[FIC] Taking a Chance [late ROUND TWO]
Title: Taking a Chance
Artist: hpsauce
Characters/Pairings: Remus/Sirius, Teddy/OMC
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: 42. Teddy grows up and falls in love w/guy but is an insecure teen so Remus and Sirius visit (in dreams or as ghosts or whatever) and tell him their story.
A/N I am very sorry for how late this is. And I want to thank neko_myka who has been very patient with me. Hope y'all enjoy.
Teddy was not often glad of the things that made him different. He had grown tired of people staring at his hair and talking about his parents and asking him what his godfather was like. It was why it was so important that he had his dream world, a lovely place where his parents were still alive and none of his problems could touch him.
When he was younger, his mother would be there, wearing the bathrobe she wore in his baby photos. She was wonderful at making him feel that, really, colour changing hair and a nose which shifted shape at will was really rather normal (it was really all the other kids that were freaks).
Then, slowly, his father had taken over. They had flown (even though Teddy seemed to have inherited his lack of balance from his dad) and played games and laid in the never-ending fields in a comfortable silence.
Now, Teddy was fifteen and even his father was not always there. Sometimes, he had normal dreams, about cream cakes and man-eating spiders and faceless bodies. It was quite nice, he though, to have normal dreams finally. To be a completly normal boy.
And then he fell in love.
Of course, Harry had warned Teddy that when you fell in love the world changed. He had warned him that it would feel confusing and like the carpet had been dragged from under his feet and that sometimes he would feel dizzy and brainless and like all his blood had drained from his head towards somewhere a little further south.
He had not warned him, however, that falling in love would take Teddy Lupin just a little bit further from normal.
Teddy had been hiding abnormalities his entire life. He had learned to keep his hair mousey-brown so as not to attact attention and to not use his last name and to always walk three steps behind Harry so no one knew they were out shopping together.
Hiding the fact that he was in love with Michael Finch-Fletchley should have been easy. Even with the added problems of the fact that they shared a dorm room and were best friends and didn't spend a single second of their lives apart.
But it wasn't.
Everytime Michael so much as looked at him, Teddy's stomach felt like someone had kicked it and his head felt like it was full of mush and he could do nothing but stare at him and imagine all the things he would rather be saying or doing than studying Ancient Runes.
All of this was the reason why Teddy Lupin was sat awake in bed at midnight on a Wednesday night, staring at the canopy of his bed and worrying.
However, it was only a matter of time before he closed his eyes and fell asleep. Wednesdays were exhausting, after all, even without the added problems Teddy now had to deal with.
One moment, he was staring at the canopy of his bed, the next he was lying on familiar green grass, staring up at a bright blue sky.
Teddy sat up and smiled, turning around. He didn't exactly want to tell his dad about anything, but it was nice to have something to keep him occupied. However, the man sitting beside him was not Remus Lupin.
"You're not my dad," Teddy said, eyes wide. He brushed at his hair awkwardly and stood up.
"Good," the man said with a smile. "Moony would kill me."
Teddy shrugged and closed his eyes. When he opened them, however, the strange man was still sat there and his father was not. The man smiled and brushed at his hair with a grin. His grey eyes sparkled.
"You're Teddy!" he suddenly cried, standing up so quickly that Teddy stumbled backwards startled. "Moony's told me all about you. He and Dora are so proud of you, y'know. Can't see why I'm here, though."
As if on cue, a shadow appeared behind the oak tree on the edge of the meadow. They both turned around and watched as Remus Lupin appeared, smiling as serenely as ever. He stepped forward and then stopped, looking between the two of them in surprise.
"Bugger," he muttered.
"Not right now," the other man said with a cheeky smile.
Teddy looked between them in confusion. "Dad?" he whispered. "Who is this man?"
"This," Remus said with a weak, nervous smile, "is Sirius Black. He's-."
"Your mother's second cousin," Sirius said with a handsome smile. "Pleased to meet you, Teddy Lupin." He turned back to Remus, his face pale. "Why am I here too, Moony? I've never been called into one of these before."
Remus sighed and brushed a hand through his head before turning to Teddy. He looked at him with tender, shining eyes.
"Teddy," he said softly. "Is there a reason you came here?"
"I-," Teddy began, biting his lip as he stared up at Remus' face. "Dad, I don't-."
"We're dead!" Sirius cried. "For Merlin's sake, come out with it before you join us!"
