Harry Potter Fic: A Small Spark Neglected, 3/3 (Teddy/James; PG-13/R)
A Small Spark Neglected, part 3. Please see the header post for more information.
Teddy woke up on his kitchen floor, surrounded by papers. He glanced at them balefully; half of them seemed to be drafts of letters to James, and the other half were loose sketches of possible resolutions to this case-all dead ends. He sighed and glanced at the clock, which read 7:15. That meant he’d gotten at least a few hours of sleep; last he could recall looking at it, it had informed him that it was a few minutes past four.
He sighed and hauled himself up. He felt like shit (lack of sleep lack of breakthrough lack of James), but he had too much to do to worry about that. He made his way to the shower and washed quickly, the brutally hot spray doing wonders to wake him. Then he spelled his coffeemaker on, dressed, and tried to decide what the best course of action was.
Going in to the office was, of course, the right thing to do. Draco was going to go to jail if he wasn’t quick about this, and he had an impossible, unbearable amount of work to do. The trouble was, he didn’t think he’d be able to concentrate until he’d at least spoken to James.
As if to confirm this thought, a thousand images of James popped up behind his briefly closed eyelids-James running after a loosed Snitch, James dumping water over his head, James sullen and closed off after his parents told him about the divorce. James’ eyes, blue and piercing and amused, staring him down over a beer. James touching him, casually, and that spark that always went through him, the one he’d somehow missed.
He thought too about how many times he’d ditched a guy because his hair wasn’t quite the right color, because his eyes were green instead of blue. “I’m picky,” he’d said, when people (usually James) had asked. What he had meant, apparently, was “I’m looking for someone else.”
He didn’t understand-how he had missed this, why he had missed this. In the blinding Thursday morning light, he felt like the biggest moron on the planet. Being a Ravenclaw, he wanted to spend a few days in a quiet room, analyzing this, combing himself for clues until he found the answer. But he didn’t have time-there wasn’t enough time.
He sighed, took a swig of coffee, and walked to the Floo. He might as well at least try to find James first.
--
“Oh my god,” Teddy said. He stared-Harry went bright red under his gaze, and Ginny went white under Harry.
“Oh my god,” Teddy repeated. He stumbled back toward the fireplace, hoping to Floo back out, but the powder had worn off and he did nothing so much as lightly singe his hand. “Fucking hell,” he hissed, jerking it back.
“Teddy,” Harry said, “What happened to you? Your face-”
Teddy turned back around, despite the damage the sight of them was probably doing to his sanity. Ginny was spread eagle on the rug, topless, and Harry was above her, his pants down but his boxers, mercifully, still on.
“I’m fine,” he said, shortly. “Long story. What are you doing here?”
Ginny flushed. “I could ask you the same question!”
“I was looking for James!” Teddy cried.
“Floo’d me this morning, said he’s sick.” Harry gave Teddy a suspicious look. “Why would you think he’d be here?”
“I didn’t-I just thought-how was I supposed to know you’d-aren’t you-I distinctly remember the two of you getting divorced.”
“We did,” Harry said. Ginny sighed and wriggled out from under him, covering her bare breasts with her left arm. “Sometimes things just happen.”
“We were fighting all the time,” Ginny added, fishing behind the couch for her shirt. “Doesn’t mean we don’t love each other.”
“I-” Teddy couldn’t even begin to align the screaming incongruent ridiculousness that was his life. Also, he figured I thought you were gay and maybe willing to be seduced by your godson would only get him in trouble. “Are you getting back together?” he asked, finally, and Harry sighed.
“No,” Ginny said, gently. “That’s why we haven’t told you.”
“We didn’t,” Harry stopped, and waved a hand in frustration. “We didn’t want to…give you lot any ideas. We’re not really sure-”
“Spare me the details,” Teddy said hurriedly. “Really. I won’t tell anyone, just-I have to be…somewhere else. Right now. Uh.” He smiled shakily at them and turned back to the fire, pulling some powder out of the jar. “Good to see you?”
He stepped into the Floo fire quickly, but not fast enough to miss hearing Harry yelling after him, telling him that he needed to get that bruise looked at.
--
Scorpius Malfoy opened the door at Al’s place; Teddy was both unduly relieved to be able to avoid talking to Albus and horrified that this kid was seeing him gallivanting about when he should have been at the office, clearing Draco’s name.
“Uh,” Teddy said, “hi.”
“He’s not here,” Scorpius said, by way of greeting. “James, I mean. Al either. Come on in.”
“How do you even know-” Teddy started, stepping into the apartment after him, but Scorpius cut him off with an unimpressed look that he’d definitely inherited from Draco.
“First of all,” he said calmly, “Al tells me things. Secondly, I am not deaf.”
“What?”
Scorpius waved a hand. “James was here last night,” he said, crossing to the fridge and rummaging around in there. “Hungry?”
“No, thanks,” Teddy said. “What-when James, did he-is he-”
“Well,” Scorpius said, shutting the fridge door and taking a bite out of a large apple, “he and Al got into a screaming row about that kiss, and then James told us what happened.” He chewed for a long second, musingly, and added, “You’re kind of an idiot.”
“I know,” Teddy groaned. “Believe me, I know.”
“Anyway,” Scorpius continued blithely, “Al said he was gonna kill you, but I sucked him off and made him smoke with me before he went to work, so I think he’ll probably just beat you til you cry.”
“That is a great comfort,” Teddy deadpanned. Scorpius tossed his apple into the air and caught it, and then he gave Teddy a hooded look.
“I know you can’t tell me much,” he said, slowly, “but the case-is it going okay?”
There was actually some emotion in his voice, which surprised Teddy. He’d always been an oddly self-possessed child, having inherited all of Draco’s commitment to emotional control but none of his dramatic tendencies, all of Astoria’s stern pragmatism but none of her exuberant, ebullient affection. He’d grown up not laughing much, not crying much, only smiling when you really earned it.
It occurred to Teddy that, placed next to over-the-top, easily incensed Albus, Scorpius Malfoy actually made a lot of sense.
“I’ve got a few leads,” Teddy said, gently. “I’m not going to let them get him, don’t worry. He’s innocent. I’m on it. I can’t say anything else-”
“The world is quiet here, I know, I know,” Scorpius said, a tired smile plying the corners of his mouth up. “I’ve heard it before.”
--
“Come to ask for my hand in marriage?” Lily asked, swinging the door to her apartment wide. Teddy winced at the fire behind her eyes, the steel in her tone.
“No,” he said, “I…no. Fuck, Lil, I’m sorry-”
“He’s not here,” she snapped, “and don’t apologize to me. I’m not the one you owe that to.”
“I know, I know, I can’t believe I-”
She slammed the door in his face before he could finish.
--
Teddy couldn’t think of anywhere else James was likely to be, and he wanted to try every unlikely place he could think of-holed up underground, tucked into the crevices of Big Ben, swimming the Channel-but his time limit was eating at him now, reminding him of how fast the clock was ticking towards disaster. Feeling guilty, he went to work.
He ran into Pomarina in the elevator. She looked about as awful as he felt.
“You look like you’ve seen better days,” she murmured. Teddy laughed-between the bruise on his face and the circles under his eyes and the fact that he wasn’t entirely sure what color his hair was, he was sure she was right.
“This case is driving me crazy,” he said.
“Any closer to getting to the bottom of it?” She stared at him, intensity thrumming around her, and Teddy thought about how much worse it must be for her; having to go to him and pass on his messages, having to run his life without him. He knew she’d been to the holding cell this morning; he wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to know.
“No,” he said honestly. Her face fell. “But I’ll get there, Pom, I promise.”
“Just-” her voice broke, and she laughed, a sad, shamed little trill. “Just let me know, all right?”
“Of course,” Teddy promised her. She smiled shakily at him, and the elevator ground to a halt. She went down the hall to her desk and Teddy turned into his office.
It looked exactly as it had the day before, as dismal and papered with dead ends as when James had rescued him from it. Don’t think about that, Teddy told himself, and he honed in on the piles of paper in front of him.
He spent hours in there, thinking like he’d been thinking all week, going over possible suspects, MOs, case histories. It got him nowhere, and it finally occurred to him that he was considering this case like an Auror, not like an Unspeakable.
“If I was the magic,” he said out loud, his voice nearly deafening in the silent office, “where would I start?” He pulled out a sketch he’d done of the apartment crime scene. Everything the victim owned had burned, but the apartment itself, which he’d rented-that had stayed intact. He’d thought it was weird at the time, but he hadn’t pushed it. Now…
Teddy rifled through the case files. There had been a number of strange instances of things remaining untouched in the wreckage of other crime scenes-a pottery wheel at one, a blue dress at another. The Aurors had been taking them to pieces, looking for a spell-trigger, but it had never occurred to them, or to Teddy, that this whole thing could be based in a different kind of magic entirely.
He made a few Floo calls. Every surviving item had been either rented or borrowed.
Teddy grabbed a pencil and paper and started scribbling, the pieces of the case spilling out in front of him. Possession, ownership, was its own branch of magic-an ancient thing, dating back before Hogwarts. If you owned something, it was yours, and it remembered that. Even Muggles showed traces of it; things they lost found their way back, inexplicably; they felt strange wearing someone else’s clothes. And with wizards, ownership magic was stronger, more tangible. You put a little piece of yourself, a tiny snippet of your magical signature, into every item you possessed.
It didn’t explain how the hell the arsonist had started the fires to begin with, or why, but it was a breakthrough. Teddy whooped, going over the case in his mind as he did so, fitting the puzzle together. Of course the houses had burned down, but not the apartment. He was willing to bet they’d burned faster, too-the more important the item in question was to the owner, the stronger the bond of the possession magic. That was why it was so hard to separate a wizard from his wand-
Teddy silenced mid-whoop, stunned. “The wands,” he breathed. “Could it really be that simple?” He grabbed his pencil again and ripped down the papers he’d tacked to his office walls. Then he started tracing the magical path on the drywall, Draco’s potential wrath be damned.
It was impossible to control Fiendfyre. But if you mutated it, made it something new, bound it with the ancient magic of possession, gave it a target-it could, apparently, be reigned. It was brilliant, he realized, writing the probable roots of the thing in frantic, crabbed Latin in case he forgot it later. Impossibly dangerous, but brilliant.
