prodigious stream of rubbish flew out of the space where the top drawers had been, landing at Teddy's feet with a soft patter. There were a lot of bits of paper, many envelopes, a brightly colored tie-dyed scarf (which settled over everything), a sprinkling of little black hair bows that scattered like flies, a silver-handled hairbrush, a rotting pinkish-red brochure that said "Clothing Book, 1942-1943" on it, a tube of some kind of hair potion, a brooch that must have been there for a hundred years at least.

"That's the Black family crest!" Teddy said, looking at it.

Robards picked it up casually. "Hmm. So it is. Hmm. Phineas Nigellus's mother had this post until she got married. I wonder if it was hers." He tossed it to Teddy and said, "Your grandmother might like to have a look at that."

Teddy pocketed it, then, his hand shaking, moved aside the scarf. It revealed generations of jotted notes that read like coded messages as they lay side by side, interrupting each other, unmindful of their separation in time: See Malfoy abou/receipt of one grindyl/Evans has/ssed assignment/nect to Muggle war?/e punished/nothing to be do/Weasl... Teddy moved them aimlessly, revealing some words, hiding others, hoping that the paw print wasn't just the grindylow receipt. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Robards slip a photograph off to one side and go on digging.

Teddy looked for Dad's handwriting, pawing through the papers. There was a great spill of them near Robards's knee, which seemed to be the history of the Moody family, with pictures and names.

Barty Crouch, Jr., had tried to masquerade as Mad-Eye the year after Dad had been there. Teddy picked up that stack of papers. From the bottom of it, an envelope fell out with a thud.

It wasn't in Dad's handwriting, and it wasn't the dull yellowish-beige of the other items. It was fading pink, and the address-Remus Lupin-was written in bright purple ink. The handwriting was unexpectedly even and straight, but still somehow exuberant.

"What do you have?" Robards asked quietly.

"A letter from Mum to Dad," Teddy said. "He must have put it in the drawer and forgotten about it."

"Or just not realized where it had got to," Robards offered.

Teddy nodded, liking that idea better, the idea that of course Dad would have wanted to keep a letter from Mum, even though it was two years before they started going together, but simply couldn't find it. The envelope had been torn neatly at the top edge, and Teddy opened it. There was a stack of photographs inside, showing Granny's house, decorated for Christmas. On the top was a picture of Mum, Dad, and Granddad, all raising glasses of eggnog. Mum looked impossibly young, her hair the brightest pink. Her arms were flung around the necks of both men. She was laughing. Dad looked very tired and bruised, but he was smiling and had his arm easily around Mum's waist. Granddad was waving a piece of mistletoe toward the camera, where Teddy supposed Granny was. They all waved happily to him-the men who'd given him his name, the woman who'd given him his shapeshifting power. He put the pictures back into the envelope, and drew out the letter, careful not to pull too hard, to avoid ripping it. It was dated in May of 1994.

Dear Remus, I found this stationery and ink in my old school trunk when I went home this weekend, and Dad reckoned it might amuse you, though I'm guessing it will also amuse a few of your students, if the owl gets there during a meal. Whoever is writing to respectable Professor Lupin on pink paper? It will give the girls days of speculation, so I feel I've done my duty in entertaining the Hogwarts student body.

I finally found an hour to develop the Christmas pictures. I'm so glad you came, even though it was so close to the full moon. Hope we didn't tire you out too badly! It was good to see you.

Unfortunately, it still doesn't look like I'll be able to come up to Hogwarts to see you and talk to your classes, like we talked about. Mad-Eye's got me practicing Stealth moves day and night, and Scrimgeour has us running about like Puffskeins on Pick-Me-Up Potion. I asked for a few days off, and he practically exploded all over me, which would have been quite a mess. I was reminded very sternly where my duty is.

