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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It seems like Regulus takes her joking words about getting better to heart, because by the time the end of the week rolls around he's gotten strong enough to venture out of his room and downstairs. The first couple of times he gets up to walk around he ends up pale and exhausted after only twenty minutes of being out of bed, no matter how many strength-replenishing potions Lily feeds him. Slowly but steadily, however, he begins to build up strength and stamina.
In the beginning James watches him like a hawk with narrowed, mistrustful eyes, but as time goes on he begins to relax his hypervigilance. Eventually, he stops following Regulus suspiciously every time he comes downstairs to sit in the living room, and he limits his glares to whenever Regulus decides to sit near Teddy (which still ends up being quite a lot, all things considered).
He doesn't know about them — Teddy has no doubt that he'd have tried to throw Regulus out immediately if he did — but the near constant surveillance is more than a little bit unnerving.
Her brother's apprehensive scrutiny doesn't stop them from stealing private kisses whenever they can, however. They share sweet, chaste little pecks whenever they manage to find a moment alone (which is rare thanks to James' constant mother-henning), and whenever they manage to find themselves with a moment of real privacy (even rarer) Teddy finds herself pressed against whatever wall they're closest to at the time as Regulus positively devours her with heated, ravenous kisses.
The time they've spent apart combined with his near death experience seems to have lit a fire within him, and Teddy is so, so desperate to steal him away so that they can be together properly. She's missed him.
It's nothing short of a miracle they haven't been caught snogging against the walls or in the corners or on the sofa yet, and Teddy can only assume it's down to Lily's careful intervention.
One day, Teddy's suspicions are confirmed when she's putting Harry down for a nap and Lily slips into the nursery behind her.
"Teddy," Lily says carefully. "There's an Order meeting tonight, about all the information that Regulus has shared. Dumbledore wants to assign people to work on finding them."
"Oh." Teddy blinks, startled. She hands Harry his soother as he lays in his crib, then turns to face Lily properly. She lets her confusion show on her face — James and Lily have been so careful to keep all information and plans pertaining to the Order a secret from her for months, so she's completely bewildered by Lily's sudden willingness to share now.
"We'll be away for the whole evening, and these meetings tend to run late. I'm sure you've noticed that by now."
"Oh, yeah." Teddy says, nodding slowly. "Do you want me to watch Harry? You know you don't have to ask, it's no problem."
Lily closes her eyes for a few seconds longer than is natural for a moment, as though she's sending a private prayer for patience. "Regulus is going to be staying here."