And to tie it in to wandlore, that was brilliant too. No wizard distrusted his own wand, he’d take it anywhere, and the magic signature on it would match that on everything else he owned. But-Teddy frowned, and stopped scribbling.
But a wizard trusted his wand because the wand chose the wizard. Wands didn’t willingly betray their masters barring extenuating circumstances; wizarding society had learned that thousands of years ago, and been reminded of it in the Second Voldemort War. So you’d have to-you’d have to hoodwink the wand into thinking its master had been bested.
Couldn’t do that with a duel; that many duels would have come up in the investigation. But a potion, maybe-if you infused the wood with something that would fuck with its magical alignment, or, hell, if you replaced part of its core, filled it with something that belonged to the arsonist…that would confuse a wand, wouldn’t it?
But in order to take out part of the core, you’d need some kind of fuel to bind everything, something to make up for that lost magical force-
“PETROL!” Teddy shouted, gleefully. “FUCK. YES.”
He tore out of his office, skidding to a stop at Pomarina’s desk. “I need to see Draco,” he said, urgently. “I need you to tell you where in Glouster they’re keeping him.”
“Teddy,” she said, hesitantly, “have you made some kind of-”
“I’ve got it,” he breathed, thrilled, leaning across the desk. “Or-or I’ve got how it’s done, anyway. It’s-wands, I can’t believe we never-I need to see him, to figure out who, I have to tell him-”
“Teddy,” she said, gently. “I don’t know where he is.”
“What?” Teddy said, furious. “What? But you’ve been there, you have to know-”
“They have a Secret Keeper,” she said, sadly. “So I guess I mean I do know where his is, but I can’t tell you. I’m sorry, Teddy.”
“Fuck,” Teddy said, tangling his left hand in his hair. “Fuck, fuck, fuck--can you go, I don’t know, get him? Or tell the guards to get me?”
“I-” she started. Then met Teddy’s eyes, and her face softened. “I’ll try, okay?”
“Thank you,” he said. She just sighed and grabbed her coat.
“I was going to go see him now anyway,” she said, tidying her desk absently. “You should go home, it’s nearly 8:00.”
“At night?” Teddy cried, shocked. She smiled at him.
“Don’t worry,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ve had a long day. Easy to lose track. Get some sleep, all right? I’ll owl when I’ve news for you.”
He nodded, and he decided going home probably was a good idea; he wasn’t planning on sleeping, but he could get rid of that bruise, maybe make himself another pot of coffee, figure out what the hell he was going to say to James when he found him. Then he’d come back here, set in on the suspect files with a fresh head. Yes.
He waved goodbye to Pom and hopped the elevator downstairs; the Floo grates were roaring and he threw himself into one gratefully, arriving at his apartment in seconds. He was so out of it that he didn’t even bother to turn the coffeemaker on, just wandered into his bathroom to hunt down his bruise remover. He found the tube in the back of the cupboard, grabbed it victoriously, and went back into kitchen.
And then, well. Then three things happened in order, but so quickly they might as well have been at once. First he waved his wand at the coffeemaker, the same way he always did; in that moment he looked at the clock, realized it read 4:30, and thought, wait, what?
And then, immediately, horribly, he smelled it. Unmistakable and familiar, the scent that had been haunting him for weeks on end.
Petrol.
“Pomarina,” he whispered, and caught fire.
The wand went first, twisting and blackening instantly. He took some comfort in knowing he’d been right about that, at least. He threw it away from him as his entire apartment was instantly consumed-the fire moved faster than anything he’d ever seen. He watched, morbidly fascinated, for a split second; pictures of his parents, his friends, being devoured whole. Then the smoke got to him, the heat quick on its heels. Coughing, burning alive, Teddy felt his body take over, his skin cells rearranging themselves, trying on different callouses, melanin levels, anything that would help. He tried desperately to make it to a window, to the door, but this was Fiendfyre; it gathered into violent, monstrous jaws that snapped at him whenever he got close.
And, Teddy realized, his mind remarkably clear over the pain of the flames licking at his legs and arms and face, this is why no one gets out alive. Because Apparation was a non-verbal spell, but doing it without a wand on your person was next to impossible. Because the fire moved fast enough to block all the exits. Because in so many ways, it really was the perfect crime.
The worst part of it was that he was going to die without having talked to James, without having explained to anyone. He thought about James’ face the night before, cruel and furious and hurt, more than anything. He thought about it so hard he stopped thinking about the pain, or the fire, or how difficult it was to breathe.
He thought about it so hard that he Apparated, landing on the floor of the Malfoy Manor drawing room. Which-well, it hurt. A lot. His back felt raw and he screamed before he could stop himself.
“What the-oh, fuck, Teddy?” Teddy was pretty sure it was James talking-the voice sounded like James, but Teddy’s eyes had suddenly slitted, were more or less swollen shut. He was proud of himself, though; Apparating wandlessly and getting through the Manor wards.
He was proud of James, too. Teddy never would have looked for him here.
“Call St. Mungo’s, call them NOW, and get Astoria,” James was barking, probably to the house-elves, and that reminded Teddy-about Draco and then his dirty little assistant, and he coughed, hard, until he thought he could speak.
“Pom,” he said, his voice barely there, his throat unbearably dry, “I-I figured-Fiendfyre and, wands-she-my apartment-”
“It’s okay,” James said. He sounded like he was maybe a little hysterical, but then again, Teddy was pretty sure his hair was still on fire. “You’re going to be okay. Stop talking.”
“Sorry,” he rasped, “I-that-first, should have-but I had to-the case, I-”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” James pleaded, and he definitely did sound hysterical now. Teddy wanted to calm him down, but couldn’t remember how. “It’s going to be fine and you’re going to be fine but please stop fucking talking, you’re going to hurt yourself, Teddy, Jesus Christ-”
“No-” Teddy tried, “I-need to-explain-”
“Oh my god,” and that was Astoria’s voice, and then shouting and hands, hands touching him and he screamed because FUCK that hurt and James was making noises that made Teddy’s heart ache and saying “You’re okay, you have to be okay,” and then he felt consciousness slipping away from him, like a prize he’d been trying to win, like a case he couldn’t quite solve.
---
He dreamed of James, James screaming orders and James bursting into white rooms with his wand drawn and James pacing next to the bed Teddy was lying in. He dreamed of James and he said “I thought you were angry” and James said “I am angry,” but laughing and crying a little, as though this whole thing was some big joke Teddy didn’t get at all.
---
He woke up and everything hurt, his hands and his feet and his thighs and his eyelids but it hurt less than it had, so that was all right. And James was there, just James, sitting on a chair and holding Teddy’s hand gently, like he might break it.
“Hi,” Teddy said, only it came out “Hnnng.” He tried again, and got it right.
“Hi,” James said, smiling at him. It looked kind of wobbly, James’s smile, but then the whole room looked kind of wobbly, so there was no way to really be sure.
Teddy wanted to say something else, but there were so many things that wanted to go first-I’m sorry and Am I going to live and Here, let me explain what really happened with your brother and How long have I been out and Did they catch her-that he didn’t know where to start. He made a frustrated sound and James smoothed his hair back carefully, shushing him.
“When I said ‘drop dead’ the other night,” he said sadly, “I didn’t mean you to take it so literally.”
“Am I dead?” Teddy croaked, and James laughed softly.
“No, you tosser,” he said, only a little strangled, “but you gave it your best effort, didn’t you?” Teddy opened his mouth and James said, “Don’t. Stop talking. Your voice-you sound fucking terrible. You’ll make it worse.”
Teddy wanted to argue but found he couldn’t bring himself to. He shifted against the pillows and pulled a half-hearted face, and that won a little smile from James.
“I know,” he murmured, “I’m a right bastard, aren’t I? But I’ll tell you everything I think you might want to know, I promise. Okay?”
Teddy nodded, and James sighed, playing with the hem of Teddy’s hospital-issue pajamas absently. “We caught the bitch,” he said, “you’re probably worried about that. Arrested her myself.”
“Bet Draco wanted to do that,” Teddy rasped, unable to help himself. James fixed him with a stern look.
“I told you,” he said, “not to talk. And they’re letting Malfoy interrogate her, so I’m sure he’ll get over it.” An expression of unholy terror crossed over his face briefly, and Teddy almost laughed. “I hope so, anyway.”
“And, let’s see…you’ve been asleep for-don’t yell, you’ll only hurt yourself-2 days.” Teddy opened his mouth and James, the little shit, put his hand over it, so all that came out was a muffled groan.
“I warned you,” he intoned, raising an eyebrow. “You’re a bad listener. Can I take my hand off of your mouth now, or are you going to keep being obnoxious?”
Teddy rolled his eyes and nodded.
“Yes, you’re going to continue being obnoxious or yes, I can move my hand?”
Teddy lifted his head to nod; then he tilted his head to shake it. Then he focused on his energy on glaring at James, who laughed.
“You’re so easy,” he said, but he pulled his hand away. “You’re going to be fine. They think the Metamorphmagus thing saved you-you kept shifting your skin, the spell couldn’t grab hold, so you got hit almost entirely with regular fire. You had third degree burning over most of your body, they had to give you a fucking vat of DermiGro, which is why you feel like such arse. And it’s gonna be about a week before your lungs are sorted and feel normal again.”
“Scarring?” he gasped. James scowled at him for a second, and then smiled.
“Vain bastard,” he said fondly. “Just one. The-your wand hand.”
Teddy lifted the hand at once; there was a dark, ugly mark there, long and thin, in the exact shape of his wand. James traced it sadly with his forefinger.
“They did everything they could,” he murmured, “but that’s a fourth degree burn; they could barely manage to get the rogue magic out.”
Teddy nodded. “Wand caught first,” he said. His voice really did sound terrible, but there were things he needed to say. “Look, James-”
“Teddy,” James said, “just don’t. Don’t, okay? You’re in a hospital bed, you nearly burned to death, and even if you could talk properly I wouldn’t believe a damned thing that came out of your mouth. You’re too out of it. We can talk about it later.”