Duty! I'm not sure what to make of this Auror business sometimes. I really wanted to see you teach. I know you're happy to be there, and I do like being around you when you're not moping. I miss being able to see you-in any sort of mood-at a moment's notice, just because I happen to feel like it. I was up in Hogsmeade visiting Sanjiv at his new flat last week, and I thought I'd just try to call by Floo or ring at the gates, but it turned out a bit like trying to infiltrate the Palace, it's so locked down. I'd have tried one of the secret passages, but it would look horrible for me to have been caught. All this business of Hogwarts being closed off to everyone-except, apparently, Sirius-and having to make appointments and present reasons for being there... honestly, I think it's easier to get out of Azkaban than back into Hogwarts these days. I'm really looking forward to the walls being a little more porous. That's a good reason to do my job. It's one thing for Hogwarts to be safe; it's something else entirely when they turn it into a bloody fortress-with Dementors no less. And just when I want to be there most.

I'm visiting in spirit right now, even though I'm sitting at my desk trying to catch my breath between tests. You could give your O.W.L. students a free period and tell them that they're being lectured in spirit by an invisible Auror trainee, who is undoubtedly imparting great wisdom to them. And you could use the time to write back to me. It's quite easy, really, and I'm sure someone will be willing to lend you a quill if you've lost yours.

Well, I knew this couldn't last. Mad-Eye and Scrimgeour are back, and already bellowing for me, so I'd best sign off and go do all the things that I'm meant to be doing rather than wishing I could be there, but I do wish I were there. Or that you were here, though I imagine you're a good deal happier where you are.

Goodbye for now! The next time I see you, I shall probably be an Auror, and will have to be dreadfully serious, I'm sure. My spirit-lecturing will become even wiser next year.

Oh, I actually have to go; Mad-Eye's calling from somewhere. I'll see you as soon as I can.

Your very own, Dora

Teddy read it again, then took out the pictures and went through them, one at a time. There was Mum standing under mistletoe, glancing mischievously out of frame. There was Dad, surrounded by discarded wrapping paper. In the picture, he'd balled up a wad of it and was playing with Granny the cat while Teddy's actual Granny sat a few feet away, laughing easily. Granddad playing a guitar while Mum sang, Granny and Dad pulling a cracker that exploded into a quacking duck, Dad asleep on an easy chair with four cats draped over him.

"You can keep that, you know," Robards said. "I think that's yours."

"Thanks."

"I really did have a picture here." Robards reached behind himself. "My friend Rachel-she's the one they're talking to-sent it to me to give to you, if you wanted it." He handed the picture to Teddy.

Teddy took it. It was another Christmas party, this one considerably larger, in a place he'd never seen before. Mum and Dad were sitting at a table in what seemed to be the woods-though the woods had been decorated extensively-across from a pretty woman with curly black hair. There were several children around, having a chaotic sort of party that kept flitting across the frame, and in the background, Teddy could see other adults dancing in circle. Mum was leaning back against Dad, who was holding her lightly and easily, and his face seemed very calm and happy. Mum's stomach pressed out against her robes, and she kept rubbing it. Dad kissed her head.

Teddy slipped it into the pink envelope with the others. "Thank you," he said. "Should I write to your friend to say thank you? I don't know her last name."

"I'll pass it along," Robards said. "Do you have what you need?"

Teddy nodded. He said goodbye to Robards and went back to Gryffindor Tower to slide the envelope into the box with the other lost things, then took out the Marauder's Map.

He used Dad's wand to open it, then switched to his own, pointed to the Wolf, and said, "Revelo Lupinus." Nothing appeared. He pointed to the stag. "Revelo Figularis." Nothing. The dog-Revelo Nigellus-and the rat-Revelo Pettigresis-had no circuits left to make between their compass points and their lost items. They remained in their places, fidgeting a bit, but not rushing about. Padfoot wagged his tail and lay down; Moony stretched luxuriously.

Teddy looked at the Map, empty of its paw prints and hoof marks. He touched each of the totems, not with his wand, but with his finger, tracing the inky lines, then picked up his wand again and said, "Mischief Managed."

The Great Hall was draped with green and silver hangings for the Leaving Feast, as Slytherin had managed to get into the fewest scrapes during the year. Teddy decided that next year, he'd do what he could to get a Gryffindor win; he didn't think the colors really suited the Hall. That aside, it was a fine and warm feast, and the castle elves again appeared to take their bows at Headmistress Sprout's bidding. Andrew Stephens, after cleaning his plate for a third time, lamented the fact that he couldn't marry Winky, as he thought her treacle tart well worth any stigma they'd have to face.

