Just Starting (1/3) (spoilers from 7th HP book if not read)
Longest one-shot I've ever written. In fact, I have to split it into multiple posts. I guess I'll post it by kid...
Title: Just Starting
Author: semma4eva
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Teddy, Victoire, little James
Rating: T
Summary: Follow the first of the new generation, the first Weasley, and the first Potter into their first days at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
“Come on, Harry!” The boy’s hair changes from a royal blue to a light blue as he grabs his godfather’s hand and pulls him violently behind him.
“Slow down, Ted,” he calls after Teddy gives up and drops Harry hand to rush ahead. “Ollivander isn’t going to be running out of wands any time soon.” Ignoring him, Ted pushes his way through the crowd as quickly as he can manage until he is out of sight. Harry finally spots him in front of the wand shop. The little boy, now with forest green hair, is staring, open-mouthed, at the wands in the windows. Harry walks up beside him and stares in, as well. “Are we going to go in or just stand here?”
“I-“ He can’t manage to get a word out. It’s finally time. He’s finally getting a wand of his own. The eleven-year-old looks up at his godfather as if to ask if this is real.
Harry chuckles, stepping to the entrance and holding the door open, motioning for Teddy to go inside. “You coming or what?” As if he weren’t sure until this point, the boy rushes forward and into the store, looking at the wands surrounding it in amazement.
The boy bounces around as they approach the counter, his hair rapidly switching from green to red to yellow to black to blue to orange. “What kind of wand do you think I’ll get? I bet it’ll be phoenix feather like yours! Or maybe dragon heartstring! I hope it’s not unicorn tail. What if-“
“Mr. Potter.” Mr. Ollivander’s voice rises from around the corner. “I wondered when I might be seeing you again.” Teddy freezes, looking up at Mr. Ollivander in awe. “Well, who have we here? Could this be Remus Lupin’s little one?”
“Teddy Lupin,” Harry explains, nodding. He pats his godson on the back. “My godson.”
“Ah,” he studies the boy. Teddy’s hair moves to a dark brown color, as if he is trying to avoid irregularity. “Yes, I was there when Remus asked you to be the godfather.” Harry nods, remembering the day Lupin arrived at Bill and Fleur’s with the news his son was born-a metamorphmagus, not a werewolf-and the question if Harry would accept the honor of being the boy’s godfather. “Now, a wand for young Lupin…” The old man wonders off into one of the isles of wands.
It might be his imagination or just the excitement from all the different stories about wands choosing wizards, but Teddy seems to see a light directing him to a white maple-wood wand next to the window case. He wonders over slowly, almost afraid of the spell the wand seems to have created over him. Harry watches carefully as his godson is pulled away, remembering the instant connection he had felt to his own phoenix-feathered wand.
Mr. Ollivander waddles over, carrying a wand box, but stops when he sees Teddy’s eyes focusing on a wand in the corner. Harry glances back at the old wand maker, now making his way to Teddy’s side. “Try it out,” Ollivander advises, giving Teddy the permission he needs to snatch the white wood from its stand and flick it at the floor.
Ted’s hair turns blue in the anticipation. Nothing happens at first, and a look of disappointment finds it’s place in the boy’s eyes. But then a floor tile moves, and something green is visible between two of a floor tiles. The green dot grows into a line, until there is a three-inch vine growing into the wand shop from the ground below. The blue-haired boy smiles up at his godfather in triumph. Ollivander brings his hands together into one loud clap. “That does it, boy. The only veela hair wand I’ve ever made. It’s yours.”
“Oh, come on,” Teddy rolls his eyes up at Harry, “that’s worse than unicorn tail.”
Harry can almost hear Mr. Ollivander speaking before he opens his mouth. “The wand chooses the wizard.” Twenty-two years ago, that sentence meant the connection between Harry and the wizard who murdered his parents and eventually half the people he cared for. Now, it seems to mean no more than Teddy will have to deal with a wand of veela hair.
* * * * *
“What if I just say they were out of school books?” Teddy tags behind Harry as he walks through Flourish and Blott’s. “Could I get out of doing homework all year?”
Harry rolls his eyes as he finds the row with all of the books on the kids’ Hogwarts’ lists. “Don’t count on it.” He points to the shelf and turns to his godson. “Go.”