“What if you’re not-”
“I will be.” And Teddy wanted to argue that, wanted to make sure, wanted to explain, but his eyelids were getting heavy against his will.
“I’m sorry,” he said, turning his face into the cool expanse of the pillow. As he drifted off, he could hear James sigh, could feel him carding his fingers through Teddy’s singed hair again.
“I know,” James said, “I know you are.”
--
He dreamed of James: James at ten, curled up on the guest bed at Teddy’s brand new apartment, laughing hysterically as Teddy rearranged his face. James at seventeen on the same bed, high off of some shitty weed he’d nicked from the guy downstairs, reading Muggle comics and waxing poetic about Peter Parker’s fatal flaw. James at twenty, dragging Teddy into and then out of the Ministry elevator to show off his brand new office, fresh paint job still drying. James at twenty-one, saying Never mind that I’ve been in love with you since I was fifteen. James at twenty-five, kissing Teddy good morning.
He didn’t want to wake up.
--
The unmistakable sound of a heated whispered argument was bouncing around the hospital room, ominous and irritating. Teddy sighed and resisted opening his eyes. On the one hand, he felt better-shockingly better, almost entirely better. On the other hand, he was of the personal opinion that he’d spent enough time in the last week putting out fires.
And starting them, an obnoxious, Albus-esque voice in his head murmured, but he ignored it. Then he heard a voice that sounded suspiciously like Draco’s snap, “Well, Potter, I must say, if I’d had any idea you were such a scintillating conversationalist I wouldn’t have blocked so many of your funding requests-”
Teddy opened his eyes. He didn’t really have much choice.
“He’s awake,” Andromeda said, derailing the retort Harry’s mouth had been open around. They all-Andromeda, Harry and Ginny, Draco and Astoria-turned to look at him, and Teddy smiled wanly.
“Hi?”
“Don’t you ever,” Harry said, gruffly, “scare us like that again,” and before Teddy had the chance to respond he was being hugged, Harry on one side, Ginny and Andromeda on the other.
“Oh yes,” Draco said, bitingly, “touch the burn victim, brilliant.” They pulled back at once and Teddy laughed at their horrified faces.
“I’m fine,” he said quickly. “Didn’t hurt at all. Don’t scare the civilians, boss.”
“I’m not a civilian,” Harry muttered. Teddy grinned at him.
“Sorry,” he corrected, “don’t scare the civilians and the Head of the Aurors.”
“But they make it so easy,” Draco said lightly. Then, to Teddy’s unending surprise, he stood up. “Besides, I had to clear them out somehow.”
He leaned forward and hugged Teddy. It was a brief thing, fleeting, but from Draco it was practically an open declaration of fatherly love. Teddy laughed again, shocked, as Draco pulled back and Astoria took his place, enveloping him more warmly. She moved away after a moment, and Andromeda took his hand.
Teddy smiled at all of them. Then he glanced around the room, looking, despite himself, for-
“James left,” Astoria said, quietly. “Few hours ago. We sent him home-he’d been here for three days. He needed to get some sleep.”
“And a shower,” Harry put in, wrinkling his nose. Ginny rolled her eyes and nodded.
“He’s as bad as you that way,” she told Harry, who pulled a face.
“I have never been that smelly. Jesus, even Al was better than James, and he went through that whole phase after fifth year where he hated bathing.”
“Of course, you never washed your own Quidditch kits,” she returned. “That was always my job, and god knows-”
“Anyway,” Andromeda said firmly, shutting them up. “He left. Said he’d be back tonight.”
“Teddy…” Harry said. Ginny, Andromeda, Astoria and Draco all glared at him, and he closed his mouth.
“What?” Teddy asked, honestly curious. “What is it? I know about the scar on my hand, and-”
“Don’t you dare, Potter, he just woke up-” Draco started.
Harry ignored him. “Look,” he said, “I don’t know what’s going on with you and James and you know I’ll love you both the same either way but just-please tell me you didn’t cheat on him or something.”
Astoria groaned. Teddy raised both eyebrows and spluttered. “What?”
“Well, I just-”
“James and I aren’t dating,” Teddy said. “We-I-it’s a mess. But that’s not-why would you think that?”
“Oh come on,” Harry said, like Teddy was being incredibly thick. “You spend almost all your time together, you’re both gay, you do that thing-” he made cow-eyes, and Teddy had to bite back a peal of hysterical laughter. “It’s okay,” Harry continued blithely. “We know you haven’t told us because of the age difference, but we don’t mind. It’s fine.”
“We’re not dating,” Teddy repeated. “I-we. Um.”
They stared, and he sighed and explained, conveniently forgetting to mention Harry’s piece in it. Astoria, who’d heard James’s side of things when he showed up at her door at 2 A.M., cleared up the last few parts of the story for him.
“And that’s what happened,” Teddy finished, nearly half an hour later. He opened his eyes, tentatively, expecting to see fury; to his surprise, everyone in the room was glaring at Draco.
“Marriage is binding legal contract, is it?” Astoria said, acridly. “Funny, I seem to remember being told that it was a…how did you put it… a ‘successful union of two fated souls.’”
“Well, it was, when I proposed to you! And it-I-this scrutiny is unappreciated!” Draco glared back at everyone in turn, and then sighed and dropped his head into his hands. “How was I supposed to know the lad would take it the way he did?”
“How else was he supposed to take it?” Ginny cried. “‘Go find yourself a family you want to be part of and marry into it, even the Potters will do’-like he wasn’t already family, how ridiculous.”
“And you!” Astoria said, turning to Andromeda. “Honestly, ‘I won’t be around much longer,’ you know how oddly duty-bound he is-”
“I was just expressing my concern for him!” Andromeda protested. Her voice was imperious, but there were tears in her eyes. “I had no idea he’d-”
“Okay,” Teddy snapped. They all stopped talking and looked at him. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
“First of all,” he said, “I am not a child. This really isn’t anyone’s fault but mine. And secondly,” he added, hurriedly, as Ginny and Astoria both started to protest, “I know I was nearly burned to death and everything, but I did actually survive, and I am actually right here. So maybe you guys could try talking to me and not about me?”
Astoria and Ginny both flushed, embarrassed. Andromeda sniffled and glanced at the ceiling, and Draco was glaring sullenly at the floor. Harry, who’d been remarkably silent through the whole thing, looked at Teddy like his heart was breaking.
“All these years,” he said, quietly, “and you think you have to marry one of my children for me to think of you as my son?”
“I,” Teddy said. Ginny sighed, and took his hand.
“Teddy,” she said, gently. “As far as we’re concerned, you are our son. Just because you didn’t live with us doesn’t mean-we’ve always thought of you that way. I thought you knew.”
“I,” Teddy repeated. And then Astoria sighed and put a hand on Teddy’s shoulder.
“Not that my husband will admit it,” she murmured, “but we’ve always felt the same way.”
“And,” Andromeda put in, taking Teddy’s other hand, “you know you’ve got me, for as long as I’m still kicking.”
“You,” Teddy tried. He closed his eyes to stop them stinging. “Thank you,” he said, not looking at any of them. He felt a squeeze-his left hand first, then his right, then his shoulder.
When he opened his eyes, they were all carefully looking elsewhere, giving him a moment to compose himself. He almost laughed at the picture they painted; Andromeda, prim and controlled but with that wild hair barely managed, Ginny with her mouth set, Astoria with a smudge of unnoticed dirt on her cheek, Draco and Harry glaring daggers at each other.
As families went, he could do a lot worse.
“So,” he said, “tell me about Pomarina.”
--
The six pack was heavy in Teddy’s hand as he trudged up the stairs. He could shrink it-Draco had lent him a wand, an old one that Harry had made a strange noise upon seeing-but the details of Pom’s confession were still fresh and haunting in his mind.
“I played Quidditch with her father, at school,” Draco had explained, while Teddy tested his legs’ ability to hold him upright. “He was fond of me, and spoke of me highly when she was a child. Apparently that-” He’d waved a hand and flushed, which was so uncharacteristic for him that Teddy started.
And then he’d filled in the rest of the story-the surveillance charms she’d placed on his home, the photos of him she’d doctored and sexualized, the clips of his voice playing over and over on loop they’d discovered in her home. The entire arson thing had been a misguided attempt to get the attention of her obsession; she’d get him framed, take care of his pesky wife, and then free him, handily setting herself up to be Mrs. Malfoy the second. She’d been plotting it for years-the assassination attempt that had forced Draco to bar wands from his office had been her doing.
“So that’s how she-” Teddy had said, and Draco had sighed, resigned.
“Terribly clever, isn’t it? And she’s been having you tailed-James too, after the other night. She figured you knew he was at the Manor, that you’d Floo there, that the first magic you used would be in my home, and Astoria-” Draco had paused, choking a little on it. “Well,” he’d said, composing himself. “I’m just glad we’ve caught her.”
“You and me both,” Teddy had responded, faintly.
Even now, hours later, he was turning around constantly, checking behind him. He was wary of using any magic at all, though he knew he’d have to get over that eventually. But for today, he could enjoy the sensation of simply avoiding it, giving in to his paranoia.
He reached the landing. Nervousness of a different sort was twitching in his stomach, but he tamped it down as best he could, placing the six pack on the ground. Then he swallowed hard and knocked.
James opened the door a minute later, his hair damp. Teddy grinned despite himself-that was just like James, to sleep first and shower later. He almost made a crack about it. Then he remembered why he was there, and his smile slipped from his face.
“Hey,” he said.
“You’re supposed to be in St. Mungo’s,” James replied evenly. “I know they weren’t planning on releasing you until tomorrow, and Teddy, if you broke out of there I swear I’m going to kill you.”
“I didn’t,” Teddy said, quickly. “I just-I talked to the Healers, they said I could go.”
“Then you should be sleeping,” James returned. “And don’t give me any bullshit about your bed being burned to the ground, I know the Malfoys and Andromeda and my dad have all set up rooms for you-”
“I didn’t,” Teddy started, frustrated. Then he sighed. “I wasn’t going to be able to sleep until we’d talked.”
“Fine,” James said curtly. He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “Talk.”