Remus shot his a glare and turned back to Teddy with a long suffering sigh. "What Sirius means," he said. "Was that I won't judge, Ted. I don't care if you've beaten all the Gryffindors to death and hidden their bodies in the Room of Requirement."
Teddy tried to fight the small smile while Sirius shrieked out his surprise that 'Moony's baby' wasn't a Gryffindor himself. Then he remembered what he had to say, he breathed in and said it.
"Dad," he said. "I'm in love."
"Great!" Remus cried, his eyes flashing with a rare rush of excitement.
Sirius rolled his eyes. "So, what's the problem, kid?" he asked. "Gifted with your dad's gift for girls or something?"
"It-," Teddy said, taking a deep breath. This wasn't what the dream world was for. He wasn't meant to be afraid and embarrassed. "It's a boy."
Sirius gave a great shriek of delight. Remus smiled softly and wrapped his arms around Teddy's shoulders, holding him close.
"Are you angry?" Teddy said. "I didn't mean to. I mean, he's my friend and he's great, but I'd really rather like Victoire. Maybe it's a phase, right? I mean, maybe I'm just a little late and one day I'll wake up and it will all be good and I'll fancy Vicky and I-."
"Like his mother," Sirius cried, cutting him off. "Never shuts up. Sit down, Teddy-boy. We've got a story for you."
"Padfoot!" Remus moaned, stepping back and turning to the other man. Teddy sat down as he was told, lying down on the soft, green grass.
Sirius sat down and grabed hold of Remus' hand, pulling him to the ground as well. They both looked at him for a moment before Sirius cleared his throat.
He sat upright with a flourish and nodded. "My story begins," he cried, in an over dramatic falsetto. "In our fifth year at Hogwarts. I was but an innocent young lad," Remus coughed. "Unknowledgable of the way of the world. I thought not of girls and sin."
Remus sighed and brushed at his hair, looking down at the grass. Teddy looked across at him, eyes wide with worry. Had Sirius completly lost his mind. This story didn't seem to be going anywhere.
"To get to the point," Sirius said, as if hearing his thoughts. "I lived for my friends, my good pal Prong, your godfather's daddy, Wormtail and the wonderful Moony."
"Yeah," Teddy muttered. It reminded him a bit of him, Michael and Hermes. They were best friends. No girl was about to come between them.
"Then, of course, Prongs went all wibbly for Evans," Sirius continued. "And I needed a little distraction."
"He was lonely," Remus supplied, looking up. "May I fill in my part, Padfoot, or are you going to take our entire afterlife filling out the details of how lovely you were."
"I could," Sirius said. "I am very lovely."
Remus sighed and looked over at Teddy. "I had a crush," Remus said. "It was terrible. I blushed all the time and I kept speaking complete rubbish."
"He really did," Sirius added, narrowly escaping Remus' glare.
"And I never thought for a moment I would ever confess," Remus said. "It was much to embarrassing. I, like you, decided it was just a phase."
"You mean?" Teddy began, moving his mouth like a fish.
"I had a crush on a boy?" Remus asked. His cheeks were flushed. "Yes. Sirius, in fact. In fact, I think I was probably quite in love with him already, just didn't want to tell him. Partly because I feared his rejection, but more because I feared his ego growing to comic proportions."
Sirius seemed to be pouting. Remus looked over at him and then rolled his eyes.
"Of course, at the time, things were very different. People were less open minded about these things. Telling anyone was a terrifying thought."
"You told Prongs," Sirius mumbled. He really did seem to be sulking. Remus ignored him.
"Yes," he said. "I told my very good friend, James. He, well, he wasn't exactly understanding, but after a little while he cooled down and said that we needed to get me sorted out. Find me a girlfriend."
"So," Sirius said, apparently ready to join the conversation. "He started dating Alice. Nice girl and all, great rack, but she was really into him. He kept jumping whenever she came close. She was crazy about him."
"And he was dating Hannah and Lauren and Tia and Josie." Remus countered. He said each name as if it were pure poison. Sirius looked ashamed.
"That is not the point!" Sirius muttered. He looked at Teddy with a smile. "The point is, Moony was an idiot and kept it all inside and started just avoiding me instead of actually having the balls to come right out and say it."
"Pot calling the kettle," Remus murmured. "So, there was this party at the end of the year. The end of OWLs and we were so relieved. I went with Alice and Sirius went with his woman of the second."
"Josie," Sirius said. "She was a good one. Very pretty. She liked it when I-," Remus shot him a blazing look and he smiled, "-helped her with her Arithmancy."