Teddy’s hair changes to a deep angry red as he kneels by books, looking for the ones on his list. He picks out his Herbology, Potions, and Transfiguration books when he pauses, removing a fourth book from the case. “Hey, Harry?” Harry is only partly paying attention when he looks over to the boy. What silly idea does he have now? “You’re picture’s on the cover.” Sure enough, Teddy hands Harry the A History of Magic vol. II book, and right on the cover is Harry, grabbing the Elder wand as it flies from Voldemort’s lifeless hand. The writers add to this book once every hundred years, and they couldn’t find anything more important for a cover? Who would have even had a camera at that battle?
Harry sighs as he notices young eyes around the store focused on him. “Just grab volume I and your Defense Against the Dark Arts book, Ted,” he orders, shoving the book in his hand under his arm as if his inability to see the book’s front would change anything. “Let’s go.”
As they leave Flourish and Blott’s, Teddy struggles to keep up with his Godfather’s quickened stride. “It says I can bring a cat, frog, or owl.” The boy is losing more of his breath with every step. “Can’t I bring an owl? Oh-don’t I get a broom?” He must have spotted the broom shop across the street.
All Harry can focus on is getting out of Diagon alley. He thought the constant reminders were over. He thought he could finally go on with his life, but apparently he had been wrong. “You’ll get a broom once you learn how to control your flight.” He sighs, hoping not to be forced to stay any longer. “And weren’t you going to take Moony with you?”
“But then Grandmum won’t have an owl.”
“There are plenty of owls within the family,” Harry responds as they approach Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. “I’m sure we can figure something out.”
“Heya, Harry! Teddy,” George’s voice calls as they enter the shop. “What can I do ya’ for? Teddy want some stuff to bring to school with him?”
Teddy’s face lights up as if that were the most brilliant idea he has ever heard, but Harry shakes his head. “We’re not staying. We’re just here to floo back home.” Obviously sensing that something is wrong with his brother-in-law, George lets the pair pass and head straight for the fireplace.
As they enter the small brick archway, George calls after them, “maybe I’ll bring a few things by tomorrow.” He sees Teddy’s bright smile and Harry’s eye roll just before they disappear into a puff of green smoke, only to appear again in Twelve Grimmauld Place.
“Can you believe this?” Harry shrieks before he even fully appears in his home.
Ginny peaks her head around the corner to see what happened just as Harry throws the book onto the floor in front of him. She approaches slowly, seeing the view of the book as she gets closer. “Oh, Harry.”
One-year-old Lily Potter squirms in her mother’s arms as James runs into the room and grabs the book. “Lookie, Al! Dad’s famous!”
“Duh,” a deep purple-haired Teddy responds with an eye roll at the four-year-old’s absurdity, “he’s only been famous since he was Lily’s age.”
Ignoring the children, Harry looks to his wife. “A hundred years of new history, and nothing was more important than this?” The redhead gives him a sympathetic half smile and he knows the answer. So what if this ended the ‘Dark Lord’’s reign? Maybe that day was the most important day in the hundred years, but more people affected it. He wasn’t alone in that battle. “The prophecy came true. It was supposed to be over a long time ago.” He collapses on an armchair next to the couch.
Ginny places the squirming girl in a baby chair on the opposite side of the couch before placing herself perpendicularly onto Harry’s lap and stretching her arms around his neck. “The war was over a long time ago. The connection was over a long time ago.” She places a hand on his face, rubbing his cheek slowly. “The fame? The recognition? Everything that you have been trying to run from since you were eleven-that will never go away.”
“That’s bloody brilliant.” The sarcasm rips from his lips as he pushes Ginny’s hand away from his face. The two Potter boys look up at their father’s outburst in surprise. Lily remains silent, preoccupied with her toes. Teddy lets out a laugh, but hides it when Harry’s head turns his way. “So I’ll be ‘the hero’ for the rest of my life. Everybody forgetting how many more people I could have saved if I had been faster, smarter, less selfish. Most of the deaths were because of me.”
“And there would have been thousands more if not for you,” she responds, almost scolding him for belittling his triumph. “Nobody doubts that you lost a lot of people you loved-even some that didn’t have to die at that time.” She makes another attempt to massage his cheek. He tenses at first, but shortly allows her to continue. “In the end, you were selfless. You ended the reign of the most vicious dictator ever to rise to power. People want-people need to remember that.”