After the feast, Teddy went back to his dormitory to pack. Above and below him, he could hear the boys in the other dormitories making a great fuss over the task, yelling about what belonged to whom and how it had ended up wherever it had, but as Checkmate wasn't really prone to stealing Teddy's things, his own packing didn't really take long. The last things he put into his trunk were the pictures James had drawn for him, and he intended to put them up first next year.

He took one last look into Dad's ring-he wouldn't be able to use its Charm until September-and got a fun, happy memory of a tromp Dad had taken in the mountains with his own father, both of them with packs on their backs, the sun shining cheerfully above. It was the summer before Dad had gone to Hogwarts, and Teddy, inside his head, felt loved and cherished, and a bit awed at how much had been done for him.

There was no time in the morning to get maudlin about leaving, as everyone was rushing about, getting their trunks lined up to make it easier for the elves to get everything to the train. Teddy had to pull Checkmate out from under his bed to cast a Sleep Charm on her, and she fought for every inch of territory. He came out of it with his hands badly scratched. He thought that if humans invaded the world of cats, Checkmate would be a pretty good soldier in the defense.

Breakfast was also hurried, and no one worried too much about Houses, just bustling around, saying goodbye to school-year friends and gathering addresses. Frankie gathered up the Guard, and they walked down to the thestral-drawn carriages together, commandeering three of them to get to Hogsmeade Station. (Corky again-and to his even greater disappointment-had to take a Portkey home from the Three Broomsticks.) They found a compartment near the front of the train-"First at the sweets cart!" Roger enthused-and promptly set up a Muggles and Minions game, apparently now a tradition. Frankie and Tinny had worked out the story together, and it involved pretending that they were on a Muggle train that was taken over by warring organized crime families. Teddy decided that his strategy was to try and get to his plane, which was lashed to the top of the moving train, and fly it for help, or possibly ammunition (Frankie wouldn't tell him what he'd be able to find). Frankie seemed much happier than he'd been lately, but Teddy thought he was different than he'd been at the start of the year.

Donzo-whose character spent the game karate-chopping his way through squads of goons-had pulled out his guitar and started practicing for a tour he was meant to go on with the Weird Sisters this summer. He was trying to write a song about the game, and kept asking for rhymes. By the time the train slowed on its way into King's Cross, he'd done four verses, which they were all singing between rounds and food-runs. Teddy thought it a fine song, though he doubted anyone would let him sing it in public, especially with the sign language they'd invented to go along with it.

Teddy looked out the window just as the train pulled in, before the steam obscured everything. Families were lined up behind a barrier, waiting with their necks craned, trying to see their children through the windows. He caught a glimpse of Uncle Harry's family and Granny and waved, but they didn't see him.

"All right," Frankie said when the train came to a stop, "let's stay together."

They all cleaned up their game and Donzo put his guitar over his back by its strap (emblazoned with his name in blue and bronze, with a little eagle that flew up and down it). They hauled their trunks down the corridor, joining the caravan of students and possessions as it thudded along to its own beat, finally reaching a door and climbing down, one at a time, into the steam.

"Frankie!" someone yelled, and Carny came barreling through the steam, smiling around missing teeth. She was jumping around eagerly. "Guess something!"

"What?"

"Guess!"

"I've no idea, Carn."

"I'm not going to be the baby anymore!"

Frankie's eyes went wide, and he looked a bit green at this.

Maddie came through next, smiling. "She couldn't wait, could she?" She smiled and looked at the Guard. "Well, most of us are over by the barrier. We thought it would be easier to find us if we were all together."

She waved her wand to Summon trolleys for their carts, and they rolled over obediently. By the time Teddy had organized his things, Granny and Uncle Harry had arrived to help. James was with them, gawking at the big boys. He offered to carry Checkmate's basket. He felt that, as the owner of Checkmate's brother, he ought to be her godowner, and would take awfully good care of her.

"Well," Teddy said, "you've had good lessons in godownership. Go ahead."

James took the basket and walked back toward Aunt Ginny with exaggerated care.