Teddy swallowed hard. “I need you to understand,” he started, slowly, “that none of this is what it looks like.”
James raised an eyebrow. “Really,” he said. “So you didn’t kiss my brother and try to-to seduce my father, of all people?”
“Well,” Teddy hedged. James cut him off.
“And you didn’t punch some hapless bouncer in the face-”
“He wasn’t hapless! He was bloody massive- ”
“And you didn’t,” James finished, his tone dangerous, “do all of this because you decided it was high time you marry into a nice family?”
“Look,” Teddy said, desperately. “I’m not saying I’m not an idiot. But I just-I never realized-I think I tried so hard with them because I couldn’t see that I wanted-” He stopped, and sighed heavily.
“I never realized,” he said, quietly. “I never let myself see it. But James, you-”
“Don’t,” James said. His voice was-clipped, and strained, and maybe a little terrified. “I don’t need you to do this. I’m angry as all hell but I’ll get over it. You don’t need to, to, to pretend that this is something it’s not. We can be friends. It’s fine.”
“I’m not pretending,” Teddy said. “And I don’t want to be friends.”
“Goddamn it, Teddy!” James cried, throwing his hands up. “This isn’t some game to me, this isn’t some joke, you can’t just-”
Teddy leaned forward, and James fell silent. He eyed Teddy warily as Teddy reached a tentative hand up, placed it on the back of James’s neck.
“Shut up,” Teddy said, and kissed him.
James’s mouth opened under his, tentative at first. Teddy kissed him, gently and then decidedly less gently, and James responded with desperation, like he couldn’t help himself. For all his words had been standoffish, his body said something different, arching into Teddy’s with abandon. His hands were on Teddy’s hips, on Teddy’s back, and Teddy himself was tangling his fingers in James’s wet hair. James’s mouth was slick, working against his, those chapped places on his lower lip rubbing brilliantly against Teddy’s gum.
“Jamie,” Teddy moaned, and James stilled and stepped back sharply, fear on his face.
“We can’t,” he said, “I can’t, how-how the fuck do I know this isn’t just-”
“James,” Teddy said. He could hear the smile in his own voice and let it creep onto his face just a little, because he was sure. He was sure now. “Fuck, I’m not asking you to marry me. I just want to-I want to see you. I want to see you like this. I want to make up for being such a prick.”
James eyed him with trepidation, but when he spoke, there was some give to his tone. Teddy’s smile widened. “All right,” he said, slowly. “And how you do propose we-”
“It’s Sunday,” Teddy said. He bent down and picked up the six pack he’d brought. “The game’s on. I thought we could have a few beers and just…do like we always do. See how it goes.”
James stared at him for a long minute. Then he nodded and moved aside, let Teddy slip into the apartment. They settled on the couch, maybe a little closer than usual, and James waved his wand at the Floo. Bulgaria was up three and Teddy’s beer was cold between his legs and James was so close, warm and laughing against him. After the fifth Bulgarian goal, Teddy bit his lip and quietly, casually took James’s hand in his own.
James smiled, and didn’t let go. “Fucker,” he said, under his breath.
“Takes one to know one,” Teddy murmured. He knew now that everything was going to be all right.
Epilogue
“For he's a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us!”
The song finished on a high note, Fleur’s light soprano mixing with George's deep baritone to drown out everyone else. Teddy flushed with embarrassment, already feeling a little buzz, and lifted his glass in thanks. The table-well, the room, really-whooped gleefully back at him.
“Twenty-nine!” Bill called, from his end of the table. “Only one year left, kid-everyone knows at thirty your life goes stale. Scared?”
“I ’ope,” Fleur sniffed, the sparkle in her eyes the only indication that she was joking, “zhat you consider yourself the exception to zee rule.”
“Well of course he does!” Ron, who’d already had a few lagers too many, made the universal gesture of female endowment appreciation. “Be hard to get bored with those, eh?”
“Ron,” Hermione hissed, at the same time Rose moaned, “Dad!”
“Oh, come off it,” George said, leaning around Lee Jordan’s arm to join in the debate. “I’m not even that way inclined, but it’s just fact, Hermione. And Rose, haven’t I taught you better than to give your father the satisfaction of scandalizing you?”
Teddy laughed. He turned to his left, but James must have gotten up without his noticing it. Shaking his head, Teddy stood.
“Even the birthday boy has to take a piss sometimes,” he said to the inquisitve stare Scorpius Malfoy shot his way. Scorpius lifted an eyebrow and made a face that said very clearly that Teddy was a bad liar, so he slipped off before anyone else could ask where he was going.
He hadn’t entirely been lying, of course. He did have to go to the bathroom. If he happened to glance around for James on his way there, then so be it.
James was nowhere to be found, so Teddy used the facilities and came back out into the room they’d rented. The place was decorated with Albus’s typical horrifying flair-Harry said he got the tendency to go overboard with the crepe from Ginny, and James had laughed himself sick when he saw it. Still, it was nice that he’d gone to the trouble. Teddy rather suspected that Harry and Draco had pooled their funds to pay off the bartenders, though-he’d seen more than one of them muttering about the indignity of it all.
He leaned against the far wall and looked for the Potters in the crowd. Harry and Ginny were next to each other-Teddy watched them shoot each other hooded glances, and bit back a laugh. Albus had taken a seat in the back of the room, nearly in Scorpius’s lap, and they were furtively smoking a joint; Teddy was pretty sure Harry knew about that, but not sure enough to tell him. Lily and her new boyfriend had showed up last minute, bearing some story about Muggle cabs, but from the way her hair was mussed, Teddy knew what they’d been doing.
And then…well, then there was everyone else. Draco was in the back corner, having an animated conversation with Fleur about his property in Nice, and Astoria was whispering intensely to Neville Longbottom, who was apparently trading in a good deal of Class C substances these days. Molly Weasley was leaning heavily on Arthur, red-faced and smiling; Charlie was arguing healing techniques with Lee Jordan, who still had one arm around George. Andromeda seemed to be entertaining Louis and Hugo with a story from her most recent trip to Prague, and-
A familiar head of hair settled in on his shoulder. “Old fart,” James said, pressing into Teddy’s back.
“Whippersnapper,” Teddy returned, relaxing into him. “Where’d you go?”
“Head bartender’s having an existential crisis,” James muttered irritably. “Apparently George thought it would hilarious to tell him about Harry Potter’s legendary temper; he thinks Dad’s going to murder him if he runs out of lager. I hope you like this party, because the fuck if I am ever throwing you another one.”
Teddy turned around and leaned against the wall, his face level with James’s. “I love this party.”
“Yeah, yeah,” James said, but he flushed, pleased. Teddy took advantage of this to nick James’ beer and take a long swig.
“I was drinking that,” James said, easily enough. Then he bit his lip, a little nervously. “I know it’s a little bigger than you wanted, but Bill told Charlie and Charlie told Percy and I haven’t the faintest how Draco found out, but he sent me a very nasty letter--”
“It’s perfect,” Teddy said. He pulled another swig of James’s beer and reached out a hand to play at the hem of his shirt, and was just considering making some kind of soppy declaration when his thought process was interrupting by a yell.
“Oi!” Albus cried, “don’t bogart! I paid good fucking money for that weed, you twat!”
Scorpius’s laughter was audible, but his response was lost to the roar of the collective Potter-Weasley chatter. Teddy raised an eyebrow.
“That’s a nasty name your brother called my boss’s son,” he said, mock-serious. “Should I be worried?”
James laughed. “Like we haven’t called each other worse.”
Teddy made great show of considering that. “Prat,” he said, lightly.
James leaned close, a grin splitting his features. “Wanker.”
“Tease.”
“Bastard.”
“Fucker,” Teddy said, his voice going soft. James, clearly remembering the afternoon to which Teddy was referring, flushed.
“Arse,” he replied, closing the limited distance between them so his lips were just brushing Teddy’s. We are so fucking weird, Teddy thought, but he smiled, the edge of his grin just touching James’s.
“Plonker.”
“Shithead.”
“Cocksucker.”
“That one’s true,” James murmured, and he pressed in, eliminating that last space between them. His mouth was warm and wet, the faint taste of the beer Teddy was drinking still lingering there. Teddy let both hands rest on James’s hips and sucked, scraping his teeth along James’s lower lip. James moaned faintly and bucked into him, and-
“Get a room!” someone cried, amusement heavy in their tone. Teddy broke the kiss and turned to see who had yelled; to his surprise, Draco was bright red, staring into his glass of mead like it had betrayed him. Teddy raised an eyebrow at him, and he grimaced apologetically.
Laughing, James pulled away from Teddy, leaving an arm draped loosely behind him. “A toast, then,” he said, and then seemed to remember that Teddy had taken his drink. “Lily, be a love and toss me a beer, would you? Someone doesn’t understand the rules of decorum.”
“It’s my birthday!” Teddy protested, taking another sip. James flipped him a two fingered salute and then caught the beer Lily lobbed at him, popping it open with a spell.
“What’re we drinking to?” Ron called. James grinned and lifted his beer.
“To the birthday boy,” he said. Everyone clapped and drank; when they finished, Albus lifted his glass.
“To comedies of errors,” he said, with a wink at Teddy, who choked on his beer. The crowd-who all, as was the way of any large family, knew the whole story-laughed and clinked glasses, drinking again.
They lifted them one last time, looking to Teddy. He wanted to say something poignant, to sum it all up-his thrill, his gratitude, how utterly fucking perfect his life had turned out to be.
He looked at James, who smiled encouragingly at him, putting a little more pressure into the hand he still had on Teddy’s back. “Go on,” he said.
Teddy raised James’s beer. “To fucking it up,” he said, “and getting it right. But mostly to family, without whom you couldn’t do either.”
There was silence for a moment. Then George cried “Hear, hear!” and everyone echoed him, the sound loud as stampede. They stomped their feet as they drank, all the people he’d come to love over the years, shaking the floor.
Only James, next to him, wasn’t aiding in their noisemaking. He was working his hands into Teddy’s back pockets instead, gaining the leverage to pull him out into the hallway, push him up against a wall.
“Good birthday?” he asked, breathlessly.