Harry stays in his chair with a pout as Ginny lightly kisses his forehead before standing up and wondering into the kitchen to make dinner. He knows she’s right. He is a part of history, and he should be used to it by now. But if he’s not proud of himself, how could everybody else think of him as a hero?
Lily’s shrieking tears interrupt Harry’s thoughts. The little redhead lies on the floor, her high chair on top of her. James and Albus stand across the room, surprised. “What happened?” Harry scold, looking between the girl’s two brothers. Albus obediently points to his older brother, whose eyes widen at the betrayal. Harry silently scorns his oldest son with his eyes, which is always worse than a verbal assault.
“I just sneezed!” Harry looks over to Teddy for confirmation as he reaches to lift the girl from the floor. The now orange-haired boy nods, giving James his freedom.
It’s not until Lily is settled back into her seat and smiling with her favorite stuffed duck that Harry realizes what just happened. “James? Did you just do accidental magic?” The little boy, who had noticed this fact long before his father, has already been celebrating on his own. He smiles brightly up at his father. “Ginny,” Harry shrieks, calling to his wife, “James just did magic!”
Ginny comes running in, smiling from ear to ear. “What did he do?”
Harry freezes. “Well, he knocked Lily’s chair over.” Ginny freezes, her smile transforming into a much less thrilled face. “But it was a sneeze-a complete accident. And Lily’s fine.” Ginny sighs with a small laugh. “Hey, at least he didn’t get her stuck behind glass in a snake exhibit.”
“No, that’s your thing.” She lifts her oldest son off the ground, twirling him around. “Not that Dudley didn’t deserve it, from what you’ve told me.”
“Come on, Ted,” Harry says, motioning for Teddy to follow him. “Let’s go owl Andremeda. We’ll tell her to come over for a small celebration dinner.” Harry and Teddy leave the room to go send Padfoot, the owl, off with their news.
* * * * *
“Bloody hell.” The smile on Teddy’s face could light up the chamber of secrets as he steps onto platform 9 ¾. Realizing his grandmother is watching him, he quickly wipes the smile from his face and shrugs. “Looks pretty cool, I guess.”
Andremeda smiles and shakes her head as Harry, James, and Albus walk onto the platform behind them. “Right, Teddy’s too cool to be impressed.” Ginny enters behind them, carrying Lily in her arms. Smiling, she brushes past Teddy as she walks ahead of the group.
“I am, too. Right, Dad?” James asks, failing at his attempt not to look amazed by the Hogwarts Express in front of him.
Harry laughs at his oldest son. He is only four, but does all he can to be exactly like his eleven-year-old idol. “Sure are, James.” Unlike the two older boys, Albus makes no attempt to hide his amazement. He just stands, staring wide-eyed at the train as more and more students pile through the doors.
“Hey, there, Potters. Andremeda. Ted.” The group turns to find Percy standing before them with a nervous smile and a robe. He leans down toward the green-haired boy and whispers to him, “Don’t worry. It’s my first day, too.”
The little boy takes a step back, shaking his head. “Who’s worried?” He grabs his bags and runs off ahead, never looking back until he reaches the train entrance. “Don’t cry, gran!” He shouts from his spot halfway up the stairs. A few tears have fallen down her cheek, and she wipes them away quickly. “I’ll be back for Christmas.” He continues onto the train, knowing his family won’t be leaving until the train is out of view.
He walks through the train, checking for an empty compartment. His hair turns an average-colored brown as he searches for the people he will be spending the next seven years with. After going down the whole isle without finding and empty compartment, he finally settles on one with two boys gaping out the window. “Mind if I-“
“Yeah, sure,” the taller of the two cuts him off, still staring at the window. “Who do you think he’s here for?” Teddy realizes he’s now talking to the other boy. “I’m pretty sure that’s his oldest, and he looks what? Five? Four?”
Already knowing who the boys are looking at, Teddy approaches the window. As he suspected, they are staring at Harry, who is looking at all the windows as if trying to find somebody. His eyes finally hand on his godson and he sends him a smile and a wave. James begins to jump and mouths “Bye, Teddy! Have fun at Hoggywarts!” Teddy assumes he’s actually screaming it, but cannot hear a thing through the glass.