"So," Remus said. "Sirius, and you should by no means follow his example, got so drunk that he could barely stand. Josie ran off in a flood of tears after he told her she was a whore and everyone decided I had to clean up the mess."
"They were all busy snogging," Sirius said. "Except Prongs, he was too busy being beaten to death by Evans. Moony was glad of the distraction."
"So," Remus said. "I had to carry him all the way upstairs to the dorm to make him stop screaming."
Teddy looked between them in disbelief. Sirius had to be about four inches taller than Remus and not half as skinny. He met his father's eye.
"I hope Harry told you about me," he said.
"Oh," Teddy said. "Super-strength is a werewolf thing."
Sirius hmphed loudly before turning away. Remus nodded and continued the story. His hand crept across towards Sirius'.
"So," he said. "We were finally alone. And I couldn't escape him. And he turned to me and said-."
"I said," Sirius cut in with a huge grin. "Wanna shag me, Mooncakes?"
Teddy blushed. Remus ducked his head, looking mortified.
"What did you say?" Teddy asked.
Remus sighed and shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "I was convincd if I did anything he might remember it the next morning."
"And I was frustrated for the opposite," Sirius said. "So I jumped on him and snogged him until his tonsils ached."
"I don't have tonsils," Remus said seriously.
"Not anymore you don't," Sirius beamed.
Teddy frowned and looked between them. "So," he said. "What happened next? Did Sirius forget about it? Did you run away, dad? What did you do?"
"All that we could do," Remus replied with a shrug. "We fell asleep. The next morning, well, I awoke with my cheek shoved into his sweaty armpit and his head squashing my throat and I decided I didn't want to wake up any other way ever again."
Teddy blinked.
"Sirius?" he asked. "So you fancied dad?"
"Of course," Sirius said. "Bloody sexy beast, isn't he?"
Remus blushed and looked away.
"And what about Prongs?" Teddy asked feverishly. "What about everyone else? Were they all okay with it? Didn't anyone call you a poof?"
"Well," Sirius said. "James called us poofs quite a lot. Mainly when he was talking all that rubbish about us needing silencing charms."
Remus looked amused. "It's not easy, Teddy," he said gently. "But it wasn't as bad as I feared. Sirius meant a lot to me and it was worth putting up with other people's rubbish. I mean, most of them were jealous. The girls at least.
"And Prongs didn't mind much. He stopped setting us up with girls after a couple of months and he was very sympathetic when Sirius was too stupid to see what he had done wrong."
"So," Sirius said briskly. "We lived happily ever after. We told everyone about us and we danced at Prong's wedding, even though Evan's annoying sister was upset, and we got a beautiful cottage together with a white picket fence. Remus used to do all the cooking and cleaning and buy all the groceries. It was brilliant."
"And then you got arrested?" Teddy asked. "Harry said you were arrested and you went to Azkaban for years."
"Well," Sirius said. "We broke up before that, but that isn't important. Moony was the last person I saw as I died. He's-."
"So you got back together?" Teddy asked, confused. "You said you broke up before you went to Azkaban."
"Well," Remus said. "It took a while. Almost a whole year. There were quite a few issues to work through. He didn't trust me very much."
"He saw me go to Azkaban for killing his friends," Sirius said. "But, well, once we got past everything, well, it hadn't changed us. He was still gorgeous and sarcastic and a great-."
"Sirius!" Remus muttered, looking to Teddy pointedly.
"-cook. He used to make the best casserole. It helped that he never wore his robes in the kitchen."
Remus smiled and rolled his eyes. "We didn't tell Harry," he said. "We had this wonderful plan for the future, moving back to the cottage, adding an extension for Harry, being a little, slightly unconventional, family."
Teddy smiled sadly. "I'm sorry," he said.
"Not your fault," Sirius said. "But take my advice, Teddy. Take a chance with young Michael. I mean, three generations on, one of the Finch-Fletcheleys have got to bat for our team."
Teddy smiled and nodded. "I hope so," he said, standing up. "Thanks."
And the grass melted away. He opened his eyes.
"Y'alright, mate?" Michael asked, leaning over him, face a mask of concern. "You were muttering in your sleep again."
"Fine," Teddy said sitting up, trying to hide his blush. He stared up at Michael for a moment, his fair curls, his sparkling eyes, his cupid-bow lips.
He reminded himself of Sirius' words. He had a point.