“Great birthday,” Teddy answered, kissing him, as he realized for the hundredth time that he’d gotten exactly the Potter he wanted.
Teddy woke up on his kitchen floor, surrounded by papers. He glanced at them balefully; half of them seemed to be drafts of letters to James, and the other half were loose sketches of possible resolutions to this case-all dead ends. He sighed and glanced at the clock, which read 7:15. That meant he’d gotten at least a few hours of sleep; last he could recall looking at it, it had informed him that it was a few minutes past four.
He sighed and hauled himself up. He felt like shit (lack of sleep lack of breakthrough lack of James), but he had too much to do to worry about that. He made his way to the shower and washed quickly, the brutally hot spray doing wonders to wake him. Then he spelled his coffeemaker on, dressed, and tried to decide what the best course of action was.
Going in to the office was, of course, the right thing to do. Draco was going to go to jail if he wasn’t quick about this, and he had an impossible, unbearable amount of work to do. The trouble was, he didn’t think he’d be able to concentrate until he’d at least spoken to James.
As if to confirm this thought, a thousand images of James popped up behind his briefly closed eyelids-James running after a loosed Snitch, James dumping water over his head, James sullen and closed off after his parents told him about the divorce. James’ eyes, blue and piercing and amused, staring him down over a beer. James touching him, casually, and that spark that always went through him, the one he’d somehow missed.
He thought too about how many times he’d ditched a guy because his hair wasn’t quite the right color, because his eyes were green instead of blue. “I’m picky,” he’d said, when people (usually James) had asked. What he had meant, apparently, was “I’m looking for someone else.”
He didn’t understand-how he had missed this, why he had missed this. In the blinding Thursday morning light, he felt like the biggest moron on the planet. Being a Ravenclaw, he wanted to spend a few days in a quiet room, analyzing this, combing himself for clues until he found the answer. But he didn’t have time-there wasn’t enough time.
He sighed, took a swig of coffee, and walked to the Floo. He might as well at least try to find James first.
--
“Oh my god,” Teddy said. He stared-Harry went bright red under his gaze, and Ginny went white under Harry.
“Oh my god,” Teddy repeated. He stumbled back toward the fireplace, hoping to Floo back out, but the powder had worn off and he did nothing so much as lightly singe his hand. “Fucking hell,” he hissed, jerking it back.
“Teddy,” Harry said, “What happened to you? Your face-”
Teddy turned back around, despite the damage the sight of them was probably doing to his sanity. Ginny was spread eagle on the rug, topless, and Harry was above her, his pants down but his boxers, mercifully, still on.
“I’m fine,” he said, shortly. “Long story. What are you doing here?”
Ginny flushed. “I could ask you the same question!”
“I was looking for James!” Teddy cried.
“Floo’d me this morning, said he’s sick.” Harry gave Teddy a suspicious look. “Why would you think he’d be here?”
“I didn’t-I just thought-how was I supposed to know you’d-aren’t you-I distinctly remember the two of you getting divorced.”
“We did,” Harry said. Ginny sighed and wriggled out from under him, covering her bare breasts with her left arm. “Sometimes things just happen.”
“We were fighting all the time,” Ginny added, fishing behind the couch for her shirt. “Doesn’t mean we don’t love each other.”
“I-” Teddy couldn’t even begin to align the screaming incongruent ridiculousness that was his life. Also, he figured I thought you were gay and maybe willing to be seduced by your godson would only get him in trouble. “Are you getting back together?” he asked, finally, and Harry sighed.
“No,” Ginny said, gently. “That’s why we haven’t told you.”
“We didn’t,” Harry stopped, and waved a hand in frustration. “We didn’t want to…give you lot any ideas. We’re not really sure-”
“Spare me the details,” Teddy said hurriedly. “Really. I won’t tell anyone, just-I have to be…somewhere else. Right now. Uh.” He smiled shakily at them and turned back to the fire, pulling some powder out of the jar. “Good to see you?”
He stepped into the Floo fire quickly, but not fast enough to miss hearing Harry yelling after him, telling him that he needed to get that bruise looked at.
--
Scorpius Malfoy opened the door at Al’s place; Teddy was both unduly relieved to be able to avoid talking to Albus and horrified that this kid was seeing him gallivanting about when he should have been at the office, clearing Draco’s name.
“Uh,” Teddy said, “hi.”
“He’s not here,” Scorpius said, by way of greeting. “James, I mean. Al either. Come on in.”
“How do you even know-” Teddy started, stepping into the apartment after him, but Scorpius cut him off with an unimpressed look that he’d definitely inherited from Draco.
“First of all,” he said calmly, “Al tells me things. Secondly, I am not deaf.”
“What?”
Scorpius waved a hand. “James was here last night,” he said, crossing to the fridge and rummaging around in there. “Hungry?”
“No, thanks,” Teddy said. “What-when James, did he-is he-”
“Well,” Scorpius said, shutting the fridge door and taking a bite out of a large apple, “he and Al got into a screaming row about that kiss, and then James told us what happened.” He chewed for a long second, musingly, and added, “You’re kind of an idiot.”
“I know,” Teddy groaned. “Believe me, I know.”
“Anyway,” Scorpius continued blithely, “Al said he was gonna kill you, but I sucked him off and made him smoke with me before he went to work, so I think he’ll probably just beat you til you cry.”
“That is a great comfort,” Teddy deadpanned. Scorpius tossed his apple into the air and caught it, and then he gave Teddy a hooded look.
“I know you can’t tell me much,” he said, slowly, “but the case-is it going okay?”
There was actually some emotion in his voice, which surprised Teddy. He’d always been an oddly self-possessed child, having inherited all of Draco’s commitment to emotional control but none of his dramatic tendencies, all of Astoria’s stern pragmatism but none of her exuberant, ebullient affection. He’d grown up not laughing much, not crying much, only smiling when you really earned it.
It occurred to Teddy that, placed next to over-the-top, easily incensed Albus, Scorpius Malfoy actually made a lot of sense.
“I’ve got a few leads,” Teddy said, gently. “I’m not going to let them get him, don’t worry. He’s innocent. I’m on it. I can’t say anything else-”
“The world is quiet here, I know, I know,” Scorpius said, a tired smile plying the corners of his mouth up. “I’ve heard it before.”
--
“Come to ask for my hand in marriage?” Lily asked, swinging the door to her apartment wide. Teddy winced at the fire behind her eyes, the steel in her tone.
“No,” he said, “I…no. Fuck, Lil, I’m sorry-”
“He’s not here,” she snapped, “and don’t apologize to me. I’m not the one you owe that to.”
“I know, I know, I can’t believe I-”
She slammed the door in his face before he could finish.
--
Teddy couldn’t think of anywhere else James was likely to be, and he wanted to try every unlikely place he could think of-holed up underground, tucked into the crevices of Big Ben, swimming the Channel-but his time limit was eating at him now, reminding him of how fast the clock was ticking towards disaster. Feeling guilty, he went to work.
He ran into Pomarina in the elevator. She looked about as awful as he felt.
“You look like you’ve seen better days,” she murmured. Teddy laughed-between the bruise on his face and the circles under his eyes and the fact that he wasn’t entirely sure what color his hair was, he was sure she was right.
“This case is driving me crazy,” he said.
“Any closer to getting to the bottom of it?” She stared at him, intensity thrumming around her, and Teddy thought about how much worse it must be for her; having to go to him and pass on his messages, having to run his life without him. He knew she’d been to the holding cell this morning; he wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to know.
“No,” he said honestly. Her face fell. “But I’ll get there, Pom, I promise.”
“Just-” her voice broke, and she laughed, a sad, shamed little trill. “Just let me know, all right?”
“Of course,” Teddy promised her. She smiled shakily at him, and the elevator ground to a halt. She went down the hall to her desk and Teddy turned into his office.
It looked exactly as it had the day before, as dismal and papered with dead ends as when James had rescued him from it. Don’t think about that, Teddy told himself, and he honed in on the piles of paper in front of him.
He spent hours in there, thinking like he’d been thinking all week, going over possible suspects, MOs, case histories. It got him nowhere, and it finally occurred to him that he was considering this case like an Auror, not like an Unspeakable.
“If I was the magic,” he said out loud, his voice nearly deafening in the silent office, “where would I start?” He pulled out a sketch he’d done of the apartment crime scene. Everything the victim owned had burned, but the apartment itself, which he’d rented-that had stayed intact. He’d thought it was weird at the time, but he hadn’t pushed it. Now…
Teddy rifled through the case files. There had been a number of strange instances of things remaining untouched in the wreckage of other crime scenes-a pottery wheel at one, a blue dress at another. The Aurors had been taking them to pieces, looking for a spell-trigger, but it had never occurred to them, or to Teddy, that this whole thing could be based in a different kind of magic entirely.
He made a few Floo calls. Every surviving item had been either rented or borrowed.
Teddy grabbed a pencil and paper and started scribbling, the pieces of the case spilling out in front of him. Possession, ownership, was its own branch of magic-an ancient thing, dating back before Hogwarts. If you owned something, it was yours, and it remembered that. Even Muggles showed traces of it; things they lost found their way back, inexplicably; they felt strange wearing someone else’s clothes. And with wizards, ownership magic was stronger, more tangible. You put a little piece of yourself, a tiny snippet of your magical signature, into every item you possessed.
It didn’t explain how the hell the arsonist had started the fires to begin with, or why, but it was a breakthrough. Teddy whooped, going over the case in his mind as he did so, fitting the puzzle together. Of course the houses had burned down, but not the apartment. He was willing to bet they’d burned faster, too-the more important the item in question was to the owner, the stronger the bond of the possession magic. That was why it was so hard to separate a wizard from his wand-
Teddy silenced mid-whoop, stunned. “The wands,” he breathed. “Could it really be that simple?” He grabbed his pencil again and ripped down the papers he’d tacked to his office walls. Then he started tracing the magical path on the drywall, Draco’s potential wrath be damned.
It was impossible to control Fiendfyre. But if you mutated it, made it something new, bound it with the ancient magic of possession, gave it a target-it could, apparently, be reigned. It was brilliant, he realized, writing the probable roots of the thing in frantic, crabbed Latin in case he forgot it later. Impossibly dangerous, but brilliant.