"We all got talking to the Gudgeons while we were waiting," Granny said. "Susannah's opened a restaurant in Diagon Alley. We thought perhaps we'd all go there for a bit tonight and celebrate having the lot of you home."

They all nearly bumped into Honoria and her parents, who were with a blond woman in green robes. Maurice gave Honoria a warning glare, and Honoria nodded. Mr. Higgs nodded to Uncle Harry. "Ah, Potter," he said. "Didn't you once have to swallow a Snitch to beat me to it?"

Uncle Harry gave him a strange little smile, then said, "Well, it won the game in the end, didn't it?" He nodded politely, and moved on.

They joined the parents of the Muggle-borns, who were doing their best to disguise the barrier, just outside. If the seven Muggle taxi drivers who picked them up thought it odd that they were all going to the same unremarkable spot on Charing Cross Road, they didn't mention it. The pub was crowded and Tom the bartender was hopping around too much to take hellos from nearly thirty people. A few patrons did a double take at a group that included Harry and Ginny Potter, Andromeda (Black) Tonks, and Kirley McCormack Duke, but they didn't stop for gawking as Susannah and Dave Gudgeon led them all through the archway, past the apothecary and Quality Quidditch Supplies, past the building that had been a theater in December and a yarn shop in August, which was currently called "A World Of Charms" and selling what looked like foreign magic supplies. Teddy thought he'd like to have a look around that one before it closed. The restaurant was just past a store that sold magical instruments, on the edge of Fortescue Park, and had a large patio that extended into the park itself.

"We've put in a Floo point on the outside," Susannah Gudgeon said, pointing to a free-standing fireplace. "For people who want to come to the park. I talked the Ministry into safety-bounding it, so that you can let the children come without worrying about them slipping away." She looked sternly in Tinny's direction.

The restaurant was officially closed, and the Gudgeons meant to feed everyone for free as guests, but Granny argued them down to at least letting everyone pay the cost of the food, as they'd need to replace it for paying customers the next day. They all ate outside-simple, good food for the summer, a picnic. George and Sophie Weasley, with little Fred bundled up, came over when the joke shop closed, bearing their own food. Victoire had apparently decided that today would be a good day to visit her uncle, and was tagging along behind them. Ruthless, forgetting that she loathed Quidditch, accosted George to see if she could get tips on being a good Beater from him, as one of the Gryffindor Beaters had decided he was resigning to work on his N.E.W.T.s. "No!" Teddy whispered loudly. "Don't give her a bat!"

She punched him in the arm.

After they'd finished eating, the adults remained on the patio, sipping drinks and getting to know one another, and the children went to the base of the statue of Florean Fortescue, stretching out on the cool grass as the evening settled quietly around them. They picked up the game from the train, letting Victoire join as a film star Teddy had rescued in his plane, though they didn't bother making up a whole character for her. James and Al didn't understand the rules at all, but happily went around to roll dice for everyone who would let them. They were quite taken with the idea of karate when Donzo explained it to them, and were happily kicking at passing mosquitoes (punctuated with cries of "Ya! Ya!") as the last rays of sun left the sky.

"So," Tinny said, "as long as we've got a Floo point, we can keep playing over the summer." She smiled at Victoire. "You can come, too, and we'll make you a proper character. Can you all use the Floo?"

"I can't," Roger said. "Muggle-born."

"Yes, but you live in London," Teddy said. "You can just take a bus to the Leaky Cauldron and find someone to let you in."

Roger smiled. "I could, couldn't I? And you all should come to a planetarium with me. It's much more fun than Astronomy classes."

"Someone has to come to my rehearsals," Donzo said. "Maurice can tell you how boring they are."

Maurice shrugged. "I thought it was interesting."

Ruthless lay back and looked up at the sky. "I think we should all learn real karate this summer."

"So you can hit people harder?" Frankie said. "I don't think so."

Bernice proposed learning to get around on the Tube, Zachary wanted to go to the library, and Teddy suggested going for a hike in the mountains. The night grew soft around them, stars appearing in the city's summer haze, so different from the sharp points they were in the north. Teddy watched James and Al jumping at invisible bugs, and happily contemplated what, out of a million possibilities, they would all be doing tomorrow.

THE END