Teddy leaned forward, ignoring Michael's shocked eyes, and took a chance.
Artist: hpsauce
Characters/Pairings: Remus/Sirius, Teddy/OMC
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: 42. Teddy grows up and falls in love w/guy but is an insecure teen so Remus and Sirius visit (in dreams or as ghosts or whatever) and tell him their story.
A/N I am very sorry for how late this is. And I want to thank neko_myka who has been very patient with me. Hope y'all enjoy.
Teddy was not often glad of the things that made him different. He had grown tired of people staring at his hair and talking about his parents and asking him what his godfather was like. It was why it was so important that he had his dream world, a lovely place where his parents were still alive and none of his problems could touch him.
When he was younger, his mother would be there, wearing the bathrobe she wore in his baby photos. She was wonderful at making him feel that, really, colour changing hair and a nose which shifted shape at will was really rather normal (it was really all the other kids that were freaks).
Then, slowly, his father had taken over. They had flown (even though Teddy seemed to have inherited his lack of balance from his dad) and played games and laid in the never-ending fields in a comfortable silence.
Now, Teddy was fifteen and even his father was not always there. Sometimes, he had normal dreams, about cream cakes and man-eating spiders and faceless bodies. It was quite nice, he though, to have normal dreams finally. To be a completly normal boy.
And then he fell in love.
Of course, Harry had warned Teddy that when you fell in love the world changed. He had warned him that it would feel confusing and like the carpet had been dragged from under his feet and that sometimes he would feel dizzy and brainless and like all his blood had drained from his head towards somewhere a little further south.
He had not warned him, however, that falling in love would take Teddy Lupin just a little bit further from normal.
Teddy had been hiding abnormalities his entire life. He had learned to keep his hair mousey-brown so as not to attact attention and to not use his last name and to always walk three steps behind Harry so no one knew they were out shopping together.
Hiding the fact that he was in love with Michael Finch-Fletchley should have been easy. Even with the added problems of the fact that they shared a dorm room and were best friends and didn't spend a single second of their lives apart.
But it wasn't.
Everytime Michael so much as looked at him, Teddy's stomach felt like someone had kicked it and his head felt like it was full of mush and he could do nothing but stare at him and imagine all the things he would rather be saying or doing than studying Ancient Runes.
All of this was the reason why Teddy Lupin was sat awake in bed at midnight on a Wednesday night, staring at the canopy of his bed and worrying.
However, it was only a matter of time before he closed his eyes and fell asleep. Wednesdays were exhausting, after all, even without the added problems Teddy now had to deal with.
One moment, he was staring at the canopy of his bed, the next he was lying on familiar green grass, staring up at a bright blue sky.
Teddy sat up and smiled, turning around. He didn't exactly want to tell his dad about anything, but it was nice to have something to keep him occupied. However, the man sitting beside him was not Remus Lupin.
"You're not my dad," Teddy said, eyes wide. He brushed at his hair awkwardly and stood up.
"Good," the man said with a smile. "Moony would kill me."
Teddy shrugged and closed his eyes. When he opened them, however, the strange man was still sat there and his father was not. The man smiled and brushed at his hair with a grin. His grey eyes sparkled.
"You're Teddy!" he suddenly cried, standing up so quickly that Teddy stumbled backwards startled. "Moony's told me all about you. He and Dora are so proud of you, y'know. Can't see why I'm here, though."
As if on cue, a shadow appeared behind the oak tree on the edge of the meadow. They both turned around and watched as Remus Lupin appeared, smiling as serenely as ever. He stepped forward and then stopped, looking between the two of them in surprise.
"Bugger," he muttered.
"Not right now," the other man said with a cheeky smile.
Teddy looked between them in confusion. "Dad?" he whispered. "Who is this man?"
"This," Remus said with a weak, nervous smile, "is Sirius Black. He's-."
"Your mother's second cousin," Sirius said with a handsome smile. "Pleased to meet you, Teddy Lupin." He turned back to Remus, his face pale. "Why am I here too, Moony? I've never been called into one of these before."
Remus sighed and brushed a hand through his head before turning to Teddy. He looked at him with tender, shining eyes.
"Teddy," he said softly. "Is there a reason you came here?"
"I-," Teddy began, biting his lip as he stared up at Remus' face. "Dad, I don't-."
"We're dead!" Sirius cried. "For Merlin's sake, come out with it before you join us!"