And to tie it in to wandlore, that was brilliant too. No wizard distrusted his own wand, he’d take it anywhere, and the magic signature on it would match that on everything else he owned. But-Teddy frowned, and stopped scribbling.
But a wizard trusted his wand because the wand chose the wizard. Wands didn’t willingly betray their masters barring extenuating circumstances; wizarding society had learned that thousands of years ago, and been reminded of it in the Second Voldemort War. So you’d have to-you’d have to hoodwink the wand into thinking its master had been bested.
Couldn’t do that with a duel; that many duels would have come up in the investigation. But a potion, maybe-if you infused the wood with something that would fuck with its magical alignment, or, hell, if you replaced part of its core, filled it with something that belonged to the arsonist…that would confuse a wand, wouldn’t it?
But in order to take out part of the core, you’d need some kind of fuel to bind everything, something to make up for that lost magical force-
“PETROL!” Teddy shouted, gleefully. “FUCK. YES.”
He tore out of his office, skidding to a stop at Pomarina’s desk. “I need to see Draco,” he said, urgently. “I need you to tell you where in Glouster they’re keeping him.”
“Teddy,” she said, hesitantly, “have you made some kind of-”
“I’ve got it,” he breathed, thrilled, leaning across the desk. “Or-or I’ve got how it’s done, anyway. It’s-wands, I can’t believe we never-I need to see him, to figure out who, I have to tell him-”
“Teddy,” she said, gently. “I don’t know where he is.”
“What?” Teddy said, furious. “What? But you’ve been there, you have to know-”
“They have a Secret Keeper,” she said, sadly. “So I guess I mean I do know where his is, but I can’t tell you. I’m sorry, Teddy.”
“Fuck,” Teddy said, tangling his left hand in his hair. “Fuck, fuck, fuck--can you go, I don’t know, get him? Or tell the guards to get me?”
“I-” she started. Then met Teddy’s eyes, and her face softened. “I’ll try, okay?”
“Thank you,” he said. She just sighed and grabbed her coat.
“I was going to go see him now anyway,” she said, tidying her desk absently. “You should go home, it’s nearly 8:00.”
“At night?” Teddy cried, shocked. She smiled at him.
“Don’t worry,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “You’ve had a long day. Easy to lose track. Get some sleep, all right? I’ll owl when I’ve news for you.”
He nodded, and he decided going home probably was a good idea; he wasn’t planning on sleeping, but he could get rid of that bruise, maybe make himself another pot of coffee, figure out what the hell he was going to say to James when he found him. Then he’d come back here, set in on the suspect files with a fresh head. Yes.
He waved goodbye to Pom and hopped the elevator downstairs; the Floo grates were roaring and he threw himself into one gratefully, arriving at his apartment in seconds. He was so out of it that he didn’t even bother to turn the coffeemaker on, just wandered into his bathroom to hunt down his bruise remover. He found the tube in the back of the cupboard, grabbed it victoriously, and went back into kitchen.
And then, well. Then three things happened in order, but so quickly they might as well have been at once. First he waved his wand at the coffeemaker, the same way he always did; in that moment he looked at the clock, realized it read 4:30, and thought, wait, what?
And then, immediately, horribly, he smelled it. Unmistakable and familiar, the scent that had been haunting him for weeks on end.
Petrol.
“Pomarina,” he whispered, and caught fire.
The wand went first, twisting and blackening instantly. He took some comfort in knowing he’d been right about that, at least. He threw it away from him as his entire apartment was instantly consumed-the fire moved faster than anything he’d ever seen. He watched, morbidly fascinated, for a split second; pictures of his parents, his friends, being devoured whole. Then the smoke got to him, the heat quick on its heels. Coughing, burning alive, Teddy felt his body take over, his skin cells rearranging themselves, trying on different callouses, melanin levels, anything that would help. He tried desperately to make it to a window, to the door, but this was Fiendfyre; it gathered into violent, monstrous jaws that snapped at him whenever he got close.
And, Teddy realized, his mind remarkably clear over the pain of the flames licking at his legs and arms and face, this is why no one gets out alive. Because Apparation was a non-verbal spell, but doing it without a wand on your person was next to impossible. Because the fire moved fast enough to block all the exits. Because in so many ways, it really was the perfect crime.
The worst part of it was that he was going to die without having talked to James, without having explained to anyone. He thought about James’ face the night before, cruel and furious and hurt, more than anything. He thought about it so hard he stopped thinking about the pain, or the fire, or how difficult it was to breathe.
He thought about it so hard that he Apparated, landing on the floor of the Malfoy Manor drawing room. Which-well, it hurt. A lot. His back felt raw and he screamed before he could stop himself.
“What the-oh, fuck, Teddy?” Teddy was pretty sure it was James talking-the voice sounded like James, but Teddy’s eyes had suddenly slitted, were more or less swollen shut. He was proud of himself, though; Apparating wandlessly and getting through the Manor wards.
He was proud of James, too. Teddy never would have looked for him here.
“Call St. Mungo’s, call them NOW, and get Astoria,” James was barking, probably to the house-elves, and that reminded Teddy-about Draco and then his dirty little assistant, and he coughed, hard, until he thought he could speak.
“Pom,” he said, his voice barely there, his throat unbearably dry, “I-I figured-Fiendfyre and, wands-she-my apartment-”
“It’s okay,” James said. He sounded like he was maybe a little hysterical, but then again, Teddy was pretty sure his hair was still on fire. “You’re going to be okay. Stop talking.”
“Sorry,” he rasped, “I-that-first, should have-but I had to-the case, I-”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” James pleaded, and he definitely did sound hysterical now. Teddy wanted to calm him down, but couldn’t remember how. “It’s going to be fine and you’re going to be fine but please stop fucking talking, you’re going to hurt yourself, Teddy, Jesus Christ-”
“No-” Teddy tried, “I-need to-explain-”
“Oh my god,” and that was Astoria’s voice, and then shouting and hands, hands touching him and he screamed because FUCK that hurt and James was making noises that made Teddy’s heart ache and saying “You’re okay, you have to be okay,” and then he felt consciousness slipping away from him, like a prize he’d been trying to win, like a case he couldn’t quite solve.
---
He dreamed of James, James screaming orders and James bursting into white rooms with his wand drawn and James pacing next to the bed Teddy was lying in. He dreamed of James and he said “I thought you were angry” and James said “I am angry,” but laughing and crying a little, as though this whole thing was some big joke Teddy didn’t get at all.
---
He woke up and everything hurt, his hands and his feet and his thighs and his eyelids but it hurt less than it had, so that was all right. And James was there, just James, sitting on a chair and holding Teddy’s hand gently, like he might break it.
“Hi,” Teddy said, only it came out “Hnnng.” He tried again, and got it right.
“Hi,” James said, smiling at him. It looked kind of wobbly, James’s smile, but then the whole room looked kind of wobbly, so there was no way to really be sure.
Teddy wanted to say something else, but there were so many things that wanted to go first-I’m sorry and Am I going to live and Here, let me explain what really happened with your brother and How long have I been out and Did they catch her-that he didn’t know where to start. He made a frustrated sound and James smoothed his hair back carefully, shushing him.
“When I said ‘drop dead’ the other night,” he said sadly, “I didn’t mean you to take it so literally.”
“Am I dead?” Teddy croaked, and James laughed softly.
“No, you tosser,” he said, only a little strangled, “but you gave it your best effort, didn’t you?” Teddy opened his mouth and James said, “Don’t. Stop talking. Your voice-you sound fucking terrible. You’ll make it worse.”
Teddy wanted to argue but found he couldn’t bring himself to. He shifted against the pillows and pulled a half-hearted face, and that won a little smile from James.
“I know,” he murmured, “I’m a right bastard, aren’t I? But I’ll tell you everything I think you might want to know, I promise. Okay?”
Teddy nodded, and James sighed, playing with the hem of Teddy’s hospital-issue pajamas absently. “We caught the bitch,” he said, “you’re probably worried about that. Arrested her myself.”
“Bet Draco wanted to do that,” Teddy rasped, unable to help himself. James fixed him with a stern look.
“I told you,” he said, “not to talk. And they’re letting Malfoy interrogate her, so I’m sure he’ll get over it.” An expression of unholy terror crossed over his face briefly, and Teddy almost laughed. “I hope so, anyway.”
“And, let’s see…you’ve been asleep for-don’t yell, you’ll only hurt yourself-2 days.” Teddy opened his mouth and James, the little shit, put his hand over it, so all that came out was a muffled groan.
“I warned you,” he intoned, raising an eyebrow. “You’re a bad listener. Can I take my hand off of your mouth now, or are you going to keep being obnoxious?”
Teddy rolled his eyes and nodded.
“Yes, you’re going to continue being obnoxious or yes, I can move my hand?”
Teddy lifted his head to nod; then he tilted his head to shake it. Then he focused on his energy on glaring at James, who laughed.
“You’re so easy,” he said, but he pulled his hand away. “You’re going to be fine. They think the Metamorphmagus thing saved you-you kept shifting your skin, the spell couldn’t grab hold, so you got hit almost entirely with regular fire. You had third degree burning over most of your body, they had to give you a fucking vat of DermiGro, which is why you feel like such arse. And it’s gonna be about a week before your lungs are sorted and feel normal again.”
“Scarring?” he gasped. James scowled at him for a second, and then smiled.
“Vain bastard,” he said fondly. “Just one. The-your wand hand.”
Teddy lifted the hand at once; there was a dark, ugly mark there, long and thin, in the exact shape of his wand. James traced it sadly with his forefinger.
“They did everything they could,” he murmured, “but that’s a fourth degree burn; they could barely manage to get the rogue magic out.”
Teddy nodded. “Wand caught first,” he said. His voice really did sound terrible, but there were things he needed to say. “Look, James-”
“Teddy,” James said, “just don’t. Don’t, okay? You’re in a hospital bed, you nearly burned to death, and even if you could talk properly I wouldn’t believe a damned thing that came out of your mouth. You’re too out of it. We can talk about it later.”
