The year after her brother James graduates, Teddy Potter returns to Hogwarts for her final year. With the Marauders gone, it should be a quiet, peaceful year despite the mounting tensions in the world outside of school.
The problem, naturally, lies...
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The remaining days of the Christmas holidays pass by in a blur.
Teddy spends much of her time on her own — James and Lily have their own lives now, and while her parents are wonderful, there's only so much time she can spend with them without feeling like she's going to lose her mind. Too much of her time is taken up with reliving her conversation with Regulus Black in her head and thinking of all the things she should have said and done.
As soon as she had woken up alone, all of her anger and hurt and resentment had come flooding back in so violently that she wondered how she ever could have forgotten it all in the first place. Merlin, she felt stupid. She doesn't regret her decision to take him in and clean him up, but she hates that she was too weak to maintain some sort of distance between them. Bandaging his wounds was one thing, but falling asleep cuddling in her childhood bed was completely another.
And she can't even really forget about any of it, because the stupid kneazle he'd brought with him has taken to following her around everywhere like a physical reminder that he'd been there in her home, hurt and vulnerable and looking for her help.
The first morning that she had padded downstairs and into the kitchen with the kneazle trotting after her, her father had very slowly lowered his morning coffee and blinked at it in bemusement. He had sent a questioning look to her mother, before looking back at the kneazle with a frown.
"...Have we always had one of those?"
All things considered, her parents take the sudden appearance of the creature in stride — her mother keeps feeding it scraps of turkey from the Christmas dinner leftovers, and her father even helps her to hold it down and shave off the masses of matted fur.
When they're finished, the kneazle's fur is close-shaven to its skin everywhere but on his face and tail, leaving him looking comically unbalanced. Despite how utterly ridiculous he looks with a borderline bald body and exceptionally fluffy head and tail, Teddy is pretty sure that he's also relieved to be free from his matted hair prison.
Granny the Kneazle trots alongside her even now, as she makes her way through Platform 9 3/4s. Beside her, James is quite cheerfully tugging her trunk alongside him as he chatters away to Lily and Sirius, though Sirius doesn't appear to be listening at all — he's too busy maintaining uneasy and distrustful eye contact with Granny. Remus walks on her other side, drumming his fingers against his leg in a way that's decidedly jittery. They're missing Peter; he'd had to return to London on Boxing Day, and he's been kept busy since.
When they reach the door of the train, James waves his wand and sends her trunk flying in to settle on one of the luggage racks before turning back and scooping Teddy into a tight hug. "See you in April for the wedding, yeah?"
With a little laugh, Lily steps forward and joins the hug. It's messy and uncoordinated, but by the time they all step back from each other they're all grinning. Lily leans over and murmurs in her ear. "Wish me luck finding a dress that will fit me."