Remus shot his a glare and turned back to Teddy with a long suffering sigh. "What Sirius means," he said. "Was that I won't judge, Ted. I don't care if you've beaten all the Gryffindors to death and hidden their bodies in the Room of Requirement."
Teddy tried to fight the small smile while Sirius shrieked out his surprise that 'Moony's baby' wasn't a Gryffindor himself. Then he remembered what he had to say, he breathed in and said it.
"Dad," he said. "I'm in love."
"Great!" Remus cried, his eyes flashing with a rare rush of excitement.
Sirius rolled his eyes. "So, what's the problem, kid?" he asked. "Gifted with your dad's gift for girls or something?"
"It-," Teddy said, taking a deep breath. This wasn't what the dream world was for. He wasn't meant to be afraid and embarrassed. "It's a boy."
Sirius gave a great shriek of delight. Remus smiled softly and wrapped his arms around Teddy's shoulders, holding him close.
"Are you angry?" Teddy said. "I didn't mean to. I mean, he's my friend and he's great, but I'd really rather like Victoire. Maybe it's a phase, right? I mean, maybe I'm just a little late and one day I'll wake up and it will all be good and I'll fancy Vicky and I-."
"Like his mother," Sirius cried, cutting him off. "Never shuts up. Sit down, Teddy-boy. We've got a story for you."
"Padfoot!" Remus moaned, stepping back and turning to the other man. Teddy sat down as he was told, lying down on the soft, green grass.
Sirius sat down and grabed hold of Remus' hand, pulling him to the ground as well. They both looked at him for a moment before Sirius cleared his throat.
He sat upright with a flourish and nodded. "My story begins," he cried, in an over dramatic falsetto. "In our fifth year at Hogwarts. I was but an innocent young lad," Remus coughed. "Unknowledgable of the way of the world. I thought not of girls and sin."
Remus sighed and brushed at his hair, looking down at the grass. Teddy looked across at him, eyes wide with worry. Had Sirius completly lost his mind. This story didn't seem to be going anywhere.
"To get to the point," Sirius said, as if hearing his thoughts. "I lived for my friends, my good pal Prong, your godfather's daddy, Wormtail and the wonderful Moony."
"Yeah," Teddy muttered. It reminded him a bit of him, Michael and Hermes. They were best friends. No girl was about to come between them.
"Then, of course, Prongs went all wibbly for Evans," Sirius continued. "And I needed a little distraction."
"He was lonely," Remus supplied, looking up. "May I fill in my part, Padfoot, or are you going to take our entire afterlife filling out the details of how lovely you were."
"I could," Sirius said. "I am very lovely."
Remus sighed and looked over at Teddy. "I had a crush," Remus said. "It was terrible. I blushed all the time and I kept speaking complete rubbish."
"He really did," Sirius added, narrowly escaping Remus' glare.
"And I never thought for a moment I would ever confess," Remus said. "It was much to embarrassing. I, like you, decided it was just a phase."
"You mean?" Teddy began, moving his mouth like a fish.
"I had a crush on a boy?" Remus asked. His cheeks were flushed. "Yes. Sirius, in fact. In fact, I think I was probably quite in love with him already, just didn't want to tell him. Partly because I feared his rejection, but more because I feared his ego growing to comic proportions."
Sirius seemed to be pouting. Remus looked over at him and then rolled his eyes.
"Of course, at the time, things were very different. People were less open minded about these things. Telling anyone was a terrifying thought."
"You told Prongs," Sirius mumbled. He really did seem to be sulking. Remus ignored him.
"Yes," he said. "I told my very good friend, James. He, well, he wasn't exactly understanding, but after a little while he cooled down and said that we needed to get me sorted out. Find me a girlfriend."
"So," Sirius said, apparently ready to join the conversation. "He started dating Alice. Nice girl and all, great rack, but she was really into him. He kept jumping whenever she came close. She was crazy about him."
"And he was dating Hannah and Lauren and Tia and Josie." Remus countered. He said each name as if it were pure poison. Sirius looked ashamed.
"That is not the point!" Sirius muttered. He looked at Teddy with a smile. "The point is, Moony was an idiot and kept it all inside and started just avoiding me instead of actually having the balls to come right out and say it."
"Pot calling the kettle," Remus murmured. "So, there was this party at the end of the year. The end of OWLs and we were so relieved. I went with Alice and Sirius went with his woman of the second."
"Josie," Sirius said. "She was a good one. Very pretty. She liked it when I-," Remus shot him a blazing look and he smiled, "-helped her with her Arithmancy."