“What if you’re not-”
“I will be.” And Teddy wanted to argue that, wanted to make sure, wanted to explain, but his eyelids were getting heavy against his will.
“I’m sorry,” he said, turning his face into the cool expanse of the pillow. As he drifted off, he could hear James sigh, could feel him carding his fingers through Teddy’s singed hair again.
“I know,” James said, “I know you are.”
--
He dreamed of James: James at ten, curled up on the guest bed at Teddy’s brand new apartment, laughing hysterically as Teddy rearranged his face. James at seventeen on the same bed, high off of some shitty weed he’d nicked from the guy downstairs, reading Muggle comics and waxing poetic about Peter Parker’s fatal flaw. James at twenty, dragging Teddy into and then out of the Ministry elevator to show off his brand new office, fresh paint job still drying. James at twenty-one, saying Never mind that I’ve been in love with you since I was fifteen. James at twenty-five, kissing Teddy good morning.
He didn’t want to wake up.
--
The unmistakable sound of a heated whispered argument was bouncing around the hospital room, ominous and irritating. Teddy sighed and resisted opening his eyes. On the one hand, he felt better-shockingly better, almost entirely better. On the other hand, he was of the personal opinion that he’d spent enough time in the last week putting out fires.
And starting them, an obnoxious, Albus-esque voice in his head murmured, but he ignored it. Then he heard a voice that sounded suspiciously like Draco’s snap, “Well, Potter, I must say, if I’d had any idea you were such a scintillating conversationalist I wouldn’t have blocked so many of your funding requests-”
Teddy opened his eyes. He didn’t really have much choice.
“He’s awake,” Andromeda said, derailing the retort Harry’s mouth had been open around. They all-Andromeda, Harry and Ginny, Draco and Astoria-turned to look at him, and Teddy smiled wanly.
“Hi?”
“Don’t you ever,” Harry said, gruffly, “scare us like that again,” and before Teddy had the chance to respond he was being hugged, Harry on one side, Ginny and Andromeda on the other.
“Oh yes,” Draco said, bitingly, “touch the burn victim, brilliant.” They pulled back at once and Teddy laughed at their horrified faces.
“I’m fine,” he said quickly. “Didn’t hurt at all. Don’t scare the civilians, boss.”
“I’m not a civilian,” Harry muttered. Teddy grinned at him.
“Sorry,” he corrected, “don’t scare the civilians and the Head of the Aurors.”
“But they make it so easy,” Draco said lightly. Then, to Teddy’s unending surprise, he stood up. “Besides, I had to clear them out somehow.”
He leaned forward and hugged Teddy. It was a brief thing, fleeting, but from Draco it was practically an open declaration of fatherly love. Teddy laughed again, shocked, as Draco pulled back and Astoria took his place, enveloping him more warmly. She moved away after a moment, and Andromeda took his hand.
Teddy smiled at all of them. Then he glanced around the room, looking, despite himself, for-
“James left,” Astoria said, quietly. “Few hours ago. We sent him home-he’d been here for three days. He needed to get some sleep.”
“And a shower,” Harry put in, wrinkling his nose. Ginny rolled her eyes and nodded.
“He’s as bad as you that way,” she told Harry, who pulled a face.
“I have never been that smelly. Jesus, even Al was better than James, and he went through that whole phase after fifth year where he hated bathing.”
“Of course, you never washed your own Quidditch kits,” she returned. “That was always my job, and god knows-”
“Anyway,” Andromeda said firmly, shutting them up. “He left. Said he’d be back tonight.”
“Teddy…” Harry said. Ginny, Andromeda, Astoria and Draco all glared at him, and he closed his mouth.
“What?” Teddy asked, honestly curious. “What is it? I know about the scar on my hand, and-”
“Don’t you dare, Potter, he just woke up-” Draco started.
Harry ignored him. “Look,” he said, “I don’t know what’s going on with you and James and you know I’ll love you both the same either way but just-please tell me you didn’t cheat on him or something.”
Astoria groaned. Teddy raised both eyebrows and spluttered. “What?”
“Well, I just-”
“James and I aren’t dating,” Teddy said. “We-I-it’s a mess. But that’s not-why would you think that?”
“Oh come on,” Harry said, like Teddy was being incredibly thick. “You spend almost all your time together, you’re both gay, you do that thing-” he made cow-eyes, and Teddy had to bite back a peal of hysterical laughter. “It’s okay,” Harry continued blithely. “We know you haven’t told us because of the age difference, but we don’t mind. It’s fine.”
“We’re not dating,” Teddy repeated. “I-we. Um.”
They stared, and he sighed and explained, conveniently forgetting to mention Harry’s piece in it. Astoria, who’d heard James’s side of things when he showed up at her door at 2 A.M., cleared up the last few parts of the story for him.
“And that’s what happened,” Teddy finished, nearly half an hour later. He opened his eyes, tentatively, expecting to see fury; to his surprise, everyone in the room was glaring at Draco.
“Marriage is binding legal contract, is it?” Astoria said, acridly. “Funny, I seem to remember being told that it was a…how did you put it… a ‘successful union of two fated souls.’”
“Well, it was, when I proposed to you! And it-I-this scrutiny is unappreciated!” Draco glared back at everyone in turn, and then sighed and dropped his head into his hands. “How was I supposed to know the lad would take it the way he did?”
“How else was he supposed to take it?” Ginny cried. “‘Go find yourself a family you want to be part of and marry into it, even the Potters will do’-like he wasn’t already family, how ridiculous.”
“And you!” Astoria said, turning to Andromeda. “Honestly, ‘I won’t be around much longer,’ you know how oddly duty-bound he is-”
“I was just expressing my concern for him!” Andromeda protested. Her voice was imperious, but there were tears in her eyes. “I had no idea he’d-”
“Okay,” Teddy snapped. They all stopped talking and looked at him. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
“First of all,” he said, “I am not a child. This really isn’t anyone’s fault but mine. And secondly,” he added, hurriedly, as Ginny and Astoria both started to protest, “I know I was nearly burned to death and everything, but I did actually survive, and I am actually right here. So maybe you guys could try talking to me and not about me?”
Astoria and Ginny both flushed, embarrassed. Andromeda sniffled and glanced at the ceiling, and Draco was glaring sullenly at the floor. Harry, who’d been remarkably silent through the whole thing, looked at Teddy like his heart was breaking.
“All these years,” he said, quietly, “and you think you have to marry one of my children for me to think of you as my son?”
“I,” Teddy said. Ginny sighed, and took his hand.
“Teddy,” she said, gently. “As far as we’re concerned, you are our son. Just because you didn’t live with us doesn’t mean-we’ve always thought of you that way. I thought you knew.”
“I,” Teddy repeated. And then Astoria sighed and put a hand on Teddy’s shoulder.
“Not that my husband will admit it,” she murmured, “but we’ve always felt the same way.”
“And,” Andromeda put in, taking Teddy’s other hand, “you know you’ve got me, for as long as I’m still kicking.”
“You,” Teddy tried. He closed his eyes to stop them stinging. “Thank you,” he said, not looking at any of them. He felt a squeeze-his left hand first, then his right, then his shoulder.
When he opened his eyes, they were all carefully looking elsewhere, giving him a moment to compose himself. He almost laughed at the picture they painted; Andromeda, prim and controlled but with that wild hair barely managed, Ginny with her mouth set, Astoria with a smudge of unnoticed dirt on her cheek, Draco and Harry glaring daggers at each other.
As families went, he could do a lot worse.
“So,” he said, “tell me about Pomarina.”
--
The six pack was heavy in Teddy’s hand as he trudged up the stairs. He could shrink it-Draco had lent him a wand, an old one that Harry had made a strange noise upon seeing-but the details of Pom’s confession were still fresh and haunting in his mind.
“I played Quidditch with her father, at school,” Draco had explained, while Teddy tested his legs’ ability to hold him upright. “He was fond of me, and spoke of me highly when she was a child. Apparently that-” He’d waved a hand and flushed, which was so uncharacteristic for him that Teddy started.
And then he’d filled in the rest of the story-the surveillance charms she’d placed on his home, the photos of him she’d doctored and sexualized, the clips of his voice playing over and over on loop they’d discovered in her home. The entire arson thing had been a misguided attempt to get the attention of her obsession; she’d get him framed, take care of his pesky wife, and then free him, handily setting herself up to be Mrs. Malfoy the second. She’d been plotting it for years-the assassination attempt that had forced Draco to bar wands from his office had been her doing.
“So that’s how she-” Teddy had said, and Draco had sighed, resigned.
“Terribly clever, isn’t it? And she’s been having you tailed-James too, after the other night. She figured you knew he was at the Manor, that you’d Floo there, that the first magic you used would be in my home, and Astoria-” Draco had paused, choking a little on it. “Well,” he’d said, composing himself. “I’m just glad we’ve caught her.”
“You and me both,” Teddy had responded, faintly.
Even now, hours later, he was turning around constantly, checking behind him. He was wary of using any magic at all, though he knew he’d have to get over that eventually. But for today, he could enjoy the sensation of simply avoiding it, giving in to his paranoia.
He reached the landing. Nervousness of a different sort was twitching in his stomach, but he tamped it down as best he could, placing the six pack on the ground. Then he swallowed hard and knocked.
James opened the door a minute later, his hair damp. Teddy grinned despite himself-that was just like James, to sleep first and shower later. He almost made a crack about it. Then he remembered why he was there, and his smile slipped from his face.
“Hey,” he said.
“You’re supposed to be in St. Mungo’s,” James replied evenly. “I know they weren’t planning on releasing you until tomorrow, and Teddy, if you broke out of there I swear I’m going to kill you.”
“I didn’t,” Teddy said, quickly. “I just-I talked to the Healers, they said I could go.”
“Then you should be sleeping,” James returned. “And don’t give me any bullshit about your bed being burned to the ground, I know the Malfoys and Andromeda and my dad have all set up rooms for you-”
“I didn’t,” Teddy started, frustrated. Then he sighed. “I wasn’t going to be able to sleep until we’d talked.”
“Fine,” James said curtly. He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “Talk.”
Teddy swallowed hard. “I need you to understand,” he started, slowly, “that none of this is what it looks like.”
