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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Grief really is an awful, complicated sort of thing. Teddy had always just assumed it was something to be pushed through so that you could get to the other side and begin to heal, but she's beginning to learn that there isno other side. It feels like the death of her parents has left an awful hole in her — she wanders around Potter Manor like a ghost, lonely and hurting and trying so so hard to focus on something else. Anything else.
James and Lily come to visit her nearly every day, but as Lily advances in her pregnancy she begins to come by less and less. Remus and Sirius show up at least three times a week too, often bearing fully prepared meals and treats for her, and stay for hours and hours. Even Peter calls around once, though he doesn't stay too long. He's being kept busy with whatever it is he's been doing in London, but he brings chocolate for Teddy with a hopeful smile. They're not her favourite, but she thanks him warmly just the same. Everyone seems to be putting in an effort to distract her. It seems to work, too — at least, it keeps the crushing loneliness away until they leave again.
"I don't like you knocking around in this big house all by yourself, Teddy." James says one day, his brow furrowed and his jaw set like he's preparing for an argument. "Won't you just come and stay with us? We have a spare room, and Lily would really love to have you."
They've had this argument so many times before that Teddy almost doesn't respond at all. He knows what she's going to say, after all, because she's said it every single time he's asked before.
"I want to stay here." She says at last, hooking her chin over her knees and peering at him from the armchair she's curled up on. "This is my home."
James sighs, and runs a hand through his hair in frustration, making it stick out on end. He looks so much like their father like this, and Teddy has to look away. "I know, Ted, and I understand that you're hurting. I am too, and so is Sirius. But still, love, you can't stay here all by yourself. It's not healthy, and even more than that it's not safe. We're in the middle of a war — you can't live here alone."
"I can and I will." Teddy says stubbornly.
It's not really an argument worth having, but Teddy is upset and angry and feels like she's made up of nothing but jagged edges, and she really just wants to stay somewhere familiar to her. She doesn't have the energy to be around other people right now, and she wishes that James would just leave her alone.
Luckily, James seems to come to the conclusion that this is not worth falling out over, because he doesn't argue any further. It's clear by the look in his eyes that he's only temporarily dropping the issue, however — Teddy has no doubt that he'll bring it up again tomorrow and again the day after, until she eventually relents.
Even as upset and distant as she is, however, she's not oblivious enough to miss the growing tension between all the boys.
They used to arrive into the house in a big group, loud and boisterous and impossible to miss; in the past couple of weeks, however, they've been coming to see her individually. They all seem quiet and introspective, though they try to act cheery and normal around her. Teddy only asked what was going on once, and had been more or less told that it wasn't any of her business. James was stubbornly set on keeping everything about the war away from her, and now he clearly hoped to keep her in ignorance about whatever was going on between his friends, too.