"So," Remus said. "Sirius, and you should by no means follow his example, got so drunk that he could barely stand. Josie ran off in a flood of tears after he told her she was a whore and everyone decided I had to clean up the mess."
"They were all busy snogging," Sirius said. "Except Prongs, he was too busy being beaten to death by Evans. Moony was glad of the distraction."
"So," Remus said. "I had to carry him all the way upstairs to the dorm to make him stop screaming."
Teddy looked between them in disbelief. Sirius had to be about four inches taller than Remus and not half as skinny. He met his father's eye.
"I hope Harry told you about me," he said.
"Oh," Teddy said. "Super-strength is a werewolf thing."
Sirius hmphed loudly before turning away. Remus nodded and continued the story. His hand crept across towards Sirius'.
"So," he said. "We were finally alone. And I couldn't escape him. And he turned to me and said-."
"I said," Sirius cut in with a huge grin. "Wanna shag me, Mooncakes?"
Teddy blushed. Remus ducked his head, looking mortified.
"What did you say?" Teddy asked.
Remus sighed and shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "I was convincd if I did anything he might remember it the next morning."
"And I was frustrated for the opposite," Sirius said. "So I jumped on him and snogged him until his tonsils ached."
"I don't have tonsils," Remus said seriously.
"Not anymore you don't," Sirius beamed.
Teddy frowned and looked between them. "So," he said. "What happened next? Did Sirius forget about it? Did you run away, dad? What did you do?"
"All that we could do," Remus replied with a shrug. "We fell asleep. The next morning, well, I awoke with my cheek shoved into his sweaty armpit and his head squashing my throat and I decided I didn't want to wake up any other way ever again."
Teddy blinked.
"Sirius?" he asked. "So you fancied dad?"
"Of course," Sirius said. "Bloody sexy beast, isn't he?"
Remus blushed and looked away.
"And what about Prongs?" Teddy asked feverishly. "What about everyone else? Were they all okay with it? Didn't anyone call you a poof?"
"Well," Sirius said. "James called us poofs quite a lot. Mainly when he was talking all that rubbish about us needing silencing charms."
Remus looked amused. "It's not easy, Teddy," he said gently. "But it wasn't as bad as I feared. Sirius meant a lot to me and it was worth putting up with other people's rubbish. I mean, most of them were jealous. The girls at least.
"And Prongs didn't mind much. He stopped setting us up with girls after a couple of months and he was very sympathetic when Sirius was too stupid to see what he had done wrong."
"So," Sirius said briskly. "We lived happily ever after. We told everyone about us and we danced at Prong's wedding, even though Evan's annoying sister was upset, and we got a beautiful cottage together with a white picket fence. Remus used to do all the cooking and cleaning and buy all the groceries. It was brilliant."
"And then you got arrested?" Teddy asked. "Harry said you were arrested and you went to Azkaban for years."
"Well," Sirius said. "We broke up before that, but that isn't important. Moony was the last person I saw as I died. He's-."
"So you got back together?" Teddy asked, confused. "You said you broke up before you went to Azkaban."
"Well," Remus said. "It took a while. Almost a whole year. There were quite a few issues to work through. He didn't trust me very much."
"He saw me go to Azkaban for killing his friends," Sirius said. "But, well, once we got past everything, well, it hadn't changed us. He was still gorgeous and sarcastic and a great-."
"Sirius!" Remus muttered, looking to Teddy pointedly.
"-cook. He used to make the best casserole. It helped that he never wore his robes in the kitchen."
Remus smiled and rolled his eyes. "We didn't tell Harry," he said. "We had this wonderful plan for the future, moving back to the cottage, adding an extension for Harry, being a little, slightly unconventional, family."
Teddy smiled sadly. "I'm sorry," he said.
"Not your fault," Sirius said. "But take my advice, Teddy. Take a chance with young Michael. I mean, three generations on, one of the Finch-Fletcheleys have got to bat for our team."
Teddy smiled and nodded. "I hope so," he said, standing up. "Thanks."
And the grass melted away. He opened his eyes.
"Y'alright, mate?" Michael asked, leaning over him, face a mask of concern. "You were muttering in your sleep again."
"Fine," Teddy said sitting up, trying to hide his blush. He stared up at Michael for a moment, his fair curls, his sparkling eyes, his cupid-bow lips.
He reminded himself of Sirius' words. He had a point.
Teddy leaned forward, ignoring Michael's shocked eyes, and took a chance.