James raised an eyebrow. “Really,” he said. “So you didn’t kiss my brother and try to-to seduce my father, of all people?”
“Well,” Teddy hedged. James cut him off.
“And you didn’t punch some hapless bouncer in the face-”
“He wasn’t hapless! He was bloody massive- ”
“And you didn’t,” James finished, his tone dangerous, “do all of this because you decided it was high time you marry into a nice family?”
“Look,” Teddy said, desperately. “I’m not saying I’m not an idiot. But I just-I never realized-I think I tried so hard with them because I couldn’t see that I wanted-” He stopped, and sighed heavily.
“I never realized,” he said, quietly. “I never let myself see it. But James, you-”
“Don’t,” James said. His voice was-clipped, and strained, and maybe a little terrified. “I don’t need you to do this. I’m angry as all hell but I’ll get over it. You don’t need to, to, to pretend that this is something it’s not. We can be friends. It’s fine.”
“I’m not pretending,” Teddy said. “And I don’t want to be friends.”
“Goddamn it, Teddy!” James cried, throwing his hands up. “This isn’t some game to me, this isn’t some joke, you can’t just-”
Teddy leaned forward, and James fell silent. He eyed Teddy warily as Teddy reached a tentative hand up, placed it on the back of James’s neck.
“Shut up,” Teddy said, and kissed him.
James’s mouth opened under his, tentative at first. Teddy kissed him, gently and then decidedly less gently, and James responded with desperation, like he couldn’t help himself. For all his words had been standoffish, his body said something different, arching into Teddy’s with abandon. His hands were on Teddy’s hips, on Teddy’s back, and Teddy himself was tangling his fingers in James’s wet hair. James’s mouth was slick, working against his, those chapped places on his lower lip rubbing brilliantly against Teddy’s gum.
“Jamie,” Teddy moaned, and James stilled and stepped back sharply, fear on his face.
“We can’t,” he said, “I can’t, how-how the fuck do I know this isn’t just-”
“James,” Teddy said. He could hear the smile in his own voice and let it creep onto his face just a little, because he was sure. He was sure now. “Fuck, I’m not asking you to marry me. I just want to-I want to see you. I want to see you like this. I want to make up for being such a prick.”
James eyed him with trepidation, but when he spoke, there was some give to his tone. Teddy’s smile widened. “All right,” he said, slowly. “And how you do propose we-”
“It’s Sunday,” Teddy said. He bent down and picked up the six pack he’d brought. “The game’s on. I thought we could have a few beers and just…do like we always do. See how it goes.”
James stared at him for a long minute. Then he nodded and moved aside, let Teddy slip into the apartment. They settled on the couch, maybe a little closer than usual, and James waved his wand at the Floo. Bulgaria was up three and Teddy’s beer was cold between his legs and James was so close, warm and laughing against him. After the fifth Bulgarian goal, Teddy bit his lip and quietly, casually took James’s hand in his own.
James smiled, and didn’t let go. “Fucker,” he said, under his breath.
“Takes one to know one,” Teddy murmured. He knew now that everything was going to be all right.
Epilogue
“For he's a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us!”
The song finished on a high note, Fleur’s light soprano mixing with George's deep baritone to drown out everyone else. Teddy flushed with embarrassment, already feeling a little buzz, and lifted his glass in thanks. The table-well, the room, really-whooped gleefully back at him.
“Twenty-nine!” Bill called, from his end of the table. “Only one year left, kid-everyone knows at thirty your life goes stale. Scared?”
“I ’ope,” Fleur sniffed, the sparkle in her eyes the only indication that she was joking, “zhat you consider yourself the exception to zee rule.”
“Well of course he does!” Ron, who’d already had a few lagers too many, made the universal gesture of female endowment appreciation. “Be hard to get bored with those, eh?”
“Ron,” Hermione hissed, at the same time Rose moaned, “Dad!”
“Oh, come off it,” George said, leaning around Lee Jordan’s arm to join in the debate. “I’m not even that way inclined, but it’s just fact, Hermione. And Rose, haven’t I taught you better than to give your father the satisfaction of scandalizing you?”
Teddy laughed. He turned to his left, but James must have gotten up without his noticing it. Shaking his head, Teddy stood.
“Even the birthday boy has to take a piss sometimes,” he said to the inquisitve stare Scorpius Malfoy shot his way. Scorpius lifted an eyebrow and made a face that said very clearly that Teddy was a bad liar, so he slipped off before anyone else could ask where he was going.
He hadn’t entirely been lying, of course. He did have to go to the bathroom. If he happened to glance around for James on his way there, then so be it.
James was nowhere to be found, so Teddy used the facilities and came back out into the room they’d rented. The place was decorated with Albus’s typical horrifying flair-Harry said he got the tendency to go overboard with the crepe from Ginny, and James had laughed himself sick when he saw it. Still, it was nice that he’d gone to the trouble. Teddy rather suspected that Harry and Draco had pooled their funds to pay off the bartenders, though-he’d seen more than one of them muttering about the indignity of it all.
He leaned against the far wall and looked for the Potters in the crowd. Harry and Ginny were next to each other-Teddy watched them shoot each other hooded glances, and bit back a laugh. Albus had taken a seat in the back of the room, nearly in Scorpius’s lap, and they were furtively smoking a joint; Teddy was pretty sure Harry knew about that, but not sure enough to tell him. Lily and her new boyfriend had showed up last minute, bearing some story about Muggle cabs, but from the way her hair was mussed, Teddy knew what they’d been doing.
And then…well, then there was everyone else. Draco was in the back corner, having an animated conversation with Fleur about his property in Nice, and Astoria was whispering intensely to Neville Longbottom, who was apparently trading in a good deal of Class C substances these days. Molly Weasley was leaning heavily on Arthur, red-faced and smiling; Charlie was arguing healing techniques with Lee Jordan, who still had one arm around George. Andromeda seemed to be entertaining Louis and Hugo with a story from her most recent trip to Prague, and-
A familiar head of hair settled in on his shoulder. “Old fart,” James said, pressing into Teddy’s back.
“Whippersnapper,” Teddy returned, relaxing into him. “Where’d you go?”
“Head bartender’s having an existential crisis,” James muttered irritably. “Apparently George thought it would hilarious to tell him about Harry Potter’s legendary temper; he thinks Dad’s going to murder him if he runs out of lager. I hope you like this party, because the fuck if I am ever throwing you another one.”
Teddy turned around and leaned against the wall, his face level with James’s. “I love this party.”
“Yeah, yeah,” James said, but he flushed, pleased. Teddy took advantage of this to nick James’ beer and take a long swig.
“I was drinking that,” James said, easily enough. Then he bit his lip, a little nervously. “I know it’s a little bigger than you wanted, but Bill told Charlie and Charlie told Percy and I haven’t the faintest how Draco found out, but he sent me a very nasty letter--”
“It’s perfect,” Teddy said. He pulled another swig of James’s beer and reached out a hand to play at the hem of his shirt, and was just considering making some kind of soppy declaration when his thought process was interrupting by a yell.
“Oi!” Albus cried, “don’t bogart! I paid good fucking money for that weed, you twat!”
Scorpius’s laughter was audible, but his response was lost to the roar of the collective Potter-Weasley chatter. Teddy raised an eyebrow.
“That’s a nasty name your brother called my boss’s son,” he said, mock-serious. “Should I be worried?”
James laughed. “Like we haven’t called each other worse.”
Teddy made great show of considering that. “Prat,” he said, lightly.
James leaned close, a grin splitting his features. “Wanker.”
“Tease.”
“Bastard.”
“Fucker,” Teddy said, his voice going soft. James, clearly remembering the afternoon to which Teddy was referring, flushed.
“Arse,” he replied, closing the limited distance between them so his lips were just brushing Teddy’s. We are so fucking weird, Teddy thought, but he smiled, the edge of his grin just touching James’s.
“Plonker.”
“Shithead.”
“Cocksucker.”
“That one’s true,” James murmured, and he pressed in, eliminating that last space between them. His mouth was warm and wet, the faint taste of the beer Teddy was drinking still lingering there. Teddy let both hands rest on James’s hips and sucked, scraping his teeth along James’s lower lip. James moaned faintly and bucked into him, and-
“Get a room!” someone cried, amusement heavy in their tone. Teddy broke the kiss and turned to see who had yelled; to his surprise, Draco was bright red, staring into his glass of mead like it had betrayed him. Teddy raised an eyebrow at him, and he grimaced apologetically.
Laughing, James pulled away from Teddy, leaving an arm draped loosely behind him. “A toast, then,” he said, and then seemed to remember that Teddy had taken his drink. “Lily, be a love and toss me a beer, would you? Someone doesn’t understand the rules of decorum.”
“It’s my birthday!” Teddy protested, taking another sip. James flipped him a two fingered salute and then caught the beer Lily lobbed at him, popping it open with a spell.
“What’re we drinking to?” Ron called. James grinned and lifted his beer.
“To the birthday boy,” he said. Everyone clapped and drank; when they finished, Albus lifted his glass.
“To comedies of errors,” he said, with a wink at Teddy, who choked on his beer. The crowd-who all, as was the way of any large family, knew the whole story-laughed and clinked glasses, drinking again.
They lifted them one last time, looking to Teddy. He wanted to say something poignant, to sum it all up-his thrill, his gratitude, how utterly fucking perfect his life had turned out to be.
He looked at James, who smiled encouragingly at him, putting a little more pressure into the hand he still had on Teddy’s back. “Go on,” he said.
Teddy raised James’s beer. “To fucking it up,” he said, “and getting it right. But mostly to family, without whom you couldn’t do either.”
There was silence for a moment. Then George cried “Hear, hear!” and everyone echoed him, the sound loud as stampede. They stomped their feet as they drank, all the people he’d come to love over the years, shaking the floor.
Only James, next to him, wasn’t aiding in their noisemaking. He was working his hands into Teddy’s back pockets instead, gaining the leverage to pull him out into the hallway, push him up against a wall.
“Good birthday?” he asked, breathlessly.
“Great birthday,” Teddy answered, kissing him, as he realized for the hundredth time that he’d gotten exactly the Potter he wanted.