Stepping back from the window, the two boys look intently at their new compartment-mate. They must have seen that Harry had been looking in their direction when he waved. The taller of the two has long black hair, and almost looks like the old pictures that Harry had shown Teddy of Sirius from when he was at Hogwarts. The shorter has dirty blond hair that stops just below the top of his ears. He’s a little lanky, but what thin eleven-year-old isn’t? Teddy stares back at the boys, as if he has no idea why they are looking his way.
“Who are you?” It’s the blonde to talk this time.
Teddy gulps, and the words almost don’t even come out. “T-Teddy Lupin.”
The boys search their minds as if they should know his name. But how would they know him? They haven’t even been to any classes yet. They have not learned about the Order of the Phoenix, Potter Watch, old Hogwarts professors, or anything that his parents were involved in. All they could possibly know are the stories they have been told. And who would ever talk about the Lupins?
“Lupin!” The black-haired boy finally says after watching Teddy’s hair go from his brown color to a dark blue. “Your mum was a metamorphmagus, married a werewolf, who had been best friends with Harry’s dad and Sirius Black back in school. The whole lot died in the war against Lord Voldemort, and-“ He had been so proud of himself for knowing the story that he had forgotten who we was talking to. “But, err, you know that story, I’m sure.” Teddy just nods, having no idea how to respond. “So Harry’s your godfather, then?” Teddy nods slowly, wondering if this will change the way he is seen.
“Well I’m bloody jealous,” the shorter blonde adds with a chuckle. “I bet he’s taught you everything he knows, too.”
“Nah,” Teddy sighs. It seems to be okay, so far, at least. “He says I should learn everything in school.”
“I heard in his fifth year, he taught the whole school how to do a patronus because the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was trying to kill them!”
Teddy laughs. The stories about Harry are always exaggerated by the time he hears them from people his age. “It wasn’t the whole school. Only about twenty kids. And she wasn’t trying to kill them. She just wasn’t teaching them how to defend themselves.”
“Well if it isn’t Harry Potter’s werewolf-blooded godson.” The voice comes from the doorway as Teddy finishes talking. An older boy, probably in his fourth year, stands in the door to the compartment. He has a couple friends behind him, sneering into the compartment though the glass. The main boy turns to Teddy’s fellow first years. “Better watch out. Between Potter’s dark magic and his pop’s blood, you never know what this kid’s capable of in a full moon.”
“Is there a problem here, Mr. Parkinson?” All six boys turn towards the teacher just to the side of them. The man Teddy knows so well is standing before them, in his normal perfectly confident stance.
The boy, Parkinson, apparently, puts on a fake smile and looks up at the professor. “Not at all, Professor Longbottom.” He glances at the boys in front of him. “We were just getting to know some of the new kids.”
“Well, then,” Neville begins, doubtfully, “play nicely.” He gives Teddy a wink before walking away. The fourth-years each give him slight death stares as he struts away. Teddy imagines it is the same look that Harry, Ron, and Hermione used to give Severus Snape before they found out he was on their side, after all.
“Parkinson?” Teddy looks shocked as he puts it together. “As in Pansy Parkinson?”
The boy gives a proud smile. “She’s my Aunt-had a good hand in raising me, after her brother died in the battle. Some werewolf killed him.” Everyone’s silent, and he just shrugs. “But I hear he got what was coming to him-his little traitor-blooded metamorphmagus wife, too.” Teddy’s hair immediately turns red as his eyes narrow.
The blonde first-year lays a hand on Teddy’s shoulder and responds for him. “So you have death eater blood, then.”
Parkinson laughs, looking back at his friends, who are also laughing. “Most of Slytherin house has death eater blood these days.” He takes a step toward Teddy. “Watch yourself.” Motioning to his friends, the three of them turn around and walk off.
The younger boys all silently sit in their compartment. The dark-haired boy finally speaks after a long silence. “The war ended eleven years ago. I bet they’re the only freaks that still even care about it.” Teddy nods thankfully as his hair rests into a deeper, softer red. “The name’s Corvus. And he’s Randy,” he kicks the blonde beside me.
“I can speak for myself, thanks,” Randy says, sarcastically. “Be he’s right. My brother’s a third year, and he says only a handful of Slytherins are still sour about the war. I’d bet you have nothing to worry about.”
Teddy shrugs as he relaxes into his seat. “Who’s worried?”
The group is interrupted from another voice outside the compartment. “Anything from the trolley, dears?” Teddy smiles and reaches in his pocket for the galleons Harry had given him before the left.